Girls Weekend, Graduations, and Alpine, Texas

First of all, before I blog about our wonderful Colorado vacation, I want to post a couple of other updates and pictures to keep our online scrapbook of our lives current! First of all, the weekend after Charley's Ring Day, Katerina and I hopped in the car and traveled to Sanger and Fort Worth for the weekend. Tabatha had planned an All Girls Weekend and I was really excited! It seems that the few times I do make it home to Sanger, it is usually all planned out and Tabatha and I miss getting to visit and hang out. And, we ALWAYS say "we are going to plan something" so Tabatha just took care of it! Friday night, Katerina and I stayed in Sanger at Tabatha and Stormy's house and ate some delicious food grilled up by Stormy. They had some other friends over as well. It was so nice to just drink wine and visit! Then, the next day we headed out with some other friend's of Tabatha's and headed to Grapevine and Fort Worth for the rest of the weekend. Grapevine has a really cute downtown area (my mom even used to live there and graduated from high school in Grapevine). And, what else does Grapevine's downtown area have?? WINE! We went to 2 different wine shops for tasting...and might have brought home a bottle or two. We ate Mexican food, checked into the hotel, ate MORE delicious food at Cowtown Diner for dinner, and went to the 8.0 bar for some fun drinks. It was a fun weekend of visiting and lots of eating!

All of the girls at D'Vine Wine in Grapevine, Texas

Katerina and I sipping our wine at D'Vine Wine
Tabatha and I at Cowtown Diner with jalapeno flavored margaritas! (almost just like college, except in college we were at Roadhouse at 4pm on Thursday afternoons!)

The next weekend was full of graduations. My cousin Mary graduated from A&M with her Bachelor's on Friday and Katerina graduated from Prairie View A&M with her Master's on Saturday. Lots of people at the house with the perfect host (my husband) while I furiously worked to get everything done before being out of the office for 2 weeks! Yikes! (one weeklong conference and one week of vacation!) Really and truly - right here is where Vic wins the award. While I worked until 10 pm on Friday night of that weekend, he took care of my family that was in town, hosted at the house to allow Mary to have her dinner there and still provided lots of laughs as he always does. Then, on Saturday he also organized dinner with lots of people coming over to pitch in and had another fun evening of dinner and Guesstures while I packed for my trip to Alpine for the week. He is so good to me (and all of our friends!)!

Lisa, Sara and I celebrating with Katerina after she got her diploma!
Isn't Katerina adorable as always?

On Sunday after Katerina's graduation, I loaded up with 3 other girls from the office for the 9 hour drive to Alpine, Texas (Sul Ross State University specifically) for the annual Rio Grande Basin Initiative conference that our office helps put on annually. It was a good conference and a good week and I had never really been to West Texas before so I was glad to get to go. Well, let me tell you about the scenic drive to West Texas.....wait there is not much to tell because there is not a lot to see. There was nothing bad about it, but it was just a lot of land without many houses, towns, or even livestock like I expected. I know this does not represent all of West Texas, but for our drive, it was pretty easy and pretty uneventful. We made it to Alpine about 8 or so on Sunday night, checked into the hotel and got some sleep. Monday we began setting up for the conference, but also got a little bit of shopping in on their main road. The town is actually really cute and one of the things they are known for are their murals.

Hello from Alpine!

Later in the week, we also attended the field tours (part of the conference). We went to the Chihuahuan Desert Research Center and were able to choose 2 of 3 different tours to take. The first one we took was a "hike" down into this canyon. Now, I knew hiking was not exactly my area of interest because it's more for the geology and water folks and true outdoorsy people. But, until I "hiked" down into the canyon and back out, I did not know how LITTLE I was interested in ever doing that again. Here is my first and hopefully last story of hiking. First of all, about 20 or 30 people attended this tour. We start walking on regular ground with maybe a little tilt here and there. I knew that we would be "walking down about 200 feet on steps to get to the bottom" because our tour guide specifically told us to be sure not to take this tour if we had any knee problems or issues. And, I felt confidant that I could handle a bunch of steps - I mean, I do boot camp and a million other workout regimens from time to time to attempt to keep my body in as good of shape as possible. And, since my plans to workout in the gym all week hadn't really panned out during my trip, I was looking forward to burning some calories. But, I truly did not know what was ahead. (for those of you who are the outdoorsy, hiking type, feel free to just call me a big wimp right now and it won't hurt my feelings at all...).

So, we reach the area that starts to go down into the canyon and I see some steps. We start taking those. Well, my vision of 200 feet down on steps was truly taking steps down - you know the kind that are all the same size and go one direction. This was not the case. As we started going in a single file line, I started to fear for my life just a tad. For those of you that do not know, I am clumsy. I don't wear heels because I will just trip on myself. And, even on easy steps, I typically walk close to the handrail just in case. I mean, why put myself into a position where I just might fall? So, as we start do go down into the canyon, I become very nervous. These are not just steps. They are ROCKS! Big ones, small ones, loose rocks, slick rocks. And, since we are in single file line following our guide, there is not really any slowing down or stopping to carefully step over and under and on top of these rocks that they call steps that guide us down. At least if we did stop, it just stopped the entire group, so I kept on trucking along. But, really in my head, I kept praying "Lord just give me strength and balance" because that is what I needed. It was just a lot of walking down on these rocks that made me so nervous I was going to fall. I wanted to enjoy the hike, I really did! But, I was just too nervous. I really do not know how people hike in those conditions. I guess I always pictures hiking to be walking long distances on grass - not mountains. Not sure what I truly envisioned, but it was not this. And, I'm sure had I been able to go at my own pace, I would have enjoyed it more. But, all I could keep thinking was "when is this ending?". Do I sound like I'm complaining? I don't mean to - really! But, I typically am a go with the flow kind of person and enjoy doing something new at least once....just not hiking. Looking back, it was pretty comical because when we finally reached the 1/2 way mark of our hike (where the water was), all we really found was about this much water....
That was it! Well, there was a little more but that was about it. You can barely see it. I really was laughing inside when I took this picture thinking "I am risking my life to see this!?". It is pretty funny now. Oh and while I was so glad we had made it down to the Canyon to get a break from rock hiking, then we had to go back up. That was more taxing simply because going up something is usually harder than going down. But, at least I could go at my own pace and stepping up on something is usually easier (clumsiness-wise) than going down. It was a long trip back up and I was out of breath for sure, but at least I survived! Needless to say, the next tour I took was walking on level ground through lots of plants. What a day!

The other AWESOME thing about Alpine is the lack of humidity. It was really nice to have so little and so nice to not be sweating all the time as we are here in College Station this time of year.

Alpine really was a nice trip and we had a great time! See a couple other cool pictures below...

Pink Cactus!
Alpine, Texas mountains; not as pretty as the ones I would see the following week in Colorado, but still very different from College Station!
View of the treacherous rocks from down within the canyon (this is looking up)

Aggie Ring Day!

I am behind in posting, but here are pictures from Charley's Fightin' Texas Aggie Ring Day! Mom came into town that Friday afternoon (Daddy had his 2nd Annual Battle of the Brains to put on). About 6:00 or so, we headed up to the Association of Former Students, met up with Charley and some of his friends, and watched him get his Aggie Ring! I have to say it was very exciting! I even videotaped it, but as you can see, I am a terrible video-er....need to get better before posting "Baby Seidel" videos on this blog one day! Oh and in the future videotaping of important events, I will be sure to not talk at all. My voice and way of speaking is a little embarrassing. Vic can not stop making fun of me when he thinks of the video. I sound like an old hick or something! Anyways, here are the pictures!

Charley, Vic and Mom waiting in line to get his ring!Madness of the Aggie Ring Getting Room - lots of maroon!

The video of Mom presenting the Aggie Ring to Charley! Class of 2011!

He looks a little excited...

Charley & Ana

Charley's Friends

Vic, Sarah, Charley & Mom - Gig 'Em!

An EXTREMELY proud sister....

The ring! Though now is the time to tell you that Charley put it on and only kept it on for about an hour or so.....it came in too small! It was really tight on him. Apparently, the ring company made it too small, and even then he decided to order it a little bigger to be comfortable. He just sent it back in though to get it re-sized. Hopefully he gets it back really soon!!!!

So, Aggie Ring Day was great, but in conjunction with that, it was also Parent's Weekend. So, Mom and I attended the Business School's breakfast and Charley gave us the tour of the Mays School of Business. And, then of course, we wanted his picture! But, he didn't want to be in it by himself; so I joined him....I couldn't have looked any worse, but I am very proud of Charley and am glad he wanted me in it!

After that, Mom and I decided to spend some money at the Aggie Mom's Craft Fair and then shopped in Downtown Bryan, ate at Madden's and watched Glee the rest of the evening! It was a wonderful weekend of celebrations!

Easter 2010

Our Easter was really special this year. First of all, this is the one holiday that since Vic and I have been married, we have not traveled to either of our hometowns for. In 2008 (our first Easter of marriage) Vic was scheduled to be the reader at Church. So, we stayed in town, had my brother attend and over for lunch and Vic made some delicious fried chicken! That is what he has eaten every year for Easter at his Granny's house and he loves her fried chicken. So, that was a little bit of home for him. For my bit of home, I made Easter baskets just like my aunt has always made for us kids. Anyways, to make a long story short, each year we have stayed in College Station (going on 3 this year) for Easter to share with one another at our Church and fortunately Charley has always been here too! After the fried chicken year, we changed to brunch because fried chicken takes a long time to make! So, this year at first it was only going to be the norm - Vic, Charley and I attending church, eating brunch and opening Easter baskets. But, slowly over the couple of weeks before, we invited a friend here or there to join us and it ended up with 7 friends attending Easter services and having brunch at our house. It was so wonderful and special! See below for some pictures! We'll start with a few food pics - I wish I'd taken a picture of everything!

Blueberry and Orange-Pineapple muffins

Paula Deen's Baked French Toast Casserole

And I think that is all of my pictures...hmm. Well, we also had fruit salad, Farmers Casserole, cupcakes, white strawberry sangria, mimosas and a delicious sweet treat Ana made whose name I do not know!

Anyways, after a great Easter service with wonderful music, the following people came over to celebrate our Risen Savior with brunch!

Charley and his girlfriend, Ana
Vic, Josh and Kari (the soon to be Mr. & Mrs. Barmettlers come 10/30/10!)
Justin and Danielle
Katerina and I

Some of them played a game of 42 while the food was cooking and then we sat down to eat brunch. Here's a picture before we dug in!

We just had a wonderful day and after a few left, Vic, Charley, Ana and I got our Easter baskets! I don't care how old you get, Easter baskets are ALWAYS fun!!

Showing off some Easter basket goodies; sorry I didn't get a good picture of you Vic!

Ana is super excited about her replacement Taylor Swift CD!

Okay, and before you view the next picture you should know that Easter baskets are SO much fun just like stockings are and I tend to want to just fill them to the brim. Plus, with Charley - he is a poor college student who NEEDS gift cards and clothes and food and money and the Easter basket is a great way for me to provide for him. So, I might have gone a little overboard...

This is Vic asking me whose money was used to pay for all of Charley's gifts. Silly Vic - he has such a hard time understanding that his money is my money and my money is his money and we share and it's ok to spend it sometimes. His face says it perfectly though! Oh Vic! Fortunately, even though he "acts" like it was a problem, he and I both know he doesn't mind!

What makes this funnier is that I posted this picture on Facebook and one of his co-workers stated that this was the same face he uses when she wants to spend too much of their agency's money at work! Poor Vic cannot catch a break!

And here is a picture of me - I debated putting it because my hips look gigantic in it! So, then I attempted to make the picture smaller....I don't think it helped those hips! But, I had to post a picture of my Easter basket because my Aunt GG surprised me by mailing it and having Vic hide it. I loved it - it was so fun and cute!

And finally the last picture. Vic finally got happy again when he got his 1980's lawn chair to layout and get all super hot and tan in. He has been looking for one, but lawn chairs are sort of pricey. So he decided this was what he wanted and then we could not find one anywhere. When I found this the day before Easter, it was the last one in Target. Whew. This saved me from the "Stop spending so much money on Charley" lecture I could have gotten. Oh who are we kidding? Vic is never angry with me!

I hope everyone's Easter was as blessed as ours. Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia Alleluia!

February & March Happenings

Hello everyone!

I have lots to post and some pictures to go along with everything, so here we go! In February, we got to go down to Orange Grove for our friends Cassie & Joe's baby shower. I did not get one picture all weekend long, but we had a great time. Friday night was dinner at Mandee & Derek's house with a lot of our families, Saturday was Cassie's shower, and Saturday night was dinner with Jill & Mike & Cassie & Joe. We had a great time and I am so excited for little Wesley Klatt to arrive in April! Cassie got so many cute little clothes and blankets and I am just so excited for them both! Also, in February, I turned the big 2-7! I think I like it and am very happy to be 27 - I have thoroughly enjoyed these last 27 years and think this year is going to be pretty fun as well!

The first weekend in March was our first PAINTING weekend. We have been in our house since July 2009 and though we love it, we have wanted to paint since the day we moved in. All of our walls are just a very light-neutral color and we need some warmth in there! The first room we wanted to paint was the kitchen. So, Vic and I decided to go to Sherwin Williams, pick out a couple of colors, put them on the wall at home and then decide the final color. Do you really think that process was that simple? No. We ended up with 9 different colors on the wall (and multiple trips to the paint store for samples) before we finally decided to go with the 9th one! We decided to go with yellow because it is warm and goes with everything in our kitchen (which is lots of red and then just every other color in the color wheel!). Do you know how many yellows there are? Way more than we knew! Below is a picture of the final color testing done on one of our walls:
It really is amazing to look at a paper color wheel and think something looks one color only to find out after it is on the wall that it is a totally different color! Yikes! Some of those were hideous. However, we did choose one and after a weekend of very hard work by my hard-working, sweet husband, we had a new kitchen. Here is a picture below:
Next kitchen project: Curtains & Countertops!

Also, a little later this month (during Spring Break), Vic decided he really wanted to paint the entryway. This is one room that has practically nothing in it so we didn't know what color to go with. But, we like color and Vic really wanted blue, so below you can see the fruits of his labor again after a couple of days of painting:

We still want to paint the dining room and living room a darker neutral, but we may wait a little longer before we do that. The living room is going to be a big project since we have speakers and TV and furniture, etc. that all has to be moved out. The dining room will be easy though! Still picking a color as of now...

Other than painting, we have also been doing some yard work. We are so glad to finally see green again! Our yard is no longer completely brown and we are getting rid of all the weeds!! We have bought some flowers to plant and a tomato plant and a bell pepper plant and zucchini plant! Also, we brought home about 12 different plants from Vic's grandpa's funeral and have now replanted them in bigger pots and some in the ground and they look great! See below for some super hot husband pictures of Vic in the yard! Oh and be sure check out the yard too!
And would you like to know whether or not P90X works? Well, take a look at those arms on Vic! It works!! Now, if only I can start looking more like that....

Also, in March, Vic's mom, granny and sister came into town for a visit since they were on Spring Break. We had a great weekend of food, shopping, church, and even some 42! This was the first time Granny Irene had seen our house and it is always a lot of fun to have the girls around to visit! Vic did a wonderful job cooking - as usual! See some pictures below!

Ready to shop at the Houston Outlet Mall on Saturday!
Sunday Morning Breakfast!
Jill is cooking!
Delicious rolls from the Pioneer Woman blog!
And yet another recipe from the Pioneer Woman cookbook - Breakfast Bowls!
And here is just another picture of my adorable husband and new fun kitchen!

Okay, so later that following week, we had another big event to celebrate: Mary's 21st Birthday! Mary and I took a little shopping in and then met Vic at Cheddar's for her first official drink - a Bellini and then a margarita! Isn't she cute and adorable and yet, so grown-up?
And then Vic insisted we must take her, as we have with so many other important friends and family -- Katerina, Keller, Kristofer, Charley, Jenna, -- who have turned 21 to the Shot Bar! Here is a picture of Mary getting carded to get into the shot bar....and I have to tell you because it was just too funny and shows that Mary is very innocent, as we already knew! But, as soon as the guy gave her back her ID, she attempts to walk on in...BEHIND THE BAR...instead of walking to the side to order. I mean, I have to admit - it is kind of confusing because it was like 7:00 on a Friday night during Spring Break and there was NO ONE in the bar, but it was really funny when they kind of had to say "nope - other side!". Oh Mary - you are so fun! So, we celebrated her 21st and had a great evening!

Also, during that week, we got to do a lot of visiting in College Station. We went to a Shrimp Boil at the Cummings Home on Thursday night, Lunch at our friend Cady's on Friday, visited Megan and Cole Friday afternoon, celebrated Mary's 21st Friday night, and attended Danielle's birthday at her country house on Saturday night! It was a lot of fun!

As the month wore on, lots of Church activities took place. We had the Church Workday that was combined with Big Event and we had a group of Kappa sorority girls come out to help us at Church. Our Easter Egg Hunt was also on Palm Sunday and all of those kiddos are just so cute. In fact, I made some cookies for the Easter Egg Hunt and they were so fun! First of all, you should know that Vic's Granny Irene is a wonderful baker and has been known to make some delicious desserts. Just recently, Vic and I were given a bunch of her old cookie cutters and I think some of them may be pretty old! We have them for every occasion and holiday I think! So, I decided to use them to make Easter cookies for the kids at Church. I am not that brilliant of a cookie decorator, but see below for the fun cookies I got to make! Thanks Granny Irene!
And finally here is a picture of Vic and I at the Church Workday - Vic did a lot more outside work than me - I mainly took care of the food. But, here's a pic anyways!
And, finally here is a picture of the last thing we've done in March and that was go to dinner with some of Vic's best friends. They all grew up together and I feel very lucky also to know them! Below is D.L., Kelly, Vic, Kari & Josh!
Oh and wait - one more thing! As you all know, Charley comes over very often (but not TOO often because we love to see him!) for visiting and if he can, a free meal. Well, he showed up on a good night because after a long workweek, Vic and I decided Sushi and Edamame from Kroger (believe it or not Sushi from Kroger is great!) was what we wanted for dinner! So, here's a picture of that!

Okay, believe it or not those are all of my updates for now. I am ready for Easter and ready for Spring! Talk to you all soon!

A passing

Well, these past 2 weeks have had a lot going on. First of all, Vic lost his grandfather on Wednesday, February 3. It was expected eventually as he had not been doing well, but not expected so soon for the Seidel family. We headed down to Orange Grove on the 5th (also Vic's 29th birthday) for the weekend to attend visitation and the funeral. I won't go into a lot of details, as many will still be grieving for awhile. But, I will say that it was wonderful to see all of Vic's family together and to see the friendships and family of so many people that attended the funeral, brought food, sent plants, and helped in so many ways to celebrate the life of Delmas Seidel. Orange Grove and the Seidels truly have so many wonderful people to help them during any kind of event - whether it be happy or somber. I am also happy for the few memories I have with him, including playing 42 with both he, Granny Irene and Vic - a couple married for a short time and a couple married for 64 years I believe. I will also say that one of my favorite memories I will cherish forever will be the family sitting down at Bruce & Phyllis's (Vic's aunt and uncle) house on the night of visitation and listening to Vic's Granny Irene tell stories about when they were married and how the boys (Steve and Bruce - Vic's dad and uncle) grew up and then to hear the boys tell their side (apparently they were typical boys who liked to get into trouble! haha!). It was so nice - all of the family just sitting around the table listening and laughing. That is what funerals should be about - remembering and laughing and celebrating family, even when it sometimes brings tears. I know Vic & Jill were very lucky to grow up with him as a grandpa and it's good to know we'll all see him again one day, all together in Heaven.