Blog Background

By the way, I'm not sure what happened to my background! :( I went to the website where I got it and couldn't find it... so I guess they deleted it! So, new background (and probably header) coming soon!

Jonathan

Renee sent us this picture a few days ago. Isn't he cute? Look at those chubby cheeks! We haven't seen him in quite a while, so I think we are going to make a trip to Athens this weekend and meet up with Matt's side of the family for the weekend. Anyway, I just thought this picture was too cute not to share!

Foot Surgery

My foot surgery was yesterday morning. Everything went well and I'm doing alright! Here are a few pictures - don't worry, the incision is all wrapped up and I don't even get to look at it!! So you don't have to look at any gross pictures. ;-)

Matt just HAD to take a picture of me in my cute hat and gown...


I couldn't take out my nose piercing so they just put a piece of tape over it.... so now add a cute piece of tape on my nose to my cute cap and gown.

THIS is me AFTER the surgery... I looked at this picture and said, "Wow...did I really look that pathetic?" Matt informed me that YES, I DID. :) I was still really out of it here. The first thing I said to Matt when I woke up was, "That was a good mojito." Then Matt asked me how I felt and he said I responded, "That's an interesting process." Haha, who knows....

Here is the lovely shoe I have to wear. I can't take the bandages off at all for 2 1/2 weeks. :-/ Not only do I want to see the incision, but it would feel so good to let some air get to it! But I guess I should follow the doctor's orders!

Matt wrapped it all up for me so I could take a bath. It wasn't the easiest thing to get into the tub, but we managed! You can see the line on my knee from the cleaning stuff during surgery. It looks like a bad spray tan! :)

I was really nauseous all day yesterday but it is gone today. I woke up in the middle of the night and told Matt that the numbness had worn off and the pain had begun! Luckily I have plenty of pain pills! So, although it hurts pretty bad at times, it really hasn't been too awful, and I think it will only get better from here! :)

Our First Vacation!

Matt and I took our first vacation together! Not counting the honeymoon, of course! :) We left last Wednesday and drove to Arlington for a Rangers game. We went to the hotel first to check in, then met Jason, Summer and the boys at the hospital in Fort Worth to visit our friend Karen after her hip surgery. It was good to see everyone there and to get to visit Karen for a little while. We left there and stopped by the store and get some drinks for the game and to get me some new sunglasses because I had left mine at the hospital. So we bought drinks and some sunglasses, then realized we didn't JUST leave my sunglasses.... but our whole backpack. Which had our Rangers tickets. :/ I wasn't very happy. So we turned around, went back and got the backpack, then went to the Rangers game. Luckily, our initial plan was to get there pretty early, so even with having to turn around, we got to the game in plenty of time.

Here we are after checking in at the hotel...


We got to the game and had really awesome seats thanks to my mom. :) THANKS MOM! She was able to get us tickets from the bank, so they were 9 rows up from home plate! Matt's brother, Josh, and his wife, Carly, met us there. Carly's parents live in Arlington so they were able to drop their baby, Jonathan, off at her parents house and come join us for the game!

Neftali Feliz pitching...

Josh and Carly after the game...

Matt and me after the game....

We got back to the hotel late that night after the game. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express and Suites, so its a nice hotel! We got in and started getting ready for bed. Matt went over to close the curtains and we realized that the dark curtains didn't close. There was a cream colored, sheer curtain that closed, so nobody could see in, but the problem was that there was a huge street light shining directly into our room... and it was really bright. We thought that we had to be missing something.... that we just couldn't figure it out or something. I picked up the phone to call the front desk to ask about it, but our phone didn't work. SO, I got dressed again and walked downstairs to ask about it. I really wasn't going down to complain or be rude, but I really thought we had to just be missing something. I get down there and I ask the guy behind the desk about it. He says, "Uhh.... well..... I don't know. I mean, I can give you a blanket or something to hang up if you'll come back in about five minutes." I asked if he could just have the blanket sent up to our room and he looked at me, kind of irritated, and said, "Uh... you can either come back in about five minutes or just wait here for a few minutes." I went back upstairs and told Matt about my conversation with the guy. We had a dark blanket in our room, so I went ahead and pulled the desk chair over to the window and stood on it to see if I could just hang that blanket up. Unfortunately, there wasn't any kind of curtain rod or anything. It was all attached right up next to the ceiling. So that wasn't going to work. After five minutes, I went back downstairs and politely explained to the guy that I tried to hang the blanket but that there wasn't room for it. About this time, the manager walks about and kind of rudely says, "What is the problem?" I told him and, I'm not joking, in the most dramatic way, he threw his elbows onto the desk in front of him and swung his head around into his hands shaking it from side to side and let out a huge sigh. Boy, was I putting him out!! Then he turns to me and says, "Is it really THAT bright in your room?" Even after that, I kept my cool. The only thing he said that showed any sign of trying to be helpful was that they didn't have any other available rooms to move us to. I asked if the curtains were that way in every room and he said, "Well.... probably not... I mean, we don't usually have this problem." So, (here is where it gets good) they go to the back and bring me back a "blanket" (AKA: a mattress cover) and a handful of thumb tacks, and suggest that I pin the blanket to the ceiling. Not kidding. I just kind of gave a blank stare then headed back up to the room to show Matt. Although I didn't think it was very funny at the time, we ended up getting a good laugh out of it. So, here is our mattress pad thumb tacked to the ceiling so that we could get some sleep that night...

I recently got my hair cut, and even though I really like it, it looks SUPER crazy when I first wake up or if I don't pull it back in the front. I woke up that next morning and Matt said, "Do you want to go to the Cowboys Stadium?" I said "OK" and he turned around and said, "I mean, you've already got your football helmet on...." Ha. Ha.... ha. He made me look at it and I realized it WAS pretty bad.... :)

We grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel then hit the road for Little Rock, Arkansas!

Little Rock Trip - Part 1

We arrived in Little Rock and went straight to Robinwood Bed & Breakfast where we were staying for the night. The house, from the outside, was not as impressive as the others surrounding it, so we were a little worried, but we absolutely LOVED it there! The staff was very friendly and we even had a woman sitting out on the front porch waiting for us to arrive. The house was so pretty and nice, and our room was the same!

Here is a picture of our bedroom. There is also an office with closets off one side of the room, and a bathroom with a jacuzzi tub on the other!


Just around the corner from the bedroom is this nice sunroom/sitting area.

This is the upstairs hallway. Our room is off another little hallway on the right side of this picture.

This is the living room when you first walk into the house...

Matt outside of the house.... with the sun in his face :)

Me outside of the house...

I think this is us after the FIRST time we used the jacuzzi tub (out of about 6 times, haha!). When we were about ready to leave the B&B Matt said, "I'm going to miss that jacuzzi tub!" It really was nice!

That evening we went to Murry's Dinner Playhouse for dinner and a play! Here is Matt all ready to go!

I'm ready to go too!

The play was a comedy called "Red, White and Tuna". It was really funny! It is just two guys who play all the different parts.

We found our reserved table for the Porters! :)

Getting ready for the play to start...

We really enjoyed the play! Matt said he felt like we were old people on vacation... going to a dinner play and staying at a bed and breakfast. ;-) Regardless, we REALLY enjoyed both of those things! :)

The next morning we had breakfast brought up to our room. It. Was. Delicious. When we checked in, the woman mentioned that they would probably do ham and cheese croissants. That sounded good, but not as "fancy" as I had thought. Well, I was wrong. It was a very fancy and VERY DELICIOUS ham and cheese croissant! Along with seasoned scrambled eggs, possibly the best banana nut bread I've ever had, a cup of fresh fruit, orange juice, milk (for me) and coffee (for Matt). Mmmm... it was so good! (Have I mentioned that it was delicious?) :)

This is us being excited about our breakfast....

Matt didn't leave a single crumb on his plate! :)

So what did we do after breakfast? Another jacuzzi bath, of course! We only stayed there one night, but I seriously think we took four or five baths! But this time.... we decided to add bubbles. :) That tub was nearly overflowing with bubbles! Childish, sure.... but we had a blast! :)

Matt may have had a little TOO much fun..... HAHAHA!

HAHAHAHAHA! :)

Later that morning we drove over to see Central High School in Little Rock. Just across the street from the school is an old gas station that has been restored to look like it was originally built. 22 1/2 cents per gallon! Ha!

Here we are in front of the high school...

We couldn't get the whole thing, but Matt got a pretty cool panoramic picture of the school. We went through the visitors center and read a bunch of articles and saw some videos about the "Little Rock Nine" and what all they went through. We had heard the stories, but being there really put it all into perspective. I'm really glad we went there. It was really sad, but really neat to see how much the courage of those nine children changed our world today.

After that, we went to the Aerospace Museum. They had some neat exhibits there.... just not a whole lot of them. We joke that it wasn't the most exciting part of our trip. :) While we were there, we also saw an IMAX movie called "The Living Sea". It was pretty neat, but also pretty dated. So, whereas it certainly wasn't our favorite part of the trip, it made for some good laughs for us. :) Here are a couple of pictures from the museum...

Elijah, this one is for you... ;-)

After the museum, Matt took me for my Super Spectacular Secret Surprise that he'd been telling me about for weeks! He wouldn't give me any clues or anything! The morning of my Super Spectacular Secret Surprise he told me that it was a place to eat so that we could plan out our day around it, but that is all I knew. When I saw what it was I was SO excited! I LOVE Moe's! There was one in Edmond that I used to go to when I was at OC. That was my first experience with Moe's. Then, we went to Glenwood Springs for the summer and they have the ONLY Moe's in the whole state of Colorado (or at least it USED to be the only one). Then, we moved to Austin and there was a Moe's there (one out of only 3 in Texas), but then it closed down after only a few months of us being there. I was so sad. The only Moe's currently listed in Texas are in San Antonio and Longview. Anyway.... as you can probably tell, I really like eating at Moe's. :)

I used to always order the Moo Moo Mr. Cow (the kids meal), but I was pretty hungry and pretty excited about Moe's so I got the Triple Lindy and Matt got the Joey Bag of Donuts. I don't know where they get ALL of the names, but I think several of them come from the show "Friends". Here I am enjoying my huge burrito :)

Matt was worried that he had talked up his Super Spectacular Secret Surprise too much and that I would be let down by just going out to eat somewhere.... but that wasn't true at all. I absolutely LOVED it!! Thanks Matt! :)

Little Rock Trip - Part 2

After eating at Moe's, we drove to the downtown area and walked around for a little while. We had plans to go out to eat that evening but we were worn out!! We called Pappa Mac and Jill to see if they were busy (since they weren't expecting us until late that evening) and since they weren't, we headed to their house early. We enjoyed visiting with them that evening then went to bed fairly early since we were ALL pretty worn out!

We got up the next morning and went to Mimi's Cafe for breakfast. Matt and I had never been before. It was DELICIOUS! After that we rode the trolly over to the Clinton Library. We had never been, plus there was an exhibit there called "Nature Unleashed" that I really wanted to see. On our way up to the front doors, Jill and I (being the animal lovers that we are :)) noticed this little tree frog hanging out on the side of the building!


Here we are looking around at the Library.

While we were inside the Library, we noticed the Arkansas Queen passing by so we all stopped to watch it.

Replica of the Oval Office

Matt and I always joke around about my silly sunglasses ($6 at Walgreens) so we thought it was especially funny when we saw this exhibit! Displayed are the sunglasses Bill Clinton wore when he was playing the sax in the pictures above them. They looked JUST like mine, although I'm sure his cost more than $6. ;)

Here is the Razorback submarine that Pappa Mac worked on! He was able to point out some of the places that he helped work on. It was really neat!

Here is Matt and I with the Little Rock skyline behind us... Matt couldn't keep his eyes open :)

...and with the river behind us. Again, Matt couldn't keep his eyes open! Haha! I told him I would draw some sunglasses on for him, but he declined. :)

We saw a barge passing by when we were walking around. I thought it was so neat! They are so huge! Pappa Mac was telling us that sometimes there will be several of them attached together going down the river.... six of them, maybe? I can't remember, but one was neat enough!

The "little rock" that gave Little Rock its name!

After we "toured" Little Rock, we went back to the house to rest for a while! That evening, we all went to see Toy Story 3 in 3D! That was the first time I had ever seen a movie in 3D and it was pretty cool! There wasn't a whole lot that really popped out, and Matt said it didn't have as many cool 3D effects, but the movie itself was SO GOOD! We really enjoyed it and we all got a good kick out of it.

This is Pappa Mac & Jill's "shy" cat, Shadow. We hardly ever see her when we visit, but she made quite a few appearances while we were there! She even sat in my lap and let me pet her for a few minutes. I couldn't believe it!

We sat outside in the atrium for a while on Sunday and got to visit with each other and enjoy the somewhat cool weather that day! Here's Matt...

and me...

and Pappa Mac...

and Jill...

and the bipolar cat, Blue... :)

On Sunday evening, Matt and I cooked dinner for Pappa Mac & Jill. It was the least we could do considering all of the wonderful meals they cooked for us, and for letting us stay with them for three nights and for entertaining us while we were there! :) A while back, we found a recipe that looked really good and we wanted to try it. The problem was, the recipe called for salmon and we only had tilapia, and the recipe said to grill it, but we can't have a grill.... so we used our tilapia and we baked it, and it still turned out wonderful! We make it all the time now and we love it, so we made it for them. I guess the name of it would be "Lemon and Caper Tilapia with Rosemary". That is a mouthful, I know... but its the best I could come up with. :)

Here it is just before we put it in the oven...

The finished product!

We finished it off with some Tres Leches cake with fresh strawberries!

We got up early on Monday morning and said goodbye to Jill before she left for work, then Pappa Mac took us to Cracker Barrel for some breakfast before we hit the road.

We had a REALLY great time! We enjoyed Little Rock and we ESPECIALLY enjoyed our time we got to spend visiting with Pappa Mac and Jill! Pappa Mac pointed out that they hadn't met "the Porters" yet. :) Thanks for letting us stay with yall! We love you!