New York, New York

We're back from New York City!!! We had a great time, and the weather was absolutely perfect. I enjoy travelling immensely, but I am always so glad to be back home where people don't live on top of one another. That being said, here are the awesome highlights of our trip...

A visit to see The Tree
Tons of fun in Times Square
Shopping on 5th Ave. This store was Brad's pick--the NBA Store with a lifesize bobblehead of Yao Ming.Of course, no trip to NYC is complete without a Broadway show. Mary Poppins was really fun!

Siteseeing
By the time it got crowded on Saturday in Times Square, we knew we made the right decision to head home on the 30th. It was nuts! We stayed at the W Times Square and had a great view, along with a perfect location to start our adventures from each day. We crammed in as much as possible in the time we were there: Rockefeller Center, dinner at Tavern on the Green before seeing Phantom of the Opera, a matinee of Mary Poppins (she flies over the crowd, y'all!), pizza in Little Italy at Lombardi's, New York cheesecake, tons of walking, awesome shopping with fun souvenirs, walking some more, and brunch with friends before flying out.

Between all of our travelling to visit family along with this trip, we need to go back to work so we can get some rest!

Happy Birthday Amber!

Today is Amber's birthday! This fabulous mother of two beautiful girls is a wonderful friend from Aggieland.

I hope you have a great birthday! Eat lots of cake!


Me, Mikalah, & Amber

Over the River...

Family Christmas Photo 2007
We've got a quick break between holiday happenings, so I thought I'd take the time to blog about what we've been up to.

We started our Christmas holiday in Corsicana with my family. Friday night my mom had most of the family up to the house on the hill for a fiesta. Saturday morning we got up and ran some last minute Christmas errands, like buying some Christmas presents (whoops) and getting our nails done, you know--the essentials. We picked up pizza at Cici's because we like it and went home to watch the Cowboys. During halftime, we opened our fabulous gifts from one another, which was so much fun!

Sunday night we drove over to Athens to see Santa's Wonderland, a family tradition. My favorite part of the entire land 'o lights would have to be the Lochness Monster (who knew ole Nessy celebrated the birth of Jesus?), a real live Grinch locked up in jail, and the random unidentifiable objects as you exit the park. The family consensus is that they must be Christmas light experiments gone bad. Or else they tried to simulate a giant amoeba. This year during the hour drive through the park, we played "guess the artist singing the Christmas song" (Dad got XM satellite radio from Santa), and I won y'all! I would say, "In your face, Brad," but then that wouldn't be very nice, would it?

Cold night at Santa's Wonderland
Santa and the Loch Ness Monster
Not too sure why ET needed to phone home at Santa's Wonderland

We left Christmas eve to see Brad's family and had a nice holiday with them, and now we're home. For 15 hours. Our NYC-bound flight leaves extremely early tomorrow, so I am in a rush to get the laundry and my packing done. New York, here we come!

From Our House to Yours...

Love,
The Gentrys

Not For Consumption

I am 27 years old and just made my first gingerbread house last week at Laura's gingerbread party. I'm pretty proud of it, and my family's tired of hearing about it, so now I'm bringing it to the blog...

Goin' to the Chapel

My college roommate Amanda is engaged! This hardworking girl is finishing up her PhD and will now add planning a wedding to her list of things to do, right underneath "complete dissertation." Congratulations and YAY!

My lovely Aggie roommates, Alisia and Amanda

The Polar Express Has Left the Station

Look at what I unwrapped at our fabulous White Elephant gift exchange!

This was me, 5 minutes before someone stole the Polar Express from me in our Team White Elephant gift exchange yesterday. I am left with a Christmas cheese serving set, complete with a spreader in the shape of a Christmas light that blinks. So awesome, if I enjoyed cheese at all. But I don't. I should've gone for the already opened First Aid Kit. Lesson learned.

And yes, that is Santa in the background, with his elf.

Apples for Christmas

At this early stage of our marriage, we are still attempting to make it over the river and through the woods to both families at Christmastime. At the same time we like to celebrate Christmas between just the two of us so, every year we choose the best night of the week before we leave on the Christmas pilgrimage to celebrate Christmas. It's pretty much a Christmas date night. Due to other activities this week, tonight was that night!

After a fabulous fajita dinner for two at Los Vaqueros, we came home where our lovely tree greeted us in the window. And then, we exchanged presents. Brad got an iPod classic! Now that he's done with school, he has time for modern technology.

And as for me...well, I scored big time!

What could it be?
A MacBook!
My very own MacBook! Thank you Santa!

Friday Fave Five - The Random Edition

Today's Friday Fave is just random favorite things I'm enjoying this week. I feel like Oprah when I do these posts, with the greatest exception being that I'm not giving you all one of these to take home. (There are many other exceptions, but that is the one that affects you, Reader, the most.)

1. Alicia Keyes song "No One." As in "no one, no one, no wuh-uh-uh-uhn, can get in the way of what I'm feelin'." It's a great song about love, and I'm going to download it from iTunes next Tuesday. You can ask Brad why I am waiting until Tuesday.

2. A great new headband from White House Black Market, given to me by Laura at our gift exchange last night. It goes with probably over half of my wardrobe, so we will be seeing a lot of it.

3. The Mark of the Lion book series by Francine Rivers. I have read all 3 of them in the past 7 days. After a slow start in the first one, I couldn't put them down. I stayed up last Sunday 'til 2 AM finishing the second one. Hils, you would enjoy these books for many reasons, like their SPQR and Pax Romana references, oh and the wonderful storyline.

4. My red coat. It's keeping me nice and warm even though it's super cold outside. Someone very tall gave it to me last Christmas. Genius!

5. Getting new neighbors! Our neighborhood is beginning to erupt with people actually living there. (A street of empty houses is a little creepy.)

Drew vs. The Dentist

My favorite brother is having his wisdom teeth removed this morning. Poor guy!

Drew, I'm praying for minimal pain and effective pain meds.

LYLAB!

Thursday Nights

Shavon, Me, Ashley, Amy, & Laura

Last night we wrapped up our Bible study for this semester with dinner at Mimi's and a gift exchange. It's been a good semester of making new friends, like the ones above, and rediscovering old ones, as in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob...and studying about God's faithfulness. And He is so very faithful!

The Birthday Girl

Me, Sherry, and Mikalah

Today is Mikalah's birthday!!!

Happy birthday, my friend! I have your birthday cake in my freezer...haha!

Stick a Fork in It

He's done, y'all!

My hardworking husband has completed his graduate degree, a Master of Science in Engineering. Graduation was this past weekend, and the relief in his face, in his life, and in his wife has been immediate.

The most noticeable difference so far came on Sunday. We attended the late service at church, ate a leisurely lunch with friends (shout out to the Sloans and the baby dedication celebration), drove home where we both took nice long naps instead of Brad doing homework, and went back to church for the Christmas celebration since we had nothing. else. to. do. Can somebody say glory?


The handsome graduate after he BTHOtu.

Uptown Girl

just might be my favorite Billy Joel song. Unfortunately he didn't play it Tuesday night. I'm sure it's because he's still not over Christie Brinkley, so I guess I can forgive.

On Monday, I received two tickets to hear Billy Joel at the AAC for Tuesday night. I was thrilled! I love almost all genres of music, and of course I have some BJ on my ipod. Ashley and I decided to go for the experience even though we knew we wouldn't know all the songs he sang. His voice sounds fantastic live, and he tore up the piano. The big finale was the Piano Man. It's always cool to see a huge group swaying and singing a song together. I can only imagine what a rewarding feeling it must be for an entertainer to look out across a crowd and see thousands of people singing their song, knowing people enjoy their music. It was a great concert.

If you're interested, you can read more about how we jumped seats and felt guilty and how the DMN reporter left early and missed the best part.

And here's a not great photo of the event...

My dear, darling husband was studying for his FINAL final. PTL, y'all!!!

Caution: Hall Decking In Process

The light crew showed up today to hang the lights on our house.  They are a rowdy and suspicious pair who eat too many chocolate chip cookies and Reese's peanut butter cups. But then again, who doesn't?

One of them is a ninja, a la Jackie Chan.

And I decorated the chandelier.  The next project is the hutch, but it's time for a nap for me.  How does she look, Mom?