Annual Halloween Bash

Mike and Lisa had their annual Halloween costume party, which was a blast as always.  This year there was an outdoor Rock Band stage, which almost everyone played on.  A good time was had by all. 

Like last year, no one was quite sure of what

Neal was.  He got everything from Gandalf to

Barabbas, to Moses, to Father Christmas.  He was 

supposed to be just a wizard, but I guess it wasn't

 that obvious.  My costume, on the other hand, was 

more obvious than I anticipated.  Everyone had seen 

the movie, "Edward Scissorhands" and seemed to 

really get a kick out of the outfit.  I even had one guy

 ask to have his picture taken with Johnny Depp!  

It was a big hit, and the esteemed judges at the party 

awarded my costume first place.  :-)

Thunder Storm

Since moving to Texas, one of the things I haven't yet adjusted to is the kind of storms we get.  Anyone who grew up with me in California can appreciate that we just don't get storms like this back home - with thunder and lightning.  Our idea of a storm is some warm Santa Ana winds with a little rain sprinkled in - and I do mean "little."  I've never seen raindrops as big as what we get here.  They plop down on your windshield and make the biggest splats!  Not like the small drops of a California shower.   

As I was sitting in the living room tonight waiting for Neal to get home from work, I was a little nervous as this storm passed overhead.  After I saw a giant lightning bolt shoot down right in front of our house, my nervousness turned to fascination which of course, inspired me to get out the camera.  I wasn't able to capture another lightning bolt on film, but got some good footage of the storm lighting up the sky.  You can also hear some pretty good thunder in this video too.

NKOTB IS BACK!!!!!

When I heard earlier this year that the New Kids on the Block were going on tour, it brought back a whole whirlwind of memories. Like most women my age, I grew up with this group that shaped the boy band era. I had their tapes (yes, I said tapes!!), their posters, their t-shirts, and as a truly die-hard fan, even had buttons, pajamas, suspenders, and entire scrapbooks of magazine articles devoted to NKOTB. As a pre-teen and early teen, I had seen this band in concert twice, but that was.....I shudder to think..... 20 YEARS AGO!! I really don't know what happened to those years in between, but I do know one thing: they weren't filled with enough New Kids!! For old times sake and to support their effort at a reunion tour, I had to go to the concert.

When Neal told his co-workers about the concert, one

of the guys made this sign for me. The ironic part is,

Jordan really was my favorite back in the day!!

(My eyes kept closing with the flash, so I opened them

real wide in this pic!!)

This is the HUSBAND OF THE YEAR photo.

While I had wanted to go to the concert with a fellow

New Kids fan, they all either lived too far away or

recently moved away. So, being the loving husband

that he is, Neal agreed to go as my date. He was one of

about 10 guys in a packed arena full of women!

He definitely gets the husband of the year award. :-)

Natasha Bedingfield was the opening act,

and she was very good! Here she is singing

one of our favorite songs, "Pocketful of

Sunshine."

This is when the New Kids first came out on stage.

It was so neat to see the arena so packed, and to

hear all of the fans cheering for them after so long.

For many of us, they weren't just a band but a part

of our life story. I guess we were cheering for that

as much as for the music itself.

At 12 years old, there wasn't a cuter man on the face of

the planet than Jordan Knight. I swore I would marry him

someday. Now, 20 years later, I'm married to someone

who looks nothing like Jordan (I found someone even

better looking! :) and strangely, as I watched the 5 of

them perform, realized that as an adult, Jordan would

probably be my last pick. It's funny how our taste changes.

"My Favorite Girl"

Remember this one???!!!

The boys at the back of the floor dancing around a

revolving piano

While Jordan wouldn't be my first pick, he still

looked pretty darn good. :-)

There were parts of this concert that actually

made me tear up, not because the songs themselves

were particularly moving, but because they either

brought back a memory and made me nostalgic for

my childhood, or because the audience participation

was moving. They band sung songs from almost all of

their albums, and when they had the audience sing

solo at times, we all still remembered the words

and sung our hearts out. On "Step by Step" the ENTIRE

audience remembered every step!! It was awesome. The

end of the concert was another one of these moments

for me. They ended with "Hangin' Tough" and seeing

thousands of people wave their hands in the air

(like we used to do from copying the MTV video) was

really cool. Even Neal admitted that while the music

wasn't his favorite, the energy of the crowd was one

of the best he'd seen. It was an evening of fun and

of childhood memories, and I'm so glad that NKOTB

went on tour again. :-)

Two Years of Marital Bliss

Today we celebrated our second wedding anniversary!  The last 24 months have absolutely flown by and we are so grateful for every minute we've had together.  Two down, at least 48 more to go (to make it to 50 :)!!

To celebrate we got all dolled up and went out for

dinner at a place we've never tried before - Mark's in

downtown Houston.  It's an old church that was

converted into a restaurant and is supposedly one of,

if not the most, romantic dining experiences in town.

We couldn't think of a more appropriate place to go,

given the faith that was such a part of our love story.

It certainly was an incredible place.  The food was 

exquisite and we were waited on hand and foot. 

 Definitely a great way to celebrate our marriage.

Oktoberfest

Last year I found out about this great little Texas town called Fredericksburg, a friendly German town with some great B & Bs.  We've never made it over there and when Neal found out they had an Oktoberfest celebration this month, we couldn't think of a more perfect place to celebrate the German holiday than in a German town.  After doing some online research, Neal also discovered that there are some ideal drives for the motorcycle enthusiast (ideal meaning scenic, 2-lane road with few cars) just outside of town.  Mike and Lisa were up for an adventure, so we put the guys' bikes on the trailer, hooked it up to Mike's Hummer, and made the four-hour drive to Fredericksburg for the weekend.

Since we decided to go only a few days before the festival

started, every B&B in town was sold out, with the exception

of this Bed & Brew, a bar/B&B with some character.  Mike

and Lisa stayed in the "Bordello" room while Neal and I

took the "Admiral's" room.

Ever wonder what it's like to ride on a motorcycle?

Here's a small sample (though not a very good one)

WARNING:  THIS VIDEO IS VERY

"BLAIR WITCH PROJECT" -LIKE  AND

MAY CAUSE DISCOMFORT!

This was our first bike ride of the trip - 

an 80-mile journey on some country 

roads through the hills.  The cars in this video

were two of about ten we saw on the entire

80-mile ride.  It was SO much fun and

such a pretty drive.

Fredericksburg is a charming little town with 

antique shops and restaurants up the main drag.

Here we are about to have our first dinner, some

good German food and Oktoberfest beer.

Riding back from church on Sunday morning. 

Mike and Lisa were waiting for us by the truck and

snapped this photo as we rode up.

The power of Photoshop....

Mike created this new version of the photo and

titled it, "Don't Mess With Texas."

After breakfast we took our last ride of the trip, about

30 miles up to a national park called "Enchanted Rock."

Little did we know that it would be quite a climb up there

so we hiked the four miles up and back in our motorcycle

boots!  It was beautiful, however, and well worth while.

The 360 degree view from the top.

It was SO windy up there - it sounds like we

were on the bike only we were standing still!

We saw more Hawks on this trip than I've ever seen

in my life.  They were an awesome sight.

Oktoberfest is underway!

Cheers....to a great weekend!

Heading home we saw a beautiful sunset - 

a great way to end our trip

Good-Bye Sarah and Gi

Tonight we said "Good-bye" to our next door neighbors, Sarah and Gibron (whom we affectionately know as "Gi").  They leave tomorrow for Atlanta, where they will both move on to better career opportunities.  While we are so happy for them, we'll miss them dearly.  It's not often these days that you talk to your neighbors, let alone become good friends with them.  We've shared a lot of good times together, and we will always remember them fondly.

The last time "the gang" will all be together

Neal with his "Ike beard" (the beard he's been growing

since the hurricane two weeks ago.  :-)

Chinch-y

Neither of us had ever heard of this, but Texas has this nasty thing called a Chinch bug.  They're worse than a fungus and when you get them in your yard they eat your grass, completely killing and practically uprooting it.  Unfortunately, our neighbor across the street had caught the chinch bugs and kindly passed them on to us.  Before we realized what the brown patches in our yard were, it was too late.  We now have to re-sod the entire front and back yard.  

Over the weekend Neal rented a sod cutter so that we could

do the dirty job of cleaning up our own  dead grass before

having new sod laid.  He and Mike worked all morning cutting

up our poor grass, and I worked with Neal the rest of the

afternoon bagging up the grass and raking the yard.

After we had completed the job.

Manual labor sure is exhausting!

We Survived Ike!

Experiencing our first hurricane was pretty scary. Although it wasn't expected to be anything higher than a cat 3, we knew the damage could still be substantial and that hurricanes can also spawn tornados, causing even further devastation. We were not asked to evacuate and decided to ride out the storm at home, where we knew we had two sets of good neighbors to rely on should an emergency arise during or after the storm. A few of the people on our street boarded up their windows while we mainly removed any small items away from the windows and shut the blinds. All we could do after that was wait to see how bad it would get.

Our neighbor's "Take a hike Ike" sign. This became the

talk of the neighborhood and people from nearby streets

came throughout the evening to take photos of it.

With the nice sunset tonight, you'd never know a hurricane

was about to hit. We had a dinner party at our house with

Mike, Lisa, Sarah, and Gi. There's nothing like a party to calm

nerves and welcome a hurricane!

Although we had lost power earlier in the evening, Mike

set up his generator so that we could play Rock Band

until the storm was bad enough that we had to return

to our own homes. When we got home, we lit a candle

and retired to our temporary bed in my closet, one of

the safest places in the house. We were pretty sheltered

from the noise there, though I had a hard time sleeping

while Neal enjoyed a few hours of z's. More than the

hurricane, I was scared of a possible tornado ripping

through our home. Luckily, we didn't have one in our

neighborhood, though just a couple of miles up the road

a tornado virtually destroyed an older neighborhood.

In the morning we awoke to find minimal damage - a minor

leak in our master bedroom and a blown over fence that

opened up our yard to our two neighbors. 

Some of the damage within our neighborhood

Trees knocked down like dominos

This is one of our lakes. The wrought iron fence

under the water is supposed to separate the land around

the lake from a soccer field. It was completely flooded.

The fences around the tennis courts got a bit blown around

Dozens of trees were completely uprooted

Just outside of our neighborhood....

power lines were knocked over

Street lights were dangling in the middle of intersections

Shopping centers were mangled

Trees blocked roads

Nothing really appeared normal. There was definitely evidence of a hurricane and after seeing the damage that a category 2 can cause (a high 2), I can't imagine what it was like to be in New Orleans after Katrina, a cat 5. Overall, we are blessed to have come through the storm with a blown down fence, a minor roof leak, and a 4-day power outage. Other cities were completely demolished (Galveston, Crystal Beach, etc.), and still others will not have power as late as an estimated October 6th. Ike was certainly a scary experience but if anything good came out of it, it was the quality time we've spent with our neighbors over the last few days. None of us fully returned to work until today, so we had a five day "vacation" thanks to Mother Nature.

We are so grateful for all of your prayers and support. Thanks for checking in on us, for calling, e-mailing, and texting to make sure we were okay. I have no doubt that all of the prayers that went up from around the country on 9/12 were heard.