The House the Scherbels Built

The Scherbel Chateau is officially under new management. The house sold yesterday so Steve and I spent a majority of Christmas break helping my parents pack things up and move out (sorry to all my friends for not visiting!). Before there was a house, it was "the lot" that we tended as a family. Building the house in 2004-ish was our biggest family project to date.

Favorite memories during the building phase include: endless fast food meals on the dusty floor; decorating a Christmas tree with used sandpaper rounds and work gloves; making stained glass windows with my mom to country songs about drinking; sanding, sanding, sanding; watching my sisters yell "we're fighting!" and wrestle over who got to pick the church music one rare working Sunday; seeing various boyfriends/girlfriends come help as a "test"; landscaping the backyard with my brother; and pulling my first and only all-nighter to help my dad finish some woodwork.

It's sad to see the house go, but we look forward to having adventures in the new place when we come to visit in the future.

Girls Gotta Match

Us girls are obsessed with matching in our family. This year, I made all five of us matching pajama bottoms (with pockets!) for the traditional Christmas morning photo shoot. We didn't get a picture with all of us in the PJ's...but we did get a cozy shot of us all in our Christmas Snuggies!

Impromptu Lighting Experiment

I love finding a captive photography "victim" to experiment on. I also love using tips from Napolean Dynamite e.g. "make a fist...slowly ease it up underneath your chin...."

Extreme Light Display

Santa got skillz.

Foolish Fudge

This week I had the brilliant idea to make holiday fudge. Nevermind that I've never made it before, but the Carnation fudge kit in the store made it look so easy. I was excited about the prospect of the delicious delivery it would make to friends and neighbors.

I made the Carnation recipe for "foolproof" fudge without a hitch.

That seemed way too easy... I like to think that I'm more advanced than Level: Fool. I rummaged through my Kitchenaid cookbooks (courtesy of husband, of course) until I came up with a trickier recipe (requiring a candy thermometer!). Chaos ensued:

Until I have a formal fudge lesson I am taking an indefinite break from this holiday confection.

Retro Red

It was a dreary day yesterday....

Perfect for going to see the Nutcracker performed by the Houston Ballet with Mark and Amy. And check out that lipstick! Retro Red. It screams "holiday cheer", doesn't it?

We were lucky enough to meet a giant rat in toe shoes, and Steve gave me a personal ballet performance I attempted to capture during intermission. Thank you, Houston Ballet, for the beautiful portrayal of this traditional holiday show. And thank you, Steve, for enduring all those tights.

Music Man

For those of you who don't know, my husband is an accomplished harmonicist. (Is that a word?) He specializes in Blues and Christmas songs. Incidentally, he has been practicing his Christmas repertoire with techno accompaniment, no less. Totally rad.

Snow Day

It snowed in Houston today! I wore a coat. And actually needed it.

flickr test

I'm trying to decide if I like using flickr to link photos to my blog...

Untitled.

Trotting for Turkeys

Until this week, I've always perceived that "trotting" is somewhat of a jazzed up leisurely stroll. When my husband signed me up for the Houston Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving I heard the word trot and immediately associated it with leisure. A luxurious 10k course of leisure. No problem! A few weeks before the race I logged a 10k to make sure I could still go the distance...and called it good. End of training program. Steve was more diligent in his preparation, which makes sense to me now after having endured the most brutal 59 minutes of "trotting"--aka "going at a quick, steady pace"--I've ever done. Steve finished in 50 minutes and two days after the race glides smoothly, alongside his hobbling wife.

Us, pre-pain:
Somewhere after mile 6... and finally the end!Thanks to Steve's dad for cheering us on!

"Crafting for Money"

Yesterday my sister updated me on this year's Thanksgiving craft she's heading up without my assistance. For a few years now my sisters and I have done a Thanksgiving craft for each place setting at the grand feast. Before, during, and after the craft...or anytime it's mentioned...we sing the accompanying song (to the tune of Tina Turner's hit song "Private Dancer") "I'll be your private crafter, crafting for money, I'll craft what you want me to craft." Much of our crafting inspiration has come from Big Martha.

The top left is our first craft from 2005. Next to that are the disheveled pom pom disasters from last year alongside what they were supposed to look like. The bottom depicts the 2007 beauty, next to the Martha interpretation. If I've learned anything about holiday crafting, it's stay away from the pom turkeys!

$99/lb

It's November and our garden is finally bearing fruit. This picture is about $50 worth of Broadbent Gardens produce...and it's not even organic.

I Doodled...

A couple weeks ago I took an interesting 5-day class at work about corrosion engineering. Each day, the class started at 7:30 a.m.--slightly earlier than I usually start my day (cough, cough). On day 2 I was battling an extreme case of heavy eyelids and resorted to these to stay awake:

Can you guess who they are? I'll give you some clues: one is a "Higgs", two are teachers from the class, there's a husband and wife couple in there, a random lady, and my very own husband. If nothing else, I stayed awake!

Deals

And now...a post by Steve:

I decided to try out some offers so that I could get a free gift card. I had to pay a couple of things so it ended up costing about $15, but I still got my $100. Probably not very time effective though. It took a couple of hours to make sure I canceled everything, and I wasted a bunch of time fiddling around with a trial e-music subscription.




I needed some new work type shoes so I was searching for a deal when I noticed on slickdeals that 6pm.com was having a sale. $20 for each pair of rockport shoes + $6 shipping. The only time I have gotten that good of a deal on decent shoes was in the black friday sales at Kohls, but I had to wait through a very long line for that. So I used some of my gift card money to buy 3 new pairs of shoes. My old ones are in the picture for comparison. They have more good deals, but the super sale is over.

Hike Surprise

Steve checked this book out from the library a couple weeks ago. 60 hikes in Houston?! bah. Makes you wonder what the author's definition of the word "hike" is...

Nevertheless, Steve took me on Friday after work on one of these hikes from the book...about 2 miles from our house! There are many more [beautiful] trails at Memorial Park than I thought. It was a fun refreshing Friday night date activity.

And it should be noted that "hike" as it's used in this book is more like "beautiful nature walk" where I'm from.

Steve impressing me with his gladiatious strength.

Houston Fall, or at least the digitally enhanced kind.

Seasonal Evidence

I took this today outside Target--a little hint of Fall right here in Houston, TX!

Halloween Recap

For Halloween this year, we were...


Or at least some of them. As usual, the whole costume thing was last-minute. I've secretly always wanted to do a couples costume and Steve insists that Halloween is for kids (and consequently didn't want to dress up), so I found something that worked for both of us. I bought a stretchy tank top dress with sick shoulder-padded jacket combo (you know what I'm talking about) for $3.50 and spent a few hours on Halloween cutting the whole thing apart and refashioning it into Morticia Addams' wardrobe. Steve let me spray-paint his hair and paint on a mustache. I was really digging the couples costume! Another plus for marriage! ha ha

Our friends threw a great party where we socialized with pirates, witches, wild things, skeletons, bacon robots, and the like. Every husband had the same disclaimer about his costume: "this was my wife's idea." Sure it was... The best part of the party was when the men huddled up to talk business. Real hard to take any business convo seriously when the dress is "character/scary casual".

Boo on the Boardwalk

This weekend we took our friends with us to Kemah, TX for Boo on the Boardwalk. It's something like Frightmares at Lagoon, only with way fewer rides, more restaurants, a boardwalk....okay, so they're not that similar.

We dined at Cadillac Bar--for the first and last time--before strolling the boardwalk. We stopped to feed the hungry catfish non-traditional foods e.g. a candy wrapper and wad of hair Steve found pictured below. (Don't ask me where you find a SICK wad of hair on the boardwalk...) The men of our group rode the Drop Zone, and I joined them for the Boardwalk Bullet rollercoaster, Steve's favorite. It was a fun prelude to Halloween!

Office Party

I had a work party yesterday at Dave & Busters--think nickelcade on steroids. The event had food everywhere and nearly unlimited games in the arcade. Our favorite games were shooting hoops, horse races, and nascar. The crowd was too thick to get a really good game of skeeball (my fav!) in. Next time...

The best moment of the day was when Steve signed up to play an electronic jumproping game. He swiped his card and jumproped for probably 3-4 minutes straight, drawing attention from many passersby. Some people even stopped to watch his athlectronic feat of glory. I hated to break it to him, but I'm pretty sure his game had ended after the first jump and he had merely been jumping...for joy?

Resistance

So the air system on the interior of my car stopped working. This is bad news for a Houstonian. Google told me what the problem was--the resistor--so I ordered the part and attempted the deceptively simple job. I took out the glove box and started dismantling the passenger side of the car. The picture below is only the beginning. 1.5 hours, 2 buckets of sweat, and infinite grumbling later...the thing was fixed. Naturally, it couldn't be a simple job since I had to fiddle with the actual blower after I made my initial repair. I looked pretty ragged in the end, but my greatest achievement was 0...broken nails! ha ha!

Tourists at Home

If you've ever lived in Houston for any period of time, you may have heard of "the Heights"--a neighborhood off downtown. In my mind it's akin to "the Avenues" of SLC: artsy, historically charming, and somewhat pricey. At the first of each month the Heights offers a free bus tour of the district. Steve and I spent our break in between the Saturday General Conference sessions taking the tour.

p.s. Have I ever mentioned my husband is smokin' hot?

The bus was full of talkative tourist women for most of the ride, but after they got off it was silent. I was expecting more of a Disney-style tour, including a tour guide complete with mini microphone to describe the scenery...but no. sniff. It's like my mom always says, "You get what you pay for!"

Galveston Getaway

Steve planned a road trip for us this weekend with a surprise destination of...Galveston Island! To start things off Steve had made made us reservations at Gaido's (guy-doze), a city seafood favorite. Here's Steve drinking a fishy bottle of olive oil and cutting up:

After dinner we strolled along the beach to walk off our massive dinner before finding the beautiful historic hotel Steve booked for us in the middle of town.

Today we strolled around the city, watched the ships in the bay, went to a film (with a crazy soundtrack) covering the historic hurricane of 1900, checked out the shops, and visited the beach. We were both surprised to see how much the city is still in recovery mode after Hurricane Ike a year ago. As you can see, the Ike water line was pretty high, which explains why none of the parking meters work anymore. Too bad.

We had such a fun time on our weekend adventure, thanks to my thoughtful husband!

Good Example

I thought I'd be the first to sign my nephew's cast--with chalk--before he got it off. Notice the pink "K". The little guy caught on to this fun activity and spent the next several minutes thoroughly decorating his arm in a rainbow of colors.

How to Dress a Baby

As is tradition, whenever a baby nephew is blessed in our family my sister and I dress the child in his white suit. We're really experienced now that we've got two nephews. I'm still working on my technique, but here's what I've got so far.

First, find a willing subject, preferably one that can neither speak nor has mobility:

Next, use lots of laughter, and use phrases like "pull harder", "I'm going to rip his arm off" and "how do you do this?!"

Fortunately little Eric didn't cry during our prolonged antics, though he pulled some pretty funny faces of discomfort. What a cute baby!

p.s. My talented seamstress mom made his whole outfit. The little dress shirt was my favorite--so cute. His mom made him the mini tie.

Tips on Crochet

I recently just took a crochet refresher course from my mom. My sister enrolled in the class as well, and here are the tips we gained from our session:

a. use some concentration, especially if wearing long sparkly fingernails
b. it's normal to get mad
c. anger usually fosters mistakes
d. try not to fall asleep
e. once you get the hang of it, it's fun!
f. pay attention to the teacher
g. laugh when your mom does a wild demo of your technique
h-k. act completely normal if anyone is capturing it on film
l. keep your mouth open long enough near a crochet hook and you get free dental work

Go Cougars

Steve and I attended the BYU vs. Colorado game a couple weekends ago with his brother and wife. It was my 4th--yes, 4th ever--BYU football game. I'm a huge fan of BYU (love it), but not so much a fan of football. It seems simple: dudes piling on top of each other for four hours, yet I get lost quite easily. The amount of focusing it takes for me to even locate the ball on the field is way more work than 'recreation' should require. This is why I watch approximately 1 game per year. This year's game was exciting since I got to be there in person! and in great company.

Proof

This is for all the people (like the former Ms. Larsen) who thought I was exaggerating about my recent falling out with baking. I made these. Notice they're so thin you can see through them. They were a big hit, as you can see by the excitement written on this consumer's face.

Who's the Fairest?

ahhh...the fair. Several years ago it was the culminating event for months of mine and my sisters' 4-H projects in sewing, baking, cake decorating, and theater. I once submitted what I affectionately named "clown pajamas" which I meticulously stitched out of spare scraps of flannel. Another year I entered snickerdoodles, which I'll have you know, won a blue ribbon even though I was too young for such a prize. I was a big fan of 4-H and have fond memories of learning new skills with neighborhood kids from our talented parents.

Nowadays going to the fair means jewelry shopping (which was unproductive this year!), an excuse to wear cowboy boots, ogling at animals, and people watching. It had been a long time since I'd seen a crop top/tight wrangler combo. My favorite find this year was a demo of a mixing/chopping device that can be used without electricity. I'm kind of sad a little that I didn't buy one.

Day of Caring

Every fall I participate in United Way's Day of Caring. This year I volunteered at El Shaddi Gardens, one of the Houston gardens that provides fresh produce to the Target Hunger project. I didn't know anyone when I got there, but there was plenty of time for conversation while we weeded, planted, and mulched.

We started the morning by doing a tai chi group stretch...

The men went off to tame the jungle and compost while the women weeded.

Here's the whole group at the end of the day.

It looks like I didn't get the memo on this one, but I assure you, the instructions were "do a funny pose." It's weird...everyone else's funny pose looks a lot like their regular pose, leaving me looking like a dork wad. Give it up for me!