BEST CONCERT EVER!!!!

$100 concert ticket
10 hours in the car
2 hour walking tour of down(dead)town Dallas
$40 concert t-shirt
Girl Time and an Awesome Concert = PRICELESS!!!

NO DOUBT STILL KNOWS HOW TO ROCK!!!!!

3 girlfriends and I traveled to Dallas this weekend to see No Doubt & Paramore in concert.

BEST CONCERT OF MY LIFE!!!

The band was not promoting some new album, so they played all their best hits. We sang and danced right along with everyone else in the crowd. The band really knows how to play for the fans.
Paramore put on a great show as well. I think Paramore & No Doubt are two of the few bands that sound even better live...(i.e. The Killers)
We girls all had an amazing No Doubt experience and agreed it was totally worth the trip!!!



Such an amazing concert!
~~~

Uber-Awesome Wife

Finally...... I won the UBER-AWESOME WIFE Award....at least my husband says so.

I always fret about what to do or get my hubby for birthdays and holidays because he is so hard to buy for. Seriously. If there is something that he wants, he just goes and gets it. He doesn't really have many hobbies; for the few hobbies that he does have, he already has all the gear he needs or wants.
So this year I went out on a limb and created a day for him to do something that he had mentioned on occasion that he thought would be fun, but never took the time to do anything about it.

Before we headed out for Bobby's birthday dinner on Friday night, I gave him his gift. He unwrapped the box with intense curiousity. Inside the box was a jersey, goggles, and a pair of gloves.... He looked strangly at the items and said, "this is stuff for a dirt bike right?"
I just smiled.
With a confused expression he asked, "Did you get me a motorcycle?"
I replied, "Now that would be a silly thing for me to do, wouldn't it?"
He quickly agreed.
So as I explained to him that I had rented him a dirt bike at a trail park near Marble Falls, his eyes lit up and he was smiling from ear to ear.
He exclaimed, "So that's what I'm doing all day tomorrow!!!"
I went on to tell him the best part was that a few of his friends would be going with him. Two guys who already have dirt bikes, and two more who had rented as well. He was just like a little boy on Christmas morning who had just got exactly what he wanted. He then opened up the big box that I had hidden. He pulled out the full set of dirt bike gear and could not make himself stop smiling.
That smile lasted through dinner and for the rest of the evening......

For his birthday dinner Bobby chose a French place in downtown Austin that has been around for many years, but neither of us had ever tried. Chez Nous is very cute and cozy (read small) so if you want to try it for dinner, get there by 7:00. We did and got right in, but it is known to have a wait most nights. Oddly enough, it is very popular with the grey-headed crowd. First of all, I can't believe that many older people put up with the ridiculous, non-existent parking in that area. Second, this restaurant is located next door to a sex shop, and across the street from the infamous Coyote Ugly. Just one of those factors alone would be enough to deter any grandparents I know from frequenting that restaurant on Friday and Saturday nights, no matter how magnificent the food.
The food does deserve to be mentioned. For apps we had a salad and some salmon pate, both tasty. I had the delicious salmon special....I gobbled down the large serving with no problem. Bobby had a tenderloin steak, and even though he said it was a bit overcooked for his taste, he cleaned his plate. For dessert we shared a chocolate mouse....YUM!

After dinner, we stopped at the Thirsty Nickel for a drink and reminisced about his big milestone birthday party just one year before.... (good times!)
Then we headed home. Honestly, I think Bobby was just excited to get home and try on all his dirt bike gear. :-)

Saturday morning Bobby bounced out of bed and jumped in the shower. I was nearby brushing my teeth and I heard him giggle. I looked at him and asked, "Did you just giggle?"
He smiled and said, "I'm going dirt bike riding today."
I replied, "So that was a giggle."
He just kept smiling.

One of his friends came to pick him up and drive him out to meet the group. They had venison breakfast tacos and headed out for their day of adventure. About 8 hours later they made it back to our friends house where all the wives had been happily hanging out for the day.
We heard all their stories about the cold, the wrecks, the races...they laughed at each other all night. Bobby's smile had apparently been contagious because they all had grins from ear to ear all evening.
We had a feast of wild game, all kinds of dips, and birthday cake. We got competitive playing couple games and ended the night with missing drunk husband (thankfully not mine). The husband was eventually found and we all headed home to crash after a long day.

Sunday morning Bobby got up at 5:00am and headed out to go hog hunting with another group of friends. For which he caught no crap from me, because I met some friends for brunch to celebrate one of our girls completing her first 1/2 marathon. Then we spent some girl time at the mall, and somehow I managed to leave with just one item: the Twilight soundtrack :-)

When Bobby got home from his Sunday adventure he told me that I win the Uber-Awesome Wife award. I am so happy I was able to both surprise him and make him so utterly happy.

Well Crap.....now how the heck am I ever going to top that?!?!?!
~~~

time to get into the Holiday spirit!

I am so glad its finally Friday!!! It's been a long couple of weeks! And BONUS: Next week is a short one!!!
I have big plans to get the house all decorated with Christmas stuff this weekend. It's actually kinda early for me, but since we are going to be traveling so much in the next month I have to get it done this weekend - our ONLY free weekend until next year! Honestly, I would have probably just skipped the Christmas decor this year, or at least opted for a scaled down version.... But since the Girls Christmas Party will be at my house, I'm going all out. It has to be even extra cute!
I am getting everything out and up this weekend, so that next weekend I can go shop the after Thanksgiving sales and get more for my $$$. This way I will have an idea what I already have so I don't end up buying a bunch of duplicate stuff.

Tonight my sister and I are planning to do some damage at the Jr.League's A Christmas Affair at the Palmer Event Center. I am sure I will complete my Christmas shopping there tonight!
This will be our 3rd year to go. I remember the 1st year we went....
She & I started out early on a Saturday morning with a plan to get all of our Christmas shopping done that day. We can always help each other out because we shop for some of the same people. After long hours on Brodie and at Barton Creek Mall, frustrated we gave up with very few check marks on our lists. We were done trying to find gifts for others, so we decided to go to the Jr.League event just for fun.
We grudgingly paid the $7 to park, and then the $10/person to enter....since we were already there. But when we walked in the door it was like the Christmas spirit hugged us both. We floated down the isles as we easily found items for everyone on our lists....plus way too much for ourselves. When we realized the event was about to close for the night, our pace quickened and and we back-tracked to purchase the items we had been "thinking about."
Obviously I am really looking forward to getting my shop on with my sis tonight.
If you have not been to this yearly event, I HIGHLY recommend it.

A Christmas Affair Hours:
11/21 Friday 10am-9pm
11/22 Saturday 10am-7pm
11/23 Sunday 11am-5pm
You can park at the Palmer Event Center for $7, or at Barton Creek Mall and ride the shuttles for $3 round-trip.
~~~

Where did the Weekend go???

I had a really awesome weekend! It was over way too fast!

Friday night Bobby & I had our usual debate about dinner. We eat out often (too often - we know) and we get tired of the places around the corner from our house. If he lets me pick, 90% of the time it will be Mexican food. So Friday night we were headed to Chuy's until I mentioned Hooters shrimp....Bobby jumped on that idea since it was something besides Mexican.
Driving north on Mopac I realized just how glad I was that we had ventured outside of our little area. THE MOON WAS MAGNIFICENT! It was dark orange, low, and huge...just over the skyline of Austin. It was one of those moments you know will not happen very often. I only took my eyes off of it long enough to text a few people to tell them to check it out. It was absolutely beautiful.
Hooters was not great. I used to always love to go & get the buffalo shrimp. This time, not nearly as good as I remember. I only make it there once every few years....it will probably take a few more years until I'll try it again.

Saturday afternoon I met up with some friends at the Hill Country Galleria for lunch, girl time, and some serious shopping. We all found a few good deals and spent too much money on Christmas decor. :-) Some of the husbands met up at a bar in Austin for some live music.
While the rest of us were out shopping and listening to live music, Bobby was home slaving away in the kitchen. Don't feel too bad for him....he really enjoyed his afternoon cooking for friends. He cooked a "practice turkey" along with some sides in prep for next week when he will be cooking the turkey for my family's Thanksgiving meal. The food was all (of course) delicious.

After dinner we all rocked out to Guitar Hero World Tour. Most in the group were newbies, so it took us several tries to make it through a song and not get booed off stage. But once we all found our niche, we jammed through lots of songs we knew and even some we had never heard before.
Surprisingly Madison was the Rock Star of the night on the drums. She rocked those drums for over 5 hours straight! Very Impressive!
We were all wiped by 1 am...Madison and N even stayed over. I am pretty sure Madison's hubby did not believe her when she told him she was staying over due to too much GHWT.

Saturday morning we got up early and kicked the girls out about 6:30am. Bobby & I headed to San Antonio to watch my sister run a half-marathon. Not exactly something we were all fired up to do after a late night of drinkin' & rockin'.
We cheered for my sister at the 8 mile mark and again at the finish line. Then we waited for her to get through all the post-race stuff. We all had lunch on the riverwalk then split our separate ways. Sister headed home to re-coop. Bobby & I headed to the mexican market and browsed around for while before heading back home.
On the way home I thanked Bobby for pushing us to make it to the marathon. It was really cool to see my sister complete a goal she has been working toward for a while. It really made me wish I had not given up running & training with her.
This made me think back to when she and I first started running. It was about 2 years ago when I found a beginner runner training group to train for 5Ks and 10Ks. I forwarded the information to her and asked her to go with me to the information session. She was pretty hesitant, but I finally did talk her into just going and listening to the spill. While there they handed out separate sign up sheets for the 5K & 10K training groups. I told her I wanted us to sign up for the 10K...she was like NO WAY! I finally convinced her to just sign up for the 10K, with a promise that we didn't have to actually run the 10K, we could always just do the 5Ks. We training together for about 7 months and then ran the Cap10. I remember what a huge accomplishment we both felt afterwards. I am sure she felt that x 10 yesterday.

I am so proud of you sis!

~~~

T - G - I - F / Crazy Cats!

I am so glad it's FRIDAY! It's been one helluva week.
Good News is...our big dog does not have bone cancer...there is a lump that has formed due to torn ligaments.
Bad News is...he does have bone spurs and arthritis pretty much everywhere, and the specialist said his daily pain level is really high. That is crazy to us because he seems so happy. Poor Thing.

In honor of all of our beloved pets, and because its FRIDAY....I am sharing some funny pics of some CrAzY CaTs!!! Enjoy!

Time Change

I really HATE this time change. I freaking hate that it gets dark so early. I wish they would just leave it “daylight savings time” all the time.

I don’t care about it being sunny in the mornings…all I do is drive to work. The evenings are mine and I hate that they feel cut short with complete darkness by 6pm. I complain about it every year, and it really does me no good. Oh well, I’m not done yet…

I get annoyed at the people that love this time change just because they get to sleep in 1 extra hour, and then complain like crazy when they lose that 1 hour. Whatever. The time change happens on weekends...sleep in an extra hour that Sunday.

The ones who really irritate me are the people that act like losing that one hour screws them up for weeks. Give me a break people!

At least they lengthened the daylight savings time by one month starting last year….I do appreciate that...keep lengthening!!!

This time change is the official start of my winter depression. UGGGG! I won’t be coming out of this one until March '09.

Bring me the Sun & Summer Heat!

~~~

Saloon Girls??? WHERE???

Weekend in Review...

Friday night our girls group split in a few different directions. 2 went to the Jason Mraz concert, 2 went to the Brad Paisley charity event, 1 was moving from north to south Austin (about time!) and the rest of us hung with our honeys.

Bobby and I went to dinner with the couple that sealed the deal for our Costa Rica trip. We meet them a couple of months ago at a party and talked to them for hours about having kids, scuba diving, traveling, and their wedding-moon in Costa Rica 1 year ago. After talking to them we decided if we wanted to do an eco-adventure trip like Costa Rica, we should do it before we have have kids. Apparently everything changes when you have kids to drag along, and you start taking your vacations to Six Flags and Disney World.

Saturday was all about Halloween Party! We headed out to Spicewood early to prep for the party and for a pre-party. :-) We spent hours getting all dolled up with lots of dark makeup, faux lashes, lace, feathers, and fishnets. The time we spent getting ready was almost as much fun as the party itself!

One of my girlfriends summed up the party best in an email to the rest of us this morning:
Good times on Saturday night, not wild and crazy like last year (I personally think it's because Anna Nicole didn't make an appearance!!!), but still lots of fun and made some good memories! All you saloon girls ;) looked super hot (yeah, I was jealous!), T's cape rocked, and L worked that witch costume!!!! Props to the boys and their costumes too...watch out for those gold running shorts to make an appearance at Town Lake someday, hehe.

Ummm.....BTW K, we were NOT Saloon Girls! Geeezzz! There weren't any saloon girls at that party at all, I checked!!! We were Moulin Rouge Hotties -- get it straight!
just kidding K, I know you were not the one that had it sooo wrong! ;-)
There were lots of great costumes, but Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf took home the prize! Even with some minor drama, the party was a huge success! Our hosts did a fantastic job!

Sunday morning most of us made it out for breakfast at the lake. It was great to reconvene and laugh about the previous nights events. After breakfast I am sure that most did as I did....camped out on the couch for the rest of the day. Of course there are the troopers who made the most of the beautiful day for shopping, hiking, unpacking....

Overall it was an awesome weekend and some of us are already planning our costumes for next year's bash!
~~~

Awesome Husband!

I have such an awesome husband! He had my entire BirthDay planned out.

We got up yesterday morning and he told me to dress for kayaking after breakfast. Original plan was breakfast at Kirby lane, but an hour wait was not cool, so we improvised....7-11 for some powdered doughnuts and chocolate milk – my favorite BAD breakfast! YUM! YUM!
At Town Lake we ate our sugary breakfast then rented a 2 person kayak. We tooled around for awhile talking and looking at all the Turtles. It was nice and relaxing.

After a stop at home to shower and change we went to lunch at Eastside Cafe on Manor Road. I had never been before…I had heard the cafe has great food, and I was not disappointed.
My husband gave me a beautiful watch for my b/d so we went to the mall to have the size adjusted. We shopped around the mall for awhile (Plan C) since it was too freakin’ HOT outside for Plan A or Plan B. I guess he thought it would be a little cooler yesterday than it was.
Then we went to SoCo...walked down the street for a bit, but not many stores open since it was Labor Day, so we headed home. After a few minutes to relax we changed for dinner.
Dinner was at Green Pastures – WOW - SO AMAZINGLY GOOD!!!!
We were exhausted and stuffed after dinner so we went home and crashed!

The day was incredible…mostly because we just took the day to hang out together. :-)

~~~