Role Models

I wanted to follow up my last blog about things I am passionate about with a couple of other topics I am passionate about.

If you follow baseball you may have seen this guy a lot more lately because of the Texas Rangers. Although I'm a Houston Astros fan I couldn't be happier for the Rangers. If you ask most guys who grew up in Texas in the 80's and 90's who their role model is, a large percentage would pick Nolan Ryan. How many of you collected baseball cards like me and had a stack of regular cards, cards worth something (like the Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck Card), and then a special collection just for Nolan Ryan? I can remember crying when I was six when the 'Stros lost in '86 to the Mets in a great series. Side note: There have been a lot of bad moments in Astros history, but I still love them. And of course who can forget Robin Venture trying to rush the mound and getting beat up?!?!? I must have seen that picture on about 500 walls while I was in college, including mine.

There are so many role models out there that consistently let us down by getting in trouble with the law, taking steriods, or in the case of Tiger Woods... To this day Nolan Ryan has been nothing short of a class act with a great Texas accent and several pitching records that will not be broken for some time. I enjoyed watching him play for so many years growing up in Houston and I hope his team wins the World Series this year. My dream is for the Stros to play the Rangers in the World Series, and of course the Stros win in 7!

Speaking of role models I was in Nashville last weekend visiting my Grandma on my Mom's side and 1st cousins on my Dad's side. My Grandma is not doing too well but she was still so sweet and nice to visit with, I hope she gets to feeling better soon. After visiting her during the day I went to my cousin Celeste's house for a pig roast, homemade beer, and a chance to see a lot of the family. We had a great time and I wanted to put up a couple of pictures of my cousins, their kids, and my Mom.

I visited my Grandpa's grave site which was an emotional experience to say the least, and it got me thinking about both Grandpa's of mine that have since passed. We throw around the phrase role model or hero pretty often in sports, and I know I'm the first to admit that I forget who the real heroes are. My Grandpa (in Tennessee as we called him) was a Korean War veteran and served in the Army for over 20 years in various roles. My Grandpa (in Houston as we called him) served in the Navy during World War II on the USS Mississippi and fought in one of the largest and probably last naval battles ever, the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Seeing thousands of grave stones this weekend, all who served in the military, was truly a life changing event. I'd love to go to Normandy one day, I'm sure that is an emotional experience. If you haven't thanked a veteran recently please do so, they sacrificed for the freedom we all enjoy every day.

Make sure you check out Pickled Lily for baby and maternity clothes!

California Girls (and a Guy)

This past weekend Rebecca and I traveled to San Francisco for a long weekend to see Kade before he leaves for his Thailand adventure. I love to travel, but am not the best planner, so luckily I had travel agent Rebecca to lead the way. Rebecca was so organized and had done tons of research so we didn't have to miss out on anything. Kade also brought his friend Foster to hang out for the weekend. Between Foster (who grew up in San Francisco) and Rebecca, we never got lost. We went to Fisherman's Wharf, Union Square, the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown to get eggrolls, and did lots of shopping and sight seeing. My legs are still sore from walking up and down all the hills! We had rented a flat off of VRBO, which I highly recommend for anyone who travels. We had the cutest 2 bedroom apartment with a full kitchen for $140 a night! It was a few blocks from Alamo Square which has the famous "Painted Ladies".

I'm so excited for Kade to experience Thailand. I am going to miss talking to him everyday but I know he is going to have an amazing time. I just hope he comes back!

My mom is always telling me to put sunscreen on, but I think if I wore this hat everyday I wouldn't need to!

Check out Pickled Lily for maternity and baby clothes! Happy Shopping!

Weekend Wrap Up

Here is a summary of what we did on this awesome 3 day weekend:

1) Drove to Houston to see our friends Martin, April, and baby Henry.

Henry is such a good baby and tolerated April and I shopping for hours on Saturday. Here is a picture of Henry when I was holding him trying to make him smile and laugh. (I obviously rock at doing this because he is smiling in the picture)

I feel that I have a lot of experience with babies but it was very apparent that I do not have enough when while trying to make Henry laugh by holding him above my head, I didn't think to myself "Henry probably just ate and I shouldn't be bouncing him around..." Moments after this picture was taken, Henry while in the air laughing proceeded to toss his breakfast all over me....all in my hair, down my neck and all over my shirt. Then he started smiling again. I obviously need to have common sense when it comes to babies from now on. No, I didn't get a picture of the aftermath, but I'm sure you can picture how I looked.

How cute is Henry sucking his thumb?

Martin and April also took us to this awesome coffee place where they put designs in your coffee.

2) Pickled Lily.

Sarah and I spent a lot of time on the phone this weekend picking out new merchandise for Pickled Lily. I have mentioned that I own a maternity and baby boutique called Pickled Lily right? We have super cute stuff and I am so excited about some new merchandise we have ordered. We are also offering a 20% discount until September 15! code: 20OFF

Also, if you are pregnant or have a child under 24 mo (right now our baby clothes only go up to 24 mo), and you haven't seen anything you would purchase off of Pickled Lily, what would you like to see? We are always open to suggestions!

3) BBQ at the house with family and friends.

I always say how Dan and I tend to do too much, but who doesn't love hanging out with friends on a beautiful day? Monday we spent the day working in the flower beds (much needed!), grocery shopping and cooking. One of my favorite things to do, besides hanging out with Dan, traveling and yoga is cook! We try to cook every night of the week and I normally get recipes off of Chocolate Broccoli or out of Cooking Light. If you haven't checked out either of those, you need to! I try to cook pretty healthy, but it is a holiday, so I threw in some Pioneer Woman recipes into today's spread. Not that all of her recipes are unhealthy, but they just normally call for more butter than I normally use :)

We had a great time playing on our new Cornhole boards made by Jordan, eating food and just hanging out enjoying our day off from work. Rebecca brought Chase and Dan had a blast playing with him.

Overall, we had a great weekend and are sad it's over. Yay for a 4 day work week!

Blue Bell & Texas Stereotypes...Y'all

9/2/10 - This is the day that Emily allowed me to post on our blog, which is a day she might regret. Since this might be my only blog post ever I wanted to make it count with two things I am very passionate about.

1. Blue Bell Ice Cream - If you find yourself standing in front of Dreyer's, Bryer's, Ben & Jerry's, etc. at the store, you are obviously either a.) Not in or from Texas b.) Cannot spell or see 3.) Have not experienced the greatness that is Blue Bell.
2. Texas Stereotypes - We have one TV, and surprise, Emily enjoys watching Lifetime. Emily is the best thing that has ever happened to me and my soulmate, so naturally I have to spend my entire day stalking her and hanging out with her. This also requires that I trade nights of watching sports and Man vs. Food (a show I am very passionate about, thanks Martin) for Suburban Sally. Suburban Sally is my poor attempt of making fun of a Lifetime movie that goes something like this: Sally is a beautiful brunette with a great husband and two great kids with a perfect lawn, house, wood floors, and no mortgage payment. One day Sally finds out that her son's female teacher has a crush on her husband, however, the husband is actually cheating on his wife with another teacher, and his son's teacher is jealous. The husband ends up dying in a fiery crash and the wife ends up with her son's teacher in a lesbian twist. Does this not sound like a Lifetime movie? I digress. My point is tonight on Lifetime there was a movie that started out with Police Officers in the middle of Houston who all had on cowboy hats, everyone had a huge accent, there were mountains in the background, and it looked like a desert around them. We'll come back to this.

Blue Bell Ice Cream is needed after at least one meal a week. Why you ask? Let me answer my question with another question. After you work out and you are sore, don't you ice your body to keep the swelling down? After you exercise your stomach and eat a big meal you should ice down your stomach, it's just common sense to keep from stomach swelling.

I have to finish up now because my wife says I get a 'creepy smile' when I start discussing Blue Bell, but I did want to provide some value to our viewers. Cookies and Cream is my favorite Blue Bell Ice Cream and my favorite dessert of all time, if you have not tried it, you should. It is especially good when you get a container that has a lot of big cookies in it, it's like a great surprise. Several weeks ago I came across a new flavor, 'Vanilla Cookies and Cream'. I suggest after your next workout that you try it out.

Texas Stereotypes: For all of you non-Texans out there let's get a few things straight.

1. Yes, we do have cowboys. However, so does South Dakota and New York.
2. Yes, there is oil in the ground in Texas. No, not everyone works for Exxon. Quick aside: Why does everyone complain about oil company profits, they are usually in line with other corporations when times are good (10-15%) You don't see people getting ticked off when Target or Baby Gap's profit is this high. And aren't companies suppose to make a profit.
3. Yes, we have deserts. So does California. We also have more trees in East Texas than you can imagine, swamps near the Louisiana/Texas border, and big cities. The deserts are near El Paso, that's about 12 hours from my house. This is like someone in New York City driving to Indiana, big difference right? I actually only know one person from El Paso and I've never even been there.
4. Yes, we have accents. So do people in Boston. The accents in Texas are really not that bad compared to other states. Try Tennessee or Kentucky, their accents will blow you away.
5. We have farms and cows. So does Illinois. I drove through Illinois once, it was 8 hours of corn and then Chicago. Several Cubs fans tried to tell me two things 1.) Girls in Texas are not pretty, which is very funny 2.) Everyone lives on ranches in Texas. Cubs fans, I drove past more farms in your state than I do in Texas. Also Cubs fans, you are the Los Angeles Clippers of baseball with grass on your outfield walls.
6. Texas is better than you, please deal with this accordingly.
7. The University of Texas football team and the Dallas Cowboys are two teams in Texas. We also have about 10 more professional teams and about 30 Division I football teams.
8. Longhorns on the front of cars. Yes, I have seen Longhorns on the front of a car in Texas...maybe once. There are so many times in movies that I see cars with Longhorns on them, it just doesn't happen.
9. I have been on a horse twice in my life, both times in Colorado. I once had a joker in Pennsylvania tell me he was in downtown Houston and police officers were parking horses everywhere, and he did not see many cars. Penn man, there are 6 million people that live in Houston and hundreds of thousands that work downtime, do you really think they take a horse in 30 miles from The Woodlands?
10. We don't all live on ranches. We live on 1/10000 of an acre (which I hate). I can broad jump across my yard.
11. Cowboy hats - Yes we have cowboy hats but we also have baseball caps too. Anytime you see a police officer in a movie based in Texas they are wearing a cowboy hat.

Have a great Labor Day weekend y'all!

One more thing...check out new merchandise on Pickled Lily! If you "Like" Pickled Lily on Facebook you will get updates on new merchandise and coupon codes! Happy Shopping!

I see Russia....

This month we took a trip of a lifetime. Every year Dan's company does a sales incentive trip and this year it was a Baltic cruise. The cruise was 5 days, but we decided to go early and stay later. We spent 2 days in Copenhagen before heading out on the cruise. From Copenhagen we went to Estonia, Russia, Finland and ended in Sweden where we spent 2 days before heading home.

This trip was AMAZING to say the least. We had so much fun with everyone we were with and laughed the entire trip. Dan and I love to travel and this trip was one of the best. We tried to eat the local food in each place. In Sweden a delicacy is reindeer. So yes, I ate reindeer...and no, Santa Clause didn't serve it. The reindeer was actually really good. I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of it, but it just looked like beef.

One of our favorite things we did was a bike tour in Copenhagen. The tour lasted about 3 hours and went all over Copenhagen. It was nice to see the entire city in a short period of time. We also went to Tivoli Gardens, which was a theme park that was Walt Disney's inspired for Disney World.

The boat was awesome. We had a decent size room with a balcony. The food was fantastic and had anything we wanted. I always take work out clothes when we travel and hardly ever work out but managed in one (I know it's not that impressive, but better than normal!) work out on the boat. The gym was at the front of the boat and the treadmills overlooked the water....beautiful!

There is so much I can say about the trip but I don't want to bore anyone. It was awesome, amazing, beautiful, educational, FUN...I could go on and on. The pictures tell it all. I'm grateful that Dan works so hard so we get to go on these great trips! Thanks, babe! :)

Now another week begins, but it will be a good one because next weekend is a 3 day weekend!

Also, I have to add in my plug...check out Pickled Lily! We are offering a grand opening 20% off discount off of your entire order through September 15! Coupon Code: 20OFF Check out Pickled Lily and tell your friends! Happy Shopping!

Has it really been 3 years?!

Yesterday Dan and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary! I can't believe we have been married for 3 years already! It seems like yesterday that all of our friends and family surrounded us for our wedding day. I think one of the best things about being married is that I have a permanent date. We are a perfect match and I can't imagine life without him. Dan is my rock and supports me in whatever I do and I love him so much for that.

Dan, thank you for making me the happiest girl alive! I look forward to spending the next 60+ years with you!!

Pickled Lily!

My friend Sarah and I have been working on a new project for over 6 months and we are so excited that Pickled Lily is live!! We have created an online boutique for maternity and baby clothes. We have spent months searching for the perfect brands to carry that are also affordable. We want women to love the clothes they are in when they are pregnant and feel beautiful and not break the bank! So far we have a lot of the basics and are adding new products weekly. I'm really excited for some of the Fall items we are getting in.

Check it out and let me know what you think! Our website is http://www.shoppickledlily.com/

If you wish upon a Lily, make it Pickled!

Kade Visits and Chase turns 2!

My brother came into town a couple of weeks ago and stayed for 10 days. I love it when he comes to visit and we had so much fun when he was here. I was so happy that he was here to celebrate Chase turning two. Dan and I call Chase our nephew, but really he is my cousin, Rebecca's baby....except he isn't a baby anymore! Rebecca and I are as close as sister's can be, so I feel like I can call Chase my nephew :)

Saturday after Kade arrived we went to a peach orchard in Gainesville with Rebecca, Jessica and Chase. It was so much fun even though it rained at the end of our visit. We left with 15 lbs of peaches, so I had to get creative with what I made with all of them.

During the week we spent time at my mom's house and saw a lot of family. We have a lot of family that lives close so it's always nice to find a reason to get together.


The night before Kade left we celebrated Chase's birthday at Rebecca and Jesse's and it was so fun. I made a new Sangria recipe that was a hit! I think it should be a staple at all birthday parties!

Happy birthday little guy! We love you so much!

Somehow I managed to not get a picture of Dan and I but I did capture his awesome hand stand! I had no idea he had this talent!

Rebecca and I are going to California to visit Kade in September before he makes his trip to Thailand. I'm going to miss him when he's gone but he is going to have an amazing time.

Bad Blogger!!

My has this year flown by!! My last post was about the Fall and now it is half way through July!!
I LOVE summer and we are trying to get as much in as we can this year. Growing up I always looked forward to summer and now I still do. It's not like I get a break from work or anything...I do think it would be nice to be a kid again sometimes!

This year has been full of trips. Dan and I love to travel and we try and do as much traveling as we can fit in. In April we went to Seattle with our friends Adrienne and Glenn. We normally travel with just the two of us, but it was so fun to have another couple with us! They love to eat and drink (in moderation of course) just as much as we do so it worked out well and we all had a blast. Seattle has great weather despite what Grey's Anatomy shows. It was sunny and cool the entire time! The food is amazing and we tried to eat as much as we could. I think we had appetizers for breakfast, then breakfast, then dessert after breakfast, mid morning snack, appetizer to lunch, lunch...you get the drift. Again, the food in Seattle is AMAZING!! Dan and I worked out really hard when we got home...the food was worth it!

For the 4th we went to Cabo with our friends, Jamie and Dana. We had never been to Cabo before but I was very impressed! It was nice to get away and do nothing but lay by the pool and relax!

In a couple of weeks we head out for a Baltic cruise. I'm super excited about this trip and we bought a fancy camera that we are going to try to figure out how to use.

Puppy Photo Shoot

Yesterday I decided that I needed to take some pictures of our adorable dogs, Dylan and Bella, for our Christmas cards. We have two and they are the greatest dogs on the planet! We love them to pieces and they always entertain us. I thought it would be cute to put bows around their neck. We recently got new couches and we don't let the pups on them, but I allowed it for the pictures. They sat there an didn't move...the pictures almost look like mug shots. They were so funny because they didn't do anything!


So they sat there for atleast 10 minutes just letting me take pictures. So then I decided to pull out some costumes. I DID NOT make these costumes, they were given to me years ago. We sometimes put them on the dogs for a good laugh. We think it's hilarious...they don't....