Michael and Lisa's wedding

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we headed to Austin for Zack's old friend Michael's wedding.  The wedding was held at a home on Lake Travis.  The views for the balcony were beautiful.

The wedding had a few differences because Lisa is from Japan.  Michael met here while living there a few years ago.  Her parents came to the wedding and it was there first time outside of Japan.  Michael and Lisa have to go back to Japan in March to have a traditional Japanese wedding.

Michael and Lisa looked out at the attendees instead of the judge through the ceremony.  I told Zack that I would have been terrified to look out at everyone during our wedding!

Lisa put that entire piece of cake in Michael's mouth!

Michael with the giant piece of cake in his mouth.

Everyone had an origami crane with the dinner menu.

Lisa in her kimono.

Here we are on the balcony over looking the lake.

The house the wedding was held at was unique.  It was massive and very artsy.  Below are some pictures of a few different things at the house.  

The front of the house.  The pool is straight through the open breezeway.  The lights hanging in the big window changed colors. 

The lights from the inside of the house.

 

These are chandeliers in the large living area on the second floor of the home.  You can see the light drops in the background.

This is a light fixture - yes, a light.  It was in the breakfast area.

The house had both a 4 car and 3 car garage with glass doors. The car on the left is a Ferrari Enzo and on the right is a Ford GTS.  There were only 400 Enzo's manufactured so it is an extremely expensive car.  According to Wikipedia it usually sells for a million dollars.

Lamborghini (not sure the model)

Not sure what type of cars these are.  I know the blue one is a Chevy based on the decal.

Needless to say, we felt very poor at this house.  It was nice but not what I would have done with a house on the lake.  I guess the old saying 'to each his own' is very fitting.

Overall the wedding was very nice and it was cool to see an extreme house.

Thanksgiving 2009

This Thanksgiving we went up to Dallas and stayed with Sam and Roshni.  Roshni prepared the entire dinner and refused any assistance.  It turned our great!  She did an awesome job.  I told Patricia that I'd not be able to pull it off without assistance.  It would stress me out way too much.

Roshni in great spirits while prepping the salad.

Zack and Sam hanging out watching football and playing a board game.

Our spread for dinner - there was only 7 of us.  We had a lot of food and it was all wonderful.

The day after Thanksgiving we didn't do much shopping but I found some cute boots.  We met one of Sam's old high school friends for lunch at a place called Gordon Biersch (a chain brewery restaurant). The couple lives in Washington DC and just happened to be in Dallas.  They were very nice!

Friday night we went over to Zack's aunt house for a spaghetti dinner.  It was tasty!  After dinner we headed to Roshni's parents house to welcome her sister-in-law into the country.  About two years ago Roshni's brother got married in India and his wife finally got her visa to come to the states.  She is very nice and seemed a bit overwhelmed.  Roshni's mom took a bunch of pictures.  Hopefully, I can get one and get it posted.  Her family is so nice.  They insisted that we eat some food, so we did.  I have grown to really enjoy India food.  After having 2 dinners we were stuffed!!

Again, I'm a bad blogger

I haven't blogged in over a month now.  I guess I'm not much of a blogger after all.  I need to post about Thanksgiving and our trip to Dallas!  I have some great pictures from our time there and the great dinner that Roshni prepared.  We also went to Austin to attend a wedding.  It was at a house on Lake Travis.  Hopefully, this weekend I'll get that all posted.

On Friday (12/4), Houston had a snow day!  My office closed early but Zack had to work.  We didn't have any snow stick at our house.  I wish it would have so I could get some cute pictures.  Oh well! 

I baked 3 batches of cookies and made some peppermint bark since we had no snow.  I packed the cookies up for an old high school friend currently deployed in Afghanistan.  I hope they arrive whole and still have some flavor.  It was really nice putting together the care package and I think I'll do it again in a few months.

Until next time!

Zack's piano

The office in our house is full of stuff and today we added to it!  Zack has wanted a piano for some time now.  He found a nice electronic keyboard and it came in today.  He's so excited to try it out!  He ran to Office Depot to buy a new ink cartridge for the printer so her could print some sheet music.  I'm looking forward to hearing him play.  In the 5 years we've been together, I've never heard him play a complete song.

 

Halloween 2009

We had a fun filled Halloween this year.  First, we headed over to Zack's co-worker Sander's house.  He loves Halloween and goes all out.  I have never seen so many trick-or-treater in my life!  They had a line from their front door to the street for probably an hour.  Sander made this vortex light which was a BIG hit with the kids and adults.  People kept taking pictures in front of it!

It's a little fuzzy but this is the best picture of the vortex.

Grave yard.  Had Michael Jackson's Thriller playing.

Some of the people lined up.

After hanging out at Sander and April's we headed to our friends Scott and Lori's house for a party.  Here is a picture of me and Zack: Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.  We had a good time!

Garage Sale Fail

On Saturday, October 24th our neighborhood had a garage sale.  I was one of the coordinators that put the event together.  It was going to be a beautiful day so I expected to sell most of the items I had out.  I was set up by 7:45am.  That's when things went down hill.  The guy that is building home on the lots that Perry Homes (our builder) didn't finish decided to pour concrete on 3 lots - on our street!!!  If you don't know anything about construction (not that I know a lot despite working for a builder) that equates to about 9 concrete trucks.   With all of these trucks lined up and down the street, NO ONE was coming the garage sale.  I was ready to hit that stupid construction guy.  The neighborhood already strongly dislikes him and this didn't win him any points.  By 9am, I had one visitor and no prospects in sight so I packed all our crap back up and headed inside.  Fortunately, we didn't have much stuff.


I later walked around the neighborhood and found that people on the other streets were very happy and had been very successful.  I don't want to have another sale until all the other lots are finished so that jerk won't ruin it for us again.

Crazy for the Twilight Saga

I have officially joined the Twilight crazed population.  I've now read all 4 books and think I'm going to have withdrawals!  I can't believe I got so caught up in it but I loved the books.  I watched the Twilight movie and was a bit disappointed but not surprised because books are always better.  I'm looking forward to seeing New Moon next month regardless.


Now I'm going to read Midnight Sun...the partial book from Edward's point of few.

Night Blooming Cereus

When Sam and Roshni moved to Dallas, they gave us a night blooming cereus they had on their patio.  We ended up with three blooms on the plant about a week ago.  I made Zack go out and snap a picture.  He said it was really hard to get anything to turn out.  This is the best picture.

Mamo's birthday

On October 3rd, we headed to Sweet Home to celebrate Mamo's 80th birthday.  We took her out to dinner at Robert's in Flatonia.  The food was good!  After dinner we headed to Barbara and Ronnie's house for cake.

Matthew wanted to make sure it looked like he was taking a bite of food when I took the group picture.

Mamo with her usual happy smile!  Seriously, this is a smile from her.

Blowing out the candles.

This was also the weekend that Yoakum and Sweet Home got around 11 inches of rain.  Check out this pictures from my parents house.

Heather sported a garbage bag to take Stella out.  She also slipped on Dad's work boots.  Stella was not interested in going potty in the rain!

Blogging Break

Can you take a blogging break when you haven't been blogging for long?  I guess I have...

I always want to include photos but Zack hogs the desktop PC all the time so I never get access to our pictures. There have been a few things going on the last few weeks.

On September 30th, I went with my friends Scott and Lori to an event at Macy's Memorial City.  Celebrity chef Rick Bayless was there.  It was cool!  He made a dish which we were able to sample then signed autographs.

TV Geek

If anyone knows me well, then they know I love TV.  This fall, I'll be spending a lot of time perched on the sofa.  I sometimes wonder if all the TV watching is a bad thing?  It's cheaper to watch TV then some other hobbies. :)


Sunday:
Desperate Housewives
Brothers and Sisters


Monday:
How I Met Your Mother
Gossip Girl
Castle


Tuesday:
The Good Wife


Wednesday:
Mercy
Law & Order: SVU
Glee
Top Chef


Thursday:
Flash Forward
Grey's Anatomy
Private Practice


Friday:
Law and Order


At least I will be spending less time in front of the tube on Tuesdays.

Our kitties

I just had to post the picture of Fred.  I think it's the best one we've ever taken of him!

Here's one of Fiona too.  She is a little bit bigger now but I think this is a cute picture of her.

Jamie's Bachelorette Weekend

The weekend of September 12th was Jamie's bachelorette party. I headed to Austin on Friday morning and met up with Mom and Heather. We jumped in the car and started south to San Antonio. It's always so nice to hang out with just the two of them. It makes me wish we all lived closer to each other to hang out more often.

We were staying at the Hotel Valencia Riverwalk which was a nice boutique hotel. They had given my reservation to another Foster but did get us a room...that is after the manager accused me of not knowing which hotel I had made a reservation with. I thought that was very rude as I had already given the girl at the desk my confirmation number. Despite that little issue, we enjoyed our stay at the hotel.

We just wandered around the Riverwalk on Friday night. We decided to eat Mexican food and unfortunately made a bad restaurant choice. Don't ever eat at Rio Rio! Of the nine people at the table, no one liked their food!

On Saturday, we got started with a late breakfast at Denny's which was very good. It put the bad Mexican food to shame! They have these new pancake puppies (like hush puppies) which we got as a starter ... very yummy! We then spent the rest of the day shopping! There were some great sales at Macy's.

Saturday evening we started the party by eating dinner at Dick's Last Resort. If you've never eaten there, it's an experience! The waitstaff are really mean to you! They make the dumb hats and throw paper towels everywhere. The food was actually really good and I got a souvenir glass. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for the lingerie shower. We started off on the patio but it started raining so we had to bring it inside.

We then headed out to the bars! The concierge at the hotel got us into Acapulco Sam's for free! Yeah! After a while of dancing there, we headed to Howl at the Moon for the dueling pianos. We actually ran into our waiter from Dick's. I'd never been to a piano bar. They had drums and a base guitar so I thought the piano was kind of drowned out. Maybe I should have drank more and I wouldn't have cared what it sounded like!

Sunday morning we got up and hit the road rather early. Heather had a test to study for and I had the additional 2 1/2 hour drive back to Houston.

Had to include a pic of the Alamo!

My silly hat from Dick's. It says: I finally moved up to a 28AAA.

Jamie ready to start the festivities.

Labor Day Weekend

We enjoyed a relaxing Labor Day weekend. Zack and I didn't do anything special on Saturday or Sunday. We were invited to our friends Scott and Lori's for a BBQ on Monday. They recently bought a home in the Spring Branch area. Scott made some great chicken and Lori made some bleu cheese cole slaw which was delicious! I would not think to put bleu cheese in cole slaw but it added an amazing flavor. I'll be adding this to my recipe book. I made some yummy peanut butter cookies. They have a mini Reeses peanut butter cup baked inside of them!

We spent most of the day lounging in their pool. As you can see in this picture of Zack, he was being his 'normal' self.

Bad blogger

I'd say I've been a bad blogger lately. I feel like I never have anything to say and always need pictures to post along with my entry. I read a lot of blogs and they never have pictures so I don't know why I think I need them too.

We had a bridal shower for my cousin Jamie last weekend. I have a few pics that I'll try to post soon. Her bachelorette party is next weekend which should be fun!

I had a busy week at work. We are moving around offices and I was one of the first people to move. This will be my 3rd office in 4 years! One of the girls has moved about 4 or 5 times in the last 2 years. Do all companies do this to their people??? I really like my new office - it's bigger! The furniture doesn't match very well but I'm going to try to swap it out with another office next week. Hopefully, I'll be successful.

I'm looking forward to the Labor Day holiday weekend. We've been invited to two B-B-Q's and will try to make it to both.

Have a safe holiday weekend!

Zack's Trip to San Diego

Zack went to San Diego with some of his online gaming buddies. He went sea kayaking, to the zoo and a Padres game. He had a great time. I should have gone with him!

Hippo

Best picture of the Panda that Zack could get. The lady yelled at him not to lean over the rail!

Is that Smokey?

They have several Koalas. Houston Zoo has one!

Petco Park in San Diego

Zack and Sam at the Zoo

Summer reading update

I've finished two books since my last reading post. I did make it through the Julie and Romeo book. It wasn't as bad as I had expected but it wasn't good either. I've read worse love stories.

The book I just finished is Three Girls and Their Brother by Theresa Rebeck. I really enjoyed this one. It is about a these kids and what happens to their lives when the sisters are photographed for a magazine. It is broken into four sections each from the respective siblings point of view. It makes Hollywood and show biz out to be a nasty business (which I'm sure it is!).

I'll head to the library this week to pick up some new books. Not sure what I'll find.

Weekend in Plano

We spent this past weekend in Plano visiting Zack's family. Sam and Roshni recently moved there so we got to check out their new place. They live in a nice area called Legacy Park with lots of shopping and restaurants.

We took Friday off and drove up early. That afternoon we went out to see movies. The girls saw The Proposal while the guys saw Transformers 2. I loved The Proposal! It is so my kind of movie. That night we went out to dinner at Gordon Biersch, a microbrewery type restaurant. The food was very good!

On Saturday we were going to go to the arboretum but it was raining so we stayed in. On Saturday night, we headed to Karen and Bob's for a BBQ. It was humid at first but then it cooled off and turned out to be a really nice evening. It was great to hang out with everyone.

We got up Sunday and had breakfast at The Main Street Cafe then hit the road back to Houston. It went by fast but we had a good time.

We couldn't get a good picture of us out by the fountains. The sun was working against us.

This is Kate and Smoke. Kate is Zack's cousin Wendy's daughter.

Zack and Wendy playing washers in the backyard.

Karen and Roshni making some mojitos. Looks like fun!

My wonderful mother in law making some burgers!