christmas eve

we spent christmas eve playing guitar hero and rock band. with the exception of tony, we were all a little shy at the beginning. after i warbled out my first song we all loosened up a little and ended up playing for about 3 hours. i have all the respect in the world now for bands that put on shows!








thanks to the singing talent of bonnie and cassie, this was the highest score of the night!



even with all our warbling, the dogs managed to stay passed out on the chair and sofa.






here is tony failing in about 2 seconds. he was playing a song by dragonforce on expert.

trail of lights

on the 23rd we went to the closing night of the trail of lights. it took approximately 45 million hours to take the 3 mile shuttle bus ride. all things aside though, there were lights, fried oreos, turkey legs and more lights.



if you are really desperate, get the fried oreos otherwise save your yearly cholesterol intake for more than just one item!


chris and greg at the entrance for the trail of lights.



us at the entrance of the trail of lights.



there would be no more viewing of lights until tony got his turkey leg.



i love kid art!



there was a lot of dust underneath the tree of lights. this was my best attempt of getting family and lights all in one shot.



this is a video of me spinning under the tree of lights. i got very dizzy and almost fell over when chris pushed my arm. he lost 10 pieces of candy from his stocking after that stunt!

kitchen- part 6 the begining of the end

so, chris has some really great friends. thanks to jimmy and juan, the new appliances were installed 2 weekends ago.



for some reason, this picture reminded me a little of the raising of the flag at iwo jima.

so, here are the new appliances in all their glory!



just think- this is what we started with:

daisy

the most unloved beagle puppy in the world.

christmas holy grail or pimp cup?

so chris and i had a fun night of shopping. the theme tonight was trucks and pimp cups. at michael's we took these 2 photos. holy grail or pimp cup?





after this we went target. this kind of reminds me of the scene in full metal jacket when matthew modine discusses human nature, or the duality of man.



could that truck be any bigger? this lady was laughing at us for taking a picture and she was like, i just want to write in the dust- overcompensating for my shortness!!! just for scale- chris is 6 feet tall- his head was just barely above the top of the truck bed.


so then we were shopping in target and lo and behold- another pimp cup!



what was funny about this is that we were whispering to each about the pimp cup and then these girls came up behind us were like, girl, that is a pimp cup!! we couldn't help it, we just busted out laughing. we told them that's what we just said and then we had a whole discussion about pimp cups.

so, two words i have never thought to put together and tonight i can't tell you how many times we said pimp cup.

i don't have a picture of the last truck because i got kind of shy. we went to fill our truck up with gas and this little beater truck pulled up next to us. this wasn't just any beater truck. it didn't have a bed- it had wood slats nailed on to make the bed. but on these slats were longhorns with a rose in its mouth. then on the front of the truck was a metal old school looking bevo welded on to the bumper. chris said something to the guy and he told us the whole story. he was taking art classes at ut the year we won the football national championship. his truck had been hit and the bed was all messed up. he really loves this truck so he talked to his art teacher about using it for a project. so, he put rose bowl longhorns on it. he said he got an "a". they guy was really funny and nice.

so this just goes to show, when you go holiday shopping, skip the weekend traffic, go a few hours after work, take a camera and a good sense of humor and the trip will be fun!

beagle barks at light fixture

yeah! chris is a super genius!

daisy and layla

this is daisy and layla playing in our backyard today. i am trying out posting from youtube.

daisy and the light fixture and happy birthday!

sorry to disappoint but the little video i took of daisy going ballistic over the old light fixture came out really dark and it is even darker after i added it to youtube. so instead you get other updates. chris and i patched up the last hole in the kitchen. (hopefully) chris had to adjust the position of the plug he installed for our new microwave. after he did that we evened out the old hole, cut some sheetrock, taped and floated. it was nice to not having to worry about doing a super neat job on the tape and float. so, the kitchen walls are sealed once again.

the other good news is that jennifer had her baby today! yeah! so, happy birthday josephine- you are almost 10 hours old by now. i can't wait to get the whole story on the process. while they were waiting for her to dilate, she kicked her dad out of her room for pushing all the buttons and dials on her bed and she also kicked out her husband because he wouldn't stop jabbering away. for what ever reason lucy and desi come to mind. . .

more kitchen work

so, it was quite a busy day today. we started putting in the new window sills and trim when chris decided to go ahead and put in the stainless steel backsplash. well, that required removing our old vent hood. this led to 2 things: 1) the last piece of butcher blockesque formica being removed and disposed of


and 2) another hole in the kitchen wall.

so we decided to go to lowe's and get a new vent hood because the one we just removed was far to disgusting and gross to ever reinstall. so we go to our friendly lowe's store. about 2 hours later we walk out after having purchased a new gas oven, microwave and dishwasher. now mind you, these are items that we have been looking at for the past 6 months so it wasn't totally irrational. the lady that originally helped us out yesterday to find the stainless steel backsplash was also there to process our new lowe's credit card application. she really was very helpful if not rather shocked at what started with a backsplash. our new appliances will be here next weekend! yeah! we also did some other looking around and bought a new light fixture to go over our table. yes, the tiffany's/ shaky's pizza light is gone. you can all breath a sigh of relief. the last vestige of 1976 is now outside in the backyard. maybe i can turn it into a planter or something. i really hate to get rid of something so classic and beautiful. anyway, here are a couple of pix of the old light.

i am using the old globe as a crystal ball to look into the past!

so chris thought he was looking like the mushroom thing from super mario brothers, but this reminds me of "mystery"- the super cheesy guy from vh1's the pick up artist. mystery was always wearing these really stupid looking hats.

so now that i look at this picture, you can't really tell what the new light looks like. trust me though it is a zillion times better.

so, if i can figure out how to do this, i will post a video of daisy barking and going absolutely crazy at the old light. it really is quite humorous.

good night!

kitchen work- again

since christmas is coming up we have decided it is time to finish out the kitchen work we started over the summer. today we ripped out the old window sills and cut new ones. they are currently in the garage, the paint is drying! we also cut new trim pieces to go underneath the window sills. the thing with the window sill is that we decided to make them wider. i like having little dishes and soap and other decorative items on the sills and with the old ones, stuff just doesn't fit. we finally found the elusive polished metal backsplash to go up behind the oven. if anyone wants to know- they are located in the very back of lowe's right next to the range hood displays. honestly- it has taken us 6 months to find it. we have also decided to go with a white subway tile backsplash with some kind of other accent tile. i will be very happy when all of this is finished.
i think this is a funny picture of chris. this was the exact moment the trim and sill broke apart. demo work is fun!!!!