Helping out

The first two Saturdays that we had back, were spent helping the community clean up. We had over 500 volunteer from the Austin Stake and ours out in the community in our yellow Mormon Helping Hands shirts. It was an extremely neat and humbling experience. I almost broke into tears several times just thinking about what we were doing. Most of the families in our stake were there helping others when they could have been working on their own yards. I had a chance to get out there and work with John. We were assigned a park that is near our house. It was a HUGE assignment and even though we worked from 9-5 we still had not cleaned it all up, but it looked so much better.

John and I had an opportunity to leave a few times to help some other people out. One family we went too didn't need help with branches or trees, but they needed help getting some of their furniture out of their house. The reason being an enormous tree had fallen through their 2 story making it impossible to live in. A beam had fallen on their stairway making it difficult to remove things from upstairs. The lady of the house was just amazing. She said that at least she will get to build her dream home surrounded by very few trees. ":)
After removing their fridge, oven, washer, dryer, and dishwasher, we asked if there was anything else and said our goodbyes. The women gave me a hug and again, I felt like crying. What a great example of hope this lady was. We only spent an hour there, but I felt like we had a bond, and I am so grateful for her and the opportunity I had to meet her.
Also during the power outages, our friends the Reynolds opened up their home to us (as well as a few others). They fed us and let us stay until late hours so we didn't have to sit in the dark. The Bergers also let me get to work early so I could take a warm shower. We were touched at how willing people were to share what they had. We have some great friends.
The experience has been good and things are starting to return to normal. We still don't have cable, and John got poison ivy from the clean up last Saturday, but it really has been a wonderful experience. We are very grateful for everything we have been blessed with and will hopefully never take for granted all the comforts we have been afforded. Our home is safe, and we are safe.
Here is a picture of the park that we helped clean. We'll get an after picture to put up next to it later.

This is a picture of a house down Yaupon that we thought was pretty unfortunate.

IKE

So we had a hurricane. We evacuated to Bartlesville Wednesday, September 10th. And we hung out there for about a week wondering what our house would look like when we got back. Today we have been in the house for 1 full year. We had just barely finished all the interior painting, and I was concerned our new roof wouldn't be there either. However, we were very fortunate.

Coming back into town we saw so many trees down. It was mainly branches everywhere, but it looked so sad. Not the clean town we're used to. We pulled up to the house and on either side of the street branches were piled up. It looked aweful. We pulled in and of course our garage door didn't work. We went the the back to check things out.

We had a tree fall down in the back on the power line and ruin our fence, but that was pretty much it. We didn't get power back until the next Thursday, September 25th. We bought a camping stove and lots of soup. John thought we should document the soup eating. We were very fortunate the first few days because it was nice and cool when we opened the windows at night. It started getting hot, and then I got sick, then John got sick, and after we finally bunked down with the Handly's for a night we got power back! It was very exciting. So these are the pictures!

First thing first!

So before I go into what has been happening the last several weeks, here are some pictures from the Triathalon Relay. We finished 24th in our division. John did great about 50 min. on the bike ride ( I asked somone and they figured an average biker would take about and hour and a half). Way To Go John! I make my 5K in about 36 min. Which isn't bad considering I hadn't ran in like 10 months! Here are the pictures.

The other ladies in the pictures are some of our good friends. Swimmer: Leah Thompson, and other runner: Elise Handly.

Oh, what to say.

I feel like there hasn't been much going on. I have a new calling...I am the new Young Women's President in our ward. It is kind of crazy because I was only a Young Women just a few short 6 years ago. There are 7 girls and they are really great. Hopefully I'll remember that I am the leader and not just one of the girls.
Other updates: my hair is no longer black. I decided to dye it lighter, which is actually not very easy. It worked out well because it happened around the time of Eduard and John and I were both not working. Which was good because I needed lots of help and it took all day. Apparently you have to strip your hair first, which turns it a lovely orange color. Stripping takes FOREVER and is not so great for your hair. Then we dyed it a more suitable color. It was very nerve wrecking and I was almost regretting it every step of the way, but it turned out ok. I'll post some pics here in a little bit.
Other things: John is working a project up in Houston. Which means he gets up at 5 and leaves a little before 6 and gets home a little after 6. So it's a pretty long day for him. I've been trying to be better at getting dinner ready and having the house clean. After his frist day I had Shasta Cream Soda and Hershey's almond toffee bites waiting for him. I really love my workin' man.
Oh yes! This weekend we are in a Triathalon Relay. Our friend Leah is swimming first, then Elise is running a 5k, then I'm running a 5k (hahahaha) and John is biking 15 miles. Sounds like fun huh? I tried running last night for the first time in...I can't actually think of the last time I ran, and it was aweful. I just hope John gets to start his bike ride. We'll give you more update after the race! :-)

Yummy Pretzels!

We've been meaning to put this recipe up for a long time. After the first time we tried it, John told me that he hoped I liked it because it was going to be a big part of our lives from then on, and it has.

We use it to make pretzels sometimes, but now we mainly use it for calzones. John makes the dough and I get everything ready, we spread on our toppings and fold them over, butter the top and put some garlic salt and Parmesan on the top and cook 'em. They are great!!! We also made mini pizza bites for Rook night. They were a big hit.

Here's the recipe. Now you can be creative too!

Soft Pretzels

Ingredients
2 cups Flour
2 ¼ tsp Yeast (or one packet)
1 Tbs Sugar
½ tsp Salt
¾ cups Warm Water
Vegetable Oil Spray
1 egg (optional) (We use butter!)
Coarse Salt (optional)

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Sprinkle a package of yeast onto ¾ cups of warm water. Add a tablespoon of sugar and stir. Let stand until mixture foams.
3. Put 2 cups of flour and ½ teaspoon of salt into a bowl. Add the yeast mixture and stir.
4. Sprinkle flour on the counter and knead the dough until it is smooth.
5. Roll pieces of dough into ropes and make shapes on cookie sheet lined with foil and sprayed with vegetable oil.
6. Melt some butter and brush pretzels with the butter and sprinkle with coarse salt (and whatever else you choose).
7. Put pretzels into the oven for about 15 minutes or until light brown.

The house is done!

Yesterday John and I finished painting our guest bathroom and it looks great! We got some new fixtures for the towels and toilet paper so it's looking very glam! We put a black and white photo in there that just makes it look that much better. We are very excited that we are finally done!

This past week has been exciting. We finished sanding, staining and sealing our new computer chair, and it feels great to be in a comfy seat sitting at the computer. I had found the chair at an antique store last November and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I couldn't find anything like it at the garage sales I went to either, so John let me buy it. It looks like a million bucks now. We're very proud.

Saturday after painting and fixing stuff, I decided that my roots were growing out so I decided to dye it back. I wanted to make sure to get it dark enough (more natural) so I left it on too long. I went to church today with jet black hair! Not really my thing. So it will be another color by next Sunday, hopefully a little lighter! People said they loved it, but every time I look in the mirror, it just looks weird. So of course we had to take a picture. Hopefully next week will be more relaxing!

Only one more room to go!

So this weekend we put the finishing touches on our middle bedroom/study. It has taken forever, I would not recommend doing horizontal stripes on extremely textured walls. But now that it's done, we're pretty proud. I'm sure we could do just about anything after this.


We found some fabric for the curtains. They weren't what I had in mind, but they work great for the study. When we make a baby room one of these days, I'll get to make them a little fancier (if we have girls).



Also, this week we finally got the handles for our refinished dresser. We had to order special handles because apparently they don't really make 64 mm handles anymore. The original handles were too curvy to sand and refinish. We've decided we like these better anyway. There is a picture of it in a previous post if you can't remember what it looked like before. We're very proud.



We are running out of projects to do on the inside of the house. We have only the bedroom to finish up and a few things to restain, and then we'll be about done, just in time to do fall yard work! Very exciting.

This weekend was super busy for us. It was John's day off so he hung out with me and Lucy and Lawren all day, and then we cont. to watch them while Derrick and Alisa went out with some friends. I have a great respect for all moms with more than one child. You are AMAZING! And that is all that I will say about that.

Because we were babysitting on Friday, we went to see the 11:59 showing of "The Dark Knight". It was a sea of High School students with potty mouths and the lingering smell of smoke. However, the show was good and it has given us much to talk about.

Then Saturday we went to dinner in Houston at P.F. Changs with the Handly's for Elise's birthday. It was really fun! Then we went back and played games.

Sunday John was playing the piano again in Sacrament Meeting (he did it last week too and now he's done) and I led the music (I was supposed to play but was not learning 3 new songs very quickly) and then we both gave talks. We also had the Handly's over for dinner...again to celebrate Elise's birthday. We love Elise! So our Sunday has been quite busy, and now, we are ready for bed! Good night!

Lots to catch up on!

A few weeks ago John and I found ourselves back in the state of Utah for John's sister Chelsea's wedding. Of course we forgot our camera, but if you would like to see pictures there are some posted on Paul and Molly's page as well as Jessica and Mikes page. It was so much fun to see everyone. We were sad to leave, and sad we did not get a chance to visit Provo again before we left. It seems like such a long time ago since we were at school there!

Parting with family and our cute neices and nephew was hard, but lo, and behold, we got to see them again about a week later when we went up to Bartlesville for Chelsea and Matt's Reception and for the Fourth of July. It was nice to see almost everyone again, and the fireworks were amazing!

Before we made it to Bartlesville, we stopped in Branson to see my parents who were relaxing in a Condo they found on hotels.com. What a great deal! And the best part of the Branson trip was that we got to go to Silver Dollar City. I grew up going to SDC and was excited about this trip for a while and told John all about how great and exciting it was. John, thank goodness, was not disappointed. He enjoyed the atmosphere and we had a great time riding the rides! Fortunately my mother took some pictures, so you get to see how much fun we did have.

Me and John in a HUGE rocking chair.

John making creepy noises with a very hairy owl puppet

John got the Raccoon skin, while I got the Skunk. :-P

Us with my dad

Me with my mom

My visit to Oklahoma

So when John visited China, I went to Bartlesville for about a week. Here are some pictures I took while I was there. See if you can tell where they are. :-)

I couldn't get these to turn. Bummer huh?

Our House

So we have been informed that some of our family haven't seen actual pictures of our house, so this is what it looks like now. We just finished the guest room and have started picking out colors for our study. So this is the House!

This is the front room

The breakfast/dining area

The Kitchen!
Our finished bedroom (almost) John let me buy that beautiful picture of the SL Temple with the red leaves. It will be prefect!

The Study. You can see we have been testing som colors in there. This will also be the baby room when that happy day finally happens!

The new guest room

This is the desk I refinished. Isn't it great!!!
So that is pretty much our house! We would like to welcome all who are willing to spend time in good 'ol Texas!

We had guests!!

So Jessica, Mike, Benson, Grace and Sabrina all came to visit us Memorial Day weekend and it was great! We had a really full day on Friday. John had the day off so he went with us to the Sea Center to check out the fish. We missed the feeding but they got to touch some of the fish. We also went to the beach and played in the water.

Saturday morning before they left, I got to take some pictures of John playing with his nieces and nephew. Yes it is what it looks like. They are playing fetch, with some of our tennis balls. What a great uncle!!! :-) We loved having them visit.

John in China --Yes STILL!

Since I'm not very good at getting pictures and words to work really well on the page, I'll just post some pictures of John's fun adventures in China.