Beach House

Spring Break Version 4.0

After the rodeo Thursday night, we woke up early to head to Aransas Pass with our friends Brandon and Joy.  Brandon's parents have a beach house there, and we went to have a relaxing weekend before school started up again.  I had thought the whole time we were going to Port Aransas, but Andy corrected me on the drive that we were definitely not taking a ferry.  Well, darn.

At Walmart getting gas

On our drive we saw a crop dusting plane.  It was scary and cool at the same time.  The pilot got so low and close to the road.  I am sure Brandon's truck felt the vibrations when the plane flew over because it was that close (or at least it looked that way).

Woke up from a nap wondering "Are we there yet?!?"

Maddie definitely made herself at home!  But she's a happy camper anywhere when her green ball is involved.

Of course she loved the birds!

Violet was not a fan of Maddie's hyperness, but they
got adjusted to each other by the end of the weekend.

Friday afternoon we hung out and then grilled antelope tenderloin for dinner!  Yummy!

Antelope tenderloin stuffed with cream cheese
and jalapeno wrapped in bacon with
a salad and baked potato

I tried to go fishing Friday night, but the wind was blowing so stinkin' hard that it made it nearly impossible to keep my bobber in one location for longer than 3 seconds.

My excited face about going fishing!  It lasted
about 30 minutes because then I got too cold.

Saturday morning Andy and Brandon went kayak fishing.  They didn't catch fish, and actually they said they didn't even see any fish.  You would think they could at least come up with a good story, lol.  The weather was not great.  It was colder and the wind was blowing like crazy.  They still had a good time.

They at least make for good looking fisherman!!

Meanwhile, Joy and I hung out at the house and talked.  After the guys got back from fishing, we ate lunch and then headed to Rockport for their trade days.  It was pretty neat!  Not very big, but like I said the weather was not cooperating.  We stopped at an antique shop as well.  Ended up having coffee and ice cream there.  After that we had to stop by Tackle Town for the guys to look at fishing supplies.

I have to pause in our timeline of events to talk about Maddie because we ended up having an emergency visit to the vet.  If you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip this paragraph because throw up is going to be the common factor.  Thursday morning Maddie threw up at the house.  The most throw up I've ever seen from her.  She's definitely thrown up before, but it's usually yellow bile with some grass in it.  This time it looked like human throw up, and there was so much of it.  Then Friday after we got to the beach house, she threw up again, not once but twice.  However, she drank a lot of water as soon as we got out of the truck, so I figured she just drank too much too fast.  Then Saturday morning she threw up three times.  Ugh!  At this point, I was worried.  So I called our vet, and she said to give her some Pepto-Bismol to calm her tummy.  After we got back from the trade days, she threw up again.  Of course I called the vet again.  Because it was after hours, I got the after hours lady who would contact the vet and then call me back.  Well, our vet actually ended up calling me back.  They normally don't do that, so I felt pretty special.  I absolutely love our vet though!!  Anyway, she suggested taking Maddie to a local vet just to make sure there wasn't anything obstructing or hurting her stomach because Maddie will eat anything.  And I mean anything - rocks, plastic, electrical cords, blankets, wood, june bugs, you name she'll try to eat it.  About $350 later, Maddie's x-rays didn't show anything obstructing her stomach.  Whew!  The local vet gave her some anti-nausea medicine, and she couldn't play for 48 hours.  We also had to feed her can dog food instead of her usually dry food.  She loved the food!!  (Update on Maddie:  She is doing perfectly fine and completely back to normal.)

My sick sleepy puppy

All she wanted was Andy...

Back to our weekend... Saturday night we decided to eat out.  I mean, who goes to the beach and doesn't eat seafood at some point!?!  We ate at this local place called Crab-N.  And I couldn't lie to you about a name like that.  I have the proof in a picture.  From outside, you're thinking that's not too fancy of a place.  Ha!  Well, it wasn't fancy in the sense of clothing because the host who seated us was totally wearing fishing pants with his shirt untucked.  Now when we got the menu that was a whole other story.  It was definitely a little pricey.  Andy and I shared a seafood platter, and their food was delicious by the way!  We all had a margarita and they were very tasty as well.  Heck, they better have been tasty at a lovely price of $8 each.  I'm used to the cheap margaritas we get at the local Mexican food restaurant.

We left fairly early on Sunday because we had to back to the house so I could go to the grocery store, wash laundry, and get ready to go back to work the next day.  On our drive we stopped at this really neat gas station/smokehouse/restaurant called Prasek's Hillje in El Campo.  Andy got some snacks, and I got a hand-dipped dutch chocolate Blue Bell ice cream waffle cone with sprinkles on top.  Yep, just like a little kid!

Before we left.  She still wasn't feeling all that well.

Being sick meant she got to ride inside the truck.

Totally cool sink at Prasek's

And this is how she naps in the truck...

Houston Rodeo Part 2

Spring Break Version 3.0

On Wednesday of Spring Break, Andy and I spent time together returning some items at the mall, doing a little shopping for the rodeo on Thursday, and buying some things for our patio.  Here is a picture of our patio now.  You'll have to look past the broom and shoes in the chair.  We plan to replace the brown plastic chairs with chairs similar to our Texas star bench.  I'm a matchy-matchy type of person, so this is totally blowing my mind that the chairs don't match.  We'll get there eventually though.

Our friends Cara and Cody texted us to see if we wanted to have dinner Wednesday night.  We went to our usual Mexican food restaurant - Tony's.  It's always a great conversation with Cara and Cody!  Since most of our friends are teachers, it's nice to hang out with a couple who have jobs other than teaching.

Couples selfie on the way to dinner :)

Thursday was rodeo round two for me and round one for Andy.  A family friend of Andy's got us tickets, and they were FABULOUS!!  We invited our friends Brandon and Joy to go with us.  We visited the petting zoo, did a little shopping, and enjoyed some BBQ before the rodeo.

Pictures before the rodeo...

 

Waiting in line at the petting zoo...

Baby kangaroo - soo cute!  The baby goats were adorable too.

Shopping!

Andy's rodeo tradition - getting his boots shined up!

I always have to stop by the candy shop.  They are great for treats
during the rodeo and when you're waiting in the
parking lot for forever after the concert.

BBQ baked potato.  So delicious!

Like I said previously, our seats were awesome!  They were the action seats - the part in gray.  Here is the map of Reliant Stadium...

We sat in the action seats section in section 123.  Bull riding is my absolute favorite part of the rodeo, and we were so close to the chutes.  It was fan-freakin'-tastic!!  Not only were they great seats for the rodeo, but they were pretty darn good for the concert too.  We just so happened to be seeing Maroon 5 that night.  I cannot even begin to describe to you how many people were there for the concert.  There couldn't have been an empty seat in the place.  It was so loud!  It was definitely interesting to see "non-rodeo" people at the rodeo.  I didn't sing along to all of the songs, but I was impressed with how many I did know.

Same photo as above, just the Instagram version.

We actually had to look up at the big screens!

Andy got a free koozie.  Yep, I'll be more than
happy to take it off his hands.  I think it's more my style anyway.

Definitely like his "look" on The Voice much better than his "concert" look.

Selfie during the concert

Happy couples after the rodeo/concert!

Apparently, Adam Levine got in trouble several years ago when Maroon 5 performed at the rodeo because he decided to drop f-bombs and say a lot of other four-letter words.  He said he was fascinated by the scrolling screen that typed everything he said.  Yeah, he was not asked to come back to the rodeo.  I assume the rodeo committee had a change of heart or were desperate for some other big artists since they came back this year.  Adam did apologize for his language from several years ago and explained that that was why he didn't use the curse words in his songs.  I thought that was rather nice of him.  And I am glad that he realized the Houston Rodeo is not his typical concert crowd and that there are children present who do not to need to hear profanity.

Houston Rodeo Part 1

Spring Break Version 2.0

SB '14 was a busy one!  Last year was mine and Jillian's first year to make a trip to the rodeo as a girls trip.  We decided to make this an annual trip and plan to make a tradition!  :)  This year we saw Jason Aldean for the concert.  I left for Jillian's apartment early so that we could make it to the rodeo early for some shopping.  Little did I know that Jillian decided to give up shopping for Lent!  We ended up just getting our rings cleaned and walking the aisles to talk instead of shop.  Totally fine by us because we hadn't seen each other since Thanksgiving.  We had A LOT to catch up on!  We take a lot of pictures, drink margaritas and just truly enjoy each other's company.  It doesn't hurt that Jason Aldean put on an awesome show!  We sang along to every single song.  Jillian even threw in a rap for Dirt Road Anthem.  We love our country music!  Here are some pictures from our fun night together...

On my way to Jillian's apartment

We could be sisters... seriously.

Enjoying our margaritas!

"Big Green Tractor"

Great concert with great company!

Comparison photo - last year vs. this year
As Jillian said, we are aging beautifully!

Meanwhile at the house, Andy put together our little shed in the backyard.  It now stores all of our lawn equipment, poisons, gardening tools, paint and gas cans, and whatever else Andy could fit in it.  Slowly but surely we're going to get everything out of our garage and have a normal garage that we can work out of.  Mainly I just want my car to park in it - lol!!

Creating more space

We purchased a little shed from Sam's Club for us to store our lawn equipment, gas cans, paint, pesticides, etc.  Plus, we want our garage to be more of a workspace for Andy instead of storage only.  I definitely want my car to park in the garage, but then the other half we want to turn into a work space.  We will definitely still need storage space which Andy has already worked out a solution for that with combination of shelves and totes.

While Andy and Doug were taking back all of our things, they decided to level a spot in the backyard for our shed.  It turned out pretty good!

You can't get more level than that!

Weekend Update

Spring Break Version 1.0

We spent our first weekend of spring break in Tarkington visiting with Andy's mom and helping her clean out the barn some more. Andy's mom and dad sold the 25-acres a few weeks before his dad passed away knowing that if they didn't get it sold it would be a huge burden on his mom to sell it by herself. We have until April 15th to be out of the barn and off of the property completely. We are having a HUGE garage sale at the beginning of April in hopes to get rid of most of the equipment and quite frankly junk that Andy's dad kept stored at the barn. Andy and I still had some of our stuff stored down there because we haven't had any room to store it here in Katy. We still technically don't have any room, but we made some. Andy and Doug took a trailer load of our belongings and any of Andy's dad's equipment that Andy wanted to our house. I was also able to help his mom get items priced and marked for the garage sale. Half of the battle is that we didn't know what some of the things were nor how much they would even cost. We did find out though we had thousands of dollars in that little barn because Andy's dad definitely bought the best of the best for his tools.  I didn't take any pictures of the barn because I'm out of sync with my blog, but I'll get better and remember to take more pictures.

Lonestar wanted to go with us...

On our way to T-Town!

Saturday night we ate dinner at Pueblo with my dear friend Tamara. It was so nice to catch up with her and see her! However, Sunday I woke up very sick. My stomach hurt and I had body aches. I felt like I was burning up but still needed a blanket because I felt cold. We took my temperature and of course it was 98.8. At one point that afternoon, I took a nap and when I woke up it felt like I had been sweating. I am sure I did have a fever and it finally broke during that nap because I started feeling a little better after that. I ate a bowl of cereal and three chicken strips all day. And if you know me, I like to eat so I was definitely not feeling well. Thankfully I woke up Monday morning and felt a ton better. I'm assuming I just had some 24-hour virus.

Andy's mom had to take a spin on the mower
to make sure it was working.

Blurry but still cute!

Monday morning we went to the courthouse with Andy's mom because we had to get her name change over as executor of the will. Super easy process! I thought we were going to have to actually be in court, but nope. We just met with the judge in his office. Literally took about 10 minutes. Now Andy's mom will finally be able to get some big decisions made.

Random side note - Here are some fun pictures of my puppy dog!  She's so cute!  I have no children, so I have to take pictures of my doggie.

Instagram collage!

Icicles... in March?

Andy and I took off of work this past Monday.  I had a workshop to attend in the morning and just decided to take the afternoon off as well.  The weather in Texas is ever-changing and in the same day most of the time.  On Sunday, we literally went into one store for about an hour or so and came back outside and the temperature had dropped not a few degrees but like 20 or 30 degrees!!  Monday was even colder.  It was that cold that seriously "bites" your skin.  It hurt to be outside because of how cold it was. 

Monday evening the news was talking about these winter weather advisories and warnings again.  The last time we did this we missed two days of school.  We set our alarms for our normal 5:00am on Tuesday morning and checked the school website to make sure we still had a regular day ahead of us.  Since we were on normal working hours, we assumed the weather did not get as bad as the weatherman predicted.  Little did we know that our vehicles were going to be frozen shut and it was going to take over 15 minutes to get the ice off our windshields.  There was ice everywhere!!  The icicles on my side mirrors were strong enough to hold on throughout my drive to work that morning.  There were tree limbs down because the ice in the trees broke the branches.  We had power lines down due the small storm that blew through the night before.  One of the high schools was operating on generators for their power.  The lights flickered several times at my school but never officially went out.  Some neighborhoods were without power as well.

So, here's what baffles my little brain.  It was March 4th and the temperature was 32 degrees in southeast TEXAS.  And not just any 32 degrees, but 32 degrees with ice!  And not just any state, but Texas and southeast Texas of all places.  I understand some people love this type of weather.  I, on the other hand, do not want ice and rain and cold weather in March.  Looking at the weather forecast for Spring Break, it's not going to get much sunnier.  I guess the good news is I have more winter weather type of clothing than I've ever had in my life.

It was too cold to take more than one picture, but here are the icicles in our tree.  It was seriously like driving through a winter wonderland on the way to work.  It felt like it should be Christmas, not one week away from spring break.

Picture of Andy's truck with icicles.