Helping the Community

Everyone at the end of the day
L to R: Jenga, Chris, Zach, Corbin, Ms Teetes, Matt, Kevin, Funke, Katie, Reimers, Me and Jr.

Every year Texas A&M hosts The Big Event. Big Event is one day set aside to thank and give back to the community for their continued support of our amazing university. Last year was a wonderful experience, so our Bonfire group, Dunn Hall, decided to participate again.

This year we were to help a former Aggie, Ms. Teetes Class of '94, redo the landscaping on her property. About an hour after we started, a couple of the Big Event committee members came to see how the project was going and informed us that we had one of the biggest projects of the year, which made our small team of 11 people even more determined to finish the project.

We broke for lunch around 2pm, the time at which most groups are finishing their entire projects. I'll be the first to admit I did not think we could actually finish the project. At 4pm, we finally finished the front yard and inside of the house, which involved clearing the yard down to dirt, spreading new fill dirt to even out the yard, laying new sod, building a barrier to keep the yard from eroding into the driveway, redoing a garden, and repainting the bathroom and stairway. About this time we decided to call the Big Event Committee and let them know we would be late returning our tools because we still had the backyard to finish which is when they decided to accuse us of not having enough people to finish the job in a timely fashion. Hmmm....Thanks for appreciating our commitment to the job. After that pleasant phone call we decided to take our time finishing the backyard.

After we completed the project, Ms Teetes donated the extra sod and fill dirt to the "broke college students have a horrible yard fund" and Corbin and Kevin were able to load it up and take it home to help their pathetic backyard recover from the insane amounts of rain. During the clean up process, one of our friendly Big Event committee members decided to show up and see what actually took us so long and, lucky for us, was so nice as to take all our tools back for us...actually, we stacked the tools behind his car and suggested he take them back, since apparently they needed out rake and shovel so bad.

In the end, we were able to finish what seemed like an impossible project. Ms. Teetes was so grateful which made all of our efforts more than worth it. She is an amazing women who deserved what we were able to give her.

starting off..lots of sod and dirt

chris and jenga tackling the garden which started out as a vine/bush covered mess

Zach was put in charge of the Barrier to keep the yard from eroding. Glad to have a few engineers on hand since the job ended up being a little more intense then originally planned

Reimers and I purchased this sleeper couch from the garage sale next door. It served us well during the job and has actually graduated from our intended purpose of taking it to chilifest to replacing a couch in chris' house. It's really comfortable...

Possum Kingdom Lake

For our annual spring break trip we decided to trade our snowboards in for swimsuits and head to Possum Kingdom Lake for a few days of fun in the sun. Luckily we were there during the warmer part of the week. The day we left a cold front came through and drop more snow on the ground.
Katie's dad hooked us up with an awesome lake front residence with a HUGE covered porch and beautiful view. We started out with a group of 15 on Tuesday, then it dwindled down to the final 10 of us.

(Christina, Katie and I: roommates for 2010-2011 school year)

For the most part we just chilled out, played a ton of Spades and 42, and drank....a lot. On Thursday afternoon we had access to a boat which we almost managed to sink about 15 minutes after getting on it. I felt like I was on the Titanic...it was kind of crazy. After we adjusted our weight distribution we headed to see Hell's Gate and then went some of the other cliffs to do some cliff diving. At first Rowdy was the only one daring enough to do it, but then a few of us got up the courage to try it out. Katie and I went of a smaller cliff, about 20 feet, and the guys went off a slightly larger one, about 30 feet. It was absolutely amazing, despite the 40 degree water.

Since we decided to stay an extra night to let the guys driving back to Houston and San Antonio recover and rest up, we had to pack up and leave pretty early in the morning. The early departure did give us a chance to get a last look at the beautiful, calm lake..and skip a few rocks.

Spring Break - Ice Skating

(Katie being silly)

Before heading back to Fort Worth, the crew decided to try something a little new and we all hit up our local Ice Skating rink here in College Station. Though some were skeptical to begin with, the idea quickly turned out to be a ton of fun. The guys practiced their Flying 'V' formations and also got fancy with their feet with some attempts at scales..haha...it was very entertaining.

(Kev showing off his mad skills)

(Most of us lacked the ability to stop...and this was Carp, using me to do so)

So Much to Catch Up On....

(Jess looking Stunning)

I'm a slacker, no doubt. So, backtrack to March 12th when spring break started. I got to head home a little early and hang out with the family a little before my cousin, Jessica, got married on the 14th. The wedding was beautiful and my nieces, Camryn and Kristin, were the most adorable flower girls. I seem to have made it all the way through the wedding without getting a single picture of myself, go figure, but maybe one will pop up else where.

(C and K looking at Sara who was on the Balcony across)

My brother and his fiance announced their engagement to the rest of the extended family at Jessica's reception, but did it quietly as to not take the spotlight off of Jess and Brain's night. Obviously, everyone was very happy for them and Jessica actually cornered my brother and made him spill the beans to her. It was fairly entertaining.

(Walt, Andrea, Luke and Connie)

Since we had the rarity of ALL the siblings being in town and not having anything to do on the Monday after the wedding, we packed up the twins and headed to the zoo. Me, Luke, Andrea, Sara, Walt and the girls. It was a fun morning that started out fairly brisk but ended up being a really nice day.

(Me Talking to C and K about the Macaws and how loud they were.)

Congrats to Luke and Andrea

Now that I'm not ruining any surprises (oops!) I wanted to congratulate my brother and his fiance on their recent engagement. Luke proposed to his most amazing girlfriend right before they came into town for Jessica's wedding a couple weeks ago. We are so happy to have her joining the family. She's absolutely amazing and we love her to death. In the picture Andrea, her son Miles, and Luke. An added bonus, Miles and I share the same birthday, minus the year of course. But I think its really fun!

He Makes Me So Happy

I was trying to figure out something to write. Something witty and smart. But there isn't anything to say when someone makes you this happy. So, I'll just leave it as Kevin is the most wonderful person a girl could ask for. That is all.