Turkey Day

Erin and I have had some visitors over the past couple of weekends. First, we had the Carpenter's. Chris and Martha are our favorite neighbors who moved to TN. They have two dogs and a very cute daughter named Abby G. The Carpenters were in town for the weekend and we had a good time hanging out with them. The dogs loved Abby G. Battlecat wanted to give her lots of kisses.

For Thanksgiving, my parents came to visit. On Thanksgiving we went to the Strom's house. Their 94 yr old neighbor made the turkey and it's clear that the last century has really honed her skills of turkey cooking... it was delicious.

As is our custom - we got up at the crack of dawn to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Erin and my Mom both wanted to be at JoAnn's when it opened. Being asked to help color coordinate fabric at 6 AM is one of life's great joys that only married men really get to enjoy.

We had a great time with my family. It was 80 deg or so before they got here, but as soon as they arrived, the temperature dropped to the 40's. It was beautiful.... although I think my parents were hoping to escape the cold weather. It was really nice to get to go on walks with my Dad and the dogs and to hang out with my Mom. My Mom helped me make a turkey on Sunday!

This past weekend Erin and I re-arranged our bedroom.... and a couple of weeks ago Erin and I re-arranged the living room and the rooms upstairs. It's like a brand new home..... except it's not. We also went to the Behold the Lamb of God concert with some folks from church. That was pretty amazing. I really like Andrew Peterson's music. This weekend is going to be pretty busy. Erin's got one more week of Family Medicine after this one, so she'll be studying. My company Christmas party is Saturday night, and Sunday morning I'm preaching. Sunday afternoon I'm running a 5 mile race with some people from work to benefit the downtown YMCA in Houston. 5 miles is the longest distance I've ever run in my life.... so here's hoping I'm still alive after the run.

Erin got a pretty significant haircut this weekend and she looks beautiful. This gal who cut her hair cuts the hair of basically everyone that attends our church so she came highly recommended and did a great job. We may post pictures in the near future (sometime before 2009). Until then I leave you with some pictures from my parent's visit.
Battlecat and Kelsey really liked laying on our futon upstairs and hanging out with my parents. (Battlecat is wearing her Broncos collar... but to no avail... the Broncos totally suck.)
Battlecat likes to find warm places to curl-up.... my Mom and Erin were spending some time reading on the couches in the living room so the dogs joined them.

Here's proof that my Mom, deep down inside, actually does like dogs.

And this is my Dad in his natural habitat... fixing a computer. He helped me get all the files off of Erin's old PC and transfer them onto our new(ish) one so we can donate the old one.

New Post!

So.... you may be wondering why we haven't posted for the better part of the last millenium.... there's a good answer.

Erin has been on Surgery rotation for the past 3 months - which basically means she's been crazy. Surgery seems to consist of really long hours where Erin gets to observe other people doing things while she stands there. Granted - she's got to see and help out with some pretty cool things including a heart transplant. It's just not what she's into.

I've been out of the office for basically two months doing campus recruiting, training courses, a technical conference, and a week on a drill ship in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. It's been busy times in Umbriacoville.

A couple o' highlights from the last month or two:

Jonathan and Christina came to visit us for their Fall Break! We had a great time just hanging out with them. We went down to Galveston and walked around the beach, we went to the Holocaust Museum which is phenomenal, and they introduced us to The Office.

We also got to go camping in Huntsville State Park with Kaleo (our church). Pictured above is the family Strom (Jody, Kyle, & Clara).

After we packed up our campsite we went for a hike with the Stroms and the Crocketts. We tried to take a family picture.... but the dogs were focused on other things.

This was the very first campout for our Pastor Bill, and his daughter Mirabelle.... Shannon has had previous camping experience. I'm also pretty sure this is the first time Bill has donned a hoodie.

Collin Crockett is hanging on to his dad's (Aaron) leg. I think Charlene was still asleep and for some reason we don't have a picture of all of them together. Collin is the chief user of our gumball machine. They live across the street (Charlene and Erin are in the same year at Baylor College o' Medicine) and Aaron will walk Collin down for a visit. Every time Collin comes over he goes straight for the gumball machine. Collin also enjoys running around our living room and being scared of the dogs. I think the camping trip helped him to become one with our canines - perhaps now they can co-exist in harmony.

The beautiful man (not the one sitting) is Clint Adams. Clint and I are basically the same person - except that he's wearing a mesh Bass Pro Shop hat.... and for some reason he's still single.
Clint speaks canine fluently - I think he's Battlecat's favorite human houseguest.

So that's basically what we've been up to.... work has been crazy - surgery is crazy... and we're looking forward to my parents visiting for Thanksgiving.

Erin and I are going to the Western Conference Finals to see the Houston Dynamo take on the KC Wizards..... if the Dynamo win they're on to the MLS Cup for a rematch with the New England Revolution. The game is going to be crazy and we're really excited for it!

A new post is coming

Fear not faithful reader - a new post is coming.

(Josh and Jua)nita + Preaching

On Sept 2nd - I had the opportunity to speak at church on the book of Philemon:
Here's the link:
http://www.kaleohouston.com/mp3/Philemon.mp3

The weekend before that Joshnita and Juanita came to see us. They got in on Friday afternoon and Friday night Josh and I went to an Astros game.... even the Astros are 7000 wins away from being competitive against a league of one-legged elephants - there were only standing room tickets available. So Josh and I wandered from section to section sitting in all the empty seats - we had a pretty good time.... we didn't stay for the whole game.... the Astros lost in 15 innings to the Pirates after having the bases loaded in basically every inning......

On Saturday we all went down to Schlitterbahn in Galveston... mostly because Joel & Karen had such a good time there. There's a lazy river (that's more like a moderate exercise river.... it moves pretty fast) that goes around the whole park..... there's a little diversion off the river where you can go through some rapids so we did that a bunch. Part of the challenge with the rapids is that you go through a mini loop and then through a tunnel that shoots you out into the lazy river..... but if you are already in the lazy river and are trying to get to the entrance to the rapids you have to get across the really fast portion of the river (with tubes in hand) to reach the entrance.... this is a near impossibility so we had a good time doing that.....

Perhaps the most fun we had at Schlitterbahn was in the wave portion of the river where Juanita channeled her innner-otter, donned a pair of goggles, and took to the waves...... Juanita loves her some waves... I had no idea. When Erin and Ihave kids... and they have kids.... great grandnita Juanita will be taking them to the Surf N' Swim for some wavepool action.

On Sunday Josh and I went to a Derek Webb show which turned out to be Derek Webb + Caedmon's Call.... it was Caedmon's Call's CD release party for Overdressed and for at least this album Derek is back with the band. They put on a pretty good show and played at a lot of old tunes that took me back to my early days in Salt Company........

What were Juanita and Erin doing during the time that Josh and I were hanging out..... we don't know... and we'd like to keep it that way.

In other significant news - the dogs have a dog door now! They are pumped. They honed their dog door skills at Brandy's place and now they can use a dog door to their heart's content. Battlecat loves to go outside and bark at things that may or may not be behind our fence. A lot of times she'll just issue a pre-emptive bark should anything decide to make a noise within 20 yards of our home. I came home the other day to take the girls for a walk, and Battlecat didn't hear the garage door because she was asleep outside sunbathing...... Kelsey views the door as more of a need-based tool..... she'll go outside to do her thing or to see what Battlecat is barking at.... generally she just decides that Battlecat is crazy and comes back inside with Erin and I.

Erin has started her Surgery residency.... 3 months of craziness. She started out working for a cardio-thoracic surgeon (she's working 7PM-7AM at the public hospital's ER Surgery service right now so she's not here to edit this portion.....) who is world famous. I guess the guy makes artificial hearts and valves and things like that. Erin got to be part of a heart transplant - which I think is pretty cool.... but the hours are horrendous. Today she starts two weeks at the public hospital's ER Surgery service. She has several days in a row where she works the night shift and then switches back to the day shift - so her sleep schedule is going to be awful and we won't be seeing each other much over the next few weeks so please pray for her. While surgery is interesting - it's definitely not what she wants to do.... so 3 months of craziness is proving itself to be a difficult challenge.

As for me - my free preview of Setanta Sports just ended.... so I have returned to a period of soccer darkness and gnashing of teeth......

Speaking of soccer darkness..... the men's U-17s, U-20s, and full national side have disappointed recently (although the men's team played quite well against Brasil....) in high profile tourneys.... fortunately for the US.... our women rock! The Women's World Cup just started.... the US plays tomorrow morning at 3:45 AM CST and they don't disappoint..... of course Germany opened the tournament with an 11-0 victory over Argentina..... I can't think of an appopriate superlative for that type of victory.... usually I would call 4-0 a thrashing.... so 11-0 I don't really have a category for.....

Anyway - Utes football is done for the season..... the men's basketball team sucks again too.... RSL has won four games all season (they played Houston on Saturday and Erin and I went.... final was Houston 4, RSL 3 - I wore an RSL jersey and Erin wore a Dynamo shirt).... so they suck.....the Broncos won on an insane field goal against the haven't been decent since Jim Kelly Bill's so Men's sports provide no hope for me.... which is why I'm so stoked for the Women's World Cup.... The US team is always amazing - they play with a lot of flair and usually put up a lot of points.... so let's go USA.... and let's go Lady Utes.

Joel & Karen, Joshnita, Texgiving 2007

A couple of weekends ago, Joel & Karen came to visit - they toured all that Houston has to offer. We went to the Houston Shakespeare Festival's production of Romeo & Juliet - set in the 1930's. We saw it at the Miller Outdoor Theatre - which is a cool open-air theatre located in Hermann Park near the zoo..... we also went to the zoo which is currently undergoing renovations so they were missing most of their African exhibits... Anyway - for some reason we didn't seem to have our camera with us so we don't have many pictures of our travels together.....

A week after Joel and Karen left, Erin and I got see Joshnita. He had a long layover in Houston on his way back to SLC from a mission trip in El Salvador. The dogs came with us and we all hung out in a mall parking lot enjoying some of the fine fare from Wendy's while we waited to take Josh back to the airport.

This past weekend we took the dogs on their longest road trip yet.... we all went to Dallas to see the Patricks for Texgiving. Texgiving is a holiday that Brandy's mom made up.... but as we found out this weekend Marylin and Doug are moving to CA so we were present for the first... and only Texgiving. Sean and Rachael were in town for the festivities so that was nice to see all of them. Kelsey and Battlecat had a really good time.... Kelsey even took the liberty of hopping into Doug and Marylin's pool for a morning swim. Brandy hung out with us all day Saturday.... we went to the Village Church and hear Matt Chandler preach.... it's the first time I've ever seen him preach... he looks like Chad Whitehead... pre-emo phase.... so maybe he looks more like a taller Matt Whitehead..... Brandy made us some delicious brownie dessert and we watched Bride to Terabithia.

Our camera was also having issues at Brandy's... so we basically have no photo record of that last month.....

This is Joel and I in front of the giraffes.

This is a baby elephant!

This is a full-grown Sean

Brandy and her beloved singing canine 'Daisy'

Kelsey and I

Battlecat in her natural habitat.... lounging on Brandy's bed

7-7-7 Wedding in Cabo

Many pictures from our to Mexico for my cousin Dawn's Wedding last weekend...

the wedding party

jake, josh & i at the rehearsal dinner--where we enjoyed excellent food

my mom with her mom & 2 sisters
jake, josh, & richie the arch at the southern most point of this part of baja califonia where the sea of cortez meets the pacific ocean





the resort where we stayed


"lover's beach"



other random cool rock & water pictures

We had a great time! The wedding was very beautiful and it was fun to hang out with all of my family...though it was a very quick trip.

A bit of advice for beach weddings...with an open bar, it's only a matter of time before someone ends up in the pool...if you wish not to get wet...never stand too close to it. Jake and I were making bets about how many people would end up in the pool by the end of the night...when it came time for the cake (which was positioned right beside the pool), the groom went first and smeared cake all over the brides face and hair and then immediately took off. The bride patiently waited next to the cake with her hands full of cake while the crowd chanted for the groom's return. Suddenly the groom came running through the crowd--wearing nothing but his underwear--and tackled the bride into the pool. Luckily, she took it well...after that people started jumping and being pushed, most of them fully clothed, into the pool...it was craziness.

One other fun feature of the beach wedding was the fireworks show at the conclusion of the couple's first dance.

Half-way

My tomato plants have been doing well, producing a lot more than in previous years...here are 2 nice red ones.

During my little summer break from school I was able to fly to Wyoming to visit my grandma, which was very nice. My family was able to come and see me one day also and we did one of my favorite activities...boating at the Flaming Gorge.

My sister and I being silly while water skiing together.

Finally, in other exciting news... I had to go back to work today (that's not the exciting part)...I started my Psychiatry rotation, which should at least be interesting. We have to take evening call shifts in the Psych ER at the county hosptial...so who knows what I will see.

The exciting part is that I am now officially a 3rd year...which means I am half-way through med school. Yay!

San Antonio Pictures

Jake & I in front of the Alamo church- the place the women and children who survived the attack on the Alamo hid.

Shamu doing cool Killer Whale tricks...

Jake with his love- the penguins...who prefer the dark

Jake & I at Sea World...waiting for a Shamu show

Sea World

This weekend Erin and I went to San Antonio.... it was one of those deals where you pay a really low price and you get three nights in a hotel plus tickets to Sea World in exchange for 90 minutes of your time handed over to a timeshare presentation group.... along with your soul.

It sounded like a bargain - so we took it.

When we got to the hotel they asked if there were three in our party:
The had the following three persons checking in:
Jake Umbriaco - Age 46
Erin Umbriaco - Age 46
Jessica Umbriaco - Age 16

For some reason the fact that they'd doubled our age and given us a daughter didn't seem to warrant a larger room..... We had a full size bed.... no couch or anything.... I guess they thought Jessica would sleep in the bathtub.

Anyway - check in was a strange experience.....

Fortunately I missed most of check-in because the Dynamo were on the big screen in the lobby, and just as I walked in Brad Davis scored his first goal of the game (dynamo won 4-0 & Brad had a hat trick).

Erin and I went to the Alamo.... which was a block from our hotel.... and took about 5 minutes too look over completely.

On Friday we went to the timeshare thing which wasn't as frightening as we thought and the next day we went to Sea World. I was so excited to see the penguins.... when I was little we went to Sea World in San Diego (we being my immediate family... I didn't know Erin back then) and I spent a significant portion of my time going through the Penguin Encounter. Well.... Saturday was overcast... rainy... and the penguin encounter wasn't quite as cool as I remembered... I still went through like 5 times though. Erin was really excited for Shamu..... so we went to to Shamu shows including: Shamu rocks Texas......

Shamu rocks Texas took like 6 years off my life and may have rendered me sterile.... the 'dj' for this blessed event was a caucasian cowboy who goes by the handle 'ben-dizzle.' We listened to a variety of hits and watched the crowd participate in a dance contest. The 3 shamus that did stunts were fun to see though.

We also went to a show with dancing dolphins and belugas.... and a water-skiing exhibition.
We did go to eat on the riverwalk and that was a lot of fun.

On the way home from Sea World we blew by our exit...... by we I mean I missed the exit... by 20 miles.... so it took a long time to get back to the hotel... then we went to this 24 hr mexican restaurant 'mi tierra'.

Allow me to take you now on a brief journey through the darker portions of my psyche.....

I have an unhealthy (literally and figuratively) obsession with Cherry Coke..... when places don't have Cherry Coke they usually just throw some grenadine in with the Coke. I went to this pretty upscale place with my work team for a going away party and ordered a Cherry Coke... and the waiter was like.... a Roy Rogers? Every time he brought me a new drink he said 'Here's your Roy Rogers sir'..... ordering a Roy Rogers is just not manly... and my work team gives me a lot of crap about that.

So - back to the mexican restaurant.... I order a Cherry Coke... the waiter informs me they don't have Cherry Coke... would I like a Roy Rogers.... I'm like no... I just want you to put some grenadine in a coke.... so a Roy Rogers? No... a Cherry Coke...

He brings me a coke with grenadine topped with whipped cream and cherries on top.....

Whip Cream on a coke? Whoever heard of such madness.... I asked him to bring me a drink w/o whipped cream - to which he responds... that's how you make a Roy Rogers.... I didn't ask for a ROY ROGERS..... he never replaced my drink.

At least they had a good bakery.....

I'm sure Erin will post pictures.... she was in WY last week and has some pictures too....

The "Cottonham" Tottenhams

This weekend we were able to take a quick trip to Austin to visit Jessica. It was great to get to see her (and of course her mom Ladybird and dad the famous Terry Tottenham) and visit with her. We also got to hear about her ministry and the great work she is doing with Young Life's Capernaum Ministry--which is really amazing. I must apologize to my college roommates, in particular Jackie who still lives with her, for encouraging Jess's great Texas pride by giving her the gift I gave her for her b-day. However, I just knew after seeing the idea in a book that Jess would love it...seeing as how she so proudly displayed her Texas flag in our dorm room and apartment on Texas Street.

By the way Jess...Battlecat worked very hard to help me make the quilt, and being from Texas herself, thought she should get to keep it when it was finished.

In other news, I am enjoying Pediatrics so far...I am currently doing Neonatology and getting to examine all the brand new babies, which is very fun! Jake has started re-reading the Harry Potter books again in his spare time in preparation for the release of the final book at the end of July.

Here are a few more cute pictures of Battlecat & Kelsey...Kelsey got a little pool to play in. She loves the water and is always trying to drink it directly from the hose. Battlecat on the other hand is terrified of water, and avoids it as much as possible.

My Little Garden

Here are a few pictures of what's growing in my little patio garden...I'm rather proud. Of course so far it has been raining every few days, so I haven't had to do much watering yet myself...we'll see how it goes as the summer progresses.




The last picture is of the girls with Battlecat's best dog friend Taggy. She lives across the street and they get to play together every day as our great neighbors Martha and baby Abby let the dogs out for us each day...but to our great sadness they have decided to move this summer to Chattanooga, TN to be closer to family.

Jonah Ch. 2

A couple of things:

Last Saturday, Erin and I were at the mall walking around the Gap, and who do you think we saw there? Derek Webb! I finally got up enough nerve to walk up to him and tell him how much I dig his music.... he was very approachable - seemed like a real down to Earth guy. He's got a new album coming out May 1st called: The Ringing Bell... I'm sure it's going to be amazing (www.derekwebb.com).

Today I had the opportunity to do something I haven't done for a couple of years...... I got to preach the message at church. I spoke on Jonah Ch 2. I'd been pretty nervous about it all week - but I think it went pretty well.....

The message will be posted online in a couple of days at the following link:
http://kaleohouston.com/podcast/


Erin starts her Pediatrics Rotation tomorrow morning and she's a bit nervous as well so she can definitely use your prayers.

That's all for now

He's got fluid

I saw that the Duncan's posted this month... so I felt like I should as well....

I guess there hasn't been much going on lately. I've been sick for a while. I went to the dr. three weeks ago or so and got some medicine.... then I felt OK for like a week, and I've been sick for like the last two weeks. Last night it was 83 deg in our house but I couldn't get warm... I had slippers and pants on, Erin wrapped me in lots of blankets but I was still shivering.... then when I finally fell asleep I woke up like an hour later in a pool of sweat.... not a lot of fun. Battlecat did me the honour of keeping my feet warm though - she's recently decided that our moving around should be no obstacle to her comfort on our bed.....

Last weekend Erin and I were in SLC for a very brief visit. I had the opportunity to teach part of one of my favorite classes at the U for work so that kept me busy. We also got to attend Jonathan Hays' ordination which was awesome.

Anyway - I really don't have much to blog about lately.... I suppose we have had some significant things happen..... Erin finished her Internal Medicine rotation, we went to the annual Charity Ball with her med school friends, and Erin has been on a two week break from rotations before she spends two weeks on dermatology and then she'll start her pediatrics rotation. Erin has been cleaning the house like a crazy person and she's been making me soup while I've been sick.

Erin and I have re-discovered the glory of Capri Suns - I'm enjoying Wild Cherry while Erin partakes of Strawberry-Kiwi. We've also been watching a lot of Scrubs re-runs.

Here's a picture of Erin and some of her med school friends (Marianne (U of U grad) and Luke (BYU grad)) preparing for a presentation they had to give.