Enemy Territory

Last weekend Jeremy and I got to take a road trip with our good friends, Allison and Jordan (and their dog Raider, who stared at the car ceiling the entire trip because of the reflections from our phones). The Texas Longhorns were playing the Tech Red Raiders and it was a perfect opportunity to go to a football game and spend some time w/ Allison and Jordan's family in Lubbock. As an added bonus, we got to see my Dad, who is a huge Red Raider fan, some of Jeremy's old pals from Dumas and my cousin, Aron with some old friends from FBC Odessa.

That was the ugliest game I have ever seen, and I have been to a lot of Baylor football games. That's all I will say about the game itself.

I have no connection w/ either school, so I decided to default to my hubby's alma mater and wear burnt orange. I should have pulled a Switzerland and worn my Baylor green and gold, but I wanted to have a team to cheer for. Plus, Jeremy is always supportive of the Bears so I had to reciprocate. I even made the little Longhorn w/ my hand at one point! :)

I was laughing at all the cheers that the Longhorns do. There is one that says "give 'em hell" and I told Jeremy he was not allowed to teach that cheer to our kids. He probably will.

We had so much fun meeting the Gristy family and playing in Lubbock. The Gristys were so hospitable and it was fun to put faces with names. I told Allison I wanted to see all the fun places they hung out when they went to school there. I love taking people to my old stomping grounds! They showed us where they used to live, where they used to work, where Allison got stuck in a dust storm (love West Texas) and lots of other fun sentimental things. One of my favorites was stopping at Sheridan's after the game for a late night snack (dinner at that point). I had the Mother In-Law which had vanilla custard, Rice Krispies, chocolate chips and bananas. OMG. I want more. After that we stopped at Taco Villa for a burrito and my life was complete. I literally thought I was in Heaven (especially after seeing that West Texas sunset)!

Road trips with good friends can't be beat (unlike the Red Raiders). :( Sorry fans.

Facebook Moods

I have realized lately how Facebook can really help/hurt my day. I am so lucky that the bulk of my friends on Facebook are really positive and encouraging. I get a lot of inspirational quotes, Bible verses, happy news, funny stories, etc. I don't always have a happy reaction to FB, but for the most part, I can feel really uplifted when I read through the status updates. Have you noticed how that stuff can affect your day?

Here are some thoughts I have when I read FB statuses (Keep in mind I never get on the computer version of FB, only my iPhone.)

1. I needed to hear that today.

2. For the love, when do you people have time to play these ridiculous games! I don't have a sheep to give, I don't care to beat you in Bejeweled and I don't know anything about dungeons and dragons.

3. I hope I can have that attitude when I go through hard times.

4. Holy crap, another one of my girlfriends is prego.

5. Holy crap, they are having a girl.

6. TMI. Seriously, why would you post that on Facebook for the world to see.

7. I am inspired by (insert name)'s faith. What a blessing they are in my life.

8. That video was hilarious and I should share. OR That video was a waste of 2 minutes and 34 seconds of my life...why is it taking up Youtube space?

9. Please stop updating your location every five minutes. I feel a little stalkerish knowing where you are.

10. I am SO lucky to have so many friends, family and acquaintances whith whom I can stay in touch.

11. You should probably keep that REALLY hateful political comment to yourself (I get both sides).

12. I am glad they shared that product/service. I will have to look into that.

13. HONK!! (That is someone behind me getting mad that I am looking at FB statuses instead of going through the green light.)

14. I like learning new things about my relatives. We are related by blood, but how did I not know that about them?!

15. My eyes hurt.

The Gifts We Won't Regift

Don't worry people, I don't make re-gifting a regular habit. Jeremy and I were recently talking about the wedding gifts that we use the most and I decided to make a list. I will preface by saying that we loved ALL of our wedding gifts. But it's fun to see the stuff that we can give other people knowing it's extremely useful. Sometimes the most practical gifts are the best!

Dyson Animal Vaccum
Best vacuum ever! Can I get an AMEN? We don't have a lot of carpet in our house, but this bad boy works on wood, tile, concrete, carpet, etc. I am convinced it would work on asphalt if we needed it to. Thank you Dyson for making our dog-ownership a little easier. Dog hair tumbleweeds cannot stand up against our Dyson.

Cuisinart Handheld Blender
We use this thing almost every day. Jeremy and I both love our Shaklee shakes. We have the Soy Protein and the Physique (a natural muscle recovery drink) on a pretty regular basis. This blender is perfect because we don't have to drag out our huge blender. I also love the little food processor attachment. My favorite wedding gifts are starting to have a theme...attachments!

Coffee Maker
Every. Single. Day. We love our coffee and we are a little snobby about it. We order our coffee online from New Mexico and it's a pinion bean. It's the most amazing coffee ever and we have our friend, Rick, in Dumas to thank for it. He has a cabin in Taos and he introduced Jeremy when he lived in the Panhandle. Anyway, my BFF, Amanda, got this for us and ironically she lives in New Mexico and drinks that coffee now too! It has a grinder so it sounds like an airplane taking off when we make coffee. So worth it!

Washer and Dryer
This one is obvious but it was a nice wedding/Christmas gift from Jeremy's dad and step mom that we couldn't live w/out. We realized that these appliances could have easily been a huge expense for us when we moved into our house, but we are lucky to have supportive parents. We love our washer and dryer even more now that we use our Shaklee laundry products. They are phosphate-free and smell so good! I know that's cheesy, but for real.

  

Knives 

Remember that time I almost cut my thumb off? Or the other time I almost cut my thumb off? Yeah I love my knives and I use them every day, but I am so clumsy. Every time I use them Jeremy says "be careful!" My routine in the morning is to get up, make a salad to take for lunch and cut up some fruit for Jeremy and myself. I will say I don't think I have ever used that huge knife. If I can't handle a paring knife I think I should stay away from the machete. 

Board Games
It seemed silly when we were registering for these, but they have been awesome! We have a fun group of couple friends here in Austin, and we get together a lot. It's fun to drag out the games every once in a while. If you come across a wedding registry w/ games on it, buy one!

 Pearl Studs

This is what Jeremy got me for my wedding gift. I love pearls and I wear these a lot! There is nothing classier than a pair of pearl studs and you can wear them with anything. I have worn them to weddings with a formal evening dress, and I have worn them with shorts and a t-shirt. I have a feeling I will be using this wedding gift for as long as I live.

Other Practical Gifts We Use Every Day
Towels-Yes, we bathe every day (usually)
Pots/Pans-Calphalon gave us a free fajita pan w/ our set. I have never used it. I don't really get what to do w/ it since we make fajitas on the grill. Anyone?
Margarita Machine-I guess this isn't practical...I just wanted to throw it in since we love it! We didn't pull it out for about two years but hey, better late than never.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list. I have many more wedding gifts (and just gifts in general) that I love and use all the time. What gift have you received that you use the most?

The Life of a Little Dog Named Ella

Our dogs bring so much joy to our lives. They make us laugh and they will never stop wanting to cuddle. I hope my kids are as cuddly as they are! Ella is the 2 and 1/2 yr. old puggle that we got for my birthday a couple of summers ago. We got her from a breeder in the Ft. Worth area who I will totally endorse! Kanine Kisses...click puggles on the right. We named her Sorella Belle. Sorella means "sister" in Italian and we felt like it was fitting since Lexi was getting a new sister. We call her Ella for short. In honor of her (and my birthday) I have decided to write a little about her world.

I have decided that Ella has a few main life goals. I don't think she is necessarily aiming for the stars, but she is as content as she can be. No, she will never win Best in Show (I don't think the judges would appreciate her running amok around the arena), and I doubt she would be able to make it through one of those doggy obstacle courses (she gets easily sidetracked), but we sure do love her to death! Having said all that, here are Ella's life goals:

1. Find poop and eat it. (not her own or Lexi's, but anything else's)
2. Eat more ice. (she is like a crackhead when it comes to ice)
3. Get under the covers in our bed.

Ella tends to steal the hearts of many. Most all of our family and friends love her and she has a few boyfriends among our friends' dogs. The video below is a great example of the signature "Ella head turn." I was asking her if she wanted to go visit her friend Raider for the weekend:



Ella also has a neurotic side. She gets freaked out by weird things. We can come home from the grocery store and the grocery bags freak her out. She runs away when the vacuum comes out, and when we turn the shower on, she hides in the closet because she thinks we are going to bathe her. She HATES water and refuses to jump in when we take them to the dog park. BUT, the funniest time she wigged out was one night when Jeremy and I decided to play a game of Gin Rummy in bed. Check it out (it's kind of long but TOTALLY worth watching until the end).



I could go on and on about our little Ella. We have started calling her Kramer because she comes flying in and out of rooms just like the spazzo Seinfeld character. We also call her Buddha Belly because she has this little round belly. I can't imagine our life w/ out her, and I definitely understand the love between a dog and its mommy now. I suppose this only touches the surface of what it will feel like to have kids. One day...

Ella in Photos:

Ella's first visit to the vet the day we got her

She was so tiny and cute!

She loves her mommy.
 

Her first Halloween, we tried the clown hat. No luck.

Second Halloween we tried the pumpkin. She was thinking bad words.

Ella is a dramatic yawner...she sighs really loudly.

Her first road trip to Odessa.

In her favorite spot on the couch.

Waiting by the freezer for ice to magically drop out...w/ her friend Raider.

The beagle in her comes out when she howls.

When we had a bad hailstorm. Ella went outside afterward and didn't know where to begin. God had just poured ice all over the ground and Ella was in Heaven.

Colorado in the Summer

I spent two summers during graduate school in Aspen, Colorado. There truly is nothing like Colorado in the summer. The air is crisp and cool and the sky is just a different color blue. We recently got to travel to Breckenridge, CO with some of our good friends from Austin, Allison and Jordan. We hoped to have more couples join us, but it worked out that just the four of us got to go. Here are the highlights:

http://www.homeaway.com/ Use it, and love it! 
-We rented a home from Home Away and got a STEAL!  The house was tucked up in the mountains about nine miles south of downtown Breckenridge. It had windows everywhere and the most beautiful views.

Pajama Party
-I think one of the best parts of our trip was just laying around in our PJ's and being lazy. I didn't wear any makeup or blow dry my hair for the entire five days. It was amazing. The first day there, we spent the entire morning drinking coffee and putting a 1000-piece puzzle together.Allison and I loved being at home while the guys played golf. We made peach cobbler, cut up the fruit we had gotten at the farmer's market and read our books. Oh, and let's be honest, we caught up on all the trashy gossip about Jake and Vienna (from The Bachelor) thanks to the investigative journalism done by In Touch and People.

The reflection in the puzzle made it super hard...but we did it!

Hats Off to Colorado
-If you ever go to Breck, make sure to stop by the hat store. I honestly can't even remember the name of it, but it provided about an hour of pure entertainment for everyone. We didn't buy anything and I was praying the whole time that we didn't get lice, but here are some of our favorites:

Melted Snow is Cold
-One of the highlights of our trip was whitewater rafting. We went on the Arkansas river on a route called The Numbers. There were 10 rapids all ranging from three to five in difficulty. Since the water is literally melted snow, we got wetsuits and splash jackets. The guide said it was probably about 35-40 degrees. This made Allison feel even better about her first rafting trip! Needless to say, this trip was AWESOME! Our guide decided that we looked young and athletic so he decided to take every rapid head on. We got to one rapid and he asked us if we wanted to do it or go around. We were like, "duh...bring it on!" About 20 seconds later, I flew out. Luckily, I listened to our safety lesson and I was back in the raft in a matter of minutes. Everyone kept asking me if I was okay since I was under water for so long. I had no idea...I thought the little dip was quite refreshing and made the trip more fun! (Thank the Lord I am alive!)

Sexy rafting outfits.

Church on a Mountain
-The only thing I cared about going into our trip was hiking.There is something so spiritual about being on a mountain surrounded by God's creation. I definitely had a few moments of humility, and I was overwhelmed by how much God loves me even though I am so small in the big picture. We found an awesome hike that had everything you could want in a hike: forest, steep/rocky climbs, meadows, waterfalls and a lake at the top. The hike was a 7-mile round trip hike to Mohawk Lake. It was ranked intermediate, but we all decided that it might have been a bit harder. We are all pretty athletic and there were times when it sounded like we had emphysema. But, all that heavy breathing was TOTALLY worth it!

There was one point where it was so steep, we had to use this cable to climb up.

Dude Time
-While Allison and I chilled at home the guys got to play golf. Apparently, golf balls fly farther in Colorado since the air is so thin. Jeremy and Jordan were in Heaven with the mountains surrounding them and their muscles feeling bigger than normal. :) They also enjoyed an evening on the balcony with cigars and dude talk. Allison and I decided they are spoiled, but we are okay with that!

Hook 'Em and Get Your Guns Up!

We are so lucky to be able to travel as much as we do. I suppose that's why we are waiting a little longer to have kiddos. We are also SO blessed to have friends like Allison and Jordan. They are amazing travel buddies since they are so laid back like Jeremy and myself. Plus, we just love spending time with them! We decided while we were in CO that we need to make that a yearly trip. Even after we have kids, it will be fun to all head up to the mountains. I can't wait!!

More Pics

We went to Gianpietro's Pizza and ordered the deep dish. It came in one size...HUGE!!

Allison said it looked like I was floating the clouds.

Thoughtful Jeremy.

Strong Allison!

Strong Allison and Molly!

Our amazing house!!