Merry Christmas!

Keith and I decided to not send out Christmas cards this year so I thought we'd post the picture we had in mind and do a blogy Christmas card instead. (Not to worry, we'll resume them next year, but with a little baby as the star of our card!) Hal and Janet took this picture of us at the Aggie vs. Arkansas football game at Cowboys Stadium in October. KW and Julie had amazing seats for us, pretty much on the 50 yard line, 15 rows up. Such a great view and the Aggies actually held their own for a lot of the game. Although they lost, we had a blast and always enjoy watching our alma mater. Gig 'em!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. Love, Elysse & Keith



“An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2:9-12


Santa's Village

Part of my volunteer responsibilities for the Junior League of Richardson is volunteering each year at Santa's Village right in front of the Richardson Public Library. This is my second year to participate and we work in Santa's House taking pictures of families and little ones during a three hour time frame. It is usually really cold outside so we all bundle up, drink hot chocolate and usher in families. Some of the things the kids tell Santa they want for Christmas and priceless. One little girl said she didn't want anything for Christmas but wanted all the children who couldn't afford toys to be able to have one this year. Another little 5 year old wanted an iPad. Ha!! We can't help but laugh at the babies and toddlers that have major meltdowns at the first sight of Santa. They usually wait in line for an hour before getting to Santa's House and all of a sudden, they start screaming and crying and the parents just walk out the other door with the kids in tow.

The rest of Santa's Village is comprised of dozens of other little houses that the kids visit along with a stage for performances. Mrs. Claus has hot chocolate, the reindeer even have a house and hand out popcorn, the Fire Department comes as well and Santa even rides on a Richardson firetruck to announce his entrance each night. It is a wonderful community event that lasts from after Thanksgiving to the week before Christmas.

This picture just proves that you're never too old to sit on Santa's lap!

Spending 13 days in Chicago

The longest I've been away from home for work was a recent trip in mid-November to Chicago. American Heart has an annual city-wide conference each November and this year we were in Chicago. I've been to New Orleans and Orlando for this meeting with AHA but I've never been gone for such a long work trip. I was in charge of a week long meeting before our city-wide so in the midst of being newly pregnant and not being able to tell anyone yet, I had the privilege of working 15 hour days for 13 days straight! Luckily my mom and step-dad joined me for the first couple days to keep me company. We all shared a pretty tiny hotel room at the Hilton Chicago (absolutely gorgeous hotel) but with me sleeping on the fold out couch 2 nights and sharing the king bed with mom and Jim the other night, I was a bit excited when they left so I could have the bed all to myself. :)

It was my mom's birthday weekend (don't worry, I won't say her age!) so we had lots of fun things in store! We went to see The Lion King and actually had really good seat about 15 rows up on the left side of the stage. My mom saw this musical in Houston on the front row but luckily she was open to see it again with some first timers. It was absolutely amazing and one of the best Broadway shows I've seen. Truly magical!

Another day we walked all around the city, taking in many of the attractions. We walked through Hyde Park, all along the Magnificent Mile and Navy Pier, toured the Modern Museum of Art for hours and ate our way through the city.

 Can you see Willis (Sears) Tower behind them?

 Beautiful Lake Michigan in the background.

Right after this picture was taken, we got a text message from my cousin M.L. saying she just got engaged. We immediately called her to tell her congratulations. I can't wait for the fall wedding next year!



We ate lunch at a yummy restaurant overlooking the water. Mom and I actually ate at this restaurant in April and just had to take Jim there. Thank you for joining me in Chicago and for making the first few days a lot of fun!

Now for the real reason, I was in Chicago...WORK! Our conference attracts over 25,000 each year so it takes a village to put together. I took a couple pictures with my phone to show. I won't bore anyone with the details, but it truly is an amazing conference to be a part of. Plus I got to meet Jaclyn Smith from Charlie's Angels. Her husband is a renowned cardiologist from LA and was speaking at one of the educational sessions.

 View of the main hallway at the convention center

The Exhibit Floor

First step...fixing the floors

I was absolutely thrilled when we learned on the final site visit of the house that under that ugly, thin green carpet, there were original hardwood floors just waiting for some love from the Denton's. And by Denton's, I mean myself, Keith, Hal and Janet. It took a village! We began with ripping up ALL the carpet and padding throughout the hallway and the three bedrooms. I wish I would have taken a picture of how much we rolled up and put on our front curb. I love that Richardson has "bulky trash pick-up" every single Thursday so we took advantage of it almost on a weekly basis when first renovating our house. I had never tackled anything like this before since all I knew before owning a home was apartment life where I didn't have to do anything but clean. All it took was a lot of endurance and determination to get that ugly stuff out of the house. Below is a picture of the hallway with the carpet gone. You can still see the glue and paint everywhere which would magically disappear when the floors were refinished.

This is the middle bedroom (soon to be nursery) so we did the same thing here and just removed the carpet and hundreds and hundreds of staples. That tedious part took forever and once I finally thought I couldn't find any more staples, they would keep reappearing time and time again...

 Our garbage can served a wonderful purpose in keeping things clean and kept our feet safe so we wouldn't step on any of those tack strips.

 This is the guest bedroom in all her glory, minus the carpet. I guess I didn't like taking pictures of our master bedroom since I can't seem to find any until we started painting it.

Janet was a master with the hammer and crowbar in getting up all the tack strips that lined each wall. I would follow behind her with pliers and get out all the staples. I am still amazed how quickly she worked! My in-laws are amazing and never had a problem rolling up their sleeves and rushing to our house whenever we needed help with any projects. We still rely on them to this day and are so thankful we have Hal as a handyman we can always call on. They have both taught us so much!

A few days after ripping out all the carpet and tack strips, we had a minor emergency with Cason, our golden retriever. I was living at the house by myself (Keith and I weren't married yet) so one night, Cason comes inside the house and has almost severed his Achilles tendon on something sharp/possibly glass in the backyard. I rushed him to the animal emergency room and they had to put staples in his foot and gave him a huge bandage. The cone only lasted a few minutes before he managed to squirm out of it. Poor guy had a rough few weeks.

Doesn't he look so pathetic?



San Antonio weekend with my Dad!

It is rare that my Dad comes to Texas (he HATES the heat) so when he said he was coming to San Antonio for a weekend this fall, I jumped at the chance to visit him. We stayed at the beautiful Omni La Mansion with a gorgeous riverfront view. I hadn't been to San Antonio since junior high for a soccer tournament and I swear I've never seen the Alamo before!

Our hotel from the Riverwalk

My dad and I walked all around San Antonio, visiting the San Fernando Cathedral, where Davy Crockett's remains are buried. It was a beautiful church and I'm happy that my dad was able to see it with me.

Dad not paying attention when I was trying to take his photo!

Next stop was the famous Alamo which apparently my family has a bit of history with!

My grandfather brought a log from Davy Crockett's cabin in Tennessee all the way to San Antonio, TX and gave it as a gift to the Alamo to be displayed to the public. Apparently his log cabin was being torn down and my grandfather wanted to preserve a piece of it for the Alamo. The log, which has my grandfather's name engraved on it, is no longer available to the public, as the log was starting to deteriorate. We didn't ask ahead of time so unfortunately we didn't get to see the Burrow family log that was brought to Texas all the way to Tennessee.

Dad in front of a water well inside the Alamo

Now, the real reason my dad flew all the way from Oregon to San Antonio, was to see the Chapman women's soccer team play two games. He played soccer at Chapman University in college and also coached the men's team after graduation as a graduate assistant. He has recently gotten involved in helping the women's soccer team with recruiting, coaching and a great fan! We had a team dinner on Saturday night and dad had this ice sculpture created for the girls soccer team. I love the pink soccer ball...nice touch, Dad!

On our last day in San Antonio, we took an hour long riverboat tour to see all the sights along the Riverwalk. I only took one picture and I though this tree was amazing. It's roots grow on top of the ground and look quite like termite mounds. I was in awe!

Thanks for a wonderful long weekend in San Antonio Dad! You need to come to Texas more often...we miss you.

"Waiting on 2 pink lines"

I'm a huge country music fan and I remember this song from years ago. It's about a couple waiting those anxious minutes to find out the result of a pregnancy test. It has been a long year with us dealing with a miscarriage but we had a lot of love and support from our friends and family to get us through a really rough summer. BUT, we have GREAT news to once again share...we're pregnant and due around June 23!! It has been an emotional roller coaster ride but well worth it. We had our first ultrasound appointment and everything looks great and the baby has a really strong heartbeat.  I just pray that everything goes well this time around. I've been really sick which my doctor says is a good thing!

I (we) can't wait for June to arrive!

We had our second offical doctor's visit yesterday and saw the baby on a 52" TV! The baby was moving and bouncing all over the place and kicking his/her legs - too cute. It is growing perfectly says the doctor and everything else looks really good. She gave us a pretty good idea of the sex of the baby but we're still not 100% sure since I'm only 13 weeks along. We should know for sure at 18-20 weeks...

A&M vs. Mizzou weekend

One of my oldest and best friends, Stephanie, and her boyfriend, Jon, flew from Denver to Texas to spend a weekend with us in College Station. I met Stephanie when I was 7 or 8 years old at a soccer camp outside of Seattle, on Whidbey Island. We went to camp together each year and I always got to spend a week or so with her family after camp each summer. Stephanie went to college at Cal Poly in Southern California and Jon went to Gonzaga in Washington state. Neither of those schools are huge football schools so we wanted to show them the "cult" that is Aggieland. We took a road trip from Dallas to College Station and were able to stay at Julie and KW's house. (Thank you so much as we always appreciate being able to stay there!) Keith and I hadn't been to Midnight Yell since we were seniors in College, so we thought this was the perfect opportunity to show our friends some of the Aggie spirit. They both thought it was pretty insane that 10.000 people showed up on a Friday night to practice yells and listen to the Yell Leaders tell stories. The Aggies played Missouri in an 11 am game since the Aggies started off to a pretty rough season, they got stuck with a terrible game time. We did have a chance to show Steph and Jon around campus and took them to the Century Tree, Sully, Academic Building, and a few other spots. Steph took some great photos but I'll have to add those another time since I don't have copies yet. Unfortunately, the Aggies lost the football game but luckily they had an amazing rest of the season and are headed to the Cotton Bowl in January against LSU. Gig 'em Ags!!

After a little nap at Julie & KW's, we headed to North Gate for a night on the town. We took them to Bottle Cap Alley, the Dry Bean (yes, Steph and I took a "Bonfire shot" that the bartender lit on fire...only in College Station!), the Dixie Chicken and finally Dudley's Draw. Jon was cracking up at all the dead animals plastered on every inch of the wall.

I can't wait until they come back to Texas! Stephanie and I make it a point to visit each other once a year and in 2010, we made it happen twice. Keith and I went to Colorado in March for a week of skiing. :)

Oh the places we'll go...Mother/Daughter Trips

My mom and I wanted to start an annual mother/daughter trip so in 2005, we started off with a bang in Washington D.C. I was actually in D.C for work when I worked for AAPL so my mom came to join me for a long weekend. My aunt, uncle and 2 cousins were there as well so it was a fun, family filled weekend. We stayed at the beautiful, historic Mayflower hotel and visited all the monuments.

Standing in front of the White House

2006: NYC here we come! We stayed a the most ghetto hotel I have ever been to and I've seen my fair share of terrible ones overseas. The door was even dead bolted and we had to use a physical key to get in. When I'm on "vacation", I like to make the most of each day so we spent 90% of our time outside of the hotel visiting all the sites. We even saw a couple Broadway shows and one of my Semester at Sea friends was performing in Beauty and the Best so we had backstage access afterwards. It was amazing!

My first Broadway play EVER!

2007: San Francisco bound and Harriet even joined us! We stayed in the heart of Union Square and walked all over the city. We even drove out to Sonoma to see my mom's cousin to go wine tasting. What a blast!

Fisherman's Wharf

Lombard Street - the most crooked street in the U.S.



2009: (we skipped 2008 since Keith and I got married that year) I had a free weekend stay in Atlanta so we headed there to see the King Tut Exhibit, Terra Cotta Warriors, the Coke Museum, world famous Shedd Aquarium, a Cirque de Soleil performance and much more.

No, we didn't buy these hats, just borrowed them for the picture!

2010: I was actually spoiled this year and we went to both Chicago and then my mom flew out to Palm Springs, California to visit me during a work trip. We hit Chicago by storm, visiting the Willis Tower (used to be called the Sears Tower), Navy Pier, lots of museums, the Billy Elliot Musical,  Blue Man Group performance and of course eating great Chicago deep dish pizza at Giordano's. My favorite part was an architecture boat tour throughout the waterways. It was beautiful.

View from the John Hancock building. The best view of the city!

Palm Springs: My mom lounged poolside while I worked at a conference but we had the weekend to enjoy the beautiful desert and the sunshine. We took an aerial tram to the top of the mountain for some hiking. Note to self: not a good idea to hike in a skirt and flip flops. I'm not sure what I was thinking!

"Mother Hen" The ducks just loved all the people at the hotel. Especially since we fed them bread.

I look forward to each year that my mom and I get to go on these special trips! I only hope that Harriet gets to join us more often... I love you Mom! 

A precious angel has arrived!

I know this is a little out of date but I'm trying to play catch-up! Way back on August 22, when Keith and I were in Oregon, we got the call we had been waiting for...John and Dusty had their baby girl, Tilly James. This is the first grandchild on my side of the family and I'm so excited she is a little girl. She is just as precious as ever and the cutest little thing!

Proud GiGi and Grandpa Jim

Aren't these just the cutest little skinny jeans you have ever seen? Tilly's mom is quite trendy so the moment I saw these, I knew she had to have them. Dusty even bought a second pair when Tilly outgrew the newborn size. We are so blessed!!

From the beginning

In November 2007, Keith and I bought our first house together. We got engaged in August of that year and with my apartment lease up in December and Keith's up in April, we needed to act fast and purchase a house. It took weeks and months of searching until we found "the one". I still wasn't convinced I could live with such a small master bath and a house that needed A LOT of work...but Keith convinced me this would be an amazing house for us once we put our own touches into each room. Here's a photo tour of the house before we moved in. I am happy to report that it currently looks nothing like these photos! Lots of love, long hours and late nights went into the transformation. The front of the house was charming, cute and had good "curb appeal" plus the beautiful pecan and oak trees in the front yard were gorgeous. The back yard had much more grass in 2007 than it does currently, thanks to our dogs who have killed most of the grass and we now have mostly dirt. Hopefully someday we'll be able to grow grass again...

This first room is right past the front door and used as the original living room before the addition was built onto the house 10 years ago. It wasn't too bad except for the wallpaper. The hardwood floors were in great shape and the only hardwood floors visible throughout the house. I can't find the original picture of the entryway but it was too bad either...just needed a coat of paint and someday we'll replace the porcelin tile with travertine. A project for another day...

Next on the tour is the kitchen which is actually prety large and has tons of cabinet space. This picture was taken after we painted the cabinets and put new hardware on each cabinet and drawer. Just picture cream colored cabinets and gold and floral drawer pulls. It was awful! (I'll write about that transformation another day.) The linoleum was really easy to keep clean but gave off that 70's vibe with the colorful dark green diamond design. I think that is why the homeowners have green corrian countertops. They're not my favorite but granite countertops aren't in our budget so we've had to work around them. They've grown on me in 3 years!

Off of the kitchen is the dining room/breakfast area. The carpet in the dining room is different than in the second living room and is pretty darn ugly! Plus the wallpaper is a bit much and I'm not a fan of the off-centered chandelier hanging down. As you can tell, I wanted to change pretty much every single surface and color in this house. But that's the point of making a house your own. I get to put my stamp on every room...with Keith's help, of course!

This addition and second living room was Keith's number one reason for wanting to purchase this house. It is enormous and perfect for his big screen TV and for having friends and family over for the big games. The windows look onto the back yard and it has a huge openness about it. The curtains are AWFUL and it didn't take me too long to take them down! To each is their own, but seriously, who decorated this house?

Aww, look how nice the backyard looks with all that green grass. It hasn't looked that good in years. I guess that is part of owning big dogs. We've just done some additional landscaping in the backyard but other than that, it looks pretty much the same with the addition of a grill and some patio furniture.

The hallway...nice green carpet, right? The doors are all hollow with lovely brass handles. Not to mention the overly pink bathroom with beige carpet. I was scared to look under the carpet to see what lie underneath. Luckily it was just some pink linoleum and nothing too terrifying.

Guest bedroom #1 and guest bedroom #2. Again, lovely green carpet...these rooms also have the hollow brown doors and brass handles. I love the blank canvas we have to work with in these rooms.

Good news - I pulled up the corner of the green carpet in the master bedroom and what did I find underneath??? Beautiful unfinished HARDWOOD floors. It was the best thing I saw throughout this house and reminded me of how much potential our new home would have. This is a picture of the master bedroom post green carpet and right before we began painting. It even has a new ceiling fan that Keith installed for me for my birthday. So sweet!
I don't have a picture of our teeny tiny master bath but it was recently redone with a pedestal sink, laminate hardwoods, large walk-in shower and fabulous cabinets. This was the one room in our house we didn't paint because we liked the color!

Last but not least, our garage. It too has even undergone a transformation recently. I think I am probably the only person on the planet who cares what their garage looks like. My family likes to tell me I have a bit of OCD and I know I am definitely a Type A personality who thrives on perfection. I can't help it!

Well, that completes the first tour of our house and I can't wait to share the progress and changes we've made over the last 3 years. I know I may seem a little harsh on my overview of the house, but I truly did fall in love with this house and it's absolutely the perfect one for Keith and me. We love it! I hope you've enjoyed the tour...
(P.S. I meant to post this on 12/12 but hit the wrong button so you get 2 posts today!)