Back from Vacation

We are back from our melting vacation in Texas. Oh my goodness was it hot. The day we got in it was 109!! That's ONE. HUNDRED. NINE. DEGREES!!!! WHEW!!! I am just not made for that kind of heat anymore at all. I have been out of Dallas for almost 7 years. And this trip home reminded me why!!!!!

On the upside, Jennifer and I got to go walking/jogging for a couple mornings while in Dallas before the temps hit the 90s.

I got to have a big party on Saturday night with different friends from high school, Fry's, and my family. I spent time with my family first because I knew that they would be leaving first. Thankfully, there were people that knew each other in each of the little "cliques" and they were able to converse with each other while I flitted from group to group. I had a great time. Everyone brought amazing food. I got some great little gifts from friends and family! I think we had about 30, maybe a few more, people at my bff's house. Her and her husband were great to let us have the get together there. Jennifer and my bff and I cleaned up the whole house and yard the day of the party and got everything ready. Then I mixed up and seasoned about 40 something hamburgers, which my loverly wife was gracious enough to grill up once people started showing up.

Me and my loverly wife 

My step-dad, uncle, and aunt

My friend Sabrina, her bf, and an old friend, Tony

My mom

Benjamin, Clint, Larry, Jason, and his wife

Me & Lety

Jennifer and Spammy

Sunday we went out and hung out with my godmother and her husband and daughter. I haven't seen them in over a year and it was nice to sit around and chat. Jennifer got to voice her opinions and I once again confirmed that fact that I am a total other breed of person that my siblings! It felt great!! haha

Monday I got to meet up with my awesome bloggy friend, Julie. Our kids hung out in the children's reading area and we sat in the cafe of B&N and chatted for a while. It was really great to see her and talk to her, IN PERSON. I just love that girl. And then we got some photos to commemorate the visit with us and with the kids. Once again, my loverly Jennifer acted as photo ninja and snapped some pictures.

Me and Julie outside Barnes & Noble

too bright to pose for pictures

L and Bucket and Ironman

chatting about a dinosaur book

Julie takes her coffee seriously, she brings her own cup

And then, Monday afternoon, we picked up my nephews and got on our way to South Texas...I will blog a bit more about that next time. Now...I have to do laundry! So, I leave you with one last picture of the kiddos in the car as we are headed out of town!!

Countdown

It's been a while since we have had a good countdown on the blog. And now...we are in the last days of a good countdown! We are going on our first big flight required family vacation. We are taking a week and going down to  Dallas and Corpus. We are going to see my friends and family in Dallas for a couple days and stay with my best friend like I always do. We are planning on having an adult double date night out on the town the first night we are there. The second night we are having a BBQ birthday bash for ME with a bunch of my different friends, along with some of my family. Our Sunday and Monday are totally wide open and I am hoping to get some visiting time in with my good friend, Julie. And then we are heading down to Corpus and Padre to get our beach on. We are taking my nephews with us for their first ever vacation. They have only ever been away from the house two nights in their whole lives and they are 7 & 9 years old. Lorelli is sooo looking forward to hanging out with her cousins and going to the beach and swimming in the ocean. We are also planning on catching a baseball game while we're down there. It is a pretty low-key vacation with not too many big plans. Mostly just relaxing and hanging with friends.

But MAN - Could it JUST get here ALREADY?!?!

What's up, Buttercup?

So, here I am. Posting two days in a row. On my new bloggy. And I am so happy about it. What do you guys think about it? It took me QUITE some time to get the colors and the setup JUST so. I am not saying it won't change a little bit here and there, but for the most part....I am happy with it. Super happy with it, actually. And I love that Blogger now lets you have static pages to add to your blog. That was always an awesome Wordpress specialty. :)

So....the last time I posted anything was on Valentine's Day. WHOA! That was forever ago. Soon after that we went to New York City for the first time. You may remember me mentioning that to you a WHILE back. If not, that's okay, too. We DID go to the City. And we did have a lot of fun. We were able to find an AMAZINGLY cheap "bed and breakfast" type place - less the breakfast...it was only ninety bucks a night as opposed to upwards of 150 a night. It was a cute little place - we had the floor to ourselves. Normally we would have had to share the bathroom and the kitchenette with the other guests on the floor, but there was no one else while we were there, so we had it all to ourselves.

We walked A TON!!! We were staying on the top side, just a couple blocks north of Central Park and we walked everywhere. One morning we walked all the way down to Rockefeller Center. We did the sight seeing thing. We saw Yankee Stadium, American Museum of Natural History, Times Square, Toys R Us, The M&M Store, the Statue of Liberty, and even some impromptu break dancing on the Subway.

We purchased a lightweight little stroller to take with us on the trip because we knew we would probably be doing more walking than Lorelli's little legs could handle...and man were we right!!! That was probably one of the best $20 we have ever spent on her. When we weren't using it, the stroller hooked to our backpack very easily. And when the munchkin got tired....we unhooked it and strapped her into it and away we went.

We even did A BUNCH of thrift shopping. It was sooo awesome. We found a thrift store that was doing a bag sale. Everything you could fit into a big grocery bag - only cost a dollar. It ROCKED our socks! I am telling you. We LOOOVE us some thrift shopping...and to be able to do it in NYC - Jennifer got a pair of Lucky Brand jeans for, like, FIFTEEN BUCKS!!!! WHOOOOAAAA!!!

We were there for 4 days and I wish we could have spent 4 more before having to come back home. The last thing we did, before heading home on that last day was to walk through an open air flea market in Union Square and get some ice cream. We figured it was the perfect ending to the perfect vacation!!!!