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Living Happily Ever After
Volume 11 December 2004


--- Are We Settled Yet? ---

On December 16, 2003 we welcomed Elizabeth Landri Bias into our lives.  
5 weeks later we moved back to Florida.  We knew that as challenging as 
it would be there would probably never be a better time.  Liston's job 
situation was expected to change and Caroline stoppedtaking new clients 
since we were expecting Elizabeth.  After months of house hunting and 
enjoying the hospitality of Grandma and Grandpa, we finally found a 
house in South Orlando very close to Disney World and got moved in at 
the beginning of April.  We fell in love with the location and bought a 
house with plenty of room for visitors.  House hunting in Orlando was 
much more challenging than we anticipated.  We found a beautiful home 
with lots of space, a pool, lanai, and screened patio that backs to a 
pond with a Cypress Dome beyond that. The floorplan is not ideal (we are 
fond of the style of homes in Texas) but it seems to work well for us 
and our lifestyle.  Not sure we all would have fit in Linda and Bob's 
house much longer with all our baby gear.  They were traveling much of 
the time we were there.  When they were home, we had lots of fun and the 
girls both really enjoyed having them right there.  We even had Alex's 
3rd birthday (Beauty and the Beast party) there and everyone had a great 
time dressing up and playing princess party games. Shortly after closing 
on our new house, we learned Liston would be laid off sooner rather than 
later from his Allegiance Telecom job.  His company was in bankruptcy, 
so this was anticipated, but we thought the company buying them would 
keep the more talented technical guys til the end of 2004.  Instead, 
they acted quickly to eliminate the remote workers.  Luckily, Liston 
quickly secured a new position very close to our Orlando home.  He now 
works for Starwood Vacation Ownership (Sheraton, Westin, St. Regis, Four 
Points family of hotels) in their corporate IT department and enjoys the 
new challenges.  This is a great fit for our family since we love to 
vacation and he gets some great perks.


--- The Hits Just Kept on Coming ---

Throughout the summer we were tormented by Texas friends with reports of 
beautiful, 80 degree weather all summer (usually it is over 100).  The 
doubt regarding moving to a better climate had already sprouted before 
Hurricane Charley looked like it was going to make for a nasty weekend.  
We were fairly unconcerned (put our lawn chairs in the house, bought 
some water, and went to Disney) having both lived in Florida during 
childhood and never had too much trouble with hurricanes. We grossly 
underestimated the power of Charley.  It was the first major Hurricane 
in over 40 years to hit so far inland in Florida and we had sustained 
winds around 110 mph for about two hours while we hung out in the hot 
bathroom listening to loud scraping noises outside.  Alex's Little Tykes 
house was outside so we were worried since we assumed that was what was 
clattering around.  Imagine our surprise to come out of the bathroom and 
see that our entire pool enclosure was twisted, sheared, shredded, and 
mostly in the pool, we had an enormous amount of water in our kitchen 
and it was still pouring in, Alex's hearty wood swingset was thrown from 
the back yard to the side yard and in dozens of splintered pieces, and 
our solar panels were toasted, but that Little Tykes house was intact 
without a scratch.    After seeing the devastation of Charley this far 
inland, we got really well prepared for Frances and Jeanne.  Luckily 
Charley was the only one that damaged our house, but the other two were 
much longer with high enough winds that we didn't want to be near 
windows so we hunkered down in Elizabeth's room for those two weekends 
with all our supplies.  Hurricane Jeanne did manage to do some damage at 
"the river" so we are still working on getting that taken care of. We 
escaped to Maui in anticipation of Hurricane Ivan which missed us 
(because we were out of town???).  It was a fantastic trip.  The girls 
loved spending all day swimming and playing in the sand.  We tried out 
pools at the various Starwood hotels there ("Stay at one, play at all").  
Alex met a real live hula girl and we all enjoyed lei making, sunsets, 
sunrises (baby and time change did not mix well), and lots of pineapple.


--- Gobble Gobble ---

Our Indiana trip at Thanksgiving was excellent.  We saw most of our 
cousins and their children as well as Aunt Lane, Uncle Norm, and Uncle 
Terry.  They sure do have hosting huge groups of family down pat.  
Alexandria and Elizabeth really enjoyed playing with all the kids. An 
added excitement was that snow was on the ground when we arrived and the 
girls were thrilled to play with it.  


--- 4th of July, Florida Style ---

The Turri family joined us for our annual Fourth of July festivities 
this year.  We spent the whole day together catching up, swimming, 
playing outside, making ice cream, cooking out, and going to watch 
fireworks.  They even stayed the night and played some more the next 
day.  We look forward to seeing them again at the New Year to enjoy our 
annual Buckeye making event.


--- Bias Girls ---

Alexandria and Elizabeth truly are joys.  They are both very engaging 
and bright little girls.  Alex (now 3 years old) loves to play dress-up, 
read books, and do arts and crafts.  She goes to preschool 3 days a week 
and played on a 3-4 year old soccer team.  She is a good swimmer and 
likes anything related to water.  She tries hard to be independent and 
likes to help with Elizabeth and jobs around the house.  Elizabeth 
(almost 1) has a sparkling personality.  She is very intense and usually 
very happy.  She suffers from reflux and spent her first 10 months 
constantly spitting up, in pain, not sleeping, and having trouble 
gaining good weight.  She is now on medication that is helping and she 
is much more comfortable and happy.  She learned to walk pretty early so 
she could try to keep up with Alex and she is an excellent climber (up 
slides, up ladders, up up up).  She likes music, pounding on things, 
water, and doing anything Alex is doing.  We joined a playgroup that has 
kids a variety of ages and both girls really enjoy that.


--- Adjusting to the Sunshine State ---

Leaving Texas has been really hard for us.  We were so attached to our 
friends there and it was really hard to leave such a great support 
system and our beautiful home.  Having Carolyn & Lloyd next door, our 
Wednesday playdates with the Burrows, "gamenights" with the Taylors, 
playing with Rebecca, our 4th of July event, Caroline's established 
business, Liston's Raytheon and Allegiance buddies, and the Tex-Mex are 
all things we regularly question why we left.  On the other hand, moving 
to Florida has been fantastic.  It is December as we write this and 
Liston and Alex were just swimming in the 88 degree pool, we are still 
wearing shorts.  Being this close to Bob, Linda, and Kim allows the 
girls to develop such a close relationship with them.  Bubba and Zaida 
are further away, but 90 minutes by car beats the heck out of the plane 
flight and we have to seen them about once a month and they can come to 
birthday parties easily.  We reunited with some of our fraternity 
brothers at the Joyner's Independence Day party .  We've also seen some 
people at Boyd Hill Nature Park, Bee & John, and the Lahsangahs.  We 
have the added bonus of living at tourist central and are hoping it will 
be easy to see people regularly since they can include us as "part" of 
their vacation itinerary instead of having to make a special trip.


--- Final Four ---

We finally got tickets to the Final Four!!!  We were so excited to "win 
the lottery".  We've entered the drawing for tickets since we got 
married in hopes we would eventually get lucky and we did.  Of course, 
the timing was not so hot with the new baby, 2 year old, and only 2 
tickets.  The week of the event we finally convinced the Alamodome and 
NCAA to let us buy a Non-seated ticket for Elizabeth (3 mos old then).  
The event was in San Antonio so Rebecca agreed to fly down and join us 
for part of the weekend so Alex could have some fun at the alamo, eating 
ice cream, and riding the riverboats while we went to the game.  As a 
bonus, our Oklahoma State cowboys made it to the Final Four.  
Unfortunately, we lost to Georgia Tech in the semifinals.  Elizabeth 
seemed to be confused as to her loyalties...she kept laughing when the 
GA Tech band played and really liked the Ga Tech fan sitting next to us.  
We enjoyed all the hoopla in San Antonio for the event but were 
surprised that the actual Final Four had less hoopla than a pee wee 
basketball game.  No contest, no music, no halftime presentation or 
anything.


--- The Big Cheese ---

Among the first things we did upon 
arriving in Orlando was purchase annual passes to Disney.  We love to go 
over for a couple of hours, do a few things and then come home.  We were 
excited to spend time at the parks with Natalie, Cheryl, Andy, and their 
family when they came. Julia, Oscar, Russ, and Javier were another fun 
trip,  Claudia, Dick, Melissa, Peter, and Kendra were here recently and 
Alexandria had a ball trying out the Tower of Terror with them, Darryl 
came for his first trip to Disney World and we have been many many times 
with Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie Kim, and Mick.   Grandma even got in the 
"hot seat" on Millionaire once while we were all there. Alexandria's 
favorites right now are Goofy's Roller Coaster and the big silver ball 
at Epcot.  Elizabeth really enjoys Cinderella's Carousel and Winnie the 
Pooh.  We are ready for Small World to reopen so she can see that again.  
In addition to the theme parks, we enjoy spending time with Grandma and 
Grandpa when they stay at their Disney Vacation Club rooms since we get 
to go over and swim, use the slides, and hang out.  We love to do 
character meals and Elizabeth is coming around to the idea of large 
costumed creatures bothering her while she eats.  


--- Happy New Year ---

We were so happy to have Barb and Jim (Bubba and Zaida to our girls) 
join us for Christmas 2003 and New Years.  They came to Texas to see and 
help with Elizabeth and Alexandria and we enjoyed celebrating the 
holidays with them.  Linda and Bob already had tickets to come meet 
Elizabeth in January when we told them we were moving back to Florida.  
They came to Texas anyway and helped us pack (otherwise we would 
probably still be packing).  


--- Ft. Wilderness --- 

Can't make it through a year without doing some camping.  We pitched our 
tent at Ft. Wilderness this spring mainly to take advantage of Disney 
testing having extra magic hours in the evening for resort guests, but 
we had fun camping too.  Everyone enjoyed egg in a hole and swimming in 
the pool the next day.  This fall we spent time with Grandma and Grandpa 
at one of the Ft. Wilderness trailers.  The weather was perfect for 
camping and we enjoyed cooking out, going to the campfire and movie, 
checking out the petting zoo, and of course, swimming in the pool.


--- Stillwater Bound ---

The Oklahoma State homecoming trip was a heartbreaker this year.  The 
Cowboys were undefeated and we were so excited to play Texas A&M, but 
they beat us.  The trip itself was fantastic.  We had fun going to 
Mexico Joe's with Nora and all meeting up for walkaround with Gavin & 
Michelle. We even bumped into Woody.  As usual we enjoyed the homecoming 
parade and customary brunch afterwards with the Schneiders.  It was a 
night game so we even had time to play at the park for a while where 
Cyndi came over and caught up some. Even the weather was perfect, dang 
Aggies.  Before driving to Stillwater we spent a few days in Dallas 
visiting Carolyn & Lloyd, the Taylors, the Burrows, Roz, Rebecca & 
Tondy, and working on the house we are still trying to sell.