Birthday dinner with friends

I'm kind of embarrassed to say, my birthday was still being celebrated on the 20th of the month! :)

We had a good dinner at Rio Mambo...

And when Christine ordered this swirl, she had no idea how enormous it was... so when it was delivered, we all got a big laugh!

They sang "Happy Birthday" to me while I wore the sombrero...and I have NO IDEA what my hair was doing under that hat, but it looks like I have a comb over.

Amber, Christine, Colette, Me, Jennifer

3 of the couples decided to go bowling after dinner! We had so much fun. Brian was the winner and I came in 2nd!

Since none of us had planned on going bowling, Christine was not wearing socks! She was worried about wearing bowling shoes with no socks, so she made her own using paper towels! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...gross.

Frog & Toad

Mason's 1st Grade program was "Another Year with Frog and Toad."
He is on the far left in the yellow shirt, 2nd row from the bottom.


His part in the musical was the beginning of the Fall Season, so you can see him carrying the Fall banner across the stage. (Hollywood, here we come... just kidding)

Mason's best buddy, Preston, did have the lead part of "Frog."

Mason did a great job singing and doing all the moves!

Valentine's Party

Maya and Mason were invited to a Valentine's party at Taylor's house. Taylor is Maya's friend that she dances with. We had driven home from Austin that day, so we were late getting there, but better late than never.

Maya, Reese and Taylor decorate their Valentine cookie!

Fun times in Austin

We made it to Wendy, Chris, Luke and Parker's house in Austin. The kids got to playing right away. The boys played with silly string on the trampoline...

Maya and Parker played with "flarp!"

We had an excellent dinner!

The kids made S'mores on the fire...

Later while the kids were busy playing, the adults played a game called "Loaded Questions." We had a lot of laughs!

Maya and Parker dressed up and doing shows for us...

The Mystery Machine

We were headed to Austin to stay with Wendy and family and I had to stop and run in the store for a couple of things. Brian and the kids stayed in the car and discovered The Mystery Machine and Shaggy in the parking lot! He was happy to pose for a picture with Mason and Maya. He gave Brian his card and we looked it up later. It is a program that works alongside the Police to help keep kids off drugs...

Raider and friends

Raider got to stay at Hidy and Gigi's with Millie and Ratchford while we went to Austin. He's always happy to get to go play!!

***SNOW, SNOW, SNOW****

I took a couple of pictures of the record breaking snow we got, but actually these were taken before it stopped snowing. We got over a foot of snow! These pictures were probably when we had about 5 inches. I came home to find the pool was not on, as it should be. The water was like a slushee. I immediately turned it on to get the water flowing again.

Live from NYC, it's Saturday Night!!!!!

After taking a rest back at the Hilton, we had planned on going to Angelo's in Little Italy. It's an Italian restaurant that had been recommded to us. We actually were not hungry still because we had eaten a later lunch AND had dessert. However, I wanted to still go check Angelo's out, so we did. We shared something and we really enjoyed the real Italian atmosphere. It was obviously a place that locals dine, and most of them really Italian. We loved listening to the accents and the conversations around us. It was very entertaining.
After dinner, we headed to the Tanuki Tavern where my childhood friend, Manu, was working. We hung out there at the Sushi bar while he worked, and we even tried a few bites of real Sushi. (We were very brave!) I liked one and didn't like the other. The one I liked was Spicey Tuna on Krispy Rice or something like that.

I left a message on my childhood friend, Shannon's, voicemail who also lives in NY and is an attorney. I told her we were gonna be out, but I really didn't expect to hear back from her, because it was already kind of late in the evening. When Manu got off worked, we walked to a bar a few blocks from the hotel he worked at. Shannon called back and did meet us out! We had so much fun catching up and hanging out.

So much fun, that we didn't get in the cab to go back to the hotel until 3:30 a.m.!!! I had no idea it was so late. Thank you to my wonderful husband Brian for a GREAT trip to NYC!! It was a fun surprise and I really enjoyed it.

Saturday in NYC

We got up and had breakfast and then headed to the TKTS booth to see if we wanted to see a show. But we decided against a show and we started walking around and shopping some.

We had fun shopping in the huge Toys R Us in Times Square. We wished that Mason and Maya could see the cool stuff, but at the same time we were glad they were not there because they would be asking for EVERYthing!!

Later, we took the subway to Ground Zero and saw the progress of the building and the memorial that is under construction. Brian had asked me a lot of questions about the infamous Canal Street, but I had not really planned on going there with him. That's more of something you do on a trip to NYC with the girls. But because he kept asking me questions, I decided we should just go for a little peak. We walked there from ground zero. I got a few things and Brian was ready go get out of there. Have I mentioned yet how COLD and WINDY it was??? We were miserable and had to buy some hats.

We took the subway back to Times Square and went to the ESPN Zone to eat lunch and watch the Texas Tech Basketball game! It was so warm and toasty in there... we stayed until the game was over, and even had a brownie sundae for dessert! We walked around a little more and shopped a little, but we were tired and ready to rest a little bit.

Here we are back at the Hilton lobby.

Friday in NYC

We got to NYC Friday afternoon and immediately went out to walk around, explore and do some shopping. (Brian's favorite! ha)

For dinner we had pizza at a place several people had recommended, John's Pizzeria. It was excellent. After that, we walked back to our hotel and decided to stay in and watch a movie, which we never do. That was a treat for me!

A very Happy Birthday

I had a fabulous birthday. My friends at work brought me goodies, cards, lots of birthday wishes and even sang to me. Then for dinner we went to dinner with all of my family and Brian's Mom and Dad at the Cheesecake Factory. I feel very loved and extremely blessed. Thank you all!