The Girls

My girlfriends from high school have remained close even though we all went in different directions after graduation. We try to get together a few times a year, and Christmas is always the most important gathering! I love these girls!

Christmas in Austin

We went to Austin this past weekend for our annual Christmas get together for my Dad's side of the family. We had a great time playing Spoons, doing a White Elephant gift exchange and eating a LOT of food! Andres and I got great gifts! (SATC dvd and the Colbert book!)

We just can't get enough of Madelynn

We don't get to see the Castillo family very often, so we are getting a full dose of Maddie-cuteness while they are in town! They came over to our house for dinner tonight and to exchange gifts. :) It was a blasty-blast!

Meet Miss Maddie!

We finally got to meet our niece Maddie! My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are in town for a few days and we had a wonderful time hanging out with them tonight! Maddie is just too cute for words! I wish they lived closer so that we could spend more time with them.

GO TEXANS!!

I won tickets to the Texas vs Titans game at work! :) The seats were great and best of all, the TEXANS WON! Parking was a nightmare, and it rained off and on during the game, but other than that we had a blast!

Breakfast with Santa

I am on the board of directors for our neighborhood's HOA. We have 2 big activities each year - a huge 4th of July party and Breakfast with Santa! Breakfast with Santa is so much fun! Volunteers serve breakfast (fruit, sausage, and freshly made pancakes!), kids can take their picture with Santa, write letters to Santa, make a craft, jump in one 0f 3 moonwalks, ride the train, and play in the (manmade) snow! In order to get in, each child needed to bring an unwrapped gift. The gifts go the the Brazoria County Women's Shelter so that the children who have to spend their Christmas in the shelter, will have toys to open on Christmas morning. We also asked people to bring new sheets, towels, and blankets. For someone living in a shelter, somethimg as simple as a brand new set of sheets, just for them, means a lot. I didn't get a lot of pics, because I was manning the "Dear Santa" table, but here's a few!

Snow!!

It snowed in Houston yesterday! It was fantastic! The entire drive home from work I felt like I was in a snowglobe and someone kept shaking it up! I tried to take some pics, but it was already dark by the time I got home.

Ruby says, "Snow Rocks!"

Here's a pic of the Christmas lights pre-snow. Andres thinks we need more lights....

One of my friends had an "Ugly Sweater Party" this past Saturday. I didn't get my act together in time to put together an outfit, but the rest of the attendees went all out! It was a blast!

First post!

Welcome to my blog! This is my first post and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, or if I will even be able to keep up with this blog beyond the first post! We'll see how it goes.... I really just wanted a place to organize my thoughts, pictures, plans, recipes, etc, and a blog seemed like a good place for all of that! I'm sure it will become much more exciting once we have kids...but that's several years down the road! I'll be a blogging pro by that time!

I'm a married, 20-something professional in Texas. We have a wonderful little dog named Ruby, and she lights up my world!