October

Man oh man. So much has gone on since I last posted, which seems to be the case every time I post. Let me start with the beginning of October, which just so happened to be the hubs birthday. I had it all planned out. Danny was going to think he was going fishing with a buddy for the weekend and he would come home early Friday and open the door and surprise it wasn’t going to be Danny and a friend it was just going to be us. Well, that is pretty much how it went. He came home and I left a note on the door explaining the surprise and then he came in with this look of “wait, I am confused/I am way excited”. We went up to the hill country and stayed in a nice little B&B and then we had a guided fly fishing trip the next day on the Guadalupe River. It was a perfect weekend! Fly fishing is much harder than normal fishing or at least you have to constantly think you can’t just turn your brain off like you can with “normal” fishing. It was a successful trip, Danny caught 2 trout, some sunfish and a mino (let me tell you, it takes talent to catch a mino) and I caught 1 trout, some sunfish and a carpe. Both nights we went into Greune for dinner. The first night eating at the Greune River Grill which was delish!!! The second night going to
the Gristmill which Danny and I both thought was overrated. Sunday we woke up, fed the deer and went to the San Marcos outlet mall. All in all it was a fun, relaxing, never want to come home, kind of trip.





that totally doesn't look like the Guadalupe to me!
no this was not the biggest fish I caught, just the cutest!
yum, trout

Moving on to the next weekend where I honestly can’t remember what we did so fast forward to the 16th and 17th where we had a tailgate in College Station. We won’t talk about the actual game, which was a disaster, so we will talk about the tailgate. We had a perfect spot in Spence Park. Family and friends came; we grilled burgers, almost caught the tents on fire, had some frosty beverages and just hung out. It was a perfect day.
Bobby only has 2 more games to march on Kyle Field.
My dad workin as the one of the grill masters
my sister and cousins (somehow I look ginormous in this pic)
The Struzick's stopped by for a burger

Now, for October 23rd weekend. Friday night was nice and low key. We went to Fuzzy’s Pizza to plan and book a trip to

and

SO EXCITED! Moving on....Saturday, I played in an all day softball tournament benefiting the Periwinkle Foundation. It is a tournament made up of about 20 teams where every team was guaranteed to play 3 games, round robin style, and then from there it was 1 loss and you are out. So I am thinking we will play our 3 games and go home around 2pm. Boy was I wrong! My team was made up of a bunch of people from around the hospital. We were the only team to not have team shirts; we all just kind of wore whatever, so we were a “rag tag” bunch. But, we managed to pull out the championship! That is right 7 games later, in 1 day, we won the tournament! I have never been more sore in my life. I walked with a slight limp for about a week, lost 1 toenail so far, going on loosing 3 and Danny had to pull my legs out of bed in the mornings. It is pretty pathetic but totally worth it! It was so fun to be out there again on the field.



As for this past weekend we went back to Fuzzy's (we eat to much pizza, it is a problem, we know) Friday night and then Saturday headed up to College Station to watch A&M beat the hell outta Texas Tech. It was pretty fantastic. It was an all around great weekend for football because Baylor beat tu!


Oh yeah and in there somewhere we sat up close and personal at the Carrie Underwood concert. She was and is fantastic!


As for November....there is a lot going on but you will have to check back in about another month. ;)

Currently my favorite song

Turn up your speakers, get out some tissues and enjoy.



Definitely applies to my life ;)

Our very own "little" ratatouille

So for the past month or so we have had a "little" mouse problem. We noticed it because there were chew holes in the big plastic container where we store all the dog food. (Side note: We have had a mouse before and we put out poison and it died but it died in our walls as payback or something so the house stuck and I mean stuck for a good week or so) So, this time around we decided to go with those metal trap things and those sticky pads which I think are both cruel and unusual punishment. You are probably thinking....and poison is not! Well, you see, with the poison I don't actually have to see the dead mouse but with these other ones I would have to see it and I feel like it would be a long and painful death, because hello his feet would be stuck and he couldn't move or his back would be broken.... Anyway, back to the story at hand. Starting about last week while we are watching our nightly tv shows we see this "little" mouse come out of wherever he hides and get one piece of dog food at a time. This thing is brave because he would go back and forth for about 30 minutes until Rocki finally saw it and went bazerk! It definitely did not come out again that night. We saw it again another night last week and he only came out a couple times. Well, last night we saw him for the last time. He was peeking his head out like he normally does, to see if the coast is clear, and low and behold I look over to my left and I see Danny reaching over for his pellet gun! WHAT! You can't shoot that thing in my house - oh no you are not! So he puts it back down. Well, clearly I didn't win that conversation because next thing I know I hear this LOUD pop go off right next to me and instinctively I start crying. All I could think of was poor little ratatouille has been shot, dead. So I get up to go see this fiasco that Danny has created and he blocks me, won't let me in the kitchen. I said "I don't think so!" with the tears streaming down my face. Well, he was right, I shouldn't have looked. This whole time I was thinking this was a cute little field mouse but in reality it was a MASSIVE rat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so sick, nasty. His belly was all up and out on my kitchen floor. So I go back to crying on the couch with Rocki in my lap b/c she is terrified of guns, Harli still sleeping on our bed having nothing to do with this situation and Danny cleaning up all the blood and guts. That was the end of our third pet.

I would have taken pictures but I was way to emotionally distracted to do it but I am better now. :) I do realize that rats and mice are nasty animals and shouldn't be in a house and they carry diseases and such but still I am going to have to write a letter to Disney and all the other animated movie producers and tell them to stop using animals that humans cannot love b/c it just makes it hard for us to kill them - at least for me. Danny thought it was good target practice. Boys!

August where did you go...

WOW - summer goes by so fast but I am definitely ready for some fall. Quite a few things happened in August, Tyler's bday, my dad's bday, my grandmother's bday, my mom had surgery, Jenna started Baylor and the list could go on.

So, I will move on... did anyone else have no power last Monday night? I was thinking it would be a nice relaxing week but low and behold plans change. I will just tell you about Monday b/c the rest of last week/month is kind of a blur. Anyway, so I had a nice, scratch that, a long and painful drive home on Monday after work. I left about 5:30 and it took me about 2 hours to get close to my house and I say close because Danny and I just ended up meeting at Fuzzy's for dinner b/c we could not take the traffic anymore! Apparently, there was this crazy storm that swept through our neighborhood although I really didn't get any rain on the way there - just a couple sprinkles. Power lines were down and both Richmond and Westheimer had sections blocked off so you had to take detours, it was awful! Dinner was good but once we both got back home we saw the wreckage! Neighbors trees were blown down and I don't mean small ones, I live in an old neighborhood so I am talking about the large, round ones. Our patio furniture was blown into the yard. It was just crazy and the best part was we had no power. So Danny and I decide to take the pups on a walk and see the rest of the wreckage (reminded us a lot of Ike damage...so weird) and when we got back the power was still out so we just go chill on our back porch and talk about life. I thought - "this is what life was like when there was no power, no trash tv shows to watch, no lights to read with, no anything". If it wasn't so gosh darn hot I would have actually enjoyed it. Needless to say, around 10pm Danny and I gave up that our power would come back on so we made the trek out to my parents house to spend the night in the AC. When Danny went home that morning he said the power came back on around 3:30am so I was glad we left. Here are just a couple pics - it makes it looks like it was pitiful but hopefully my story made it seem a lot bigger. :)

I know this doesn't look so dramatic and don't mind out furniture (we got it with the house) but it was all knocked over and pushed over to the side.


This is 3 backyards you are looking at. Our neighbors fence was down and then her neighbors fence was down.


You are probably thinking "why would she post a black picture with a red dot". Well, this is how we entertained ourselves. We whipped out the laser pointer and Rocki went tearing across the backyard chasing it. Why we think that is fun...I don't know.

Big fish.

Let's just say I caught the biggest fish this past weekend at the ranch. :) Of course I left all the touching the fish stuff to Danny - I just reeled it in which was a big thing b/c this fish was feisty!

Growing Old

So, I was getting ready for work this morning when I glance in the mirror and have a minor freak out! What did I see.......A GRAY HAIR! That is right a gray hair, you know the kind that is a different color than my natural color and has a totally different texture! In 1 month I have had my first two gray hairs at the ripe old age of 26. I am not sure how I feel about it. Next thing you know I will be plucking long hairs from my chin......I am not a fan of this growing old thing....

Side note: Do you spell it gray hair or grey hair....... I saw both ways when I googled it.

Oh to be 15 again

I have been sitting on this post for a while b/c I never have time to post. I know everyone is busy but seriously I feel like we never even have time to sit down, we are always on the go. This whole being an adult thing is seriously overrated. I would love to just have a weekend where we turn off cell phones and disappear and recoup. Anyway, that is neither here nor there. So on with the post.

A couple weekends ago some of my girlfriends came in town so we made hanging out a whole weekend affair. Friday we enjoyed lunch, shopping, dinner, more shopping and finished it off with coffee and Saturday we celebrated Nanda's bday.

On Friday during one of our many shop til we drop stops, we ventured to Target, not because we all wanted to buy different things but because we all wanted to buy the same dress that Kelsey was wearing that day. This is where the whole 15 again comes into play. We all ended up wearing the Target dress the very next day - yes all 4 of us - to Nanda's celebration. Who does that past the age of, well, 10 - apparently we do. Here are some pics of us girls feeling free of responsibility at 15.

Let me just give you a little background on my friends in the pics.

Nanda was one of my roomates in college. We quickly became close friends and over the years she has taught me to be a little more carefree, which I definitely appreciate being the type A personality that I am. She now lives in Tomball with her hubby and is going to be a teacher next year.

Erin was also a college roomate. We were roomates all 4 years and started off potluck. We quickly bonded over the fact that we had a mutual friend, one she knew as a child in England and that same girl was my best friend growing up in Norway. Crazy, small world!!! She taught me to be more creative. She has ingenious ideas. Erin now lives in Dallas with her husband and is a middle school math teacher.

Kelsey - I met through Erin. She was in all the teacher classes with Erin throughout college. We didn't really start becoming friends until after college. I have always aspired to have her independence in fact she is moved to Germany TODAY to teach for 2 years. We will miss you but can't wait to visit you!

Amanda - I also met through Erin. She was also in all the teacher classes. We became fast friends after college and are really starting to hang out a lot more. She has the cutest little boy named Brayden and I hope I can be half the mommy she is one day! (That is why I had to put a pic of mommy and little man up.) Amanda and her family live out in Conroe where she teaches 5th grade.

Apparently all my friends are teachers which is why I had to take a half day Friday. Even though they talk about laying out and just chillin during the summer, while I am stuck in an office all day with no windows.....I still love em. Teaching would just never work for me!

This is for all the ladies out there

I recently bought this b/c I saw it in a magazine and it is pretty fantastic! Now I know what you are thinking, "did you buy this b/c it is called Twilight?" and the answer to that would be of course not, we maybe that answer is not entirely true. :) I do love how it "illuminates" my skin though.
Next on the list would be my bronzer. I am a pale girl. I have really always been somewhat of a pale girl. My girlfriends would say it was b/c I had jondis as a baby.....haha :) so I have got to bronze! I absolutely love this one:

I can't live without my new eyelash curler! I did see this in a magazine as well and it was said that this is the best curler out there so I had to try it b/c you can never have enough volume in your eyelashes! I can definitely say that I am hooked. It curls my lashes like no other curler has done! Everyone should invest in one.

Finally last but not least my all time favorite mascara! I have tried most of them out there and always come back to this one. It separates while still giving volume and making them look full!

Weekend Recap

So, Friday Danny was taken out on a deep sea fishing adventure with some people in his construction world. These are just some of the fish he came home with. Let's just say we have enough fish to serve a tiny country. I am pretty excited!


Saturday night we went to a water ski competition type thing. It was pretty cool. They did some crazy stunts and jumps and then after dark they lit up the buoys and had a slalom competition where they have to go around the buoys and each time they pass they shorten the rope. They basically ski really fast (60mph) until they fall. Luckily there were no crazy falls while we were there. It was entertaining.
Sunday was a nice and relaxing day. This is how we entertained our "children". Hope everyone else had a good weekend.

She could go on forever like this. All you need is a hose. I hope kids will be this easy....hahaClearly this is our miss. Priss dog who can't get wet - she might melt.

Leaning on this truth

Someone obviously created this for someone else but it has given me strength in the past couple of days.

Yikes!

So Danny and I were just driving along in our neighborhood - well Danny was driving and I was shotgunning it and in the middle of the road he reverses and backs up to see what he thought he saw. Oh my! Can this be, it can't be wild, it has to be a pet of some sort.....but ew it was just chillin in the middle of the road just a couple streets from our house. Danny wouldn't run over it. He said it was to cool to run over. Is it cruel that I didn't want a TARANTULA running loose by our house! Ew - it just creeped me out! The picture doesn't do it full justice to how gross and HUGE it really was.

Jury Duty, Memorial Day and Baylor

That is where I have been. I was summoned last Thursday and didn't think I would be selected but low and behold I was. The trial started Thursday afternoon and concluded today. It was a criminal case for aggravated robbery. The whole process was interesting to say the least. I learned new words like "a lick" (which is robbing someone), "smoke" (gun), and some other ones that I can't think of right now. The situation was a sad one but we did what we needed to do as a jury based on the information that we had.

In other news we had a great Memorial Day weekend! It was a busy one filled with shopping, fishing, boating and just relaxing.

The best news though is that we have a new Baylor Bear in our family. JENNA! Congrats girl and sic'em!

Um yes I did go see her in concert

Who you might ask.......that would be the talented Taylor Swift. For Christmas this past year I got Jenna 2 tickets to the concert. For some reason (which I am grateful for) she wanted me to tag along with her so we both went last night. I have to say from the times I have seen her perform on tv I wasn't way excited to see her live but she definitely proved me wrong. She was really fantastic.

So, yesterday morning I went to check in the "safe" place that I kept the tickets just to make sure I would know right where they were so I could come home from work, change and grab them. Well, of course it didn't work out that way. My "safe" place was so safe that I didn't remember where it was. So I frantically search (tear apart) the house and I can't find the tickets. So I called Danny in a tizzy and explain the situation and in his most calming voice he says it will be ok, just go to work and he will come home during lunch to find the tickets. So I leave and of course I can't just leave it up to fate, being the control freak that I am I call the ticket people tell them the situation and thankfully they were able to print me another pair of tickets. Phew - that would have been bad to explain to Jenna that she can't see her favorite artist because I have her tickets in my "safe" place. Fast forward, we get to the concert and everyone gets free light flashing things that we all so proudly wear across our necks and set on the fastest, most psychedelic color changing mode that will make you crazy if you stare at it for to long. When we finally find our seats the place is already packed with little girls dressed up in home-made shirts and tutus, teenagers sporting the cowboy boots and dress look. I can say with pride that we weren't the oldest people there either! So the opening acts come on (Gloriana and Kelly Pickler), they were good but these girls were ready for some Taylor Swift action and you can tell with the chanting of her name. So she finally comes on and did a great job! She didn't lip sing at all and she really put on an entertaining, good vocal show with quite a few costume/scene changes. Of course there were many points during the concert where I had to plug my ears because of the insane, high pitch sounds coming out of these girls (Jenna included) - seriously, they are sounds only dogs are meant to hear. Overall it was a lot of fun. She definitely put on a much better show than Brittany Spears, who I saw last year. I don't even know why I wasted my money on her show besides the fact that the people I went with were fun. Anyway, I digress, I can say now that I am a true fan of Taylor Swift. I mean I always sing along to her music and tap my foot to her beats but after the concert and really seeing the good quality person that she is it made me like her so much more. I think she is a great role model for all the little girls out there and I definitely respect her. Oh and as I was looking through Jenna's purse to get her camera I find the "safe" place tickets......how did that happen. Oh well. :)

Yes this little boy did make a poster asking Taylor to prom in 2017 and to top it off he was wearing a tux! It was beyond hilarious and cute!


I also will say that I liked Kelly Pickler as the opening act. She was really entertaining as well. Danny loves her!!!!!! He loved her back when she was on American Idol. :) haha