Trips

Orange Beach, Alabama – Part 2

Today I have even more photos for you… as in around 78 or so. I’m sorry. Alabama was so awesome and it was totally worth the trip. I’d recommend it to anyone for a relaxing time. If you haven’t read Orange Beach Part 1, I would. I’ll try not to let this post drag on, but we’ll see what happens. I’m sorry if it does. And if nothing else, enjoy the photos!!

When hubby was in Mobile the few weeks before, they informed him that this is one of the wettest cities in the country. It gets moisture off the Gulf, etc. I’m pretty sure it rained almost every day we were down here. Never for very long and really only enough to make it humid.

Waking up every morning to the sound of thunder was beautiful. It was also fun to see the storms move across the sky. We were greeted with a rainbow Monday morning. It was beautiful. And of course, you know pictures don’t do rainbows justice, unfortunately. It always takes tweaking in photoshop to get those vibrant rainbows caught on film (or digital…).

The other fun thing to watch was all of the boats zooming out of the rainstorms. Case in point here. Every morning. (more…)

Orange Beach, Alabama – Part 1

I really want to be like those bloggers who can do multiple weeks in one post, but I just can’t. That’s just not my style. There are 51 photos in this post. People who do those week+ long posts usually have 25 total photos. It’s just not my style.

Now 2, this was about our vacation this last summer in August 2019. Yes, you read that right. I’m just now getting to it. I’m sitting here on a cold snowy day in January wishing I was in Alabama in summer enjoying our vacation. So without further ado, I bring you Orange Beach, Alabama

Headed to Orange Beach

From our house, there are two ways to head to Alabama. You can go through Arkansas into Mississippi, across to Alabama. Otherwise, you drive clear across Missouri to Memphis, then down. We chose to head through Arkansas. I did some research and it was supposed to be the “faster” route. Because we were headed through Arkansas, Jared told us to meet him in Rogers for lunch at a place called Hapa’s Hawaiian Bar & Grill. 

Now here is where I tell you that once I got just outside of Rogers it started POURING rain. So bad at one point I really could hardly see anything in front of me. I was driving this stretch. It was awful. Then our GPS took us to the wrong place. We were only 5 miles to the west of where we were supposed to be but traffic was so horrid that it took us 30-45 minutes for that 5 miles. By the time we got there, I was done.

Hapa’s Hawaiian Bar & Grill

105 S 3rd St
Rogers, Arkansas

This place is so totally worth the stop. Holy cow! I had Hawaiian food in Hawaii (imagine that) and this reminded me so much of that.

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Corpus Christi, Texas: North Beach and Fajitaville

What do you do when you are in San Antonio but want to go to the beach? You drive to the closest one. After doing a little bit of research, the Corpus Christi area seemed like the best option. It was all interstate and it was about an hour and a half to two-hour drive.

When we started planning our trip to San Antonio we asked the girls what they wanted to do while we were on vacation. The only thing the little one said was the beach. Well if you haven’t noticed, San Antonio is still kind of in the upper part of Texas. Now, I use the “upper part” loosely because Texas is huge and in comparison, it really isn’t, but what I mean is, San Antonio is more inland bound.

We planned on Friday of our trip to be our beach day. That still gave us a day to mill around San Antonio. Plus we weren’t driving 4 hours (2 hours one way) and then home 11 hours the next. We had that cushion day in there to recoup from the beach.

Hubby, being the researcher he is, really didn’t research where we were going to go once we got to Corpus Christi. We just decided to wing it. As we pulled into the area, we found North Beach. We did a slight bit of research on the road and decided that might not be a bad place to check out, so that’s where we landed. We stopped along the way to get some sand buckets and shovels and plastic cups… who doesn’t use plastic cups to play in the sand? It was all I could find honestly. And we were ready for a day at the beach. (more…)

Life Lately…

And just like that, it’s the middle of June. I have now slept in my house, overnight, 2 times. WHAT?!?! When did that happen? Well, I’m glad you asked. It happened Friday and Saturday night. Now, here we are Sunday night and I’m sitting in bed at my house. I was in the shower a few minutes ago reminiscing the last couple of months. Wow, it has been a whirlwind.

We have had tball practice, tball games, ended tball, made a trip to Kansas City for a weekend, made a trip to Kansas City for a day, had the last dance class for the year, had dance rehearsal, had dance recitals, had dance pictures, had tball pictures, bought furniture, put said furniture together.

The furniture consisted of (but not limited to) 3 desks, 3 beds, 6 chairs, 1 bench, 1 coat rack, 1 coat bench, 1 storage bench, 2 bookshelves, 1 vacuum cleaner, and whatever else I’m forgetting.

We have slept in our house, put pictures on the wall, restained a floor, put down new flooring, replaced tiles, found new tiles to replace, washed umpteen million loads of dishes, washed 548,912 loads of laundry, most of which happened this previous weekend.

Then we ended preschool, had preschool graduation postponed, had preschool graduation canceled, had flooding, had tornadoes, had more rain, had severe thunderstorms, driven into severe thunderstorms, hid in the basement during tornado warnings, started summer school, about to finish summer school and then… (more…)

Smoke on the Border

The big shindig… also known as… Smoke on the Border in Gravette, Arkansas. So, we made it. The boys signed up, we hauled everything down, and bam, we were entered. I say we loosely. I helped when they said they needed it or by washing their dishes, but this was all them!

Saturday was the People’s Choice event. Basically, people were allowed to come and walk through the 2 streets blocked off for the event. If people had samples, obviously they could sample it. Samples were cut off around like 2 maybe. Then, the People’s Choice meat was dropped off to the church around the corner at 5 pm. People could buy wrist bands for $10 and they basically got all you can eat meat plus possible sides. Sunday was the main event. So they had the option of entering in 4 categories… pulled pork, brisket, ribs, and/or chicken. The awards were held at the Methodist Church as were all things turned in. And bam, it was all over but the cleanup. (more…)

Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel Bites

Over the weekend I found myself in Gravette, Arkansas. We were at a BBQ Smoking contest called Smoke on the Border. I’ll delve into that more in another post, but… as Hubby and Jared were moving stuff down on Friday afternoon, I found myself in the kitchen. I had it in my head I wanted to make something on the sweeter side, simply because of all that savory food I knew we were going to be eating over the weekend. That’s when I decided on Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel Bites. Still a little savory from the dough, but that sweet side from the sugar and the heat from the cinnamon. Just seemed like the perfect combination.

Handheld little bites of yumminess. Although as you can see on my hand above, being in a zip lock bag, I brought some of that topping out on my hand for a nice dose of stickiness too. Hey… you win some… you lose some… and in this case, I’m pretty sure I won because hello YUM! (more…)

Ft. Worth 2018

Every year, I really feel like one of the true starts to the Christmas season is the trip to Ft. Worth. Since the hubs and I have been together, we’ve been able to attend Fort Worth and the NCHA Futurity every year. This year was no different.

Thursday night we headed out after everyone got off work. We made it as far as Dennison, TX, before calling it a night. The next morning, we woke up and off to Fort Worth we headed. Before we left the hotel though, we grabbed breakfast. Abug did her own hair for Breakfast. Who is to argue with a 4-year-old?

Then we were off. As we got closer to Ft. Worth, we dealt with more rain. Usually, we have to rent a vehicle to haul all of us. This year we had a white Ford Expedition. On the lot, they had a Chevy Suburban, but we thought we’d like the Ford better. After getting home, we weren’t sure if we wouldn’t have liked the Suburban better? Possibly more cargo room… but I guess one will never know. (more…)

Where to Eat Tulsa: Café Olé, Chuy’s, & Saltgrass

One of our favorite things to do when we go out of town is to eat at restaurants we don’t have at home. We never say we can’t do chain restaurants although if I have to say, we do prefer to eat at restaurants that aren’t chain restaurants. Not always an option though. So over the Thanksgiving weekend, we wound up eating in Tulsa 3 times. Here are a few of our favorite restaurants we eat at when in Tulsa.

Café Olé

3509 S. Peoria Tulsa, OK

My aunt went to Med School. Now, here’s where I tell you I was young when she did that so I’m not sure if she went to Stillwater campus or a Tulsa Campus but I know she did her residency in Tulsa. This was a restaurant she found and introduced us to many moons ago.

It was always a restaurant we could remember was on Peoria but never could quite remember the cross street or anything. Finally one day I made it a point to remember 35th street. That’s very helpful!

Their Olé Queso is the reason to come here. It’s a creamy queso that’s so awesome! Hubby didn’t order that for us this time though because we were afraid the little one wouldn’t eat it. Turns out she wouldn’t eat the yellow queso either. Figures. It’s a blend of rich & creamy white cheddar, chihuahua, jack, Oaxaca cheeses.

I went with a Pork Relleno. I just must state here I love Chile Relleno’s. Add the pork to it and YUM! It was served with rice, black beans, and a sweet corn cake. Highly recommend. That’s all.

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Thanksgiving 2018

And just like that, Thanksgiving is over.  I saw a meme the other day that I actually saw a year ago… something about spending 10 hours cooking for it to be gone in 30 minutes and then spending 5 hours cleaning up or something. haha. But that’s kind of the fun in Thanksgiving!

It’s also funny how short weeks feel the longest sometimes. Thanksgiving is always the 3rd Thursday of November. And that week, every year feels so long! Probably because of the anticipation of what is to come that week. That’s what I’m going with anyway!

This year, we had plans to leave Tuesday after Abug got out of school to head to my aunt and uncle’s house in Oklahoma. I love when we get to go see them. I have a pretty small family as is, so when we don’t get to see each other on holidays it makes it feel so weird. Weird is the only word I can see to describe it. My family did get bigger when I married my husband, but still… unfortunately they don’t care for me very much so I’ve heard. I get blamed for things that are out of my control and that sucks. But my husband, he’s my rock. He loves me and that’s what matters!

Anyway, Tbug couldn’t come down with us because she had a dentist appointment on Wednesday. My parents weren’t able to come down until Wednesday night so they brought her with them. It was a big happy family!! (more…)

Courtyard by Marriott – Clarksville, TN

Do you remember that my husband was military? Army in fact. A long time ago. Long before I was in the picture, but kind of not really. I was in the picture in high school, then I was out, and now I’m back again. Okay, anyway, moving on.

When you’re in the army, you form a brotherhood. You get brothers and sisters who have your back and they have yours. Why? Because you guys are all joining together to do one thing, defend our country and our freedoms. My husband has a couple guys who have served that purpose for him. And two of them happen to be twins. Isn’t that fun? I can also mention that in the last 2 weeks I have seen both of them… and they both live in different places.

One has recently moved about an hour from us while the other still lives at the Army base in Oak Grove, Kentucky/Ft. Campbell. If you ask my husband, that area is called Tuckasee because you are on the Kentucky/Tennessee border. In fact, the army base is in both states, it just registers as Kentucky because that’s the side the post office is on.

Anyway, I might be getting a little off topic. It happens. A couple weeks ago we headed to Metropolis, Illinois to go SCUBA diving. One of my husband’s brothers is sick. He could use all the prayers he can get, trust me! But being in Metropolis, we were only 2 hours from seeing him if that… so we schemed with his wife behind his back to show up on his doorstep to see him.

In fact, I thought it would be fun to send him random text messages of his house to show we were there. The silly guy was playing WOW so he wasn’t paying attention to his phone very much and Krissy had to make him look.

Clarksville, Tennessee

There really isn’t anywhere to stay in Oak Grove, so we went across the line into Tennessee for a hotel. Tim’s exit is 89. There are 94 in Kentucky and then you cross over the line. We went to exit 4. (more…)