Welcome Back to Blogging

So if you look at the blogging history for our blog, you can see that we have not blogged in a really really long time. And, we definitely don't blog often. I want to change this. Since we have Samantha I want to be able to chronicle pictures of our beautiful family more than just uploading phone pictures to facebook. So, I am going to start at the beginning.

I was born September 22, 1983.....just kidding. Let me start at the beginning with little Samantha.

Let me start a litte further back. For those of you who don't know, or need a recap, Sean and I now live in Utah. Last September, Sean decided to look for a teaching job out west. He spent a few days working on his resume and then got on a teacher website and saw a job posting at a charter school in Lindon. It turned out that his college bishop was the brother of a board member for this charter school. Sean made a phone call then got a phone call for his resume. Later that day, he got a call from the school and a scheduled skype interview the next day. The interview went really well and since they needed to fill the job immediately, he had a job offer that Saturday. A week later he was moving to Utah. He moved into my parents basement while i stayed in Texas to sell our house. Sean flew out for Thanksgiving with his Mom and we painted two rooms in our house. We were lucky to be able to sell the house December 28th. Sean flew out December 22nd and we packed everything up, closed on the house, and got in the car to drive to Utah. Our trip back to Utah is a story itself....but that is for another blog.

So, you are probably wondering, how is all of this "starting with Samantha". Well, it was the week of Christmas, just a few days before Sean flew to Texas, that I decided to take a pregnancy test. I didn't really think that I was pregnant, but I was "late" and had one in my drawer. I took the test, hopped in the shower and after the shower I looked at the test. Two lines. I was shocked. It hasn't ever looked like that before. I took a picture and sent it to Sean who was already at work. He immediately called and said "who is he?". We laughed and were both pretty speechless. (if you are trying to figure out how....remember Sean visited for Thanksgiving). I told Sean that on my way to work I was going to purchase the more expensive pregnancy test, the one with the digital read out to be sure. The first time I took it, I got an error message. Had to wait another hour. Took the test again, and yes, I was pregnant!!!

Here is the ultrasound picture the doctor did at our 8 week appointment. The baby is growing!!That is all for now, next blog will be our funny journey from Texas to Utah.....while 5 weeks pregnant.

Because You asked

So Funny Story. Apparently I have been neglecting my blog and don't update facebook enough. Below are two notes I received from a very concerned sister asking that I update:

"Celeste FisherRachelle Brewer Carroll:

Dear Mrs. Brewer Carroll. I see that there are some "recent" (as in not at all) albums of your farmville. As un-interested as I am in those (but I still love you), I am hoping that you will make an album with real people in it. Preferably with you and your husband. I would appreciate it, if you would do this as soon as possible. If this does not work for you, there is another way. If I remember right, (which I do), you have this thing called a BLOG that has not been updated sine February. Would you so kindly update that as well so I could feel like I know a little bit about what is going on. I appreciate you taking the time to read this and I expect you to get to work.
Sincerely,

Mrs. Brewer Fisher"

Followed by

"Celeste FisherRachelle Brewer Carroll:

Mrs. Brewer, I see that my last inquiry did not make an impression on you. I am not sure if you understand the importance of my previous message. I assume that you received my message, due to the activity on your current need to get bricks for a school house. I truly am grateful for the hard work you are doing in order to give back and build a school, but many of us are in need of an update. This will be the last "sincere" message I will send before the messages will get more severe. I recommend that you get to work on your facebook albums, with again, pictures of you and your husband and maybe throw in a few of you dog. As well as getting to work on your blog. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Celeste Fisher"

So because you asked, here is an update complete with pictures of sean, me and the dog!!

So the most exciting thing going on in our lives right now is that you can buy Dr Pepper made with sugar at the store!! YEA!! Dr pepper is having their 125th b-day celebration by selling select cans of Dr Pepper with sugar!! YUMM!! Its so good. Anyway, they have 6 signature cans right now for the celebration. Right now we have 4 of them.



Sean--

Recently Sean graduated from Texas A&M and received the coveted Aggie Ring. Here it is. The Aggie Ring is a great tradition here! It is the most recognized school ring in the world!!



Sean currently wears his hair spiky. I like it a lot!!



Sean cut himself shaving this morning! Ha Ha!




Sean is very obsessed with yellow shirts. Everywhere we go he is usually in yellow so we buy him new t-shirts any time we see a good one. This one says "I'm Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am" So totally Sean.



Rachelle- Now about me....well

I recently got my hair permed. I really like it. Here it is, I like it. This is my hair wet before I have diffused it.



Here is my poor scabbed leg. So the mosquitoes out here love my blood. My blood is their form of crack cocaine (twilight reference). Since I am allergic to them they get really big and itch for two-three days. I try not to itch them but they usually turn into bleeders. The other day I had 4 big band-aids on to keep me from scratching.



I also like the color yellow. Here is my cute yellow toes.


What more can I say about me. Oh yeah, we have the cutest little puppy. Ok, so he is not a puppy and not little. I like to call him puppy though. This is Doc thinking that he should be able to lay on the coach too!!



Here is another shot of our crazy dog. He likes to play a game by himself where he lays on his back and tries to pick up the raw hide he dropped. Then he tries to chew on it up side down. So cute.



Well, I think that is all for now!! Hope this satisfied the need for an update :)

Rachelle's Birthday

Sean made a pretty awesome Favorite cake for me for my birthday!!



He made me a tennis court!! It was awesome! He used sweetish fish upside down to make the tennis court and used mini gummy bears as all the players and line judges. He also used sprinkles for all the audience members.



Inside the cake Sean made this delicious layer of melted reeses peanut butter cups and butter cream icing mixed..it was to die for!!! He also colored the cake so it was purple and green!

Becca's Birthday

Becca's Birthday was this last September. Here is her favorite cake:



We made a mario cart race course incorporating her favorite things!! One of her favorite things is the game mario cart. Also featured is her favorite candy sour watermelons used to edge the court. There are also reeses peanut butter cups inside the cake.



For the course we used orange sandy candy. We entitled the course "mario cart- race for a cure" because Becca is very supportive of autism research and the autism foundation.



Lastly her favorite sports team is the Dallas Cowboys so it was only right that they sponsered the race!

Time to Update.....

So I have finally found some time to do some updates. There will be a bunch of blogs because I have taken a bunch of pictures and want to put them up!!! I am going to try to do them chronologically, but if not, you'll get over it!!

Sean's Birthday

We had a great weekend and were able to celebrate Sean's 1st Anniversary of his 29th birthday!!

We started the evening with going to first Friday. This is down in downtown Bryan where the first friday of every month there are bands playing and activities. We had a lot of fun at the soda fountain that has dublin Dr pepper shakes. YUM!!!

Next we headed to Carino's for dinner. This is Sean's favorite restaurant, mostly because they have Italian sodas that have free refills!

The best part of Sean's birthday was the prochector party back at our house. Sean built this screen using a sheet, two 2x1x8 wood., a staple gun and chain to hang it from the ceiling. It was pretty awesome!!! We had lots of fun all weekend playing mario cart, Dr Mario, and rock band!!


Sean also got a couple of birthday gifts

Cold weather biking pants (since he is biking to work 4 times a week)


Bike rack

and bike rack bags so he no longer has to use his back pack.



Now no birthday could be complete without a Favorite Cake. Here is Sean's favorite Cake!! Let me explain the elements!!



First we have Seans signature personal theme "I am a Beacon" Sean's favorite color is yellow. Also we have his favorite catch phrase.....you'll have to read that for yourself



This is Sean being a beacon



And this is his beacon candle. Standing guard of his beacon candle is his killer bunnies (I used army men and topped them off with bunny gummie heads!)




Sean also loves biking! With his new job he is biking to work 4 times a week! (This is a motorcycle but it had to do since I could not find a miniature toy bike.)


The last element on the outside of the cake is Sean's Cranny. If you don't know Travian, this won't make sense. This is like a "nook and cranny" a hiding place!


Lastly, the inside of the cake. Sean requested a checkered cake. It turned out cool! The layers in between the cake is whipped cream with crushed up 100 grand candy bars. It was a great success.

New additions to the family

My Fish Tank Saga
By Rachelle Carroll




So, as you all know (or may not know) for Christmas last year I got a 20 gallon fish tank which I love!!! I started with my Beta whose name is Burtus. Then I got Zippy (zebra danio) and Tangy (red wag). Next I got Benjy (African frog) but he died shortly after I got him. Next I got Bubba (black balloon belly molly) and Calypso (electric green danio) and Sunny (orange burst danio). Then my problems started. First Tangy started to get sick. I kept checking the water and I could not get the ammonia levels to stabilize. Tangy died. Then, Calypso started going crazy, like swimming erratically and diving head first into the rocks, she died, shortly followed by Sunny and Zippy. At this point I was at a loss of what to do. I tried to stabilize with what I had and for a while I thought things were getting better. I was having an algae problem so I purchased an algae eater and named him Gus Gus......long story short, for the past two months I have had only one fish, Burtus my beta. (I apparently can't keep things alive, I also failed at a bonsai plant and bamboo and those are supposed to be easy!) By the way, betas are awesome and have a crazy will to live......needless to say its been a big empty fish tank and crazy for one fish.



So fast forward to two weeks ago, I finally decided I was ready for new fish. I purchased a balloon belly molly that is black and gold, her name is Goldie. Here's a couple pictures of her.



We also got another fish, which was Sean's first fish, he was a dalmatian molly named Sebastian......I say was because yesterday I went to feed them dinner and found him dead. I was so distraught thinking here we go again. Luckily Sean is good to take care of this for me since I cry every time (seriously, I cry).

So anyway, today we had some friends over to watch a movie and while Sean was helping Michael get a drill he was going to borrow, Stacie and I were chatting in the kitchen just looking at the tank. I saw a flake moving at the back of the tank.....and then it started swimming up....odd. I started looking closer and, well, it was a baby fish. A baby dalmatian molly to be exact. Apparently, Sebastian was actually a Sabrina and was also a live bearing fish. I called Sean and we all sat there staring at the fish. Now, what to do.

Let me back track to a week ago, my beta Burtus was not having a good time sharing the tank and started nipping at Goldie's tail, so I had to isolate him. I had this net contraption, which incidentally is used for baby breeding, but I put Burtus in there. So, now that I needed it, I moved Burtus to a fish bowl, Sean and I rounded up the babies, and Goldie is now Queen of the tank.



All in all we counted 12 fish. TWELVE baby fish!! It is insane.


We did some research (all the research to be exact) and it turns out that first, it is common for the mother to die due to child birth, so this one I didn't kill (yea me!) and second, we can feed them crushed fish flakes and peeled peas, cucumbers, or romaine lettuce. We will see how many survive!!


Any suggestions for names?