Geez..I feel like the worst amateur blogger ever…….you see Mandy and I have been alternating our blogging between one another in order to mitigate the time it takes to write a blog, between work, our lives, and Baby T…..however we have had some extraordinary events over the past month that have placed hurdles in our way……we have leaped, and jumped through hoops…hopefully our lives are back to normal.
I write from St. Louis, we have been here since Sunday for our annual Christmas visit, and it’s been a whirlwind of holiday events with both our families. I will enlighten you more later.
So since our last post here is a rundown of events that have ridiculously affected the Briones House.
Heated Floors turn into a house remodeling project we will never forget. For the month of October Mandy and I could have swore we had heated floors just show up in our Den. I mean deep down inside I knew what was going on…..I tried to justify and hope that it was just a really really hot pipe…or that somehow we did in fact have heated floors that we never knew about. But I really knew it was likely a water leak (slab leak) underneath the slab of our den. One day I walked in to find water seeping through the hardwood floors. Lucky us, we were about to embark on a flooring remodel we would never forget. Wood floors in the den and kitchen had to be completely removed as well as the flooring in the utility room. Since this was going to be a big project anyway, and we wanted all the flooring to match, we decided to extend the project into the main living room, the hall, the office, and the master bedroom. All complete, we laid approx 1200 sq ft of hardwood flooring. It looks amazing and we are glad to have it all done. The baseboards (all but one set of corner round) are all back in place, the carpets and rugs have been purchased and custom made, and we were able to move back into all our rooms before the holidays and even put up the decorations. Dusting on the other hand will take weeks…..
Also, prior to all the craziness with the floors Mandy and I had decided to venture into a kitchen remodel a little at a time. First step was the counters….with a great offer from living social we purchased and chose our granite (believe me, if had known of the floor issues I wouldn’t have done so) so while one company was digging up floors, and plumbers were repairing pipes, I demolished the kitchen counters and backsplash and the granite guys made their debut. The counters look amazing, we chose a beautiful color called Crema Napoli, and it’s awesome. In order to cut down on costs (and since I have a very very talented father who has done kitchens and baths for over 30 years) we opted to do all the backsplash work ourselves (check out my dad’s website and give him a call if you need a remodel, he’s great at what he does http://gemini-remodeling.blogspot.com/ ). He and I did the prep work – mostly building a Niche shelf behind the stove and in the few days that followed Mandy and I tiled and grouted (yes Mandy is a mean tile setter). We had a blast and it looks awesome. Kitchen Phase II begins this month with a cabinet refurb, popcorn ceiling removal, wall paper removal, texturing, and painting. Yes we like to kill ourselves with home projects but we do them together and we definitely can say that we have built OUR HOME together.
BEFORE
AFTER
On Nov 19 Mandy Celebrated 30 years of life. I was so happy to celebrate with her, we had dinner at Boi Na Braza in Grapevine and just enjoyed the evening together while Grandma babysat. We were so tired to say the least that we were home by 9….yes we are getting old. But our time together was a blast. We celebrate with our friends at B-1, hosted by the Everett’s with cake and ice cream. Mandy got lots of shoes as gifts…she’s happy!!
Grandma Hahn went back to St. Louis before Thanksgiving and I played “Stay at Home Dad for a 2 plus weeks….we had a blast together, although he slept often, it was fun. Let’s just say, I don’t know how it….I stay at home parents do don’t ever want to be a stay at home dad and for Mandy’s sake….If she wants to work…more power to her!! It’s exhausting, and after those several days…some adult time and intelligent brain activity was definitely needed. Tressan was a great companion though, we took multiple trips to Home Depot and Lowes (as a result of all the house projects), we decorated for Christmas, made a visit to Aunt Wendy’s, went grocery shopping a few times, and napped a lot. Although, I look back now and wish I would have rested more on my time off, all I did was work around the house. This was the first time ever that I have taken off two weeks of work and not gone anywhere.
Early December we took our second road trip with Tressan – all the way to San Antonio this time for Aunt Stephanie’s graduation from Grad School. He did great…he actually slept all the way til about 20 minutes outside of Austin, which was perfect because we were stopping for lunch with an grad school friend of mine Jennifer. Downside to that 20 minutes was that he decided to cry ridiculously for the entire 20 minutes. We ate lunch with Jennifer at one of her local favorites Cipollina Bistro. It was great… we left, but not before we took Jennifer’s recommendation to grab a cupcake at Delish in downtown Austin. Great suggestion…I could have eaten two. We made our way into San Antonio, met up with another friend from college Jaclyn, our host whilst in San Antonio; she was gracious to let us (with a screaming baby) stay with her for the weekend. We joined the rest of my family down on the riverwalk for dinner. The Christmas decorations were awesome….it was great to have the whole family together. Stephanie walked the stage (she was the first name called) and then we had to sit there for what seemed like eternity. The best part of the graduation was that they had a concession stand. It was entertaining to see our nephew Noah enjoying a giant pretzel….but the most entertaining part was seeing some of the families passing nachos or popcorn back and forth during the ceremony. What the heck? We decided to go ahead and get on the road that day, so we headed out and met up with our friends Tiffany and Eric for dinner outside of Austin at the famous Salt Lick BBQ. Good times with the Chambers and then on our way back home and in our beds by midnight!!!
Other Major events include:
>St Nick visited our house again this year on the Feast of St Nicholas and brought many goodies, a gumdrop tree, and new stockings for the family. Mandy mostly enjoyed the box of Teddy Grahams and the tub of frosting I got her to make her own Dunkaroos.
>B-1 first ever brunch where we all made Pinterest recipes. We had a blast celebrating advent and enjoying one another’s company before all the Christmas Hullaballoo.
>Dinner Party with the Everett’s and the Rasmussen for Game night – thanks Brian and Christy for introducing us to PIT, we have now purchased this as a Briones MUST OWN game!!
>Dinner Party with the Chambers and a great game of Balderdash
>Christmas Eve was spent with my family out in Celina at my parent’s house. We enjoyed a day of eating and just relaxation. The whole Briones crew was there and I think we ate until we couldn’t eat anymore. We went to Christmas Eve Mass out in Pilot Point at my mom’s parish – where she made us arrive 1 hour early. I think we even beat the choir. We were the second family in the church, and I am almost positive that the first family was only there because they through the service started at 4 and not 5…..all in all it was fine, we survived and it did in fact get extremely packed. It was nice to have mass as a family.
>On Christmas Day we woke up and enjoyed a nice relaxed for the morning, tidying up and packing for a trip to STL. We had lunch and gift exchange at Wendy and Matt’s house. Lunch consisted of super awesome tamales, killer enchiladas made by Wendy and a traditional Mexican feast. Noah got nerf guns for Christmas so you can assume what the boys did for most of the afternoon.
After this Stephanie chauffeured us to the Airport for a flight to STL, where upon arrival we were loaded up and went straight out to the Talbott’s (Mandy’s Aunt and Uncle) for Christmas Part Deaux. More eating ensued and a vicious white elephant gift exchange. I did not get to leave the house with the Man Can, which was the best gift ever. It was stolen by the evil and vicious Missy, who was merely a stand in for a cousin that couldn’t be there…but let me tell you, when I did have possession of the Man Can….I indulged in its contents by eating a large handful of the homemade deer jerky. Michael is lucky he had Missy vouching for him, but I will seek revenge next year. We spent the next 4 days in Saint Louis…Uncle Mark got to meet Tressan for the first time. He learned a lot in a few days….1) baby’s require more than 2-3 diapers a day 2) Baby’s do in fact grow out of infancy (he thought that he would still look like a newborn) and 3) Baby’s bowel movements are an interesting feeling whilst holding said baby. We played a lot of games and ate all week….ughhh…..and Grandma and Grandpa Hahn got their time with Tressan. I know they wished our time didn’t have to come to a close there. We ventured back to Texas on Thursday and settled back into our lives.
So…he were are today…both back at work and Tressan at his second real week of babysitter time……our lives keep ticking and we are excited for what the new year may bring. All I know if it’s anything like 2011….I’ll take it, what a blessed year, and I do know this….If we are involved…its sure to be interesting.
Joshua, Mandy and Tressan.
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