Austin Mini-Vacation

 This past weekend Chuck and I drove down to Austin for a few days. My best friend was visiting her family there, and I wanted to see her since she was so close! It had been almost two years since I had seen her! Our trip started off pretty rocky and we left hours later than planned. But we still had a good weekend!

Friday morning we met with Shawna and her husband Ryan for breakfast/lunch. After chit chatting for awhile at IHOP, Shawna wanted to go shopping. So we scoped out a decent mall to hang out at! It also had a darn nice view of the city!

 After our visit with my friend we spent the rest of the day shopping and then watching the hockey game at a bar. Since we were in Austin I just had to visit one of Texas only two Archiver's. I had saved all of the money I received for my birthday from my family to spend here, and boy did I have a good time. And Chuck was a great sport about it! He followed me arround holding my basket while playing his game boy lol.

The next morning we went to check out the capital building before heading back to Dallas. It was much bigger than I had expected! We went inside and got to wander around even. The Senate and House of Representatives areas are open to the public at all times. Even when in session you can go in and watch and listen. The building was very neat!

 Then we headed home. We stopped to get a few geocaches a long the way to help break up the trip. We had a really good time and lots of fun!

Texas De Brazil

Recently it was my birthday. And for my birthday some of my coworkers did something awesome for me. At lunch time I was surprised with a cute bright blue balloon with some candy in a mug, and a gift card to Texas De Brazil! I was totally blown out of the water here! So surprised and delighted! I felt so appreciated by my friends and coworkers. My boss Scott always talks about how great this place is, and for the longest time I thought it was called Texas State Brazil. On the gift card he crossed out the De and wrote in State lol.

So tonight I put that gift card to use! Chuck and I went down to the Texas De Brazil in Addison. I think he was more excited than me!

First you eat at the salad bar which has over 50 items they say. They were all unique items too. Olive salad, fresh cheeses, marinated mushroom, sushi, shrimp, salmon, lobster bisque, and various other items. After you were done with the salad bar you were to get "meat". You had this little paper coin per person at your table. One side was green, one was red. Every time you wanted meat you flipped over the coin to the green side. Waiters with suers of different meat would walk around and drop some off at your table. Chuck was in HEAVEN! The picanha was my favorite!

We even had desert. Our wonderful waitress, Gina, heard Chuck mention this was my birthday dinner. She brought out my desert, creme brulee, with a pink candle in it. It was very nice! We had an awesome time!

The other day I had our front window open early in the morning. Bailey just had to be on my lap or leaning on the windowsill at all times. She loves being outside or looking out the windows. So I decided to mess around with my camera and take a few pictures. I'm trying to get better at using my macro function and taking close ups. I'm also not the best at taking pictures of moving subjects like people or animals, so it was good practice. Bailey and Lilly love the camera, and as soon as Lilly heard me taking pictures she came running. Rylie however has not mastered the art of being a good subject. I got zero photos of her!

Anyways, here are some of my favorites. Thanks for looking! :)

It's my birthday!...or was.

So on my birthday last Saturday, Chuck said we could do anything I wanted. I settled on going to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens and a hockey game. Well, unfortunately for us we were playing the Flyers, which we almost never play, so the tickets were expensive! So plan B...the Zoo and the Gardens! Except it was Spring Break...and the had people parking in a park half a mile away. The cars were all in the grass and what not. So, we decided to just do the Gardens.

I was a little disappointed by what was in bloom. I think I expected more. We did love the Japanese Garden. it was our favorite I think. The rose garden looked like it would be beautiful in a couple of weeks. Overall we decided we liked the Dallas Arboretum a bit better, but they are both nice. I got a lot of great pictures!

200 year old Pecan Tree

Chinese Snowball Tree

Japanese Gardens

Wisteria

Last weekend was the Dallas Home and Garden Show in Arlington.I had to work one of the shifts for my work place's booth, but it wasn't too bad. It was much larger than last year. I think that was mainly because it was held at the new Cowboy's Stadium where the Super Bowl just was. They had the whole field plus some filled with booths and such. We got to walk around under the stadium too, which my coworker Jason just loved!

Ty Pennington from Trading Spaces and that home makeover show was there. I didn't get to get close up but it was neat to see him. He was doing a meet and greet and answering lots of questions. He was around for about 30 minutes. Here's a picture from the stands of the field with the booths, and Ty is on the big TV screen. A guy there told us that is the largest one in the world!

This was my first time in the stadium and I do say it was quite impressive! It would be fun to go to a game there and see it all opened up!

Winter Snow Storm 2011

Parking lot full of ice!

This past week has been awful as far as weather is concerned here in Dallas. It started out as freezing rain early Tuesday morning. Usually that's no big deal for me here because they usually blow the winter weather out of proportion. Texans really aren't used to having too much snow or ice. However on Tuesday I woke up and there was so much ice, I couldn't even move my car! The parking lot of our complex looked like an ice skating rink. The grass was frozen and there was even ice up on our second story landing, which is covered. It made it difficult to open the door, and the poor puppies did not like going out in it at all!

On the second day, Wednesday I was able to get my car out, but got it stuck on Josey, and then again in the apartment complex at the bottom of a hill. We watched lots of cars sliding around and some even hitting other cars. On the third day my boss, Scott, was nice enough to come get me and give me a ride to and from work. While I was at work Chuck was able to get the car unstuck. He made a run to the grocery store and said it was still very dangerous out!


 Yesterday was the forth day of the "Winter Storm 2011", thats what the news is calling it. Early in the morning it snowed hard core! I think there was about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground when I left for work. The snow made it great for me to drive in, providing lots of traction. However other people were sliding all over. The worst part was that people would freak out and stop moving, lots of times on a big hill. This would cause a lot of other people to stop and get stuck. One of my co-workers ended up ditching his truck trying to avoid an accident right in front of him. 

The main road I drive on to go to work.

The main fun started when I got home that day. They were nice enough to let myself and Emily off early since the roads were getting worse. It took me about 45 minutes to make the 15 minute drive, and the roads were no longer snow covered, but back to ice as the slush from the cars was freezing. The real worry here in Texas for us northerners isn't the roads, but the Texans that are driving on them haha. They almost never see snow, let alone inches of ice on the roads. And we are far from equipped to deal with maintaining the roads. I heard they had brought in lots of plows and sand trucks from some of the western cities in Texas. But they refuse to use salt because of the erosive effects on the road. Anyways, what did we do when I got home? Take the dogs out of course! They had a blast in it! Bailey kept burring her face in the snow and digging at it. Rylie just wanted to eat every little bit of it. We would throw snowballs at her and she would try to catch them with her mouth! She also would chase the snowballs as if they were a tennis ball, and then eat them up when she found where it landed.

Project 365: Day 8 - Geocacher

Yet another geocaching pic! This is Chuck finding on of the many TCCVB caches. This one was near a water park that is really close to home. I didn't even know it was there!