Lake Livingston

I was overdue for another camping trip, so a few of us went the week before Thanksgiving out at Lake Livingston.

We got to have a fire this time and it was fantastic. I really like this shot, by the way. In the photo we have Brock and Kristen.

We decided not to set up a tent. Instead, we set out Wendy's GINORMOUS tarp for us to put our blow-up mattresses on while the food was cooking. It was just the four of us out there.

We made the tin foil dinners at Brock's house before we left, and just cooked them in the fire once we had some nice coals.

They were very delicious! :)

Here's our sleeping situation in the next day's light.

We had lots of delicious things for breakfast including some bread that Wendy had baked. She came up with the craziest sandwich I'd ever seen. It was her homemade bread with almond butter and and LARGE piece of banana. It was humorous to watch her eat it.

Wendy also brought some delicious honey crisp apples. We were pretty full by this point so Brock was kind enough to half the apples with his handy hatchet.

We all went on a little walk after breakfast down to the lake. There were quite a few trees that had fallen and Brock decided to show his balance by going out on one.

Wendy joined him out there, but it looked a little too perilous for me!

Here's the "getting on" point. We just relaxed out there that afternoon. The weather was beautiful!

Weekend of Wendy

I had a fantastic weekend and most of the events centered around Wendy's birthday. Her actual birthday was on Friday, November 5th.

This first one doesn't fit with the others, but I didn't want to do a whole post for this one. Katherine, Julie, and I went bowling at Main Event last Monday night. We also played some pool - cut throat. It was a great time. I miss having Julie around. Sadly, we didn't take many pictures, but I really like this one!

My first order of business on Friday night after a SUPER FUN time at my co-worker's house was to host a long overdue ping pong tournament since both Jared and Julie were in town. It was a long and hard fought tournament, but Julie and I were the last two standing. I borrowed some pictures from Wendy for the showdown. Here's an action shot of Julie.

Good return by me . . .

Julie was getting stressed (OK, so was I) so Katherine helped us out with some quick chops to the back.

I'm pretty nervous here . . .

. . . but not as nervous as Julie.

One of the final shots.

You can see from the brackets - well, you can't really see, but I WON! Julie started to write my name for the winner, but let her true feelings show. She was pretty mad that she didn't win.
We had some tres leches cake for dessert. I tried my hand at making it from scratch. I got the recipe from my awesome cousins, Claudia and Dannen. I forgot to take a picture of it, so I got this one off the Internet. It turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Wendy decided to stay on my side of town Friday night. She talked me into sleeping outside with her. I was a little nervous because it got down to like 39 degrees that night, but I bundled up so much that I was actually hot! I slept great!

We really enjoyed Saturday's weather. Wendy, Jen, and I went on a bike ride in Kingwood. It was so amazing!

Later that night, I had people over to celebrate Wendy's birthday. We had Navajo Tacos and watched Jurassic Park. Before the movie, Kim's brother Chris had some entertainment for us. He did several card and other magic tricks that were actually really good.

Mauren even stopped by for a little bit. I was a little shocked when I looked back at this picture. Can I not get away from guys making ridiculous faces in pictures? You might need to click on this picture to make it bigger so you can get the full effect.

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Here's some video of Chris doing a card trick and attempting to "levitate." I know it has the picture of Jared on the player, but it's not that golfing video!

Becca brought her brother too. It was a fun little group. Both guys played the guitar for us as well. You can't beat that!

Bathroom Decorating

At our school we had a bathroom decorating competition. It recently ended so everything's finally done. I went around and took video of all of them for your enjoyment.

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Elementary teachers sure are creative!

Fry't Night

Last night was so much fun. We had a party at Katherine's house. It was a Halloween/birthday party. Saturday was Katherine's birthday, so we were celebrating hers as well as Julie's birthdays.

I was lucky enough to show up with these 3 guys. Brock was a Rogaine salesman, Shane was an HOV lane (looking for a passenger) and Nate was Mr. T!

Nate's costume was incredible. He spent hours getting ready and was pretty much unrecognizable.

I thought Katherine's costume was super creative and cute. She was a refrigerator magnet.

I was wife #2 in this little arrangement. I thought it was hilarious. I got to use my pregnant belly again from last year. I don't know if you can see the poof in the front of my hair, but I also had it braided down the back. Kristin's uni-brow cracks me up.

I thought Jason and Autumn looked amazing at GI Joe toys! I got there a little late so they were tired of posing, but they'd pose like the little plastic toys.

Aaron and Chantal looked great as well!

Julie's parents made amazing pirates.

Kim and Becca

Tatum & Mauren

I couldn't resist taking this shot of Nate's bling.

I was mixing up some batter and Jared caught this picture of me. It was pretty fitting. It also shows more of my hair. It was nice not wearing any make-up to a party too! :)

Here's Jared's close-up.

You'll notice the title of this post is called "Fry't night." We combined this with a fry party. People brought tons of stuff to fry. These at the top of the picture are oreos. I also tried snickers, pickles, jalepeno poppers, and cheese. Too good, but too bad!!!

This is the fryer set-up. There were two types of batters as well - pancake batter for the sweet stuff and regular fry batter for the rest.

Katherine had a movie set up in her garage too.

Julie was a cowgirl and Nikki was the Octomom. She was hilarious!

Here's a better shot of Brock. He used his work name badge for the before shot and he got this Donald Trump wig for the after. I thought it was pretty creative.

Kath's sister Alicia was "Shrimp on the Barbie." I loved this one. :)

Here we have more Dalmations with Cruella.

Nate was trying to sign a card for Julie and this is how he was bending down! He definitely won for the best costume!

As if all this wasn't enough, there was also sumo wrestling and a fire in the backyard. You can't beat it!

Camping

I was excited to go on my first camping trip of the season! It's been awhile! I was getting pretty nervous because the weather's been REALLY warm lately, but we got a cool front that rolled in just in time for the weekend.

It actually got quite cold Friday night. I think it got down into the high 40s or low 50s. The bad part about this camping trip is that it's been pretty dry so there was a fire ban. Kath's lantern did not really keep us warm. I love this shot of Katherine was majorly bundled up.

We camped at this really cool spot just off of Lake Conroe. Katherine brought her canoe so we had some fun with that.

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My favorite was Jared trying to hit the girls in the canoe with golf balls.

It was just a few of us - Wendy, Katherine, Julie, me, and these two lovebirds - Jared and Kristin. We took lots of pictures with Jared's camera. I'll have to get some of those to put on here.

Julie's Back!!!

Julie's back for a couple of weeks for a visit. Sadly, we don't get to keep her her whole off season since she's living in Portland this winter.

Anyway, it was Red Ribbon Week this last week at school so we had some dress-up days. Monday was a cowboy day so I was wearing a hat. Earlier Monday evening, Wendy took me out to dinner for my half birthday (nice, right?) and I hadn't even had time to change out of my hat for that. After dinner, I decided to go see Julie since she'd gotten that day. I felt a little sheepish wearing my hat over there so I texted to let her know that I was wearing one. When I walked into the Martin's living room, this is what I saw!

I couldn't stop laughing! Those Martin's are hilarious! We had to do some poses in the hats.

Howdy!

Here's Julie's hat pose!

I was back over at their house on Wednesday for Julie's 30th birthday. She's showing her muscles holding that heavy, but very delicious birthday cake.

Classic Julie face. I think Jared made some remark to her just as she was about to blow out the candles.

She got them out on the first try.

Katherine was the faithful ice cream scooper.