New truck

We've been talking about getting Matt a new truck for awhile now but have hung back for fear of not getting a good deal or taking on too much after buying a house earlier in the year. We finally bit the bullet and went into the dealership this afternoon. About 4 hours later we walked out with a new truck! Check it out:

So, what do you think? It is a big upgrade from the old one. To start we can fit 6 people in this new truck from the previous 3. It also has tinted windows and automatic windows and locks. Hallelujah! You have no idea how annoying manual windows and locks can be! Remote entry, 5.3 liter V8 engine, individual air controls, satellite radio, OnStar, several drink holders and storage area, 18 inch wheels, the list goes on and on.

I guess we are really adults now. A new house and a new car, what more could anyone ask for?

Oh, and just for smiles here are some pictures of baby Waylon. :)

Hey guys, can I help?

Happy Fathers Day

A little late but you know what they say, better late than never!

No More Cancer Party!

As soon as I got back from Midlothian and saw my precious hubby and puppy we received wonderful news: one of our closest friends, Stephen, mom was declared to be in 100% remission from Lymphoma Cancer! Yay! Can you think of a better reason to celebrate?? :)

For those of you that are unaware, lime green is the color for lymphoma cancer. So Friday night we all got dolled up in our best lime green and headed over to celebrate the good news.

Congrats Joni, we are so happy for you and will continue to keep you in our prayers!

Baby Ella

So, in true summer fashion as soon as I got home from New England I turned around and took another vacation! (Only after checking in on the husband and pup, cleaning the house and doing some laundry) This time I packed the car up and drove to Midlothian, TX to see my BFF Emily and her big baby belly!!

Emily and I have been friends since college joining the same sorority and living together our senior year. We have kept in touch and even though we live miles apart we have stayed close and her friendship is so very special to me. We both got engaged around the same time and stood next to each other on our respective wedding days. Now Emily has opened the next chapter and is pregnant!! I am just over the moon for her and the new baby girl!

So we spent about a week together just catching up, laying out and preparing for baby! I am so proud to say that we painted and wallpapered the nursery all by ourselves!

Me and Miss Mollie Mae!

Emily is due in November and don't worry, I fully plan on sending her plenty of Aggie and Katy Tiger onesies!!

Bar Harbor and home

Okay, Bar Harbor was the last day of our New England trip and this was where we did our trolley tour of Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park. This feels like so long ago! I'm having to use the pictures as reminders to let you know what we did!

Our trolley tour picked us up at our hotel and boy was it a rainy day. We picked the worst possible time to come to Bar Harbor- it was cold and rainy. The hotel employees said it was beautiful the days before we came and they rarely get that much rain. We sat in the front of the trolley so we had a great view of everything, but the rain and fog made it hard to see along the coast. :(

Here are some pictures of Acadia National Park.

And downtown Bar Harbor, very picturesque.

After our trolley tour we pretty much had to hit the road so we could make it back to Boston before nightfall. For some reason the Garmin took us on the scenic route on the way home and I could not have been more pleased with the decision. It was the perfect drive on the way back to Boston- exactly what I pictured New England to look like in the springtime.

By the time we made it back to Boston, got to the hotel and returned the rental car we were pooped. Our flight on Saturday was pretty uneventful. We finally had Dunkin Donuts for breakfast (another item on our To Do list) and we were actually paged over the loudspeaker at the airport because we almost missed our flight! Thankfully we made it and we are now safely back in Texas. I gotta say, after those beautiful New England day it sure does make this Texas heat even more unbearable. But I am so glad to be home!

Thanks mom for some wonderful mother-daughter bonding time and for a vacation I will never forget. And a HUGE thanks to Stephanie for lending the Garmin to us- we would probably still be driving around New England lost without it!

Catch Up

I'm so terribly sorry for basically going MIA for awhile, but alas, I'm here to catch you up on the last day of our New England trip and some festivities since we have been home. Hang tight, several blog posts to come.

The Eastern-most point of the United States

We made it to Bar Harbor, Maine today driving from Newport. Altogether, including a stop in Kennebunkport, ME for lunch, the trip took us 8 1/2 hours to make. WOW!

Not much to report on since we spent most of the day in the car. Some high points from the car ride:

Moose crossings. Yes, you read that right, watch out for moose in Maine. I just had to get a picture :)


Kennebunkport, ME. One of the cutest, quaintest little towns along the way. It was about halfway from Newport to Bar Harbor and we took some pictures of the little town while we stopped to have lunch. The homes here are exactly what I imagined New England homes to look like.

Cooper's corner. I had to take a picture in his honor.

Dinner in Bar Harbor. We finally were able to order lobster for dinner (one of the top items on our To Do list) and it was more than we bargained for! Lobster turns out to be really hard to eat!! They had to bring us out the bibs and a directions sheet, lol. Here are some action shots:

After dinner the plan was to walk around downtown and do some shopping but it was so cold (54 degrees) that we had to cut our night short and go back to the hotel. Tomorrow we are taking a trolley tour of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park before driving back to Boston (yes, another day in the car) so hopefully before we leave we can hit some of the stores.

I do have to say, I miss Texas! I'm so ready to be sweating and laying in a pool!

How the other half lives

Greetings from Newport, Rhode Island where is got into the 60's today! Today mom and I spent the day touring Newport's mansions. Newport is home to some of the most luxurious and extravagant "summer houses" of the rich and famous from the gilded age- and when I say extravagant, I mean WHOA! The Newport Preservation Society has purchased many of the properties that were once summer homes of famous families like the Vanderbilt's and Aster's, and now opens them up for tours, kinda like a museum.

The first house (house doesn't accurately describe these things- more like monstrosities!) we toured was "The Breakers" which was built by the Vanderbilt family in 1895. The Vanderbilt's earned most of their fortune from the railroad business and own homes in New York as well as North Carolina (the Biltmore house featured in the movie "Richie Rich.") The Breakers is over 138,000 square feet (yes, thousand) with over 20 bedrooms and bathrooms. I was sooooo terribly disappointed to learn that we could not take pictures inside the house as I am certain that is what you want to see. Here are some that we got outside the mansion.

Here is another picture of the house that does it better justice (from Google images):
After the Breakers we stopped for coffee and then headed on down the road to The Elms. This was another summer cottage owned by the Berwind's of the Philadelphia coal industry. It was just as impressive- there is no other word to describe these houses then just HUUUUUUUUGE!!! It is really just hard to imagine what life was like for the families that lived in these homes. The audio tours tried to explain what the day-to-day routine was like for these families, but they just left me awestruck. In today's money The Elms would cost over $22 million to build, much less decorate.

After The Elms we took the ocean drive again and snapped some more pictures of the Newport houses since it was clearer outside today.

Tomorrow we are headed up to Bar Harbor, Maine which is seven hours from Newport! So we will be spending most of the day in the car tomorrow. We are really looking forward to having some Maine lobster and clam chowder tomorrow. We have a trolley tour scheduled for Friday and then we are coming home Saturday. We are on the last leg of our trip.

Greetings from Newport, Rhode Island

Hello from Newport! We woke up today to the rain and cold weather. Cold as in 54 DEGREES! WOW! We had a wonderful breakfast at a little cafe in Boston until we realized they had the thermostat on 84. Needless to say we had to eat fast to keep from melting.

We made it to Newport with thanks to the Garmin Stephanie lent us. It rained the whole way and was really gloomy. I took some pictures on the road but a lot of them did not turn out too well.

Once we checked into our hotel in Newport we took the afternoon to just drive around and enjoy the city. Newport is really small (I think someone told me once that Harris County is larger than Rhode Island) so we did not have to drive very far. We ate lunch at the Red Parrot, a very good restaurant along the coast.

After lunch it was so cold and rainy we had to stop so I could buy a sweatshirt! I was freezing! We walked up and down the little town square until we were too cold to take any more. After window-shopping we drove along Bellevue Avenue. This is where all of the mansions of the area are. In the late 1800's/early 1900's big-name families (Vanderbilt's, Aster's, Carnegie's, Mellon's, Whitney's) built their vacation homes in Newport. Now these vacation homes make the large houses in Texas look small. They are all open to the public now and the Newport Preservation Society opens them up for tours throughout the year. They are mostly all built on the same street along the coast, Bellevue Avenue. So after shopping we drove along Bellevue Avenue, here are some pics:


Bellevue Avenue turns into Ocean Drive and is an 8 mile drive along the coast with some other summer homes. It would have been perfect for pictures if it weren't so gloomy outside. Here are some we took, take note of my really cool new sweatshirt.
Tomorrow we plan to spend the day touring the mansions. Be ready for some amazing pictures tomorrow!