!!!Spring Is Here!!!

We started spring planting this evening...it felt good to get our hands in the soil and plant some beautiful flowers. We still have a lot to do, including all the mulching, and fertilizing,
but the flowers are here!

What a fabulous weekend! We spent Saturday morning at our favorite place...the temple. It is always so inspiring. The peace and joy we feel is so wonderful...and it colors the whole day. We spent the afternoon at Reliant Arena with thousands of other people watching:

With Dave Ramsey. Totally COOL! This was our Christmas present from my family. We've read his books and listened to him on the radio, but nothing compares to seeing him live. He has an energy that fills the room and is totally inspiring. A lot of people have a love-hate relationship with him, but Brian and I love his program. Truth is truth, and his program supports what the Church has been teaching for years. Brian and I were already following his program to a certain extent, but Saturday's conference inspired us to speed things up and we have set a D-Day Date (Debt-Free Date) in October this year. That's right, no more school loans and no credit card debt by October...all we will have is a mortgage payment...how cool is that? We highly recommend his program, and if you can, see him live and in person...it's eye-opening!

Happy 2009! It's been a while, but we had a wonderful holiday. We spent it with family up in beautiful snow-covered Utah. We've spent the first part of the new year getting back into the swing of things with work and home projects. Our garage is no longer a pit of despair...we started off the new year right by de-cluttering and donating about a third of its contents to Habitat for Humanity. With all the remodeling we've been doing, there were several large items we had pulled out of the house that we know will be put to good use by that wonderful organization. We are finally going to put in our floor next month! No more cold cement underfoot! In preparation for the big install, I wanted to get a little last minute painting done (no flooring = no drop-cloths - cement makes for easy painting!) Many of you know that we put in a backsplash last month...well, we were already not very happy with the paint color in the kitchen/breakfast room, and the new backsplash thoroughly convinced us that a re-paint was in the works. So, I re-painted the kitchen area - Gobi Desert is the new color (it is throughout most of the house - and I have plenty of extra paint in that color already laying about). Let us know what you think - I still need to finish the breakfast room, and now I'm not sure about the curtains over the windows in the bay window area (that's an easy change - they are just napkins!) Take a look and let us know!

Let it SNOW!!! Let it SNOW!!! Let it SNOW!!!

About 5:45 yesterday evening I opened the door to start hauling out all the supplies I was going to bring to our December Enrichment Service Auction - I am on the committee...and lo and behold...SNOW!!! In TEXAS!!! Crazy!!! No, I don't need to clean my camera lens...that is actual bona fide frozen white stuff. And it stuck (for a few hours at least - it was gone this morning). It snowed for about four hours and left everything coated in about an inch of the powdery white stuff. Does anyone else find it ironic that our palm tree has a nice coating of snow on it?

Merry Christmas!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...our Christmas cards are mailed...presents are wrapped...stockings are hung...and our wreath is on the door...now if we could only trade in this rain for some SNOW!

MERRY CHRISTMAS
to one and all!

HOUSTON...we have a back splash!!!

It may sound silly, but many times it's the little things that bring me the most joy. As many of you know, we have been remodeling our home. The biggest project we took on this year was the kitchen. We gutted it completely, put in new cabinets, counter tops, appliances, etc. It has truly been a year long project. We even washed dishes in our bathtub for a few months! The majority of the kitchen has been completed for a while now, but we were lacking a back splash. We have been staring at sheet rock and old glue residue for almost a year. We finally had our wonderful handyman (tile is one of the few things we bring someone in to do for us) install our back splash and it looks so great! The funny thing is, now that we have it installed...we both agree that we need to change the paint color...it's definitely a work in progress. Here are some pics...if you check out our blog entries from earlier in the summer, you will see some great before pictures...we have come such a long way!



An additional bonus came from my sweet husband's efforts yesterday afternoon. He surprised me by installing the overhead lighting for the kitchen and hall areas. THANK YOU SO MUCH SWEETHEART!!!

Captain Jack is dressed up for his first Halloween! We dressed up like doctors and went as a "Paradox". We thought it was funny... :-)