August

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…)

Mudslide Cake (It’s a Birthday Thang!)

Today is my Mother-in-Law’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Memaw. Yes, we all call her Memaw which confuses some people. There’s actually a little confusion that goes along with that.

  1. My mother-in-law (MIL) was 35 when she had my husband. She was an “older” mom just like my mom was. (My mom was 28 for her first and only). When we all call her Memaw, people sometimes confuse her for being my husband’s grandma. I’m not totally sure why because I don’t think that’s possible!
  2. We all call her Memaw so when people call her by her real name, they don’t know who we’re talking about.

This year, we’ve been attempting to get together with my husband’s family at least once a month. It hasn’t totally happened, but we’ve tried. We just get together, have dinner, and play games. I think we’ve missed a couple months, but at least we’re trying. Family is important.

Last month (August) we got together the last weekend of the month to celebrate Memaw’s birthday. I guess I (hubby and I really) forgot we had Tbug Labor Day weekend (note to self… every even year we have her :)), so we wanted to get together to celebrate Memaw’s birthday when she (Tbug) was around. We won’t be in town the next weekend we have Tbug, so it seemed like we’d celebrate early instead of late.

Now if there’s another thing I can tell you about my MIL, she loves a good Mudslide. So with my Cake excursions this year, I went in search of a good Mudslide recipe. When I didn’t find what I wanted, I set out to make my own. And that’s just what I did. I made a Mudslide Cake in honor of my MIL. (more…)

#BlogAugust – 2018

I hope you are out enjoying this beautiful day. It is the Working Man’s Holiday after all… Labor Day. A quick recap of the last month. Now I’m off to enjoy the last “thought of” summer weekend… even though summer doesn’t officially end until September 22nd. Happy Labor Day Weekend!!

Top 5 Blogposts of August 2018

  1. 2011 – I Like to Dip No Double Dipping Allowed – Guys, this is some friggin fabulous cheese dip!
  2. 2017 – Aunt Sandy’s Banana Bread – Pour Hawaii getting slammed by everything this summer!
  3. 2018 – Caramel Apple Cake – YUM! That’s it! Yum!
  4. 2018 – Kansas City: Where We Stayed, Where We Ate, What We Did – I really like KC!
  5. 2018 – Trying to Keep it Together – Some days are easier than others…

Honorable Mentions

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Summer: Currently…

Listening to…

The air conditioning running. It’s so peaceful and keeps the house cool… Well… usually. This summer the AC hasn’t totally worked right, but it got better. Thinking that before long we will turn the AC off and maybe open windows until it gets to cool out and we have to either start burning wood or turn the heater on or both. The only thing I think winter is good for is Christmas. I like snow on Christmas. Otherwise, I’m a summer girl through and through.

I’ve been posting on Facebook a lot about x number of days until Christmas. Christmas is my absolute favorite season and I absolutely LOATH January. Poor January. But truth be told… my birthday is in the summer so it’s like Christmas in July (literally since my birthday is in July). I’m cool with that sans snow.

I’ve also seen a couple “Farmer’s Almanac” predictions. Either way, we’re predicted to be extremely cold and snowy. But both Farmer’s Almanac predictions I’ve seen are different. That leaves me scratching my head just a little. (more…)

Kansas City: Where We Stayed, Where We Ate, What We Did

Wow, it’s been quite a while since we actually went to Kansas City, but still, it’s worth mentioning.

Last month we made a weekend trip, actually just an overnight trip to Kansas City. The goal was to go to the Farmer’s Market and get Jalapeños. I know that sounds funny, but hubby makes these things called candied jalapeños and the best place to get bulk jalapeños at a decent price is the City Market in Kansas City. Gosh, I love that place. The first time we went, I wound up buying 20 pounds of jalapeños. This time we only bought 15 pounds. haha. You still get just as many weird looks buying 5 pounds fewer jalapeños.

But, because we went, we decided to make it a weekend trip. This summer’s goal has been to Have Fun!

Where We Stayed

4600 Summit St. Kansas City, MO

We stayed at the Hampton Inn & Suites Kansas City Country Club Plaza. (more…)

Royal Design by Sariah Wilson Book Cover

Book Review: Royal Design

Royal Design by Sariah Wilson Book Cover

Guys, I did it. I’ve gone above and beyond my Good Reads book challenge for sure. It’s either Book 13 or Book 14. Remember, yesterday’s blog post I discussed how it could be 13, but that one of the original 12 was a novella and I wasn’t sure I wanted to count that as a true book.

But… I also finished another book. WHAT?!?! My husband picks on me because he thought I just kept starting books but never finished them. See, he used to read my blog, but he doesn’t anymore. If he’d have read my blog, he’d know I was actually finishing books. Yes, I have a few started, but they are all different genre’s so when I get tired of one type, I have a fallback.

I truly didn’t intend on finishing this book yesterday, I just got to the point I didn’t put it down apparently. Because, well, I finished it. I have now read 4 books boy Sariah Wilson. Royal Date, Royal Chase, Royal Games, and now Royal Design. It doesn’t appear that she has any more in this sequence, yet anyway. (more…)

Book Review: Scrappy Little Nobody

Wow, look at me… I’m on a roll! This would be Book number 12 or if you ask Good Reads Book 13. I’m not sure I count the novella that tied up the Just One series as an actual book because it was like maybe 60ish pages or something like that. I can’t remember. Either way, for sure, I have now met the 12 book challenge for 2018 I set on Good Reads. Look at me go! It’s only just August too which means, I could easily surpass that, right?

I’m kind of giggling at myself because I’ve read a lot of memoirs. I guess I like learning about people. Celebrities are people too. I’m not sure why I guess I just do. I actually took a memoir class in college. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before. But the funny thing is, I wish we would have read this book during that class. This book had me thinking, ooooo I could have written about this or I could have written about that. I’m pretty sure my memoirs in that class sucked! I mean, yes, I got an A in that class, but the funny part of that is the professor was about to retire and I’m sure as long as you did the work you’d get an A.

The professor had written his memoir and self-published it. A lot of the class seemed put off by his memoir, but why? I’m not sure. There were parts that were weird/interesting and he always wanted the juicy details of our lives. Most of us weren’t really comfortable giving those. {raises hand} I was one of them! I have a habit of worrying about people judging me. (more…)

Book Review: Melissa Explains It All

This is a book that took me a bit to read. In fact, I think I got it about the time it hit shelves… oh… around 2013 maybe 2014. So why did it take me so long to read… Well, if you remember, there was this thing called Grad School. If, and that is a strong if, I had free time, I had a lot of books to read for comps… so reading for pleasure was only a distant memory. Then… I moved. When I moved, I tried to put it in a place I could keep track of it, but it got misplaced a lot. I finally found it this spring, I was maybe 40 pages in if that. I found it just after I finished My Life in France about Julia Child.

Earlier this year hubby got me a Kindle and I love my Kindle. It makes it easier to read at night, that’s for sure. So when I finished Julia Child’s book, I planned on just taking my kindle to the ride we were going to. That way I didn’t have to drag any books with me, I had multiple books on my kindle… but as you know, that didn’t happen. Nope. I took this book with me. Hubby laughed at me.

While we were at the ride, one morning Jared took it from me and started reading it. That was fine, I had my Kindle and was planning on reading Royal Date by Sariah Wilson. If there’s one thing I can tell you about myself, I’m usually reading more than one book at a time. They are usually different genre’s so if I get tired of say, a memoir, I have a love story to read, or whatever. It’s the 7 Ps. Proper Prior Planning Prevents Pretty Poor Performance.

Oh and that was April and I’m just now blogging about it… That’s because I set it down at about 80% through and misplaced it again. Oy! I misplaced my Kindle this summer to. Who knows. I found it in my daughter’s ballet bag about 2 weeks after I couldn’t find it. I even looked in there once. (more…)

Magnolia Market at the Silos & In-N-Out Burger – Waco, TX

Hello, Monday morning. How was my weekend? Well… I just about broke my right middle finger last night. We had wicked weird weather that blew through. I was trying to open a door in a downpour while carrying the little one and my hand wouldn’t let go of the door handle. My silly hand is sort of swollen and still hurts this morning. Hello Monday.

But let’s focus on the fact that it has been a week since I was on vacation and I totally miss it. I love going on Vacation! This year we chose to go to San Antonio, Texas. We debated and hemmed and hawed quite a bit trying to decide where to go. Hubby really wanted to go to Sea World so our choices had to kind of involve cities that had a Sea World.

Last summer when we spent time down at my aunt and uncle’s house, they got my family hooked on watching Fixer Upper. Of course, the show that decided to go off the air this year in April. Sure… So we got a year of them + reruns. At that time, my aunt wanted us to go to Waco, but we just ran out of time. Truthfully, I had no idea who Chip and Joanna Gaines were so I was like, what’s in Waco? Well, now I know. 🙂

Since Waco is on the way to San Antonio, I asked hubby if we could stop by their market and hopefully eat at their restaurant. We figured being a Monday morning, pulling into the restaurant around 10:30 would work. Um… Hello. NO! The wait was 1 hour 45 minutes and there were NO parking spots. We decided to forgo the restaurant, but that didn’t stop us from going to Magnolia Market at the Silos.

Magnolia Market at the Silo’s

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Trying to Keep it Together

 

I’m sitting here having what can only be termed as anxiety or panic attacks. It’s already back to school time. No, no, I’m not going back to school. Whew, for now, that’s over… I mean I could always get my Ph.D. but I truly don’t see that happening anytime soon. I’m having these feelings because I’m going to have a pre-schooler and a 10th grader.

Gosh, just typing that makes me want to go crawl in a hole, curl up in the fetal position, and cry. Last year Tbug had a t-shirt on that said class of 2021. What. the. heck!?!? That’s exactly 20 years after I graduated. I was class of 2001 which there was a huge debate if we were the first class of the new millennium or if the class of 2000 was. But that’s another debate for another day.

Exactly 20 years. Gosh, am I that old? I’ll be having my 20th class reunion the same year she’ll be graduating. {rocking back and forth in that fetal position… breathe, just breathe}

At my 10-year class reunion, hubby and I had been married a year. We had just gotten back from our 1 year Anniversary in Hawaii in fact. I had a former classmate ask me what it felt like to do things in the right order. Her definition of the right order was graduate high school, graduate college, get married, and then potentially have a kid. Remember, I didn’t have a kid until 3 years after that reunion. I laughed. Apparently, she did it in a different order. She did the graduate high school first. (more…)