Monday, April 11, 2011

The Birthday Weekend

Well my birthday weekend started a little early with Drew and I going to Sine Die after work on Thursday.  Drew gave me a gun for my birthday so we went up there to shoot it.  It is a really neat pistol called Diamondback 380.  Here is a picture of it so you can see how small it is. This is the actual size.

DB380

Here are the dogs at the farm.

Here is Drew shooting.

Friday after work, Mary Carlton and I went to the Melting Pot for cheese and chocolate.  Mary Carlton had never been to the Melting Pot so we had the best time! We had the cheddar cheese fondue and the s‘mores chocolate. 

Saturday we had an all day baseball tournament.  Drew and his dad coach an 11 and 12 year old baseball team, Zaxby's which Fuller plays on.  Our team did great!  We came in third place. I will take some pictures of the Team and post in the next few weeks.

Sunday was my actual birthday so Drew let me choose what we were going to do for the day! We started out the morning by going to church at Faith Presbyterian then to Food Glorious Foods for brunch.  From there we headed downtown to the IMAX theatre to see Born to Be Wild.  This was Drew and I's first time to the IMAX and it was great!  It's amazing how great the sounds and movie were.  After the movie we ran to Target then headed home for a nap before we had dinner with the family.

Dinner with the Family is all my aunts, uncles, cousins on my mom's side of the family.  Last night we were celebrating three birthday's; Kate's who turned 7, Aunt Tina's birthday and my birthday.  Here are few pictures from the evening.  My camera was acting up so they are a little blurry.

Kate opening gifts

The birthday girl and her mom

Sister's



The kids helping me open


Happy Birthday Girls
  

Friday, April 8, 2011

Austin, TX - Beth's Bachelorette Part (Part 2)

Once we finished the Duck Tour we came back to the loft to shower and get dressed for the evening.  We had reservations at the Four Season at 7:15 PM on the patio so that we could see the bats fly. 


The Bride looking sexy

The stripes

Here is a little background on the history of the bats in Austin: The Congress Avenue Bridge spans Town Lake in downtown Austin and is home to the largest urban bat colony in North America.  The colony is estimated at 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats.   Each night from mid-March to November, the bats emerge from under the bridge at dusk to blanket the sky as they head out to forage for food.

So we got to the Four Season and ordered up a drink while we waited for it to get dark.


Once it got a little darker we headed down to the water to see if we could see the bats.




We waited and waited but only saw a few bats fly right above us.  Some locals told us that the bats have been flying later and later so it's almost pitch black when they come out.  We decided that we would head on to dinner.

Since we didn't get to see the bats I attached a picture of what it looks like.

From there we grabbed a cab and headed to a Mexican spot for dinner.  Here we had good food, margarita’s and Annabelle made an announcement for the evening.

The announcement is as follows:  Jake (Beth's wonderful fiancĂ©) had sent each girl $30 to spend only on alcohol for the evening and a 5 hour energy drink.  He also bought our first round of shots which we had to take after dinner!  Thanks Jake for everything you did!

Once we had our shots we grabbed a cab back to the loft to get Beth dressed for the evening!



From here we headed to the Broken Spoke....one of the most famous honky tonk bars in Texas.  Most of us were really excited about going to a fun country bar. 



When we got there it was a little different then what we expected.  Here was the age bracket of 95% of the people in the bar.



We still had a great time and several of the ladies took a trip around the dance floor.


From here we went out to hail a cab to get us back to dirty sixth street to hit up some 80's dancing!  In our efforts to hail a cab we ended up hailing a limo

 Meet Beth's new friend....
It happen to be this girls birthday and she thought we looked cute so she decided to pick us up!


Emily and I in the Limo
We got back to dirty sixth street and headed to Plush for 80's music and dancing.  This was a perfect spot to end the night.


Thank you Beth for a wonderful weekend!  We all had the best time and are so happy to be a part of you and Jake's special day!  Looking forward to many more memories with you ladies!!  I am truly blessed to have such wonderful friends. 


Thursday, April 7, 2011

Austin, TX - Beth's Bachelorette Party (Part 1)

Well I'm not even sure where to start on this trip....we had the best time and did so much!  I guess I will just start at the beginning....

We started the trip off with several planes delays but end up all making it in to Austin by 8:30PM.  I of course was the last one in.  Tasha and Brooke were so sweet and waited at the airport for me so I would not have to cab alone.  Thank you Ladies!!

Once we got to our loft, which we found online and were quite excited about the perfect location we were staying, we freshened up and headed to dinner.  (More on our loft to come)

Our dinner reservations were at a place called Second Bar and Kitchen.  The food was fabulous!  Tasha and I split braised short ribs over truffle grits.  All the other girls split five or six of the small plates then we had dessert which I think we at least had one of everything on the menu.


Part of the table
After dinner most of us were pretty tired so we headed back to the loft to get some sleep for our next big day. Some girls ventured out for a drink right by the loft but that didn't last long.  :)

Before I start our next our next day I'm going to jump back and tell you about our loft.  The loft was not exactly what we had in mind when we reserved it.  Our loft was literally on top of a bar with music blaring till about 2:30 AM.  Then all the college students from the bar stroll out to the streets to get something to eat....Austin is famous for street vendors so there are tons of options....pizza, sausage dogs, fish tacos, etc.  It didn't really get quiet in our loft till 3:00 or 3:30 AM.  Besides being loud, our perfect location loft was not the cleanest in the world.  The towels smelled of mildew, there was mouse turds all over the place and between the two showers you could only use one.  A few of us even used the communal showers in the hall. It was definitely a chance for us to relive our college days.  We felt like we were living in a frat house. Which we made the best of the situation but we have decided we are too old for this.  We have since named our loft "Dirty Sixth" which we got from a lady that live in Austin and was helping us with fun places to go.  That's what our area is called. 


So back to fun stuff.....we started our first full day with a famous breakfast place where you can order carrot cake french toast.  The restaurant is called South Congress Cafe.  From the loft we walked to the restaurant across the river about 1.7 miles.  It was a nice walk because the weather was perfect. 

South Congress Cafe
From there we headed back to towards downtown but stopped and shopped on the way back.  There were several little boutiques, hipster stores and antique shops along the way.  Every single person bought something.  A dress, a top, a belt, shoes except me....you know I'm not one for shopping.  But I did enjoy going through the stores.  Once we had finished shopping we decided to grab a cup of coffee and a little treat at a local bakery that Sandra Bullock owns.  From there we headed back to the loft for a nap.  Beth and Nina headed to Target to buy us some new towels...we just couldn't use the mildewed towels.

After our nap, we got showered and dressed for our nice evening out! 


Headed Out


Annabelle had made reservations at Wink.  When we got to the restaurant the manager greeted us and had us go into the bar area for champagne.  So we got seats in the boom boom room and they popped some bubbly for us.
The Boom Boom Room
After we had some champagne they moved us into the restaurant to our table.  When we got the menu's the first thing we noticed was at the top of the menu it said "Congratulations Beth!"  It was so exciting!  Beth's fiancĂ© had called the restaurant and had purchased a bottle of champagne for all of us and bought dessert.  He is so sweet!  Everyone loved their meal....most people at the table ordered Scallops.  Then came our dessert menu....


Jake even arranged this for the birthday girls....he is on top of it!
Birthday Girls

Once we finished our wonderful meal we headed to the Blind Pig on dirty sixth....which is where we found
Sarah just happen to be in Austin at the same time as us.  She was here to see Chowles in West Side Story.  Here are some other picture from the Blind Pig.



Once we had a few drinks here we headed to the Bat Bar (which I had been dying to check out) but it was quite a sketchy crowd so we headed across the street to a little Irish bar for one last drink.  Beth end up running into a guy who was having his bachelor party so they had a shot together.


That was the end of Friday and now onto Saturday.

We got up and headed to Stubbs BBQ for a wonderful southern lunch.  Sarah met us here after she had breakfast with Chowles.

From Stubbs we headed to the University of Texas to check there stadium.  This is what we thougth of that....

Go Gators!!
We took several pictures on the field that will come at a later date....waiting on Annabelle.

On our way off the field a man in a golf cart tells us that he had come down here to arrest us.  Somehow I guess we look too cute to arrest.

From there we walked around campus and decided to start heading towards the loft since we had a Duck Tour at 4 PM.  On are hot walk home, we were thinking how nice it would be to have a snow cone....next thing we know, we come across a dog festival with......wait for it.....snow cones! 
Next on the agenda....a tour of Austin by land and water: 
Yes, we got to quack along the way of this tour.  We got a lot of Austin history and we got to see the capital which is the largest in the US.


Then we went in Lake Austin

Please Part 2 which will come tomorrow.

Birthday's

Last night we went to Dad and Kathy's to celebrate several birthday's.  My grandmother, Ruby's birthday was March 30, Kathy's birthday is this Saturday and mine is this Sunday.  We had pizza, salad and ice cream cake!

We also got to spend some time with Cooper.  This was the first time that Drew, Ruby and Richard got to meet the little guy! 





Tuesday, April 5, 2011

AK's Birthday

Last week, March 30, we celebrated Andra Kay's birthday!!  To celebrate we went to John Andrew and Kay's house for dinner and had a wonderful meal.  Here are some pictures that Mary Carlton took while her mom was opening presents!


Mac gave his mom his $2 bill...so sweet!

Cookie Jar