Winter Wonderland Part 2

Christmas Day, YEAH!!

Christmas Day was way more fun for playing in the snow. The blizzard had stopped so we just had lots of great snow to play in without the drizzle and ice hitting our faces! Lucy just loves the snow and gets so excited to play in it when we get any so she had the time of her life. This is one of those pictures where I had to trick her to look. I was holding her second BFF above the camera (her frisbee).

And here are some pics of all the snow we got although they dont really do it justice. The front porch was covered even with the planter of snow and higher in some spots with the drifts. The night before, all of the windows were all snowed on and we couldnt even see outside...but that went away when the sun came out.

Our door was snowed shut for several days as well because we never got out to scrape! Im sure the mail people loved us for that, oh well!

A few backyard pics of the drifts. Its hard to tell but it was a ton of snow!

Despite all the snow, we decided to brave the weather and roads and pack up and head out to Tulsa. We thought it was going to be decent by 1:00 or so but we were VERY wrong which we would find out later. It took about 45 minutes to make it to the Turnpike from our house. We saw well 100-150 cars abandoned on the sides of the roads between OKC and Tulsa and witnessed a few wrecks and close calls. People were driving so badly that day, they would blow by everyone and wipe-out. It was crazy! We had to pull over for one family and call 911 for them because they were injured and the other driver of the parked semi that they ran into didnt speak English!! People were driving so crazy that day I am just so happy and thankful we made it with minimal issues and no wrecks. And 3.5 hours later, we made it to Tulsa and didnt leave the house again until we came back to OKC on Sunday. This is how we spent our time there:

Lounging, watching lots of movies, playing in the snow and eating!!

While we were busy building a snow man, Lucy, Sampson and the Chihuahua's were playing in the snow.

Check out Shay's gloves...duct taped plastic bags over knitted gloves. She wanted something water proof and I guess it worked well :)

Second level completed.


Ta-Da!

The eyes were buttons, the nose and "sweater" buttons were dog bones, the mouth was licorice candy, the pipe was a dead plant and an old hat from my mom and a scarf I made last year.
By the time we left, the dog bones and licorice pieces were eaten by Lucy! Oops!

So that was the end of our traveling adventures that week and we made it back without any drama. In hindsight it was a poor decision to go to Tulsa but I am glad we made it safely and got to spend time with our family. It would have been sad to be without them this year.

Winter Wonderland Part 1

Let's back up to Christmas Eve...where the updating begins. We had been planning to leave about 1:00 pm to go to Tulsa for a long weekend, but as we all know, everyone's plans changed rapidly. Luckily Matt didnt have to go to work so he took me to work which wasnt that bad yet but was awful on the way back home. It took him 45 minutes to get to my work (4 miles) and 30 minutes back!! Since we weren't going to travel, we immediately began our snow adventures!! We thought it would be fun to go walking in the blizzard to the church with Lucy. Well it wasn't really that fun in the blizzarding sideways snow but at least we got to play some at the church.

Lucy loves pictures, cant you tell? If ever we get a good one of her, its because we tricked her or got lucky.

This is in front of the church on our way back home. It was a long walk to and from with the snow hitting our faces.

Christmas Eve night we pretty much just hung out and caught up on house stuff that I hadn't taken care of since I had some time. Also, we did Christmas with each other on Wednesday night since we thought we were going to be gone. Also, we watched my all time favorite Christmas movie and Matt's not-so-favorite movie, "White Christmas." He came up with a crazy rule this year that he is limited to one viewing per Christmas movie a year!! Sometimes Matt can be a bah-humbug about Christmas stuff :)

And also, we did a Christmas craft with our animals/kids. Last year, Deanna got me an ornament that you make in my stocking and I made it this year. See below:

After I molded the plaster stuff in the circle shape, Matt helped Lucy make her paw print.

Then I helped Jackie make his paw print. Then you just let it dry for a couple of days. I forgot to take a final picture but you get the idea. I might even decorate it more, I dont know. Anyway, I am sure they all loved it and will treasure the experience forever.

And the final fun activity of the night, we let Lucy play with her laser friend, Dottie, outside in the snow. Here is a video of all the fun:

Last weekend

This year, I have been a little bah-humbug about my Christmas decorating this year. We have been beyond busy and tired this last 6 months or so and it was already well into December before we had time to do any kind of decorating. But you know that I cant just do nothing at all.

Matt and I usually use our fake tree but since we didnt want to get a whole bunch or stuff down, we thought it would be fun to get a real tree this year. Last weekend we did just that. We went to Horn Seed Co. and got a pretty Noble Fir tree and a beautiful Christmas cactus. We only got down the bubble lights, the ornaments, the stockings, the tree skirt and had a decoration that Monica gave me at Thanksgiving. Which might sound like a regular amount of Christmas decor to most people but as my sister puts it, our house looks like "Christmas threw up in it" usually so this is pretty toned down! But I am glad we did some and I like our tree alot and it kind of feels like Christmas is actually here now even though it has been rather warm this year.

Our pretty Christmas tree

My Christmas cactus. It will have magenta flowers on it in a few weeks. Some are even close to blooming now.

And on Sunday Matt had a very impromptu performance at Penn Square Mall. Our band director from OC came to Mayfair on Sunday morning and asked Matt if he wanted to play in a trombone choir with him and the UCO trombone choir. So he did and I went to watch them. They did a great job! It have never heard so many trombones play together at once but it is really pretty. They even invited Matt to join them on Friday afternoons if he ever gets a chance to go!!

They played about 30 classic Christmas tunes including: "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" and "Feliz Navidad" as well :) I thought I got several videos to choose from to post but apparently I deleted them because I can only find one. This is "Carol of the Bells." It wasnt the best one they played together but it is the only one I had on the camera still...enjoy!

* A disclaimer of the video after I watched it just now is that Blogger.com sucks and it always screws up my video editing but it wont upload the spliced version so this is kind of in the middle of the song but oh well. I am tired of messing with their video upload system. It makes me mad everytime I try to put a video on here. You would think that with so many people that use this website that they would make it more user friendly...one can only hope I guess :)

Wii got a Wii :)

Well for Christmas, Matt and I finally gave in and got ourselves a Wii. We have been contemplating it since like last Christmas and decided to go ahead and get one. So far it is super fun! We haven't had a lot of time to play because I have been really busy with my new job and stuff for the church. However, we make time to play a few times/week. Matt found a really good deal where we got the Wii console, 2 remotes, 2 nun chucks, 2 mario cart wheels, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Mario Kart, Wii Fit and a bonus Wii Fit workout mat for a really good deal! We both really like the Wii Fit and it was what I was looking forward to the most out of this package. Matt really likes Mario Kart and is getting pretty good at it. We have our eyes on the new Shaun White game as well as Guitar Hero or Rock Band which i already know is super fun!

Here is a picture of me schooling Matt in Mario Kart on the first night! He is much better than me now I am sure...in fact, I haven't even played since that night :) I don't want to take a chance on ruining my record...so far I am at 100% awesome! (Just Kidding)

Christmas "Wrap" up

Well friends...we have let you down for about two weeks. Neither Matt or I have made a post in forever so it is about time to do some catching up. To detail EVERYTHING we did in the past two weeks would be a big pain in the butt and more than you want to read I am sure so I will attempt to make a quick re-cap. Hopefully it won't be too long but I am betting it will be...I hope you all had a great Christmas and a restful time with family and friends and away from work.

1. We went to my grandparents house on the 21st to celebrate Christmas and more importantly, my Grandpa's birthday. At Thanksgiving, I had been telling my grandma about our Bible Study Ugly Sweater party and she thought that was a wonderful idea so we implemented it this year at our family Christmas. Deanna was in town so she joined in on the fun and we bought not just ugle sweaters, but ugly outfits for the party...but alas we didn't win. Matt won with his ugly fall sweater.

In case you cant tell in the pic, Deanna and I are wearing matching poinsettia turtlenecks, she is wearing a sweater skirt with rhinestones outlining the slit in the skirt, and I have one of those fashionable gypsy skirts with a beautiful blazer. You could fit like 3 people in my skirt.

My grandma got me a tea set for Christmas! I dont know if it was a family heirloom or something from a antique store.

2. Deanna and I made a gingerbread house while she was visiting.


3. Matt, Shay and I helped my mom decorate her Christmas tree and I finally got to watch Elf for the first time ever!!! I didn't stay at our Elf party to watch it and I kept missing it on television but finally we rented it from COX and watched it Christmas Eve night. It just so happened to end at midnight to ring in Christmas morning. Maybe that will be a new tradition.

The best way to spread Christmas cheer, is singing loud for all to hear!"

4. On Christmas morning, mom and Shay came over to open presents with us. We had already let Lucy pull her things out of her stocking, however, she didn't really get it this year like last year. Santa brought Jack some albacore tuna and kitty treats and Lucy lots of toys and beef stew dinner. Im sure that is just what they asked for :) As for us, we took a picture of most of our loot. Not pictured, however, is the flat screen TV that my mom gave us early. Thanks again mom! I guess we made the nice list this year!!!

I guess I forgot to take a picture of Matt and his presents. Oops!

Lucy enjoy's her rack of ribs squeaky toy.

George even got new furniture too. We got him a new tree to climb on.

5. The next morning we set out for Houston to spend time with Matt's family. On Sunday we joined 70,000 other Houstonians at Reliant Stadium to cheer on the Texans! This year, John got us seats on the bottom level and it was really cool to be that close to the field. The weather was unusually cold that day and it was also rainy. We thought we would end up in the rain so against my will, we decided not to wear our afros and face paint. I was pretty bummed about this because I wanted to look silly this time and see if they would put us on the big screen. Oh well, life has more important things than afros and face paint. Nevertheless, we had lots of fun and escaped the rain by one row (Hurricane Ike messed up the roof and it has to stay open until they get it fixed).On the walk back to the car, we saw this kid whose parents thought he would look good with a mullet...poor kid!

We had Christmas the day before:

This is a candy snake that Matt;s mom gave him...kind of morbid to see him eating it!

Monica got a new wedding ring for a late 30 year anniversary present.

6. On that Tuesday, Matt and I went to the mall and I bought LOTS AND LOTS of new clothes!! They had some really good deals and I was in the market for new professional attire for my new job. All Matt wanted to get was one pair of jeans :) After all that hard work shopping and all, I got to end the day with a one hour massage that Monica bought me for Christmas. It was very relaxing and made me wish I was rich so that I could go once/week. One day maybe :) Matt and Deanna received a massage that day as well. And for dinner, we went to Ginghis Grill. It is basically Mongolian barbeque on steroids. I loved it! I will be making a re-visit there next time we are in Houston.



7. On New Year's Eve we went to the Houston Museum of Science to the Body Worlds 2: and the Brain-Our 3 Pound Gem. It was pretty awesome! I thought it would be like science class but it was more artistic than I expected. Unfortunately we couldn't take any pictures so you will have to see the exhibit for yourself one day. We got some pretty awesome souvenirs though. Matt bought 2 keychains that were clear midsections of a woman's body with a fetus inside the belly for gag gifts for Christmas next year and John bought a jello mold in the shape of a brain. Remember this when you go to an exchange party with us next year. You might end up with one! We also saw an IMAX on the Grand Canyon in 3D. It was the first one in 3D that I have ever seen before. It was neat and luckily I dont get motion sickness. Later that evening, we rang in the new year with the Eppink's and ate way too much food. We used the jello mold to make brain jello for our party that night! Matt and I were even crowned chapions of Eat It! (a trivial pursuit like game all about snacks and sweets).

This is a periodic table made out of glass bricks and inside each element is something that it is used to make that we commonly use for the most part. We are going to do this in Matt's office one day when we own a house!

The Brain Jello...num num num...

8. Last Saturday, we took Lucy to play with Sudi (her boxer twin in Houston) and their new boxer, Bruno. Bruno and Sudi kept trying to lick Lucy's mouth the entire time we were there. The dogs had a grand ole time until towards the end when Lucy got into Sam's lap (Sudi and Bruno's dad) and then the girls got into it pretty bad. Sudi got jealous!! They made up at the end but it was ugly for a minute.

Bruno wanted to be Lucy's Houston boyfriend!!

9. I ate Brussel sprouts and liked them! John loves them so I made roasted brussel sprouts for his bday and decided to be brave and try one but I ended up loving them too. So much, that I have already bought some here at home to make soon :) Who would have thought that would happen!

10. Finally in between all the shopping, eating, events, games and family fun, I got to do a lot of knitting! I got several books for Christmas so I was trying out all kinds of new stiches and I tought myself how to knit a beanie in preparation for the one I promised to make for Matt soon. I also made a scarf for Shay in the car to Houston and one for me mom while I was there. And now I have made a grandma out of my sister-in-law Deanna as well. I tought her how to knit as well and she learned on the first try. She is definately more crafty than she gives herself credit!
We had a great time in Houston and glad we could stay so long. Now that we are back, I have started my new job and am busy helping at the church and getting ready to clean the house up from the Christmas season. It will have to wait until this weekend though becuase the BCS game is much more important and we are also going to go see the Rockets and Thunder on Friday. It looks like everyone had a great holiday season and I promise not to slack off this much again for a while...lets hope not anyway because I dont like making these marathon posts!

We visited Matt's grandpa and grandma at their new place. They recently moved to an assisted living home in Houston so Monica could take care of them easier. We took his grandpa out to Taco Bell one day because it is his favorite restaurant (Katie would appreciate this)!