Much time and little to do…wait, strike that, reverse it

So last Thursday morning, the door bell rang promptly at 9:15. Two very nice gentlemen went straight out to the back and got to work removing our old Heat/AC unit. I started a roast for dinner then dozed off to sleep. Woke back up about 11 to another knock at the door. Sales/Paperwork guy. Got the paperwork signed off on, then politely asked how long he expected they would be there. “Oh till four or five.” Ah geez. I should’ve made it to Home Depot Wednesday night to buy all the supplies I needed to be productive painting/caulking, etc. Oh well…I’ll just have a lazy day. I took a few camera phone pictures throughout the day. But most of my time was spent on the couch watching what I am assuming was the second or third season of the Biggest Loser. All episodes back to back. The guys came in at two and announced they were going to grab lunch and would be back in about thirty minutes. Not long enough for me to get out and back on time. And I’m sure it would’ve been okay for me to leave while they were there since they were outside anyways, but still…just didn’t feel like it was a good idea. Anywho, they got back and finished up about fifteen minutes after five. Heat works, AC works, now have removable air filters, house is less dusty, and a programmable thermostat I know how to work. Yeah!!! Glad it is taken care of.

Last Saturday night Ryan and I were very excited to spend the evening with friends. Jennifer and Bryan came into town from Houston so a group of us all met at Melanie and Justin’s for a cookout. We had a wonderful time! Always so good to see our friends.

Sunday before they left, our group went to lunch. Melanie and Justin got to show off Aaron (their seven and a half month old son). He is adorable. Growing like a weed! We decided to go to Chili’s for a quick bite. Ryan had the honey chipotle chicken crispers, and I had this appetizer sampler thing with mini chicken crispers, southwestern egg rolls, and mini burger bites. We all split chips, queso, salsa, and ranch. Everything was wonderful and we came home and took a nap. I noticed yesterday as I ate my leftovers, things seemed very very greasy. So I looked up the nutrition information…only to find out we had each consumed over 100 grams of fat and 2000 calories on our entrees alone! That doesn’t include the large amount of chips, salsa, queso and ranch. Anywho, I highly encourage you to educate yourself about what you put in your body when out to eat. http://www.brinker.com/gr/nutritional/chilis_nutrition_menu.pdf
Many restaurants have it available online now too. Anyways…back to not obsessing over what is too late to change…

This week we have quite a fun week! Here is the first half…Marshall came over for dinner on Monday night and we all went to Mi Cocina. It had been a while since I’d been there and I miss it! Lucky enough for me, the M Crowd restaurants have not gone public with their nutrition info yet! Last night was our rest night. Got to workout and watch the biggest loser. I just love that show. So inspiring. Definitely doesn’t always go how you want it to, but the purpose of the show is just so motivating. Especially when they show how far all the contestants have come in 16 weeks! Tonight we are headed out to the Ballpark in Arlington to see Padilla battle the A’s. In fact, I’m about to walk over to Subway in a few minutes to pick up sandwiches for us to take into the game with us.

Happy Earth Day to All!!!

http://www.epa.gov/pick5/

I encourage everyone to start recycling (if you aren't already), buy reusable shopping bags to take to the grocery store, use a reusable bottle instead of bottled water, just anything you can think of! Me, I brought in a glass mug and a reusable cup to use at work instead of using the cups they have in our break room. Does it count we are getting our new heat and ac unit tomorrow? I think I might go get some weather stripping and put it around our doors and windows tomorrow while the ac guy is there. We have one big recycling bag now. Maybe I'll go buy several smaller bins...one for plastic, one for aluminum, one for paper...Ryan has been wanting to do that for a while anyways. Hmmm...what else can I do...

Thinking about Grandma a lot today. Missing her, and thinking of Granddad.

Love to all!

Come Monday It'll Be Alright

Ryan and I had such a fun week last week! We had a voucher for a couple free tickets to a Ranger game, so Wednesday night after work we headed out to the Ballpark. We got to sit on the sixth row in section 37. We watched Ian Kinsler hit for the cycle and Nelson Cruz almost get two Grand Slams in one game! Ryan was facebooking as Hank Blalock stepped up to the plate. He was just about to post something about when Hank would get hurt this season, when a foul ball came flying and smacked him in the knee! Had a big knot on his knee and it has bothered him for a few days now! He was so excited...and mad at himself. He would have caught the ball if he wouldn't have been goofing around on his phone :o) We didn't get home until about 11:30, but it was well worth it! Such a fun night. Then on Friday about 4:00 I got a call from our friend Daniel giving us tickets to Friday night's Ranger game. It was so late, it was hard to try to rally up anyone to go with us, plus it had rained all day. So we ended up giving up after a couple of phone calls and just going by ourselves. Fifteen rows behind the Rangers dugout on the aisle. Talk about good seats. And they came with access to the Cuervo Club. So when we got a little cold during the seventh inning, we sang take me out to the ball game then watched the rest of the game from inside (where we sat for Ryan's 30th birthday last year). When the game was over we returned to the seats and watched the fireworks. Pretty cool actually. The Rangers are doing fireworks at every Friday night home game this year :o) We had a really nice time got home about 11:30 again.
Saturday morning we slept in. Showered dressed and headed out to the Jimmy Buffett tailgates a little after noon. If you have never been, I think it is something people should do at least once in their lives. The spectacle is ridiculous. Tons of adults...some in pirate costumes, some in bikinis (most wearing bikinis should not have been wearing bikinis), lots of golf carts decorated zooming around...it is just insane. Our particular group had rented an RV. Mostly to have the use of a restroom....most all the port o potties fill up...and are completely disgusting. Our RV started to fill up about five o'clock there were so many of us using it. So Adam set up his port-o-privey which is a mini tent and you put a bucket in it with this gel stuff. Anywho...next year we know not to spend the money on the RV, just bring several buckets and lots of the gel stuff. One of the guys had brought his smoker, made pulled pork, pulled chicken, beef ribs, burgers, and sausage. Lots of potato salad and potato casserole. Jen (one of the coordinators) had made cupcakes and put blue icing on one side, crushed graham crackers on the other side with an umbrella to make them look like little beaches. They were too cute! We played several games of washers, and lots of dominos. I'm getting better. Definitely not "good" yet, but better for sure. We of course forgot our camera, but a couple of other folks in our group had theirs. As soon as they send me some of the pictures, I will post them. The number of tailgates and the crazy behavior of the folks out there is incredible. You see just about anything and everything. I did find the gigantic Jenga set pretty fun. Looks like they had just taken two by fours and made it themselves. While several parking lots were people that had arrived on Saturday, about half of the lots were people that had been there several days. So you can imagine some of the setups...and the time it took the people to set them up and the amount of time it was going to take them to break them down! I mean elaborate bars, full picnic tables, some even had put down the green turf stuff so you weren't on concrete. Our camp packed up about midnight. Amazing how different the feel was leaving there than just a few short hours earlier. We got home really late. I was so happy to have it quiet again. Everywhere we went there was loud music yesterday! Oh, and did I mention...we didn't even go to the concert! The cheapest tickets we could find were $100 a piece so we decided to just keep our money.
We have taken it easy all day today. Went to On the Border for lunch, doing some laundry and now am about to go to the grocery store. This Thursday we are going to have our heat and air replaced...ugh. I'm thinking it might be a good day to caulk around the windows...use the paint we bought and paint the accidentally blue room....nine months ago...might need to shake it up before I use it huh?

You had some fun for the weekend…

Friday was nice. Ryan had the day off and I was lucky enough to get home a bit early. He was ready to get out of the house so we went up to Cracker Barrel next to Grapevine Mills. Their biscuits are awesome! Afterward, we were so full, we decided to walk around the mall a bit. I found some Merrell water shoes to wear in Hawaii at Sun and Ski. We both could spend a lot of money in that store. But, we left with only shoes and headed off around the mall. We stopped at the Wilson’s Leather Outlet to look at some purses they had on sale. Ryan’s comment, “Dayna, seeing that you have spent $10 or less total since we’ve been married on purses, I think you should find a better one.” So in we went. Found a $19.99 purse that suits me fine. Next to the purse table was a clearance rack of exceptionally nice coats. 75% off the original price and an additional 30% off the sale price. I found a really nice black jacket, fitted, comes down to my knees, buttons up the front is perfect for work. Ryan found a chocolate brown leather Calvin Klein jacket that he got for 70% off them 30% off of the sale price. So needless to say, we should be warm and stylish next fall :o) We kept moseying around. Got to the Ann Taylor Loft (which I love), and I about just walked past. But, the 50% off sign lured us in…not me, Ryan was the one that instigated it. He found an outfit on the clearance rack he liked for me, so without trying it on, got the dress, the jacket and the shoes and went to the register. The clerk was a little over friendly, but she did give us each a bottled water. Brilliant! It was exactly what we both needed. Both of us finished the water quite quickly, so she gave us another bottle. It was awesome. Both of us were extremely impressed with the service there. So here’s my little plug for them. Go shop at the Ann Taylor Loft at Grapevine Mills.
Saturday we went to Quinton’s soccer game, then I dropped off Ryan and went to run errands. Along the way saw some gorgeous wildflowers. My favorites were the red poppies just north of 635 along southbound 75. A brilliant beautiful red. One of my errands was to stop in at Sprinkles for some cupcakes. I’ve been craving their strawberry cupcake ever since I finished the last bite of the one I had there almost six months ago. I got three strawberry and three peanut butter chocolate. Now I also had some groceries in the car so the seats were full. There was no way I was going to put the cupcakes on the floor either…so the box of cupcakes rode home in my lap. I felt like an idiot driving like Greg and Marsha on the Brady Bunch on their little driving course (if you missed the episode, they had to do an obstacle course and not knock over an egg sitting on a cone as they parked). I think I drove 30 on Northwest Highway most of the way home. Oh well…the cupcakes did make it home safely after all. Saturday night we kept the boys for Trisha and Matt while they went to a concert. Mom came over and helped us color Easter eggs. Thank goodness too. Lots of little fingers were blue and green. Quinton and I text messaged the Easter Bunny several times. Asked him if he liked strawberry milk, chocolate milk or regular milk. He in fact likes strawberry milk! Who knew! And Mathis was thoughtful enough to put out some ranch dressing for the Easter bunny to have with his carrots too. All were in bed by 9:45!
Sunday morning we had planned on going to the 7:00 First United Methodist Grapevine Sunrise Service at the Grapevine Botanical Gardens. Seeing that when we woke up to shower and get ready it was POURING down rain, we decided to attend our normal 10:10 service. I love Easter. My favorite holiday by far. The songs we sing, the joy in the air, I just love it. There was special music yesterday that proved to be my favorite part of my day too. I wish I could remember the name of the song, but it was beautiful. Beautiful words, beautifully performed, just gave me chills! And talk about packed. Took us ten minutes or more just to pull out of our parking space afterward! Then we picked up Larry and Rita and headed to Trisha’s for Easter lunch and the Eggdiana Jones hunt. For those of you who haven’t heard, Trisha wanted to do something different this year. Instead of doing a traditional egg hunt, she made it into a scavenger hunt. Each child was given directions written out on cigar paper (looked very Indiana Jones authentic). They first had to find a yellow egg, in the yellow egg were directions on what color egg to find next, etc. The verbiage on each clue wasn’t just, go find a blue egg. She had made it creative and thoughtful. Poetic! Then, the final egg had a clue for them to go inside and find the “vessel of wonder” with their name on it. She had bought each of them water bottles put filled with candy, seeds for flowers, and other fun stuff. It went off perfectly! All the kids seemed to really have fun and it was something even the older kids had to work to figure it out. Overall such a wonderful day with family and friends. Let’s just hope the energy holds up for the week!

Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack…

Saturday
I woke up Saturday, showered and scurried off to get to Quinton’s soccer game. Four year olds playing soccer is quite the sight! Many would get distracted, stop and just chat midfield. Some had to be coaxed into playing by promising candy. And some would kick the ball and eventually score in their own goal, only to be high-fived by their little teammates. Quinton played goalie, and we started to pack up our chairs. He came running off the field and stop me. “Aunt Dayna you aren’t leaving are you? Aunt Dayna don’t go.” Talk about melting. I immediately sat my chair back up and began cheering again until it was time to make a tunnel for all the kids at the end of the game.
Then came Harold’s game. Harold has graduated to coach pitch baseball now. And the games really are pretty entertaining. The kids know what they are doing, are beginning to learn to hit and field. Harold is one of the big guys on the team and already is getting to be known to have a heavy bat! Ryan and I are going to go to his next game Good Friday at the baseball fields at the creative playground. Harold’s team is maroon and they are called the Diamondbacks if you feel like coming out for a little Friday night game :o)
After Harold’s game it was time for Wesley’s birthday celebration to begin! Uncle Ryan had already made it out to the Ballpark and was waiting on us. Our group consumed quite a few hot dogs, nachos, and several Sprites! The kids all even got to go play in the kids area for a while and get their picture taken with Ranger Captain. And even though it was only an exhibition game, most of the big name players played for the first half of the game! After the game we all headed over to Trisha and Matt’s for dinner. Wesley caught a little nap between all the action. Trisha’s friend Tammy had made a brisket in her crock pot! It was wonderfully moist, and flavorful! I insisted she send me the recipe. The meat just fell apart it was so tender. Poor Ryan stuck with his lent sacrifice and didn’t try it. Ryan and I got Wesley a Sit and Spin for his birthday. As all the adults discussed the fun we all had on the sit and spin, someone decided they need to make an adult version (I think Marshall, Tammy and Trisha all tied for the idea). The loads of fun of making yourself go round and round, faster and faster. The box says it helps hand to eye coordination…maybe I could get Wii Fit credits if I did it…anywho, I digress. Presents and cupcakes later, we headed home.

Sunday
Sunday was mostly a lazy day. So miserably cold! After church we headed to Central Market and bought several things…among them gnocchi. We’ve had gnocchi at restaurants, but never made it at home. We made a red bell pepper cream sauce to go over them for dinner Sunday night. Really pretty good. Not nearly as good as the fresh we’ve had out, but definitely would have them again. Sunday night Ryan mixed up sugar cookies (see previous post) and we got our stuff together for Monday morning.

Monday
We woke up at 7:30 Monday, really not wanting to get out of bed. Finally did, got packed up and headed for the ballpark! We got there just after 9:00 and parked right next to Deron, Storm and a few others we know. Talk about a cold wind. We popped the hatchback of the Nissan and I sat in the back. Out of the wind, it was really quite nice! I walked over to the gift shop and exchanged the medium sized shirt Ryan had bought me. I mean, it wouldn’t even fit over my head. What is up with shirt sizes nowadays. Everything is skin tight! Anywho, I exchanged it for a good old fashioned t-shirt. The ladies shirt I took back was $30, new one was $22 and also purchased Ryan a pair of $15 sunglasses. The checker insisted I owed her $31.50 after my discount…two managers and several apologies later, I gave them $1.45 and walked out with my new items. Back at the tailgate, Deron had finished cooking the German Sausage and the patio steaks were on the grill. Ryan and I decided to go catch a bit of batting practice before we ate. We thought it was chilly in the parking lot….well, in the ballpark in the shade…YIKES!!!! It was freezing! We watched maybe fifteen minutes then scurried back out to the sun. The patio steaks were just about done. Or as Deron called them, “Meat Lollipops.” They were absolutely wonderful! He gets them at the Country Meat Market over off of Lancaster and 820 (by Matt’s old fire station). He said they are only 99 cents, come wrapped in bacon and fully seasoned. What a bargain! Truly a tasty treat! After our “meat lollipops” and a few cookies, it was time to head into the game. People everywhere. Such chaos, but also quite exciting. It was electric. You could feel everyone so excited and in a good mood regardless of the cold. We got to our seats and were extremely pleased with our purchase. The new seats are behind home plate (if you took the first base line and kept going straight, our seats are right down that line). We could see everything so well. I got teary eyed when they welcomed former President George W Bush home. The star spangled banner was played by the military band, and the fly over happened during the word “rockets”…you couldn't hear anything for the next two lines of the song…and the giant flag was spread across the entire outfield. It was beautiful. They released what seemed to be a thousand red, white and blue balloons and they all whipped and whirled around for almost ten minutes before most of them made their way off into the air. The players were wearing their brand new red jerseys and red hats. They looked extremely sharp! As they ran out on the field, they started playing “Backroads” by Brandon Rhyder! Ryan and I were so excited! That’s huge! A little later we text messaged our friend Bobby and found out Brandon was there too and was excited as well! How fun is that. Then the game started. And what an awesome, exciting game too! 9-1 win on Opening Day. Couldn’t beat it! We had a fantastic time. We didn’t stick around for the Roger Creager concert afterward…just too cold, but I hope plenty did. Anywho, I’ve been on an emotional high all day after yesterday…and singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” too…can’t wait to go back Thursday for my work’s lunch lotto!!!

Opening Day for the Rangers is tomorrow.  We have several groups of friends heading out early to tailgate and catch batting practice.  We have spent the evening making Ranger themed sugar cookies to contribute the tailgate.  I used a different recipe than normal and also used White Lilly flour; this resulted in something closer to frosting than sugar cookies.  These results are above.  If they don't give you diabetes immediatly then you will probably get cancer from the obscene amount of food coloring it takes to make these shades of red and blue.  Dayna said the blue actually tasted different.

Bluebonnets!

It was just brought to my attention by one of my friends that she had never seen a bluebonnet...so here ya go Mary Beth :o)
http://www.pbase.com/richo/bluebonnets

Who Shot JR?

So back on March 22^nd, Ryan and I attended the Texas Music Revolution out at Southfork Ranch.  We’d heard tickets were $26 to get in and acts such as Ray Wylie Hubbard, Two Tons of Steel, the Tejas Brothers, Max Stalling and of course our personal favorite, Walt Wilkins & the Mystiqueros (there were lots and lots more, but I don’t have room to name them all).  We figured that was a pretty fair price to get to hear all that talent, so off we went.  We were shocked when we learned at the door that they wanted $40 a piece for us to get in…YIKES!  Now, we’d come this far so we decided to go ahead and pay it.  Once we got in, we discovered it was complete chaos.  It was absolutely gorgeous outside (little windy, but that was it), but they had elected to have the concerts inside.  There were two extremely large banquet halls connected to one another with a smaller music stage in one (aka “Long-Haired Goateed Hippie Stage” in the Lone Star Atrium), and a large stage (aka “Shiner Stage” in the Oil Baron’s Ballroom) in the other.  Different bands played every 45 minutes…on alternating stages.  So the crowd would shift back and forth every 45 minutes on the dot.  We started out trying to see Max Stalling in the big room.  Listened to a couple of his songs, then decided to jump ship for a while and go tour the “mansion.”  It was so neat getting to walk around in there.  I don’t remember too many episodes, but one thing was clear…Southfork is A LOT smaller than it looked on TV.  The pool could have easily fit in Ryan and I’s living room…but nonetheless, really neat to see it!  We walked all over the first floor (second floor was roped off to visitors).  I took a video with my cell phone, and dad gum it, I erased it just like I did in Cabo!  Oh well…you’ll just have to trust me it was neat :o)  Seriously the house was no bigger than a home you might see in a neighborhood such as Interlochen.  Would have fit right in.  Anywho, back to the $40 band thing. So after touring the house and walking past a couple of the horse pastures, we went back in to the Ewing Ballroom where they were serving bbq, burgers, etc.  We sat for a couple minutes trying to figure out how we were going to make it through four more hours of this in order to get to hear Walt and the boys sing.  That’s when John Meacham surprised us!  He and his wife Maddy are a couple we frequently hang out with when going to see Walt.  They had arrived about when we did and snagged a table in front of the hippie stage.  So for the rest of the afternoon, the four of us sat, chatted and visited.  Maddy and I sipped on our waters while our boys sipped on their Shiners.  Walt started playing right around 7…and during the show he calmly announced the musicians’ prep room had run out of frosty beverages…so Ryan and John took off to go get the boys provisions.  One problem…they’d run out of Shiner!  They sponsored the thing and had run out of their signature beverage by 7!  They had to settle for Shiner Black.  Walt and the boys started early, ran late, and then came and sat down with us and we all chatted for about thirty minutes until the crowd once again started shifting into the lone star atrium.  We were home by 9 and ended up having a nice time with our friends.  Next year we will be doing one of two things though…finding a group of five to split the tickets and only pay $20 a person for them, or not go at all. 

Please also note, the number of high school/college kids “tailgating” in the fields, then going into an enclosed area made the rooms reek of the smell of recess…still trying to figure out why the events weren’t held outside.  Oh well.