If Only Every Present Got This Reaction

Merry Christmas everyone.

Sexy and I Know It

Last year we didn't dress up for Halloween. Partly cause we both got sick, and partly cause I couldn't decided on anything I wanted to do.

Brealynn decided this would be unacceptable this year (which it would have been). She began asking me ... probably around the beginning of July what we were going to be. As usual, I couldn't think of anything that far in advance. Sometime in September we settled on Scooby Doo, Fred and Daphne.

The nice thing was, our total cost to put together that look was something like fifteen dollars. This included a wig and some shoes that Brea decided not to wear. But we looked super awesome, and had a super good time at our friends party (and I made s'mores with Reese's for the first time. Oh my gosh they are delicious).

Saturday I got the great idea that Brea would make a perfect member of the group LMFAO. She took a little while to believe it, but with ten dollars (which helped purchase a $4 pair of red snakeskin skinny jeans), a lot of hairspray, a black shirt that I lettered, and a pair of ridiculous shoes that were actually in her collection already, her look was completed.

With a can of gold spray paint and two light up bracelets taped inside for glowing eyes, I had my costume. And we looked ready to Party Rock. I sure am glad my wife's so fun to dress up as. And only complained a little when I asked her to dress up as a man. Maybe my dad could try this out next year....

Mystery Inc., minus Velma and Shaggy

What we were going for:

The one on the left goes by the name "Redfoo"

This is Robot Pete.

And the finished product:

And in case my dad wants to watch the whole video:

Spooky Alley aka It Matters to THAT Starfish

After this, in true Carbiener fashion, we go to build this Spook Alley with Christin. At ten o'clock at night, the evening before the party. In her defense, she was busy, but she could have probably at least done the decoration purchasing. Though in hindsight, Brea and I provided invaluable assistance with this and with the construction. And I confirmed my assumption that I am entirely too big to fit in one of those anymore. And it ended up totally awesome.

And possibly those kids won't appreciate it too much, and maybe there wasn't too many of them, but it's probably one of the best they'll ever see.  Nice job Christin.  And us.

SUPER creepy Christmas light spiders.

I really like these ghosts.  But they took up a lot of room in there.

And Christin was excited about it which makes it all worth it.

Spa Day

So my mom came into town. Really, it's always wonderful when I get to see my parents. I do miss them sometimes more than I realize. Anyways, her and my aunt Jill decided to spend a few days at a spa I believe to reward themselves for having taken such good care of my grandfather the last few years of his life.

Just because she's so stinking nice, she paid for Brea and Christin to come spend a day there too, which include both an hour long pedicure and an hour long massage. And a waterfall pool, and hot/cold pools, and the sauna, and the steam room. I hear they had a blast. I of course stayed home slaving away, cleaning the house to perfection (alright, so maybe it wasn't EXACTLY like that. I did clean a little though). I showed up at the spa just in time for dinner and ate this delicious sea bass. Piled in a corn tortilla and with that sauce on it, it was the most I've enjoyed a bite of food for a while. As well as some excellent company.

Ummm could you smile Jill?

Halloween Pumpkins

Our first pumpkin carving activity was a few weeks ago with Jeffrey and Olivia.  Yeah it was a bit early but it was a good jump start to get us in the Halloween mood.  Mine is supposed to be a zombie, maybe eating a brain in front of it.  Kinda hard to get.  Brea's is a super cool Pac-Man with vampire teeth, and Olivia made Domo.  And Jeffrey was afraid of touching the pumpkin guts so he just watched.

Does it make sense that that is a brain?

I guess we left Olivia's out of the picture....

The second go was the next weekend.  We had Brea's friend, Amanda, and her guy come over and I carved a devil, Brea rocked a minion, and Amanda and Jose did Hello and Mummy Kitty, respectively.  And now the pumpkins have all long since rotted and been thrown out.  Now we have none.  Too bad we don't live in Idaho or they would freeze and last forever outside.

The Trip Home

Finally it came time to leave Texas.

I had promised Brea a good steak dinner before we left, so we went out for some the night before at this place that had been open for like fifty years (it has gotten a great deal more classy over that time I think).  It was expensive, but oh so delicious.  And places that offer 38 oz steaks on their menu have to be good, right?

Huge blocks of cheese at the salad bar.

DE

LISH

OUS

And yes, if you were wondering, those were hand picked twenty oz ribeyes that we had the butcher in the back cut off for us.

On Thursday, the day we were actually leaving, I had been working most the day which left Brea to pack the house all by her lonesome.  And load one of the cars with the things from our third floor apartment.  When I finally got home around eight, I started to replace a broken idler arm.  It was supposed to be easy.  It turned out taking three hours and involved me going and buying a propane torch.  But it finally got done, and by one in the morning we were on the road.

Do I look a little tired?

Sleepin'.

So on the road we went.  It was a relatively smooth trip.  Though the 4runner is probably not the best car for towing, but it did it's job for the most part.  For a while at least.  We drove through the night and had made it about twelve hours out of Houston.  You remember when I broke down between Van Horn and El Paso years ago?  And then in El Paso over Spring Break?  Well we had just passed Van Horn, heading towards El Paso, when I noticed the temperature gauge start creeping to the right.  Then a little more.  Seeing as how I had already seized one engine relatively close to there, and Adam and Candice had just seized the one in the Suburban, I wasn't taken any chances.  I pulled over just in time to watch the radiator dump all the coolant out.  

We were going to tow it.  But then we found out it could not be fixed that day, something that was absolutely necessary since we flew out the next morning at six.  We did some discussing and decided to switch the cars.  That is right, we bought a new tow hitch and pulled the 4runner up onto the car dolly.  The rear differential did not come off nearly as easy as I had hoped, but thanks to a few miracles and some very generous people that had stopped to assist with water and a pipe wrench, I got it unhooked and off we went.  And despite all our worrying, actually towed it like a champ.  We didn't risk taking her over sixty, something which made that drive excruciatingly long, but at quarter to two we finally made it home.  A quick trip inside for clothes, a quick shower at Christin's house, and off we went to Europe!! 

What a good little car.

Relient K

A lot of the music that Brea listened to when we started dating I had never heard of before.  And I didn't like a lot of it, or a lot of the stuff that I had heard of for that matter.  But then there is Relient K.  Which I listened to a little of with her but not much.  Then Brea found out the would be in concert in Houston, and we got some tickets to the House of Blues.

I took my first night off of the summer and we headed down there and it was so much fun.  It started off with a band called House of Heroes which weren't bad.  And then a guy named William Beckett who was excellent.  Hello Goodbye followed and were surprisingly fun, as well as surprisingly old and nerdy.  A little like Jeffrey honestly.  

Relient K did not look at like what we were expecting, which is more like what they look like in the music videos.  But the good news is, they sounded awesome.  It was such a good show all around.  Oh yeah and we found Olivia's slightly heavier doppleganger.

Another great smile.

And so you know I'm not making this up:

With Olivia!!

It's crazy, right?!

And for those of you who want to know what Reliant K sounds like:

This is one of their bigger ones.

This is one of my favorites, a lot because I really like the lyrics.

This is another one that I really like, and it was one of the last songs they played.

Chase and Brett

The nice thing about Houston was I had the chance to catch up with some old friends and introduce them to my new wife.  The first of which was Chase.  And he's still Chase, still obnoxious as ever.  Though now he has daughters to pick on, and accidentally make cry when he tells me on the phone that he'd sell me one.  It was fun to hang out with them a few times though, even though it was only a few times.

Brea got to hold the baby which put a smile on her face.

Shelby wanted to eat her I think.

Oh, Chase is a dad.

I don't know how I didn't take any pictures of Brett and his family.  But they're cute and it was so good to see them again.

I Am Batman

Though I Facebooked it, I think I should probably include this as well.  A theater in Texas had a Batman marathon for twenty five bucks for the premier of Dark Knight Rises.  Brea made up a few shirts, complete with capes (I didn't actually know how ridiculous I would feel in a cape) and after missing Batman Begins thanks to a late install, we made it just in time for The Dark Knight (which I appreciated way more the second time around), and then of course the finale.  It was so fun to go to, and so fun to dress up (thanks Brea) and feel a little like it was 1989 again (the original) or 1992 (Batman returns) and I was going to see Batman as a kid again (thanks dad).

The Greatest Show On Earth

The circus was in town, and since I drove by it everyday I eventually talked myself into buying tickets.  I thought it would be a surprise date for us.  One day, maybe two days before the show, we drove by it and Brea says something to the extent of, "One day I'd like to go to the circus.  That's on my bucket list."  And then I said, "What if we go Thursday?"  

It's kinda fun when something that you don't think is that big of a deal gets a good response.  This was one of those times.  She gets real quiet for a minute, her big old eyes well up with tears, and she asks if I'm serious.  When I say that I am, then come the tears.  Not sobbing mind you, but good little happy tears for the next few minutes.  It reminded me a little of the youtube girl that gets to go to Disneyland for her birthday.  

Does she look a little excited?

Still excited.

I look like I'm still trying to wake up.

And really excited now, with an elephant.

I love the hair.

White tiger, as I'm sure you saw.

Some more (I think they had nine).

Hey my sister got me that shirt.

And the elephant can paint.

Hey remember these swords dad?  Best purchase that guy ever made.

When everyone came out.

These guys did some cool things running around in and out of those loops while they spun around.

And of course more of the elephants.

I was honestly left with a little bit of sadness after seeing the show and then reading the reviews.  I think our society has become so used to Vegas type shows that they can't enjoy a circus anymore.  Complaints about prices were all over the place.  It seemed like thirty dollars a ticket was more than fair to pay for the few hour show that we saw, and I imagine it's not terribly cheap to travel around with a fleet of elephants and tigers, and horses, and all that stuff.  Though it was lousy there was no trapeze.  That was pretty lame.  Other than that. it was an excellent show.  And yes, Brea was smiling just as much after the show.

Two Month Hiatus Coming to a Close

I can't believe I haven't blogged for more than two months.  That's absurd.

But we're back from Texas.  Let's see if I can come up with a few things we did there.  Well after we moved to Houston we started seeing people.  One of those people was Sierra, Brea's sister.  She came out for a week to keep Brea company and it was fun.  Not that we did a whole lot.  But we did go to the Houston Zoo.

Ape's are so funny.  And she is so cute.

And then they went to the aquarium.

And we went out to eat barbecue.

And really that was about it.  I'm sure it wasn't the most exciting vacation, but it sure was nice to have her there for a few days.

But Brealynn blogged all that.

Then there was the fourth of July.

And we bought her a 4runner.  It is kinda fun.

Did I mention the selection of Blue Bell in Texas?  And this doesn't even include the equally large pint size section.

We had some delicious crawfish at Ragin' Cajun.

I attempted to touch up her roots.

I might have not done an excellent job (though this picture doesn't look bad).  She had me color it all dark again a few days later.

We made my mom's chicken noodle soup.

We bought Shelby this wire kennel.

And then this huge plastic one.  We got rid of both and got the black plastic kind.  And she hates all of them.  And we're not mean, we put her bed in there every time she goes in.

We went and saw Ana and Felix.

Brea's parents' car exploded.  Literally.  Luckily everyone narrowly escaped and there were no casualties.