Christmas with the Halvorsen Family!

Yeah! I survived hosting my first family Christmas--phew--and I'm glad it's over =). No really, it was a lot of fun and we enjoyed having everyone over. The only 'problem' was trying to cook a full chicken for the first time...which did NOT take the prescribed 1 hour and 45 minutes...but rather took almost 3 hours.....can we say late dinner? Poor McKayla was getting pretty tired but she got a second wind and made it through! It was a great time had by all. Check out the pics!!

Andrea, McKayla and Kyle


Justin & Michelle


In other news, after hosting Christmas, we went out to look at some furniture (they had a good sale that ended at 9pm). Good thing we did-because we were able to find new living room furniture! YAY! I'm pretty excited about it and can't wait for the Dec. 28th delivery. I don't think Justin is quite as excited as me...but he'll enjoy it once it arrives. When it gets here and we get everything in its place I'll be sure to post some photos! Merry Christmas to us =)!

We pray you all will have a blessed Christmas and New Year's and will look forward to seeing some of you while in NE! Check back after the holidays for pictures with the Long family and pictures of the new furniture!

Happy Birthday Justin--THE BIG 3-0!!!

Justin with Jennifer and Michael

Many Birthday wishes to my wonderful husband, who I can now call "old man" (JUST KIDDING!). We had a wonderful celebration this weekend, including the big surprise for Justin, his two close friends from Colorado, Michael and Jennifer, flew in to spend the weekend with us. The three of us had been planning their surprise visit since the end of July, so it was fun to finally have them come!!

I picked them up Thursday afternoon at the airport (while I was "working late") and took them to our house where they rang the doorbell and gave Justin quite a surprise =). We estimate it took him a good couple of hours for it all to really sink in. Of course during the weekend, he realized all the subtle clues and realized all the people who had been keeping the secret from him! It was really neat and we had a great time showing them around Austin, San Antonio, and the surrounding small towns. On Sunday, Justin's family joined us and we had a good time watching football and celebrating his birthday. They left yesterday and we're still finding it hard to believe that the time came and went so quickly, but we are so fortunate to have had the long weekend with them (and to have TWO whole days off from work!).

Justin and I all dressed up for his birthday dinner.


My niece, McKayla, and I having fun at the party!

In other news, the semester is quickly winding down and my student teacher is almost done! Only one more day left, which means I'll be back to teaching all day very soon! I'm trying to take advantage of my last few moments with her to get everything ready for the start of next semester. It's hard to believe that Christmas is only two weeks away!!! Only six and a half more school days with students =). (Not that I'm excited for a two week break from them or anything like that!). They're good kids, but I think we're all ready for some time off! We'll be hosting Christmas with Justin's family at our house this coming Saturday, so look for photos of that next week!

Hope you're all doing well and having fun making preparations for a wonderful Christmas!!

Thanksgiving and Black Friday!

Well, Thanksgiving turned out to be a wonderful day--even though a "cold" front decided to descend upon us. And let me clarify..."cold" in TX means the high was around 50 and the low was near 40. Hmmm...yeah....not so cold compared to up North, but when you've been here for awhile I SWEAR 50 feels COLD =)!!! Anyhow, we all had a great time eating, chatting, and browsing the ads in preparation for Black Friday. We truly have
so much to be thankful for!!!


The Halvorsen/Schlafer Family


My ADORABLE niece McKayla!!


Me and McKayla--and YES--she can count, spell her name, say the ABC's, etc, etc....she's a total smartie pants!!!

After browsing the ads on Thanksgiving, I was ready to tackle the crowds and stores on Black Friday. I outdid myself this year and even got up early enough to hit the outlet mall first. It turned out to be a MAD-HOUSE and it will not be on my list of things to do again next year, but at least I tried it out. I then headed back to Austin and was able to visit all the stores on my list and finish ALL my shopping by 10:00am. WOW! It really was not that bad or crowded anywhere I went, and boy does it feel good to know that I'm finished and I don't have to do any more shopping! We're certainly busy enough the next few weeks before we fly to NE that I don't need any extra shopping to do! Part of our busy-ness involves (shhhhh) Justin turning 30 on the 8th. He claims to not be having a birthday this year...but of course it will still happen and be special!! I'll be sure to post about all the fun and joys of his 30th!
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and if any of you were out on Black Friday--good for you!!!

The Holidays are Here!

Hmmm...does it seem to anyone else that the whole world has forgotten Thanksgiving and has skipped right on to Christmas? I will admit, I LOVE Christmas, shopping, buying gifts for people, the music, decorating our house, etc. However, I also happen to enjoy Thanksgiving and was a little put off a few weeks ago (before Halloween!) when I tried to find plants in Wal-Mart and walked into Christmas land. WHAT? Christmas BEFORE Halloween. Have we all gone insane!?! Ok, now that my vent is done, I hope you truly do all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, then you can start thinking about Christmas =)!!
We will be heading to my sister and brother-in-law's house for Thanksgiving again this year. It's become quite a fun tradition and this will by my fourth Thanksgiving with them, hard to believe!!! Of course it only gets more fun each year as our niece gets older and smarter by the minute! This year an intern at TSD (from my alma mater ISU!) is going to join us. She was faced with sitting at TSD all day by herself or joining us....yes, it was a very tough decision =). The rest of the weekend will be spent doing some shopping (yes, I DO happen to shop on 'Black Friday' and I DO actually enjoy it!!) and decorating for Christmas--yeah!! I will be back later this weekend or next week to post pictures of our house when we're finished with the lights and decorations.
Well, that's all I have time for now. Again, hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! We have much to be thankful for!!

Weddings....

Justin and his "original" TX friends: Sara, the other Justin and bride Lauren.

This weekend we were fortunate to attend the wedding of a good friend of ours, Lauren. She married a wonderful man, Steve, and they had one of the MOST beautiful wedding ceremonies I've seen yet. It was really fun to see their personalities shine through the ceremony and how they incorporated so many things that were dear to them. I will post some pictures as soon as I have time to download them.
It was also fun because it was like a reunion of all our church friends from our old church, Hyde Park. After our own wedding, we changed to a church closer to the house we bought, so we don't get to see our HP friends as often. It seems we only get to see them when others get married or have birthday parties =)! So, it was fun to catch up with everyone and hang out for the evening. Plus, there was a dance, and that is ALWAYS a good time!

My good friend Melissa and I.

I was also thinking about how it's so different to go to a wedding after you're married. I know before I got married (well, before I even got engaged!) I would go to weddings and the whole time I would be making a mental list of things I loved and would want to do at my own wedding...and sometimes things I would never ever do at my own wedding. Now that I am married though it's fun to think back to our wedding, our vows, and what all has happened since we got married. And, I'm not making all sorts of mental notes about cakes, flowers, etc....it's frankly much more enjoyable now =).


My good friend Sara and I.


Justin and I.

Well, that's all I have for today...but I'll give you a preview to an upcoming post...Justin and I are working together on a post to tell you all about the fun times we have working out at the gym...and all the fun characters we see each week. Stay tuned =)!!

Houston Vacation

Justin and I were lucky to take a short trip to Houston this past weekend. Justin's parents graciously baby-sat Sierra for us, and we took off Thursday evening for a weekend of fun. We had never been to Houston so we were excited to see some of the sights it has to offer. We spent Friday at the Natural Science and History Museum and it was AMAZING. We had no idea how much they would have on exhibit and ended up spending the entire day there. We realized afterwards we could have spent another full day there as well! One of the special exhibits was the Lucy fossil, which was pretty cool to see up close and in person. After a full day at the museum (complete with lots of field trip kiddos there to entertain us), we were exhausted so we called it a day.


Saturday, we headed downtown to the Downtown Aquarium. Again, we were impressed. We saw amazing (and HUGE) fish in an assortment of exhibits and then enjoyed a late afternoon lunch in the aquarium restaurant. I have to say it was a really neat experience to dine right next to a huge floor-to-ceiling aquarium. The biology teacher in me sure had a great time (especially imagining the cool field trip I could plan for my aquatics class!). After our fun at the aquarium we headed back to our hotel room for some Saturday evening college football. I will admit, one of the fun parts of staying in a hotel is having cable TV!

This is a view of the Houston skyline from our fun Ferris Wheel ride.


This is us on the "Shark Voyage" train. It was a neat little trek through a shark aquarium tunnel. Very cool!


This is a shot of the coral reef. Beautiful fish!!

On Sunday, we headed back to Austin and picked up our precious pup. Upon picking her up we learned that she is, and I quote, "A VERY sweet dog, just not a great house guest!" Thankfully she didn't cause too many problems, she just had to adjust to another house and another dog to hang out with. I think she was just as happy as us to return to the comforts of her own home =).
Well, that's the most recent excitement around the Halvorsen household!

Welcome to The Halvorsen Blog!

Hello Friends and Family!
In this busy day and age we find it hard to always stay connected to those we care about...so, following in the footsteps of some friends, I've decided to start a blog to keep everyone up to date. Of course I have grand plans of posting a couple of times a week, but the best laid plans don't always pan out, so we'll see how this goes. Please email or post comments to keep in touch!
Take care all!!
Michelle (& Justin)