Philip got a new car today!!!! It's a 2004 Toyota 4Runner with about 28k miles. It's the "Limited" edition so it has all the bells and whistles... leather seats, sunroof, power everything... very nice. So much easier too, now that we have a house and are making quite frequent trips to Lowe's.

House update

So it's now Saturday and the schedule has significantly changed. When Robin & Jack arrived on Tuesday, they recommended that we refinish the hardwood floors before we move all of our furniture in the house. So yesterday instead of finishing up painting we began sanding and filling the floors, and today Philip & Jack should be able to apply the first coat of polyurethane. Tomorrow they will apply a second coat, and likely move everything from the apartment to the house on Monday after we get off work. But I am so excited about how great the floors are going to look that I don't mind the revision in our schedule; I think it's definitely going to be worth it! It is very hard work, and Robin & Jack have been fabulous helping us out, working long hours to get everything done before we have to be out of our apartment on Tuesday. We have two coats of paint in the master bedroom and one coat in the living room and second bedroom. Jack is painting a second coat on those two rooms this morning (you would be amazed at how fast and great of a painter he is!!!). Everything is coming along well and I cannot wait to see the finished product! Photos to follow...

Home Sweet Home

This week is an exciting one for us! We are closing on our house and moving in to our first home together! This past weekend, with Robin's help, we selected paint colors for each room in the house, and Robin & Jack are graciously planning to come to San Antonio this week to help us beautify the house with fabulous paint colors. However, I'm not going to share the paint colors so that everyone will make plans to come visit us and see the new home! (Although it is very likely that I will get really excited and start posting photos, so don't fret.)

Here is what our hectic week looks like:

Monday: Walk-thru at new home with realtor 5:30pm
Tuesday: Closing at title company 12:00/Robin & Jack arrive/Purchase interior wall paint
Wednesday: Robin & Jack help us paint while we are at work (and Lauren in Dallas for business trip)
Thursday: Robin & Jack help us paint while we are at work
Friday: Phil & Lauren both take off of work to help finish up painting and get the house move-in ready
Saturday: Rent U-Haul and move everything from apartment to new house
Sunday: Clean apartment/Begin unpacking

I am sure the following week will be spent unpacking, unpacking, unpacking... and, well you get the idea. But we also need to do some furniture shopping so that we have some of the important things like a Floormate, bed, dresser, washer/dryer, lawnmower, etc. We have quite the long wish-list of things we want to buy (flat screen TVs, laptop computers for wireless internet, dining room set, etc.), and of course, donations are gladly accepted. ;)

Wish us luck! We look forward to getting all settled in the upcoming weeks so we can begin to host visitors, and maybe even a fun house-warming party!

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!

Lauren & Phil spend their last Thanksgiving apart... next year, we start splitting holidays. Thanksgiving with her family and Christmas with his! Hope everyone had a great holiday! Check out our photo album for more photos from both of our Thanksgiving vacations.

Last weekend, I traveled to Dallas on Thursday for a business trip and stayed for the weekend to hang out with Dana. We had lots of fun, and I got to meet her precious 2 lb. Maltese puppy, Bella, who is absolutely adorable! On Saturday night, Dana and two of her friends hosted a party for friends to meet each other's friends from work, college, and high school (in my case!). It was a great party and the old game Simon from our childhood ended up being the hit of the night. I think this might be what I get Dana for Christmas since she was the most intense player ever . (I can say this because I know she NEVER reads the blog and therefore will not find this out prior to receiving the gift.)

Happy Halloween!

Check out my rad costume, it won 3rd place in the office costume contest! Jennifer (purple witch costume) and Tony (pirate costume) won 1st and 2nd place, respectively. Check out our Photo Album in the links section of the blog for more photos.

Today Phil golfed at the 12th Annual Comfort Golf Boosters Tournament with his friend Chuck, Chuck's brother Chris, and friend J. Buck. Together they whipped up on the other golfers, and won 1st place!! Phil says they "pencil-whipped the competition"... I'm so proud of my golfer!

The Astros are going to the World Series!!!!

I hope everyone is as excited about this as we are! Goooooooo Astros!!!!

We're Registered!

Yesterday we completed one more wedding task, but this time a super fun one... registering! We decided to register at only 2 places: Bed, Bath, & Beyond and Pottery Barn. We started at 10am at Bed, Bath, & Beyond where we registered for everything from kitchen to bathroom to bedroom & living room items, but mostly kitchen. We're going for the stainless steel appliance look in our new place so everything will be cute and coordinated. We had lots of fun going all around the store scanning anything we might use when we are married, and probably some things we might not. :)

We took a break for a yummy lunch at Chris Madrid's where we re-fueled with greasy burgers and fries, then headed to the Pottery Barn at the Shops at La Cantera, our brand new open-air mall. At Pottery Barn we registered for lots of accessories including bedding, dishes, and vases, and even added the bedroom furniture we hope to have in our master bedroom some day. Maybe we will and maybe we won't get our bed, dresser, and nightstands, but we figure it doesn't hurt to add them to our "wish list"!

Both websites have the capability for guests to view our registeries online, so feel free to take a look!

If you missed it, you missed the best baseball game ever... at least the longest.... all 18 (eighteen) innings in 6 hours. You've gotta be a REAL fan to watch that much baseball... but that's what we are! Okay, that's what Phil is. I got hungry and left in the 16th.
Now that the Astros have such a monumental win behind them, it's time to gear up for 2 big games in St. Louis. If only we had someone in the family with the hook-ups to get us some tickets... anyone?
The Astros games will be all we think or talk about Wednesday, Thursday, Friday... as long as this series lasts... so you might want to check out Espn.com before calling us anytime soon. And don't even THINK about calling during the game... or if they (gasp!) lose. Leave at least a day or two for mourning/recovery. But of course that won't happen... we are ready to ride this all the way to the World Series!
And Brad, we're dissappointed in you for not watching last Sunday's game. Sorry, but you were an Astro's fan WAY before Logan was born.

This weekend was Jennelle & Greg's wedding in Houston. It was absolutely spectacular and Jennelle was a beautiful bride. Here is a photo of the bride with her bridesmaids from the rehearsal dinner at Brenner's Steakhouse on Friday night. The food was great and Greg and Jennelle's families are so adorable! We know this couple will be happy together forever... congratulations, Jennelle & Greg! We hope you have an amazing time in Italy on your honeymoon!

Disregard the scary red eyes... aren't we cute?

Look how happy the bride is, as the new Mrs. Berger!

Destination Wedding, here we come!

Phil and I made a huge decision this weekend about our wedding... that we are going to have a destination wedding! We are going to fly somewhere in the Caribbean and get married on the beach... we're checking on locations this week so that we can secure all of our travel plans so I'm super excited!!

We had already booked our photographer and location here in San Antonio but it just didn't feel "right" and we are still far enough out to get all our deposits back. Anyway we'll have a big celebration party when we get back so everyone can celebrate with us!

Just wanted to share the news with everyone. :)

Happy Birthday to Robin & Drew!

We are so sorry we can't be in Houston this weekend to celebrate with everyone, but hope you both have fabulous birthdays. We'll see y'all in 2 weeks! Love you!

On Saturday evening, I hosted a bridal shower for Jennelle at Patti's beautiful home. It was a luau theme and to give myself a bit of credit, the invitations were so darn cute I wanted them to be for me. ;) But the theme turned out very well except for the fact nobody ended up wanting to hang out poolside since it was almost 100 degrees out there. But we had plenty of great food, drinks, and leis of course. We were able to head outdoors after eating so Jennelle could open her presents since it had cooled down a bit. But then we went back indoors afterwards because we enjoyed the climate controlled environment much more. :) Anyway Jennelle got some great things from her registry and all in all was a successful event! Pictured above, L to R: Ginger (Sigma big sis), Shifi (sorority sister), Susan (soririty sister), Rosalee (sorority sister), Jennelle (bride), and Janet (mother of bride). Not pictured are Patti, Shannon, Kaye, Jennifer, and me (all co-workers of bride), and Liana (had to leave early, sorority sister). See more pictures in photo album, and more to follow soon!

I won at Settlers of Catan!

Jennelle and Greg introduced us to Settlers of Catan, one of those board games that if you try to explain the concept to other people, sounds extremely dorky and boring. However, it is also one of those games you could become obsessed with playing, and is actually quite fun. The past two times we've played, Phil won (even his first time!) so Jennelle and Greg thought he was cheating (surprise) because he was "the bank". Tonight, however, Jennelle was the bank. And while Phil did not win, he told me he was proud of me for "keeping it in the family". Jennelle & Greg were not so excited, but at least I am enthusiastic about playing again since I actually have a chance of winning again.

Thanks, Jennelle & Greg, for hosting a fun evening. We look forward to playing with the Sea Farers expansion pack when it arrives!

Happy Anniversary, Brad & Stacy!