Turkey And Peanut Butter...

I am sorry I have been off the ol' blog recently! It has been a busy couple of weeks. Here is a brief catch-up...

The house: Everything is great! The sellers agreed to all the repairs we asked for (roofing work and HVAC). Now its just a waiting game to let the Pros do their jobs to get things ready for our Closing. Closing is still set for December 16th which means when we return from Thanksgiving, we will be just over 2 weeks away!

My trip to Boston: SO FUN! I have some pictures to share and lots of adventures to blog about. I PROMISE I will get to it as soon as possible. There was lots of working out, hiking, girl-time and yes, 3 INCHES of snow!!! I can now say I have hiked in the snow!! Three days later... I am still very sore (which makes Jillian Jr. aka Kara, very happy)!

The holiday: Jason and I hit the road today after work heading towards Little Rock. We will stop tonight in Tyler and stay with Jason's friend Dale. Then we are up early tomorrow morning to finish the remaining 4.5 hours and arrive in time for Thanksgiving lunch. Jason's oldest sister, Monica, and her family live there. We will be joined by Jason's parents and his other sister, Jennifer and her family. Monica has invited me to join her on Friday for a Spin class at the community center... that is so exciting. (Plus, I can feel a LITTLE less guilt when enjoying our meal!)

I hope everyone has a wonderful Turkey Day!! If you are like me, I am having pre-holiday, pre-road trip and pre-leaving-my-office-for-another-4-days stress. So, to help with that, I would like to share a short video of everyone's favorite Beagle... Tucker. The other day I finished a (plastic) jar of peanut butter. PB happens to be one of Tucker's favorite things! So, I gave him the empty jar to clean out. This video was shot as I sat at my desk... sorry if it is shaky- I was giggling! Watch it to the end- he is a funny dog!

Just one week...

One week from today at 5:45 PM, I will be jetting off to Boston for a long weekend! My super duper friend, Kara, has surprised me with a trip to see her!!

This year, Jason and I had planned on visiting Kara & Mike for New Years. However, when we decided to buy a house, we had to cut somethings out and that trip, sadly, was one of the casualties. I have been very bummed about that because I miss her... and I want to see her beautifully remodeled house!

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and I get this awesome email from Kara asking if I had a long weekend free that she could bring me up for a visit! I was thrilled! However... there is a catch. :o)

This isn't just a lazy, touristy visit. Oh no... Kara has put together she has called "Boot Camp 2". Yep, my weight loss mentor is going to be torturing me all weekend! She said this trip was something she had been thinking about for some time and wanted to do it as her way of continuing to support my weight loss effort. SO AWESOME!!! So, not only do I get to see my best-est friend, but I am going to learn some workout strategies as well. We are going to go to the gym, maybe hike in New Hampshire (weather and time permitting) and eat healthy all weekend. I have managed to request we get pedicures too.

Just to give you an idea of what I am in for, here are a string of emails between Kara and I last week...

A: "Two weeks from today, I will be heading your way!!!!"

K: "I know... So many options, so few days with you. I'll have to figure out how to pack in the best punch. I'm very excited about it and really just can't believe I'll get to see you so soon!"

A: "I am excited too!!! I may go running slow motion through the airport when I see you... :o)"

K: "Da dunh a da dunh da........da dunh a da dunh! (In case you couldn't deduce my email singing, that was Chariots of Fire). As long as you're running, we'll be starting the weekend right! ;-)"

A: "HA! Instead of embracing me, you would just start running and make me follow you to the car! My luggage would just serve as additional weights!"

K: "Hahaha! You've already got my plan all figured out!"

Oh Boy!!!

Halloween Night...

After a day of Halloween craziness at work, I went to South Austin to join Kitt and her family for a night of Trick-or-Treating. We had SO much fun!! Kitt's sister Kelly (not pictured) and I walked the neighborhood with Kitt, Jack and the kids, Sean, Sean and Sage's friend Olivia. Sean was the cutest darn monkey (with a pacifier) ever!!!

We would stand on the sidewalk and watch as the kids went from house to house. We laughed all night as we watched the kids drag Sean to all the houses. If he fell once, he fell 100 times. We would constantly hear the sound of his pumpkin bucket thud on the ground. He never missed a beat though! He had a hard time understanding the concept of going to someone's front door and NOT going inside their home. In fact, at the first house we went to we heard a loud crash and the woman giggle... apparently Sean didn't see that she had stepped out on her porch and closed a glass door behind her... Monkey face meet the glass door. He was a bit startled but kept going!!

We walked around for a couple of hours and enjoyed each other's company while the kids had a great time. Here are some other fun pictures from the night...

It's an Obama-Lantern!!

Happy Birthday Kasi!!!

Yes, that's right... another birthday this week!!! Unfortunately, I have realized that I don't have any fun pictures of Kasi and I together. :o) So, I think that she and I need to work on that!

Kasi and I met while working in Hell... aka Samsung. She was brave and jumped ship several months before I did, but in the few months we worked together, we clicked right away. Our cubes were right across the aisle from one another so we quickly bonded by shooting looks of disbelief to each other regarding crazy things that would happen or we would overhear.

She is a special friend and we have become very close in a very short time. She now has a beautiful little girl named Troy and it has been fun watching Kasi develop as a Mommy!

So, happy birthday my dear Kasi!!

By the way... here is a tip for everyone. I have found the SECRET to successful friendships and finding great girlfriends... they all need to have names that start with "K" and be 4 letter. Kara, Kitt and Kasi prove my point!

Happy Birthday Kara!!!

Today is a special day for my friend Kara… it is her birthday!!! YAY! Most of you know that Kara is like a sister to me… I have known her for 12 of my birthdays!!

We have been through so much together and celebrated LOTS of birthdays together. In fact, for many years, we had a “Birthday Girl Crown” that we passed back and forth for each of our birthdays.

In honor of her special day and our long-distance love affair, I have put together some pictures of fun memories…

Happy Birthday Kara!!!

So you think you can dance??

On Sunday night, my friend Kasi and I (along with Kasi's friend Bridget) went to the Frank Erwin Center to see the "So You Think You Can Dance" Live Tour. It was SO much fun!!!

This past summer, Kasi and I would have "TV Night" at her house and we watched SYTYCD. We both enjoy all sorts of genres of dance, so this was a good choice for us. We quickly became professional judges and would critique the dancers and choreographers.

One of our favorite dancers, Joshua (on the left) won the competition.

Even though we quickly realized we were amongst the average age of most mothers there, we had a blast. We got to scream for our favorite dancers, relive our favorite performances and just be kids. It was so much fun!!!

HOOK 'EM HORNS!!!

We just watched our beloved, #5 ranked UT Longhorns play an AWESOME game!! They beat #1 ranked Oklahoma 45 to 35. There were a lot of not-so-great calls made by the official towards both teams, but ultimately, UT was victorious!

Jason and I watched the first half the game in a sea of burnt orange shirts at a local bar. We shared an appetizer and kicked back in our bar stools. As we headed home during halftime, it was a 1 point game... so there was no way to know what to expect! We finished the 2nd half in our living room with the dogs happily napping.

There are a lot of other big college games this weekend, so it will be interesting to see what this does to our ranking once everything plays out.

Go Horns!!!

Just one of those days...

Have you ever gone to workout and it was just one of those awesome days? Your timing is on, you push yourself, you are proud of yourself and it just feels good to be there! I had one of those this morning.

I went to Spin Class and just let it all out. For as long as I have been doing Spin, I am not sure I have ever had a workout that awesome.

Here's the best part... after class in the locker room I was chatting with my instructor, Vickie. She said that she can see a very evident difference in me since Boot Camp!! She said she can tell I push myself harder and my endurance has definitely increased. She said there was just an "added focus" to me since doing the BC. Isn't that awesome!?! Made me feel great!

After some encouragement from Kara, I have decided to try a new class next week... "Body Combat". Just the sound of it scares me! However, I am willing to try anything once and maybe it will take me back to my Boot Camp days! I will let you know...

Party Animal...

Today we celebrated one of my co-worker's birthday! Happy 29th Matt!!!

As is tradition in our office, the desk of the birthday person is heavily decorated when they arrive to work. One of Matt's decorations was a party hat. I walked into my office this afternoon to find this...


Another one of my co-workers, Scotty, got this idea and I think its darn cute!!

Fun weekend...

After my successful WW meeting on Saturday, I headed to South Austin to hang out with Kitt. It was a beautiful Austin morning... mid-70's, cloudless sky and I was in such a good mood after my meeting. I rolled down all the windows, opened the sunroof and turned up the stereo. Every Saturday, my favorite XM station (80's) plays old Weekly Top 40's with Rick Dees. It was this week in 1989... my freshman year in high school! I jammed out the whole way down Mopac. I was doing old school dance moves, beating on the steering wheel and rapping every single word of "Bust A Move". I didn't have a care in the world and I knew that I weighed 9 pounds less!!

When I arrived at Kitt's, I knocked on the door. When she opened it, we quickly glanced at each other and then she slammed the door on me! We were wearing the SAME exact shirt. Never in my life would I have expected Kitt to be wearing a pink UT Longhorns t-shirt!! We laughed on opposite sides of the door and then she let me in. (She changed before we left, I couldn't convince her to be my Twinky all day...)

We had a fun, relaxing day of just hanging out- just like old times. We went shopping at the Sunset Valley Farmer's Market. It was awesome!!! (For you Austinites... its every Saturday in the parking lot of Burger Stadium- go check it out.) There was a lot of great produce that is organic and all locally grown. Plus, we sampled yummy hummus, fresh cheese and I got a cup of the best hibiscus mint iced tea ever! I also got some fresh kettle corn, dog bones for the dogs and a rotisserie chicken for my dinner. We left with our canvas shopping bags full of great stuff including meat, awesome tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers and some fresh pita bread. There was even a booth with natural dog treats and shampoos. It was SO fun... so much so that we are planning on making it a regular thing for us. (Mom- you and I MUST go during one of your visits.) It was a very typical Austin event too... lots of people with their dogs, hippy clothes, live music and all the vendors were local. Kitt and I talked about how in this current economy, it made us feel great to support local businesses.

We then headed over to Galaxy Cafe and had a good lunch. For the rest of the day, we just hung out at Kitt's house with her 15 month old son, Jack. We didn't really do anything, which was nice. Then our friend Rodrick stopped by. It was great to see him... he is in the Navy and leaves today (Monday) for a 6 month tour in Bahrain. I was so glad I got to see him before he left.

On Sunday, I got up and worked out. Then I dashed over to the theater and met my friend Kasi to see a great Chick-Flick, The Women. It was a nice time to chill out for Kasi and for us to see each other. Then it was a lazy day for me...

So, I had a good weigh-in, eat really well all weekend, saw two of my best friends and chilled out. That is what I call a great weekend. :o)