Yeah so it def snowed in Austin on Tuesday. Well if you wanna call that snow. It was all melted and gone by wednesday.
As I mentioned before, Grant and I went to Houston for Christmas, and on Saturday night we left to go back to Austin. Sunday morning we picked up Matt and Megan from the airport. They decided to visit us for a week, and we were very excited. The first couple of days I had to work, Megan worked on some homework for Med school, and Matt and Grant Played computer games and just hung out. Megan was sweet enough to make dinner a few of the nights while I was at work so I didn’t need to worry about it.
One of the Days, Wednesday I think, Matt and Megan took us out to Outback Steak House here in Austin, and we all had Ribs. I thought they were excellent, and it definitley made for a fun trip trying to find this Outback.
Then after outback steak house, we took them out for Gelato Ice Cream at Mandola’s Italian Market. We had a blast, the guys working there were in such a good mood gave us so much ice cream that we had to take it home and freeze it, and the atmosphere here is just amazing!
After that we played Cranium, which was fun, but Grant and I both stunk at it, and we decided that we can’t play as partners in this game. We both aren’t very knowledgeable about people and random facts, and my TV knowledge is very lacking due to the fact that I wasn’t allowed to watch TV most of my life. But win or lose we had a great time with Matt and Megan.
Thursday night/New Year’s Eve, We treated Matt and Megan to see AVATAR! It was AMAZING!!! We saw it in 3-D, and I honestly think it is one of the best movies I have seen in my life so far. I would highly recommend it to anyone!
After Avatar, we played Taboo which was a lot more to my liking. We kept switching teams, and it was really funny. We didn’t even realize it was the new year until it was 2 am. Then we wished everyone a Happy New Year and headed off to bed.
Then Saturday Morning was their last day in town because they were flying out VERY early on Sunday morning. We decided to take them to an Ikea since they had never been to one. We had a fun time walking around and looking at all of the room displays. Matt found a chair that actually fits him which was very exciting to him. Afterwards we were all pooped, and we watched the movie click.
Here is the pot that I got from Ikea for my Christmas tree that is now disguised as a house plant until next year.
We had a great time with Matt and Megan! They were in Austin during great weather, and I hope that it was a good time for them. We can’t wait to hang out with them again sometime.
Well Jessica is huge into getting a real christmas tree and has definitely let me know that when we have our own place we are not having any of that fake christmas tree stuff in our place. Well my sister also knows Jessica’s passion on christmas trees and called me up to show me a mini tree I could get for her for christmas. That would be perfect except I already got Jessica’s presents and went over budget as it was. So I told my big sis that I wasn’t able to get it for her because of all that. Well my sis would not have that! So my big sis (Amanda) got the tree for us (*cough* Jessica) and I can’t wait for jessica to get home and see it.
This is the tree and stuff that came in the package. I came with a picture frame christmas ornament, pack of 12 ornaments and then a set of mini christmas lights.
This is a picture of what Jess will see when she gets home.
I wish I could of been the one to get this for her.. but I’m glad my sister was awesome enough to do this. I think it will mean more than you would think to Jessica.
*UPDATE*
I tried to catch Jessica when she got home.. but was about 2 second late.. da well..
The Young Marrieds in our church do a variety of different activities, and this month, the social team decided that it would be a fun idea to have a fall festival which consisted of going to a pumpkin farm and taking pictures, picking out pumpkins, going to our house/Rivas’s house, having a pot luck, and carving the pumpkins. Grant and I were planning on doing all of those activities, but as the time got closer with everyone coming to our house, I realized that we were still too far behind on cleaning so we didn’t go to the farm.
Grant was so excited that we weren’t going since it was farther away from our house than we had anticipated in the first place, but once everything was clean and my portion of the food cooked (Chili and Spiced Cider) everything was a lot better. Everyone came over and we had a better turn out than I was expecting consider we only had 2 couples say they were actually coming. I think that we had about 11 couples show up which was awesome. All of the food was great, and I even got a few compliments on my Mother-in-Law’s cider recipe which made me happy because that means I didn’t mess it up.
Grant was so excited that we weren’t going since it was farther away from our house than we had anticipated in the first place, but once everything was clean and my portion of the food cooked (Chili and Spiced Cider) everything was a lot better. Everyone came over and we had a better turn out than I was expecting consider we only had 2 couples say they were actually coming. I think that we had about 11 couples show up which was awesome. All of the food was great, and I even got a few compliments on my Mother-in-Law’s cider recipe which made me happy because that means I didn’t mess it up.
Here you can see some of the ladies in the dining room carving some pumpkins.
Some more people carving pumpkins, I am glad that the Rivas house was as large as it was, otherwise it would have been very crowded.
Here is a cool picture that Grant took so you can see a few more people.
Some more pictures of the great pumpkins.
I am not completely sure whose pumpkins this was, but I think it was Andy Luksys’, and it was the biggest pumpkin I think out of all of them.
Here you can see the two lit up, they definitely look awesome!
Here is my pumpkin … I decided to go with something different than the usual face, I got my inspiration from a magazine, and I would say once Grant gave me a power drill to make the circles everything was smooth sailing from there.
Here you can see it lit up which is pretty cool. I was kind of sad that we missed out on the farm thing because I would have loved to have some of those cheesy photos because Grant and I hardly EVER take pictures since it is just the two of us. But I will just have to force him to take more pictures of us because I feel like we haven’t been documenting our time very much.
So, I don’t know if many of you have watched the movie Blood Diamond that came out in 2006. It is a great, but gorey movie. In this movie, they show truths about the diamond market, and all about blood diamonds which basically means that in some places in Africa, there are still slaves working in diamond mines. In these mines, they mine diamond which are then smuggled into the system.
One of the great lines that Leonardo Decarpio says in this movie is that the only reason that these people are dying is because of the demand for these stones. The demands that mainly Americans make. Most people in other countries, are not expecting diamonds as our culture seems to.
So, don’t get me wrong… I wanted a diamond too!!! But I couldn’t live with the fact that someone might have died for a dumb rock… so, i decided to do some research. Now, there is no way that every diamond is a blood diamond, but I wanted to be sure that mine was not one. I found a few online websites that sold different diamonds, but a lot of them looked really shady.
Finally, I stumbled upon engineered diamonds. Most people don’t know about them yet, but they are grown in a lab, meaning that they are perfect and don’t have the flaws that all natural diamonds have. They are not quiet as strong as natural diamonds but there is a .9 difference in strength. The nice thing about them, is making them in a lab is a lot cheaper, so that made me feel a lot better knowing that my engagement ring with wedding band that is over 1 carat was under $1000.00. I have had my ring for over a year and am very satisfied, and the best thing is that you don’t need ring insurance!! They will replace your diamond if it falls out, is messed up, etc. 
So, here is one of my favorite eternity bands that they sell, now I won’t get it for years most likely,but I can dream! ;p
But their website has some beautiful jewelry on it, they do any custom stuff as long as you can draw or explain what you want. Now, obviously that makes it more expensive, but in jewelry terms, I would see them as pretty inexpensive. Also, their diamonds are considered green, and that is why this company made this years Miss Universe 2009 Crown.
So here is their website if you are interested!!!