So, as if being 35 weeks prego (and thus 20 weeks swollen) wasn’t enough, Bob and I are taking the plunge into suburbia next week - yes folks, we bought a house. It’s up north in a community called Fall Creek - just due south of Beltway 8 and right next to 59. I don’t have any good pix of it yet - this one below is from the side of the house, seeing more trees than house - but we will be moving in next week, so expect those coming really soon.

Currently we are living in a sea of boxes - compounding the fact that this apartment has been too small for us for about - oh say - 2 years now. But relief is in sight, and we are excited to have more space to breathe in, and a yard for our little one to play in.

The fun part is now we need some furniture to fill the house, and another (more fuel efficient) car. So though I say I am ready to have this little girl come join us any time… really… I can wait a few more weeks ’til we get things taken care of!

My family had a great Thanksgiving Day tradition in Cleveland. My parents would put the turkey in the oven by early afternoon and we’d head out to a Christmas tree farm on the west side of the city. We’d wandered around the farm for quite bit of time before picking the annual Christmas tree. Instead of cutting the tree down, we would dig it up. We’d put the tree into the van, roots and all, and took it home. We then moved the tree into the house and planted it into a box. It was a nice tradition on Thanksgiving day and it was nice to have a live Christmas tree.

The week before Thanksgiving, Anna and I bought a small potted-pine tree from the store. We’re planning on spending Christmas Day out of town with family, so we didn’t need a big tree. Maybe I’m just a Christmas tree-party pooper, but I thought the little tree would work well.

The day before Thanksgiving my parents brought us this really nice Christmas tree stand. I thought it was pretty cool, but the small pine tree wouldn’t fit into the base of stand. I thought “Well, we can just put the stand somewhere and put something else nice on it and that will be it.”

Saturday, my parents came back to Houston on their way home to Corpus. The first thing they brought into the door was this huge seven-foot box. My father had a big grin on his face and said he brought us a Christmas tree for our new stand. At first was I was pretty scared. Our apartment is already over flowing with stuff. Storing the box was going to be problematic let alone putting the tree up in our living room. Needless to say the Christmas tree stayed in the box until my parents left.

Anna slept most of the afternoon on Sunday so I decided to put the new Christmas tree up. After some finagling I got everything in place and was able to make enough space for it to look good in our apartment. The result can be seen below:

It’s nice to have the tree up. We put the small pine tree outside our front door and we now have the big Christmas tree up in our living room. The site definitely makes it feel more like the holidays.
- Bob

When Bob and I left this morning to drop him off to work - it was a nice 70 degrees, with a chilly wind cutting through. By the time I got home 15 minutes later, it had dropped to 50, and the biting cold wind was on the increase. Dew has even formed on all of my windows due to the temperature change. It’s making for a pretty interesting day.

Hopefully the winds of change will hit our site here soon too. Bob and I are trying to get up a new slide show tool that will be fun to use, and maybe a few other changes too. Check back in the next couple of weeks to see what’s happening.

Another unbearably hot summer is over here in Texas, and magically we survived. Our biggest help came from visiting family in both Seattle and Corpus Christi, and having a few family members come and hang out with us. We decided that it doesn’t matter wherever you live, there is always some time of year that just stinks weatherwise. And for here, it’s the summer. But it’s finally over, and the Bolster’s are now out moving and shakin’ again…

Bob is back up to speed again with the busy season. Yea - it ended for him about 6 months late for the last fiscal year… so there really was only a two month break. But he enjoyed the down time, and has now kicked into high gear again. His client right now is actually so close to our house that he can walk there - and Anna have been enjoying the rights to the car some more. Football season has also started up, and Bob has enjoyed watching - or listening - to all of the games. He has also been playing a lot with his new toy, the XBox 360. That’s why he hasn’t blogged much lately.

Anna has just been chillin’ here in Houston, trying to complete all of the assignments that Bob has given her. The homework load includes writing proposals, reviewing his work, and making books. Anna is busy trying to do lots of bookbinding, and is hoping to get some of her work up on our site here in the next little while. Also she have been busy planning and teaching the ladies in our ward how to bookbind - which has been an experience. Hopefully they are learning something!

Anna’s normal cooking disaster rate has dropped, and we only had to pull out the smoke detectors once this month.

Now that a more normal pattern is developing in our lives, we will try to get more blogs up and going. Until then… ta ta for now!

Loves,

AnnaBob

I love my iPod. I love listening to it at work while writing reports or while traveling on the airplane to distant locations. But, I think I love listening to my iPod most while listening to it in my car on long drives.

Anna and I drove down to Corpus Christi tonight to visit my family. After listening to some radio in Houston, we plugged the iPod into the car stereo system. We first started listening to some NPR podcasts.

For some reason, Anna and I have become NPR junkies. I think it all started because we both hate the morning shows on the radio. NPR had interesting information and no commercials. We love listening to Writer’s Almanac, This I Believe, and other shows as we drive in and out of work.

After a few NPR podcasts we started rocking out to random music on the iPod. I just love driving, cranking up the volume, and singing along with the songs that we love and grew up with. With the iPod on shuffle we get all kinds of genres of songs.

We listened and sang to some old Beatles tracks. Jammed out to some Black Eyed Peas and simmered down with some Bond and Shakira. We both sang along with some of the songs like Cake’s “Stick Shift and Safety Belts.” Jamming out in the car is like jamming out no other place. Before we even know it, we are heading into Corpus and my parents drive way. Got to love good music, got to love jamming out, got to love it when life is good.

- Bob