Houston Zoo

So even though we've only been here 3 full days, we've fit a lot in! Sunday we went to a Baptism party for one of Mike and Erin's friends and today we went to the Houston Zoo! It was FREEZING outside, with wind gusts of over 10 mph, but we still managed to have a great time. As you can see, my cute little nephew, Gabriel, was bundled up! Unfortunately, many of the animals were inside (we should have taken the hint). After a wonderful hour and a half, we were ready to head home for hot tea and a fire! Enjoy the pics and I'll try to write again soon!

New Orleans comes to a close...

Since my lovely sister-in-law referenced my blog in her post, I figured I'd better write a new entry :) It's hard to believe we've been in New Orleans for almost two months and our time to leave is drawing near. It's been such an incredible time to visit with ALL of Chris' family (his mom's entire side and almost all of his father's). We have also been able to catch up with old friends and enjoy some of the joys the Crescent city has to offer. I went to Cafe du Monde twice, walked through the French Market, swung by Audubon Park, and enjoyed some of the great night life. Chris and I had plenty of delicious seafood and enjoyed the heck out of his fathers cooking. God even blessed me with a job for this month, with awesome coworkers and a great place to spend time. Most importantly, we got to build on our relationships with his immediate family, especially after having lived away for so long. The time we spent here will always be so special to us, and we look forward to coming back for the big Mardi Gras weekend.

For now, we are heading on to our next adventure. Houston should prove to be equally as special, in getting to know my wonderful brother and sister-in-law, Mike and Erin, and their 13 month old son, Gabriel. We are looking forward to helping any way we can and getting to know their much-bragged-about Houston friends! This week is packing week, and we'll head up this weekend. For now, I'm off to play a rousing game of Settlers of Catan with my other brother and sister-in-law, Nick and Shell, and Chris. My brother, Trent, got us hooked, and we can't seem to stop! Have a great night, all, and I hope to post pictures later!

October, November, December Pictures :)

My mom and I cheering on the Saints versus the 49ers for Monday Hawaiian afternoon football

Congratulations Dr. Dupuy!

Blue Angels air show, AWESOME!

Chris and I reminiscing at Dolly's Dairy Bar in Brevard, NC

Beautiful Autumn Blue Ridge Parkway

Yahtzee (my parent's cat) is his favorite sitting position :)

October, November, December... Finally!!!

So here's a new post, finally! So many of you have asked, and I am finally sitting down to let y'all know what has been going on in our lives since September.

At the end of September, I drove to Greenville, SC by myself then flew to Hawaii to celebrate my brother's graduation with his PhD. My mom and I were able to see his dissertation defense and put on a party for him for his friends down there. We had Gumbo and lots of other delicious food. We even got to see the Blue Angels air show with the beautiful Oahu mountains in the background... it was awesome! Congratulations, Dr. Dupuy!

From there, I flew back to Greenville, and recovered from the time change after a few days :) Chris had already started his Critical Care rotation at the Greenville Hospital System and was enjoying living with our friends, the Geracs. We were blessed to be able to stay with such an awesome family and share their life with their three beautiful children. Their oldest is 8, second oldest is 5 and the baby of the family is about 19 months. While there, Chris worked a good bit, but we were able to help them with the kids and do some cooking in their outdoor kitchen. We enjoyed grilling and the beautiful South Carolina weather! Towards the end of the month, we all went up to the Blue Ridge Parkway for a little bit of sightseeing around Devil's courthouse. We then headed back down to Dolly's for ice cream, which was even better than I remembered, YUM! Chris and I also had the pleasure of joining our very good friend Lindsay Imhoff for an LSU game in Charlotte, NC. She was doing a rotation there for October. As always, we were sad to leave, but excited for our next adventure.

On Halloween weekend, we headed through New Orleans (to see Chris' family) to get to Lafayette for Nick's (Chris' 16 year old brother) race that Saturday. We barely caught the race (due to a crazy spill on the basin) but saw the end and enjoyed Po-Boys after, yum! Chris and I were blessed to spend the rest of the weekend with Katie and Paige Rees and family (of L'Angelus http://www.cajunrecords.com) for the first time in a very long time! (probably before the wedding!) After catching up, we headed to Shreveport for Chris' Anesthesiology rotation in Shreveport, LA with Dr. Lex Hubbard. Chris had such a wonderful rotation with Dr. Hubbard at Willis Knighton that it solidified his decision to pursue Anesthesiology as his specialty. We are blessed and so excited that Chris has found the area of medicine that truly makes him happy and excited for his future career.

While he enjoyed going to work, I enjoyed helping my parents with various project around the house. We completely reorganized both of our their garages and installed some pegboard for better organization in the future. Chris helped in his spare time, and we were really able to help them out with stuff that has been needing to be done for years. We even got to use a power washer, my new favorite power tool!! Needless to say, it was great to spend time with my parents. It was also wonderful to have Trent home for Thanksgiving for the first time in 7 years! We enjoyed watching football for the first time on Thanksgiving (Saintsgiving so to speak) and loved eating a ton of delicious Thanksgiving food. We also shared the holiday with our cousins, the LaBorde's.

After our last week in Shreveport, we headed over to Dallas to see our cousin's and their parents. We enjoyed a lot of great Dallas food and hospitality. We even met up with a friend of Chris' for the Saints game, where the restaurant had a whole room reserved for the game. It was great, as there were 30 fans there, and it felt almost like we were at the stadium toward the end, with chants and cheers and high fives. It was fun!!

After we returned from Dallas, we celebrated Chris' birthday with my family, said our "farewell's for now," and headed on down to New Orleans. And that brings me to today! Chris just returned from a fun guys weekend on a houseboat in the Atchafalaya Basin, and we are about to have some delicious home-cooked rotisserie roast prepared by the one and only Zip Franco. We are prepared to cheer on the Saints and enjoy a glorious Gaudete Sunday. Happy Advent and I will try to post again sooner rather than later! Pictures will follow this post... Geaux Saints!

P.S. Happy early birthday to my honey, who turns 27 tomorrow! So glad he was born! :)

Jacksonville and Do-It-Yourself Projects with the Saturn

Well, we've made it to Jacksonville! Actually, we arrived a week ago, but I guess I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. It's been a great week for us here. The Benson's (our host family here and friends of my parents in Shreveport when I was a kid) have been extremely hospitable and welcoming, so we've had fun! Chris started his Internal Medicine rotation at Shands Jacksonville Medical Center on Monday. He's enjoying the hospital and the rotation so far. One week down, three more to go! This picture below is of us moving our stuff from Fort Lauderdale to here. So much, it's amazing it all fit in our two cars! (That's not even all of it)


Since I've had some free time on my hands (still no sign of a temp job here), I decided to do some work on my 99' Saturn. I didn't take any before pictures, kicking myself for that, but here are some during and after pictures. The most important thing to do was to repair the headliner (that was hanging down on our heads, it was so bad). Taking some confidence from a friend of mine that had done his successfully, I decided I'd try it. After many online tutorials, I managed to get the steps right. First, as shown below, I took out the dash board.


Next, I took apart all the pieces that held it to the ceiling, the door liners, sun visors, and handles. Chris helped me wiggle it out, and as you can see, it's a mess.

After easily peeling the old fabric off, I took that small broom and swept all the old glue/foam off. I even used a shop vac to make sure all the little particles were gone.


After that was done, I just got the fabric from JoAnn Fabrics and some 3M 90 Spray adhesive and went to work.


After the top was glued down, I went to work to trim the edges to get it on. It's very similar to wrapping a cake in fondant, so I liked it :) I also took an exacto knife to the little holes in the top to cut them out.


And this is the final product! Now, to just get it back into the car...


Thankfully, my loving husband helping me, and we got it in in a jiffy. I simply snapped everything back into place and we were ready to go!


Well, of course except for the fact that that was only one thing I wanted to get done on the car. Then, I washed, clay bricked, and waxed for a gorgeous, like new finish! As you might not be able to see, I also took off my windshield wipers and refinished them. Mrs. Ellen helped me by sanding the rust off, then I painted them with black spray paint. Looking pretty good!

But that's not all! THEN, I restored the headlights to their original sheen, or should I say, the plastic casing. It was old and yellow and cloudy on the left headlight (still not perfect, but looking good) and just cloudy on the other one. The kit involves sanding with different grits then polishing, then buffing, but it's worth it! They look great and should greatly improve the vision at night.



And that's it for now! It was a great project, and I look forward to making the Nissan as good as new as well. Thanks for reading, and I'll keep you posted on any adventures to come!

Last weeks in "paradise"...

Hello all!
Well, as I write this entry, I am a bit sad in thinking of leaving our friends here in our South Florida "home." Thankfully, we've had a great last month here! The pictures are from our deep sea fishing trip and sort of going away dinner yesterday. The first picture is of our friends Marla and Kyle, generously offering their home as ours these last few weeks. It sure has been fun! Next, Lindsay and I enjoy the last part of our fishing trip (although we caught nothing) and we see a NASA boat off on a mission. Nine of us on the trip and only two fish! Unbelievable! But, it was still a lot of fun. After passing out for the afternoon, we got ready for a scrumptious appetizer filled dinner. Marla made a delicious Mango Black Bean Salsa, Man Dip (lots of meat), and gourmet mini sandwiches. I made a pecan pie and bruschetta (deeelish!). Lindsay did a great taco salad and peanut butter pie mini cheesecakes. The picture is of Marla, Lindsay, and me enjoying watching Peter defeat Super Mario Bros. It was a good night with good friends and fun!

July Adventures!

Finally I'm getting around to posting! Sorry it's been so long, but it was a busy month! We left Fort Lauderdale June 30th and headed to New Orleans. We enjoyed a wonderful week and half with The Franco's, topped off with Jeff and Jacki's wedding. Congratulations, newest Franco's! It was an absolute blast and was wonderful to see everyone again!! The picture of us with Michelle, Michael, and Erin was at the beautiful Rehearsal Dinner in Covington. Since we didn't have a lot to do the day of the wedding, we decided to head next door to Books-a-Million where Drew Brees was signing copies of his book, Coming Back Stronger. We were so excited, and although they closed the store, we could still wave from the front window! Maybe next time...

Right after the wedding, we headed up to Shreveport to spend time with the Dupuy's. We enjoyed relaxing a bit after the wedding craziness, as well as spending quality time with my folks. We played Saints Monopoly (even my father, who hates sports!), read books for fun (Chris really loved that), and celebrated our one year anniversary (albeit one month late) with our cake topper and Vernor's. Perfect (It even still tasted very good)! We divided the Shreveport trip by going up to Gatlinburg, TN with The Franco's. Shell went to running camp, so it was Mr. Zip, Ms. Mignon, Nick, Chris, and me. We had a blast!! The first day, we went hiking to see Hen's Wallaw Falls, a full 4.1 mi round trip! After 2 hours, we finally got to what we dubbed "Leaky Faucet Falls" :) It was a total dud for a 2 mi in trek, but at least we had fun! Picture is included, and although it may look like an awesome waterfall, it's really just a photo illusion :) The next day, we decided to take it easy at the condo. We played mini golf and headed to the outlet malls for some good shopping. Wednesday, we went to a water park and enjoyed the lazy river, wave pool, and Turbo Twister waterslide (or whatever it was called)! What a grand time! That night we headed to the Dixie Stampede, a fantastic show where you eat tons of country food and enjoy a choreographed horse show about the South vs the North!

After stuffing ourselves, it was hard to get up the next day to go to Cade's Cove. It's a small valley where you take a scenic road and see a bunch of old houses from the 1800's. We also saw a momma bear and her three cubs as well as lots of deer. That's where the deer photo and the one of us with the fancy old car are from. We also enjoyed a day in scenic old downtown Gatlinburg and a place they call OberGatlinburg. You take a large tram on a ski lift all the way to the top of a mountain. The picture of me with the Franco's is in the tram... it's a long way down!! That's also where Chris, Nick, and I ice skated for almost 2 hours! Within 20 minutes I looked like Super Girl tripping and diving straight into the ice, and almost busted my face, but it was well worth the effort! We also took the small ski lifts (the picture of Chris and me) up to "bobsled" down this cement track. Chris and Nick raced, and although I went very slow, I still saw plenty of action, in the form of a 3 foot long black snake right next to the track! As close to nature as I would like to ever come again. Whew! Throughout the vacation, we enjoyed the hot tub every night, celebrated Chris' fathers birthday and even played Saints Monopoly, this time with Nick. We really enjoyed each other and made memories to last a lifetime!

Upon returning to Shreveport, we celebrated my father's birthday! We had a little time to gather our things before heading back to New Orleans for the final trip back to Florida. We enjoyed two sweltering mornings of Saints training camp, and even got some autographs to take home! Who knows why we went through it twice -- I guess we just love the Saints that much (and were hoping for a second shot at a Drew Brees autograph)! The photo is with the actual Lombardi trophy, exciting! We celebrated Mr. Zips birthday again, this time with the addition of the newlyweds, Michelle, and fried catfish, yum!! (no wonder I gained more weight in Louisiana - wish I could have left it there!) As always, we loved the time spent with family, especially after living away for so long! Currently, we are back in South Florida temporarily before heading to Jacksonville for September. So, my apologies for this post being extremely long, but I hope you all enjoyed the update!

Key West

Well, Key West was BEAUTIFUL and a wonderful way to celebrate our anniversary! I've included a nice array of pictures from our adventure. We left early Saturday morning and got a full two days in! On Saturday, we toured the streets and enjoyed the Key West culture. We did a sunset cruise with a live band for dinner and then enjoyed Sloppy Joe's nightlife afterward. On Sunday, we got up early and went to Mass at Our Lady Star of the Sea. It was a beautiful church! Soon afterward, we went on a jetski tour around the whole island... 27 miles and it was awesome!

Needless to say, it was well worth the trip, even if it was a week late :)

Soon after, however, we began the packing experience yet again! I finished up at The Little Gym, and began to divide our things into "need for a year" or "see you in a year!" After many hours of work and a day of jury duty (for me), we finally left on Wednesday for New Orleans. It was such a joy to be back in the beautiful Louisiana. For now, we're enjoying the Franco's and a little time for fun while Chris gets ready to take boards on Tuesday in Baton Rouge. Any prayers sent our way for that will be greatly appreciated! We can't wait for the Franco-Trew wedding next week and all the family fun ahead! Thanks for reading, and I'll update y'all again soon!

Happy Anniversary!

Well, we've been married one year, and are still crazy about each other, so I recommend this whole marriage thing! Chris is the best husband I ever could have asked for, and we're excited to be starting year two :) On to less mushy things...

So we've moved for the second time, and it was a bit easier. Seems we've figured out even more things we thought we needed, but we really don't. The trip back to LA on July 1st shouldn't be nearly as hard as it could've been. I am thankful, however, that we both feel called to this lifestyle, because we could not have made it without God's help! There have been moments, especially in the last couple of days, where we just look around at all the boxes and laugh out loud to each other at the craziness we've chosen! I am also very grateful for the genes my father donated to me, allowing me to pack tons of things into small spaces! Thanks Poppa!

Other than settling in with some other good friends of ours (generous to allow us to live in their beautiful home), Chris is studying and I'm trying to gear up for the months ahead with my dwindling work schedule. Life is good and we are blessed! Enjoy the couple of pictures of us taking in a beautiful sunset at Fort Lauderdale beach on our anniversary. Looking forward to the more elaborate celebration this weekend!

Memorial Day in Fort Myers

Here are some pics from our recent trip to Fort Myers. I finally got to see a West Coast sunset and explore the gulf! It was a lot of fun, and very nice to finally visit Myles instead of him always coming here! In the last picture, you MIGHT be able to see the dolphin fins on the far right. I know they were super far away, but I was excited nonetheless! We are trying to live it up as much as we can before we leave the beautiful sunshine state. Enjoy and I'll hopefully be posting again soon!