I love Thursday Nights!

In our house we love us some Thursday nights. They're always a little hectic, but we work hard to make sure that during the weekend we can relax!

This weekend we'll be doing all the things I love. We're having some friends over for dinner and we'll be making some yummy ribs with lots of other great food!

We'll also be celebrating the end of another week with 25 cent blizzards! I love me some DQ and great deals! My boo and I have had some great summer nights with blizzards involved!

Along with this we hope to get some gardening done and Tony's promised some long, uninterrupted time of catching up on my DVR'd shows. This week I was a very good wife and when we were around a TV it was on the Rangers. There were quite a few games on this week!

I'm excited about a relaxing weekend. Tony's been working hard on a huge design project he's been blessed to oversee. This is a really important time in his career and I know God has great things in store for my wonderful guy! With the end of the year approaching, I've been very busy during school hours and after (who am I kidding?).

Happy Weekend everyone!

Backyard Boot Camp Round 2

Ding ding!

This part is by far my favorite part! Saturday after our bike ride around the lake, we headed out to the local nurseries and Lowes to check out potential shrubs for our new garden. Tony and I both decided we wanted to go for more of a native Texas feel rather than just tons of annuals and little flowers. We had fun quizzing each other on the names of the plants we saw. Tony has become a little Texas native buff and I was impressed! He's so cute when he gets into something because he has to learn EVERYTHING about it!

This was one of those great days where the TV stays off ALL day! From 8 am to when we went to bed the TV stayed off and we pretty much stayed outside. I love spring time!

Saturday morning heaven for me!

I didn't buy this pretty Lavender Saturday because we wanted to read up on them to see how they would do in our soil and climate, but I'm totally coming back for a few of these soon! :)

I'm totally getting a few of these for my pots to hang above the garden!

We brought them home and started playing with the arrangement. Tony didn't like how straight and exact the first arrangement looked so we moved them around a little more to allow for future growth.
My boo planting my pretty shrubs!
Zig zagged for a better effect.

Here's everything minus the mulch. After this we went off to the landscaping place to get the pretty black stuff.

Here's the view from our upstairs game room.
My pretty sweet brooms and Tony's wispy grass stuff that he really wanted.
Pretty sprawling Rosemary.

That Creeping Phlox I said I wanted is going to go in hanging baskets on those holders above the garden.

We still have the huge side gardens to fill in but we're making big progress!

Saturday Morning

What a great way to start the weekend! Tony brought me breakfast in bed and since I was starving, this was the best picture I could take of it.

After breakfast we biked over to my mom's neighborhood to bike around the lake. We took Einstein with us for the bike ride to my mom's house, but we dropped him off at the house to let him play with my grandma's dog.

Biking out of our neighborhood.

The cute little guy out front of my mom's house.

After that we headed out to the lake. It's a 3 mile trail and a pretty good workout. So many people are always out there walking, biking, or running. Saturday morning there was a triathlon going on while we were out there. It's such a pretty way to start your weekend off (and a great way to work off the cinnamon rolls!)

A view from the trail.

Fairly sure Tony didn't know I was taking a picture of his backside.

A far away picture of the bikers coming in for the last leg of the triathlon.

This is something we hope to do much more of as the weather starts to warm up!

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!

Rainy Sundays

It's been a while since my last post. So much has happened since that last post!

My mom and grandma are officially moved into their new home! After 2+ months of living out of our guest room she was very ready to have her own home and to have my grandma join her up here. They're adjusting well and having fun decorating their new home and exploring the big city.

This past week was in fast forward. We spent most of the nights after work unpacking the two huge PODS my mom filled up to move here. We also celebrated Tony's 26th birthday with a few dinners out and some very delicious Snicker's cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory (no pictures...sorry we ate it too fast!)

Today was a rainy, cold day...just like I like them. :) We started the day catching up on our dvr'd shows and after an hour or so of that forced ourselves to go to the gym. I'm so glad we did that because after some time on the treadmill and lifting weights our moods were uplifted and we were pumped to be productive the rest of the day. Thanks endorphines!

When we came home it was lunch time so Tony got to fixing his world famous grilled cheese sandwiches while I started making chocolate chip cookies (both excellent ways to celebrate a successful trip to the gym). Here's a blurry outtake from this event.

Yes the remote is next to the amazing cookie dough. That would be me catching up on Real Housewive episodes. Yay for the OC ladies coming back soon!

I could have stopped right here and never even put these guys in the oven. But I did...and they ended up looking like this:

Afterwards Tony got to painting touch up spots in our formal dining room and office. This weekend we finally painted the chair rail we installed many months ago. After waiting months to get the plantation shutters installed in our windows so that we could finish the chair rail next to the windows it is complete! Pictures to come soon! Here is a look at the hubby working hard!

While he was doing that I started prepping food for our meals this week. My latest adventure in being efficient is to cook as many meals as I can on Sundays so that the week is less stressful. Today it was prepping for beef stew tonight (great weather for it!) and making the lasagna ahead for tomorrow night. I'm loving the feeling of coming home on a Monday and just preheating the oven and sticking that night's dinner in for a little. Makes me dislike Mondays just a little bit less.

Anyway, here's the lasagna obviously before it hits the oven tomorrow night. Yes, still watching the dvr. Only then I think it was the Rachel Zoe Project. Tony's just ignoring it in the other room while painting.

We're off to take a nap on a day that's perfect for being lazy! Happy Sunday everyone!

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! :)