giving thanks

at thanksgiving and all throughout the year, we are thankful for the following...

dear friendships that distance cannot waver (and 2 future babies will make even better...meaning adam and coriell are having TWINS, not one baby from each couple!)
true fall in all of its glorious colors
sisters...and japanese hibachi grills :)
family...the extended family with open arms to all and those closest to us
football and everything that rivalries bring

the most wonderful time of the year

no, not christmas. the other best time of the year. fall.

fall means football and changing leaves and my birthday and cooler weather and even better reasons to go to starbucks. well, as i mentioned last year the two about cooler weather and changing leaves never really happen here in houston until somewhere around december.

football, in particular, is something we both really enjoy and enjoy watching together. when we are not at kyle field in college station cheering on the aggies, we are watching as much as sec football as we can on saturdays and the texans (and others) on sunday or monday. such a great sport!

last saturday was our first saturday in college station together (lee went to the first game but took no pictures). lee's dad was also in town so we all met up with katy, tiffany, and aaron for lunch. later, we headed to campus for pre-game festivities. i had never experienced "step off" where the people follow the band from campus to the stadium, but katy, tiffany, and i met up with the garretts and did just that. first, there was a loud cannon and then lots of people trying to follow a loud band...very interesting experience.

the aggies did a really nice 9/11 tribute and a sweet flyover before the game began. thankfully, the aggies pulled out a pretty significant victory despite quite a few fumbles on special teams. we left at halftime and got to watch most of the second half of the bama game!

roll tide roll

due to unfortunate circumstances and living several states away, the 2009 football season was the first season in almost 10 years that i had missed an alabama football game in person. that streak did not continue for two years.

i made it tuscaloosa a few hours before the first game of the season. i met up with my family, spent some time on the quad, saw some friends tailgating, and got to see the crimson tide take the field against san jose state. i know, just a no-name team, but it was still alabama football. i will not be able to make it to any other game this season so i took it all in.

fans waiting for the "walk of champions" to begin outside bryant-denny stadium

my beloved denny-chimes standing tall over the tailgaters

the newly-finished endzone upper deck, bring capacity to over 100,000

i also got to spend the weekend with my sister. yes, for the first time, i spent the weekend with her. we had a great time, and she was a wonderful hostess...making biscuits for breakfast and letting me invade her apartment for a couple of days.

as much as i enjoy taking pictures, i completely forgot to take pictures with all of my wonderful friends i got to catch up with. sunday was a wonderful day for my soul with the opportunity to worship at calvary (a place always dear to me) and step into our former small group, spend time with the hendersons at their new house, and visit the proud parents-to-be and beth (also known as the weeks) at their new house.

rachel and i ended the visit with breakfast at panera and shopping in the bama stores for me to find a flag to represent with in my classroom. silly us realized we had not taken a picture together all weekend so remedied that quickly before i left. love you lots...thanks again for letting me stay!

friday night lights on saturday night

high school football season has begun in the state of texas.

when multiple schools in the same district share the same (really nice) stadium sometimes you play on friday night and sometimes you play on saturday nights.

we enjoyed a fun and relaxing saturday and finished it off tonight with the first game of the season for AHS (the school where i teach). we met up with some teacher friends, saw some former coworkers, and enjoyed a night of football. can i pause for a second to say i am so stinkin' excited for the beginning of football season of all kinds?! thanks. anyway, i enjoyed the opportunity to point out all of my current and former students on the team to lee. one of them scored a touchdown and others were in on quite a few plays on both sides of the line.some of my female students were also on the field during halftime performing. i have many girls who are "patriettes". they dance along with the band during the game as well as on their own at halftime. i was so into watching their performance and talking to friends that i forgot to get a shot of them. they are a really talented group of girls though.

oh yea...the eagles got their first win of the season with a 38-18 victory over south houston!

sports fans, big and small

fans of all sizes gathered to support the colts or saints at our starting point super bowl party last night. we always have a great time with the people in our sunday school class and seem to continue to meet new couples every time!

we enjoyed delicious food and desserts...including jambalaya and beignets to represent new orleans! you may have heard about a little mishap i had with some jalapenos while making our appetizer, but no worries, after about 8 hours of extreme discomfort, my hands are back to normal. :)

john and amy's house was perfect for the array of "fans" we had present. the downstairs served as a perfect playroom and viewing room of the game (minus sound), and the upstairs became the more serious watching room. as you can guess, we were definitely girls downstairs and guys upstairs most of the time, but the dads did a great job of relieving the moms when necessary.i missed a before shot of the food, but you can see that we are definitely not a group of food-wasters!
this horse was a source of entertainment and uncertainty as we were convinced it was moving around the living room all by itself at times. the kids seemed to enjoy it though...jackson especially loved feeding the horse some toy necklaces.

in honor of Bowl Season

my first bowl game: a&m v. georgia

unfortunately, i did not bring any more luck to the aggies than lee ever has. in extremely cold temperatures, the aggies stayed close until almost halftime (hence the reason my shots stop at the halftime show), but the dawgs kept it together for the full 60 mintues.

we had a good time anyway (minus the freezing) and i enjoyed using our new camera to take some great action shots.tried to be patriotic with this next one, but i apparently had not learned how to avoid the circle of pink dots around the sun with the new camera just yet...how awesome is this sunset?! many thanks again to the garretts for the tickets, although we were sorry to hear that phillip got sick. also, we were pretty pumped to enjoy the game with katy....football with friends always makes for a great time.

better luck next year, aggies!

gameday in the pilgreen house

we are a house divided today.

every other saturday in the fall, we cordially watch each other's teams and may even cheer them on at times. today is not one of those days.

alabama vs. lsu. 2:30. it is kind of a big game.

we'll see which one of us is still smiling after the game is over... :)

*update:* in continuing to be a good sport, i think you can assume who was smiling more immediately following the game. luckily, neither one of us have frustration over football that lasts for more than 5 minutes so all is (and was) well in the pilgreen house! :)

football and family makes a great birthday weekend

last weekend we took a road trip to prattville for my birthday weekend. we sandwiched the trip with time in louisiana that included the office wedding with the morrows and allens on the front end and even more hang out time with everyone on the tail end. we love the time we get with both of our families, and this trip was no exception.

we arrived in prattville just in time to grab some mexican for lunch with my mom, dad, and sister....because that is what you do when you live in texas, right? go out of state and grab some mexican when we have the best of the best right here?!

anyway, we spent friday night at tyler's football game. we braved the rain and helped cheer the generals to a victory. tyler is #50...he got to play on both sides of the ball and special teams. tyler, we are so glad we got to see you play!up until shortly after my 11th birthday, i was the only one in our family whose birth month was october. that changed for the better when my cousin, hannah, was born. we shared our family birthday parties for many years, but we have not been able to have our parties together for a few years. thankfully, that all changed this year! we combined our birthday party with all of our family and a full day of football (a&m and auburn, then alabama, and then lsu). everyone was so excited about partying & watching football all day, especially tyler. don't you think so?!

yay for shared birthdays again!

thanks to rachel (who is an auburn fan, by the way) i can represent bama in houston when it gets cold with my new houndstooth scarf! even if that means only wearing it for a week, i will wear it proudly!

hannah got the awesome gift of a snuggie for her birthday! it is the first snuggie i have ever seen in person and totally lives up to its hype. plus, it came with a free booklight. be jealous. be very jealous.
the long weekend was such a great time to see everyone, and the perfect celebration of my birthday/the end of my unemployment/the beginning of my new job :)