Dashing through the snow

Mom woke me up this morning so I could join in on a prime sledding adventure that I was about to miss out on! I quickly threw on the warmest clothes I could find and went to our huge hill to see what it was all about. Luckily I have my little nephew Bryce to sled with. With him in the drivers seat we made it all the way down, squealing the entire way! Then my dad and I raced down the hill. He beat me EVERY time!!!! He's too good :) I kept on crashing into huge piles of snow, and falling off. Apparently I need Bryce to be my sled driver every time.

Here is where the magic happens. Although, it is a lot longer and steeper of a hill than it appears. I zoomed in so you could see the people down below! Bryce and my dad are on the sled, and Lisa is at the bottom of the hill retrieving her sled and making sure no cars came.

Bryce liked to sled down AND up the hill :)

Bryce and Ha-ah built these wonderful snow-men creatures for our front yard.

Another precious snow creation!

I'm so glad they came to play in the snow with us! I wish we could sled every day :)

Twas the night before Christmas...

...and all through the house. The Phillips' were decorating, fast as a mouse!

Here are some pictures from "Blizzard 2009!" The news said we got 14" of snow! There were some drifts that were several feet deep, and the wind was really blowing!

There is an entire turtle sandbox buried under there somewhere! Mom pointed out the little glaciers of snow shooting half-way off the roof in this picture too!

Sometimes my family does holidays a little bit differently, which works out wonderfully for all of us! We will celebrate Christmas all together next week when Julie and Neil are in town. So since we are snowed in from Blizzard '09 Mom, Dad and I got to work decorating the house with some holiday cheer. Dad went and picked up a Christmas tree for us! It was covered with snow so we quickly ran it in to the shower to melt *laughs*

We had a great time listening to the holiday music and decorating the house. We got the tree to stop dripping snow and decorated it, put up the nativity scene, and put wreaths, poinsettias, and greenery everywhere!

I ended up going to bed without putting up my stocking! Luckily Mom & Dad found it for me and put it up in time for Santa to fill :) So when I woke up Christmas morning I was greeted with some wonderful Christmas treats!

Sunday afternoon I went to go babysit my sweet beeboo Bryce! We had a glorious time!! Snuggling up watching a movie, playing games, working a huge firetruck puzzle, and reading books. I love that sweetsie boy sooo much!



After I left I went to visit my lovely little (from the sorority) Amber! It was great to have some relaxing time together without having to worry about classes. She introduced me to "Pink Swirls" a frozen yogurt place where you can load on any and every topping you can think of. She made a cup of delicious chocolatey peanut butter goodness with all kinds of cookie dough bites and chunks of chocolate on it. I made a cup of cheesecake frozen yogurt with graham cracker crumbs and real berries on top! It was a spectacular find! After you load it up they weigh it and charge by the ounce. Too bad fruit is so heavy...



We went back to her apartment and talked and talked until i had to crash! I think I am still a little sleep deprived from finals week and our little trip this weekend. We had such a fun time. I hope we get to spend more time together next semester, than we have this past semester! She is wonderful!

Make a Joyful Noise

The Oklahoma Aquarium

Well, finals week is finally over and Matt and I both did really well! It's been a very busy semester and we are very glad for the break.

This weekend we got to enjoy a little vacation with my parents, Lisa, Bart, Bryce and Griffin! My dad had some free nights for a hotel that he needed to use before the end of the year, so we chose a neat one near the Oklahoma Aquarium! Friday afternoon, after Bryce got out of playschool, all 8 of us (2 carseats included) packed in the suburban and we were on our way! We stopped by a beautiful light display along the way, and drove through enjoying the season together. After we got to the hotel and settled in, Bart and Matt went to get us Chili's to go. We ate our delicious food and played around the hotel. Bryce was so excited to be on the trip, he was a little bundle of energy! He and my dad went swimming, and he and Matt had a never ending game of chase and tickle attack rough housing going on. We had a lot of fun.

Saturday morning, after a wonderful breakfast, we headed on to the main event: The Aquarium!! Even though Matt and I went to the Dallas Aquarium about a month or so ago, I was definitely ready to see more fish and sea creatures!

There were some massive tanks at the aquarium. Griffin loved watching the fish swim by. Grandpa gave him a close up with this silly fish!

One of the really exceptional parts of the aquarium is a touch tank. In the tank, there are stingrays and small sharks that you can pet and feel! (Luckily for us, the stingrays had their stingers clipped so we didn't have to fear for our lives) It felt so strange and exciting to touch these dangerous creatures! The sharks felt kind of sandpapery because apparently they have little bitty scales all over them. The stingrays felt soooo smooth and slick. It was spectacular.

I was also blown away by this giant octopus! It was so neat to watch it move around the tank and get to see it from all different angles.

Even though I am not a fan of Jellyfish (stinging in the ocean) Matt and I were mesmerized by these glowing beauties. It was almost enough to convince us we needed one in our future home. *laughs* How much maintenance could they require...really... there's hardly anything to them!

They also had a walk through shark tunnel. It is so neat to see the giant creatures swimming all around you. It also featured a huge set of chompers from a Megalodon: The largest predator of all time. Their teeth were about 7 inches long and they ate whales like they were grapes!

Together, Bryce and I were almost as tall as this Alligator Gar!

I am so glad Matt and I were able to go on this fun trip with my family! We had a blast!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh the Holidays!! Filled with love and joy, food and family. Since all my sisters are married with in-laws of their own, my family usually waits to celebrate Thanksgiving when we can spend the whole day together. That way everyone can spend all of Thanksgiving day with their husband's family so they don't have to split the day between the two. This means I get to celebrate Thanksgiving day with Matt's family as well! They are so sweet and always make me feel welcome at their family functions. We had a glorious meal (ate waaay too much THEN had desert too! ha) then a lot of us played dominos. I lost big time, but we all had fun! Then I headed over to my parents house. Thankfully, Julie and Neil got to come down and visit with us for the weekend! Lisa, Bart, Bryce and Griffin came to spend the evening with us too!

Friday morning, my alarm began buzzing at 4:14 am! Julie and I were on the hunt for some great after Thanksgiving deals. We grabbed some water bottles and granola bars and we were on our way! Our first stop was Kohl's and I think I went a little overboard... Kohl's was out of shopping carts so Julie and I had to carry all of our goods around the store in giant shopping bags. I was so loaded down by the size of some of my purchases and felt like a bull in a china cabinet! Finally we found a spot to make "home base" and took turns: one person watched the purchases and the other ran off to find the next item on our list. I bought a glorious memory foam pillow (in a giant box) at 60% off and a luxurious sherpa throw made of the softest material I have ever found in a blanket. I also scored some great Christmas gifts for some people on my list! Next stop, Target! This is where things got a little more hectic. Everyone had shopping carts, so it felt a lot more crowded, and the lines were backed up throughout the store. But, we fought through the crowds and no one got trampled. We found more good deals here and at Mardels and Hobby Lobby! Then we headed home for a food power up. Mom made us a wonderful breakfast: Eggs and bacon, biscuits and gravy it was deeeelicious! It was then that we reuinted with our old Game Cube. It was fun playing those old games again. We enjoyed spending the day together talking and laughing and ended out the day with a little more shopping until we crashed that night after our long day. I think you could say we shopped until we dropped.

Saturday is when our "Thanksgiving" happened. Karen and Kenny came back from visiting his family in Kansas and my whole family got to spend the day together. Matt came down to celebrate with us too! At the end of the day I caught these three racing Mario Kart together!

They look so serious :)

Good eats!

One of the fundraisers we choose to do for our Horsefeathers project was to sell tickets to a pancake breakfast at Applebees. This allowed us to raise money ahead of time by selling tickets then have the breakfast on a Saturday after the project was over and everyone had a little extra time. Our wonderful families both supported us by buying tickets and coming to the event! It was a great opportunity for our parents to get to know each other a little bit better, and it was a lot of fun. I love spending time with our families and I am so glad they were able to come eat with us!

Here we are full of pancakes! Sitting in the Shannon Miller booth. :) The lighting wasn't so good, so the picture is pretty low quality, but I did what I could to improve it.

Matt's headboard and bed frame that he ordered way back on September 11th finally came in, so his parents brought that up with them and set it up after breakfast. I think it was worth the 2 month wait. The wood is a dark stain and it has a leather inset headboard. It looks spectacular and really ties the black armour he refinished in with some of the other dark wood pieces of furniture he has.

This is the Armour that Matt refinished earlier this year. He did an incredible job!

Here is his new bed frame and bedding! What can I say, he's got style.

Then today I got to enjoy more delicious food! Today at work was my department's Thanksgiving celebration. I brought some yummy Turtle Brownies with Walnuts! The people who organized the lunch were worried about having enough food for my entire department but we ended up having TONS of leftovers! They packed everything up afterwards and could barely close the refrigerator in my department. They joked about taping it shut hehe. Needless to say there will be leftovers tomorrow (my day off, my loss) and maybe enough for Wednesday as well! There's a lot to be thankful for including delicious long lasting feasts and wonderful people.

P.S. I love these sweet boys :) Bryce wanted Grandpa to set Griffin right next to him in the chair. He got the pillows set up just right so Griffin would be comfortable, then he snuggled Griffin and gave him sweet kisses! So precious.

Group Babysitting and Sister Shopping

Last weekend I had a babysitting adventure! The Presley's asked me to watch their sweet kids! Of course I said yes, I miss those guys. As it turned out, Kaleigh and Westin wanted to hang out that night too, so I asked if it was ok to bring them along. What's better than 3 babysitters for the price of one, right? It gave us a little bit of time to chat and see each other's lovely faces.

The boys (11 and 7) had a wrestling tournament that day so they were absolutely EXHAUSTED! We didn't hear much out of them the entire night. They got some needed rest and relaxation after their long day.

I brought along some supplies to make funfetti cookies and me and Molly (4 years old) went to town! She was a great little assistant cook and everybody enjoyed the warm cookies.

Thursday after work, Karen and I met up to get some early Christmas Shopping out of the way! I can't say that I crossed too many items off my list, but I got a bit of a start. We had a fabulous time! We spent some time in Sephora playing with the makeup and at Bath and Body Works with all the smell goods! She had some coupons for a freebie with purchase and she let me have one of the freebies! She is just so sweet. I got some glorious Eucalyptus-Spearmint Volumizing Shampoo! It makes my hair smell fresh and minty (Matt loves mint fragrances). Then we ate some bourbon chicken and rice (soooo yummy!). We did a little more shopping and found some good stuff. We had such a great time, I hope we go again soon!

Project: Horse House

This semester we are taking a class called Project Management. We had to create a full project plan as a class and pull it off successfully. We decided to help a organization called Horsefeathers Equine rescue. They are a nonprofit organization that takes in abused or neglected horses who would otherwise be put down. Some of the horses have health issues that their former owners neglected to treat others have chemical burns etc. Some of the horses were blind and a few looked as though they had joint problems. Our project scope was to build two horse sheds and dig a trench to lay waterline so that the horses could have water in the barn. In only 6 weeks our class of 23 college students raised enough money and materials donated for some very needy horses.

We worked very hard on planning successful fundraisers and even had extra money leftover to donate to the charity. All of the horses had great personality and were very deserving of the loafing sheds to get them out of the wind, snow and weather.

We made friends with some of the horses. We considered adopting this brown one haha!

This white horse had joint problems :(

Team Trench

We actually had a pretty fun time building these sheds from the ground up. It was a good learning experience, neither of us had ever built something so large. All the hard work was very much worth it when we saw one of the horses go straight over to the shed after we completed it to check it out. *smiles*

Here is my team with the frame almost complete.

Teamwork! (or class clowns)

Shed 1 Completed!! We were really proud of our work and hope the horses enjoy it too!

The whole class in front of shed 2

This is how we all felt when we were finished!

MOVING!

Friday, I helped Matt move out of his rent house back to an apartment in Edmond! It really was a lot of work! We loaded up a car and a truck with clothes and smaller items like end tables and nightstands and the like and brought it over. We were halfway through unloading the truck when three tiny little girls and a little dog came out of the apartment across from Matt's. The dog immediately ran into Matt's apartment to start marking it's territory so Matt quickly sprinted after it with the speed of an olympian and kicked it out. Another college guy came out of his apartment about that time and we wrangled the toddler so she didnt fall down the stairs or make her way out into the parking lot and asked the 5 year old if her mom was around. About that time the mom came out and was acting a little strange, but thankfully she took the girls and dog back in to safety. What an interesting first impression.

The apartment itself is really nice though. From the inside it seems like a house. It is painted nice neutral tones and has really pretty light fixtures throughout. It even has big walk in closets and lots of storage! It has to be hard downsizing from their much bigger rent house but i'm glad Matt and his brother found a nice apartment with a lot of space. Plus this will put them a lot closer to school and work. Overall a good decision.

Anyway, shortly after the strange neighbor run in, Matt had to go meet his parents to load up some of the bigger/heavier things in his Dad's truck. I stayed at the new apartment trying to get things unpacked, settled, and organized. The apartment is on the first floor but still has a few steps leading up to it. Boy, were my calves getting sore after making so many trips back and forth to the car unloading. I was working up quite the appetite also!

Thankfully Matt's sweet parents brought some delicious Mazzios pizza, calzone, and cheese bread with them when they arrived! Matt's mom Kim even went to the store and got us paper plates and cups and everything we needed for the meal because we hadn't moved the dishes over yet. I'm so glad they came to help. There's no way my weak little arms could have helped Matt get his bed and armoir loaded and unloaded. We finally finished up everything we could around 11:00 then headed back to the rent house to take some no longer needed items to Matt's Aunt's garage sale. By the time we returned the trucks to Matt's parents house and got back to Edmond it was about 1:00 am! What a busy day! Whew, i'm glad the majority of the moving is over. Now, we'll just have to help Bob move in and clean up the old house... but, that will have to wait for another day.

Ritzy Shopping

Today when we checked out of our hotel, they told us about another mall we had never been to: Northpark! They even printed out directions for us. But once again, they were very vague. Some of our actual printed directions didn't even have street names. It literally said: u-turn, u-turn, turn right, turn right, turn right. Thank goodness Matt is a super driver and we had a general idea of where we were trying to end up.

Northpark was such a wonderful surprise! It was very classy and had great elaborate decorations and stores throughout.

I cannot even begin to tell you how much they must have spent on pumpkins alone in this mall. There were LOADS of them! Massive piles of them around every corner! Filling any extra planters they might have. It was amazing!

Then there were these giant moving statues! There were four or five all hooked together by a pully system just hammering away! They were quite tall as you can see compared to some of the people in the background. There were quite a few neat sculptures spread around the rest of the mall also.

Here is a huge planter filled with tiny cactus! There were sooooo many of them!

There was also this giant water feature that turtles and ducks actually lived in, INSIDE the mall! We were impressed with how clean their water was. There was even a little bridge you could walk over and sun lamps for the animals to bask under.

I was so excited to see this store I absolutely begged Matt to take these pictures before he even saw the name! I should have bought something, but I think they only had sunglasses. It would be pretty neat to sport a tote with "ILORI" on the side though :)

Look how excited I am! haha!

Matt in his natural habitat. Drinking starbucks at the Lego Store! We also found a cool store across from this one with all kinds of unique toys in it! We're talkin' functional light sabers, Harry Potter statues and any action figure you could ever want. Action figures I never even knew existed. Like Mr. Bacon vs Monsieur Tofu...?