Friends!

Love these girls!

We had such a fun day/night together! Just like we saw each other yesterday. We all met at lauren's house for a day IN the pool. It was wonderful to catch up. We swam, layed out, and of course ate lots of great food. What we do best! After pool time we had a little surprise baby shower for Katie and surprised Mary with gifts at dinner. Its Mary's first (boy!!!!) and Katie's 3rd (yet to know the gender, cant wait to find out!) .

We went to Sambuca, great, love the atmosphere. Good food too! Its just like college days but we are coming from all over these days. From NC, GA, TN, AL, and TX. Funny how spread out we are these days. We ended up just staying up chatting most the night when we got home. So fun. Although conversation is different--junior and senior year of collge seems like our conversation was filled with who will get engaged when, who will move, more boy talk, future weddings, future jobs and more schooling, who will be where in 3-4 yrs and now the conversation has turned. Its babies, marriage, babies names, houses, ect! Crazy how things change, but never really change! Its like we were back in the chi o house! Loved it. Wish we could do it more. Im already ready for our 2nd Annual Girls Weekend....

I love you girls! Missed those of you who couldnt make it...dont worry, next year was discussed and will be here before we know it! =)

Lauren's infamous long arm!

The other days of my long weekend were filled with my sweet little niece. Unfortunately I didnt take my camera out of my purse all weekend. It was on my shoulder all time but yet I failed to get a sweet picture of my favorite ellie bellie! It was great to be home and see the family! Ellie was able to get out "hi mimi"--my name until she can say missy. She is most precious and the sweetest little angle ever!

EW!

EW!

GROSS!

TOO HOT!!

Just for Fun

My FAVORITE nephew! In the cowboy boots I gave him for Christmas! He is so grown up and a little man....

My FAVORITE sweet little niece getting so BIG!

*LOVE THEM*

Oreo Cake

I love it! Oreo cake pans! YUM!

Proper ingredients to make an Oreo Cake:

1.) Kitchen Aid Mixer with amazing buttercream frosting

2.) 2 "Cookie Cake Pans" from WS + ingredients to make brownies + patience + WINE (for me of course!)

3.) No self control to eat healthy!

4.) A double stuffed Oreo to compare!

Little Birdies Outside My Door!

We have new birdies! Some a mom and dad bird made a nest outside our door on the EXIT sign.  *and no, you cant hear them, which is a nice change from my bedroom at my moms at 6am that wake me up EVERYTIME i got home*

Andrew and I named them Chocolate (female, always in the nest) and Peanut Butter (male, always outside the nest). We were curious if there were eggs in the nest. Its too high for us to see but we kinda assumed there were. Well one day we came home and there were little baby birdies in there. There are about 5 that we have seen so far. I like to call them little morsels (only appropriate coming from Chocolate). Mom is very protective over them. If we get close to the nest, she kinda goes crazy, which I would probably do the same!

They are actually really cute and I love looking at them..except all the poop they leave below the nest--gross! So I guess if we cant have a dog right now, Ill settle for looking at these little ones! I told Andrew we should go get little worms from them but he assured mom, Chocolate was providing the proper nutrients for them! 

I know, its kinda scary so close up! haha! That is Chocolate sitting next to them. Im happy with them residing near our door...that is unless I start waking up to them. So far, So good! 

Austin on Memorial Day!

Sunday morning in the car, on the way to Austin! 

This past Sunday Andrew and I decided to retreat out of Dallas! So fun! It was a sweet little surprise he had up his sleeve. We got to stay here and eat amazing food. This is the little courtyard outside our room.

However, before we got to Austin we stopped at the Czech stop. For those of you in TN/AL/NC/GA.....any other residing states, the Czech Stop is a truck stop off I-35 that has amazing kalochies. AMAZING. We stopped bc everyone told me we had to stop and try one. They were right! Delicious. While we were off the eating for a little morning snack Andrew found a CJ-7 he wants....I told him it needed a paint job and he disagreed! =) 

We arrived in Austin and ate lunch at the Hula Hut on Lake Austin. Austin is very hippy/green/earthy. Did not know that. HOWEVER--Austin in the ONLY place in TX that I have seen a hill larger than the curb where I park my car (ok...so we have tiny hills here in Dallas, but Austin--I felt like I was back in the south where there are trees, greenery, hills). It was a nice feeling. Its a pretty little city, a bit bigger than Birmingham. 

After lunch, we just explored, checked in, explored some more, got ready for dinner. He booked reservations at Eddie V's.....

OMG.

Best Food I Have Had In A Long Time! Ok, not really bc we spoil ourselves with food weekly. But it WAS the best seafood I have had in awhile! Here was our glutenous menu:

Appetizer-spicy tuna tar tar+ delicious crab cake

Missy Entree-steamed sea bass Hong Kong style (you know thats Missy friendly!), it was sitting in sliced ginger and a soy sauce (YUMMO per rachel ray!)

Andrew Entree-bacon wrapped scallopns...very Andrew friendly!

Dessert-Banana's foster upside down butter cake....very Morgan friendly! OMG! Like melted butter with every bite! 

The food exceeded our expectations! We had a great time and then headed to the bar area and listened to a great musician...you would have thought David Grey and The Fray were there playing. We were very impressed! You know..Austin is known for its music (so I heard?).

Sunday we ate breakfast at this little "joint" downtown...Andrew enjoyed coffee and I had some ok pancakes (I think I can make better!).  We saw all these bikers and heard music so we decided to walk down to the river and there was a triathlon going on. We were just in time for the pro-women group to start their swim. We stood on the bridge, watched the swim, then finished our little walk around downtown. We came across TX's capital building..guess it was good to see since...TX is now my residing state (yes, that was hard to write!)

Andrew is obsessed with burgers. So what did he research all week for lunch on Monday...a burger joint! We ate at Huts Hamburgers...did not exceed/meet our expectations. He is an expert on picking amazing burger joints but...we gave the burger a 7, the onion rings a 9 (that was his judgement...not mine, would have been lower if I scored them), and the fries a 8. So the quest for the most perfect burger still exist! Right now he says Jakes Burgers in dallas wins until we find a better one. 

After we stuffed our bellies with a subpar burger, we decided to just drive around Austin and find cute little suburbs. It was fun, we love that stuff. We also went in some cute stores, I bought some cute little 1 flower clay vases...adorable! Then, it was time to hit the road!

What a great weekend! 

Oh yeah, this is the flatness of TX...outside of Austin.

PS--we found some Mr. Beason look alikes while wondering the UTexas campus *I cant bring myself to write UT and mean TX, not TN.  A picture was necessary! 

One MINOR detail missed....

So I did this:

What do you think this is?

If you think its black honda paint on a yellow concrete pole you guessed right! I was driving. I was NOT driving MY car! Opps!!!!