13th Tale

For Book Club this month we read the 13th tale. It was a great book that I highly recommend. I love book club and it has been so much fun to read things I might not normally read. I can't say much because what happens at book club stays at book club, but if you at all like to read I think you should join a book club.
Here's a list of my favorite things about book club, in no particular order...
1)It almost always involves wine and cheese-yum!
2) We read all kinds of books from Freakanomics, to The Devil Wears Prada, to The Tenth Circle
3)Everyone in the group is a different age, I like hearing different perspectives from different places in life
4)It is in my hometown not where I live now. Even though I am glad we don't live there and I am so happy here. I love to go back and see my family and have fun with the club, book club time always comes us just when I need some T-town.
5)I love that the thing we have in common is our faith. Even though we don't read religious books everything always relates back to faith, and it is so fun to hear what that means to each woman.
What great books have you read? I am always looking for a good book when it is my turn to choose!

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

These are some really great friends who agreed to celebrate a very belated Birthday with me at a FABULOUS restaurant, Abacus. We had so much fun and literally the best salmon I have ever eaten. I am officially too snobby for my own good, I LOVE fine dining. We had so much fun taking our time eating a leisurely 5 star meal.

This was my Birthday dessert with sparklers--you know how I love fireworks. I highly recommend the 3 C's if you ever find yourself needing dessert at Abacus.

And best of all guess who came to celebrate with us?

That's right TROY AIKMAN!!!! OH MY GOODNESS!!! I am usually not a boy crazy, giddy girl but I have had a crush on him for as long as I can remember. Many people think I married into being a cowboy fan, but I was already a true blue fan. My daddy and I have been watching the Cowboys together forever. So, I just about died when Troy hopped out of the Range Rover in front of us at the valet stand. Be still my beating heart!!!!! And, my friend Sarah graciously spotted him for us on her way to the ladies room so that I could spy on him some more. Talk about a fabulous night. I highly recommend stretching out your Birthday fun as long as I did this year, who knows maybe Troy will join you too!

PS. A big thanks to everyone who will be eating beanie weenies because I was a demanding Birthday girl-I promise I'll never ask you to do that again but it was AWESOME. We love you guys!

PPS I think Tre Wilcox is in the finals for Top Chef season 3. They said he had been back for several weeks, but was on vacation last week.....interesting!

CONGRATULATIONS AMIE!!!

I am SO excited for my friend Amie, after more than 2 years of patiently waiting she FINALLY gets to be a Mom. Please pray for Amie, Bradley and the birth parents as they all have a lot to deal with in the next few weeks. Check out Amie's blog for more fun info.

Not So Fabulous Weekend

I knew it was coming after the best weekend ever, but this weekend was NO fun. I LOVE my job, I HATE working the weekends. This was not a bad weekend, nothing to terrible happened, but working 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday is not fun. We were supposed to go to the Rodeo on Saturday, but I had to bail because I was too tired. I also missed my BFF from college Maddie, I have been hoping she would come visit our church and she did and I wasn't there. And, I missed out on a whole bunch of our friends having lunch at Luby's after church. I don't even like Luby's very much, but I HATE missing out.
Have no fear! Next weekend I am not working. Friday we are going to have dinner at a new restaurant I have been waiting to try since May, so that will be so fun.
We leave for our cruise in 2 weeks! I can't wait. I am getting so excited, we have never been on a cruise before. Does anyone have any tips? I am already starting to think about what to pack and I want to be sure to make the most of my experience!

8 Things

Tiffany tagged me to tell 8 things about myself....

1) I am very cautious and do not take many risks. As a result I have never broken a bone, had stitches, been stung by a bee or wasp, or had any other emergency type accident.

2) I still sleep with a stuffed animal...Popples. Whoever made that bad boy deserves a medal, after 22 years he is still serving me well to prop up my left shoulder while I sleep. Who needs cuddling when you've got Popples.

3) I eat weird. I am very picky, I try to act like my sister is the picky one but truth be told we both are. Also, I eat one food group at a time, in a specific order with a very few exceptions like beans and rice (Mexican food kind only).

4) I have naturally curly hair which has and will always drive me crazy. I like that I can do curly or straight, but it NEVER fully cooperates either way. I have learned to like it, but definitely not love it-all the people that say they love it can have it!

5) I am not a very good driver. I have come a long way from when Mamma called me bumper cars Browning in the family Christmas letter, great for the self-esteem don't ya think. But I still feel like I make people who ride with me a little nervous sometimes, I'm working on it.

6)I dream a lot, always in color. I almost always remember at least 1 per night and a lot of times 2 or 3. I feel sad for people who don't remember their dreams, but I guess they probably don't have spider dreams... so I guess it's not all bad either way.

7)It makes me nervous when it is quiet. I almost always have some kind of background noise. I LOVE to watch TV, but I don't watch it as much as some people think. I use the TV as a babysitter so I am not lonely. My i-pod dock and DVR has helped me cut down on my TV time considerably!!!

8)I pretty much love any holiday. People will say what's your favorite and I usually choose which one is closesst, but I really can't choose. Christmas is great because you get to see so much family and my decorations are GREAT because I had a Christmas shower. Halloween is really special because it's Linde's birthday and my Aunt Susan Jo gave me fabulous Halloween decorations. Valentines is fun because you get sweet notes and such, and who doesn't love a chance to pink out your house. You already know how I feel about 4th of July... St. Patrick's Day is great because you pinch people. I mean I can't choose! Easter was always so much fun at Aunt Susan and Uncle Mark's house celebrating with whatever church he preached for at the time. I could go on and on.

Well, that was fun! I tag Amie, Tobin and Sarah Brooke!

A Fabulous Weekend

Okay, so I know it's Wednesday and I should be over it by now but I am not we had a GREAT weekend!
1st of all-we never start our weekends on Thursday. When I work I leave at 6 am, Michael sometimes leaves before me, so we are usually tucked in our beds by 11 at the latest on "school nights" as I like to call them. But, as you already know we were having the time of our lives at The Fray on Thursday.
So, I was all mentally prepared for a school night Friday night, because I figured we would be tired from our Thursday fun and work for both on Friday. BUT NO! Mom and Dad called. Mom and Dad were in town for some meetings and said they wanted to stay and have dinner with us YEAH! I am so blessed, because we have so much fun with my parents. We really like hanging out with them and always have a great time. So, they let themselves in the house, waited for us to get home and then we all went and had a yummy dinner at Mi Cocina. Then they spent the night and went back to T-Town Saturday morning.
So, now I was mentally prepared for a boring Saturday and yet again I was wrong. As we are turning the corner back on to our street here come our friends T&K who have run over to see us from their house literally! It was so fun to see them and give them a bottle of water before they ran home. I LOVE that we finally have some friends that close, and that they were running home not me! But, the Saturday fun was still not over. Saturday night we went to the Studio Movie Grill. It is the greatest. You get to watch a movie, eat pizza and drink margaritas-toss in a few friends and it doesn't get any better than that. A big thanks to Michael's Aunt and Uncle who gave us gift cards so that this was our low-budget fun!
Sunday was great, I got to go to church 2 Sundays in a row. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened a lot this summer. Then we had Freebirds for lunch with some friends, which was great and MUCH better than Luby's-y'all have fun next Sunday. Then as I was wishing I could go swimming while Michael did some work I got a message from Linde inviting me to do just that! So, Linde and I had a blast swimming all afternoon. Sunday night we went to Central Market which is a fabulous place. I like it because of all the obvious reasons, and Michael loves to go there, too so I don't have to grocery shop alone.
See what I mean, it was a fabulous weekend!

THE FRAY!!!!!!!

I am still working on my photography, but this is The Fray from our great seats on the lawn!

Michael and I with our friends "T&K" :) who were so fun to come hang out and enjoy the concert with us!

Clearly I was the most excited to be here, but I think "T" was a close second.

Linde and Jeff stopped by to say hello on their way to sit with their friends.

These are our friends Red and Green-please note the green converse sneakers. They were super excited about Gomez the opener. So excited in fact, that they packed up and left when they were through. While Gomez was GREAT, Red and Green missed the best part of the night.

If you ever have a chance to go see The Fray....GO! We had SO MUCH FUN!!!! I don't go to many concerts, but I had a blast. We really enjoyed Eisley and Gomez before them, and the actual concert was so fun. I know it's not super cool and I was there with tons of teenagers, but I am still singing all the songs in my head and reliving every moment. Make time to enjoy your favorite bands, this something we don't do often and will be making a priority in the future.

Also, Smirnoff is a great venue. Our lawn seats were awesome and cheap. We couldn't see great, but we could definitely see well enough and were very comfortable and relaxed. Can you tell I had fun??? I can't wait for my next concert now, Jimmy Eat World is coming soon!

Have a great day!

Small Group

Sunday night we had our small group from church over for dinner, it was so fun. One consequence of the job I love is working on Sundays. I always say the babies don't get well just because it is a weekend or a holiday. Unfortunately, I have worked a TON of Sundays lately, and I have been missing church and my friends. We had a great time with everyone on Sunday night. They were all great cooks bringing wonderful things to eat. We had fried okra, bean stew, a great potato salad and green salad, yummy strawberry lemonade and pies and cheesecake. It was a fabulous feast. I am so thankful that we have such a fun group of families at our church. It was not always this way, but boy was it worth the wait. God faithfully answered our prayers for friends.

Here are a few pictures of the kids hard at work with sidewalk chalk and sidewalk paint. The sidewalk paint was sooo cool! I highly recommend it to all kids. If you don't have kids yet just do like I did and pretend it's for the kids.

Caleb, our most serious artist hard at work!

Zane-trying so hard to keep up with the big boys

Emma-the only artist not to busy to give a smile

Bradley-Working hard on his own masterpiece!

Happy 3rd and 4th of July

Mom and Dad at Kaboom

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY
We had a wonderful 3rd and 4th of July!

I should probably start by explaining that I am psycho about the 4th of July! It all started with my Papa. He absolutely spoiled me rotten and even more so on the 4th. We would go to his house the week before and would begin daily trips to the firework stand, to add to the firework stash he already had waiting when we got there. Then we would make homemade ice cream every night and eat it multiple times a day. When the 4th arrived we would spend all day swimming our guts out, playing on the boat, and of course we got to make at least 2 freezers of ice cream. Once it got dark we shot fireworks, sparklers and anything else we could get our hands on until we couldn't do it any more. So, I have great 4th memories and I am eager to create more.

On Tuesday we went to Kaboom in Addison. It is an awesome fireworks show. They had the best finale ever. My Papa would have absolutely loved it. My Mom and I were definately missing him as we were enjoying the fireworks. After the fireworks are over you get to stay and hang out in your lawn chair and watch a movie-I love it! We didn't stay for the whole thing, but enjoyed what we saw of October Sky.

Michael and I with our friends Tobin and Krister who were nice enough to brave my family 2 days in a row!

We got up bright and early on the 4th to get ready to go watch our neighborhood 4th of July parade. It is so cute. I love that anyone that wants to can be in it, you can tell the kids feel so special. Our neighbors won this year, with their "Save the Neighborhood BagWorms" float. It was pretty funny, we do have a horrible problem with those this year.

Parade pictures! Maybe by next year I will be a better photographer.

Then everyone came back to the house for a cookout. I have the best husband in the whole world, who stood grilling in the rain to make my day great. My sweet Daddy helped and held an umbrella for him. I have some great men in my life.

I ended my fabulous 4th watching the fireworks at the closest Country Club, I just walked down to the corner of our street and enjoyed the show.

I think Papa would be proud, it was a great celebration.

5 Favorite Restaurants

Well, Annalee I will respond to your tag since I am pretty sure you are the only person reading my blog. I have lots of favorite restaurants, but I have the eating habits of a 5 year old so most of the places are not very exciting. Here they are in no particular order.

1&2-I LOVE PIZZA! My favorite pizza places are tied for very different reasons. First, Campisi's I think it is greatness that the pieces are so skinny, you can eat a lot of pieces and totally blame it on them being small. Campisi's also has a great salad and their thin crust is the greatest! My other favorite is Angelo's. I feel very cool eating there because it is more local and their 5 cheese pizza with red sauce is TO DIE FOR. I am not really a cheese pizza girl, I love pepperoni, but it is amazing. Angelo's also has a fantastic Greek salad that makes me feel healthy when i eat it before my pizza. And, in contrast to Campisi's, Angelo's pieces are so huge that even I can only eat 1 or 2 so I feel super dainty.

3-I ALSO LOVE HAMBURGERS! My most favorite are on the grill, but I also love Juicy's they are so good greasy and I am sure have already shaved years off my life. And, they have free beans which I will not touch with a 10 foot pole, but make my men very happy campers. If you're ever in Tyler and need a burger that is the place to go.

4-Taco Diner and Mi Cocina-In our house their is a constant battle for which is the best, but they really count as one since they are both part of the M Crowd. Taco Diner has great simple, yummy Mexican food. Mi Cocina is more traditional, but I have come to love a salad there and it even has blue cheese in the dressing-I'm growing up! Both have great queso and margaritas, my top two requirements in a Mexican food joint.

5-Del Friscos-If you are ever in the mood for a fancy dinner this is a great place to go, but it has to be a special treat it is quite fancy. I really enjoy the laid back relaxing atmosphere. I like that you get an appetizer, have time to eat and talk, then get a salad again have time to eat it and talk and can really enjoy a meal with friends. They sometimes have a mozzarella and tomato salad and special ranch topped with bacon bits and then lettuce in vinaigrette that I could bathe in. I absolutely love it. The rest of the food is great, but that's why I go. That and my food never touches there. :)

We have so much fun eating out with friends and there are several new restaraunts we are planning on trying. We are going to a fancy dinner at Abacus soon, which I was already so excited about and then saw that a guy from Top Chef is one of their chefs. Also, we are going to be brave and try sushi and Thai soon at Asian Mint, and my sister says we need to try her favorite mexican place Monica's. So, I'll let you know how those go.