Things I'm Thankful For - My Little Family Edition

I'm thankful for a lot this holiday season, but my little family is definitely the thing I am most grateful for.

It's so strange for me to be able to call my hubby and my puppy "my little family," but they truly are. I never would have thought that in a matter of two years I would be grown up enough to have a family of my own. My husband is a constant support system in my life. As my mom always tells me, he can calm me down and reason with me better than she ever could. He's my best friend and the best puppy daddy...and I know he'll make a great father one day! In the past two years we have grown so much together. We got married, bought a house, went on a few amazing trips, and of course adopted our little Buster.

Our wedding in January 2010, our one year anniversary in Napa, and our family trip to the Bahamas this summer

Who would have thought a little furry thing would change your life so much in all the best ways? My goodness, we love our Buster Boo (as I'm sure you can probably tell)! He'll be a year old in just a few weeks. We adopted him in February, and we're pretty sure he was around 2 months old at the time. Time really does fly!

I honestly think this dog was meant to be in our lives. He is so quirky, and we love him so much for that. Remember his strange addiction to hiding his bones around our house? Yeah, he still does that. At least he grew too big to be a piranha under our table. He likes to help me change the sheets by laying on them. And he steals our socks out of the laundry basket if we're ignoring him. Clearly it's his cry for attention. Why he doesn't just bark, I'll never know. My favorite thing about him though, is his wiggle butt dance. When we get home from work, he always greets us in the happiest way. And he does that for literally everyone that comes in the door. He's always so happy...I just love that little puppy!

Buster hiding his bones, helping with the laundry, hiding our socks, and cuddling with a toy

Happy Thanksgiving!

Advice for my soon-to-be married friends

This weekend I went to an engagement party for my sweet friend Allison. Allison lives in New York, so we don't get to see each other very often. Don't you love those friends you can go a year and a half without seeing, and when you finally do it's like absolutely nothing has changed? I'm really lucky to have a handful of wonderful friends like that. The party was beautiful. It was good to catch up with old friends, have a few drinks, and leave with two bags of candy.

How cute is this candy bar in the wedding colors?

 
After the party, her mom asked me if I had any advice for the soon to be married couple. Jordan immediately chimed in with "Let her have whatever she wants for the wedding!" I have to say, that is some pretty sound advice.

Such a happy day

Since I have so many good friends getting married in the coming months, I've actually been thinking about this exact topic lately. I don't consider myself to have tons of great marriage advice, but after thinking about it for a while here's what I've come up with.

Never go to bed angry.
This is one of the best pieces of advice we got before our wedding. It sounds so simple, but it truly is hard to do sometimes.

Create a hug pact. (Or something similar.)
Jordan had this idea a long time ago. Every morning before we leave for work, we make a point to hug each other. I know it sounds silly, but it's one of those things I love about our relationship.

Never use the word "divorce" in an argument. 
It's a low blow. Just don't do it.

Be honest.
Again, it sounds so simple. Honesty and trust are some of the most essential parts of being with someone. Whether you're married or just beginning a relationship, always make a point to be honest with one another about everything.  

Pick your battles.
Take a step back and put your argument into perspective. Do you really care enough about the pair of pants he left on the floor to not speak to each other for a week? Probably not. 

Keep your disagreements between you.
This is very hard for me to do sometimes, but it truly does strengthen your marriage. Complaining about your hubby to your friends just isn't worth it.


Can you think of anything else?

My crazy life lately

My goodness. Life has been absolutely crazy lately! Between teaching and this new puppy, I barely have time for anything. I'm so sleepy, this post will have to be in bullet points.

* Buster is growing fast. Generally he's a very cute puppy. Sometimes he does things like rip my pants, act like a piranha biting my toes from under the table, and dig holes in the yard. As of right now the cuteness outweighs the bad puppy-ness. Let's hope that sticks. haha

Top 2: being a cute little puppy.
Bottom 2: being a piranha

* Last Friday we decided to put our deep fryer to use and fry some eggplant, shrimp, and catfish. By "some" I actually mean a ton. It was a lot of fun though. Always fun to hang out with good friends, make dinner, and have a game night!

Such a fun game! If you haven't played it before, go buy it right now!

* Jordan was the best hubby ever and made me surprise french toast the next morning. I'm not sure he's ever cooked me a fancy breakfast like that before. He definitely gets a good hubby award for that!

SO YUMMY!!! I love breakfast food

* Saturday I was cleaning the house all day in preparation for a bridal shower at my house on Sunday. Somehow cleaning the house morphed into learning how to garden. Great idea at first (as most things like that are). THEN we realized we had no idea what we were doing. It took us literally all day, a lot of digging, a dog tied to our door, and 3 trash cans...but it turned out ok!

The garden before (well, actually before it got absolutely horrible)

So much better! Notice that the circle patch doesn't have a ton of grass in it anymore.
Digging that up was the horrible part!

* Sunday was the bridal shower at my house! Besides the inability to produce trash (because all of our cans were filled with grass and weeds and such), it went very well. Lots of good food and a champagne punch that went over very well. Congrats Rachele! Can't wait for your wedding!

Decorations and the bridal party! I forgot to take a picture of the food - oops!

* Speaking of weddings, I have some exciting news! I will be in 4 weddings this year. One this May, one next March, one next April, and one next June. My goodness, I'm excited!! I've never been in a wedding (except for my own), so I can't wait to have the bridesmaid experience times 4! Next March-June will be crazy, but oh-so-much fun!

* Apparently I'm chocolate dipping challenged. My niece's 1st birthday party is this weekend and I'm making cake balls. Tonight was the trail run, and I have to say - trying to dip them in chocolate = MAJOR FAIL. Hopefully the couple of tips I got tonight will make tomorrow's trail run (part 2) go ok. At least I have a few days to master this!

Something I hope never changes

Do you ever dance when no one’s watching? I do. All the time – while I’m cooking, or cleaning, or getting ready, or even watching TV. Apparently I’ve rubbed off on my hubby.

The other day I had on music in the kitchen while I was cleaning before people came over. Jordan grabbed me and started twirling me around. I’m not going to lie – this isn’t abnormal. Ever since I got a super cool kitchen ihome for Christmas, this probably happens once a week.

My new favorite toy!

I really hope the random kitchen dancing never changes.

Not in the kitchen, but you get the idea

In unrelated news, my puppy-doodle is getting a lot bigger. And developing a pretty strong personality. He’s sleeping through the night (I guess we can consider waking us up at 6am every day sleeping through “the night”), learning new tricks, and getting really smart. Seriously. He knows exactly what he’s not supposed to do in our house, and learned very quickly only to do those things when we aren’t looking or are ignoring him. Things such as eating shoes, my camera cord, and dirty laundry.

Who? Me?

The other day we took Buster over to meet his uncle and cousin (both of the dog variety). It was pretty funny. Even though they are both triple his size, Buster decided he was the king of the castle. He got in their bed, stole their toys, and had absolutely no problem holding his own. I have a feeling this is going to get interesting as he gets bigger...

They sure are big, but I can handle them!

Because of this, my hubby decided it was a good idea to start watching The Dog Whisperer. Sorry to break it to you honey, but watching half of an episode doesn’t make you Cesar Millan. Hopefully we can learn a few helpful tips anyway.

And just for fun, here are a few more cute pictures of my Buster!

Next up, my Mardi Gras checklist.

Introducing Buster!

Oh my goodness. I had a very long, unintended blogging hiatus! BUT I have a very good excuse. There's a new addition in my family taking up a lot of my time. His name is Buster and he's seriously the cutest puppy I've ever met.

Last weekend me and my hubby decided to go to an event hosted by our local SPCA that they called a Puppy Party. We weren't definitely planning on coming home with a puppy, but wanted to check it out and see what the event was all about. We've been wanting to get a puppy for some time now and had been seriously considering adopting. We knew we couldn't miss out on this event. Even though the timing in our lives isn't the best to be raising a new puppy, we kind of figured there would never be a perfect time.

There were over 40 puppies all under 3 months...how could you not have a great time just playing with that many sweet babies? There were pens set up with different litters of puppies, and the puppies kept rotating in and out of the shelter throughout the day. We were there for about 3 hours before we decided on this sweet guy. It was a big decision, but I'm so glad we ended up with a new family member!

 

All we know about him is that he is around two and a half months old. They told us he is a lab mix and then said he could maybe be a st. bernard mix...although we don't think either one of those are accurate. The more we look at pictures, he seems to look more like a beagle or a jack russell terrier. Who knows. All we know is that he is freaking adorable! I could go on and on about our first week with him. He has such a cute little personality already!

I love this little guy! To be honest I'm not sure why people DON'T adopt. He was only $150 and that included all of his booster shots, heartworm medicine for a month, and a bag of food. He's already neutered and he has a microchip. PLUS our first vet visit was free (he had worms and we needed to get that taken care of right after we got him).

He's mastered sitting before eating, getting in his crate at bed time (or when we're annoying him too much), barking at the door to go out to potty, and even knows to fake potty when he doesn't really need to. Here's a video of his new adorable trick:

I'm sure there will be much, much more to follow!

Our Trip to San Francisco and Napa

Sorry this has taken me so long to write! I had so much fun on this trip, and I figured that if I didn't wait a little bit I would end up rambling on and on about it. No matter what I do I won't be able to stop myself from making this long, so I apologize in advance!

For our one-year wedding anniversary, me and my hubby decided we wanted to take a trip. Being that our anniversary is in January, it was hard to come up with a place to go that wouldn't be ridiculously cold. After a lot of thinking, we finally settled on San Francisco for two days and Napa Valley for three. Neither one of us had ever been to California, so that in itself was exciting. We had a GREAT TIME!

Union Square and our beautiful hotel!

In San Francisco we got to see pretty much everything on our list. Our first day was foggy and rainy, but the second day was ABSOLUTELY beautiful. On day one we went to the Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. I absolutely love being near water, so I loved both of those stops. They are both must-sees in San Francisco! I was glad we walked by the Fisherman's Wharf around lunchtime, because I couldn't have passed up on eating one of those crabs! We had the famous clam chowder and a dungeness crab for lunch that day - one of the best meals I've had in a long time!

Pier 39 was pretty cool as well. We ended up on a non-so-famous pier across the harbor, which had a lot of great views and less people. Although we did have to make it to Pier 39 to see what those seals were all about (they were much cuter over there because they weren't so far away). PS: The seagulls in San Fran are HUGE! I was fascinated by them.

Our less famous pier, the seals at pier 39, a huge sea gull, and Alcatraz

We decided to buy a Muni pass which let us use every form of public transportation, including those famous cable cars. There was a lot of walking involved (and a lot of "hills" - being from flat country the hills were similar to mountains in my eyes). I was very excited to see the Painted Ladies from the opening credits of Full House! It was also a ton of fun to ride the cable car.

Pretty San Fran houses by our hotel, the Painted Ladies, riding the cable car, and one of the "hills" we hiked up

On our pretty day, we were able to take a bus to walk on the Golden Gate Bridge. My hubby is a civil engineer, so this was something he just had to see in person. Such a great experience!

We loved San Francisco a lot, but after two days of hiking up and down "hills," I was very ready for a trip to wine country! We rented a car to get there, which was definitely a good plan. We were able to visit 12 wineries in 3 days (don't judge - there's seriously nothing else to do there haha).

Our absolute favorite places were:
Paraduxx Winery - They had a very laid back atmosphere, passionate workers, and great wine. PLUS their wine has ducks on it which made me smile.
Domaine Chandon - They had beautiful grounds and good champagne. We went there in the morning of our anniversary day - great way to start the day!
Cakebread Cellars - My favorite wine hands down! They had AMAZING wine and very fun tour. They even have a room with corks installed in the ceiling...great idea.

Paraduxx, Domaine Chandon, and Cakebread

Beaulieu Vineyards - We stumbled on this one and they had some of our favorite wine. Very good!
Beringer Vineyards - I love their affordable wine, but I had no idea they had really great and expensive reserve wine (we tasted a bottle that was $115)! We did our tasting in a building that looked like a castle, and they gave us a skeleton key to go for a free tasting at another winery. Great experience!
Frog's Leap Winery - I loved this one because they used to be a frog farm and still have a farm atmosphere. The wine was good, but the tour was definitely what made this experience!

Beringer Vineyards, huge pine cones in a fireplace, our key to the next vineyard, and Frog's Leap

I was also very obsessed with the mustard that was growing in the vineyards. At this time of year all of the vines are dormant (meaning they look like sticks without leaves), BUT there are pretty yellow mustard flowers that grow throughout them. So pretty!

There is so much more I could say about this trip. I've always loved wine, but it was very interesting to get to learn so much about the process involved in making it. I now know so many random facts about winemaking that I know I will never forget. I won't be able to look at a bottle of wine the same way again! ALSO, I forgot to mention that we took corks from every winery we visited. Hopefully I'll be able to post a picture of my cork project in the near future!

It was a great time and I look forward to going back one day!

Curling up with a good book

I'm not a huge reader, but recently I've been getting into books written by celebrities I like. Yes, as my hubby will probably point out, the title of this post is very debatable. BUT when I read I tend to gravitate toward light and fun books that are easy reads...and are usually found in the "young adult" section of the store. I guess that kind of makes the "good" status diminish a bit, but I like them anyway!

It all started with the Lauren Conrad series (LA Candy), which was actually pretty good. Even though it wasn't a big stretch since it's about a group of girls getting their own reality show, it was interesting to read about what happens behind the scenes to make reality shows happen. It also made me really happy when she came to New Orleans for a book signing...and yes, those are peanuts behind her. It was in the middle of a Sam's Club and not a book store. I've always really loved LC.
PS: I was also very excited to find a Khol's on our trip so I could finally own something from her clothing line!

Anyway, a few months ago I heard that Hilary Duff was writing a novel as well. Seeing as I've loved her since her Lizzie McGuire days, I was very interested to see if this book would be good. I bought it right before our trip to California, and in record time for me, I was able to finish the book in just a day while we were traveling. I couldn't put it down! I'll leave it to you to see what it's about if you're interested...I don't want to give anything away. It was very good - and I can't wait for the next part to come out!

Next up, a post about our amazing one year anniversary trip to San Francisco and Napa Valley!

2010 in a Nutshell

2010 was a seriously interesting year of my life. So many big things happened, and as a result I grew up more this year than I think I ever have before. I learned a lot of life lessons; the most important being that no matter how hard you try, sometimes you just can’t change people’s minds. I also had a few pretty harsh lessons in not worrying about what other people think about you (no matter how many times I have had to go through this, it never gets any easier).

Since 2010 has come to a close, I wanted to use this post to reflect on the most important things to come out of this year.

January was the month I got married and went on an amazing honeymoon to St. Lucia. After over a year of planning every little detail, the big day came and it was seriously the best day of my life. People always say that your wedding day flies by and that you don’t remember half of what happened. Not me. I can still play the entire day in my head from start to finish (although the time spent on the dance floor dancing to songs like Party in the USA and Bye Bye Bye does seem a little bit blurry).

Our honeymoon was in St. Lucia, and it was an absolutely fabulous vacation! We saw a volcano, waterfall, mountains, and other breathtaking scenery. We ate so much wonderful food - on our last night we got to go to a restraunt at the end of a pier and listen to romantic Celine Dion music while dining under the stars. Jordan also convinced me to zip line in the jungle...I’ll probably never do it again, but it was a fun experience. Oh yeah, and we had a butler. I would give pretty much anything to go back right now (although we are heading to San Francisco and Napa Valley for our anniversary next week, so I guess that will do).

The Saints won the Superbowl!!!! Enough said.

My niece, Madelyn was born at the end of March. My hubby is her godfather and we are pretty in love with her. She lives in Houston, so we don’t get to see her much, but we cherish being able to spend time with her! She's just starting to crawl and say things like "ma ma." I wish she were closer so we could see her growing up every day!

One of my really good friends, Molly, had a baby boy named Hart at the end of April. He's such a cutie! He’s so active and fun to be around. I love being able to watch him grow up!

Right before school let out for the summer, my brand new husband got shipped to Mobile to work for BP. He was there for three months working on cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf. He found out that it might be an option for him one day while I was at work, and they asked him to leave the next day. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but we made it through! While he was gone I worked at a summer camp doing things like frog races, and learned how to cook fun things like lasagna. I also decided I was lonely and bought some fish named Dug and Kevin (from the movie Up). They died right before Jordan got home...guess they knew I wouldn't be lonely much longer?

In August I started working as a Kindergarten teacher. As much as I gripe about it sometimes, I absolutely love my job. There is no greater feeling than seeing a light bulb go off in a child’s mind – and knowing that you helped them learn something as significant as reading and writing sentences. I love my K1 Kids!

In October, we became homeowners! YAY!

And of course, there were many great moments spent with friends and family...this is getting long so I can't put the 100s of pictures of these times. Here are a few highlights!

Family

These pictures are from when me and my family went to the Jazzfest together, my birthday, when we spent Easter in Houston meeting our sweet baby niece, and one of my mom's art shows (this year she followed her dream and started painting mats which she sells at some really fun art shows).

Friends

These pictures are from visiting Harley and Lindsay in West Palm Beach, our super fun annual LSU tailgate, my trip to visit Victoria and Nashville, and Friendsgiving.

2010 was a good year, but I'm very ready for the adventures to come in 2011! I've already had a few interesting ones I'll post about soon. :-)

Everywhere you look...

I can’t believe how fast time flies! My hubby and I will be married for one year in mid-January. Since our anniversary will fall on a holiday weekend (at least for a few years), we promised ourselves on our honeymoon that we would do something really special for our anniversary every year while we still can (aka before kids).

Yesterday was Cyber Monday, which is something I have literally never heard of before. If you haven’t heard of it either, it’s apparently black Friday for the internet.

We had been talking about an anniversary trip, but never could decide on a concrete place because of flight prices. (Even though Southwest claims to have $89 flights, the coolest place we could go for that amount was Houston.) So, since yesterday had all of these cool cyber deals, my hubby found a really cheap set of plane tickets to San Francisco! We are now going on a 5 day, 5 night trip to San Francisco/Napa Valley/Sonoma! I literally can’t wait. We really need a relaxing vacation like this together.

So pretty!

We don’t know much about the area, but we do know that we are planning on staying for 2 days in San Fran and 3 days in wine country. Besides that, we haven’t got much of a clue where we are staying in those areas or what we want to do. It seems as if there are a ton of options when it comes to this area!

As much as I try, I can’t get the Full House theme song out of my head when I think of San Francisco. Probably because of this, I am literally only 100% interested in seeing things that involved the show. Clearly this means I NEED to see the Full House house. Apparently it’s called Postcard Row. I can see why! It’s beautiful!

Next I want to ride on one of the famous San Francisco cable cars. Why, you ask does this have to do with Full House? The opening credits one of the years had DJ peeking over the bar of the cable car.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll run into these folks!

As we research Napa/Sonoma, people keep saying that it gets old after a day or two. CLEARLY these people must not love wine as much as I do. Or beautiful scenery. Seriously, how could THIS get old!?

So basically what this boils down to is that we’re definitely going to California for our anniversary, but we have absolutely no idea what we’re doing there yet. Hopefully we can get our act together some time in the next 5 weeks!