Crafting: Fall Wreath Edition

A friend of mine, Jessie, gave me this fun idea for a homemade fall wreath. I thought it was so stinkin' cute, and pretty much went to Hobby Lobby the next day ... :)

To make one, you'll first need a wreath form.

You'll also need 1/2-3/4 yard of fabric, as well as 5-6 sheets of felt, straight pins, some scissors, and some free time.

Cut your fabric into 2.5-3" strips.

Using your straight pins to secure the fabric onto the form, warp the fabric around until completely covered. (*Hint*: pick which side you plan to be the front or the back at the very beginning, and strive to always patch the different strips together on that side so you don't have small silver pieces showing from the pins.)

Then cut your felt into circles or oval-ish shapes. This is not an exact science. I pity all of you perfectionists (I'm definitely not one) because it is HARD to cut a perfect oval, so best of luck to you! (This is the most time-consuming part of the project.)

Once you've got a pretty hefty set of them ready to go, fold the circle in half, in half again, and secure them onto the wreath with a straight pin, so that it sort of resembles a flower/rose.

Keep placing them on, fluffing them out, and rearranging until you like the look/fullness of it.

(I obviously spent some time fixing the above ones :)
You definitely do not need to use that many colors, I was just shooting for a fall-theme so I used browns, oranges, and deep red, but you could do a black and white print with all red felt, green & red for Christmas, green for St. Patrick's day, etc.)

For fun, I added this sweet little scarecrow to add to the fall festive look.

If you are lucky enough to have a sweet pooch, he'll sniff it out and make sure it's A-OK :)

This particular wreath went to MeMaw and Paw Evans. Happy FALL!
Hopefully the weather will match the season soon!

Puppy Lovin'

Shredding Rubber on I-45

Well, today started out interesting because yesterday we had a momentary hesitation due to some new information that we had, but we decided to go through with it - adopt a Guardian Dog from the same place we got Maverick! That meant she would still be breeding once a year or so for the next 3 years (we'll spay her when she's done), but she lives with us and acts like our dog except when she's in McKinney having puppies.

This little one's name was "Pink" - terrible, I know - so we're trying to rename her "Goose" and she's catching on pretty quickly given that she's already 2 years old. She's housebroken, playful and seems to get along really well with Maverick! More about her and some pictures in a new post coming soon.

Instead I'm going to tell you all about the nice "simple" flat tire we had on I-45. The irony is that we decided against taking the CRV because the last time we took the CRV on a trip to get a new dog, the A/C went out and it was a LONG, and MISERABLE drive back. Do y'all remember that?

Anyway. We took the Camry instead.
And had a scary and massive blow out.
No big deal right?

Well, apparently Toyotas put this special anti-theft "key" lug nut thing on their tires to prevent theft. If the key is missing (it got left at the last mechanic we had an oil change at), however, it means you CAN'T CHANGE YOUR TIRE! Oh, crap.

It's also a Sunday evening, which means basically no mechanic or wrecking company is open. More oh no's.

I called MANY mechanics and wrecking places until we finally went through this fiasco of one saying they were coming ... then they never showed ... another saying they were coming ... then they changed their mind ... another saying we were too far (3 miles down the road?), and FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY I-45 Wrecking Tire & Tow rescued us!

Meanwhile, while we waited for the several hours as the above happened, I REALLY had to use the restroom. So I fashioned a restroom out of 2 doors & an umbrella:

g

Should you find yourself in a fix, this works quite well!

Goose was handling the wait decently (isn't she precious?):

The massive blow out:

Many hours later ... The WRECKER arrived!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

Maverick was concerned, especially when I got out of the car to talk to him too. (More like gush over him like he was my hero ...)

They originally said that they were going to tow us to the nearest hotel, we'd stay the night, and the next morning they'd tow us to the Toyota Dealership not too far away. This plan was not ideal for several reasons - some of which include neither of us would make it to work the next morning, we had two dogs and didn't know if the hotel was pet friendly, and all 4 of us were seriously HUNGRY.

However, this guy broke the lug nut key thingy, which we'll have to get fixed, but at least he managed to find a way to get us on the road again headed HOME!!

The tire looks pretty awful, huh?

Anyway, we had to stop at a gas station and buy overpriced nasty puppy kibble (the only kind of dog food they carried), but at least the dogs were fed, and we just got home a few minutes ago. We're trying to quickly train Goose to use the doggy door so we don't have to worry about them tomorrow at work .... we hope :)

Pictures of the two pups coming soon!

A&M vs. OSU

Yesterday Bryan and I found ourselves yet again in College Station, ready for game day. This time we brought along Adam and Steven to join in the fun. (As always, here is my big THANK YOU to Mom and Dad for their spectacular season tickets :)

As you can see, the gentlemen were armed with Shiner and Whiskey&Coke for the tailgate. I, however, was (as always) drinking LOTS of water.

How awesome is this truck-made-into-firetruck?

Bryan's stoked to be here, and ready to BTHO OSU.

I asked Steven to take a picture of the two of us, since it doesn't usually happen.
(We can count this as our anniversary picture too, since we didn't get one of those either .... oops)

The first half we played INCREDIBLE. It was 20-3 to the Aggies going into half time. The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band played a great halftime show- and even did some cool new moves. Unfortunately for the Aggies, however, our football team fell apart the second half.
We're used to the Aggies forgetting to play the 3rd quarter (anyone remember last year? and the year before?) ... but they usually pick it up again in the 4th quarter to narrowly recover. Yesterday they also forgot to play the 4th quarter. It was pretty awful.

I think most Aggies are going to try to remember the first half and pray they do that for ALL FOUR quarters next game against Arkansas.

Don't forget to come to the A&M/Arkansas party at our house next weekend!

Remember 09.19.09?

Today is our 2nd anniversary! It was a rough day for me at school because of a few quirky things that happened, plus I'm dealing with a sinus infection, so we decided to play it simple and order pizza, watch Dancing with the Stars and Castle, take Maverick to the dog park, and just spend time together without lesson plans, without grading, without computer programming. It has been really nice - and incredibly rare for a weekday night!

Plus he brought me home an Icee - my version of flowers :)

I love him so much more today than I did 2 years ago, and I'm sure it's still only beginning.

Weekend Part 2: A&M vs. Idaho

Saturday = GAME DAY! Whoop!

It was the Aggies' second game of the season and we were playing Idaho. Idaho's entire stadium could fit THREE times in just the student section of Kyle Field to give you a feeling for what it must have felt like for the Idaho team to play there. They are in the same division and everything, it's just a much smaller school.

Since Mom and Dad were occupied with the bunk room project in Cuero, Bryan and I took MeMaw and Paw Evans to the game. I think they enjoyed it!



Before the game started they did the usual anthem, fly over, talk about people, etc. What I thought was BEYOND cool this pre-game was that they had MIKE FOSSUM speak "at" Kyle Field!



Notice the 12th Man Flag floating around .... that would be because there's no GRAVITY. He was speaking from the International Space Station! How amazing is that?! He's literally in space and still supporting his Aggies. I LOVE IT! Gave me goose bumps, actually.



Our team played hard. We would have held them to a no-score game, but Sherman put in our 2nd/3rd string players to give them some play time, and the Vandals scraped a touch down and extra point. I think it's worth the trade-off, though, because our players deserve some play time, especially when we pull that far ahead.



The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band didn't disappoint, of course. They even pulled out some new moves!



It was a great game and really wonderful to share it with MeMaw and Paw. Thanks again for the tickets, Mom & Dad! We love being able to be there!!

Weekend Part 1: Other Stuff

This weekend was fun! I've been classifying it in my mind as the "football part" and the "other stuff." This particular post will focus on all the other stuff ...

Friday evening after work Bryan and I headed over to Steven's house to hang out and let Maverick play with his German Shepard, Miko. Despite the huge size difference, they actually play really well together! We went to Chilies for dinner, had margaritas and watched football while the pups destroyed some toys and played chase and tug for several hours. It was so good to see a friend we haven't hung out with for a while!

Once we got back home we planned to go straight to bed, especially since it was late and we hadn't been getting too much sleep, but our plans changed. Instead, I took some more sinus medicine (anyone else suffering from major allergy issues this past week!?) and we grabbed our folding chairs and walked down the street to join our neighbors. Since we were joining late everyone else had already had MANY stiff drinks, but we joined the fun anyway :) In fact, it was really entertaining to hear what our neighbors share after too many drinks, haha. Mark had his tunes cranked up, all the kids were in bed, and it was basically a big Dr. Phil session with 8 or so of our neighbors, peppered with folks randomly singing solos to the music. At one point this slow jazzy song came on and all the couples slow danced in the middle of the street ... I love it when my hubby slow dances with me :) It turns out that it's even more fun when it's 1am, we're exhausted, sweaty, twirling around on the pavement, and 100% happy. New favorite memory of our block!

Poor Maverick was sooo sleepy after playing with Miko for several hours, and then playing with all of our neighbors' dogs until wayyy too late, so he was ready to crash when we finally went to bed. Bryan and I couldn't give up the tunes though so we fell asleep listening to old school love jazz songs ... I think Pandora is going to be a new evening time must!

Saturday we may have slept in a teensy bit :) Or a lotta-bit :) Bryan took Maverick over to Willow Creek Ranch for the day since we were going to head to College Station that afternoon to watch the Aggies play. More on that in the next post ...

Before the game, however, I had to make a birthday cake for Duncan Ford, a friend of ours.
Leah asked if I could bring along the Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes for their party, and I decided I could convert it into a cake.

Here's what I did differently to make it work:
1. I made the cake batter the same way, but put it into 2 round cake pans. (And I only made HALF of the recipe for everything because it makes a lot.)

2. Once I dumped the first cake (carefully), I poured the ganauche (did I spell that right?) on top, again carefully, to give it the "middle" feeling.



3. I EXTREMELY carefully put the second cake on top. It actually went far better than expected. Make sure to grease your pans REALLY well if you're going to try this!



4. Iced and labeled. Happy 29th Birthday, Duncan!



The party wasn't until Sunday, but I wasn't sure I'd have time on Sunday before the party, so I got it done a little early.

Since I'm skipping the game for now, we'll fast forward to Sunday. We ended up accidentally sleeping through the 9am service, and Maverick was exhausted from Willow Creek, so although I feel bad missing, we did skip church.

We woke up in time for Duncan's birthday party and the kick-off at noon though. (We got something like 11 hours of sleep! It was very much needed, and our attitudes have improved accordingly :)

At the party there was DELICIOUS Mexican food, lots of people, lots of football, and Maverick got to hang out with Waylon. I love having those opportunities to meet friends-of-friends, because it's always so interesting to meet other people and really hit it off with some. It was fun!

Sunday night I babysat for our neighbor's kiddos, and Bryan worked some on the projector. It's getting there!! Don't forget about our A&M vs. Arkansas game party at our house on October 1st!



Stay tuned for the A&M vs. Idaho game update!

Pre-Anniversary Get-Away

{San Antonio & Sea World}

Our anniversary isn't until September 19th, BUT that's a home A&M football game, and we opted to enjoy a weekend away AND go to the football game :) Plus we didn't go anywhere last year, so we felt completely okay with it this year.

We stayed at the St. Anthony's hotel in downtown San Antonio, only a block or so away from the river walk. The hotel was nice, but the bed was about 4 1/2 feet off the ground, which made it completely necessary for me to literally run and JUMP to get on! Made for some late-night laughs ... especially after a margarita :)



Friday night we drove to SA, checked in, and wandered around the River Walk for a while before sharing some fajitas and margaritas at a place called Ritas. We even stayed outside (despite all the nasty cigarette smoke) just because I feel like eating a place ON the river walk isn't the same if you can't see it!



Saturday found us up, breakfasted, and on our way to SEA WORLD!! I was so excited about this, and I think Bryan found my excitement contagious :) Forgive the bunches of pictures ... I'll try to stay minimized and just hit the highlights.

Our favorite thing the entire time was the Sea Lion show .... SOOO good. Before the show we just, you know, hung around with the Sea Lions and Seals :)







Then the show! It started with this guy getting the audience relaxed and laughing before the main event. Then out come the stars! I am still impressed - seals that can go through a filing cabinet, pretend to use a magnifying glass, follow a script, a massive 2,000lb something-or-another that can look ashamed and even do sit-ups. I mean, WOW. Bryan and I were both laughing hysterically - it was wonderful.







Immediately following we darted over to see Azul - the show with the synchronized swimmers, dolphins, divers, whales, birds, etc. It was also impressive, but in a flashy way. My stomach did flip flops when those divers practically jumped off the roof. The swimmers that work with the dolphins can dive about 20 feet and hold their breath for at least 2 minutes. Insane. Who are these people anyway?!





The last show we saw was Shamu - because you can't go to Sea World and NOT see Shamu! The water shooting everywhere, the lights, sounds, music and whales slashing and jumping did not disappoint. Check them out:





We then decided to go feed the dolphins. We could even touch them. Pretty unreal.







Lastly, we checked out the sharks and the aquarium. Very cool.





I know it's weird, but we decided not to ride any of the roller coasters, even though we both enjoy them. I've had a neck injury bothering me pretty badly for a few months now, and we decided not to risk doing more damage. I would have had no problem with Bryan riding them and me cheering him on (or going back to look at some more animals), but he opted to pass. It was so much fun even without the rides.

We went back to the hotel, showered, changed, took a quick nap, and headed out to get - you guessed it - more Mexican food! (We were in San Antonio after all.) We decided not to eat at Sea World, so we were pretty hungry. I had received a recommendation for this place (Rosarios) from a woman I regularly see at the Bark Park. It did NOT disappoint. I want their recipe for Enchilada Suizas so I can make it all the time ... ohhhh my goodness, yum.

I know it's bad, but Sunday we skipped church in favor of sleeping in for a change and meeting a friend for lunch at a place where Man vs. Food had an episode!! Check out the size of these pizzas!



We're home now and picked up the puppy from Willow Creek where he had a BLAST. It's time for another week at work! And then next weekend we can say "Happy Anniversary" to each other for real :)