Friday

  I hope you all are as excited for the weekend as I am!  It seems like it has been an incredibly long few weeks.  I have been on a writing hiatus due to finishing school, trying to stay on top at work, and be able to eat every day!!  OK I am over exaggerating I wasn't that busy, but it seemed like it.  I am going to have to start a few weeks back, because it has been a whirlwind of activity.  About five weeks ago Chris got a new job, with the company he used to work for, a week after starting they put him on a project in Greenville, South Carolina. Then bam he was gone! Well he had a week to get everything sorted out and get up there.  He left April 22nd and will be in Greenville for 6-8 months then Malaysia a year.  Since he had to move so quickly, I kindly volunteered to watch the little girls.  Even though its lonely with out him I have the girls to keep me entertained....how could you say no to those faces??

The upside to Chris moving is his company fly's him back every three weeks, or I can fly up and visit him, hello Greenville SC here I come!  After Chris left it was a long week of work, studying, and finishing up projects for work and class.  That weekend I took the girls and headed to College Station for some much needed sister time!  It was an awesome weekend, Friday night we watched an Aggie Baseball game.  They just redid the stadium, it was very impressive.  The best part was the baseball games were just as much fun as when I was in school, and we beat Texas...so no big deal.  :)  After the game we grabbed a bit to eat, showered and headed out to Northgate for a little action.

The next morning Christy had to go to work so I was super lazy and did nothing but read and study...it was glorious!  Once she got off work we head to the gun range so she could shoot my new handgun.  Even though we didn't have much time to shoot before they closed, we still had a good time.  That evening we went to dinner at Roadhouse and had another round of Northgate.  Turns out I am getting old and this staying up late thing that college kids do is really hard for me!!  Needless to say I was exhausted Sunday.  Since Christy had school and work I head back to Houston to relax and get ready for the next week.  With Chris gone I acquired a lot of spare time, therefore I have really been focusing on working out and eating healthy!  I have Crossfit every M,W,F at 5 a.m., Tuesday/Thursday I go to my regular gym to swim, and MW nights is yoga!  I think I just love working out.  Crossfit has been pretty brutal, but I am getting stronger and I love the challenging workouts.

Cino de drinko was this last weekend and hopefully everyone got to celebrate appropriately with a margarita in hand.  Chris was back in town that weekend and we both headed to College Station.  Five years ago one of Chris friends from college passed away so every few years a group of his buddies get together and go back to visit his grave.  That was the reason we went back.  It was a nice long weekend of visiting with friends and hanging out with Christy.  Sunday we were back in Houston and Chris was on a plane back to SC.  Then it was nose to the grindstone for me.  My final for Financial Accounting was Tuesday night and I needed to do some studying.  I haven't received my grade, but I feel fairly confident about the test, we shall see.

Since this class I have decided it is important for me to get my MBA.  If I can make the deadline (June 1st)  I will be starting in the fall, but if not I will begin in the Spring.  I am pretty excited, I miss school and am ready to get back to it.  I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, and to all those wonderful mothers out there Happy Mothers Day.  Hate to break it to the rest of the world, but my moms the best...period.  Love you mom.

Until Next Time...    

     

Paris and other adventures

Sorry for the long hiatus, the last two weeks were incredibly busy.  It all started the weekend of March 24th.  That Saturday Chris, Darleen, and I head up to Dallas for our friends James and Meghan wedding.  I was very excited because he was a key member of our college group, so it was practically a college reunion!  We arrived just before the wedding.  It was beautiful wedding and we all had a blast at the reception. 

The next week and weekend were a blur and before I knew it I was getting packed to head to Paris, France.  I found an inexpensive direct flight and decided it time to get out of the country.  Chris and I decided that six days in Paris would be to long so the first two were spent in Bruges Belgium and the last four days were spent in Paris.  Tuesday after work we sprinted to the airport to catch the nine and a half to Paris.  The flight actually wasn't bad, but it might have been because I spent the whole time reading.

Once we landed in Paris we took a train to Bruges.  Unfortunately with all travel there has to be some issue, our train ended up getting delayed for 1 hour and 45 minutes.  Bruges was a beautiful little town all though extremely cold.  We spent the rest of the afternoon wondering around town checking out all the little shoppes. There were probably 300 chocolate shops in a 700 yard radius!  Hello heaven.  While wondering around we found a neat little underground pub and stopped in for a drink.  After that we had dinner and then crashed out.  The next morning we were up early to meet a group for a bike ride through Bruges and to another city.  We rode through Bruges out of town and had Belgium waffles at a town not to far away.  It was a beautiful ride with rolling green hills, little farm cottages, canals, and windmills. 

After the bike ride we took a boat ride down the canals in the city.  Friday we headed back to Paris via train.  The next four days were packed full of walking around Paris and seeing the sights.  Disclaimer: if you have your heart set on visiting Paris do not read the following.  I was not impressed with Paris.  I know it sounds jaded or who knows what, but I wasn't.  It was crowded, cold, busy, and disappointing.  It was like New York except everyone spoke French.  I really dislike crowds, tourist, and lines and that is all Paris was.  The lines were incredibly long, its a huge city so you walk for miles and then stand in line for hours.  No don't think the whole trip was a bust there are a few good things about Paris.  The main one being the bread....hello I have no idea how the people stay thin over there. (well its probably all the walking, smoking, and coffee drinking) There are cafes and bakeries on every corner, with fresh hot french bread, chocolate croissants, and crepes!  I think all I ate there were nutella crepes, french bread, and chocolate croissants.  It was glorious oh and the wine was excellent, most of the days we ended drinking wine in a little cafe. 

Even though it wasn't my favorite vacation I still got to see everything I wanted to see and have some time away from work. I hope everyone had a wonderful few weeks.  Enjoy the weekend!

Train ride to Bruges

Town Square in Bruges

Canals in Bruges

Sweet little underground pub

Millions of chocolate stores...no wonder everyone was happy

Arch de Triumph

Eiffel Tower

Sacre Coeur Basilica

Waiting in line...

The catacombs

The army museum

Nortre Dame

Palace of Versailles

Marie Antoinettes Farm house

Where she was held before her beheading

The Louvre

Until next time...

Tory

Spring Break

Spring Break has come and gone in the blink of an eye.  Even though I wasn't on vacation this year, I still had a blast because Christy was in town.  Christy arrived Tuesday afternoon with her dogs in tow, once we got everything unloaded and set up it was time for dinner.  I made chicken lettuce wraps, so we relaxed ate dinner and talked.  We were both pretty exhausted from our long day so we decided to rent a movie and stay in.  We rented Immortals which is a movie about the Greek myth, The Bow of Epirus and the Gods of Olympus.  Once the movie was finished I went straight to bed I still had to get up at 4:30 for Crossfit.

Wednesday after work Chris, Christy, a co-worker and I headed out to the local indoor gun range.  I want Christy to become familiar with pistol shooting so she can get her concealed handgun license when she turns 21.  I just bought a new handgun so we were going to give it a try.  Little did I know this range doesn't allow anyone under 21 to shoot with out a parent.  The boys stayed and shot for an hour while Christy and I check out the local SPCA.  The SPCA is a huge animal shelter in Houston, I am sure Uncle James would have loved this trip.  :) After we visited the shelter we went to marble slab and enjoyed a delicious ice cream in the awesome spring weather!  

Thursday after work I headed straight home to pick up Christy for our night at the rodeo.  Once I picked her up we headed downtown to catch the metro.  Traffic is usually terrible in that area so its easiest to ride the light-rail to reliant stadium.  Since it was spring break the place was packed with tons of families and kids, not my ideal setting, but we still had a blast.  We checked out the animal exhibits and watched some cattle shows.  For dinner we each grabbed something different from the food area and then headed to the carnival.  I was pretty excited about the carnival because last year Chris and I cleaned up there.  Apparently I bragged to much about my skills and ended up failing miserably at every game.  One guy must have felt bad because he still gave me a prize!  Christy brought her skills and ended up winning Betsy the cow! Once we exhausted our tickets we headed in to watch the rodeo.  The rodeo was very entertaining, afterwards Jason Aldean a Nashville country star performed.  I didn't realize how many songs he had that I really liked.  Even though we were dead exhausted we still wanted to ride the Ferris wheel, so we did.  After an enjoyable ride we head back to the metro for our ride home.

Waiting for the Metro

Biggest longhorn I have ever seen

Our winnings

Rodeo time

Betsy and Christy on the Ferris Wheel

Health and Science Museum

Thankfully Fridays Crossfit had been canceled so I was able to sleep in until 630! After work Christy and I went to the little pizzeria near my house and had a slice of coal fired pizza for lunch.  Since Christy is a health and science major we decided to go check out the Houston Museum of Health and Science.  It was a lot of fun, they had quite a few interactive exhibits.  Even though it was geared towards a younger audience we still learned a few new things....or at least I did!  Since it was about time for everyone else to get off work we met up with Chris, Caleb, and some friends at a sushi place for happy hour. After Sushi we walked over to a patio bar and had some drinks and hung out for a while.  Since it had been a long week we all ended up going home around ten.  

Saturday just so happened to be St. Patty's day, so what other way to celebrate then dress up in your best green attire and drink green beer.  Christy and I slept in a bit, so around 11 we met everyone at Guadalajara for some Mexican food.  I know it was St. Patty's day, but we just wanted some good Mexican food.  We wanted to go see 21 jump street, but the next showing wasn't until 3 so we walked down to a local bar and listened to some good ol Irish music for a while.  The movie turned out to be pretty funny, I haven't laughed that hard at a movie in a long time. Since Christy and I ate junk food all week, we decided to detox and have a salad at Barnaby's for dinner.  After dinner we ended going home and going to bed, we were le tired.  Sunday it was back to the real world for all of us.  After breakfast Christy packed up and headed back to CS.  I cleaned, cooked, and got ready for the new week.  

St Patty's Day

Have a great week

Until next time...

Monday Again

Well folks its Monday again, for those of you that are retired its just another day in the life.  For the rest of us only four more days until the weekend!  This past weekend was the Spring Time change so losing that  hour can really affect getting up on Monday morning. Thankfully with Crossfit as a motivator I have no choice but to spring out of bed at 4:30 a.m. with a smile on my face..ok maybe I am exaggerating a little bit.  It was more like roll out of bed onto the floor because every muscle in my body was still aching (thank you Friday Crossfit work out) and crawl into the bathroom.  Blind myself with the light, fumble around until I can find my glass and drag myself to the car!  Either way about ten minutes into the workout I am wide awake!

This week is spring break for most so I will have Christy in town visiting!!  I am super excited we have tons of fun stuff planned.  First and foremost I must catch up on the exciting events of the last few weeks.  Two weeks ago I hopped on a plane and head to south Texas to check out our new facility in Gardendale, TX.  This is about 80 miles south of San Antonio and remote and desolate as you can imagine.  It is also very close to the boarder so safety can be a concern.  The facility is in the finishing stages so my boss and I went to insure that we could get the rack system on line and get a few kinks worked out.  It turned out to be a lot more work that we anticipated, but by the end of the week we got some of the basic necessities up and running.  It was a good trip, but long days with the 1 and1/2 hour drive to and from the facility.

That weekend was a busy one with the Rodeo BBQ Cook-off.  The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is quite an event in Houston, if you don't do anything all year, you are guaranteed to at some point to go to the rodeo.  The BBQ cook-off is the opening weekend of the rodeo, it kicks everything off.  There are probably 200 different tents that teams set up and cook tons of BBQ.  Most of the teams sell tickets to their tents and the participants get unlimited BBQ and booze.  Chris and I went both nights with a group of friends, we started off the evening in the tent enjoying some good ol BBQ and music and then would finish off the evening with a trip around the carnival.  By Sunday I was worn out, but need to get packed for a trip to Colorado.

BBQ Cook Off

Now lets get this straight first off, I am not, never have, and never will be a fan of the cold, snow, or anything that resembles winter.  I am a humidity, heat, and sun loving Texan, so you Northerners can keep all of this nasty winter stuff.  Even though I despise all of that nonsense, I figured a trip to Colorado in Feb/March would be a great idea...what was I thinking?  Well a group of friends wanted to go snowboarding, and since its been a while I was all in.  I just forgot that snowboarding generally involves tons of snow!  I had two and 1/2 busy days of work and then headed north-west for Colorado.  Chris and I flew from Houston to Denver to met the rest of the group, we then drove to Colorado Springs to get the last straggler.  Thursday morning we drove up to Monarch Mt for three fun filled days of snowboarding.  Thursday and Friday it was snowing, and blowing wind with temperatures in the teens, by the first run I was buried in 3 ft of powder, freezing and so over this trip!  Then I decided I had three more days and I was going to make the best of it no matter how cold it was!  After a few runs to it was slowly coming back everything became less stressful and more enjoyable.  Even though the weather was less then ideal, the mountain was great because no one was there.  Saturday brought some sun and the crowds, thankfully with Monarch being small we never had to wait in lift lines or really have to deal with other skiers/snowboarders.  All in all it was a much needed trip, I was able to relax and enjoy some peaceful time on the side of a beautiful mountain.

It was just a wee bit chilly

The group

We arrived back home around midnight Sunday and before I knew it my alarm was telling me it was time to start another crazy hectic week.  Monday and Tuesday were busy trying to get caught up from the few days I missed, in my spare time I was studying for an Accounting Exam!! Thankfully Wednesday rolled around and I was able to relax for a few minutes.  Thursday Chris and I went to an A&M MBA informational, it was very interesting and got me excited about going back to school. The plan is to save some money and get started in the fall of 2013! After the informational we went to our favorite little wine bar and had a bottle of wine, cheese, bruschetta, and crackers.  This weekend was uneventful due to the buckets of rain that poured for three straight days.  Therefore I stayed home, read a few books, cooked some pulled pork, and played board games with the guys. I hope you all have a wonderful week and for those on Spring Break enjoy it!!

Until Next time..