Recap of Fun with Great Friends!

We are having fun while winding down the last couple weeks of summer. I have really enjoyed myself, but need to get serious about getting back in the swing of things and having a routine.

On Tuesday, we received a late wedding present from Stephanie, Ryan and the Whitmer family, A JUICER!! We have had so much fun creating juice concoctions…and learning valuable lessons like the importance of peeling oranges/limes/ginger before putting it in the juicer. After our regular Ninfas adventure, we had some friends over to play games and drink some skinny margaritas. We tried to expedite the process by using the juicer, but our first go at it lead to some pretty bitter/sour margaritas (we have since learned the lesson of peeling, which makes it taste SOO much better!)

Wednesday, I woke up to freshly juiced OJ. It was very refreshing and started the day out on the right foot for me! After lazing around a while, I met Melissa for lunch at Sam's. Yes, you read correctly, Sam's. They have a WONDERFUL pizza combo: 2 slices + fountain drink for $2.70. Their pizza is actually really good too! Next, we went for pedicures, something my little tootsies have needed for quite sometime! There was an old man and his wife getting pedicures at the same time and it was hysterical watching/listening to the man. 

I went with my usual french tip

Thursday, we made an awesome juice concoction: mango, peach, pear, and apple. It was probably my favorite so far! We have really enjoyed our juicer! We also made it our to FREE TEA DAY at McAlisters, one of my favorite "holidays" before going to our BLAST meeting. I am helping with a leadership camp in mid-August and this was the first meeting that I have attended. I am glad that I did because it made me really excited for camp!

Friday, We had a double date with the Maciks. We ate at Cheddars (yay spinach dip!) and finally experienced a "good" Flaming Dr. Pepper from the Ptarmigan (where we were the YOUNGEST people in the bar by like 15 years) before heading to North Gate. We had so much fun!

Saturday, we had tossed around the idea of going to the pool and grilling but did not make concrete plans until about 2pm. We met at the house at 4 (was suppose to be 3, but life gets in the way sometimes) and juiced a bunch of fruit: watermelon, peaches, strawberries, oranges, limes and kiwi then grabbed the vodka and went to the pool. We mixed the different juices and had fun floating around. The watermelon juice seemed to be the favorite juice to mix with out of our group.

Stephanie, Whitmer and Jason working hard on the juicing!

Today, we finally made it out to the Bloody Mary bar at Ozona. Ryan and Stephanie have been telling us about it for weeks, but we have never been and to be honest, I have never had a Bloody Mary. The idea of drinking alcoholic tomato juice is not really appealing to me, but Jason really liked it. We caught some of the olympics: swimming, gymnastics, and water polo. 

While at Ozona, Stephanie showed me how to do this really cute and super EASY hairstyle! I can't wait to wear it out!

I am not very good at doing my own hair and I got it on the first try! :)

Anyone that has some cute (EASY) hairstyles that pull all of your hair up or some yummy/healthy juice ideas, let me know!!

Meet Shiner!

This weekend I got to meet my adorable, furry nephew, Shiner! He is half Black and Tan Coonhound, half Redbone Coonhound and full of life (until it's naptime)!

(Pictures above from Josh's facebook)

He is six months old and weighs just under five pounds! I am pretty sure that Shiner could fit inside of my size 7.5 shoe!

(sorry about the photos being sideways, I can't figure out how to flip them)

Josh named him Shiner after the Brewery in Texas. He wanted him to have a name that was "Texan" and Shiner just so happens to be Josh's favorite brand of beer.

Just met him and already love him!

The Weekend of Non-stop Fun!

I had way too much fun this weekend (if there is such a thing)! 

It all started on Thursday when our friends Ryan and Stephanie invited us on a double date to one of our favorite spots in Bryan, Downtown Uncorked. We shared a couple bottles of Merlot, which is very uncharacteristic of Jason and I because we usually stick to Pinot or Cab…but a sale is a sale and one cannot argue with half price Merlot…wine not? I wish we had pictures from this night, but being paparazzi is just not one of my many talents.

Friday we had plans to go to the OT (Trent)'s apartment for food and fun. Trent made homemade pizza for us that was really good! He even made a special veggie pizza for me! The night ended with a series of bets. One of which lead to this HOT photo of the hubs:

He will probably be mad that I posted it (again), but I couldn't help myself. Incase it is hard to tell, he is wearing a (rather small) coconut bra, a hula skirt, and a turkish hat. After this, Michelle arrived and talked Jason and Trent into making a slap bet. Trent had been on fire the entire night during many beerpong games and Jason HATES to lose, so they wagered that the loser of the next game get slapped. This unfortunate fate belong to the OT. Jason slapped him with his right (non-dominant) hand and took off his ring, but he still slapped him super hard. Stephanie and I were not impressed, but everyone else seemed to be really excited about it…well except Trent.

Saturday many of my Cabin 8 girls game to town. The reunion spawned because Dana had signed up for the Aggieland Tri and wanted us to do it with her and Michelle's birthday was a couple days before.

I was almost convinced to sign up for the tri, but I didn't want to bring up the rear by myself. Dana is REALLY fast (got 4th place), something my elementary back stroke cannot compete with. So no one else signed up, but made the trip to hang out anyway. 

We started with a dinner at Chuys where we sang "Happy Birthday" to Michelle and Courtney displayed her wonderful domestic talents by bringing cupcakes! Ashley and I almost made off with Michelle's "special" cupcake, but she threatened to beat us up, so we quickly gave into giving it back.

That night we hit up our old friend North Gate…too much fun!

Cabin 8ers!

This is the signal for "get me out of here," Ashley is the best at it!

Missing some, but heres the group with our Kyoto Sunrises! 

Buddy Bear and I at Dukes where he finally got to witness us dancing on the speakers!

(All photos courtesy of Courtney Bauerlein's and Stephanie Karam's Facebook)

Cheers to a great weekend! Cannot wait to do it again! :)

Six Years

Yesterday marked six years that Jason and I have "officially" been together. On July 11, 2006 we had that awkward high school conversation (post high school) of what to call "us." We had been dating for months before that…just did not give the official title. I told him (jokingly) that I can't believe I have put up with him this long, but the truth is I can't believe he has put up with me haha.

To celebrate, I got this awesome idea off pinterest and tweaked it a little.

 The original idea was nerf guns, but then we would have to search for those silly little bullets and they were way more expensive than the water guns (walmart 2 pack $12).

For my Christmas Jason gave me this cute little picnic set, so I decided that we would have our watergun fight at the park and have a picnic afterwards.

Jason had camp from 7-9am and then an eye appointment at 10:30. I knew he would be home at about 9:20 and would leave for his appointment around 10:15, so I woke up at 8:30 and started planning. I thought that I would go to the store when he left for his appointment to pick up sandwich stuff and fruit for our picnic, but once I thought about how long it would take to drive to the store, shop, drive home, chop fruit, make sandwiches, pack it all up and get to the park before Jason got home would be very difficult. I decided to pick up Frittella instead because their eggplant parmesan was calling my name and I knew that Jason would never argue with lasagna.

I was expecting that Jason would leave the eye doctor at about 11:15 and be home around 11:30, but he called at 10:45 and said he was on his way home. I was not ready because Frittella does not open until 11, so I sent him to get drinks and a dessert and told him to take his time.

I put our Frittella in the picnic kit to keep it warm and hid it at the park for after our watergun war.

When I was hiding our picnic basket there was a man walking his dog that was looking at me like I was a wackjob…which I probably looked like one leaving a big blue bag on a park bench and carrying a watergun.

I saw Jason pulling in, so I sprinted around the trail to hide. It took him a while to come around the trail to where I was hiding, so I almost came out to look for him. I saw him coming so I waiting until he was a little ways from me and jumped out and shot him. Hindsight is 20/20…I, because I lack patience, jumped out while he was facing me rather than waiting until he passed and his back was toward me…we chased eachother around until our guns were out of water, then headed to the picnic basket.

I told Jason that I had planned to fill up water bottles to refill our guns, but we were already pretty out of breath and hungry, so it was the perfect amount!

Jason picked up McAlister's sweet tea and cookies for us to have with our lunch.

It did not take us long at all to completely demolish our lunch.

Unfortunately we did not use too much of the picnic kit, just the napkins and silverware. Maybe next time I will be better prepared to make our picnic...

Fabulous 4th of July Weekend!

Long post of AWESOMENESS! Be prepared to be jealous!

As MANY of you posted to facebook, "the Thursday after a Wednesday holiday feels like the second Monday of the week," except for us teachers who are enjoying our couple months of what feels like straight Saturdays…

On the actual 4th of July, I was not feeling well at all. Sparing details, after eating lunch I changed back into my pjs and did not leave my bed the entire day…bummer of a 4th, but we definitely made up for it the rest of the weekend!

We had arranged for a boat on Lake Travis for Thursday and even though I still was not feeling great, I grabbed a sprite and went for it anyways. Glad that I did! Jason, Carter and I had a blast!

Carter was born to ride on/jump off boats

Jason's new hat…go ahead and laugh, I do!

Carter pulling me on the raft

Failed attempt at a family photo

After the lake, we showered and met up with some friends at Doc's on South Congress. I had some awesome enchiladas and an even more awesome margarita! We have really been impressed with Doc's. They have great food, a cool atmosphere and a decent drink selection.

From there, we were made our way to "the mayor's house," which is an 18th floor apartment with great views of downtown, for some games.

For some reason, there was a sword on the balcony of the apartment…which almost led to Clay's demise

After Clay and I beat Zack and Jason twice, we flipped a coin, several times, to see if we should move on to 6th street.

Even though the coin said tails 49/50 times which was for no 6th…we found our way out to the Blind Pig for $5 pitchers.

Our weekend didn't stop there! The next day we picked up Jason's little brother headed out to Town Lake for some paddle boarding. I was a little apprehensive about the whole idea of paddle boarding, but we all LOVED it! We even saw people paddling with their pups on the board with them…we will give this a whirl next time! Thanks to Clay and "the mayor" our paddle board adventure was free of charge--just the way we like it! I just wish that we had some pictures to share! 

That night we went and saw the new Spiderman movie which was REALLY GOOD!

Saturday we headed north to Liberty Hill for the 2nd Annual Aaron Family 4th of July Fajita and Rita Extravaganza by the pool, which was a huge success! We were so happy that the Suarez siblings (Michelle, Danielle and Carlos), Josh's awesome girlfriend, Ashley, as well as Zack and Maddie were able to join! 

Date Night at Home!

So far we have failed miserably at the once a week cooking idea. It is harder than I had imagined… I think we are going to revamp the idea into once a week prep-cooking. Instead of cooking the entire meal, we will just cook things that take a long time or make a big mess. For instance, we could cook a pot of black beans for nachos and stuffed peppers ahead of time. That way we can still have healthy meals that are semi-quick, but we still get that freshly made taste.

Last night, we had date night at home. I made caramelized eggplant, to add to my homemade spaghetti sauce over spaghetti squash. I got the idea from my favorite pasta dish at Vespaio, our favorite Italian restaurant in Austin, the Spaghetti Pomodoro E Melanzane. It turned out fabulously!

We accompanied our eggplant dish with toasted ciabatta bread and Adams Reserve Classic Italian Bread Dipper. We are trying to cut down on our gluten intake, but missing out on garlic bread is not an option! Maybe we will try making our own gluten free bread one day!

No lime drinks tonight, but we did wash it down with a great 09 Cab from Napa Valley, Avalon.