Here Comes Santa Clause!

 Kristin and I at the Arlington Highlands after a great dinner.

 Mike and I love this picture.  He thought we were taking a serious one and then I jumped on him so he went with it :)

 Kristin and Wes...they're so cute together.

 Our stockings hung by the chimney with care :)

 Our awesome Christmas tree!  It was so fun putting it up and decorating it all.

 One of our many attempts to take a picture of the whole family, but they didn't all turn out that great.  This one was funny since Bronx was looking to Mike to figure out what was going on.

 And here is one of Mike and I by ourselves with Mike giving me bunny ears and me having the camera set up a little to low so it cut off some of his head.

 Our lit up house!  It was soo much easier putting up the Christmas decorations this year!  We added some more lights this year as well.  We also added red and green lights as our flood and garage lights after the picture was taken.

 Mike's work Christmas party.  I actually wore pantyhose, which I swore I would never do again after my mom made me so many times when I was a kid, but it was cold!

 Mike, me, Aunt Margie, and Uncle Guy.

Mike and me at the end of the night.  It was a good time.

Here are some of the Holiday season pictures we've taken so far in the month of December.  I wanted to post some since if I posted them all together it would take up a lot of room and I figured I could get started.  We're at my parents house in Kingwood for this lovely Christmas holiday :)  We celebrated my dad's 53rd birthday last night by going to dinner at Benihana then coming home to open presents and eat some chocolate pecan pie.  It was soo good!  We can't wait until Christmas morning after Santa comes!  And of course it's Christ's birthday!  We hope everyone is having an amazing Holiday season, have a great Christmas, and an even better New Year!
In other news, Mike did great on his second semester of Graduate school and is on his Christmas break without school, but driving our to Addison to work everyday.  I passed my EC-6 test and on to take my Special Ed certification test on the 28th.  Hopefully I pass that one as well and I can start applying for teaching jobs!

Thanksgiving 2010

Such a great Thanksgiving!!  I thought the picture I clicked on first went to the bottom and so on, which is how it used to work....apparently now it goes the other way.  The bottom picture is Bronx and Olivine in their travel crates, which fit greatly in the back of the expedition!  Unfortunately, while we were staying at Uncle Guy and Aunt Margie's, Bronx wanted to get out of his travel crate and go play with the other dogs, so he flipped the crate and nosed his way through the front screen door.  When we got home, he was wondering around the office.  So needless to say, we were not happy he broke his crate, but we ended up getting him another one that was more sturdy...a Remington Dog Crate from Academy.  The next picture is the puppies passed out the night before we headed down to Austin for Thanksgiving.  They were knocked out, which was great so Mike and I could pack a little bit without them getting too excited.  And Olivine's ear makes her look like she's about to fly away. 
It didn't take us too long to get to Austin, which was awesome!  It was a fun drive heading down and it actually got warmer and wasn't raining so we didn't need our heavy coats anymore.  We settled in a bit at Aunt Margie and Uncle Guy's with everyone.  The dogs were pretty excited, so we ended up talking the dogs for a nice walk to the golf course down the street and they had an absolute blast running around and playing fetch.  They got all sorts of pooped out, which helped them calm down back at the house.  The next picture is Aunt Margie and Uncle Guy's absolutely amazing decorating job of their garage :)  It was the coolest set up for everyone there and it was awesomeness!!  There was a food table, a water/salad/bread rolls table, and then the two tables with plenty of seating.  We each had a job to help the day go by smoother and quicker.  Mike was in charge of taking out the trash and I was in charge of handing out bread rolls.  After the super delicious dinner, we all headed back inside for dessert and more visiting.  This picture is of Cathy, Joe, Mike, and Brian.  Aren't they all just so good looking?!  :)-  The next picture is of Mike and I.  And yes we know we're good looking...haha :)-  Lastly, here we all are at Rudy's BBQ, which is one of the absolute best BBQ restaurants I've ever eaten at!!  Mike and I both shared the sausage and extra moist brisket and Mike ate a brisket sandwich.  They also had great potato salad and pure cane sugar Coke and Dr. Pepper!  We all left extra stuffed.
Mike and I headed to Target when we got back to the house and took the dogs for another walk.  That night everyone went to Uncle Chris and Aunt Donna's super gorgeous house for a great Italian appetizer and dinner.  We all left there extra stuffed and Mike, Cathy, and I headed to Brad and Sara's house to continue hanging out.  Mike and I then headed back to Uncle Guy and Aunt Margie's for some sleep.  The next day, we went to an eastern European bistro, which had Hungarian food.  I actually had borsch and I liked it.  Mike had sour cherry soup, which is a cold soup, and he liked it.  Everyone shared all their different food and it was a blast.  After that, Mike and I headed back to Burleson and I went to work that night.
I love family :)  And it's been WAY too long since it's seen mine, so I can't wait until we head down to Kingwood for Christmas!!  YAY!!

Boo-rific Halloween!

We had such a great Halloween!! I got off work late (Halloween morning) since Halloween weekend was of course crazy, but Mike and I were able to sleep in a bit. Mike got up and went outside to mow the lawn while I did some laundry. Well, when I looked outside, it wasn't Mike mowing the lawn, BUT JASON! I'm not gonna lie, I was a little scared :)- It was really funny seeing all the kids walking up and down the sidewalk staring at him wondering what was going on. Such a great way to start. Once Mike was done, he came in to carve the pumpkin and I headed to Target to get a candle for the pumpkin. Of course while I was there, I picked up a Halloween doormat that was black with Happy Halloween written in white in creepy handwriting and a big Jack-O-Lantern. The perfect last touch for all the decorations. When I got home, the pumpkin was carved and we started to get everything ready for the trick or treaters. We set out our scary CD, which always freaks out the kids and they always search around for where it's coming from since we hide it. While we were outside setting up the Jack-O-Lantern and trying to take a picture of the dogs with it, Josh and Marypat pulled up with Juliana. We visited with them for a little while and gave Juliana her Halloween candy bag we had made for her. Juliana looked awesome! Marypat made her costume, which was Jessie (the yodeling cowgirl from Toy Story). After they left, Mike and I started to make dinner (roasted lamb with mushrooms and sweet potatoes). Once we put it in the oven, the trick or treaters started arriving. It was soo much fun!! We received a bunch of compliments on all of our decorations, our costumes, and our candy. And of course, we still got a kick out of the kids creeping up to the door b/c of the scary music and trying to figure out where it was coming from. Oh and for our costumes, I was Robin and Mike was a Vietnam Vet. We went through a lot of candy, but still had some left over for us, which was fabulous. Overall, it was an absolutely amazing night and I'm really glad I took off work to celebrate with Mike. We hope all of you guys had a great Halloween too!

Beware! Halloween 2010! Spooky!

Yay for Halloween!! I was lucky enough to have off work last year and had a blast handing out candy with Mike and my parents. The dogs barked every time kids came to the door and they definitely liked the candy smells. I'm even luckier to be off this Halloween as well. We had great decorations last year and even better ones this year! And of course we're still going to have the super scary music playing, which scared the kids last year. Such a good time! This year has been more hectic and busy, but it's still going to be a blast!
Updates on everything...Mike is still doing great in school, work, and the National Guard. I got in a car accident at work last Monday, which was scary. I was running code to another officer, looked up from the computer to get his location, heard a loud bang, nailed the curb which blew out my right front tire, went spinning across four lanes of traffic, hit the concrete wall on the passenger side, slid about 20 ft, and then stopped. I nailed my left hand on something in the car and nailed my right leg and arm on something. I ended up going to JPS to get x-rays and everything came out fine. The doctor said my arthritis got extremely aggravated, which is why my hand looked broken. My right leg and arms had a bunch of bruises, which hurt like crazy. And of course I was super sore. I went back to work Friday night, but I did have my breakdown moment just like when I got in the shooting. It was scary putting the uniform back on and going back out there. I love my job, but there are definitely A LOT of risks! I qualify tonight so I'm hoping it all goes well! I can't do the double action trigger pull with my left finger, but I'm going to try it with my middle finger. I'll be good on my right hand though!
The teaching certification classes are going well! I really like learning about techniques for teaching, how to relate to the kids, and all around better our future generations. There is a whole lot of work with online courses, viewing classrooms, going to class, reading, extra classes required, etc. I'm back in school again for a crammed two months! Haha. It's weird, but I'm enjoying it. Other than that, nothing else is really going on. We hope everything is going well for everyone! We love and miss you guys!

Benbrook Lake and Updates

Here are some of the pictures from Benbrook Lake. I had off last weekend since I'm in 40 hr in service all this week. On Saturday we decided to take the dogs out for a nice swim and fetch and all that good stuff. They had an absolute blast!! We brought tennis balls, but they only cared about the sticks to fetch. We kept them out there swimming around and playing fetch for about an hour and then decided to head back since Mike and I were getting burned and they were getting pooped out. When we got home we gave both of them a nice bath so now they're clean, soft, and smell great! That night Mike and I got all dressed up and went to a nice dinner in downtown Fort Worth and then came back to the house to hang out. We then ran errands and did yardwork all Sunday. Mike's still going to school and working full time and has National Guard drill one weekend every month. He's working so hard and definitely burning on all ends, which can get exhausting and frustrating. I'm so proud of him for working so hard though! I got accepted into the Region XI teaching cert program so I start that Oct 2nd until Nov. I'm definitely excited to get my teaching certification! I also applied with Fort Worth ISD to be a truancy officer to get my name out there in the school system. We'll see what happens with that. We hope all is going well for everyone!!

MorePpictures from the Family Weekend!

Bronx and Olivine cuddled up together on the couch the night before we headed down to Kingwood for the awesome family weekend. They're sooo freaking cute! We love them soo much :) And my gorgeous parents and me and my mom together on the bench at Rice before the ceremony. Do we all look alike?? Haha. The other pictures are at my parent's house in Kingwood with everyone hanging out. And all the other ones are of the Beast we just bought haha. It's absolutely massive, but we love it!! It's been great having it so far! Bronx and Olivine can lay out comfortably in the back, which is great because no more whining! We can also fit things in the car and it's protected, which is great. We just bought a filing cabinet the other day and it started drizzling, but since it was protected, no worries! I also feel sooo much safer in there than my tiny focus (which was an amazing car and I would def buy another one). It's also nice having cars get out of the way when they see me coming haha. Love love love family!!
There aren't any pictures, but this weekend we headed to McKinney for Vinny's first birthday party. It was another great weekend spending time with family. We didn't get to stay for very long since I had to work the night before and head back into work that night. The joys of a midnight schedule. The little time we had, it was a blast and we spent it well :)

Great Family Weekend!

Such a great family weekend!! It was an absolute blast!! Mike and I headed down for Brian's commissioning and to pick up our new car Friday morning and left Sunday afternoon. When we got there on Friday, we dropped off the rent car and then picked up the Expedition EL! It was so cool and exciting! That night, Kyle was in town so all the family came over for a big dinner, which was soo much fun spending time with everyone and eating tonz of food :) On Saturday, we all headed out to Rice University for Brian's marine commissioning. Mike wore his deltas and Brian was in his officer dress blues. They both looked awesome!! There was a great guest speaker and it was exciting to see Christina turn Brian's uniform into an official marine officer uniform with the kids. It was also really exciting to see Mike present Brian with his first salute as an officer! Two Bassi brothers, which was awesome! Afterwards, we headed to The Woodlands at Dosey Doe's for the after party. It was so great spending time with everyone and eating great food. The kids were all able to run around and play and all the adults were able to catch up and celebrate. Since Kyle headed out earlier that day, his bedroom at my parent's house was available. We offered for Jim, Lexi, and the kids to stay in his room and then for everyone else to come to the house to continue the celebration and catching up. Brian and Christina ended up staying at the house with the kids since it was a long day, but Joe, Matt, Heather, Jim, Lexi, and the kids all headed out to Kingwood. We had a great time talking and hanging out that night and the next morning we ate a big breakfast my parents made and everyone headed home. All together, this trip was an absolute blast!!