Help a Great Cause

A few weeks ago at church we noticed a little ad in the bulletin for the Williamson County Animal Shelter. The children's group at our church was raising money and supplies for them and of course I was very excited about this! As many of you may know, I'm a huge animal lover. Any sappy or sad commercial on TV and I'm in tears. We try to donate every chance we get to help the animals in need and this is something I hope we continue for the rest of our lives.

I went online to the Williamson County Animal Shelter's website and learned more about volunteering. This is something I hope to do in the summer. I feel like it's time to put my beliefs into action. Again, this is a small personal choice, but one that I feel is needed. I also saw that there is a place to make monetary donations online. I was so excited to see that it is that easy! They also have a list of items they are needing to keep the shelter running and the animals there taken care of. The items needed range from things as small as paper bags and tennis balls, to any metal animal crates you are no longer using and special beds you can help them purchase online. We have a large crate that is just sitting upstairs that I'm going to try and convince Tony we no longer need it for Einstein. At church we learned that they are also in need of small plastic kiddie pools to help the dogs stay cool this summer. Last Saturday we saw a sign at Petco saying they were almost out of a particular kind of dog food. So many ways we can help!

If you're an animal lover like we are I'm sure you can think of something you can give or do to help this cause. We pray that every animal in need of a loving home will find one. Einstein brings us so much joy and I hope that each of these animals will find homes that will provide the comfort, safety, well being and love that we strive to give Einstein.

If you want to donate you can go here.

If you read this, I hope you feel compelled to give however you can.

Our Nightly Ritual

With a Schnauzer in the house life is never boring. Einstein is a crazy dog that loves to wrestle, run, and play chase. Sometimes when Tony comes home from work, he'll wrestle with Einstein to get him all stirred up. Lately though, right before bed they play chase in our bedroom. It's become a nightly ritual. It's one that Einstein LOVES and one that I beg for because it makes me laugh to see Tony hide behind corners and in our bathroom to scare Einstein.

Here's a video of them playing chase before bed last night. Tony likes to run Einstein out into the hall and then hide either behind the wall into our bedroom or in the bathroom. You can see Einstein totally gets into this and plans out what his next move will be.

This is the ridiculous nightly ritual we have going on at our house right now. Clearly you can tell it doesn't take much to make us laugh!

Fabulous Fridays

Another week down! Ever since I can remember Fridays have always been my favorite day of the week. I remember being little and being excited about a weekend where you can do whatever you want! As a teacher you are still living the school week life, so of course I still love me some Fridays!

Last night was a chilly one and after getting my stuff organized for next week, I headed home and stopped at Super Target. I absolutely love the new one by our house and I took my time looking at all the fun Valentine stuff. This year I've really gotten into Valentine's spirit!

On my way home I picked up our favorite fast food (aside from Chick-fil-a). Delicious!

When I got home my baby schnauzer and his daddy had the fire going and the DVR ready to catch up on another of my guilty pleasures...

Some shopping, takeout, and trash TV with my boys. I love me some Fridays...

This morning we woke up and took our boy to get his hair did. While we waited we went to Lowe's and ordered two more sets of shutters for our master bedroom and upstairs game room. We also went and looked at a few furniture stores until he was ready. He came back looking fabulous as always!

Next up: nap time! Happy weekend everyone!

Busy.

That pretty much sums up our past three weeks! Tony's been working crazy hours to meet a deadline for the highway 290 project his company's designing. I turned 25 on Wednesday while he worked the longest day+ of his career (a whopping 33 hour day!). Before that there were bachelor parties, a rehearsal dinner and wedding in Dallas where Tony was a groomsman, ice castles, and lots of cold weather!

On our calendar this past weekend was to do nothing except have a date night. The past two weekends have been non-stop movement and the majority of the time we've seen each other during the past two work weeks have been while we're brushing our teeth and eating breakfast. On Friday after we had a dog training session for Einstein we had at home date night with Freebirds burrito (Tony) and Taco Cabana (me). We caught up on our DVR (which makes me very happy to go from 20+ recordings to 1) and relaxed. We've been watching Giuliana and Bill and it's become one our guilty pleasures (along with the Real Housewives and Operation Repo).

It's a fun show to watch with Tony because we're pretty ridiculous together like they can be.

Saturday night was date night out on one of my students thanks to a birthday gift card. It was just what we needed! I'd say part of my New Years goals of more date nights is going well!

Today Tony had to work, but I kept busy visiting a friend who had a baby on New Years. I brought her dinner and hung out with her and her beautiful boy. Afterwards it was back to relaxing and cooking with Einstein!

I haven't shared many recipes on here in a while, but we have been cooking up a storm! Last night we spiced up our go to easy penne pasta dinner by adding roasted veggies as done here. It was fantastic and we'll definitely be eating our go to dinner like this from now on. Talk about an easy and delicious way to get extra veggies!

Tonight we'll be having King Ranch Chicken via a great church cookbook I've mentioned before. It's actually the same recipe my mom used to make when I was growing up.

King Ranch Chicken

1-2 chicken breasts cooked (we grill)

1 large onion cut up

2 ribs celery, cut in medium pieces (we skipped this b/c we were out of celery)

1 can cream of mushroom soup (campbell's healthy request version to make us feel better)

1 can cream of chicken soup (ditto)

8 oz Cheddar cheese, grated

12 corn tortillas

1 large bell pepper, cut in small pieces

1 can Ro-tel tomatoes

Chili powder and garlic salt

salt and pepper

Directions:

Cook chicken according to preference and shred or cube. Mix soups and grated cheese. Spray large casserole dish and spread 4 tortillas on bottom of casserole dish. Spread 1/2 of each of the following on top of tortillas: chicken, bell pepper, and onion and sprinkle with garlic salt and chili powder. Add 1/2 soup mixture. Cover with 4 more tortillas. Spread remaining 1/2 of ingredients left in same order as above (I put the soup mixture first before the chicken and bell peppers because it's easier to spread this way). Apply 4 tortillas across the top. Pour can of Ro-tel tomatoes (don't drain) over top.

Bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees for approximately 30-35 minutes.

In our house we serve it simple: with ranch style beans and corn for my country boy. You can dress it up however you want. If you make it let me know how it went!

Today I also prepped several meals for the week. I pre-made taco meat and Mexican rice for tacos this week as well as Chicken spaghetti to re-heat at some point this week. I also washed, diced, and stored lots of veggies and fruits for things I'll be making this week.

This makes it easy just to throw in a blender for a smoothie for breakfast or add to a salad or pan in no time. I learned this lesson from a fellow teacher I work with who premakes lots of her meals on Sundays so that cook time is next to nothing during the week. I like! I can imagine this would help so many people save time during the week if they just gave it a try. It's a pretty cool rush to know that Sunday at noon I have two to three meals done and other parts of meals prepped for the week ahead. Score!

Oh, this is a cute little bowl a little girl in my class gave to me for my birthday. She made it at one of those pottery stores and painted it and wanted me to have it for Einstein. She said it could be a food or water bowl, but in my head I knew it was way too small for that. On Friday we had a session with our dog trainer and he showed us how to train Einstein to go to his "place" when someone rings the doorbell or comes over. In the beginning you have to train him with treats so I thought that bowl would be a perfect and cute way to store them by his "place."

There's our baby in his place. So far so good!

Grandma's in Town!

Hold on to your seats! Grandma's in town! She's fierce, she's tough, and she's 78. She's at the age where she doesn't take anything from anyone, EVER. This can be a good and also a bad thing.

She's here this week because my mom started her new job. I was getting a little bored and told my mom to bring grandma up with her so she could keep me company. We've shopped, cooked, napped, laughed, and bought tacos from the Taco Man that drives around selling lunch to the construction workers. It's been fun and I think Einstein has even enjoyed having a playmate here since my grandma brought her little dog Precious with her.

Here's my grandma reinacting something her friend was doing the other day. Hmm, now I know where I get using my whole body during storytelling.

Here's Einstein and Precious about to duke it out during one of their many battles. Ahh, sweet summer!

I Love My Dog

I do. I really, really do. My dog is smart, he's funny, and he has attitude. Some might say he's alot like me. Ha! I would have to agree. Einstein is the coolest dog I know. He is curious as hell, needs lots of exercise, LOVES food, and gets sassy if I give him attitude.

I don't understand people who don't love dogs. If I find out a person doesn't like dogs I almost feel bad for them. Seriously, that is the most unconditional love a person can find. Think about it: they always want to be around you, will protect you FIERCELY (at least mine does), come cuddle with you when you have a rough day, lick your dirty feet, get really excited when you come home, hang out with you when you're sick, make you laugh, want to make you happy and just plain love you. All this without ever saying a word to you (that you can really understand). I have grown up with dogs my whole life. I had lots here and there when I was little and one GREAT one for 15 years growing up. Tony is one of the biggest animal lovers I know and while he wasn't always an inside dog lover, I can now attest to his love and understanding of having an inside dog.

I can't wait for our kids to grow up around dogs. They're going to have their work cut out with Einstein because he doesn't take crap from anyone (except Tony). He's the gaurd dog of the house and no one gets through without hearing it from him or his approval. We laugh when we think about all the trouble he's going to get into (and get our kids into) once we have a family. We can just see it now: kids screaming upstairs, running...Einstein barking...then silence. When we quietly walk upstairs what will we find: a disaster with our wonderful kids and dog in the middle while they're feeding him some mystery snack they've sneaked into their rooms.

It's going to be a chaotic blast.

I love my sugar bear.

Weather or Not!

Last week the weather man said there was a good chance for rain in our area. We were hopeful and watched the radar a lot, but when we saw storm clouds we thought for sure it was coming our way (yay for some relief to our water bill for the yard!).

Einstein and I went outside on one of the especially cloudy days to wait for the rain. I brought the camera hoping to catch a few rain drops as proof, but Einstein and I were disappointed. Here is what Einstein did while we waited for the rain.

After an hour of watching the lightening, hearing the thunder, and seeing storm clouds...nothing happened! Apparently the rain was everywhere but at our house. Bummed or not, we still had a great breeze and pretty setting for dinner outside that night. We love good ol' spaghetti!

Yes, I realize most of my pasta pictures have the same salad and bread next to them, but when you find what works for my meat and potatoes husband you stick with it. Considering when I met him he WOULD NOT eat salad, I'd say having a salad every night is a tiny improvement! ;)

In other news, there was a death to report in the Estes family. My beloved CHI is deceased (or 'decreased' as Vanessa Huxtable likes to say on the Cosby show). After over five faithful years trying to tame my horribly wavy/curly hair it passed on Tuesday afternoon. I was attempting to plug it in and make myself look decent after a long day of working out/hanging out/cleaning before Tony came home. When it didn't start I gasped...mostly because I knew how expensive these little guys can be and I dreaded telling Tony some of his money has parted ways with him as well. Ha, we tried and tried to bring that CHI back from death, but it wasn't having it.

So began the search for a new CHI. I knew I had paid about $100 for it back in college, but I had no idea what they went for now. After searching online, they ranged from $100-$160. I was NOT about to pay that and Tony was set on me finding the best deal. Lo and behold good ol' Amazon.com came through for us with a STEAL! I was worried it wouldn't come in in time for our big weekend of showers, trips, and get togethers, but after clicking "two-day shipping" it still was huge discount and it came to our door Friday afternoon. Some may not call this a crisis, but if you know my hair or have hair like it, it's MOST DEFINITELY a crisis!

Other than that, we've been staying pretty busy. I got to watch Tony float the river for the first time yesterday! He looked like a pro! The river was packed with 1000's of people (this is not a picture of our day, just a usual day) because the Guadalupe was closed for floating due to water levels. It was fun and good to catch up with Tony's old elementary friends.

We finished off the night with our neighbors' couples baby shower. All in all we're nicely tanned and ready for a relaxing next weekend. Tonight is all about grilling and a trip to the dog park.

Happy Sunday! :)

Dog Park Nights

We've been trying to make a few more trips to the dog park once the sun goes down. Einstein's back in full-on play mode! Last night a friend of ours caught a few pictures of the 4 way tug of war with a doggie toy. Einstein stuck with it to the end and won!

Last night the weather was perfect for the dog park. Tony missed out since he had to be at a public meeting in New Braunfels for work. There were so many dogs there and it was so cute to see Einstein running around full speed and wrestling with all his doggie friends. The past few nights there have been SO MANY dogs out there! All their owners must feel as guilty as I do for having their dogs cooped up inside all day during this hot weather.

Ah, a dog's life! :)

Shower Season!

The next few weekends will be pretty busy around here! We have quite a few friends who have either weddings, couples showers, or baby showers coming up. It's fun times!

Here's a look at our kitchen counter right now. It's filled with fun things for others. :)

During the wrapping this is what Einstein did to keep himself busy. His life really is pretty fabulous and stress-free! He's recovering from a great night at the dog park last night. We were so proud of how well he did with two kids that were there with their dogs. He hasn't had the opportunity to be around lots of little kids growing up, so he's standoffish and scared when he sees them which leads to fear barking, but last night he played around them for an hour with no barking! I wish I would have caught a picture of him, but needless to say he had a blast! There were SO many little dogs there that it was nice to see him race around, chase, and wrestle with other little pups. I think all those puppies just live for when their owners come home and take them out there. What a dog's life!

Other than that, we're just hanging around the house relaxing! I made Paula Deen's Volcano Cake the other night and we're LOVING finishing it off! :)

Father's Day Weekend

This weekend we went up to Bangs to visit Tony's parents. We took Einstein which is always special because they're not typically a dog-friendly home. They've made the exception for Einstein after years and years of not preferring inside dogs because Einstein's proven to be potty trained and well mannered. Yay Einstein!

It's always funny to see Einstein realize he's going somewhere with us because he gets so excited and he's such a good car rider.

Einstein is a city dog at heart, but this weekend he was able to explore some country sights he otherwise doesn't get to see. He took it all in stride and by Sunday afternoon he was feeling very at home in the country.

He was just as freaked out as I was by the chickens that looked like alien stuffed animals!

He met the new goat

For the first time since he's been visiting he actually hung out with Jack the "Outside Dog" on the property.

He couldn't quite figure out the peacock situation.

He was in awe of my mother-in-law's aquarium. He kept a close eye on the shark!

It was a short one night trip, but lots of fun was had! Something tells me Einstein can't wait for another trip back to the country where he can investigate the animal situation a little more!