Spring in Texas

It has been a busy couple of months here in Texas! My sister came to Texas for a long weekend in March. We had a lot of fun showing her the area, shopping and going to the Houston Rodeo!

Houston Rodeo

Karen & I at the Rodeo

It was very sad when she went home, but I went home to Indiana just 10 days later. Our friends Daniel and Lauren were getting married so I made sure to make it home for the bachlorette party as well!

Emily & I at the bachelorette party

Mandy & I

Some of the guys at the wedding

Some of the girls…

Zac & I at Dan & Lauren’s Wedding)

I was also happy to be going home and visiting with family, especially seeing the nieces and nephew! Unfortunately my nieces, Hannah and Madison were sick while I was home, and since I was staying with them, I got sick as well. Being sick definitely changed my plans for the week but it was nice being at my Moms so she could take care of me = )

Hannah & Madison in the tub

Maddie & her big blue eyes and pouty lips!

The last day in Indiana we celebrated Easter early with Zac’s family. It was unfortunately the only day I got to see them since I was sick, but I was very glad to visit with them after being away for 3 months.

Our Schneider nieces & nephew….Jackson, Lauren, & Ellie

Lauren found an egg!

Zac’s brother Jason, our sister-in-law Jessica, and niece Ellie came to visit us for a week in April! We had a blast while they were here and I didn’t want them to go! We went to the Houston Aquarium, Houston Zoo, NASA, and Galveston Beach! We also went shopping and took Ellie to get a manicure and pedicure at Sweet and Sassy, which is a children’s spa in our neighborhood.

Jason & Ellie at the Zoo

Ellie getting her first pedicure!

We spent a lot of time in the pool!

At Galveston Beach (Ellie didn’t like her feet on the sand at first)

Zac and I spent two weekends remodeling our landscaping in our front and backyards. It was hard work but we love how it turned out. We took advantage of living in the south and bought many tropical plants!

The front yard obviously still needs sod!

We want to wish our Mother’s (and any other Mom out there) a HAPPY MOTHERS DAY! We love both our Mother’s very much and wished we could have been with them to celebrate their special day.

                                (Zac’s Mom – Brenda)

                               (My Mom – Betty)

I have missed many birthday and anniversaries during my blogging hiatus and I need to catch up!

Zac’s Dad’s birthday was March 15th. HAPPY BIRTDAY GLENN!! I hope you had a great day and we wish we could have been with you!! I know Zac missed the corned beef and cabbage!

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY TO OUR NIECE LAUREN!! Her birthday was April 16th. We miss and love you so much!

Our sister-in-law Amanda’s birthday was April 26th. Happy Birthday Amanda! Hopefully your birthday wasn’t too stressful between work and school! We love and miss you!

My brother Daniel, and his wife Kayla, celebrated their 4th wedding anniversary on April 29th. Happy Anniversary to you both! I hope you all had a wonderful day!

I hope everyone at home is enjoying Spring! I am pretty sure there is no such thing as Spring in Texas….we jumped straight to the 90’s! It’s like summer! Love you all!!

HAPPY 7th ANNIVERSARY TRAVIS & AMANDA

Congratulations on 7 years together!  We love you both!

February in Texas

It has been a busy month for us here in Texas. Zac has been extremely busy at work this month. The new office here in Texas is growing rapidly and I don’t think anyone was expecting Houston to welcome CMTA so quickly. CMTA Houston has officially hired their first employee. They hired Sherry, she is a mechanical engineer and will be a big help to Mark! They are also currently searching for an additional mechanical and an electrical to help Zac. Being the only contact for electrical he is swamped daily by phone calls and emails on top of his busy week filled with meetings and drawings to be done in the office. He spent the whole weekend at the office and it seems like work won’t be slowing anytime soon. On top of work, Zac is also taking a PE Exam Course that is in Phoenix, Arizona. Zac has to pass the PE Exam to be able to receive his Professional Engineering License. You are not eligible to take this exam until you have been graduated from engineering school for 5 years, so this is the first (and hopefully last) time he will be taking the exam. He will be spending many different weekends flying to Phoenix to attend the class to help prepare him for the PE exam, which he will be taking in April.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day Weekend!! I was very happy to have my friend Emily in town visiting during that weekend. We spent most of our time shopping and talking, I miss spending time with her so much! Emily, Zac, and I had an awesome Valentine’s Day dinner. We went to the grocery store and came home with Lobster tails and vegetables to grill. I was also happy that the weather warmed up and Emily was able to enjoy the warmer temperatures while she was here, especially since she went home to a snow storm! We were having so much fun we forgot to take any pictures of our weekend together = ( Fortunately she and her husband Jeff are already planning a summer vacation here in July for a whole week, so I’m sure we’ll take plenty of pictures then.

HAPPY BIRTDAY AUNT JANE!! We hope you had an awesome birthday yesterday!! We love and miss you!

This Wednesday, February 24th is my brother David and Christa’s 3rd Wedding Anniversary! Happy Anniversary to you both! We love you both and hope you have a wonderful day!

And as promised in my last blog…The dreaded bathroom project…… After many different hiccups it was finally complete just in time for Emily’s visit with us. This was also supposed to be another one of “my” projects, but it quickly became an “our” project, which I’m sure Zac was so pleased by that!!

Here is a before picture again:

We then began the process of taking off the wallpaper:

And the bathroom is finally complete:

This project was extremely tough but we are extremely happy with the way it turned out. Zac even stained the cabinets and they look great! There are still 2 rooms in the house that need remodeled but this is the last one we are going to do for a while!

I hope that everyone back home in Kentuckiana will be thawing out very soon! Our spring seems to be on its way here in Houston and we got to enjoy a weekend with temperatures in the upper 70’s! The next several months will be very busy for us. My sister is coming to visit here in just a little over a week and then I will be back home in Indiana for 10 days in March. Hopefully I will be able to visit as many of you as I can! I hope everyone has a wonderful end of February and beginning to March!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRAVIS

Today is Zac's brothers birthday......Happy Birthday Travis!! We hope you had a great birthday today! Wish we could be there to celebrate with you!

Zac & Kelly

The Last Couple of Weeks….

WARNING – Long blog

Life has been busy here in Texas over the last couple of weeks. One of the best things is the weather has finally warmed back up with highs in the upper 70’s!! It is supposed to cool down a little again this week but spring seems to be on its way in, I’ve heard it starts here in February!

Zac and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary. Instead of traveling this year to celebrate we bought furniture, a new kitchen table, dining room chairs, bed frame, desk and computer, and we also went out to a nice prime steakhouse in our neighborhood. It is hard to believe that we have already been married for 2 years. I thank god everyday that Zac is my husband and he reminds me every day why I love him so much!

Lila had her first haircut



And she apparently wanted to be a pirate instead, haha….she did this all on her own!



Zac and I have kept busy with a couple of projects of our own.

Zac’s project: In December we went to a store which sold “Texas” items and they had a really neat cooler that both Zac and I loved. Zac decided that he could make the cooler on his own for much cheaper and spent time this week constructing it.







As you can see the cooler turned out awesome and it will be put to good use out by the pool this summer!!

My project: I have been working on redoing one of our upstairs bedrooms. I decided to start with the “pink room” since it is easily seen from our upstairs living room.



It actually took me 10 days to complete the room mostly because of the amount of trim I had to paint!



Lila found her a place in the closet shelving to hangout while I worked!



I decided to go with a Caribbean theme for the room because the name of the paint was “Caribbean Sunrise” so I was able to utilize a lot of the pictures that we took in St. Lucia. The room isn’t totally complete but here are pictures of it so far…





Which now brings me to my next project, redoing our ugly upstairs bathroom!! Unfortunately the walls are covered in wall paper so this project could last a lot longer than the bedroom! Wish me luck!

The Last Decade

This is a look back at our last 10 years. I am stealing this idea from one of my best friends Katy, she did this on her blog and I thought it would be a great way to begin my first blog.

The year 2000:

May - Zac & I graduated from high school



August – Zac begins his first semester at the University of Louisville in the Electrical Engineering Program

2001:

November – My Dad had a heart attack and is rushed into surgery for an emergency angioplasty

2002:

August – Zac began working as a Co-op at CMTA Engineering

2003:

April – I began working for the Department of Medicine at the University of Louisville

May 31st – My sister Karen got Married



2004:

September 30th – Zac's brother Travis and sister-in-law Amanda welcome our nephew Jackson



October – Karen is shocked and finds out that she is pregnant!

2005:

March 17th – Me and Zac began dating and it was also the day that he closed on his first home





May – Zac graduated with his Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Louisville and began working full time for CMTA

June 11th – Karen goes into labor!



Our niece Hannah was born



December 4th – Zac's brother Jason & sister-in-law Jessica welcome our niece Ellie



2006:

April 28th – My brother Daniel & Kayla are married

June 30th – My Dad is diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer; Hannah is diagnosed and put in the ICU with Type 1 Diabetes on the same day



2007:

February 24th – My brother David & Christa get married



April 16th – Travis and Amanda welcome baby #2 our niece Lauren



May 16th – My Dad lost his battle with Cancer



May 26th – Zac proposed to me in Cincinnati!



2008:

January 18th – Zac & I were married on the island of St Lucia



November – Karen found out she was pregnant with baby #2

December 28th – Zac & I expand our family with our first addition…our dog Lila!



2009:

February – Zac is asked by CMTA to relocate to Texas to help head a new office in Houston.

March – We accept the offer to move to Texas and officially list our house for sell.

July 5th – Karen and Vincent welcome baby #2 our niece Madison



July 31st – After 6 years it’s my last day working at UofL



August 31st – We close on our new home in Texas



September 23rd – The movers arrive and we leave for Texas



September 25th – Our first official day in Texas



This is obviously just a selection of events that happened over the last ten years. Looking back at the past decade there were very happy times as well as many sad ones. Other things that happened were: My oldest brother was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and Celiac Disease. Both of Zac’s brothers were married, Jason married Jessica and Travis married Amanda. I sadly lost both my Grandmothers and Zac lost his Grandma Schneider, as well as other family members and friends. I was honored and asked to be a bridesmaid in 9 different weddings! We spent countless hours having fun with our friends, usually hanging out around a bon fire or someone’s garage. We grew stronger relationships with our families and couldn’t love them more! I am very excited to see what the next decade will bring and to see how our life grows and changes here in Texas!!