Thanksgiving fun

Holidays are always hard being 2300 miles away from my family. I don't get to see family nearly often enough, but I can usually forget about the distance--until the holiday season.

Luckily, my gorgeous studly boyfriend invited me to spend Thanksgiving with his family. I gladly accepted, as I jump at the chance for family time, even if it's not my family.

I let Nick make all the plans (you all know how tough that is for me!) because it was involving his family.

Clearly I trust him.

Because his dad lives in Kingsville, TX (which is very southern Texas) and his aunt and grandmother live in Austin, they usually meet in the middle on holidays. We met at Boerne, TX at Tapatio Springs Resort, which is about a half an hour past San Antonio. For those who don't know Texas geography very well, that's about a three hour drive south from Waco.

Here's Nick, still loving the idea of spending the weekend with me (but probably due to the fact that this is only a half an hour into our trip).

A little later, we decided that it was time to take more photographs. Clearly Nick is a badass. Or at least is really good at pretending he is! :)

We met his father and stepmother ("Quasi," for quasi-mom) in the parking lot of Bass Pro Shop in San Antonio so we could follow him to the resort. Nick and his father clearly love this store, but we couldn't spend too much time there because we had to go meet the rest of the family for lunch.

Tapatio Springs Resort was beautiful! We went in with the temperature being extremely warm, and when we left it was freezing. Thanks for bringing in the cooler fall temperatures, Thanksgiving!

At lunch were Nick and me, his father Carl, Quasi (Kaley, Kaleigh, Kaylie, I'm not sure how to spell it), his aunt Rosella, and his grandmother. The best part of the lunch was when I met his grandmother. I hugged her and said it was nice to meet her when she grabbed my hands, stared deep into my eyes, took in my soul, and after a solid 5 seconds said, "I approve!"

Well, at least it wasn't "I don't approve," right?

After lunch, I started the five hour drive from Boerne to Dallas and snapped this picture on the way during a little bit of no traffic time. Nick serenades during long car rides; what more could any woman want?!

We drove straight to Nick's mother's house (after a quick stop passing through Waco to grab a warm jacket!) and spent Thursday night there. We woke up early and attempted to hit some Black Friday sales at the Galleria, but we weren't successful in too many amazing deals. I was able to get a few family members' gifts out of the way though, so mission accomplished.

Then, we headed to Nick's brother Patrick's house in Bedford (Fort Worth area) for another Thanksgiving lunch.

I had a blast with Nick and his family at this lunch too! The dinner conversation was interesting, and we had a good time soaking in each other's company.

Post-food, we decided to take a walk in the park close to the Smiths' house to burn off some Thanksgiving calories. We also played XBox Kinect Dance Central, which is the new game where a sensor picks up your infrared signal and you play the game without a controller. I am currently the champion at the LaBouff's household, and (if there was any doubt) I also kicked butt at the Smith household as well.

Here's a wonderful picture of Nicholas dancing during a song. He's so tall that sometimes, he can't get far enough away from the sensor so that his entire body is in its projection.

We then decided to hang out a little bit and relax after a long day. This involved a small photoshoot with the Smith family's dogs.

This is Bailey, a rambunctious, excited dog who loves to be pet and pretends like nobody loves him so he can get more attention. He's adorable.

Here is a picture of Patrick (Nick's brother) and his wife Alana with Bailey. The only one missing is Jade, Nick's niece--for some reason, I don't have any pictures of her from the weekend...I don't know how that happened!

Here are Nick and Ebon, their pitbull/rottweiler mix. Ebon was sweet as well, but a lot more subdued than Bailey.

On Saturday, we woke up and went to a late breakfast with the fam (minus Nick's mother, who drove up to Oklahoma for the day). After breakfast we hung out at a coffeeshop where I had a vanilla rose latte (sounds gross, but was actually pretty darn good) and then the girls (Alana, Jade, and I) went to Joann's to pick out craft projects while the boys spent some quality time together playing musical instruments.

After an early dinner, Nick and I decided to head back to Waco before it got too late, but first, we went boot shopping--Nick's Christmas present to me was taking me boot shopping. He was ridiculously knowledgable about different types of soles, heels, heights, etc. of boots.

I think it comes naturally to Texans.

I ended up buying some beautiful Ariat cowboy boots on sale. They're gorgeous and lovely and totally Texan. I text messaged Courtney Johnson and told her how she'd be proud of me, and she joked back "Congrats! We're happy to have you here." ;) Sassy pants.

The boot store was having a ton of sales, but this one was my favorite. I had to snap a photograph because I laughed out loud when I read it.

Nick tried on some alligator boots for fun. I think they're ridiculous, but I'm pretty sure he used the word beautiful to describe them.

Here I am with my new boots (trying not to cry after the traumatic event that occurred when I checked out--more on that in another post after the hurt has worn off).

I clearly am ridiculously excited with my new boots. Now I have to have enough guts to wear them...

And that was my Thanksgiving! What did you guys do?

Christmas Decorating!

I know that Mom's rule is that you can't decorate for Christmas until Thanksgiving is over.

But, it's 85 degrees outside right now. 85.

Like, summer in Washington.

Needless to say, I needed some sort of indication that it's late November.

So...I decorated. :)

Nick came by to help me with the tree.

Courtney (whose husband's name is Bo, not to be confused with Courtney Johnson whose fiance's name is Bo) gave me her old pre-lit tree and a ton of old decorations from her winter wonderland wedding.

Clearly it's Sar-sized and not Nick-sized.

The tree was pre-lit, but one of the middle light strings was out. Instead of just filling in lights in the middle, I took all the old lights off and re-lit it myself. The ornaments are mine, but the red bow frilly thing by the top and the red beads are gifts from Court.

The top looks way more saturated with lights than the lower half.

I'll fix it next year.

I also got these neat dragonfly ornaments from Walmart. I like how they add to the tree without being too much! I also love that they're sparkly!

I can't take any credit for this! This candle holder was from Courtney's wedding, along with the candle.

A close-up of the candle and beautiful swag underneath.

She also provided me with some old ornaments that she wasn't using. I needed a little color in my kitchen!

I used an empty vase and filled it with cheap Walmart ornaments as deocration. I like the way it turned out! This is below my desk in my hallway where I keep my shoes.

She also gave me some fake snowy pinecones, stake snowflakes (that you can see on her blog as well!), and frilly bead decorations.

I chose to put them on my mantle.

Here's a close-up, where you can see beads, snowflakes, and pinecones galore!

So that's my decorated house!

Sorry I decorated "too early," Mom!

Things I Don't Tell My Mom Until After I Do Them

I know my mother very well.

I know her well enough to know that if I do something that she deems "dangerous," I shouldn't tell her until after I do it.

Yesterday was one of those instances. :)

My friend Josh is an experienced pilot and regularly flies a small plane for fun. He called me yesterday and mentioned that he had an empty seat and would love for me to join. I jumped at the chance and headed over to the Waco airport for a trip.

This is a Cessna 150, the two-seater plane Josh took me up in.

My trusty pilot, Josh "Danger" Ward. Yes, he really goes by that title.

Copilot Sar, with the window down (we didn't get too high so open windows are okay).

Baylor! You can see all the pretty brick buildings; that's campus. The biggest one that looks like an E on the bottom left, that's the Baylor Science Building.

A close-up of my building. My office is in the far right wing on the third floor. Beautiful, eh? One of the largest university science buildings in the US!

Josh let me fly the plane for a good 5 minutes. It was terrifying. I over-corrected a lot (planes are crazy scary), but I got a little used to it after a few minutes.

I've flown a plane, have you?

Gratitude Attitude #42 (I haven't done a GA since January! I need to fix that!): Friends that are willing to share their passions with me. Josh clearly loves to fly, but it was a ton of fun listening to him tell me what all the buttons, dials, and levers were for. He's extremely educated and was full of fun facts (and yes, I know the million dollar question that Bernie Cullen answered to win Who Wants to be a Millionaire). Thanks for the fun (yet terrifying) time, Josh!

Starbucks Love

Things I love: caffeine, coffee, free wi-fi, and comfy chairs.

Where can I go to find all of the above?

Starbucks!

Now if you know me at all, you know I'm morally opposed to big mega-chains of coffee suppliers, but sadly, Waco only has one non-Starbucks coffee shop (that is strictly coffee; there's a few cafes that make decent espresso) and it's the hipster, wannabe-hippie coffee shop. Their espresso is actually quite tasty, but I always feel judged in there because I'm too clean, or not nearly dressed up enough (or, I'm too dressed and not wearing holey-enough jeans).

To remedy this, I instead hang out at my favorite coffee shop...which happens to be a Starbucks. They know my name, I'm Facebook friends with the majority of the baristas, and I'm even going to a Starbucks-inspired wedding in December (they met while he was a barista). I'm ::gasp:: a regular.

Luckily, Nicky-Tony is a caffeine-addict as well. His preferred choice of poison? Tea. [Have I told you all about the first official time we met, when he made me tea? He has no recollection of this encounter, but I promise it happened. It's a funny story.]

So what do we do when we have to work but want to spend time together?

We go to Starbucks and parallel play (Nick's term for working side-by-side)! That's exactly what we did yesterday.

Occasionally, we'll take a break to take a picture.

Or two...

So what am I doing now?

Working (with a break to post a blog) at my favorite Starbucks. It's a love story.

I'm here so often that they know to put it in a "for here" mug. :)

My best friend

A Tuesday evening...

Creative Christmas Letter Ideas?

As you all (should) know, every year, I write a rockin' Christmas letter.

If they had awards for Christmas letters, I'd totally win with "Wittiest."

...or maybe it'd be "Weeniest."

Last year, I wrote the letter as a multiple choice quiz. This worked well; some of my family members actually attempted to do the exam, which is hilarious as all of the answers were correct.

Clearly, my family is "special."

The year before last, I wrote the letter as a menu.

I feel like I'm all out of creative ideas.

I thought about writing it as a scientific paper. You know, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion.

...but I'm pretty sure that officially puts me into "geek" status, and I'd like to retain my "nerd" for another year or two.

Thus, any suggestions? And by that, I mean any creative suggestions?

Fall Fun

Last weekend, my favorite statistics graduate students decided to have a "big" dance party with all of our friends. Because there aren't any bars or clubs that have dancing in Waco, we figured we'd make a dancing place for ourselves.

Hip hop horaaaaaay, hooooooo, heeeeeeeeey, hoooooooo...

Here's part of the group (and my ridiculous boyfriend in the background)

The ladies, Heather-Jade (HJ) on the left, who is a first year neuroscientist and a rockin' barbershop quartet member, and Amy on the right, a first year stats grad student and the best athlete ever.

And, of course, one for good measure. I think Nick looks relatively "normal" here, eh? :)

When in doubt, make your own party and dance!

It's like a garage sale, but for books

Today, I stumbled upon the Friends of the Waco/McLennan County Library's annual book sale.

What is that, you ask?

A huge book sale of old books, new books, red books, blue books, big books, small books, and even books on tape. Their annual fundraiser is held at the HOT Coliseum, in two of the biggest rooms they have. The book sale was all weekend, Thursday-Sunday, with specials ranging from half-price on collectors books to an educator's hour with discounts to teachers.

Sunday, though, is the best day to go.

Why?

$10/bag day.

My bag full of books:

I went for the sole purpose of obtaining books that had colored bindings for decoration. [Nick is here reading as I'm typing, and he said, "...really?"]

I saw colored books used as decoration in IKEA, and I loved it. What better place to find cheap books in the colors you want than at a cheap booksale?

I'm not ashamed.

My blue books...

...and my green books.

The favorite book I got ("666 Jellybeans! All That? An Introduction to Algebra"):

And, a book that I picked up, started reading, and actually bought because I thought it would be necessary to read to my baby boy, should I have one at some point in my life.

I also had two pretty cool finds, a 1964 anatomy textbook, and a 1974 print of the brain atlas we used in my neuroanatomy class. (Note that Dr. House is an author of the anatomy book!)

My total haul (notice the two Jonathan Kellerman books? I couldn't help myself!):

What did you do this weekend?

Friday Fun-day

This is what we do on Friday.

♥ ♥ ♥

Dad looks like Santa and Mom's retired

As you all (should) know, I went home this past weekend to celebrate Mom's old age retirement. Below are some pictures of the beautiful fall weekend I had in Washington state. Enjoy!

Dad and I went down to Chico Creek to be fall-y, considering Texas doesn't believe in red, orange, and yellow trees. They're doing some renovations to the creek so that the salmon can swim upstream easier, so it was muddy as heck. We also came relatively early during salmon season, so there weren't nearly as many salmon as during peak season.

Dad enjoying the view, searching to find a salmon jumping.

We found one! It was such a big jump that I was able to get a few close-ups. Those pictures can be found on my Facebook.

The next day started with me getting my hair done by my cousin and hair stylist extraordinaire, Cally. I got it a bit darker than my usual blonde highlights, but I actually wish I would have gotten it a little bit more dark than what it is...can you believe it?!

Then, Mom's retirement party! First, she had a lunch with all her work friends at a Chinese buffet (that was surprisingly yummy!). These are just the people she worked with!

Her ex-boss Grant said some sweet things about her...

...and so did her best friend, Cheryl.

She was really excited to get her retirement watch, although the writing on it is so small that I doubt she'll be able to see it.

:)

She also got a little hard hat. I'm sure this has significance, but I don't know what.

Daddy and I, taking a break from being the photographers and instead being the subjects!

Scotty and Mom. Clearly we're a good lookin' family.

Mom and Ann! Ann hates photography, but I think she looks great here!

Then we went back to my parents' house for more celebration! I had a brief encounter with a fender-bender (totally not my fault) and then made it safely back to the house.

I made Aunt Heide take a picture with me so I could blog it. I even let her see it so she could approve it's use. :)

My cousin Mike and his children, Jack and Rissa, made a visit! The last time I saw them in person was two years ago, and my gosh, they're huge now!

...I've become one of those adults who says, "I remember when you were a baby!" Damnit.

More evidence that in fact my dad looks like Santa, yet we're still a cute fam.

Mom got a bunch of gifts from sweet friends, but clearly our family's love for Captain and Diet Cokes is well known!

My brother and I don't take any photographs together much anymore, mostly because he says he thinks we always look too much like a couple (ew)! I, on the other hand, think we look ridiculously alike (thanks to my mother's hazel eyes), so I don't worry.

Me and my big bro

So that was the weekend!

Did you do anything fun this weekend?