Change of address!

For those of you who haven't heard, James and I will be leaving Baylor University at the end of the semester, and moving back to Virginia. Our programs are not working for us, and we are not motivated to continue our education here if we are unsatisfied and unhappy. Because of this, we have decided it would be best to leave now rather than at the end of the next semester, as we are not interested in the courses being offered in the spring. James is applying for the Navy's Officer Candidate's School, and I am applying into Higher Education and Administration graduate programs. We are moving to Blacksburg in two weeks, and are VERY EXCITED!!!! I am applying to jobs at Virginia Tech and in the community, and James is applying to be a bus driver, which will be fun! We are soooo encouraged about our decision, and feel very much at peace with it! Our new address is as follows:

James and Angela Gouger
939 Lora Lane
Blacksburg, VA
24060

Cousins + Mac = AWESOME

Thanksgiving break was sooooo good! James and I went to Rockport to spend the holiday with Grandma and Grandpa Weller, Uncle Frank and Aunt Chris, and my cousins, Nicole and Sarah. We entertained ourselves with the macbook! Check out these awesome family photos!

Southwest Virginia...Here we come!!!

Our little AJ is a Texas native, meaning he doesn't know much about the cold. Although, it has been getting in the low 30s at night here, and I am sad to say that James and I have acclimated...and are actually getting a little chilly! Virginia's winter is going to be quite a shock!! But...how is AJ going to deal with his first real winter? With a camo fleece jacket! That's right...our little guy is quite stylish these days! :-D

AJ and his Duckie

He's such a sweetie! But...don't try to take Duckie away from him!

CHOCOLATE!

Mmmmm....a whole pound of chocolate cake! That's right, the Elite Grill serves cake by the pound, so we decided to check it out. We've been hearing about this cake for quite some time, from multiple people. First we heard about it from Marly, who is an expert in desserts! Then we heard about it from Robin, who turns out is also an expert in desserts. This was our first of many to come adventures for obtaining desserts..others to include the best snow cones ever...seriously...fried brownies...and fried ice-cream. We are saving fried ice cream for exams! :-) A few grad students went to the elite to see if it was really all it was supposed to be...and it was!! As you can tell...we were very excited. James and I couldn't even eat the whole piece in one setting! But...don't worry...we finished it that same night! :-D Robin...excited about a margarita AND chocolate cake!

Orange Bowl

Heading into any stadium with a bunch of MV's is an experience. As we searched for our seats, we were loud and excited. Apparently our seats were at the top row of the stadium along the 50-yard line, which was awesome. We could see everything. In front of us were some random VT fans and crude Miami fans. The stadium was barely half-full by kickoff (Homecoming at the U?). However, there were pockets of Maroon and Orange in random spots. Two years ago all the Hokies were concentrated into one area, and I must assume that the U decided to split up visitors tickets as we were so loud? The Orange Bowl decided to play "Enter Sandman" in its entirety before kickoff, so all the Hokies in the Stadium were jumping and yelling. We started to sing the lyrics in unison... the Canes fans in front of us at first didn't know what to make of this VERY outspoken group of Hokies behind them, except to turn around and flick us off randomly. So, the first half went well for the Hokies. We went up 10-0 and were feeling good. We saw many of our friends that did not tailgate with us as all the MV's congregated near us. The third quarter was all about the U... our offense was doing nothing, and the Canes scored on a freakishly long field goal and a freakishly odd 3rd down TD run. So, we are tied 10-10 and the Miami fans around us decide to become outspoken only when their team is playing well. So, we had a nice little verbal exchange going on. Between the third and fourth quarters we as a group did the Hokie-Pokie, dance and all. The hokies near us loved it! The MV's are really an outspoken band, and not having to play during the game allows all our energy to go into other pursuits. So, Adibi intercepts the ball and Ore sticks it in. Hokies WIN! The Canes fans flocked out of the stadium real fast and we celebrated. Coming out of the stadium we ran into the entire Flowers clan. Our best cornerback, Brandon Flowers, is from South Florida and his WHOLE family was there. They all wore #18 jerseys. A funny thing about Brandon is he had his mouth guard platinum plated so he looks like he has a gold grill in during the game. His Dad of course had an actual gold grill in prompting Angela to get a picture with him. Angela loves grillz, I think I will have to make some money to buy her one soon! We drove some of our friends back to their hotel and said all our goodbyes before catching a 6:30 flight back to Texas. A note on Airports... they want you to show up two hours at least before your flight. We were there by 4:15am... and they did not open their ticket line until 5. We were not amused. But it was an AMAZING weekend, beating Miami is always a joy.

Pre-Game!

Angela and I slept in Saturday after an exhausting week in Waco. Our eyes are twitching again from either caffeine overload or too little sleep. Probably a little of both. But we were in MIAMI! Instead of meeting our friends out on expensive South Beach we went to Denny's for a late lunch and decided to explore a little bit. We drove through Coral Cables (WOW!) and out to Virginia Key. It was too windy to hang out at the beach for too long, but we got some great pictures of the Miami skyline. About 4 o'clock we decided to head to the stadium for some tailgating. After a brief stop in Little Havana for some chips and salsa we parked for 6 bucks at a court house a few blocks from the stadium. Bic and company had paid 30 bucks for a spot adjacent to the Orange Bowl, which was great for us. Also, we were glad we brought some snacks, as all they had was alcohol. The tailgate was awesome, to be surrounded by excited Hokies is something few people unassociated with the university would understand. Uncle Bob, Jesse Allen's uncle (our starting fullback) is from Miami and tailgated with us, buying us a pizza. We even met some cool Miami fans. Upon consideration, we decided that actual alumni of the tiny University of Miami are great fans, but the jerks in the stadium are random fans from the streets of South Florida. Lane Stadium is special for the fact that nearly every fan has graduated from the school or is a member of a Hokie family and feels an integral part of the game. In any case, four hours of tailgating forced Angela and I to search out some porta-johns. While in line outside the stadium, we ran into random Hokie fans. Two VT students got into a conversation with us, and it came up that we were currently in Waco. One guy totally flipped out as he grew up near Waco. His early memories of Waco were good ones and he remembers visiting the bears at Baylor as a kid. He made us go to his tailgate to prove to his friends that Waco is not as bad as its reputation is. We didn't have the heart to tell him our problems with the place as he was so excited, (or drunk!). From there we headed to the game.

4 blissful years! And South Beach...

In an effort to stay sane in Waco, we dipped into our savings to splurge on something near and dear to both of our hearts: Hokie Football! We flew to Miami for our third visit to the Orange Bowl together. A great fact about the trip is that we started dating 4 years ago when we drove from Blacksburg to see the 2002 Hokies lose in a shootout to the offensive juggernaut of Ken Dorsey and Willis McGahee. In any case, we flew into MIA Friday afternoon after leaving Love Field in the Morning. We got a free upgrade in our rental car to a Ford Taurus (Thank you USAA and AVIS!) with a nice engine and 1900 miles on it. After checking into the dumpiest La Quinta we had ever come across (it was cheap!) we headed out to South Beach to hook up with some awesome Hokies. Bic, CJ, Jennie and a few other Tubas came down, and Sarah and JJ were in town as well. We enjoyed seeing them, but found South Beach to be a hyped up drinking spot meant to get money out of drunken tourists... Much like Bourbon Street and Key West. We didn't mind for the evening if it meant being with friends. Bic was excited about finding some random bar serving all you could drink beers a homeless guy told him about. We told him the homeless guy was probably exaggerating, but Bic claimed he quizzed the man on the past three VT-Miami scores and believed him to be legit. Well, lo and behold we actually found the bar, and it looked WAY sketchy. As we had unders with us we decided it was better to not go in, to the disappointment of Bic. What makes this a great story is that we ended up running into the homeless guy again, and we had to admit that he was right. Almost anyone we met who knew what a Hokie was admitted that we should win the football game. Apparently they did not know that Hokies often have a hard time winning games they should... But we had a great night and grabbed a ton of sleep.

Crunch Time!

James and I are swamped towards the end of the semester. It's hard...because there is soooo much to do, and so little time, and we are both getting sick! I am currently working on my three final papers, one on the definition of justice (exciting...huh?), another on physical education in the US vs. Japan, and the final one on supreme court cases dealing with pornography. James has been working on a paper on the Spanish Armada, another one on how Texans viewed the Korean War, and the third on the religious roots of jazz. That seems to be the only cool paper out of all the ones we are writing. It's been stressful and hard here, and I am soooo tired of doing research and trying to prepare for final exams at the same time! EEK! So...to sum it up...we are SUPER busy right now!!

Pink Houses

Pink Houses? I couldn't believe it! They build houses with pink wood in Rockport! I was SUPER excited, but apparently...they do it on every house there, so no one else was. But...for all of you who have never been to Texas...here ya go!

MAC fun at the Clubhouse!

I took my computer to the clubhouse to show everyone pictures of the fish from last time we visited, and the videos I took, and it turned into MACBOOK FUN! :-D

Fulton Park Awesomeness!

James and I spent another weekend with my grandparents in Rockport! It was soooo much fun! We love visiting, and wish we didn't have so much work and we could visit more often. We spent a lot of time with other people form the park this time, which was great!! Suna and Les, Karen and Dick, and Barb...and lots of other people whose names I don't recall at the moment. It was Barb's birthday, and we had a surprise celebration for her with cake and ice cream during the Omaha break at the clubhouse, which was a lot of fun. We went to church first, and the church is so nice in Rockport. It has a lot of Hispanic influence in the architecture and beautiful stained glass. Everything about visiting is soooo great! We watched the World Series, and Grandpa was super disappointed with Detroit’s playing ability! The only time baseball is exciting to watch on TV is during the World Series! We were still super pumped coming off a big win against Clemson the night before!! Such an exciting win for us!!! :-D
Grandma is the gopher killer of the park, and we accompanied her on numerous "hunts"! The first one was successful, and a few hours after she planted the trap, we had a stiff dead gopher! The second one was almost a success, but as I was trying to get a picture of him caught in the trap (because I like sick pictures) he got away. But, the trap was covered with blood, so we didn't think he would last long. She's doing a great job at getting them though! It's awesome! We went to Sears with Grandpa so he could get a double rebate for his awesome lawnmower he got! Sears has an awesome 30-day sale policy, and this tiny store had all sorts of things in it! And...have you seen refrigerators lately? My grandpa says they do everything but talk to you now!! HA! Too bad we missed Halloween, but we were there the weekend before. The park was going to have a huge party, and they decorated the clubhouse really well!! James and I were super impressed!! We can't wait for Thanksgiving! George was very happy he had a dog to try to kill, and AJ was letting him try. It's soooo funny to see them together! They egg each other on the entire time.

Homecoming Bonfire!

During Homecoming week, Baylor celebrates with a huge bonfire, much like the bonfire at Texas A&M that they no longer have because it killed a bunch of people. It almost seems a little wrong to have it at Baylor, being that it is so close to A&M, but such is life at a private institution. I love fires, so we ventured out, and it was huge! It had so much gasoline on it though, that it really didn't have the good smell of a bonfire, but it kept the blaze going. You could go really close to it, and they didn't have anyone making sure people didn't like...fall in. :-) There weren't very many students there, mainly just alumni and their kids, so there were a bunch of little kids running around, which was fun. Tubas...I think you have a challenge with grain this year! BIG FIRE! :-D