Tag, I'm it :)

My sweet friend Emily tagged me, and since you never want to make a pregnant woman mad (or so I hear), I'm going to go ahead and fill this out :)


8 TV Shows I Watch:

1) The Unit


2) The Office


3) Everything Food Network (I lurrve Barefoot Contessa and Ellie)


4) HGTV


5) 24 (just recently became addicted)


6) Discovery Channel


7) History Channel (I like specials on wars...weird huh?)


8) Espn (not that its a favorite, its just ALWAYS on)


8 Favorite Restaurants:


1) Chickfila is the best fast food ever


2) Thai Gourmet


3) 713 Sushi - drool


4) Pappadeaux (they have the best salads in the world)


5) Lupe Tortilla, again, drool


6) Collina's

7) Panera Bread


8) Salt Lick


8 Things that Happened to Me Today:


1) I woke up to my dog laying her head on top of mine


2) I ate breakfast at my parent's house, haven't done that in forever

3) I organized the filing system at dad's office

4) I didn't have to go work at the house, whew


5) Went jogging for the first time in awhile


6) Ran smack into a stranger, embarrassing


7) I pet Pearl and she had rolled in dog poop,...awesome


8) Heard from a dear old friend :)



8 Things I Look Forward To:


1) Finishing the remodel on our house


2) Moving in!


3) Having lots of babies


4) Culinary School....yes, its in the works


5) Getting to spend years with Daniel (cheese alert ;)


6) Farmer's Market


7) Possible job opportunities


8) Developing and strengthing my friendships


8 Things I Wish (Pray) For:


1) That God shows me where He wants me (soon ;)


2) A happy, healthy family, always


3) Courage, I can always use more courage :)


4) MANY MANY MANY trips all around the world


5) For Pearl to stop shedding

6) Change, the kind that makes you appreciate what you have and/or spices life up a little bit :)


7) To host a million dinner parties!


8) A hair and makeup stylist, so I don't have to fix my own hair or makeup... :)



And now I shall tag, Brant, Aimee, and Tara

Christmas came and went :)

To say Christmas was fantastic this year, would be an understatement. Christmas was beyond perfect in my eyes this year. I shall explain. December is by far my favorite month of the year, for some obvious reasons, and some not so obvious reason. The more obvious reason is Christmas is in December. I loooove to cook, so this time of the year allows me to cook and bake like no other. I LOVE it. December also happens to be my birth month. Now, this sounds vain, and maybe it is a little ;) but really, getting together with friends and family for ANY event is fun to me, and this just allows another celebration in December.This year, December also meant that I would never ever have to set foot onto the UH campus again. THANK YOU LORD. I fiinnnnally graduated the 19th. Again, December proves itself to be an awesome month. Now, back to why Christmas was so perfect!

Daniel and I have had a lot more time this month to spend working on the house, which has been a huge blessing. We hired an amazing cabinet builder to come in and make our kitchen cabinets, and he literally finished the whole kitchen in 2 days, plus crown molding! He said he would have them done before Christmas, so we're thinking, a few weeks, right? WELL MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME (even though we paid for them ;)!!! They're all in, now they just require paint, and I've FINALLY decided on white kitchen cabinets. Here's a few pics of the kitchen as it looks right now.

I left my 50's style crank windows because they so cute! This is where my glass insets will go, over the bar area. :)

In case you forgot what it use to look like.... we re-framed the wall on the right and moved it back, the back wall was also moved back to give about a foot more to the kitchen. The window is covered over with plywood...PROGRESS :)

So that was an exciting "early" Christmas present for us! A week or so later we got to walk around and look at Christmas lights with out best friends, Jeff and Megan. It was an awesome time, but we were suuuper surprised that there weren't many lights up in the Memorial area. I would've expected more, but it was fun to just walk around and see the big houses too :) We all plan on moving to Austin one day, and the walk around Memorial gave us plenty of ideas for houses we'd like to build ;) *kidding*

On the 22nd, I held my very first cookie decorating party. I decided on the first go 'round, I'd invite just close friends/family, just because if it failed, at least it would only be people that I knew wouldn't care :) haha. So I baked a few batches of gingerbread men/women, along with some scrap squares, for houses. They're more fun to just decorate, than plain cookies. Everyone had a great time, and I got a million fantastic pictures...here are a few!

FYI- If you ever decide to do a party like this one, note the green plastic table cloth, because even these adults got VERY messy :)

Every Christmas Eve, my family and Daniel's family meet at the Forrest's house and we eat Venison Chili. It's been a tradition for several years, and this year was no different...except we had homemade chili AND chicken sausage gumbo. My father in-law loves to cook, and he's a great southern chef. I particularly love this night because I get to have both my families together :) Lucky me!! Pre-chili, Daniel and I attended our church, Second Baptist, for the candlelight Christmas eve service. We didn't go with our families, just me and him, and we really enjoyed it. After the service, they brought in truckloads of snow for the kids to play in. It was adorable. Christmas day was just one day away :)

Christmas morning comprised of waking up to Daniel's cousin walking around asking if anyone was awake. "Duh, well now I am" :) So we all got up and opened presents with his family. Due to the ridiculous amount of money we're spending on the house, Daniel and I agreed on no gifts for each other. Good thing my husband listens to me. I had about 6 gifts from him under the tree...He bought me rad leather jacket, a shirt, some mittens, a gardening book, a purse, and an amazing chaffing dish :) My husband has great taste, he's been assigned to buying me clothes from now on. After a huge breakfast, it was a quick ride on Daniel's new long board to my parent's house, and we did the gift thing again :) Did I mention my parents live a street over from my in laws. We have it sooooo easy ;)!

While the gifts were great, the time we got to just hang out, was perfect. Christmas day, my folks catered Mexican and my whole family ate and hung out at the C's house. The end of the night was fantastic, when brant and ben pulled out their instruments and just jammed. Quick background- Ben goes to SMU on scholarship for percussion and is a music composition major, Brant has grown up on the piano and guitar, he's an amazing song writer as well. They're all so talented, I just listen in awe :)

Continue to keep Brant in your prayers, he will be leaving for Nashville at the beginning of the new year!!! :) We're so proud of him!

Now that I have successfully created the LONGEST POST EVER, I'm signing off :)

LOVE YOU ALL,

Ash

just so you know

I love lists. This blog deserves a list.

1. Thanksgiving was a blast. We ate with my family here in Houston, then spent Thanksgiving night and the next Friday with our dear family friends in Austin. There were lots of little kiddies running around and it got me thinking.... :)


2. I am officially done with college classes. I have 2 finals next week, and then I'll be done with college :) its soooo about time.


3. The house is progressing perfectly. All the sheet rock is hung, taped and floated (if you don't know what this means, don't worry...I was once happily oblivious as well ;) Next up is sanding, as its an old house, there are at least 4 paint jobs on everything in the house. Most of which happens to be lead based, thats good new :/. Then we get to re-texture the walls in the dining/kitchen/living room. I've been a slacker on picking out cabinets, tile, and granite...thats been my job this week :) Besides the fact I can't wait to have a home with my hubby, I really really want another dog! The only catch is D says we can't adopt a dog 'til we're in our house. He sure knows how to motivate me into action...off to sand!!..maybe...ok.. not right now...

4. Christmas is literally right around the corner. My house (meaning my inlaws house ;) is decorated to a T, ready for a the holidays. I guess its time to start buying presents!! ;) I'm a little behind this year. However, I will be making a "gourmet" trail mix for everyone. Why I'm calling it gourmet you ask? Mostly because the ingredients are kinda expensive to be in trail mix, but whatever. It's gunna be awesome and healthy/errr kinda :) 4 different nuts, flaxseed, sunflower seed, homemade honey granola, dark chocolate (kinda healthy ;) , coconut flakes, dried cranberries.... Holy cow, now I'm hungry.


5. My big brother, Brant, is moving to Nashville!!! If you don't know him, he's a ridiculously talented musician and he's going to work on his song writing up there for awhile. I couldn't be more excited for him, as he's wanted to do this for awhile. Keep him in your prayers. If you wanna listen to one of my FAVORITE songs he's written, I'll work on posting a link soon. I'm still retarded with this blog stuff.



6. I bought new shampoo the other day, and its AMAZING. While I still love my other shampoos (its hard to walk around in the shower), I am now obsessed with my Pomegranate and Soy Volumizing shampoo/conditioner from Burts. I LOVE all things Burts Bee because their products are "earth friendly", and all natural, so you're not putting some crazy chemical into your head or on your face...thats good news. Also, this shampoo smells DIVINE. While the texture is a little different and takes some getting use to, the results are grade A. I have hardly any hair and it also happens to be really thin (I'm still praying our children don't go bald at 4), but this shampoo helps give my hair a little boost. Thank you, burts bees, for being so earth/ashley friendly.


7. I celebrated my bday early with the Croucher clan, and we decided to go to a little hole in the wall burger place in Garden Oaks. Its called Miller's Cafe, and its stupid good. While its no Hut's burger, the prices are cheap and the food is fresh. I had the guacamole burger with jalapenos and D got the chicken fried steak sandwich. We switched halves, and for the first time ever, I liked my food more than his. He got out whataburgered :) That burger & shiner bock made for a very good birthday meal :) Check the place out sometime, the waitstaff is super friendly too.

Now I've made myself hungry, off to the kitchen.

Ciao,

Ash

Catching up!

It's been a few weeks since my last blog, and I feel like I'm moving 100mph, 24/7, but I'm loving it.

School is moving along at a ridiculous pace! Less than a month til graduation, and I'm having nightmares that for some reason, I won't graduate. My advisor has heard from me more this semester than any other semester...sad for him! Apparently transferring 3 times and getting married isn't the fastest way to get out of college, who knew? ;)

We've been doing a TON of work on our home the past few weekends. We bought a cute 3/2 1956 fixer-upper in Spring Branch. The location is fantastic for us. It takes about 15 minutes out to Cypress on the Beltway, same amount of time to Katy where all our friends are, 5 minutes to the Uptown area, 10 to Rice, and not much further to Downtown. We bought the home with the intentions of gutting the entire kitchen/dining area, and have done just that. We've moved walls, pulled up floors in the kitchen, busted sheet rock and tile,...its a mess right now. I have recently realized that HGTV lied to me. It is not, in fact, possible to have an entire kitchen remodeled in 2 days. I've tried :) It's gunna be a good 2 months, at LEAST, before this whole project is to a point where we can move in...exhausting, yes! Yet, with the exhaustion, comes a huge amount of excitement and appreciation. Daniel and I (along with the helpful hands of friends and family) have been doing most of the work ourselves, and it feels really good. Feel free to ask me in a month if I still feel the same way, my outlook may be less positive then...lets hope not ;).

Yes, they gave me the sledge hammer

Kitchen, the wall to my right will be taken out and placed further back

The picture below is before we removed the right wall, to reframe and move back, dust EVERYWHERE!

Picture below shows from standing inside kitchen area, this is the dining area, which has no floors or sheet rock right now either :) joy.

What about that guy that lives with me you ask? The name's Daniel :). Haven't seen as much of him as I'd like lately. The kid works like no one I've ever seen in my life. He's out the door by 6:30 every morning, and unless I call him and make up some reason why I really really need him to come home early (I've gotten good at this), I don't see him walk through the door until 6:00, usually later. Daniel's still working with his folks at Advantage and has done really great things for the company. While he works full time for them, he's picked up several side jobs, one with World Sporting Goods (his granddaddy's sporting goods company) and then training young QBs. He has started to train junior high and high school quarterbacks, a job he's extremely good at and enjoys doing. Earlier in the year he had about 7 kids he was working with, and doing some camps on the weekends. I know its fun for Daniel to see changes happen through training and to watch these guys develop. I'm glad he still has some football :) So, he's just a busy bee, between all that and doing the majority of the ripping out at the house. Lets just say, I'm very thankful for him :)

Ahhh, I could just keep going and going...so I might ramble a bit, stick around for 2 more minutes...

If you think about it, say a prayer for my big sis. She's in Thailand visiting a family friend. Yes, I'm ridiculously jealous. I ADORE traveling. I know she'll have a blast so just pray for safety and that her and Kelly will bond and enjoy one another, for all 3 weeks!!


Also, 2 of my wonderful girlfriends are getting married, and they're both named Amy/Aimee :) Funny thing is, they're both marrying my husbands close childhood friends. I've known the first Amy since junior high, and then we found out she was actually dating Daniel's good friend from childhood, Jamey. CRAZY :) and the other Aimee, I've had the privilege of knowing for a little while now, and she's marrying Daniel's best friend, Tyler. So I'm thrilled for them both to join the married ranks :) None of my close gf's are married, so this is a very good thing for me :) oh and for them, of course!!

Amy & Jamey

Tyler and Aimee

Enough for today!! MUCH more to come!
xxxx

ash

Suprise! Losing sleep can be a good thing!

I couldn't fall asleep last night. Between the constant coughing and blowing my nose (ick, sorry for that), it just wasn't going to happen. I wanted to read, but didn't want to get out of bed and turn on the light...yes, I was THAT lazy. Well, and Daniel was trying to sleep, so the light wasn't much of an option. Sooo.. I did what anyone else would do... I grabbed my Crackberry, and started surfing the internet. Thats where I found this story. I'm sure you'll be as touched as I was...

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/18/america/Running-for-My-Life.php

Enjoy,

Ash

Whew...I'm finally finished, or started...

I'm here!! OK, so everyone I know has a blog, and I've held out as long as I could :) It only took me the better part of the afternoon (ok, im lying, most of the day) to create this blog page, and it really isn't all that fancy. That might prove to be a trend in my blogging style...we shall see.

Anywho, there is a TON of stuff going in my life right now, plenty to blog about....not sure who cares to hear about it, but blogging world, you will hear about it!! Family and friends are always asking what Daniel and I are up to, and what a fun way to keep everyone informed!

.....just not tonight

I've come down with some awesome cold that makes me want to go to sleep at 9:00 every night, and I'm already 6 minutes late. ;)

night all!