Merry Christmas!

This year, we are spending the holiday in South Padre with Lauren's parents. The temperature is in the 70s, so I guess that means we won't be having another white Christmas like last year! But despite how amazing that was, the warm temperatures are admittedly great.

Yesterday, Phil and Larry hit the golf course and Lauren and Jeanette hit the mall and downtown Brownsville... sounds like a perfect day, doesn't it!?! Although, I do have to admit that the malls were VERY crowded, just as to be expected on December 23rd... but we braved the crowds!

Another exciting bit of news in our life is the house we put an offer in on this week. The seller couter-offered, then we counter-offerred their counter-offer, and they counter-offered our counter-counter-offer. Confused yet? We are calling our realtor today to accept their final offer and once we get back to San Antonio, we will sign the necessary paperwork to begin the 10 day option period. We can't get our hopes up too much, after what happened on the last house we went through this process with, but it's still pretty exciting. Check out our photo album to see pictures of the house. It's 2 bedroom/1 bath and we plan to build on a master suite about a year after we purchase the home, where the rear deck is located presently. This house is our Christmas present to each other this year, so even though we don't have something under the tree to unwrap, I think this means we are both getting a big gift this year!

Anyway, we want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and we hope that Santa is good to you!

Last weekend, Phil & I traveled to Houston/Boling to visit his family for the holidays. We arrived Friday evening after leaving early from work, and got to see his mom's house all lit up like a Gingerbread house. She won the decorations contest last year and definitely gets my vote again this year!

On Saturday, the three of us drove in to Houston and had lunch with Felicity and her boyfriend Karthak at Molina's. Yummy Mexican food and it was great to see them and hear about their new puppy, Sam (who we can't wait to meet!). We then drove to Crate and Barrel where we planned to spend our gift certificate that we haven't used since LAST Christmas, but after driving through the parking lot 3 times, we decided against shopping. We headed to Amity & Randy's house where we hung out with Drew until Amity and Randy got home from the play they had been watching. Amity called after the play was over, and I was very vague on the phone so that she didn't know we had invaded her home, so they were surprised to find us already there when they arrived. We hung out and Phil and Randy (and Drew!) got to play sports in the backyard until dinnertime.

Around 5:00, we went to Collina's Italian Cafe for gourmet pizza. It was great food, but I have to rave about the desserts! We ordered an apple crisp, brownie sundae, and tiramisu. That was the BEST BROWNIE dessert I have probably ever in my life had. And that says a lot, because brownies are pretty much a separate food group in my diet. We took a long enough break from eating to let Amity take this photo of us, but I think by this time the brownie was gone (or else I would not have let them pull my focus away). There were 7 of us at the table, but I definitely had over 1/2 of the brownie dessert (sorry about that!).

After dinner, we drove by Blake's school, St. Thomas Episcopal, and a nearby neighborhood with Amity & Randy's dream home in it. We said our goodbyes and headed back to Boling, where Philip promptly fell asleep and Robin and I stayed up and baked fun-shaped cookies with sprinkles and all! They were very fun to make and even more fun to eat! Overall, it was a very fun weekend and we can't wait to see everyone again in January!