Sunday, January 17, 2010

Thanksgiving 2009

I warned you that I was way behind so I hope you aren't terribly surprised to see that I am posting about stuff from two months ago.

As you already know from our family pictures, all of my family was in town. Admittedly the majority already live here, but it was a real treat to have Olivia and her new husband Gino come down with their family(pictured here with Erika and Ken and Emma who live here in Mesa). And Bob who came from Billings and Angela and Glenn who brought their family from Rancho Cucamonga. Back to Olivia and Gino. They got married in August and that subject deserves its own post. I'm telling you. Waaaaaaay behind.

I am a horrible picture taker, meaning I don't get the camera out and do it so I am lucky other people took some pictures that I can use for this. I wasn't in too many and that's because I was taking a lot of naps that week. My sisters kept complaining that I was boring, mope-y, etc. Olivia told me that I needed to eat more so I wouldn't be so tired all the time. Of course the truth of it was that I had just discovered I was pregnant and I couldn't get by without naps. Boring, but true. And I didn't tell anyone that I was pregnant because I knew if I did then I could just say, "oh, but I'm pregnant," as an excuse for everything and I didn't want to do that. I thought maybe I would have to try to seem normal if no one knew I shouldn't be acting normal. It didn't really go that way, but it was worth a shot.

Part of our Thanksgiving traditions is to make graham cracker gingerbread houses. I think Ian got a little help from Spencer. You better believe that half the fun is eating all the candy off of them once they are all built.My mom's birthday is early in December and this was her 60th so we wanted to surprise her and have a fun party in her honor while everyone was here. The festivities took place at the church and we schemed and concocted a plan to get her there unawares and while she was in the bathroom with my grandma, the rest of us waited just outside the door to yell "SURPRISE!" when she came out. It was all going according to plan until Ian slipped into the bathroom behind Erika. Erika was supposed to be there, Ian was not. Thankfully we still managed to surprise her. She did say, "What's Ian doing here?" But it didn't ruin anything. She was still totally surprised.

We hired this nice lady to teach us some dances. She did a great job and we all had a lot of fun. Especially the birthday girl!I wish this weren't true, but Spencer and I are not good dancers. We tried our best and still had fun, but we weren't wowing anyone with our sweet moves.


Here's Bob dancing with Marian. I didn't spend much time paying attention to how anyone else was doing, but I did have the chance to dance with Bob and he actually is a really great dancer and a strong partner. I'm sure he was glad to get rid of me. I was bringing him down.

OK. One down, I don't know how many old ones to go. I think I'm actually going to really like posting old stuff. That way I'll get to keep putting up pictures of me while I was skinny and I can forget about how much fatter I am getting in real life.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Official Announcement

Many of you know this, but since I know some don't, here is our official announcement for our plans after school.

Spencer is currently enjoying a long winter break from his MBA studies. He has a trimester and a half left before graduating in May. After that, he has accepted a job with ExxonMobil, so we will be moving back to Houston at that time. We are very excited and feel really blessed with such a fabulous opportunity. Everyone always asks if we liked Houston and the answer is yes. OK, I hated the cockroaches, but I am pretty sure our particular apartment had more than its fair share. The hot and humid weather was totally livable and we are looking forward to seeing what the rest of the year is like.

So, that's the plan. Now you know. Oh yeah, one other thing. We'll be having a baby in July just to shake things up.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Family Pictures

I've been neglecting my blog, I know. I'm resolving to do better. I have so many things to post about but I am not ready to tackle it all just yet. For now, I will post a few family pics (in addition to the header and sidebar photos) we had taken during the Thanksgiving break when all my siblings and their kids were in town. Our photographer was Jessica Drew and here's a link to her website.

This is my Grandma Koernig. She is so proud of her posterity! She had to be in a picture with each of her grandkids and their families. I absolutely LOVE how Ian and Madeleine are holding hands in this one. So cute!!

Love these two!

All the girl cousins.

All the boy cousins.

The whole gang.
And us.

P.S. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!