New Years Festivities

For New Years Eve this year, B and I headed up to Lubbock to spend the night with Grant and Laura before continuing on to Amarillo on New Years Day to see his Grandparents.

While we were driving I was playing with my camera and my new lens (thank dad!). I only took one picture while we were in Lubbock because we were all having so much fun playing games and wii tennis (by the way, my arm was soar for two days)! The one picture I took I'm atually not going to share because I think Laura might kill me if I do! It was taken right before we left and neither her or Grant had showered yet because they were cooking us a wonderful breakfast, so you don't get to see it.. sorry!

Have you ever wondered what it looks like driving to Amarillo?

Well there you go! There's hardly any trees and until you get closer to Palo Duro Canyon, there's not much change in elevation either.

When we got to Amarillo (after I stopped at Dillard's and bought my Christmas China) we all met over at Manga and Paw Paw's house for a little birthday party for Lindsay.

Here's the birthday girl with Manga, Paw Paw, and Granny.

And here she is with everyone else (minus me). When you're the one with the camera, it's not very often that you're in the picture.. but I don't mind!

Mississippi Mud Cake, by request. It's basically like a chocolate sheet cake with marshmallow in between the cake and icing. Very good, but VERY rich!

The next day everyone else from Brent's side of the family came over for lunch and to open Christmas presents. Before everyone got there, I sat on a stool at the island just snapping away pictures, but I won't bore you with all of them... just some!

Kirk was walking around eating things and making faces at me...

Connie was making pistachio pudding and cooking the garlic bread

and I sat on my stool because I was still sick with a cold and didn't feel like doing anything except holding the camera.

Granny is B's Great-Grandmother and is in her mid 90s. She still drives, still lives alone, and still cooks. Everyone in B's family is glad for that for the reason in the next picture.

Her picture perfect lemon pies!

Granny slaves over these pies for hours every holiday or time that the family gets together. She makes everything from scratch and as B says, "makes absolutely perfect meringue." People have tried to figure out how to make Granny's Lemon Pie for years, but even with the recipe have never been successful. I think it's the 70+ years of experience to make something so perfect. Either way, some one is going to have to figure it out.

Here's a shot of the inside. I'm not the hugest fan of lemon pie, but this one's pretty good. Maybe one day I'll try to make it.. but maybe not, we'll see.

It was good to see family, but I will say it was nice to be home and in my own bed on Saturday night. With all the traveling we've done lately, I just love the feeling of coming home to my own bed--especially when I have a cold!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Years!

Because we don't have any kids...

Because we don't have any kids, we (well.. I) treat Bridger almost as if she were a child. I put bows on her collar, I buy her gifts from Santa... you know, the usual. Well, my sister (did I mention that she's pregnant?) has become a domestic sewing crazy head and has gotten really good at it. Well, one day she found a website that will give you instructions to transform one of your old tacky Christmas sweaters into a dog sweater. Genius!

A couple of weeks ago, I grabbed my measuring tape, followed her instructions, and got her Bridger's measurements. She started with one sweater that I think she found in the big and tall section of the Salvation Army (just to make sure she wouldn't run out of fabric). Once she finished the first one, she had so much fun and decided to make two more. She headed back to Salvation Army and picked out two more sweaters.

After making one more, she decided to go ahead an send the finished two in order to make sure they fit properly before making the third. They were in the mail with enough time to make it before Christmas, but unfortunately.. that didn't happen. They did make it on Saturday though!

The package was addressed to "Bridger Mann" and even included a letter!

Here's what the letter said:

Dear Bridger,
I hope you like your new
outfits. Make sure these fit,
because I saved the best
sweater for last...
I hope you don't get
made fun of while you wear
these. I happen to think
they are very funny and cute.
If the other dogs in Abilene
laugh it's because they are
jealous of your Los Angeles
style.
Hope you have a Merry
Christmas...

Aunt Christy
(and Uncle Mike)

So no, we are not serious when we do these things, but it just makes it funnier... I didn't get the package until about 6:00 Monday morning, so I decided to make her try one on really quick. I told my mom that she was yawning and leaning against me an stuff trying to figure out what was going on, but not really caring. It was like dressing a sleepy child, and very funny.

Then, last night after my Christmas shopping spree (I'll show you that later), I had her try them on so I could send pictures to Christy. *Sorry about the photo quality... all of these were done with my phone so I could text them..

This one is my favorite!

and the Brown one..

She is such a sport to let me have fun with her! B said he didn't really care what I did to her, as long as she still hunts, he's good.

Here are some of the other pictures from Christmas Eve and all the snow that I told you about yesterday..

This was our view out of our front door in the morning when it first started snowing.

and this was my car when it first started snowing..

I took Bridger to PetSmart to get a bath on Christmas Eve because they always do such a good job and I don't like cleaning the hair out of the tub... Plus, they love her so much! They were so excited that she was coming in! When I was there, I knew the sweaters from Christy were coming, but they weren't here yet. I saw this one on the $5 rack, so I decided to go ahead and get it (something I normally wouldn't have done... I promise). This is her looking out the window while B ran in to Lowe's to get some firewood.

This was about mid morning when we let Bridger out in the yard. The snow was starting to get deep!

Bridger was so thankful that Santa brought her a new bed.

Here's the snowman we were going to make... we only used our feet because we didn't have any gloves and it was so cold outside. When you don't have any coal for the eyes, cherry tomatoes seem to do the trick. Later on in the afternoon, I let Bridger out again because she loved the snow. She managed to find the snowman and eat his nose.. I stopped her as she was going for the eyes.

and this is a picture I took while we were driving.. it seriously looked like Colorado, except we don't have any snow plows..

Side note: There is still snow and ice on the ground from the snow we had on Christmas Eve, and guess what? It's snowing AGAIN!!

Christmas Recap

This year was B and I's first Christmas together as a married couple and I just can't believe this year has flown by so fast! We're quickly approaching our first anniversary! This year we spent Thanksgiving in Houston with my family and Christmas with his. It's hard having our families so far apart, but unless you both grew up together, I think that's a common issue on holidays with couples. It is probably for the best that we didn't make it to Houston because I ended up coming down with a cold and with my dad in his 18th week (Daddy, YOU'RE ALMOST DONE!!) of Chemo, I would HATE to get him sick!

On Christmas Eve it started raining.. hard. Then it turned into snow which is probably a common theme for blog posts about this past Christmas, but it sure was fun! The last time I had a white Christmas was in Houston (surprisingly) my senior year of high school, but this one was MUCH different than the last! This one was more like a blizzard! I have pictures of all of that, but they are on my phone and not as good of quality, so I'm showing you these for now!

Jeff making "bricks" for their igloo

Brandon flattening out the surface

Then the Shaw boys showed up.. and the snowball fight began...

Abby chasing Carson

Oh No! Don't do it Abby!


Oh, Carson...

but wait...

what's this?

Revenge!

and now it's time for some tackle football!

Action shot!

Dog Piles necessary

Worn out kiddos, a must!

Then we started with the gifts, and since Brent works at ACU now, and every single adult in the room (minus Mimi and Papa) graduated from ACU, he decided we needed to put a stop to all of the UT garb and direct these kids on the straight and narrow path...

I tried to teach them the WC hand sign.. Carson and Trey still represented UT though

told you!

And because she is the only child in this bunch to love Texas Tech, I couldn't resist and I had to find her a Jersey to sport around!

Get your guns up!

Last but not least, I wanted you to have a taste of what all the men got from Mimi this year! You may never know what Mimi is going to get you (unless you buy it yourself), but you will always know it will be from Bealls!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I'm so thankful to have a short week this week!