Reliving Old Times
It had been since last Aggie football season that we had been to College Station…We were due for a return trip to Aggieland. The occasion was Justin’s birthday, a ring dunk or two, and the Maroon & White game. We ended up having a few last second hic-ups with scheduling and finding the dogs a place to crash, but Brent and Sarah were able to hook us up with a place to stay. They were even nice enough to let Touché’ and Rex harass their dog and cat all weekend. Overall, it was great to see everyone again and to share a drink or two (I think it was just two, I can’t remember) with some of our best friends. We just need to find a way to keep in touch with everyone.
To-Do List
The To-Do list on the iPhone has been growing larger and larger, but it’s actually a relief. Jessica and I have moved passed the huge stressful house projects and have moved onto the numerous little things that we need to get caught up on (Change air filters, write more in the blog, work on getting started on some of our long term goals in life, find out what’s making that noise in the attic, etc.). These are much less stressful and easy to knock out in a day. Usually if I can knock one or two things off of my list every day I’m pretty satisfied. Thanks again to Jessica’s family to help us with the landscaping
Social Networking
This is where I get nerdy, so feel free to skip this section if you just don’t care…but really it’s ok to be nerdy. No is watching you read this anyway right?
Besides the blog, I’ve been working on ways to stay in touch with the people I know, trying to find ways to get back in touch with people I used to talk with, and trying to meet new people that could become great contacts in the future. Now I’m set up on Facebook (have been for a while), LinkedIn (the business version of facebook), I even have a twitter account that I’ve hooked up to the facebook account. Social networking is much more fun and beneficial when it’s social, so why not sign up and give it a try. Here are links to my profiles…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Hollis-Miles/8308074
http://www.linkedin.com/in/hollismiles
http://twitter.com/hmiles619
Astros Baseball Game
Old friends always ask, “How do you like living in Houston?” …And my answer is always the same, “Well, at one point, Houston was last on my places in Texas where I want to live. But now I love it, It really is a bad place to visit because of the traffic and sprawl, but it’s a great place to live because you’re never bored in Houston.” Well that rang true again last week when I got lucky enough to get the free company tickets for the Astros game vs. the Dodgers. Justin, the girls, and I had a great time. How can you not have a good time with a view like this?
Marathon Man
For those of you that don’t know, Chris ran a marathon (26.2 miles) this past weekend in Oklahoma City. Most of you know that I was a pretty serious runner when I was younger, which means two things,
1) I can seriously respect what a huge lifetime accomplishment that this is… As much as I ran in my lifetime, I doubt I ever broke the 7 mile marker. So this is at least 20 miles longer than my longest run ever. No matter what happens from now on, Chris knows he’s tough enough to finish a marathon, low blood sugar and all.
2) I’m so burnt out on running that I don’t ever see myself gaining the desire to do anything like this ever in my life. But either way, congrats Chris on the 4000 calorie workout; I’m sure you’ll be sore for a while.
Finally A Free Weekend!
For the first time in 10 weekends, I’m scheduled to be at home doing nothing when Saturday and Sunday roll around. In the last ten weekends I’ve done the following…
-Attended 4 weddings
-Traveled over 5000 miles
-Slept in 8 different beds (if you count the floor as a bed)
-3 Baseball games (Astros, CC Hooks, Aggies)
-Spent way too much money on food and travel
-Participated in about 20 toasts
-Played 3 rounds of golf
-Hung out with nearly every good friend I have
Well, good. Now we’re caught up. I can cross you guys off my to-do list.
Two weekends ago, Hollis and I along with Katie and Justin drove to Dallas to see our good friends Julie and Jeff. It was our first time to see their place and the first time to see them since August. The girls had a great time catching up and shopping while the boys enjoyed a few games of golf.
We spent the next week anticipating our three day weekend. We were able to enjoy trivia night with the Abshires at a local bar on Wednesday and drinks at Berryhill on Thursday night. Hollis and Justin enjoyed some more golf on Friday morning while I prepared for my parents to come in town. We were looking forward to accomplishing a lot on our long weekend!
My family came to town to help us with our landscaping on Friday. When we bought the house there were beds that were already made but full of dead plants. It has taken us a while to pull out all of the dead plants and finally get the yard ready to landscape but this past weekend we were finally ready. My family came up in the early afternoon on Friday and we got straight to work. The five of us, (Hollis, Kayla, my mom, my dad, and myself), planted about 30 plants and worked for four hours on the landscaping in front of our house. After working for four hours, my dad finished installing a light by our garage and we were off to a nice Itallian dinner at a local diner that Hollis and I found down the street. The feel of the restaurant makes you think you are in Italy and they have excellent friendly service. We enjoyed some amazing pizza and spaghetti and went back to the house to go to bed. Who knew landscaping could be such a good work out and so exhausting!!
On Saturday, while the girls were shopping in Old Town Spring, Hollis and my dad woke up early to play golf with my dad’s friend Mike and Hollis’ buddy Justin. That night we all went to dinner to celebrate Easter as a family and went to a show called Artania! The show was a version of Cirque de Soleil with Russian horses. It was very entertaining and a lot of fun!
Last night Katie and Justin joined Hollis and I at Rice Baseball Statidum to watch our Texas Aggies beat the Rice Owls 7-3. It was great to be able to be around so many Aggies again and made us look forward to our trip to Aggieland this weekend!
The family at my parents 30th Surprise Wedding Anniversary Party!
The boys at Britany and Grant’s Wedding
The girls at the wedding
It seems like I just blogged, but I got on the site today and realized that there is a lot that I haven’t posted about. Everything has been moving pretty quickly lately, I don’t think we’ve had a day to ourselves with nothing to do in over a month. Oh well, we’re filling the time with good memories.
The Weekends
It’s hard to believe it’s already been nearly two weeks, but we had a great time having most of our friends in town for Grant’s and Britany’s wedding in Northeast Houston. It’s always nice to have everyone over, and it’s especially fun when it’s a mini-vacation for everyone involved. We all realize that we miss the good times back in College Station, so we had to re-create our own at the “Red River Saloon”, complete with cheap drinks and crowded country dancing. Less than 24 hours later we had changed from the cowboy boots to the dress shoes for Grant and Britany’s wedding. I think I spent most of Sunday trying to catch up on sleep. It’s fun to recreate the good times, but I’m just not conditioned for it like I used to be.
Last weekend we were back in Portland for Jessica’s parents’ surprise 30th anniversary party. Jessica, Kayla, Randall and Jenn did a good job of organizing it and keeping it a secret. I want to make sure my parents read that again…. I had nothing to do with the planning, but I do remember that your anniversary is also within the week. Happy Anniversary!
Cheap Food Tuesday/Thursday
These busy weekends are expensive, but even then, when you look back on the bills for the past month, the biggest bill (besides the house) seems to be food. I can’t usually remember what I’ve eaten 3 hours after I eat it, so why am I spending extra money to buy the more expensive stuff? We decided that we’re going to have cheap food Tuesdays & Thursdays, which kicked off last night with 2 grilled cheese sandwiches for me (mmmmmm!) and a bowl of noodles for her. I can’t say we’re roughing it, exactly, but if we can cut down on 15% of our food expenses (2 out of 14 meals), it’ll really add up over the next year. Try it for a year, keep track of the savings, then join us on a “free” vacation next year at this time.
HOA
The weekdays are full as well. When I’m not working or commuting, I’m preparing to become a board member for our Home Owner’s Association. My first official meeting is tonight, but a few weeks of various tasks to get everything lined up has preceded it. We were mistakenly fined for a rules violation during the first month of living at the house, and that event slowly led to this point. Hopefully I can go in and learn something, gain some experience, and make a difference in the community all at the same time.
Business Announcement
In other news, I received the official approval for licensing for the online store I’m about to open. I keep adding to my list of housekeeping for the site that I want to get finished before announcing details to the public, but I will try to post an announcement about the grand opening of the store in the next couple weeks.
That should catch everyone up on what’s going on (at least with my life). I’ll try to talk Jessica into posting again soon.
