Happy anniversary to us!

Bethany and I are celebrating our third anniversary tonight in a very low-key way -- dinner at Olive Garden (where we went on our first date) and just hanging out watching TV.

I made Bethany this video looking back at our first three years of marriage, and she suggested we share it on the blog. Odd to think that we've now been married longer than we were together before we got married (three years vs. two years, three months).

Happy anniversary to us! :)

Merry Christmas!!!!!

All Is Well

Words: Wayne Kirkpatrick
Music: Michael W. Smith

All is well all is well
Angels and men rejoice
For tonight darkness fell
Into the dawn of love's light
Sing A-le
Sing Alleluia
All is well all is well
Let there be peace on earth
Christ is come go and tell
That He is in the manger
Sing A-le
Sing Alleluia

All is well all is well
Lift up your voices and sing
Born is now Emmanuel
Born is our Lord and Savior
Sing Alleluia
Sing Alleluia
All is well


We hope you have a wonderful Christmas celebration wherever you may be and that you feel the joy, hope and peace that comes from knowing the true meaning of Christmas. Merry Christmas!!!!!!

In Celebration,

Jeff and Bethany

The Two Towers? Maybe Not...

Ok, so I was standing in the kitchen the other day looking out our front living room window and I saw our neighbor's Christmas tree across the street. Then I totally remembered the scene in the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers where you could see the two towers. Neither of the pictures we have really captures it well, but I wanted to share anyway. Do you see it?

Another Man's Poison: 12/18/07

Time for pre-Christmas random links!

Project MedSend -- the group raises money to help recent med school graduates pay off their loans so they can begin full-time missions work.

The Mitchell Report -- I'm still making my way through 300+ pages of baseball and steroids.

Presidential Polls -- As we get closer to the 2008 Presidential election, this sites averages all the most current polls to give a better view of who's leading who.

A Tale of Two Houses -- This is pretty interesting. I'm as surprised that Bush is environmentally conscious as I am that Gore is not.

Mr. Rogers learns about Donkey Kong -- This is just pure coolness.

A brief history of PhotoShopping -- Includes lots of examples, even from long before PhotoShop existed.

ShowBiz Pizza -- Oh, how I miss ShowBiz!! Chuck E. Cheese was never as good.

Blog re-design!

So I've been playing around with trying to understand Blogger's CSS/HTML combo for awhile (I'm pretty rusty on programming of any sort, and have virtually no experience with CSS). I finally got enough of a handle on it (I think) to work out the tweaking of the original layout that you see here. Not a major work of art, by any means, but at least it's a little more personal and not so obviously a template.

Let me know what you think, particularly if you have any suggestions. Hope y'all like it!

Peers

The following occurred to me yesterday:

1) I write for Baylor Magazine.
2) All parents of current Baylor students receive Baylor Magazine.
3) Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter attends Baylor.
4) Therefore, SCC receives Baylor Magazine.
5) Therefore, there is some chance that he reads at least part of it.
6) Therefore, there is a slight chance that he reads my writing.
7) Therefore, there is a tiny chance that SCC and I are peers -- he reads my work, and I listen to his.

Who's in your peer group?

Orbit does tricks!

We recorded this video several weeks ago, but hadn't gotten around to posting it 'til now. Bethany just put it on her iPod for her trip to Pennsylvania, and I thought I'd post it here for everyone else.



Yes, we taught our cat to stand up and do "Sic 'em, Bears!". He also plays fetch (sort of), follows us from room to room, and will meet me at the door when I come home from work. The most dog-like cat ever.

Fun Things From Our Backyard: Goes Front!!!

Strange and wonderous creatures have moved from our backyard to the front (better outside than in, Orbit gets very playful when he finds something inside, which thankfully is not very often)!!! We found this guy crawling around on the front porch and the naturalist in Bethany had to take a picture and blog about it.

What do you think?



Some other fun critters we've noticed around the house lately:

One Saturday morning (not too early) we noticed invasion of Morning Doves in the driveway. We figured they were taking advantage of the pecans that had been run over by the cars...




There were also a few geckos running around...



So those were the fun critters running around our yard...

Christmastime on Crestwood II: The New Batch

Since Bethany's last post on our Christmas decorations, we've finished putting things up and decorating the tree. Enjoy!

Here's the outside of our house at night. You can see the Christmas tree in the big windows, and (electric) candles in a couple of the windows. (They're actually in every window there, but weak batteries = hard to see.)



Our porch and front window up close. Yay wreath and poinsettias!



Our Christmas tree -- now with ornaments!



Family room decorations:



Last but not least - Bethany and Jeff under the mistletoe (G-rated, of course):



Oh, and because I love video, here's a short "video tour" of our Christmas tree. Make sure you have the volume up if you want the accompanying soundtrack ("Deck the Halls" by Reliant K), and be sure to keep your eye out for all our favorite ornaments, including Baby Jeff in a nutshell, Bert and Ernie, Bethany's Texas boot, and the stockings Bethany's mom crossstiched for us.