I got The Box!

I am not the only one that is happy about The Box's arrival!

My sister-in-law, Makenzie, has amazing fashion sense. This makes me one happy girl because she is the same size as me, is super generous with her "old" clothing, and I am not much of a shopper*. I held a fashion show with my long mirror about 5 minutes after I saw this sitting on my front step. It was a HUGE success. I have tons of new shorts, capris, jeans, skirts, sweaters, work tops, and blazer/coat things. As I sit here and type this I am dressed in full "Makenzie wear"! Thanks sis, LOVE YOU!

*My brother and I joke this is because my mom LOVED Garden Ridge, Tuesday Morning, and ALL garage sales when we were little. I feel I completed the majority of the shopping I will ever need to do at a very young age:) Love you mom!

Happy Birthday Maria!

Saturday night we joined Maria and a group of friends to celebrate her birthday. We met at Vida Loca (used to be Las Rosas - not anymore) for some Mexican food and margaritas. I really liked it, and I am a pretty picky Mexican food eater. After dinner, we went back to Jaime & Maria's for a game night that ended up as a movie night:) We watched Shooter with Mark Wahlberg. I missed some of the movie due to my excessive chatting, but from what I caught, it was really good. I hope you had a happy day, Maria! We had a great time celebrating and need to take a rain check on game night ASAP!

Celebrating a Vida Loca

On Friday we had a date night with Ross and Liz at their place (7 houses down). I brought my camera, but I let Liz take over in the picture dept. She got an AWESOME new camera for Christmas:) We have started a cooking date twice a month. It's actually more of a cooking date with Liz. We cook/bake/girl chat, and the boys enjoy video games/boy time. Then we all eat together and enjoy the good food and company:) Check it out here!

NY

"N.Y."
"What’s that?"
"No Way."
"That’s NW."
"New York, he’s on his way to New York."

(Quote from one of my all time favorite movies ever - Sleepless In Seattle. Every time I hear someone say New York I think of that quote!)

That's where I have been for the past few days. My mom has been there visiting my Aunt GiGi, Uncle Rick and Cousin Michelle (and house sitting Coconut aka Pork Chop), so my brother and I decided to join in on the fun. Josh hopped on the bus from DC, and I hopped on a plane for a long weekend of family fun.

My aunt and uncle have a beautiful place in NY and finally get to move home! They have been overseas for my uncle's job.

We walked, talked, ate, and played. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, except for a few showers on Sunday.

While I was in New York, Robby was busy in the Hill Country over the weekend. He made his last deer hunt for the season with Poppa and his dad. He came home with some meat for our freezer:) Go Robby! It's a good thing too since we have mastered the meat grinder attachment on our Kitchen-Aid mixer (homemade sausage and Bolognese recipes here we come!)

Pretty NY street

Michi took me to Pinkberry! I LOVE frozen yogurt so I was in heaven:)

The "Original" Ray's Pizza - it was okay, but it definitely didn't knock our socks off.

Pretty lady:)

Friendly game of Monopoly! Look at all that cash:)

It doesn't get any better than this! We watched the cake decorator and I tried to take notes for my cake class this week.

Ma & Michi

GiGi working on a delicious meal. Gi - I am trying your pasta recipe out this week!

Josh & Coconut playing with Mr. Penguin

Hudson River - close to where the pilot landed the plane.

Me, Ma, and Josh leaving the city

Cake Decorating!

My sis-in-laws (Sara and Amanda) and I decided to sign up for a Wilton cake decorating class. We all love to bake/eat cake. Last night was week 2 of our cake decorating course, but it was our first class to actually use icing and put it to use. We each brought in a round iced cake, and we were to "follow" an example in the book of a primary colored rainbow.

The first hour we practiced a rose, writing (which is MUCH harder than I thought it would be), stars, dots, etc.

Amanda and Sara starting the rose

Star practice with a few squiggles in there

Our cakes! You will notice we all had a hard time getting primary colors for the rainbow. I felt like I added half of my "Christmas Red" food coloring tube and ended up with a beautiful hot pink. If you have any tips, PLEASE share!

Cake up close - a little rough, but I learned a lot!

We left class on a sugar high and with achy hands, but are ready for class #3. We were told to bring 8 iced cupcakes for next week. My coworkers are either going to LOVE me or HATE me by the end of my Wilton classes - they get to enjoy all of my masterpieces:)

Monster Jam

We were originally planning a trip to Baton Rouge this past weekend to see my cousin Ryan, Rachel, baby Emma Grace, and my Aunt Carol. The weather, on the other hand, had other plans. We probably would have been okay, but with the several days of freezing weather that we have had, we decided against the trip. I am very thankful we did because our neighbor knocked on our door Saturday morning telling us we had water spewing out from the side of our house - the sprinkler line busted. Besides it's hard for southerners to drive in anything, but sunshine and rainbows:)

So instead I met up with Sarah, who had a Birthday last week, to celebrate. Here she is posing with her boy, Eric.

A few of the girls

Saturday I decided to take Robby out for something a little different. Jaime and Maria were supposed to join us, but BP has been getting their money out of Jaime lately :(

We started at our new favorite Katz's deli (Katz's never closes) and ended up at MONSTER JAM! So much fun. We watched these unbelievably huge trucks jump, flip, break axles, spin, and catch fire.

Robby ready to cheer on the Monsters

El Toro Loco jumping cars

Brutus didn't quite finish his freestyle

Gravedigger crossing the finish line

Arachnophobia after a broken axle or two - the back wheel was dangling!

It was REALLY loud and stinky at Reliant that night, but we had a fun time. I am ready to go back! A few of our favorite trucks were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Amsoil, and Gravedigger aka Gold digger (that's what we kept calling it).

Graduation Day.

Maple Graduated! She finished her Petsmart training class tonight and passed with flying colors... good pup!

Maple showing off in her CAP!

Maple trying to pass one of her last tests.

PROOF! (She is eating her diploma...)

Good Pup. (Mudge and Rascal in the background.)

Scout (Maple's favorite student) and Mudge

Hannah Banana passed too! WHOOF:)

I signed Maple up for these classes hoping to socialize her a little bit. I think the week to week interaction did help, but she is still not the biggest fan of hyper dogs. This is crazy to me, because if you have ever met her sister, Haribo, you will agree she is the most hyper dog you have EVER met. But how could you not LOVE this pup?...

Hello 2010!

Happy New Year to everyone:) We packed up Thursday night with a big group of friends and headed out to Sandy Creek to ring in the New Year. Once we got there, Robby started the perfect smore campfire and Chad smoked some delicious chickens. We played lots of Taboo (my new favorite game), shot skeet, drove around on the 4 wheelers (saw a whole family of little piggies and a bunch of wild turkeys), and just relaxed with good friends.

I was busy celebrating and not picture taking, but below are a few pictures taken around midnight with our party hats!

Lisa, Me, Liz, and a Haribo booty - really excited about 2010, haha!

Chad, Thomas, and Nikki

Jeff, Lisa, Ciaran, Linh, Ross and part of Liz (sorry about that Liz!)

Ciaran and Linh

I hope everyone has a VERY happy and healthy 2010!