O Christmas Tree

Christmas Lights

Here is a shot of our Christmas lights, painstakingly put up by Mike and Tim.  The other half of the house has lights as well, but until we deal with the trees in the front yard, its really tough to get a good pic.  Photo credits go out to Tim Hertel and his camera which is much nicer than mine!

Thanksgiving

The Turkey

Tim is poised and ready to help

"The List"

Happy Thanksgiving! We are very thankful for our wonderful families and friends this year!  Speaking of wonderful friends, we were glad to have Tim and Andrea to spend our Thanksgiving with this year.  We were sad that we could not make it home this year, and missed out on Thanksgiving with our families.  Instead, I made a full Thanksgiving dinner with lots of help from Mike and the Hertels. 

Christmas Lights Round 1

This weekend we embarked on the adventure of putting up our Christmas Lights. We had been informed that THE lights to have in the Woodlands are clear C-9s. (Think of the big colored bulbs from Charlie Brown Christmas, but clear). Last weekend we hit two different Targets in an attempt to find the elusive bulbs. We considered ourselves fairly lucky when we found frosted white C-9s. Mike tried to assure me that the "twinkling" label on the box somehow referred to the frosted color of the bulbs. It didn't.


This is the moment we realized that the "twinkling" label did in fact mean that the bulbs were flashing. We pulled a quick switcheroo and were able to sub non-blinking bulbs from another string of lights into the blinking bulbs spots.

Mike peeps out from over the roof.

Climbing out the blue room window onto the roof above the garage. Little did we realize this would be the first few moments of what would be several hours spent on the roof over two days.

It should be noted that we had priceless help from Tim throughout this process. We were also able to lend a hand at Tim and Andrea's as well. Tim scaled his roof and looked very "Mission Impossible". Unfortunately this all occured after dark and we were all a bit busy holding ladders and flashlights to snap any pics.

Photos of the finished lights will be up as soon as we turn them on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Friends

Last weekend we headed into the city to hang out and watch the Navy v. Notre Dame game at our friends' Jerome and Kristine's house. We also got to spend some time with their adorable 6 week old son, John Jeffries. Also in attendance were Tim and Andrea. Tim went to the Academy with Mike and helped him get the job with Horizon. They live in our neighborhood and we hang out all the time. :) We can't wait to meet Olivia - Andrea is due in just a few weeks!

Our friends Tim and Andrea (and Olivia!) Hertel

Kristine and John Jeffries

Mommy and Daddy Gussow

Tim is practicing for Olivia, only a few more weeks!

Veterans Day!

Thank you to all of our armed forces for their services for us and our country! 

A special thanks to our our grandfathers, fathers, Aaron, Dave and Andre...

we are thinking of all of you, especially today.  

Catch up

Sorry for the long delay in posts, we were out of town and now that I've started work I don't have the same time I used to have.  Below are a few pics from recent goings on.  BTW: In case you didn't know this, you can always enlarge the pictures in our blog by double clicking. 

The UVA Marching Band...

we had amazing 50 yd line seats for this game...

even if the Hoos did blow it. 

Anniversary Celebrations Pt. 2 at Mom P's house.

That whole freeze the top of your wedding cake thing...

not quite as delicious as one might hope. 

And no, I did not cut my hair...its just the picture.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my husband.

We've had this washer for 2 months...

Mike learned to press the start button last week. 

He watched the entire 40 minute cycle. 

Who knew a front loading washer was so fascinating.

Master Bedroom

Some of you may remember a post from several weeks ago where I mentioned that I had been painting the master bedroom in our house. Well, the painting is done and I've finally gotten all but one wall done. Here is the new and improved master bedroom. There are before pictures posted in one of the September posts.

The view from the master bath

New paint and wall hangings

Football - Texas Style

Our wonderful friends Tim and Andrea have season tickets to see the Texans.  This weekend they were out of town, and they graciously extended us their tickets.  

Don't worry, Mike and I are still die hard NFC East fans - but its tough to get a Redskins or a Giants game around here in Cowboys country.  

The best part of the Houston game - listening to everyone boo at the Cowboys! 

Matt Schaub who was the quarterback for Virginia for part of our time there is the quarterback for the Texans.  I think we are the only fans who find this to be a reason to LIKE the team.  haha.  

Schaub and the Texans did manage to pull out a win yesterday, despite doing almost nothing after a big 1st quarter lead.  

The view from our seats!

What you can't see in this picture is my power towel!

Ghetto-versary

A week ago Mike and I celebrated our first anniversary.  We had originally planned to get dolled up and head into Houston for dinner at a swanky restaurant.  We later decided to skip the reservations and save the money to help us do something else around our house.  

So instead we headed to Outback for an anniversary onion.  

This we affectionately refer to as our "ghetto-versary". 

ghetto anniversary toast - bud light obligatory

Mike's nonsensical gang sign.  No he is not playing table football, though that certainly would have fit with the ghetto anniversary theme.  :)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY...to US!

Welcome Sage Fielder!

The biggest news of the past week is that our wonderful friends, Aaron and Morgan Fielder gave birth to their second daughter Sage Adelaine.  No big surprise, she's BEAUTIFUL and we can't wait to meet her!! 

The other news is that we will be heading home to Virginia for Homecoming at UVA at the end of the month.  We're excited to spend a few days in Virginia and we're definitely excited to see all of our friends in Charlottesville! 

Otherwise, nothing newsworthy going on in the Outten household these days.

Mom will be glad to know that last Saturday we did discover a delicious brunch location with Kristen and George.  We are slowly accumulating a list of haunts that we enjoy.  

Mike has been busy with a project at work, my fantasy football team (the Giant Wahoos) is picking up speed, unfortunately for Mike, his team, (the Annapolis Hooskins) are going the way of the Texans and can't seem to pull out a win.  He's 1-4.  

More to come as we celebrate our first anniversary this Monday! 

Catch up

Well, we've been a bit busy since our last post!  

I painted our bedroom Annapolis Green - thanks Lauren for picking the PERFECT color! We're still making progress on the house but nothing photo worthy yet.  

We celebrated Mike's 33rd birthday with dinner at Jaspers where we had ribs - the chef there beat Bobby Flay on Iron Chef! 

Martha came for a weekend visit!! We loved having her -super fun- and an excuse to try the wine bar at the Market Place. 

We also went to see my friend Mike League's FABULOUS band Snarky Puppy play at the Continental Club downtown.  It was great to see Mike and they are truly an amazing jazz ensemble.  

Mike Outten also ate one of the 65 tacos you must try before you die (Texas monthly magazine) at the hole in the wall taco joint next to the club.  

Mike enjoying his lamb barbacoa taco at Tacos a go-go...one of Texas Montly's 65 tacos you must try before you die.  

Snarky Puppy playing a tune from their latest album Bring Us the Bright.  My friend Mike is the bassist in the yellow t-shirt.  

Enigo Bugtoya Returns

Some of you may remember an incident from several years ago involving a spider cricket in a cup at my house in Charlottesville.  (Pictures).  David and I returned from a evening out to find a trail of post it notes (thank you Jen O'Connor) warning me about the beast that was trapped under a drinking glass outside my bedroom.

Well, it seems that "Enigo Bugtoya" has returned to seek his revenge.  

Mike and I are having some pretty big issues with cockroaches in our new house.  As Ruthann, our real estate agent, put it..."Honey, the cockroaches have cowboy boots in Texas.  They are here to stay."  We have seen 8 roaches in our house...including an incident with one in the 4-Runner that delayed my departure from our house by at least 10 minutes.  

We've had the house sprayed, but as the bug guy told me..."you can expect to see 'more activity' in the next few weeks."  

I HATE cockroaches and have therefore taken to walking around the house with a can of Raid in my hand.  I think I might need a holster.  

Welcome to the jungle

Well folks,  This is the nightmare that is our current backyard.  We are working hard to salvage it.But as you can see, its not looking too good.  

The deck...more of a giant leaf catcher right now.

Mike with his saw.  He's thrilled I'm distracting him to take a picture. 

Pile 1 of the crap we dragged out.  This is part of a tree that was attacking our bedroom window and trying to eat the tree next to it. 

The "Big Stick" pile.  There is a small stick pile as well. 

View from the steps of the deck before we hauled everything to the front.  

We spent the entire day today working in the yard trying to clear our the hurricane brush.  Our yard is a total jungle.  The people who owned the house before us took essentially NO care of the yard so its a giant overgrown, overlandscaped MESS.  We made some progress today and Mike was able to borrow a mower from a neighbor.  

Hurricane Ike Part 3

Pictures Taken the afternoon after the hurricane. 

The front of our house and all the branches in the driveway

the view down our street

there are a lot of really big trees here (hence, The Woodlands). In particular there are a lot of REALLY tall pine trees and quite a few of them came down with the hurricane.  

Hurricane Ike Part 2

Hello all!! We have survived the hurricane. We did spend the night asleep in the closet (picture above). All things considered we've really done very well. We are still without power but luckily we've had running water all along. I have a few more pictures of the "damage" to our neighborhood. Again, nothing compared to what they're dealing with in Galveston but still they will give you an idea of what is going on here. We sucked it up and bought a generator today...so far it has been worth every penny. More to come.

Hurricane Ike - Part 1

First of all, thanks so much to everyone for the phone calls, IMs, facebook messages and texts. We are doing okay - as a matter of fact we still haven't had any rain and its 8pm on Friday night. We've bought plenty of water and batteries and we are planning to sleep in our closet tonight. (its the only room in the house without windows and luckily its big enough to put our mattress in. Well, the downstairs powder room doesn't have windows but its not big enough to sleep in.) I spent the entire day yesterday cooking and baking so that we would have plenty to eat in case the power is out for several days.

We'll be turning off our cell phones except for emergency use probably sometime tonight but we will definitely let everyone know how we're doing.

FYI - i'm totally inept with these pictures. if anyone knows how to do this, send me an email with directions. : )

The week of waiting

Well, its been a long week of waiting...wait for the cable guy, wait for the refrigerator, wait for the cable guy again, wait for the washer and dryer, wait for the cable guy a third time....

The car (or F-unner as we call it) has finally arrived! So have the appliances which all seem to be working as well. Here are a few more pics of the rooms which are almost complete. The final pic is the ghetto rig we had going on until the new fridge arrived. More pictures as more rooms become presentable!

We have internet again!

Well, after a small debacle with comcast - we FINALLY have internet in the new house.  Sorry for the delay in posts...I know everyone wants pictures!  Below are a few pictures taken last week on my first day in the new house before any of our stuff arrived.  I'm having some trouble with the pictures so there will be more later.  

My first meal in the new house! haha 

BEFORE pics: 

The Kitchen - no fridge yet : ( 

Our living room.  

This room is open to the kitchen and breakfast nook as well.  

This is the bay window in our master bedroom. 

The study.  

There are windows on the other wall of this room as well that overlook the courtyard. 

OUR HOUSE...in the middle of our street...

Well, after a few false starts and a LOT of patience we finally closed on our new house!! 

Above you'll see pictures of the Title Company where Mike and I spent almost 3 hours signing papers yesterday (Texas, while having no income tax has a LOT of other stuff to deal with). 

You'll also see two attempts at self portraits of us outside the house.  

I'm headed out there today to clean and measure for some painting.  Our belongings should arrive tomorrow or Saturday!