Happy Labor Day Weekend!

This past 3-day weekend was amazing. It was relaxing, yet productive, and I am sad it's now over.

First of all, I ended up canceling my trip to Vegas, which was originally what I was supposed to be doing with my Labor Day weekend. It ended up being a bad time for one of us to go on a vacation, so I ended up just staying home. Although I know all the girls had such a good time and I am still so bummed out that I missed it, I'm glad I had the weekend here. My cousin Katie came to visit and got a small taste of what the Big D has to offer. A very small taste, actually...but still, we were glad to have her! 

Blake and I started the weekend off by heading to a small improv comedy house pretty close to our apartment with my friend & co-worker Kallie, her sister, and two of their guy friends. It was a wonderful way to close out the week - we weren't even really there for that long, but had plenty of laughs and a fun, new exposure to improv comedy (in a very low-key, small-scale environment). Saturday morning we got up and went to work. Our apartment was in serious need of some TLC, but we were only able to give it a little before we headed to lunch at the Bavarian Grill with one of my oldest college friends Spencer, who happened to be our wedding photographer. It was soo good to see him! He was in town for a wedding that his girlfriend was a bridesmaid in, so I'm glad we had a brief but much-needed lunch to do some catching up! Almost immediately after we got home from lunch, Katie got in. After about a 4 hour drive, she wasn't really up for doing anything at first, so this gave us a little bit of time to do the rest of our cleaning. The place was looking great in no time! Later in the evening, Katie and I decided to make a trip to Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and the grocery store to spend the rest of the night cooking dinner (instead of going out), baking, and being crafty. It's not often that I get to spend my evenings like this, and I enjoyed it immensely! We focused on making quite a few flower pens on Saturday night, then the next morning I woke up to finish my fall wreath. This was my first attempt at wreath-making and I am proud of my final product! And yes, this means there will be more wreath-making for this girl in the future. :)

Here is the assortment of flower pens I finished Saturday night. Love them, and they're so easy to make! 

 My first wreath! Wreaths can cost anywhere from $40-$150, depending on where you buy it and how detailed it is, and I made this one for around $35. Go me! :)

Sunday morning, Blake and I woke up and took Nellie to the dog park. This actually made for a pretty peaceful start to the day. There really wasn't anyone around, and we could throw the tennis ball for some fetch and just be happy. That morning something else also happened - Blake noticed some blood on her tennis ball, so when he took a look inside her mouth to investigate, he discovered this:

Nellie had lost her first tooth! No telling where it was or anything, but we took this picture later that morning after the nap we took when we got back from the park. 

After waking up (again) around 11, Katie and I decided to head to the Dallas Holocaust Museum. This museum is pretty much about one block away from our apartment, so it was super easy to get to, and I've been intrigued about it since we discovered its existence a while back. Katie is about to start her student teaching in history, and the workers at the museum actually gave her a CD with some Holocaust teaching material on it. I thought that was pretty cool. Oh, and apparently for a "really good glance" at the Holocaust, I need to go to the museum in D.C...well, I wish, someday! :)

After the Holocaust museum, we headed to the Dallas Zoo. We arrived with only about 2 and a half hours until they closed, but we got to see some pretty cool stuff. Here's a small glimpse:

Lounger Magoo

Gross.

The fact that they lay like this never gets old to me.

Gross...again.

Lounger Magoo #2

Big python...not sure what else there is to say.

Later that evening, we headed to our neighborhood Gators restaurant. I love this place for one obvious reason, and another not-so-obvious reason - the frozen drinks. Mmmmm. Here is a picture of me and Katie with my favorite...the "Bar Fly". It is a mess of deliciousness. :)

And then here is me with Blake, who also enjoys Gators. Probably one of the best things about this place is that I can have as many "Bar Flies" as I please, and we can simply get up and walk home in under 5 minutes. Woohoo! :)

The next day we got up, grilled some brats by the pool, and enjoyed being lazy the rest of the day. I look forward to Katie's next visit when we can go to the DMA and I can show her tons of other cool stuff. :)

Oh, I almost forgot to mention something! Last Friday I received an email from one of the blogs I subscribe to of a recipe for Snickers cupcakes. Yes. Katie and I decided to give this ridiculously delicious-sounding recipe a try...and experienced total success. These cupcakes are possibly some of the most delicious things to ever come out of my kitchen. Ever. Downside, of course, is that they are HORRIBLE for you...but hey, if you go into it thinking they are "Weight Watchers-friendly"...well, I guess you are just sadly mistaken. :) Here is a picture of our finished product:

Yummy! I will use the next post to share the recipe with you. Try it out - I guarantee you will love them! :)

New Adventures!

I'm officially a Scentsy consultant now and can't wait to get started! I should be getting my starter kit in the mail sometime early next week...yay! It's pretty amazing to me how I've gone from never really caring to own one to wanting to sell them.

Only a couple weeks ago, we received a warmer as an anniversary gift from our wonderful Aunt Pat. Her daughter, Tracy, is a consultant and let her know about the new A&M (and other collegiate) warmers that Scentsy came out with, and she must have decided this was the perfect gift for us! Well, we really love it. It's simple, safe, and smells wonderful.

After all this, I started recognizing that I am in two situations that would possibly make it very easy to sell them. We live in an apartment complex that is sort of like a hotel and utilizes elevators, and I work in an office building with several floors and many offices. I hope that my initial thoughts of reaching out to people to start out my customer base are successful! I have a good feeling though...when I walked into our front office to ask them if it would be ok to post up a flyer about it, one of the leasing agents was excited that she had someone to buy them from now...yay!! Technically only my first day and I already have a non-family member customer, go me!

Anyway, I still have quite a bit of learning to do before I can take this journey on full-force, but I am very excited about it all - whether it makes me any money or not. :)

In other "New Adventure" news, I was recently hired to be a swim coach at Cross Timbers YMCA up here in Lewisville! I am incredibly excited about this opportunity. I have coached a swim team once before, only for a summer, but I loved every bit of it and I'm so happy I get to do it again! The other coaches seem great, the program seems to be wonderful, and the best part of it all...our team is the Gators! Not everyone will understand why this is so exciting to me, but some will. :) I have CPR training this weekend, our Parent Meeting is this coming Tuesday, then tryouts are next week. Then...practices start on the 30th! My life is going to get quite a bit more hectic, but I'm looking forward to it.

Lastly, I will be making a trip to VEGAS in two weeks! I am so pumped about this. I really wish Blake was coming with me, but I will be able to spend some good quality time with some wonderful and FUN girls! We don't know a whole lot about everything we'll be doing, but I know it will be a trip for the books.

One year down, a lifetime to go!

It wasn't too long ago when we started this blog, but back in April I did a "Recap of Big Things Lately" post which covers the majority of how we've spent our first year of marriage. Sooo, I am attempting to link this post to that one, then follow up with some updates!

For starters, my co-worker Kristine and her husband Kristian's baby is adorable! I've seen her a few times over the months and she is undeniably cute! She will undoubtedly be a smart and good-looking one in the future, too.

In May, we traveled to College Station for some boot-pulling. I wanted to do a post about this after our trip, but never made it happen. In a nutshell, Blake and his fellow seniors of Company A-2 (the first seniors of the new outfit) made the trip back to pull the boots off of their freshmen, after wearing them for the first time. Definitely one of those "time flies" moments as they watched their fish perform their first march-in as seniors in boots. It was good to see a lot of friends that weekend, and was fun to watch them pull some boots.

Moving on, the next big thing was getting our puppy! There have been a couple of posts about her, but I wanted to post some more pictures. She is, after all, our baby for now! :)

Most recently as far as big changes...we've moved! We made the decision to move from "the burbs" to downtown Dallas. Definitely a transition, and we love it so far!! The new place and our neighborhood are so neat, and we are loving the atmosphere. It has been a bit of a struggle for Nellie to adjust from the townhome to our 4th floor, one-story apartment, but we're working on it. As cute as she is, she is still hard work and tests our patience on a daily basis! We love her with all our heart though! :) Here are some "before" pictures of the place...hopefully I will actually get around to posting "after" pics. That is, when we finally get everything unpacked and get settled in.

Our teeny tiny kitchen with minimal cabinet storage room. Learned lesson #1: Next place must have more...especially with my bad Williams-Sonoma/BB&B habits.

Our dining room area to the right of the entry. Right now it is a combo-dining/drafting table/box storage area. Notice the shelves on the left...these are WONDERFUL and were the main attraction to the floor plan. Here is where I put my overflow of kitchen goods. The shelving is the same on the other side facing the living room. :)

Our bathroom...notice the railing and lack of cabinet under the sink? Yes, our leasing agent forgot to mention that our apartment is handicap-friendly, and we didn't know until we got our keys. Oh, and yes, the cabinet above the toilet and those three little drawers are all we have for storage at the moment. Learned lessons #2 and 3: Remember to make sure this doesn't happen again, and two sinks are better than one.

Just as a reference, here is the bathroom we came from:

It was wonderful and I will miss it, very much.

Living Room/Bedroom/Bathroom

Our bedroom/bathroom closet, which happens to be the ONLY closet in our entire apartment. Challenge? Yes.

Despite some of the comments under these photos, we really do LOVE our new place! :) It has been hard trying to figure out where to put all of our stuff (and getting everything else into storage) but we're making it work!

Last night we went out to celebrate with a fancy dinner and came home to some delicious cake! We had our wonderful cake lady, Summer, make us an anniversary cake so that after the one bite of nasty 1-year old cake, we would still have cake to eat! Here are the cakes...old and new :)

The best part (and one of the main reasons why we chose Summer as our cake lady) is that the sugar flowers will last forever, granted I don't break them all in the meantime, and look so beautful on our shelves! Now we have the originals and our 1st Anniversary flowers...and I'm sure there will be more in the future. :)

And now here we are! It was a wonderful and relaxing weekend, and it has been an amazing year! We are so excited about our future and the many years together ahead of us!

Breakthrough!

Just a quick puppy update. As soon as Nellie started getting used to her surroundings and becoming a little more bold each time we took her out, we realized we needed to start putting her on the leash. This dog is as stubborn as her mom and dad, and was not taking too kindly to the idea. Our first attempt at "leash training" was a disaster, until the bright idea of "positive reinforcement" via the use of treats came along the next day. It's amazing what a dog will do for a small bite of something delicious! Although she still will tug and pull from time to time, not wanting to go exactly where we are leading her, she is doing a great job! It's strides like these that make all the other frustrations fade away (even if only for a little while).

Benelli!

Well, we finally decided on a name, and here she is! We picked her up last Monday and she really is the cutest puppy in the world. The last week and a half have been exciting, educational, expensive, and exhausting!

The first night that we brought her home, the excitement of the trip home and everything must have been too much for her, because she slept through the entire night. Silly us, thinking it would remain like this. This must be just a small taste of what our world will be like in a few years...or whenever it is... that we make that life-altering decision to start having children. It isn't horrible, but I really hope it doesn't last very long. When she's out of her crate, she's a little terror as well...biting and chewing on just about anything in sight.

BUT, when she finally gets sleepy, she is the absolute sweetest thing. She will find the cutest places and positions to make herself comfortable in, and these are the times that she is least interested in Stewie - which is good for now, but we're working on that being a full-time thing, sleepy or not!

Stewie "investigating" the night we brought her home.

Yesterday, we made our second trip to the vet in the past week and a half because our little girl developed a slight infection. Thankfully, it's already going away thanks to the meds we have given her. We took her in for her first round of shots last Tuesday, and will be working on finishing that whole process up within the next couple of months or so. Then, after spaying and micro-chipping her, hopefully we'll be done with that place for a while!

Nellie's first trip to "Metro Paws"

Moving on, this past 4th of July weekend was a good one. We started out the weekend with dinner and a movie on Friday night (not that eventful, no, but still fun for us since it's a rarity). We saw Grown Ups and both thought it was pretty good. The next day we just ran some errands and cleaned the house up a bit, then ended up heading over to our friend Bryan's house for some good company and possibly a fireworks show. The fireworks show ended up being a bust for us, but we still had a good time. On Sunday, Blake's parents and sister's family all came into town. We met up with them as well as his brother, Matt, and his wife Marcy for lunch. Blake's parents' stay was short and sweet, but it was fun to have the whole Gore family together for a little while. They came by our place to see Nellie then headed home.

His sister, Natalie, and her family stayed the night, however, and we all met up for breakfast the next day before our trip to Six Flags. It was HOT but fun getting to hang out with Natalie, Charles, and the kids, and I'm glad we were able to spend that time with them! 

Natalie, Charles, Holland, & Liam on the Runaway Mine Train

El Sombrero!

Our beautiful niece, Holland