A day at the aquarium

Jeff's parents came into town from Monterey, California, and we went with them and
Jeff's sisters family to the aquarium down on Galveston Island, which is about forty five minutes from Houston. Although Jeff's parents are used to the famous "Monterey Bay Aquarium", it was still pretty impressive. They had sharks, turtles, penguins, and a bunch of other animals. It was a really fun day.

They had this cool tunnel where it looks like you are in the aquarium

My new favorite animals are penguins. They were so funny to watch! They have a lot of personality.

The seahorses were weird. I had never seen them up close before and I learned something crazy about them - the males are the ones that get pregnant and deliver the babies (up to 400 embryos at a time) . . . .if only that happened with humans!

schools of fish

We went out to eat with Jeff's parents. We went to Jeff's favorite place "Star Pizza". It's a famous restaurant in downtown Houston and the pizza is sooo good.

Eating with Jeff's parents

Snakes and Stars

We went with Jeff's sister Jo's family and his parents to this State Park called Brazo's Bend (the place where there are a bunch of wild alligators). It was too windy and the alligators were all underwater, but they had a snake exhibit in the lodge, and Jeff made me hold the snakes. Gross! It took awhile for me to get the courage, but I am proud to say that I actually held a snake. They also had a bunch of telescopes later on at night and we got to look at the surface of the moon and stuff.

At first, this is all I could do....just put my finger on the snake and say I touched it....but....

....after a little squealing....I held the snake on my own! I was seriously freaking out!

I don't know what it is with boys and snakes...

Our cool glasses, during the astronomy presentation.

3 years ago . . .

Today marks 3 years since Jeff proposed to me (4 months exactly before our wedding day). I can't believe it's been that long! I had no idea he was going to propose that night. I thought we were going on a sleigh ride with his co-workers from Sundance. When we got there these "friends" coincidentally didn't show up (my first inkling something was up). We first went on a sleigh ride around the Homestead resort (in Utah) and then Jeff got a call from his friend Chris. Jeff said we had to walk over to meet him so we treked across a huge field of snow (it was FREEZING outside! think 20 degrees) and arrived at a patch of sand with tiki torches set up, a pink blanket he made, and Jeff's guitar. I was in shock! I had always wanted to be proposed to on a beach and when I was living in Utah I figured that dream was over. Jeff knew this so he made a beach for me! Earlier that day he hauled tons of sand over to a tarped area and poured it around and then set up tiki torches to make it feel like a beach. He played a song on his guitar he wrote for me (recounting various dates we had been on) and then got down on his knee and proposed! It was so exciting and romantic and of course I said "yes!" immediately. Since his friend was there setting up the last minute things, he got some pictures afterwards. It was such a great night! I love Jeff so much! He is a wonderful husband and does so many sweet things for me. He really is a modern day "renaissance man". I always get so jealous of his talents! On top of that he is so funny and keeps me laughing no matter what.

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party!

We had an ugly sweater party this past weekend with some friends from our ward. It was so funny to see what everyone showed up wearing. Jeff and I found our lovely ensembles at Salavation Army. I was so excited when I found my vest. It is fully sequined and very gaudy. We ate good food, had a white elephant gift exchange and played some other games. It was a fun night full of laughter and we are so grateful for the friendships we have made here!

Julie Visits H-town

Jeff's sister Julie and her little girl Lucy came to Houston for a couple of days at the beginning of December. We had so much seeing them and spending time together. She and her husband and 3 kids are moving to Australia in January and we are going to miss them so much! We missed Jared, Livi and Rex on this trip but figure we will just have to go to Australia now to see them! =) Here are some pics from the week:


Jeff and Julie

Lucy Jean (i love this picture of her)

Eating BBQ at Rudy's - if your ever visit us we will take you here. It's so good!

Me, Julie and our neice Karsyn at a Park near our house

San Antonio!

Thanksgiving weekend we drove to San Antonio to check it out and it is a gorgeous city. We went to the Alamo, the Riverwalk, and the old missions in the area. I loved the riverwalk! They had it all decorated for Christmas so it was really pretty.

Riverwalk Christmas tree

Remembering the Alamo

Look closely at this photo. Jeff caught him. He was going to town! Haha

Yeeeeehawwww!!!!!

The Riverwalk in San Antonio

Riverwalk- really pretty during Christmas at night

We had dinner right on the riverwalk. It was so cool to eat and see all the lights and the water. Very romantic.

Nachoooo!! Haha my husband is weird. He found this luchadore mask at this marketplace in San Antonio, so he had to put it on when we went and visited the San Antonio missions. It totally look like Nacho Libre.

The missions are so cool. The architecture is amazing

There are four old missions in San Antonio that were built in the early 1700's. We visited two of them. It was just cool to see stuff like this in the United States

Crikey!

A few weeks ago we went biking around this park in Houston called Brazos Bayou where you can walk around among the alligators and sometimes walk close to them if they are up on the walking path. We rode bikes around the park and saw alligators everywhere. It was cool and kind of scary at the same time. Luckily they were on the other side of the bank so not too close! Crikey!

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving morning there was a huge parade through downtown Houston, kind of like the Macy's parade in New York. The streets were so packed and they had some pretty good floats. We then drove up to Jeff's sister's house with family and Jeff's cousin's family and had fun playing games, watching movies in the big theater room, and of course eating turkey and pie until we were sick. Isn't Thanksgiving great?

Showing my Thanksgiving day pride

Some of the group

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Jeff and I decided to be a rocker couple this Halloween. Jeff looked very hard core with his rocker eyeliner that I put on him and black hair. We also had tatoo sleeves and rub on tatoos which helped our "look". The funny thing is that when we went out for the night everyone kept wondering that maybe this is how we always look. Happy Halloween!