This Is the Life

I'm currently sitting in the Admirals Club in LAX drinking free wine and eating free cheese and crackers and cookies, counting down the seconds (well, hours) until I embark for New Zealand. We might even work in some Monopoly Deal! (Don't worry, Amy and Chad, I didn't take your Monopoly Deal, I bought another deck today!) The game plan was to stay awake for the first six or so hours of the flight (which would be until about 6am CST), but that plan may be foiled by the time we're done with free drinks! Oh well, I guess that's what the no jet lag pills from REI are for (ironically, produced in New Zealand). Farrah and I spent the first flight (well, my first and her second) chatting and reading different copies of the same book... Much to the amusement of the guy sitting next to us (though he tried to pretend like he wasn't listening). Anyway, enough rambling, this free wine is calling my name! Adieu, friends!

Oh yeah, and...
HOOK 'EM HORNS!!!
(or gig 'em Horns as my Aggie aunt would say)
:-)

Liam James

Is this the cutest baby you've ever seen, or what?!

Welcome to the world, Liam James!

I Hate the Cold Weather

To all you crazies out there who are all like, "Yay! It's getting colder!" I just want you to know that I'm NOT with you on this one. All summer long in St Louis while everyone complains about how 89 degrees is SO HOT (come to Texas, bitches, we'll show you hot!), I have the Avenue Q song "Schadenfreude" playing in my head. To everyone on the elevator, I just smile and nod as if agreeing with them, while secretly thinking, "It's payback time! This is how I feel all winter!" And it makes me so happy! Well, now it's my turn to be miserable. It's not just the cold weather that I hate (though no good can come out of a day below 75 degrees unless there is a mountain, a chair lift, and enough snow to ski on), I also hate that the days are shorter and the sky seems to stay a permanent shade of dreary grey.

In the spirit of making this a more optimistic blog post, here are ten things that ARE good about winter:

1. You can order a hot coffee drink from Starbucks without getting a weird look
2. Pumpkin spice is in season at Starbucks
3. Baileys and marshmallows in hot chocolate
4. Time off around the holidays
5. New Year's Eve parties
6. Scarves
7. Hoodies!
8. Soup at Panera? I'm really reaching here.
9. It's hilarious to go to Austin and see college students in pea coats, hats, scarves, gloves, and... flip flops
10. Year 5 with my favorite boots!

10 Dangerous Things I Do While Driving

1) talk on the phone - almost always
2) text - a lot
3) update status - a lot
4) read emails - a lot
5) send emails - sometimes
6) talk to passengers - always, if they're there
7) read maps / directions from my phone - a lot
8) look up things on the internet - sometimes
9) try to get things out of the backseat or off the front passenger floorboard - a lot
10) change my pants - today! but not a first!

Please don't send this to my insurance company.

Speaking of Dorsal Fins

The long-awaited pictures of the shark cupcakes that Amy and I made for Tim's birthday:

MY Bucket List

A while back I posted a bucket list that someone else had come up with and checked off the things I had done. Here's MY bucket list. I'm sure I'm leaving things off, but here is my bucket list. I stopped with a list of 50 things because I had to stop somewhere.


(X) Visit Mexico
( ) Visit Canada
(X) Visit Africa
(X) Visit Western Europe
( ) Visit Eastern Europe
(X) Visit Australia and New Zealand
( ) Visit Asia
( ) Visit South America
(X) Read the whole Bible
( ) Read Pride & Prejudice
( ) Read Gone with the Wind
(X) Go on a mission trip
( ) Fall in love
( ) Get married
( ) Have (via pregnancy or adoption) kid(s)
(X) See the night sky from somewhere with not too much light pollution (ie Livingstone/Victoria Falls, Zambia)
(X) Go skinny dipping
(X) Go sky diving
(X) Go parasailing
(X) Go snow skiing
(X) Go water skiing
(X) Stay up all night
(X) Go hiking in the mountains
(X) Have at least one friend you can tell anything to
(X) Have at least one lifelong friend
(X) See ancient ruins
(X) Do something you didn't think you could do
( ) Hike the Inca Trail
(X) Visit Chichen Itza
(X) Visit Cinque Terre
(X) Visit Rome
( ) Walk on the Great Wall of China
( ) Take a cruise around the Mediterranean
(X) Take a cruise
(X) Have a girls' trip
(X) Bourbon St
(X) Stand on the star directly beneath the peak of the dome of the Capitol of Texas and talk
(X) Go to a music festival
(X) Put your feet in the Atlantic Ocean
(X) Put your feet in the Pacific Ocean
( ) Go to a small town festival
( ) Work in a non-US country
( ) Go bungee jumping....??
(X) Stay in a hostel
(X) Get your hands dirty to help someone
( ) Grow old with someone
(X) Get out of your comfort zone
( ) Do an olympic distance triathlon
( ) Run 5 miles without walking
( ) Learn more about art
( ) Learn another language

Weekend in Review: Girls at the Ranch

A couple of weekends ago some girlfriends headed out to a ranch to get away, have a relaxing girls weekend, and celebrate Michelle's last pre-baby girls' getaway! We all met up at Michelle's house and drove down to Laura's uncle's ranch "near" Killeen (though "near" is really a stretch here).

Michelle, Suzie, and I in the car on the way down:



The ranch house (below). The girls had me a little freaked out before we drove down because they told me that we couldn't drink the water! I was like, where the hell are we going?!?! Turns out that they meant not that you would end up with intestinal parasites if you drink the water but that the water isn't very tasty. Glad we got that cleared up. I thought we were going to Mexico.


I made a bunch of food for the weekend, including some desserts - pictured below on top of my favorite game!

We went four-wheeling! That was my first time to go four-wheeling and it was really fun. I think the saftey lecture we got was probably a waste of breath for Laura's uncle, as we definitely didn't get very close to flipping the four-wheelers over. Below is a picture of the cows (not Angus cows, obviously!!!) eating the bungee cords off the four-wheelers.

Saturday afternoon (after our exercise class led by Em, brunch, four-wheeling, and pedicures), we made some crafts for baby Liam!

Some finished products:

We had a great weekend! It was so fun and nice to get away and just hang out!