Goodbye Texas

Today we said goodbye to Texas. Here's how we spent the last of our time there...

Our last full day in Texas started at Mema's doing laundry. Her laundry room is located off the back of her garage. On the way to the laundry room you have to walk by the back door to her backyard. I don't know why, but that door is my favorite thing about Mema's house.... it swings on hinges, it's old... it just feels special for some reason.

With clothes in the washing machine, we headed to Costco. Andy tried on several shirts, and my camera served as his mirror. Isn't he handsome?

Mema requested that we go to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. Her wish is our command! We decided the fortune cookies would tell us our fortune for the new year.

My fortune was dumb.

I really didn't like my fortune so I snuck another fortune cookie. Here was my second fortune...

Hahaha. I guess I am supposed to be more patient when it comes to fortune cookies.

After lunch we headed to the cemetery to visit my Aunt Marilyn's grave. Her birthday was the day before. Happy belated birthday Marilyn!

Then it was back to Mema's for..... PICTIONARY!!!

Once again, the girls won!!! To give you an idea of my awesome artwork, here's what I drew one round. The word was "bulge."

Hey, I never said I was classy... !

After Pictionary, we all watched the Kennedy Center Honors for a bit. I'd never watched that awards show before, but I thought it was very interesting. And I was glad to see Tom Hanks receive the honors - he is my favorite actor!

After a long day, it was time to say goodbye. It was very hard to say goodbye to Mema. The trip might not have been the most adventurous vacation of all time, but I am so glad we went. I wouldn't trade that time with Mema for anything.

Back at the hotel, Andy and I began to pack. Goodness gracious. I don't exactly pack light, and then we had Christmas presents, plus a little shopping... you get the idea. Needless to say, some things were left behind (mostly because they were replaced by new versions). I said goodbye to my Uggs with the hole and my old Croc sandals. My mom got rid of a pair of boots she was given - one was a 7.5 and the other shoe was an 8.5... uh... ok.

I was sad to say goodbye to my shoes. They served me well. I may have said a few parting words for them, haha.

The next morning we were off to the airport bright and early. Note for the future - traveling on New Year's Eve is a breeze. The airports were nice and quiet. I have never seen Chicago O'Hare so calm!

And there you have it! We made it back safely. Another Christmas in the books, and the New Year is almost here! Yay!!

Game On

Yippee ki yay! If you can't tell, I'm starting to run out of Texas greetings... I also apologize for only posting every other day, and for straying from the list feature of the blog, but... well, I'm on vacation, so deal with it, lol.

Sunday
We arrived at my Mema's house to watch the Cowboys' game. Mema goes all out whenever the Cowboys play.

We bet on the score for each quarter of the game, and I ended up winning for two of the quarters. It made watching football a lot more fun. The Cowboys won and I ended up with $12.50. Not too bad!

Other than the football game, the day was a blur of mexican food (tamales, tacos, and nachos) and Farkle. Now... I know it sounds like Farkle might be the result of eating Mexican food, but you would be mistaken, haha. Farkle is a dice game my dad had. It was a lot of fun, although this time the boys won, not the girls.

Monday
The games continued! But first there was some shopping to be done. :-)

Oh how I love Nordstrom Rack.

We spent the evening back at Mema's house. After a few rounds of Farkle we pulled out some cards and played all sorts of games.

I really like playing games. I wish I played them more in my regular life, but there never seems to be enough time, or enough people to be honest. At least I can enjoy it right now! Oh what the heck, let's have a little list.

Here are some of my favorite 'board' games to play...
- PICTIONARY
- The Game of Things
- Balderdash
- Cards Against Humanity

Any other good games out there I should know about? Please tell!

Bulls and Beers

Yeehaw! Two more days have gone by and we've been busy with lots of Texas-y things.

Thursday
Our afternoon started in downtown Fort Worth.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat, my parents, Andy, and I headed to a glorious recliner movie theater to see Interstellar. Although it was rather long, I really enjoyed the movie - it kept my interest the entire time and left me thinking afterwards - both a good sign.

Then we met up with some of my extended family members for some barbecue. We went to Cooper's, my Mema's favorite place. First you chose your meat. I went with one beef rib and a quarter pound of brisket. Andy had a pork chop.

Once we had our meat, we loaded up on sides... cole slaw, potato salad, beans, jalapeño mac 'n cheese... it was all reaaaally good.

After we were sufficiently stuffed, we headed to the rodeo! How much more Texas can you get??

We arrived pretty early so we managed to get really good seats. Although Andy had been to a rodeo when he was super young, he doesn't remember it, so this was virtually his first rodeo. Turns out my Aunt Dee Dee and Uncle Dan had never been to a rodeo either. How is that possible? They live in Texas! Anyway, I think everyone enjoyed it. I really liked the barrel racing, but the highlight by far was watching all of the bull riders.

You could never in a million years get me to do that. Those people are crazy! Once the rodeo was over, we were able to get up close to some horses to pet them. I liked that a lot. :-) All in all the rodeo was really fun and I'm very glad we went.

Friday
We began this afternoon with what we thought was a tour of a brewery.

It turns out that $10 doesn't get you a tour of the brewery... it gets you a glass, a wristband, and access to drink all of their beers throughout the entire facility (where they actually store/bottle/etc). It was insanely popular.

We managed to try four beers. According to my dad and Andy, two were decent, one was passable, and one was utterly unacceptable. I honestly didn't care for any of them.

Later in the day we ended up at my Mema's house. My cousin Catherine, her husband Reed, and their daughter Emma were able to stop by for a few hours, so we spent time with them. Emma made herself comfortable in my lap and proceeded to play with my iPhone (she actually deleted a super cute picture of Andy and me at the brewery... kind of a bummer).

She isn't toilet trained yet, but the girl knows how to use apple products. Incredible.

And no family hang would be complete without a competitive game of Pictionary. I LOVE playing Pictionary - Andy thinks I only like it because I always win, but I mean... I can't help that my mom and I make the perfect team! We played boys against girls...

And yes... the girls won! Mwahahaha.

So I know I would typically add a list here, but this is a loooong post, and I'm very sleepy, so I'm going to call it a night. More Texas updates to come - stay tuned!

Merry Christmas!

Howdy! I have to say that because we are spending Christmas in Texas with my family. Here's how we celebrated!

Christmas Eve
Since it didn't make much sense to pack our presents, open them, and then bring them back with us, Andy and I decided to open our presents to each other a day early. As you can see, I had a beauty Christmas and he had a Jacque Pepin Christmas!

Andy then treated me to a pancake breakfast. You'll notice he is sporting one of his new gifts.

We packed and then took off for his parent's house. We were able to go out to lunch with Andy's mom and dad, and then back to their house to exchange gifts... even Bailey had something to unwrap. Even though we could only stay for a few hours, it was really nice to spend time with them.

Our flight left around 6:00pm and we had our layover in Atlanta. My family's Christmas Eve tradition is to have KFC for dinner. Thankfully Andy knew where we could get some fried chicken in the Atlanta airport. I will say... it was really good.

We got into DFW pretty late and more or less fell into bed. Which is good... we needed to get to bed so Santa could come!

Christmas Day
Somehow Santa managed to get into my parents' hotel room last night to hang the stockings with care. ;-)

My mom did an excellent job of decorating thier hotel room to make it feel special and festive. She even created a Christmas tree!

We headed over to my Mema's house for breakfast. Her house was nicely decorated too with decorations new and old... some of her decorations were her family's, including a manger scene from the 19-teens.

After breakfast we opened presents. Andy and I gave Mema an album full of our wedding pictures. It was fun to watch her look through them all.

A little later it was time to work on lunch/dinner. My mom and I helped Mema make the deviled eggs. Andy pitched in sharpening knives and even carving the ham. I really enjoyed the food. Both the breakfast and main meal had some Taylor family favorites that I haven't had in a long time.

After we ate, Andy, my dad, and I threw a football around in the backyard. It was really fun, but I learned I am teeeeeerrible at catching a football. I'm not so hot throwing one either.

Back inside, things were starting to get silly.

After multiple attempts to get a successful family photo, we played games inspired by Minute To Win It. They were really fun and a lot harder to do than they looked.

After several tries I was finally able to complete one of the challenges in a minute. Go me!

And no trip to Mema's would be complete without some sort of musical element. Out came my Papaw's first horn, and a random metal oboe that was kicking around. Surprise of the year - I wasn't too bad at the horn! Andy on the other hand... haha, well.... he had a good time trying.

So there you have it! A Texas Christmas in the books. I think I was in the sixth grade the last time I spent a Christmas with my family in Texas. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to spend another Christmas with my Mema. :-)

It's been a long day so I'm off to bed. Hope you all had a wonderful day!

Weekend Review

Bah! I'm learning it is difficult to update the blog on the weekends, which means I owe you a few days. Here we go!

After working Job #2 on Saturday, Andy and I met his dad's side of the family for dinner. It was really nice to see them all, especially in our neck of the woods. After dinner they all went to see Andy's concert (I headed to the office to finish up some work).

Once the concert was over, we headed to Anna's for a festive hang with her and Will. 

One of the best parts of going to Anna's is getting to visit Poco girl. Andy sure loves Poco.

On Sunday morning, Andy tried out his cooking skills and made me excellent scrambled eggs.

He had another day full of holiday concerts so I spent my Sunday Christmas shopping. 

Monday morning started off with a trip to the lady doctor. Ugh. Gross. Then I realized I had a big hole in my Uggs. Why?!?!?! But the day got much better. Anna and I did some serious Christmas shopping - it was a lot of fun to shop together. And I'm happy to say I'm almost done! 

When I got home, my wonderful husband made me a special dessert - a treat for having to go to the lady doctor, lol. He made a peach clafoutis and served it with a little vanilla ice cream. :-) We ended up eating the whole thing while watching a few episodes of The Killing (my latest show).  

And that catches us all up! Today is Tuesday, Christmas Eve Eve. Here's what I have to do today...

- wrap tons of presents
- pack my suitcase (we head out to Texas tomorrow)
- LAUNDRY... otherwise I am packing dirty clothes
- clean all the things, because I don't want to come back to a dirty house
- get one last Christmas present
- work Job #2

Ok.... I better get busy if I'm going to get to everything. Hope you are all having a good day!