The Big D

Labor Day weekend we headed to see the Tide play at Cowboy Stadium in Dallas. One word sums it up...AWESOME. I am convinced I will never see another ballgame from a better venue. It is pretty incredible. We decided to save some $$$ and make the drive to Dallas versus flying. It really was not a bad drive at all. Our friends, Beau and LauraBeth Boyd, rode with us and it made for a fun road trip. LauraBeth is pregnant and she was most certainly a trooper on this trip!! On the way to Dallas, we stopped in Downtown Shreveport to spend the night and do some gambling. My Aunt and Uncle were there as well so we had dinner with them and hit the blackjack tables. It was a fun start to the weekend! Friday morning,we got up bright and early to get on the road to Dallas. We made it there by about 1pm. We stayed in Downtown Dallas for the weekend, so upon arriving on Friday we decided to go explore.

I think I could get used to the City life =). We visited the Grassy Knoll and the Book Depository Friday afternoon -- the scenes from where the shooting of JFK occured. They still to this day have an "X" marked on the exact spot indicating where he was shot while parading down Elm Street. It gave me chills. After touring, we headed to Market Street for drinks and met up with our friends from Montgomery, Russ and Lynsey Ann. We then met up with some of Lee's fraternity brothers (one of whom lives in Tyler, TX and hooked us all up with tickets, etc) and headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and gather our group. Hammond, our Texas friend, made reservations for us at a cool Tex-Mex place in Uptown. We had such a good time catching up and meeting new friends. After dinner, we headed to Gilley's, a famous Dallas music hall. Gilley's hosted a private scholarship fundraiser for Carson Tinker's (Alabama's long snapper) girlfriend, Ashley Harrison. Ashley died in the Tuscaloosa tornado. The UA Alumni and her family hosted a fundraiser at Gilley's for s scholarship in her name. It was a pretty cool event, even the UA President attended. After hanging out and meeting up with more friends, we took a cab back to Uptown and went to Katy Trail Ice House for a night cap. I had so much fun exploring Uptown in Dallas. Highly recommend this area if you ever visit. On Saturday...we woke up excited for Game Day! We could not wait to get to Arlington and see the stadium. We had an awesome brunch at Ozona's. So fab! Ozona's is located near the SMU campus. We got to see a bit of SMU while on the way as well as the George Bush, Jr. Presidential Library. My favorite part of Ozona's was the bloody mary bar. They bring you a shot of vodka of your choice and you go to the bar and fix your bloody mary however you like. Here is a pic of mine, loaded with olives, shrimp and pepper! Yummo!

After brunch, we headed to Arlington to begin gameday festivities. Arlington is about 15 minutes from downtown Dallas and is pretty much in the middle of Dallas and Fort Worth. When we drove up to the stadium, we were in awe. It looked like a cool, modern, giant UFO! Haha, very neat and unlike any stadium I have ever seen.

Beau saved us by buying a parking pass that allowed us to park right outside of our gate. So nice to be right by where we needed to pick up our tickets and it made leaving the game so easy! We all took our pics outside the stadium before walking to tailgate (you can tell in the pictures that we got there early b/c there are no cars in the lot! ha).

Me and LB

Beau and Lee We then walked to the Gallette's/Innisfree tailgate for yellow hammers. We saw so many people we knew, it was fun. It was also HOT. It is hot here at home, but this was a scorching hot. I had to look down at my feet several times b/c I seriously felt like they were burning off of my body. I also wore skinny jeans which was not a good move. It was so hot that they became even skinnier...I was dying! I felt like I was on the episode of Friends where Ross has on the leather pants and can't get them off. Haha! Pretty funny. At least there were cold drinks!

Selma boys at the Innisfree tailgate Finally, 4 o'clock rolled around and the stadium opened. We headed straight to pick up our tickets and go enjoy our box seats!!!!

Our box right on the 50 and filled with tons of friends!

A pic of one of the many lounges outside of the box area

our view -- the jumbo-tron at Cowboy Stadium is 80 yards long!! HUGE! It is said to have cost $100mm. It is so big, we had to force ourselves to look at the field.

Here's to another fun-filled football season!!!!

Roll Tide!!!

School Days 2012

School bells finally rang today for the girls. They were both so excited!! Today is also Maggie's 2nd birthday. She thought starting school was the best present ever. Maggie will be in Miss Mary Christie's 2 year old class and Kylie will be in Pre-K with Miss Lynn.

Here's to a great 2012/2013 school year!

The Latest and Greatest

I know -- behind once again! We have been super busy. The girls are starting to go a little stir crazy waiting on school to start. I love traditions, but the tradition of their little preschool starting after Labor Day is well....for the birds! We have worn holes in our all of dress up clothes and Maggie has tortured every toy in this house!

She loves this pony and both girls are dead set on being cowgirls for Halloween.

Kylie changes clothes 500+ times a day. This one finally bit the dust last week and as for her pose, Holla!

My aunt and uncle sent the girls the cutest Columbia camphouse shirts. They love them and insist on wearing them everytime they go to the camp.

This is the last sighting of these sunglasses. Ughhhhhhhhh!

The girls picked out their backpacks. Maggie choose the hearts and Kylie choose the ponies. I was surprised, I figured their choices would have been flipped. Now if school will just start :)

We are still learning how to fix/tame curly hair! It so fits her personality but I have no idea how to fix it??? Jana-- gonna need your help with this one!

Miss Priss had her 4 year old check up with Dr. Hammad. Everything was great until she asked if he was giving her a shot and he replied "yes". But she had a blast in the waiting room, I think she took a picture of everyone that was there that day. I had a bunch of pictures that looked like this will all different people!

I went to Louisiana last week to see some projects new and old. This trip led to my very first experience with a drive through daquiri shop.

Don't worry, I was not driving.

The menu was extensive and all 32oz daquiris came with a free jello shot. Needless to say, it made the drive from Abbeville, LA to Baton Rouge much more entertaining!

My project is really coming along! So neat to see it transform from a bombed out concrete shell post Katrina to this. Just have interior finishes and all the site work left to go. We stayed last Friday night in New Orleans after a long day of meetings at the job sites. I stayed at the W in the Quarter which was a new hotel for me. The last year or so I have been in Nola, this W has been closed for extensive renovations. I loved the pool view and the courtyard!

As one would expect from any W hotel, the rooms were extremely contemporary.

The huge painting of King Edward and the black wall-papered hall corridors made for an interesting night after Bourbon Street.

The W also added a new restuarant and bar called SoBou. It is in the Commander's Palace family of restaurants under Chef Tory McPhail. Fab!

And one of the best things abotu SoBou is the bar! The tables in the bar are equipped with their own taps. So you just pour and they have a machine on the table that keeps up with the ounces poured. This was great on a rainy afternoon for us and the people watching on Chartres is great. Chartres is in the heart of the quarter, 2 blocks from Bourbon and has amazing boutiques and art galleries.

After fun in the Big Easy, I flew home last Saturday morning to prepare for Supper Club that night. We hosted the supper club at Dr. Knight's house and the girls hung out while the boys shot skeet. We grilled over 40 chicken kabobs. I was exhausted come Saturday night! Anywho -- this week has been busy with work and playing with the girls. I have been watching Tropical Storm Isaac with a close eye.

I got a picture of one of my projects yesterday and other than some trees down, the building appears to be unharmed. We have also been watching Isaac closely because we will be traveling to Louisiana today on our way here....

Roll Tide from the Jerry Dome!!! And ps-- I am so enjoying reading everyone's updates. I am sorry I have not been able to comment. For some reason, blogger issues and error when I try to comment. Think it has something to do with this blog being created back in 07. Anyway, loving your updates and it has been killing me not to be able to comment =)

30 Something

Well it is official -- I am now a "30-something year old". My fam has never been one to go over board on birthdays but this year I actually decided to do something fun on my birthday. I received a free flight voucher from Delta this year for one of my ba-zillion flight delays and I booked myself a ticket to San Antonio to celebrate the birthday with my aunt and uncle. My uncle and I have the same birthday and are exactly 20 years apart so it was fun celebrating with him. I arrived in San Antonio early Friday evening and we all immediately headed downtown to Mi Terre Cafe for some real Tex-Mex.

After a fun and GOOD dinner, we headed to the Riverwalk to grab another drink and walk around. We hit a few of the Mexican markets as well.

Such a fun atmosphere!! And a trip downtown is not complete without a stop to the Alamo. I have been before but it was really fun to see it at night...it is amazing that downtown San Antonio was built all around The Alamo.

On Saturday we got up and headed out to do some shopping!

Ahhh -- real shopping not from a computer! After shopping, we met up with the rest of the fam in Gruene, Texas. Gruene is about 20 minutes outside of San Antonio and is the coolest place ever!!! I decided if Lee and I lived in San Antonio this is where we would hang out all the time! It is basically a little village on the Guadalupe River and is a Texas music haven. It is home to the historic Gruene Hall , the oldest dance hall in Texas. Lots of musicians played here...think Lyle Lovett, George Strait, etc. It was also on the film, Michael, which starred John Travolta. It reminded me of a country Flora-Bama (no wonder I liked it so much, ha!).

I learned that Texan country music is not to be confused with Nashville country music. Basically, in Texas they believe you are a country artist and Nashville just produces pop-country. The more I thought about it, I have to agree. After touring Gruene Hall we walked around the town a bit more. Loved all of the bed and breakfasts here.

Everything was so cute and the shops were wonderful. The girls decided they want to be cowgirls this year for Halloween so I managed to pick up 2 pink cowgirl hats in the general store. We also found some bacon flavored candy for Lee, ha! After shopping a bit, we went to a little winery to cool down. Loved this place!

I would love to take all of my friends back here. The winery had a picnic area complete with misting trees and of course an acoustic musician playing. I saw some many groups of friends hanging out and I so wanted to take all of my girl friends here for a day-out! It was a great, quick trip but I missed the girls terribly. I think they were more excited to see the prizes I brought back than me, hehe. Here is Mags sporting her new shirt Aunt Judy sent her from the Lonestar State.