Wicked

Instead of celebrating our anniversary, Phil and I celebrate our “half-a-versary”. Between our birthdays, Christmas, and New Years all being within a week, our anniversary is generally overlooked. And because we don’t want to overlook commemorating our wedding day, we celebrate it in the summer at the half-way point. This year Phil got me tickets to see Wicked. I have always wanted to see this musical and I was thrilled when I found out that the Broadway tour was coming to Houston. Phil is such a great listener & picked up on my excitement & surprised me with tickets. We saw the show on Saturday and it was phenomenal! We also got to meet the cast and get autographs.

Before & during the show

I feel a bit like a stalker with these first 2 pictures. When I met "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and Glinda I was a little star-struck and forgot to get my picture with them so I snapped some pictures as they were signing other autographs. Oh well, at least I remembered the camera for Elphaba.

Me in front of the city, very pleased with all of the autographs I got.

Off-Shore

I finally got the pictures from Phil’s trip to the Gulf (from back in January & February) developed. I thought it was cool to finally see everything that he has been talking about, though I still don't fully comprehend everything that he does.

The End

It’s been 2 months since we started the Chicken Fad (or Chicken Curse depending on who you ask hehe). Phil finally told me yesterday that he hated chicken; wahoo we made it! Here are some of our last new chicken recipes & the recipes I made to beginning weaning us off the chicken.

Chicken Enchilada Ring (Thank you Morgan for sending this one!)

Carrot & Squash Curry Soup with Welsh Rarebit (compliments of PW)

Slow-Cooker Pork Stew (Thanks Katie & the FN!)

We had an Avocado Night last week with avocado BLT’s and ….brace yourself…avocado pie! These recipes were in my Food Network magazine & the pie sounded so weird that I had to try it; I love a culinary adventure. It was actually pretty good; more like a pudding, but good.

Bacon, yum-o!

Here is the avocado pie!

Now that I can venture away from chicken, be ready for more variety!

A Waste!

Do you ever have days where you’re so unproductive you begin to wonder why you even got out of bed? That was my Thursday last week. I started out so great: got up at my usual 4:30am, hit the gym (ok well that was one thing productive I accomplished), and got my daily cup-o-Joe; but, once I got to my office I’m not sure what happened. I was sooo unbelievably unmotivated. I procrastinated writing at all costs. I didn’t even open a Word Document until 3:30pm! The good news is:
-I checked to make sure all of my ink pens still had ink
-I put a huge dent in my Christmas shopping
-I organized my filing cabinet
-I caught up on all emails and phone calls
-I planned a few events that are scheduled over the next 6 months
-I designed several blog templates for my sister....who doesn't even have a blog, but I'm trying to convince her that she needs one.
Phew! That was some serious procrastination; I have perfected the art of procrastination. Hopefully this week will be better!

Sprinkles

I am not a cupcake fanatic, but I was driving home from a doctors appointment last week and having a pretty bad day, when I spotted…Sprinkles (a famous Beverly Hills cupcake shop that has ignited a cupcake frenzy). Sprinkles expanded their locations, & luckily for me (but not my hips) their newest location is at the entrance to our neighborhood. Since opening 3 weeks ago, there has been a line around the block every day. Considering that most of that line was in the rain because of our first 2 storms of the year, I think that’s pretty impressive. So on my bad day last week when I spotted Sprinkles, there wasn’t a single person in line for the first time in 3 weeks; it was cupcake destiny! I decided that I was going to judge these famous cupcakes for myself.

Being a lover of all things chocolate, I ordered a Red Velvet cupcake (southern style light chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting) and a Black & White cupcake (Belgian dark chocolate cake with creamy vanilla frosting).

Red Velvet

Black & White

They were both moist and scrumptious, but the Black & White was my favorite and the Red Velvet was Phil’s favorite. They were some pretty tasty cupcakes, but I think that was a once-in-a-lifetime event for me, especially since they were $3.25 each! They were good, but I didn’t think they were that over-the-top delicious. I guess you will have to try them out for yourself! http://www.sprinkles.com/

4th of July Weekend

We started celebrating Independence Day at church with an awesome guest speaker, Tony Perkins. He is the president of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. and is a phenomenal speaker. Phil & I both really enjoyed him at church. (You can check out his talk here:http://www.houstonsfirst.org/videos) After church we were happy to have some delicious American BBQ and watch the Nathan’s Hot Dog Competition. Joey Chestnut ate 54 hotdogs in 10 minutes (seems like a lot but is about 15 less than he ate last year). We love to watch this competition every year; it is both intriguing and nauseating at the same time. Pam from The Office says it best, “It’s like a car wreck that you just can’t stop watching”

We had our first hurricane of the season last week, Alex. Luckily the storm came and left without any damage (we have a few water spots that we need to repair, but that’s totally minor). We were glad that the storm left so that we could spend time at the pool and then see fireworks. We went to see the Houston fireworks for the first time this year and the show was about 25 minutes long. Unfortunately, the drive home was an hour and a half to go 5.5 miles. Needless to say, Phil and I decided we will be going back to the Boston Pops. for future 4th of July firework shows….and by that I mean in front of our HD tv with AC….This way we’ll actually get to see the fireworks well, hear the music, and be in the front row.

My favorite part about going to see fireworks is waiting for the sun to set; so beautiful!
This was my best picture of the fireworks…I guess I was a bit distracted Here is the only picture I got of us last weekend.

Surfside Beach

Phil and I went to the beach for the first time since we’ve been married a few weeks ago. We went to Surfside Beach, which is just south of Galveston and much quieter. On the drive down to the beach we had to make my favorite pit stop at Buc-ees. Our friend Morgan says “Buc-ee's beef jerky is a gift from God!” and I couldn’t agree more! On the drive we also got to see the statue of Stephen Austin, some skydivers, and were reminded of the flatness that is Texas—Big Sky Country!

Stephen Austin

It is so flat, you can see for miles!

This was our first time at a Texas beach, which is completely different from an east coast beach. I have never been on a beach where you can drive on the beach (legally) and see oil rigs from the shore. That was all new to me but ultimately it was still a beach. There is nothing better than laying on the beach with an ice cold Mountain Dew listening to old school music while reading a book about the beautiful south until falling asleep ensuring that you have a nice toasty burn before returning home. Gotta love it!

We couldn't believe that we live less than an hour from this beach and had never gone. We will be taking many more trips to this beach for sure!

About a Month

Preseason starts in a little over a month and regular season in about 2 months; I can’t wait! Phil and I have our tickets for the Steeler games this season and can barely contain ourselves. Terrible Towels are on deck and ready to get back to Heinz Feild! The countdown is on!

Short People

I never considered myself a short person until I met Phil, and now I have proof. A couple weeks ago Phil took this picture of me, and when I saw it, I thought to myself, “This must be what I look like to tall people!” When he took this picture, we were both standing up straight; I promise I wasn’t kneeling and he wasn’t standing on a chair. When I see this picture it reminds me of Randy Newman’s “Short People”. If you don’t know it, youtube it; it’s worth listening to the entire song.