Texas Tour

It has taken me a bit of time to get our Texas Tour posted, but here it is... We had a really good time. We started in Houston, went to Magnolia (well, John went to El Campo)... I journeyed to College Station (Texas A & M folks are CRAZY!!!).... a Magnolia wedding.... Kingwood (The Livable Forest). And finally up to Dallas before coming home. All in all, we were gone for about 7 days and while we had a great time seeing our friends, it was nice to come back home. :)


I had the most unmovable hair I've ever had .. I swear I shook it upside down at the end of the night and it went right back into itself. It was a little crazy. It took me about 2 days to wash off the make-up from my face.. and I never did get used to not recognizing myself in the mirror at the wedding. But eventually I started to look like myself again. :)


John shot skeet... seems like he did a pretty good job for never having shot a gun before. He did have a wonderful bruise on his shoulder though... You really do need to hold it tight, I think he'll remember for next time. :)


JuliAnna was kind enough to welcome us into their amazing home!! We spent the day in their backyard pool which was the perfect ending to the wedding hoopla that was that week and weekend. :) I was blown away by their city (Kingwood) and their home. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was just so relaxed... I got to catch up with her family and be shocked by how old they are and grown up. I couldn't believe it.


We also got to visit with Chris and Emily in their sweet condo in Dallas. They definitely showed us a good time. We drank and ate ourselves totally silly which was amazing. It took me a while to recover - and John is still talking about how much he doesn't think the "hook and ring" game is a fun time.. hahahaha.... It's only because we were better than him :)


So here is a brief snapshot of some of our Texas experiences. :)

The Houston airport. I wonder what they're "Big On".

There were also animal heads on the walls - this is when I officially felt I had entered Texas.

Theresa, me, and her sister Lisa. Bachelorette Party Part 2 (College Station).

Had to get the Lone Star Beer.. it was similar to PBR, so not too bad.

Riiight...... Leaving for the rehearsal dinner.

The wedding venue - pre-people.

It definitely was the hottest day we were in Texas. And the hottest hairstyle I've ever had!

The happy newlyweds.

KG, me, and Sarah hanging out at the reception.

The Livable Forest residents ... down the street from JuliAnna's beautiful home!

Got to Dallas and saw a pretty perfect double rainbow!!

Where JFK was shot. It was a little eerie.

Hahahaha... Thanks Texas!

Fabulous tacos at a gas station that has longhorns. Awesome.

I can see our City from here!!

Our new home (almost) :)

The time has come to show some pictures of the condo that we are in the midst of buying... We went to the inspection on Wednesday and it went pretty well. Some little (hopefully little) things were a problem - dishwasher leaking, a/c not working... things like that. However, we are looking forward to the work we have to do (a little bit anyway) and trying to figure out where to begin... The appraisal should come back today or tomorrow, and that will really solidify everything - so keeping our fingers crossed that we paid a reasonable amount, our loan application should be in the underwriters hands for final approval sometime on Monday!!! So without further ado..... our new home :)

Strangely enough that blue wall at the fireplace will be painted over... This is looking from the front door essentially..

Looking from the baywindows into the dining, kitchen, hallway. The door on the right is the front door.

Kitchen. Ultimately the appliances will probably be updated.. the dishwasher replaced sooner than later (thanks leak!).

2nd Bedroom from one corner - looking at 1 of the closets.

2nd bedroom from other corner looking at the 2nd closet...

The hall bathroom.. some cleaning and a little work to the window will fix it right up!

Full size, side by side washer and dryer in the hallway. That door leads out the back to the patio.

Master bedroom from the corner looking towards the hallway and master bathroom. It has a little bit of a walk-in closet down that little hallway to the right.

Master bathroom with a whirlpool tub... It's fancy. :)

Master bathroom sink.. One day it might be a double-sink. That would be nice. But it already has more storage than our current bathroom :)

Looking into the living/dining from the hallway.

And the roofdeck... Those are Wrigley Field's lights in the background.

So, we should have done a LITTLE bit more research, as we didn't realize until the inspection the other day that there WAS a roof deck. It's pretty huge, has a nice view.. and I think it will be the perfect summertime addition. :)

We plan on doing some work.. painting for one. We are going to figure to what to do with the woodwork. It has been painted multiple times so it's a little "gloppy"... there are some random things to fix, like window locks, floor where the dishwasher warped the wood...air conditioning ... we are considering staining the floors to more of a walnut color than they currently are. John has done some great things in Photoshop to convince me of how beautiful it would look. :) We are starting to think about what colors to put on the walls... what we can do if we take out the bank of cabinets in the kitchen that blocks the view to the living room.. ha. I think we will need to learn how to take it slow so we aren't rushing into everything at once and overwhelming ourselves with home improvement.

So, this is what we have been waiting for since the end of March.. and we are in the homestretch. It's a little overwhelming, but so exciting at the same time. I just hope that over the next few weeks (closing is expected to be June 18) everything goes smoothly and that we end up getting this all finalized. Our move-out date for our current apartment is June 30, so we are just hoping to get it all done before then so we have some time before we have to move our furniture and stuff in!!

Smoking Goodness

I realized that many of my posts as of late have been reflecting the hectic pace of our lives... but I wanted to make sure that it is understood that we definitely have fun as well. Our fun lately has revolved around our new smoker. John has become quite the chef... so feast your eyes on our most recent gastro-delight. :)

Mustard rub on the brisket

Cornish game hens chillin'

Our smoker is the size of a small child..

The brisket between the cornish game hens

Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of the brisket when it was finished. It looked amazing, and tasted even better. The only thing we are going to work on is timing.. The brisket didn't finish until about midnight or 1 am... So we weren't able to enjoy it until the next day really. But we certainly DID enjoy it. Haha.

We have some new rubs to try out from our recent trip to Texas.. which I'm sure means many more hours watching the smoker do what it does best - provide us with awesome smoked meats. :) We will also be busting into salmon in the near future. It takes a lot less time - so we might actually be able to have that for dinner.

Upcoming will be pictures of Truitt and Theresa's wedding in Magnolia, TX... talk of travels to visit JuliAnna in her beautiful home... and our trip to Dallas to cap it all off.