A Great 2011

As I look at my blogroll, I see everyone doing a recap of 2011. I remember doing that for 2010, and I enjoyed looking back over the year. If you were to ask me, I would say that there was only a few notable things that happened to me in 2011, but as I looked through pictures of this past year, I realize it was pretty eventful!


In January I turned 26! I can't believe that in less than 3 weeks, I will be 27!! Aaghhh, I am almost 30! I had a fabulous cake, and got to celebrate with my beautiful friends and family. You can read about it here.

In February, Tim and I went to New Orleans for the annual Superbowl party that my dad's store hosts every year. We had a blast! Tim and I went out with friends, ate beignets with family, watched an amazing World War II documentary at the museum, walked miles around Bourbon Street and the French Quarter, and had a great time watching the Superbowl. Here are some pictures from our trip and you can read about it here:  

In March, we went to the rodeo a ton of times! I went once with just my mom for a shopping trip, countless times with Tim, and we even had a girls night. I love the rodeo! You can read about shopping, Billy Currington, Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, Brad Paisley, and Zac Brown Band nights by clicking them. Here are some pictures of each: 

In May, Tim turned 27 (at least he is closer to 30 than I am, haha!), but sadly I don't have any pictures of it. He hates doing a ton of pictures, but even worse he hates a big to-do for his birthday. In May, I also hosted a surprise Bachelorette Party for my sister-in-law Kristin. It was a lot of fun planning it, but even more fun being able to surprise her! You can read about it here, and here are some pictures from the night:

Our candy/sweets table

Surprise!!

Ready to go out!

In June, we were able to spend a couple of weekend days on the lake, where I finally got to practice my wake boarding skills! I had only even attempted it a few times before my back surgery, but was no good and I am blaming it all on the bad back. Last summer, I finally got to try again and made it up every time! Sadly, we never went back out so when we went this summer I wasn't sure if I would be starting at square one again or not. Apparently not! I was able to make it up every time and stay up for quite a while each time. Here are some pictures from out boating trips:

Tim has always been good at this, he can get up with no problem,
sometimes I am surprised he isn't backflipping through the air!

Oh my gosh! I made it up!

Sadly, I am pretty much the only one who knows how to effectively work my camera, so most of the pictures are of this:

In July, we went on a family vacation to HAWAII!!! It was amazing! You can read about all of our trip here, but here are just some of our pictures!

In August, I started my 4th year of teaching kindergarten. I can't believe that I have three years under my belt! We also got a new family member! My parents adopted a baby girl, Isabella, and I was able to go up to Kentucky while she was still in the NICU to visit my mom and meet her. She is adorable! 

September was a very busy month for us. Tim's sister, Kristin, got married and we were both in the wedding. My parents bought me a new horse! I was so excited to get back into riding, that I didn't mind taking a break from trying to have a baby. Little did I know, two weeks after the purchase of our new horse, we found out that I was pregnant! I guess it is true what they say, "When you stop trying, that is when it will happen". Yes, but that is much easier said than done! Here are some pictures from the month of September:

In November, we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with all of our family. Luckily both Tim's and my parents live in Cypress, so we were able to celebrate with both sides. It would be really hard to have to choose which family to spend which holiday's with if either they or us moved. Of course, I don't have any pictures of the family Thanksgivings, but I do have a picture of my friend and I. She was able to come out to Cypress and have Thanksgiving dinner with us!

December came and all I had on my mind was baby, baby, baby. It was hard to focus on Christmas! We had many wonderful Christmas celebrations, which you can read about here. We also found out that our bouncing baby is a BOY! We cannot wait to meet this little guy! 

Here is my family with the newest addition on Christmas day

Here are all of the kids and spouses

Finally, Tim and I rang in the New Year of 2012! We ate a fancy dinner at Rainbow Lodge with Kristin and Jason, saw a Vegas Style Comedy Illusion Dance show, then came home to watch fireworks in the driveway. We had a blast! You can read about it here:

I am still shocked that I made it to midnight! Just barely!

A Bump For New Year's

Here is a quick picture of my New Year's Eve bump:

I DID wear tights when we went out, but when we got home I took them off, and then wanted a picture and didn't want to put them back on. To see the whole ensemble.... click here.

Happy New Year! 2012, Are You Ready?

I am beyond excited for 2012 to get under way! We have a one BIG exciting change that will be coming, but who knows what surprises will also be in store this year?

On New Year's Eve Tim and I got all dressed up and went to one of our favorite fancy restaurants, Rainbow Lodge. It is a rustic log cabin-y type restaurant that has lots of different wild game (and also a chicken dish for me, lol!), Tim usually tries something new and exciting when we go, but last night he kept it simple with a rib eye and duck gumbo. They had a limited menu for New Year's Eve, and I am really glad that I took a look at it online before we went! There was NO chicken! I called the restaurant ahead of time, and told them that I am pregnant and the only meat I can really handle is chicken. They had no problem cooking it for me, and I was so thankful! Here we are at the end of dinner:

I brought our huge DSLR camera, but when we went to take pictures there was no room! I had to delete a couple of random pictures, but then the valet showed up with the car. I was kind of bummed that I lugged around the camera all night and only got two pictures!

Here is Kristin and Jason:

After dinner we went home to change into something a little more comfortable and then decide the rest of the evening. We knew that it would be a little bit up in the air because I didn't know what I would be up for. Kristin set to work looking for non smoking places that we could go to, and I hemmed and hawed whether I would go or not. I felt bad, but I didn't want to get 'out' somewhere and feel so tired and/or sick! She found the Texas Repertory Theater which said that they had a special show for New Year's Eve, it said it was a "Vegas Style Show mixed with Illusion and Dancing with the Stars"... Hmmmm, whatever did that mean?

We soon found out! After paying $45 per person to get in, we found ourselves watching 4 Vegas-style show girls, one lady who sang broadway songs, and a magician couple who salsa'd while they played illusionary tricks with our minds. 

Here are the 'Illusionists":

They were actually pretty good! A couple of the tricks we think we could figure out, but he did saw her in half and we are still confused on that one! They also did a dance where he tied her all up, then pulled a man from the audience, and they went into a curtain thing for literally 20 seconds, and in that time, she took off the old man's jacket, and put it on, AND tied herself back up. We were a little perplexed on that one, too. Whether or not the old man was in on it, I don't see how she had time! And, the magician kept moving the curtain up and down and you could see the man's face the whole time, so it's not like they were back there working together all that much. I am just amazed at how fast she could do it!

After that, we went back home, sat in the driveway and watched a free fireworks show courtesy of about 10 of our neighbors brave enough to break the 'No Firework" rule. I managed to stay up until midnight, although I am not quite sure how! Here we are at midnight:

Here we are at home. I had to get my annual New Year's Eve kiss husband on the cheek New Year's kiss.