We Moved!

We are finally settled in the town of Little Elm. I say settled… there are still plenty of boxes to be unpacked and organizing to be done but we are here. Christmas is fast approaching and I have several project ideas I hope to accomplish! Before all of that, I wanted to share my first craft at the new place.  We made it here just in time for Thanksgiving and I knew the family would all want our new address.  And since we had such a memorable U-Haul moving experience, I thought these would be appropriate.

 

Cody’s only comment “The trucks not big enough.” We definitely used every square inch of the 26’ U-Haul, Cody’s truck, my mother-in-laws van, and my SUV. There was even a time around 3pm on Friday afternoon (we were leaving Saturday morning) that we called to see if they had a additional trailer available. Somewhere around then, I realized downsizing was in order. My garage sale pile has been started…

 

The entire move was overwhelming and we could not have done it without the help of so many people.  Church friends bringing food and boxes. My in-laws for driving all the way to MO to help pack, only to turn around and drive us back to TX and unload. Friends that came to haul off our trash late on Friday night. Family and friends that came to unload and unpack. And my parents :). Oh ya, neighbor Joe too.

Love My Friends

So this post is like a week and a half late... oh well.

I can't even begin to say how much I love my friends! They are amazing. The End. Okay so not really 'the end' but you get the point.  I had the opportunity to spend time with some great people while I was in College Station doing a little work (aka standing around at a corn field in the blazing Texas sun). The week consisted of dinners, wedding planning, and a jewelry party all with good company and lots of laughs.

Cody came to town as well and we went to a concert Friday night! I have been missing some good Texas Country and a little Two Steppin'.  While Hurricane Harry's is not my favorite place, the one and only Stoney LaRue was playing! So we got a group together and made some dinner plans.  I was so excited that some friends that were passing through town decided to stay over, visit, and go to the concert with us. Then I was even more excited when an old friend from my high school days drove up to College Station just to come visit!! What a night it was starting off to be! We went to dinner then the concert and had a great time, it felt good to be with friends. We hardly watched the concert but had a blast just hanging out.

At Cody's request, we got up Saturday morning to go to the gun range. Five of us showed up heavily armed at the gun range to test our skills.  We had big guns, little guns, black guns, and pink guns. Guns of all shapes and sizes! At one point, a gentleman a few stalls down leaned over to check us out and said "You have quite the arsenal." And we did.
 

A trip to the World Famous Freebirds for lunch and we were ready to pack up and go back to East Texas.  That was until a single phone call changed our plans.  My bestfriends boyfriend had called to inform us of his plans to pop the question that night, at the Texas Hall of Fame! Are you kidding!? My stuff is packed and ready to go. Couldn't you have done this last night?? Well I couldn't just leave now.  So instead I took a nap. Seriously. Then I went to planning a mini engagement celebration consisting of flowers, champagne glasses, balloons, and of course a cookie cake! I conned another friend in to meeting us and then worked my hardest to not blow the surprise.  It wasn't easy but was definitely a success! After he popped the question, the DJ came over to find out if she said yes so he could announce it to the dancehall.  Oh Missy, her response "Well, they are making out so I would think that was a YES!" And it was. I am so excited for them!

So all in all, it was a GREAT weekend with GREAT friends! Love you guys!

The 4th a week late

(Yes, I know its late but it was a crazy week and I didn't have time to post it)

What a weekend! We made the 10 hour trip to the in-laws for 4th of July with the dogs! We celebrated the 4th on Saturday with 31 people at my in-laws house. We had burgers, hotdogs, watermelon and all sorts of good stuff. Activities included swimming, Wa-hoo, dominos, and target practice.

This is my adorable nephew in his swimming pool! He was lovin' splashing around with his toys, until....

...the cousins showed up. He was a little overwhelmed!

 After I was dunked in the pool while fully dressed, I decided to put on my swimsuit and join the kids in the big pool. This might have been a mistake! They told me I was a camel and wanted me to swim around the pool with them clinging to my neck for dear life! And why is it that children feel the need to scream when they talk? The only relief I found was distracting them with a 'shiny object'.  My under water camera. It had a full battery and I let them swim around taking pictures. Here are some of my favs:

Highlights the rest of the trip:

Fishing at Mums & Pops

 

Landon's First Fireworks!

 
Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! I know I did!

The cure to my frustration

Why would you organize something only to back out after you get other people excited? Today we had a lunch scheduled for a group and when lunch time rolled around I discovered that the organizer had backed out. I give them credit that I had only tentatively accepted, which was due to the fact that they have done this before. However, I was not the only one who was left without lunch plans. Outlook is really simple to use. If you (the organizer) are no longer attending YOUR scheduled event, simply send a cancellation notification. This applies to meetings, lunches, happy hours, etc.

So to relieve my mild frustration with the situation, a pedicure and Jimmy Johns was in order. It's a good thing I went to get my new summer nail polish. The key to making your pedicure last is to buy a bottle of your favorite color to touch up as needed. Opi has a new Texas Collection! My favorite color is called Guy meets 'Gal'veston. I like the names more than the colors of most of this line. My favs include: Do You Think I'm Tex-y? and Big Hair...Big Nails

I am typing this blog while sitting at the nail salon getting my pedicure. This has got to be the most vocal pedicure lady ever! I don't think she is paying any attention to what she is doing with my feet, it's like second nature for her. Instead she is focusing her time on a very passionate conversation with someone on the phone! She has hand gestures going and everything. I don't think she realizes that the person on the phone can't see those. I also enjoy that she includes bits of English in her conversation this is what I have heard so far "...very upset ...teenager now... okay... sneak in the window... okay... window..." Very interesting. She is finishing up my toes now and appears to be doing a good job!

Well I left the nail salon but not before the lady got off the phone and proceeded to tell me about her frustrating phone call.  She had apparently been on the phone with (at different times) her husband, son, and sister-in-law.  I was impressed that I had picked up the gist of her story. Her teenage children have been climbing thru the window to get into the house. That’s right INTO not OUT of the house. Her 15 and 16 year old children are not privileged enough to have a key to the home where they live. She says it is to avoid them bring 'friends' over to the house while she is not home.  It almost made sense to me until she said her and her husband doesn't usually get home until 8-8:30 at night. Where are your children all day?? That's what I would be concerned about.  Anyway, they get tired of waiting on their parents to get home so the teenagers sneak in the window to avoid waiting outside. This evidently really angers their mother because she threatened to call the cops on her children for breaking into their own home!! Wow, is all I can say!

So this pedicure adventure was followed by a trip to Jimmy John's for lunch! I love their food and the fact that I sat at the drive thru window for maybe a minute and the young lady inside apologized for my wait!

My frustration is relieved and I had a great lunch!

Forgetful? I think not...

Last night, the hubby accused me of being forgetful. Which is funny because I had forgot the golf clubs I had sat out to take to a friend at work that morning.  She even text me that morning and I had them sitting by the door in plain sight! Oops.

Well when Cody went to work today, he had a few errands for me to run.  I think he thought I would forget so he reminded me this morning before he left. To prove a point, I sent him the following texts:

Washed and Hung up to Dry

UR Check Deposited

Ready on Tues

My Reward

UR Dad's B-day Card

I thought it was humorous.

Happy Father's Day

I am thinking I had bad timing for starting my blog but I am back now. Last week was spent on a work 'stay-cation' in downtown STL.  Meetings, Meetings, and more... that's right you guessed it, meetings! We managed to make some time for a few fun activities including a night at Busch Stadium. The Cards weren't in town but we had plenty of food and activities setup in the Red Bird Club! The theme for the night was based off of NBC's Minute to Win It game show.  I have to admit that at first it all seemed a little silly.  "You want me to put Vaseline on my nose? And stick it in a bowl of cotton balls? Um.... no thanks."

Minute to Win It - Nose Dive - Video - NBC.com

Work donated money to a charity for every game played and to recognize participants completed the challenge they awarded bracelets with the charity name. So while I hoped nobody was watching, I began the challenges! The first couple were easy and I quickly found myself flashing my wrist full of accomplishments to everyone. I have never seen so many adults excited over getting colored bracelets but it was all for a good cause! The highlight of the night was my dear friend CC repeatedly asking "How long do I have to do it?" while we waited for each challenge to start. Bless her heart I think she missed the title of the game.

To make the night even better, they provided a late night snack... HOTDOGS!! I was one happy camper since hotdogs are one of my favorite food groups. So after a long week, I came home played with the pups and took a nap. Shocking I know.

I knew what a crazy week it was going to be so last weekend I worked on my Father's Day craft projects! For my father-in-law, I wanted to make something that represented a relaxing day and what better than fishing! I used the Cricut Lite Celebrate with Flourish to cut out the fishing rod and sun to make a quick little Father's Day card.

For Dad, I have been wanting to do something with the wedding photos. I got the idea from Hobby Lobby's free craft flyers.  I painted a wooden plaque and covered with paper added photos of Dad and I dancing from the wedding and also one from when I was about 5 years old. (I am pretty sure it was taken on the Alaskan Cruise we took.)  I used the lyrics from the song he picked for our Father-Daughter dance, Heartland's 'I Loved Her First'. The present was finished with a piece of material we used at the wedding.

 Happy Father's Day!

Getting Started

A few days ago when I had the sudden urge to start a blog, I thought "how hard could it be?"  All I do is jot down my thoughts, opinions, experiences, etc. After researching the options in the blogging world, I signed into g-mail and went to start my blog.  Frustration sat in.  What name do I chose? Who is going to read this? What am I going to write about? I quickly realized I did not know where to start and my indecisiveness was not helping the situation.  I recruited help and here I am. Simply KT... a work in progress.

So what I am I going to write about? A little bit of everything...