December ALREADY???????

Wow! I can't believe that it is almost December. Lots has happened since my last entry. I am now a violin teacher at the UMHB Conservatory, and I joined an AMAZING contemporary christian choir. If you are going to be around the Central Texas area over Dec 7th or 8th let me know and I will get you tickets to my concert. Here is a picture of the poster for the Dec 7th performance in Killeen, TX.

For more information go to www.centraltexasmastersingers.com!

Turning 25!

Well, in a quarter of a century lots has happened. I have grown up too! (at least somewhat!) The first picutre is me just minutes after I was born and the second was taken last night at The Range in Salado to celebrate my birthday and Barbara Gudmundson's birthday!

The Super Bowl!

So I went to my sunday school classes Super Bowl Party tonight and took the best cake! Here are some pictures!

Salado Wine and Chocolate Festival

So last weekend was the Salado Wine and Chocolate Festival as well as Christmas in October, so Salado was CRAZY!









(Suzi is the gal in the pictures she used to work at the wine seller and now she works for Salado)




The wine seller had their event on Friday night. It was five wines and five chocolate desserts (done by The Range; a nice restaurant in town). Here is the pairing:


Chisholm Trail Belle Star (semi-sweet white)- Tuxedo Diped Strawberry


Texas Hills Kick Butt Cabarnet - Chocolate Espresso Cheesecake


Brushy Creek Texas Rose (sweet red) - Chocolate Mousse Filled Profiterole


Texas Hills Orange Muscato (sweet white) - Chocolate Pecan Biscotti


Pleasant Hill Tawney Port - Double Chocolate Truffle

It was a great weekend and we are looking forward to doing it again next year! Thank you to everyone that made the night so much fun!

Finally!

I know that it has been a while since I have posted something. Things have been a little crazy around here. We are in the process of trading properties with someone that lives in Eddy, TX. I am a little sad to leave the house that will have lived in a hear as of Sep 20th. It's too bad that Heather and Marc-Andre won't be here on the 21st like they were last year ;(

So right after we moved in I had taken one of the shelves from one of the cabinets to have a few more made so I could store more things in it. Well, we just got them back a week ago (almost a year later). I have been varnishing them and getting them ready to go and I was able to put them up and put things on them today!!!!! Yeah I will get to enjoy my wonderful shelves for about a month (assuming everything goes well). Here are some before and after picutres.

BEFORE

and

AFTER

One Year Down!!!

Well, this last monday, July 14th, marked Spencer and my first year of being married. It seems strange to me that only a year ago we were getting married. We had a very nice day. Spencer worked and I hung out with his nephews who are in from Colorado. They played some games at the house while I got ready to go out to dinner. Then Spencer and I went out to dinner at the Stagecoach Inn in Salado. We had a very nice dinner. The couple to our right was celebrating their 23rd anniversary and the couple to our left were celebrating 9 month, but they had both been widowed and they said if you added up all of the years that they had been married it would be over 90. Isn't that amazing? We have a long way to go to catch up to them. Then we went back to the house and ate a piece of our wedding cake (which was WONDERFUL). It was still moist and tasted very good. We ate our cake as we watch the movie "Brett Favre: On and Off the Field".

We have had a packed year. Lake Geneva in September, Christmas in IL, Packers Cruise in Feb, new jobs, loosing my job, and just the normal everyday stuff. All in all we have had a very good year and I am looking forward to spending many more together.

This week so far!

Spencer holding Abby for the first time!

Abby sleeping on my couch!

Stephen eating his first Texas BBQ Sandwich!

Gardening in TX

Well, it seems strange to me that I have been harvesting veggies out of my garden for about 3 weeks now if not a little longer. Up in Illinois my Dad and I would just be getting ready to plant a garden. So the green onions were good and I think that I am going to leave the rest of them in the ground so we can harvest some bigger onions later on in the year. The radishes are almost done. I just harvested a bunch more today that we will enjoy with dinner. I noticed that there are some peas that are almost ready today and we have a bunch of big green tomatoes starting and a couple of cherry tomatoes as well. There are bell pepper, jalapeno, and eggplant plants out in the garden as well. We harvested one good strawberry, I'm don't think that they are going to do too well this year. I guess we will find out!

As far as the flowers go the Amaryllis are really doing well and looking beautiful. They are the only bulbs that have bloomed so far. I think that everything will look a lot better next year. I have some more bulbs that I would like to plant I just have to figure out where to put them and work up some ground (or do a raised bed).

I have found that there is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment that goes along with having my own garden. I love harvesting onions and radishes for dinner and it will be GREAT when we are getting the rest of the veggies too!!!!

Spencer has mowed the lawn for the first time ever and it looks really good. (A lot better than it did!!)

66 Ford Fairlane

Here are some pictures of Spencer's new '66 Ford Fairlane. We drove down to Spencer, Roger, and I drove down to Houston and stayed with Mindy on Saturday night. Then Spencer and Roger went to get the car and Dona and I hung out for a little longer then I went home with her. Anyway, it is a "SWEET" car as Spencer would say. The engine and everything else sounds really good. There is a little bit of work that needs to be done on the brakes and one of the leaf springs in the back before Spencer will feel comfortable with driving on other roads rather than just the back country roads by our house. Check out the license plate. This car was meant for Spencer!!!

WINTER!!!

Well, Mom & Dad are down for the week and they thought that it would be funny to bring winter down with them. We woke up this morning to SNOW!!!! I thought that I had moved away from snow.

We are having a good time with my parents. Spencer and I have been busy with work so Mom & Dad have been helping out around the house. My mom made these valences for our great room and they look great! Dad planted the Red Oak that Spencer got for me for my birthday and built me a raised bed garden. We have planted onions, green & yellow bell peppers, eggplant, peas, radishes, strawberries, and we have tomatoes and jalapenos to plant when the weather is going to stay warm. I am sooo excited about having a garden this year!

Anyway, I am going to go help Dad with dinner. I will put some pictures up from our cruise next week.

6 Months

Spencer and I have been married for a wonderful 6 months now. There have been some adjustments like with anything, but it has been GREAT!!! We went out to a Japanese restaurant kind of like BeniHana, but less expensive. We had been there on our 2 month anniversary and really enjoyed it. Then we went bowling. We both enjoy going bowling, but hadn't been since before the wedding. We played 3 games and neither one of us did very well, but we had fun anyway. Last night we finally put away our christmas stuff. This included taking the ornaments and lights off of our tree. The tree is still up, but we will take it down soon. Other than that, we have both been very busy with work. We are both looking forward to a vacation at the end of February. We are going on a cruise in the southern Caribbean. It isn't just any cruise though. It is a Green Bay Packers cruise. There are actually going to be players on it. 3 currant and 2 retired players with their families. One of Spencer's favorite players of all times is going to be on it. Anyway, I need to get going! This picture was taken on Monday night at the restaurant.

The Game

Well, it has taken me a little while, but here are a couple of pictures from the game. Spencer is very excited about the Packers being in the NFC Championship and the fact the the Cowboys are not!!!!!

The Game!

Well, Spencer, Dad and I were at the frigid game today at Soldier Field. My Dad stayed warm throughout the game with his big boots and other clothes. I was wrapped up in about 4 layers and then also inside a sleepingbag. Spencer was wrapped up and both of our feet were COLD!!!!! It was a good game, but we all were hoping that the Packers would've won. Lets just hope that they beet the Cowboys and win the Superbowl. We are all glad to be back in the warmth of the house. Spencer has decided that going to the end of the season games up north is no fun and we are going to stick to the warm games. Well, I am going to get back to the family. Lisa, Ryan, Stephan, Heidi, Anthony, Anne, Mom and Dad are all here and we are having lots of fun!!!!! I will post a couple of pictures when we get home after Christmas. We are going to be spending the rest of Christmas with my family and we will be getting back late Christmas day.

Only In Texas

So today I was driving around and saw a man working on a backhoe with a cowboy hat on, and no it wasn't Roger, even though he does. Anyway, everyone else on the site was wearing hard hats so I thought that this was a little strange. Then he turned his head and it WAS a hard hat. Only in Texas will you find people wearing hard hats shaped like cowboy hats!

Betsy & Kathy

My mother decided that it was time in her life to bottle feed her first calf!!!!

Only One Trick-or-Treater

This was the lucky boy who got all of the candy he wanted from us! It is Ethan Martone (Spencer's best friends son). He is going to be 3 at the end of the month. He made such a cute pirate! His little brother, Henry, who is 8 months old was a little Lobster. It was good to see Johnnie and Alison. Spencer missed out on the fun because he was at the hospital with his Dad, who is starting to get better!

New Job!

So, I excepted a new job this morning with Austin Tree Experts (www.austintreeexperts.com) I am going to be a consulting sales arborist for them. Spencer and I are really looking forward to this new adventure. It will help us with all of the bills and the mortgage on our new wonderful home. I am going to start the 2nd week in November. This gives me time to get used to getting up in the morning again ;) I am going to continue to work for the wine seller and doing the books for her husbands company. I will just cut back on the hours I work.

I can't believe it!!!!!

So we had Dona over for dinner tonight. We had a wonderful dinner, we made some oatmeal cookies and then some pumpkin bread. And now, Spencer actually has Dona playing Madden '08 on his playstation right now.

I know that everyone has been wanting pictures of the house, so here they are!


This is our bedroom (and yes, we do make our bed)


The Kitchen


The guest bathroom


Heather and Marc-Andre's Room


The Packer Room

WE ARE IN!!!!!!!!!!

We finally made it into our wonderful home. Sorry this update is so late. We moved in 2 weeks ago, just before Heather and Marc-Andre came down to visit. They were lots and lots of help. MA had fun learning how to operate a skid steer loader and Heather had fun organizing the kitchen and helping me hang up pictures!

I don't have any pictures yet, there are still some boxes around so I would like to get those taken care of before I show the house to everyone.

It sounds like I may have a new job opportunity in tree care just north of Austin to just south of where we live. I would be a consulting arborist, have my own company truck, computer, and phone. I wouldn't get my appointments online every morning, go to them, and go home. Spencer and I are still discussing if this is what is best for our family right now, but we will see soon. I have to let the owner of the company know by the end of the week whether I am interested or not. Well, I am going to go watch my husband play some football on his PS2 and write some more thank you notes.

Sailing!

We had a wonderful time sailing on Lake Michigan with Mom and Dad on Monday. Spencer was a natural at the helm! (Even when he was being chased by PIRATES!!!)

We had a safe trip back to Texas and it decided to rain Tuesday night and Wednesday morning so Spencer wasn't able to work on Wednesday, but I did, I started by job book keeping for the owner of the wine sellers husband. It dried out enough that Spencer was able to go back to work on Thursday. Dona and I started moving things into the house yesterday. We mostly moved kitchen stuff. All of our dishes are in their place and looking nice! I can't wait to move in and get everything organized ( I may need Heather's help when she and MA come down at the end of the month ;) ) Spencer said today that he will probably be able to get the backhoe over to the house next week, which means that our septic will be put in and we can MOVE IN!!!

When I get done with work in 45 mins I am going to join Spencer and his friend Jeff over at the Jarrell HS Football field to watch Jeff's brother play. I work again tomorrow from 12-8 I hope there are more customers tomorrow than there were today!