Spring Planting

We took advantage of the beautiful spring weekend to do some landscaping around our yard. Our house had quite a bit of landscaping already, but there wasn't any color at all so we tried to fill in some places and plant some things that will bloom.

Here is the before and after of one side of the front flower bed.

Before:

After: The green hedge bush in the middle is from the backyard; hopefully it will survive the transplant! We planted one new bush and we planted several perennials (columbine, lenten rose) behind the monkey grass that will bloom later this spring.

Monkey grass is a personal favorite of hers.

Here is a before shot of the flower bed at the back of our house. We moved the two living bushes to the beds in the front and pulled out the dead stuff. We planted three double knock-out rose bushes in that area-- two red and one pink.

One of our new rosebushes: We have a row of crape myrtles along our side fence in the backyard and we wanted to plant some colorful shrubs in the space in between. We went with azaleas and camellias. The bushes are small now, but they should grow to be 4' wide by 5' tall.
Camellias bloom in the winter, and here's a picture of the last flower that remains.

The azaleas bloom spring, summer and fall, and here's a picture of the first bloom that has appeared.

It was a lot of work to prepare the beds, till the soil, dig the holes, and plant everything--- probably a lot more work than it looks like it would be judging from these pictures. Everything looks really good, though, and we're crossing our fingers that we can keep everything alive! We're looking forward to a few years from now when the things that we've planted have grown and filled out.

Unfortunately, we ran into some trouble when we went to work on the flowerbed on the left side of the front of our house. We had noticed that area hadn't been draining well but as we started stepping in and raking that side, it became clear that we had a bit of a water problem. The flowerbed is the consistency of mulch soup and there is an expansive puddle in the grass.

There are a few things that could be responsible. It could be a clogged gutter that caused too much of the recent rains to dump on that spot, a leak/brake in the sprinkler system, or a busted waterline underground. Hopefully it's not the latter. We peeked into the crawl space and there isn't any water under the house, thank goodness. Kolby is going to check things out tomorrow and probably call out a sprinkler repairman or plumber. If anyone has any ideas of what may be going on here... we're always open to the idea of not having to pay someone to come out and fix something!

So that's our weekend in a nutshell. Kolby and I have been working opposite schedules lately-- he's been teaching SAT classes from 4-9ish so we only see each other for 1-2 waking hours on any given day-- so it was really nice to spend some time doing something together!

"Are you our sub?"

Here's a glimpse of a typical day of substitute teaching for Kolby.

"Are you our sub?"

"How tall are you?"

"How old are you?"

"21?"

"Do you play basketball?"

"6'5"?"

"Are you married?"

"Is Ms. Schmidt sick?"

"Are you still in college?"

"What are we doing today?"

"What's your first name?"

"36?"

"Is it Kobe like Kobe Bryant?"

"Is your wife hot?"

"Are you on Facebook?"

"6'7"?"

"What do we do when we're finished?"

"How hot on a scale of 1-10?"

"Do you have kids?"

"Can I get a drink of water?"

"45?"

"Do you have a picture of her?"

"How much do you get paid?"

"Do you want kids?"

"27?"

"Can you help me?"

"How much longer til lunch?"

"Do you want to be a real teacher?"

Snow Day

I'm sure everyone heard about the record-setting snowfall we had on Thursday. We got more than 12" at our house. It was nuts. Here are a few pictures.

This was the front of our house. The branches to our magnolia tree that are usually 6' off the ground were resting on the lawn. The weight of all the snow took a toll on all of the trees.Our street. The trees in our backyard. I got to work from home on Friday and all of the schools were closed so Kolby was at home, too. The snow was beautiful while it lasted and it was great to have a surprise snow day!

Reformed

This post is all about Maya, so it won’t be interesting to many of you. But although she weighs only 33 pounds, she’s a big part of our family and thus deserves some face time here on our family blog!

Maya has come such a long way. When we adopted her, she was a 1-3 year old stray dog who had never had a home. She was also VERY, VERY sick and nearly died just days after we picked her up; in fact, the emergency vet told us that if we hadn’t brought her in the morning that we did, she wouldn’t have made it through the day. I’ll spare you the graphic details of her condition and surgery. After several weeks of recovery, Maya transformed into the happiest, healthiest, and most well-mannered dog on the face of the planet (biased? nah.)

We always say that the reason she is so sweet and obedient is because she’s grateful. Or just happy to be alive. I’m OK with either.

The list of Maya’s positive attributes is long: she doesn’t bark, whine, lick, jump, beg, smell, scratch, or violate personal space…. and she loves all people and all dogs and has no health issues whatsoever. HOWEVER, she’s always had one awful flaw--- she runs away. Most of that is her husky nature, but a lot of it comes from the fact that she was a stray for so long. If a door is left open and she sneaks out of the house, she runs away and doesn’t come back. We’ve lost her multiple times, and twice we’ve lost her overnight. One of the hardest parts of searching for her is that we’ll sometimes spot her and she just looks like a stray again. She doesn’t respond to her name and she just paces around the streets like she doesn’t belong anywhere. It is heartbreaking. She eventually gets tired or thirsty, and she approaches someone in their yard who then gets our number off her tag and gives us a call.

All this to say, I am so very happy to report that Maya has finally quit running away! We’ve always said that time is all that she needs to break this awful habit, and I think we were right. We’ve trained her that she is no allowed to go out either door in our house without sitting first and then being invited out. It’s been two solid years of reinforcing this routine, and she’s now mastered it. She knows that she can’t just go out an open door, even if it blows open right in front of her. This has happened several times at our new house and we’ve walked in the room to find Maya sitting in front of a wide open door waiting for permission to go out. Even more impressive than that, our driveway gate has blown open several times and Maya has either stayed in the backyard on her own or has wandered into a neighbor’s yard but responded to her name and came right home when we called her. Just yesterday, Kolby was inside doing schoolwork and Maya was in the backyard when the gate blew open again. Maya apparently went next door and started playing with our neighbor and her two young children in their backyard. The neighbor simply called her name and Maya followed her back into our yard. Isn’t that the most normal dog thing ever? Get out, go play next door where the action is, willingly come home when you’re called. This is so huge for us! Maya is finally a “normal” dog who knows where she belongs and doesn’t feel compelled to dash away at the speed of light as soon as an opportunity presents itself. She has a sense of home now, which is very counter-intuitive for huskies.

We’re very proud of her and VERY relieved that the days of chasing a runaway dog are hopefully behind us (fingers crossed!).

January

I once made a commitment to update this blog at least once a month. So, despite the fact that there is NOTHING of interest going on with us... I shall come up with something nonetheless. I can't promise you'll find it interesting.

The past month has come with several additions for us. First, we added a new car to the family. Kolby bought a used Toyota Corrolla several weeks ago:

We just had one car (my Camry) when we were in Waco, but my parents let us borrow Russell's old Hyundai for the past several months since we needed a second car but wanted some more time to save up for one (thanks again, Mom & Dad!). The Hyundai wasn't keen on producing heat in cold weather, so it worked out well that we were able to get Kolby his own car after only a few days of frigidly cold morning commutes.

We also added some new patio furniture to our back deck. We bought it used off Craig's List and I had to paint it black, which turned into a much more involved and frustrating process than I had anticipated. That seems to be true for most of the work that we've done in or around our house. I can't even remember doing a project without at some point saying, "OK, so next time we'll know not to....". We saved a couple hundred dollars by buying this set used as opposed to new, but I learned that saving money is never worth it if it involves spray painting thin metal patio furniture! It turned out OK and we look forward to using it as soon as it warms up a bit.

On December 30, our extended family had an 8lb 2oz addition to the brood! My cousin Trish had her third precious little blonde baby. Her name is Laura, and I got to hold her for 3 hours and would have taken her home with me if she didn't have that dang hospital security bracelet on. I don't have any pictures of her, but this is as good of an excuse as any to post this precious shot of Kolby and Jackson, who became a big brother just a few days after this picture was taken. Check out Trish's blog to see pictures of sweet Laura. And finally, Christmas brought some wonderful additions to our bedroom decor. I got some awesome curtains from Santa (who shopped at Pier 1, smart guy!) and they made our whole bedroom come together. Check out the difference that 1 day of decorating can make.

Before: After:
Here's what the curtains look like up close:
It makes the room night-and-day better. The pictures make the wall color look tan, but they are actually what I would call "baby poop brown" and the curtains help tie in the color and it now looks really pretty.

Other than the new additions, not much else is going on here. Kolby has been working a lot of evenings and weekends teaching SAT classes the past 2 weeks. I'm not sure what I do while he's gone. Last weekend I went to Oklahoma with my three best friends to visit our other best friend that lives there. We had such a great time together, and we got to celebrate with Jessica and her husband over the news that they are expecting a baby!!!

I'll wrap this up with a link to the website my mom set up to document the progress of their ranch. The place is completely finished now and my mom just put up a bunch of new pictures. We actually drove down there at midnight on Sunday because it was a clear night and Kolby's obsession with looking at planets and such with my dad's telescope continues to be alive and well.

Kolby just got home and we have our NBC date night on Thursdays, so I'm off to watch some darn good TV :)

Our Christmas

We had a most wonderful Christmas this year. It snowed all day on Christmas Eve and it was beautiful. It made for the first white Christmas since 1926 here. I think we ended up with over 2" at our house and it certainly made the place look a lot like Christmas!

We spent the Christmas weekend with Kolby's family. Kason & Sarah came up from Houston and Kassidy was home from UT. Kolby's grandparents were also in town, so we had quite the gathering! It was a lot of fun to spend so much time together and we had a great time playing games, watching movies and eating some really good food. On Christmas day we all went to Kolby's other grandparents' house to share a delicious meal with some more family. On Saturday the boys faced the cold weather and played a round of golf and the girls went wedding dress shopping with Kassidy. The rest of the weekend we just layed low, hung out, and tried to stay out of the bad weather. It was a perfect Christmas and we loved seeing everyone together!

I still haven't mastered the art of remembering to take pictures, but here are at least a couple. This was our first Christmas to spend with Maya because we were in Australia last year and she was at boarding school the year we got married.

This was Christmas morning. Kolby got this flannel shirt from Kassidy and I don't think he's taken it off since. The boy loves flannel these days.

Maya and her cousin, Molly, chewing on the same 2" long bone toy despite the long rope right next to them. This picture is a little blurry, but here we are watching Wall-E with everyone and snuggling as a family.
We got together with my family the following week for "re-Christmas". We pretended that Tuesday was Christmas Eve and that Wednesday was Christmas Day. We went to see the Sherlock Holmes movie, played games, made cut-out cookies, got crazy with the Wii, and again ate a lot of good food. It actually snowed on re-Christmas Eve, too. Two white Christmases in one year, who would have thought?!?

Making cut-out cookies. We've done this every year since the beginning of time.
Re-Christmas Eve.
Brad & Remy got my dad coveralls for Christmas so he can stay warm while he's working on his tractor down at the ranch. I couldn't resist the photo op. Neither could Russell.
We broke out the Wii for the first time in awhile. It was a good call.
(you can click the pictures below to make them bigger)

On all accounts, it was a great Christmas and we were so fortunate to get to see everyone from both of our families. Another advantage to living close by!

Maya [heart] PETCO

If you have a dog but don't want to spend a lot of money on toys, here is an idea for you. Go to PETCO this week and buy up their leftover Christmas toys to your heart's content. We do this for Maya every January and we use the toys throughout the year. She doesn't know the difference between regular toys and Christmas toys, being a dog and all. Today I bought Maya 12 toys and 3 packages of rawhides for $20. Toys that were $6.99 and $8.99 rang up as $0.98 and $1.98. Can't beat that!

Maya's 2010 stash:

Merry Christmas!

It is Christmas Eve and it is shaping up to be our best Christmas yet!

All of the presents are wrapped and under the tree...

PLUS, it has been snowing all day long!

Since it was 75 degrees here yesterday not much of the snow has stuck to the warm ground, but our rooftop is white and it is certainly looking a lot like Christmas around here! We're headed out the door to a Christmas Eve service with Kolby's family, but I wanted to pop in and wish everyone a very merry Christmas tomorrow!

Luke 2:8-11

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Kolby and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary this week. On December 15th to be exact. I love that our anniversary falls around Christmastime... it just makes this time of year even more special. We feel so blessed to have had such a wonderful start to our marriage and I can't picture what my life would be like without Kolby. I love the life that we have together and I love thinking back to our long but joyous road to get here. There are a lot of fun memories to reminisce about when you've been dating since you were 15 years old!

We continued the tradition that we started last year and hosted our parents for a fancy dinner on our anniversary day. We grilled New York strip steaks and made three cheese risotto and roasted corn soup. The food was phenomenal, if I do say so myself :). Two years ago we had the most beautiful wedding either of us could possibly have dreamed of. From the rehearsal dinner to the wedding reception, our parents bent over backwards to make everything absolutely perfect for us, and sharing our anniversary with them over a nice meal together is one very small way that we attempt to show our thankfulness and gratitude. It is always a great time and we loved having a nice warm house to invite them to this year!

To the many of you who celebrated us at our wedding, thank you for being a part of our special day! If you are feeling reminiscent, click here to watch a photo slideshow of our wedding. The music playing in the background is a David Crowder song that Kolby picked to have our friend Drew sing at the beginning of our wedding. Man, I love that song!

Here's to many more years of wedded bliss to come!

Oh Christmas Tree

Last Saturday we ventured out to some of my family's farmland in my hometown to chop down a Christmas tree. We went to a huge plot of land that my dad's grandparents once lived on and farmed. It was quite the adventure, but we had a lot of fun and got more exercise than either of us cared to get.

Here's Kolby standing in front of our tree (the middle one).

My lumberjack cutting away. Unfortunately, the perfect tree happened to be REALLY far away from the road. The arrow in the picture below is pointing to a group of big trees by the side of the road where we parked our car. The group of trees in the right side of the picture is where we thought we were going to find our tree, but they were all too big. So we tromped through the harvested, muddy land even further (twice as far, in fact) to the total opposite side of the property to find just the right tree. It was a long walk back to the car. Kolby had to carry the tree and I handled the dog, the ax and the saw. Did I mention that the soil was more than a little muddy? Strapped on and ready to go.
We used bungee cords to tie the tree to the roof but didn't think about how we wouldn't be able to open the car doors. We both had to climb through the window to get back in the car. Kolby is a pretty tall guy to be folding himself through a window of that size, but he made it. The tree started to shift back on the drive home so we had to stop on the side of the road and fix it, again climbing in and out of the windows. I'm sure it as a sight to behold for the passersby. It is definitely not your typical Christmas tree look... being a wild cedar tree and all. But the price was right ($0) and we love it and had a great time making it at home here. Here is the before picture: After (our very first Christmas tree!): It was hard to get a good picture of it, but trust me--- it looks awesome. Different, but awesome! We love it.

U

This is actually our first Christmas to celebrate at home together. Our very first Christmas was spent living with Kolby's parents because we had just gotten back from our honeymoon and our apartment lease didn't start until January 1st. Then last year we were in Australia. So, since this was our first Christmas at home and our first house, we really wanted to go for it and put up Christmas lights outside. Our house is small and our roof is pretty flat, so it wasn't too hard to do. Kolby did such a great job!

Even before we were married we talked about how great it is going to be to one day have a house together and put up the old-fashioned big bulb Christmas lights. This was something we've both been looking forward to for a long time, and we are so happy with how they turned out. We went with red and white bulbs and although this picture looks terrible, the lights look fantastic. Seriously fantastic.

I used hand-me-down Christmas decorations to get the rest of the house ready for Christmas. My mom had several bins full of old decorations that she hadn't used in years, so I grabbed a bunch of stuff to make do for this year and then I'm hoping to get a few new items when everything goes on clearance in January. Here is the front of our house:

Our entry table:

Our beautiful stockings that Kolby's parents gave us for Christmas last year. Pottery Barn is my favorite store in the world but these are the only things we actually own from there! Our house doesn't have a fireplace, so we hung them over our couch. Isn't Maya's elf stocking so cute?!? This is the sideboard cabinet next to our couch. Again, all these things look much better in real life than they do in these pictures! We're ready for Christmas!