Home for Christmas

Well, work is over for the rest of 2005! Yippee! We finished up about 4:00 today and I headed straight home to pack! I can't wait to head back to Texas tomorrow. For the next week and a half I am completely work free and family focused. I love this time of year, but it sure doesn't seem like Christmas unless your home! Tomorrow I head to San Antonio where we plan on attending the Spurs game! Go Ginobli (By the way, we are thinking of naming our future pup after the man)! Then we are going to spend Christmas Eve with the Poth's enjoying the ranch and all the fun that comes with it! Christmas morning we will be waking up, opening presents, visiting with the Poth's for lunch, then heading up to Dallas to see the Kilgore's! We'll hang out there until Thursday morning when we'll start our drive back across the country to SC! I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I'll be back on the blog in 2006!

Jesus is the reason for the season :o)

Rudolf gets even...

ICE STORM...

Our poor little tree, I don't think it will survive!
These are the woods behind our house, it's hard to tell, but they are covered in ICE.

So these past few days have been pretty crazy around the Carolina's! Wednesday night a huge ICE Storm hit, causing the power lines to go down! Thursday morning I got ready for work, thinking the roads are okay, so surely we'll be working. On my way in, I called just to make sure the office was going to be open, and much to my surprise they had decided to close for the day! I was so excited. Well, about 9 o'clock our internet and cable went out, so I put in a movie to watch. Well, about 1o:15 our power went out! Boo! What was I to do all day? I decided to run a few errands and finish up our last minute shopping before Lex headed out to Texas on Friday! Luckily Walmart and Kohl's were open! So that kept me busy until about 2:00, then I started to get a little bored. I had our gas log fireplace going, so I kept warm by the fire and read a magazine, until Lex got home about 4:00. It's amazing how much we get so used to having convenience! We ended up going to bed really early Thursday night, which was great for Lex because he had a long drive ahead of him on Friday! My office was back open on Friday, which I was pretty happy about, since I didn't know what I would do all day at home without power! It was a pretty slow day though, since most other businesses were closed! Lex headed out about noon towards Houston! He made it in about 2 am! Crazy boy! Saturday morning, our electricity came back on! And boy was I glad! Now I am getting our house in final order before I head out on Friday for the holidays! Moral of the story - have a generator on hand in case your power goes out!

Our New Furniture

Our new furniture arrived today! Lex hasn't seen it yet, but I love it! We searched forever to find the right suite, and we did! It's beautiful. These pictures really don't do it justice! Now we have a real bed for our guests to sleep in. So come and visit us!

Other than that, not a whole lot else has been going on with us. We are still in the process of unpacking - we're pretty good about being productive on the weekends, but during the week we tend not to do much on the house once we get home from work.

Count down to Christmas: 20 DAYS!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well I told you guys I was planning on putting up our tree first thing...and that's what I did! The rest of the house is not set up well enough to post on the blog, so I thought I would at least show you our tree. Also, notice the wall in the background, that is the color we painted the great room. Well, I will post more later! Tonight we have a volleyball game, so I must go for now!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are a few pics of us painting! Since we signed our contract last Friday, we have been busy bees trying to get the house ready to move in! First I decided to tear down the wallpaper, big mistake! If you ever have a chance to paint over exsisting wallpaper, definitely do it!! It's such a pain to pull it down. I started off with DIF, a gel specially created for removing wallpaper. You spray it on the wall and then it is supposed to make it easier to pull down. Well, I sprayed the entire wall (as you can tell by the spotted wall in the above picture) but by the time I started to tear it down, it was already dry!! So I resorted to the vinegar and water method and after hours and hours of scraping and pulling, we got it all down. BUT - then you have to go back again and scrub the walls to get all the excess glue off. THEN - I had to go back and spackle the areas that we tore into the sheetrock! Dude, it was a long and grueling process! Today though, we finally completed everything we wanted to get done for now. Eventually we will do the bathrooms and guest bedrooms, but we are so proud of what we have done so far! And might I say, it looks pretty darn good! (I didn't have my camera on me today, so I will update again soon with the pics of the finished product.) Tomorrow we start the big move! We have brought a few boxes over already, but our plan is to get the rest of it done tomorrow! The first thing I plan to put up is our Christmas Tree. I am so excited about decorating our own house. Hopefully, we'll get around to putting up some lights outside as well! And don't worry, I will definitely take some pictures of that to share with each of you!

Well, I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving with a lot of turkey, dressing and of course PIE! I wish we could have come back to Texas to visit, that's one of the hardest things about living so far away! We miss you all so much and can't wait to see you at Christmas time!

Happy Birthday Sister!!! Only 3 years away from the big 3-0 :o)

Proud New Owners...

Today we are officially proud new owners of our very first home! It's been kinda crazy around here, but the day finally came and we are so excited! I have been sick for the past few days and actually had to take off work yesterday because I felt so bad. Luckily, my boss is so great he told me not to come back today so we could enjoy closing on our house and I could rest up and get well! So this morning we met the attorney's at 10 am to signed our lives aways, then we headed to the new house to pick out paint colors! We decided on caramel and winter wheat for the living room. We had originally thought we wouldn't have to paint the entire great room - but once we looked a little closer we realized the current paint job was going to need some touch up so why not just re-do the entire thing! So tonight after Lex get's off work we are headed to Lowe's to buy our very first ladder and get started painting! This afternoon I am packing up a few essentials for us so we can spend our first night in the house! We're taking the air mattress, the BBQ Pit and a radio! Don't worry I will definitely take plenty of photos for you guys to enjoy in the days to come! We can't wait to get settled and for each of you to come and visit us in our new home!

Happy Birthday - Allison Pace, Karen Barton & Britney Baggett!! November 4th is a popular day!

The Flood

Well, if you have not heard, when we returned from our Gatlinburg trip this past weekend, we unfortunately were suprised by a flooded apartment!! Apparently on Saturday night a guy out walking his dog noticed that a pipe had burst outside of our apartment. Luckily, he got in touch with our maintenance department and they came to check it out. Well, of course the pipe was flooding our apartment and the one next to us. They ended up working until 4 am Sunday morning to get everything moved out of the way of the water and dry up as much of the mess as they could. Well, we get home about 6:30 Sunday night with my parents, who were planning on staying the next two nights with us in our spare bedroom. There was a note on our door and some water soaking up our Welcome mat, which we thought was kind of strange. The note was from maintenance letting us know what had happened. We opened the door and were shocked at what we saw! (pictures below) It was a mess! So basically this whole week we have been trying to get all the water out and fighting with management to make sure they are proactive about getting this mess cleaned up! Luckily, Lex got them to pay for my parents hotel room and today the carpet cleaners came in and got most of everything put back together. I think tomorrow they are coming back to steam clean the carpets and move our furniture back, then it'll all be done! Nothing was severly damaged, a few wet clothes and such, but nothing serious! Anyways, I am looking at it now as a great way to get ahead on our packing! We close on our house in two weeks...so I'm thinking why put everything back...I'll just start packing it all up!!

Fourth Fastest Growing Company in South Carolina!

Hey check it out:

http://www.elliottdavis.com/fgc/2005-announce.htm

My company is the fourth fastest growing company in South Carolina! Go FGP! They just release this today! We thought we were contenders, but it's pretty exciting to know we are #4!

Weekend Pics

Cindy and Mom doing Dance Dance Revolution - now you can see where I got my coordination :o)

Here's the gang at the Log Cabin Pancake House!

Mom and Dad playing pool!

Lex at the Guiness Book of World Records, he's barely tall enough to pick this guys nose! :o)

You can't get this in Texas...

Gatlingburg, TN

We took a trip out to Gatlinburg, TN this weekend to meet up with my parents, Cindy & Matt. This time of year the Smokey Mountains are beautiful, as you can see in the pictures above! If you don't know much about Gatlinburg, we have described it as the "Myrtle Beach" of the mountains. A ton of shops, mini golf, carnival food, and arcades - a typical tourist trap! We really enjoyed our cabin as well, it was fully equiped with a pool table, outside hot tub (that come to find out was probably used as a bubble bath by the previous occupants, mainly because of all the bubbles it created when Cindy and I got in!) We also were joined by a black bear on Friday night - Lex and I weren't there yet, but apparently he found his way onto the cabin's back deck and into their ice chest looking for beer and coke! So the rest of the weekend, we were on the lookout for more bear siteings! Unfortunately, but probably fortunately as well, we didn't run into any more bears! On Sunday we went out for a big breakfast and then Cindy and Matt headed back to KY while the rest of us checked out the Smokey Mountain National Park - we hiked up to Lurel Falls and Cataract Falls - both of which were beautiful. I will attach some pictures to let you see what all you are missing in Texas :o)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALICE GUAJARDO AND MATT YORK!!

Apples, Apples, Everywhere!

Today we went apple picking at Sky Top Apple Orchard in Flat Rock, NC! It's only about an hour north of here and on the top of a mountain, hince the name, "Sky Top"! It was gorgeous up there this time of year - the trees aren't quite changing yet, but it's definitely the beginning of Fall. Anyways, this orchard was great, we never knew there were so many different types of apples. We ended up with a "peck" of Stamen Winesap apples. But of course, they had the normal
golden delicious, gala, fuji, etc, etc, etc as well! They also had hay rides for the kiddos, goats, lambs, geese, and ducks for petting and feeding - and apparently a pumpkin patch (which we never found)! Anyways, the moral of the
story is - North Carolina is beautiful and picking your own apples is quite entertaining, we would highly recommend it :o)

Guess the weekend is almost over, so I am going to go enjoy a few more hours before the work week starts up again! Ciao!

We need a puppy...

Here's a few pics of us dog sitting Kayla, Matt and Megann's dog - isn't she pretty! No doubt, we need to get ourselves a pretty little puppy soon! They are so entertaining!

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Emily and Chase
Me and Allison
Alice and Anthony (soon to be parents)
Allison and Brandon

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Momma Alice (5 mths pregnant) and Allison!

CONGRATULATIONS Karen & Jake Barton!!! They have gotten hitched and are now enjoying their honeymoon in Mexico! Man, don't I wish I could be on my honeymoon again...no worries and lots of fun in the sun! Well, I hope you guys are enjoying it! We sure enjoyed the wedding that's for sure! It was so great to see all the PBX girls! I miss you guys so much!

Happy Hump Day!

We are over the hump for this week, Wednesday is almost over! These weeks just seem to fly by lately, it really is amazing! My days go by so fast, which it always a good thing when you are working! I really don't have much new going on here in the upstate. Work has been pretty crazy for both of us lately! Today I ran into two cases where a candidate LIED about their criminal background, hoping we wouldn't discover their fraudulent checks or possession of marijuana!! I just don't understand some people!! That's the temporary staffing world for ya - every day is different! I am very excited about this weekend though - Karen & Jake are getting married!!! YIPPEE...I will provide ample pictures when I return next week! Get excited! Other than that, we have a volleyball game tonight and our house is being inspected tomorrow - so wish us luck on both! Well, I'm out for now! I'll post again with pics of this weekend! **Don't forget to leave a comment & if anyone else out there has a blog they would like to share, pass it along and I'll add it to my list**

House Pics!

So I decided to include a few pictures of the inside of the house, this is what it looks like with the current owners decor! Enjoy....

Contract Signed!

Well...yesterday we officially signed the contract on our house!!! Let me just tell you how much fun it is to know we are going to be owners of a real house! We are going to have neighbors and have to do yard work and be REAL adults!!! We can't wait! The next step is to do all that inspection stuff...guess we'll be learning as we go along! The tenative date to close is November 18th - the weekend before Thanksgiving!! This way we'll be in the house for the holidays! WHOOOP!

Well, we miss you guys and hope that one day you can all come and visit us in our new house! We will have an extra bedroom and plenty of space for all of you! (And of course, if you want to come around Thanksgiving...we could use a few movers :o)

Peace Out! Tomorrow's FRIDAY....YEAH!

A&M vs. Clemson

A&M vs. Clemson - September 3rd, 2005

Asheville, North Carolina

Now, I thought I'd just share a few photos of a some fun things we've beenup to over the past few months. First, here are some pics of when Janet & Matt came to visit in August. The big estate is the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina! Isn't it beautiful up there?!

Our Pets

I'm sure you have heard of our famous little fishes, well now you can finally see the cute little things. We started out with 5 African Chiclids and much to our surprise one day we ended up with a sixth! If you ever decide to start an aquarium, we highly recommend the chiclids, they are the most active little things you can imagine. Just be aware that they can move rocks with their mouths and are very afraid of bright lights and quick movements!

Joining the Blog World

After much heckeling from my sister, we have decided to start our own Blog! I will do my best to keep you updated on our lives out in South Cackalacky, as the Carolinia's call it! To start, I'd like to share a photo of our house. (Well it's not quite ours yet...we saw it for the first time yesterday...but we are convinced it is "the one"! I'll keep you updated on the progress!

Much love!

Kristi and Lex