And finally...

Another one of us at the movies. It was a really old dilapidated theater. No stadium seating, Dolby Surround Sound in this one.

We can't believe what we're seeing! Such a shocker of a movie.

The father-in-law and boyfriend-in-law at our house for dessert after DW's dad's birthday dinner. 

More pics...again

They put in a new gelato place by our house... YUM!

Look at that dessert! The two people on the right are DW's friend from school and her husband... nice people. We should hang out with them more often.

DW posing for the camera at the movie theater. We were the only one's in the room at this point... I promise. P.S. Go see Breach. It was great.

Another pose... 

More pics...

DW doing homework up in the loft. This room has changed names several times in the course of our short history with the house. It started out as "Italy" after the upstairs room in Frank McCort's (spelling?) book, "Angela's Ashes." Now, it's the situation room, after the room on 24 where all the real strategic work happens.

Us at DW's parent's house. I don't remember what this was for.

Us out for an early Valentine's dinner at our new favorite local restaurant... The Melting Pot.

Me with DW at her cousin's wedding.
 

More Christmas Pictures...

And still more Christmas pictures.


I think DW is in denial that DH is answering his phone while they're taking pictures in front of the Christmas tree.


DW's brother and sister-in-law.


DW enjoying a piece of chocolate.


Our Christmas tree on Christmas morning.


Breakfast on Christmas morning with DW's family.


DW and DH posing for a picture. This is DH's new favorite pic.


Not too shabby for a self-portrait.


Playing games with DH's family on Christmas eve.

Christmas pictures...

These are just the first ones. There will be more pictures and captions added later.


This is us in front of the Christmas tree at my parent's house.


This my whole family on Christmas Eve (Eve). There were 42 people (25 kids) under one roof for five or six hours. Talk about crazy.


DW opening a Christmas present from me at our house.


Taking a nap together on Christmas Eve at my parent's house.


Me opening a present at our house.

Where we've been...

In the month of May,

We spent several weekends at the lake.


We moved into our house.


I finished grad school.

In the month of June,

We went to the beach with DW's family.


We went to Magazine Mountain State Park in Arkansas for
my Grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary.


We started enjoying our favorite summer snack, snowcones.

In the month of July,

DW took a road trip with her friends and...


took her nephew to the Zoo.

In August,

We celebrated 4 years of marriage!!!

In September,

We celebrated my 25th birthday with family at our house.


We started the OU football season off together with a trip
to Norman for tailgaiting (several hours before kickoff)
and a great game against the University of Alabama
Birmingham. OU won.


We went to the great state fair of, OKLAHOMA!!!

In October,


We went camping at the lake.


We went to the grand opening of The Cheesecake Factory.


We celebrated our first Halloween together not living in
an apartment. It was pretty fun handing out candy to the
trick-or-treaters.

In November,

DW took her nephew to Homecoming at OC.




We put up Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving.

In December,


We enjoyed two days off from school/work because of snow.

Well... that brings us just about up to date. I think this format will work a lot better than the old blog o' words. So much easier.

Merry Christmas!

This Christmas, I give to the world the gift of a blog post.

The blog is officially going out of business. It's not that I don't have time to post stuff, but honestly what it comes down to is that there are so many other worthy things bidding for my time and attention, that blogging just isn't important enough to merit taking the time to update it regularly. I hope the three people that check this blog regularly will be able to get some closure from this post.

I haven't completely decided what the "out of business" process is going to be like though. I may convert what has mainly been a blog of words into a blog of pictures. It would probably be a lot less time consuming to do it that way and they do say that a picture is worth a thousand words. So that means I could post three pictures and that would be the equivalent of a 3000 word essay. Who knows? Maybe I'll just stop posting entirely and this will be the last post ever to grace the rolls of this overly inactive blog. We'll see...

Blogplaints and Our Adventures in Living Room Arrangements

DW's uncle called me at work today, which isn't all too weird considering he's an alum of the University where I happen to work in alumni relations, and he got on to me for not having posted anything to the ole' blog in a while.

He also offered me a couple tickets to this Saturday's football game, making the part where he complained about our lack of blogging activity a little easier to take, which, if I may say so, is a great strategy for giving people criticism or bad news. Start off with the bad news or the criticism and then finish with the good news or an exciting offer. A lot of people try to do this the other way around, and it's just not as effective.

When delivering bad news or criticism to a friend, family member, co-worker, or employee, you want them to get the point, but when it's all said and done, you also want them to walk away from the conversation or hang up the phone with a good taste in their mouth about what's just transpired.

All that's to say - Richard... thanks for the free ticket offer, I'm sorry we had other plans, and you've inspired me to blog today. Without further delay, read on for another one of our adventures in life...

The other day, we re-arranged our living room and moved everything around so that the TV is no longer the focal point of the room. We really don't watch a whole lot of TV with the exception of The Amazing Race, 24, The Office, My Name is Earl, and the Biggest Loser (OK... that list might qualify as "a lot of TV") but anyway... we really just wanted to have a good seating area for entertaining friends and family.

I feel like the new arrangement, while not perfect, makes really good use of our long narrow living room.

Apparently long narrow living rooms are a pretty common problem. A Google search of the phrase, "long narrow living room problem" reveals 9.7 million results... if you take away the word "problem" the number of results increases to 13.8 million. I love the internet. It sure is good to know that there are millions of other people out there just like us who have long narrow living rooms that they don't know how to arrange.

Based on the picture above, if you have suggestions or ideas on how we could better arrange our living room, please comment and let us know. The only rule is that the two couches, the red chair, and the TV all have to remain in the room. I wonder if there are any interior designers out there reading our blog.

Wednesday

This post is for my wife's cousins...

Got up at 6:45. Ironed my clothes (white dress shirt, black pants, and brightly colored tie). Brushed my teeth, shaved, showered, and got dressed. Grabbed two peaches and cream oatmeal packets and leftovers for lunch then left for work at 7:30. The weather was cool this morning. It felt nice.

Got to campus at 7:45. Parked in a different parking lot than usual. Walked through the Student Center to get to my office. It was empty then. Got to my office at 7:50, put my lunch in the fridge, and microwaved my oatmeal for breakfast.

Started responding to emails at 8:05. Scheduled a few meetings about homecoming and other areas of importance for the university. Caught up on email by 9:30. Worked on homecoming stuff until chapel at 10:45.

Went to chapel at 10:45. Sat with one of my old RA's. Lots of praise songs, scripture reading, and prayer... no sermon this week. Came back to office at 11:30. Responded to more emails. Edited a press release. Ate lunch at noon. BBQ chicken sandwich leftover from b-day party, cheetos, chocolate pudding, and ice water.

Put a survey together after lunch and emailed it to alumni. Went to a meeting at 2:00 (didn't start until 2:15) about some important stufff with another department on campus and got a lot accomplished. It was a good meeting... they have comfortable furniture and cool paintings on the wall in that office.

Back in the office by 3:00. Read and responded to emails. Enlisted the help of a friend to come up with a Top 10 list to use for a project at work. Met with director from another department at 3:45 to discuss his agenda. His agenda does not align very well with the university's agenda. Too bad for him.

Visited with the president at 4:15 about a program that he thinks I should look into starting. I tend to agree with him and think it could end up being something really positive for the school.

Finished writing two letters (that should have been finished last month) and submitted them to the appropriate people to be sent out. Got an email at 4:34 that made my day. Wrote an email to some important people about some important things going on and called it a day at 5:20.

Got home at 5:40. Checked the mail. Threw away the junk mail. Got a b-day card in the mail... made me laugh. Two movies from NetFlix that I've already seen but will be fun to watch again. Logged on to computer at 6:00 and started blogging.

6:18 - Grabbing a bite to eat and heading back out to church shortly.