NY Trip...Buffalo

After we left Syracuse, we drove to Buffalo where my mom grew up and where her side of the family all still lives. They live about 35 minutes outside of Buffalo out in the country. Since Buffalo is only a 3-hour drive from Syracuse, I spent a lot of time there growing up. We stayed with my aunt who lives on a farm. My mom's side of the family is bigger than my dad's side so we stayed very busy trying to see everyone. We had lots of family get togethers while we were there. I got to milk a cow at the farm where my uncle works, and my cousin took me on a tractor ride. We drove around an area where lots of Amish people live. I went 4-wheeling with another cousin and spent time with some of my cousin's kids. It's weird to think that my cousins have kids because we used to all play together when we were kids. We also went out to the lake where our family used to have a cottage. It was such a fun trip and I really didn't want to leave. And for those of you wondering...yes, I ate lots of donuts! Here are a few photos from Buffalo.

Good NY Fish Fry

Going out with Jason and Deanne

4-wheeling with Duane

Milking a cow

At the lake

Going for a tractor ride with Daryl

Grandma, Mason, and me

NY Trip...Syracuse

Mom and I took our mother/daughter trip this year to NY to visit our family and friends. We went to Syracuse first where I grew up and where my dad's side of the family all still lives. We stayed with my grandparents and enjoyed spending time with them. It was good to see my aunt, uncle, and cousins. We also got together with friends of ours from our old church in Syracuse. It was so good to see everyone again! My mom showed me the apartment where we lived near Syracuse University when I was a baby. Plus we drove by our old house we lived in. And of course we ate! NY has so many good things to eat that Texas doesn't and the only things we could think of that NY doesn't have is good Mexican food and bar-b-que, but even those they are starting to get. So I'm thinking I need to move up there for the sake of my eating hobby. Most of the things I miss are sweets like half-moon cookies, good frozen custard ice cream, and creme-filled donuts. And I miss the cool weather...it was so nice to feel cold in July! The only thing I missed about Texas were Dan and Charlie, and I missed them a whole bunch! Here's a few photos from the Syracuse part of our trip. My friend Liz's cute little girl, Ellyanna

My grandparents

Delicious ice cream

3 Doors Down

I have a million things to do today to get ready for my NY trip, but I'm blogging instead. This is about doors and how Charlie seems to enjoy destroying them.

Here's what he did to door number 1, our back door. He jumps and scratches at it every time you let him out. But he doesn't do it to let you know he needs to go out, he does it while you're standing there with your hand on the doorknob because he is so excited. I've given up making him sit and wait while I open the door so he doesn't scratch it. Buying a new door before we eventually sell this house seems easier.

Door number 2, our front door, I blame on Charlie's grandparents-my mom and dad. While we were in San Diego last summer, my brother was staying at our house watching Charlie. I knew my parents were coming to town to help my brother move so I specifically told them not to come over and see Charlie because he loves them so much it would disrupt his life especially with us already being gone. But because he is so irresistibly cute, they came over anyways and after they left, what did he do? Scratched the door and the molding around it to try and come after them. He had a red, raw mark on his nose from scratching so much when we got home which I decided was probably punishment enough for him.

And now his latest door, our bedroom door. He has this weird habit lately of taking his favorite toys, which at the moment are a bone and a squeaky ball, and carrying them to our closet. He just sets them down and then lays down next to them. I've given up trying to figure out why he has been spending so much time in our closet lately. Anyways yesterday I left to go meet Dan for lunch and when we leave we shut all the doors to the rooms in our house. I asked him before I shut our door, "Do you want to go get your toys out of the closet before I leave?" I gave him about 5 minutes and he never got them so I just shut the door. Apparently while I was gone-for no more than an hour-he decided he couldn't wait another minute to see his beloved toys, so he scratched the door and the molding around it trying to get in.

I made him sit in time out when I got home, and now I'm not so sure if I want to continue with my plans for his 5th birthday party I was going to have for him. And if you're wondering, there are 5 more doors left for him to destroy. When we did our taxes this year, the lady who did them told me to save any receipts if we buy any doors this year because they will be tax deductible on your 2010 return. Who knew she was predicting my future?

Ok, I guess he is kind of cute, I'll go ahead with his party plans after all!

Summer Halfway Point

Well, summer is about halfway over and here are my thoughts...
1. Of the 14 things on my summer to-do list, I've crossed off 7...not too bad, I guess.
2. I've slept in way later than I had planned on, which makes me dread getting my body used to getting up early again in August.
3. I've been watching very little T.V., which is a surprise because I usually use the summer to clean up my DVR box.
4. I would be fine if I never saw another cucumber again seeing as I'm eating about 1 a day to keep up with what the garden gives us.
5. The Rangers are making my summer interesting and I'm hoping they do the same thing for fall.
6. The weather has been perfect in my opinion these past few weeks. Temperatures in the low 80's and lots of rain!
7. The novelty of my backyard oasis and all the flowers wore off quickly. I think one plant may have died. Thank goodness for my husband who noticed and is helping to nurse it back to health.
8. I am looking forward to the 2 trips I have left this summer, one with my mom and one with Dan.
9. My house is kind of dirty and I have no desire to do anything about it.
10. Why does summer have to end?

Happy 4th of July!

I like the 4th of July. It's fun to see fireworks and feel all patriotic since we do live in such a great country. We spent the 4th of July at the Ranger's game. Dan's dad met us there and we sat in one of my favorite sections, the all you can eat seats (I'm sure you can figure out why it's one of my favorite sections). Of course the Rangers lost because that seems to be what happens when I go to the games here lately, but it was still fun. The fireworks after the game were really good. And the drive back to Abilene after the game wasn't that bad for once because we got to watch fireworks almost all the way back that people were setting off themselves.

And in case you were wondering, I ate 3 hot dogs, 2 orders of nachos, a box of popcorn, a bag of peanuts, and a lot of Sprite. Now if they would just add a little ice cream machine to that buffet, everything would be perfect. Hope you had a happy 4th!

We found these 2 guys on top of the scoreboard coordinating the fly-over after the National Anthem.

Nothing like a ballpark hot dog!

Tried to get the fireworks in the background, but it didn't work

Pack your bags!

These past few weeks Dan has been busy working, and with my friend Jennifer coming twice to visit and me going to Dallas for a few days, we haven't seen each other nearly as much as we thought we would this summer. He told me Monday night he would be helping me with the things I needed to do around the house on Tuesday since he needed me to be ready to leave the house for a surprise around 5. I just assumed we were going out to eat somewhere nice. But he had something better planned. He told me I needed to pack a bag since we were spending the night somewhere. I got super excited because I was totally unsuspecting of all this. He wouldn't tell me where we were going, but once we started driving he told me he was taking me to the Beehive Restaurant out in Albany which is about 30 minutes from Abilene. It's one of our favorite places to go eat. He also booked a room at this bed & breakfast out there for us. We had a nice dinner, and then we drove around Albany for a little bit. We found some interesting things as we were exploring. This is from this labyrinth maze we found in a park. I cheated and just got in the center once I saw how long it was going to take. We found a bunch of random stuff to explore in this little city. It was fun!
Then we found this park that had longhorns. The weather was cool and the sky was so pretty!
Dan brought stuff to make margaritas, so after it got dark we headed back to the room and he was nice enough to let me watch the Rangers game. The next morning the lady who owned the place made us a huge breakfast that we ate out in the gazebo. It was such a nice relaxing trip and I'm so thankful for my husband who planned it for us!

Ra'chel's Wedding

I love weddings! They remind me of my own wedding, and that was a very special day for me. I got to go to Ra'chel's wedding this past weekend, and I'm so excited for her! Your first year of marriage is so fun because it's the first time you do everything as a married couple like holidays and everything. I'm also excited for her since she's in Hawaii right now...or maybe that's jealousy I'm feeling.

It was a sweet wedding and a fun reception. It was fun seeing girls from college I haven't seen in awhile. And of course I love wedding cake! Here are a few photos from the reception.

The happy couple

College friends

Nicole and I

Congratulations Ra'chel and Jonathan! Hope you celebrate many years of bliss!

Happy Father's Day...a little late!

I would have thought summer would have been the best time to blog since I'm not working, but clearly I'm finding plenty of other things to keep me busy. So here is my belated Happy Father's Day post. I got Dan a Father's Day card and we went out to dinner at Outback (Charlie is his kid if you are wondering why he got a Father's Day card). Neither of our dads live in Abilene so we didn't do anything with them on Father's Day. I celebrated a belated Father's Day with my dad the weekend after. I met him for dinner at Humperdink's Friday night. Then I took him to the Rangers/Astros game and we watched them lose. It was still fun and it was a fireworks Friday so that was even better. He's a nice guy and I'm glad he's my dad. He may be a bit goofy sometimes, but he's a pretty cool dad. I may have almost killed him though...I drove the wrong way down a street on the way home from the Rangers game because it was kind of dark. He said he saw his life flash before his eyes. So that was a cool Father's Day present, a second chance at life!

Dan and I are both so lucky to have such great dads. I can't wait for Dan to be a real dad someday, but for now I'm happy he's Charlie's dad. :) Here is a photo from the Rangers game and then some random photos of my favorite dads.

Nothing too terribly exciting...

To start off my summer, my friend, Jennifer, came into town. We had our usual fun times together going out, laughing, shopping, eating, the usual. Nothing too exciting. I have our traditional picture of us taken by us in the car. It's what 90% of our pictures are since we hate asking strangers to take a picture of us. And then I do have one that one of our husbands took of us. Since Jennifer's husband was in town at the same time working, we had a bar-b-que last Sunday with them and some other friends. I felt bad because it happened to be one of those really hot days and my sweet husband had to be outside in front of the hot grill. We made way too much food which was kind of good because I didn't have to cook anything for awhile. We forgot to make the corn while everyone was over, so as soon as they left Dan grilled it and we ate some. It smelled and tasted so good! I almost was going to post this other picture of me eating the corn that Dan took after he had me shut the open kitchen drawers behind me, but then I realized cute Charlie was in the picture looking kind of cute so I thought I would post this one- even if two of the kitchen drawers are open in the background.
We also celebrated Dan's mom's birthday last Friday night with dinner at Dan's restaurant. It was fun...I do love birthday celebrations! Dan's dad drove in from Austin yesterday and we had dinner with him. We hate that he lives 4 hours away and we're hoping to either go see him this summer or meet him in Arlington for a Rangers game.

Well, that's all that's going on around here...nothing too terribly exciting!

Yay for everything summer!

I am so glad summer is here. It is a perk of being a teacher and I will be so sad someday if I ever have a job that does not have a summer.

I am going to attempt to cross of some items on my summer to-do list. I gave myself a week of enjoying summer (aka being lazy, reading, watching TV, laying out, etc.) and now I need to get busy. I have a few little projects around the house I want to get done. And I have some closets I want to reorganize :)

The garden needs some attention, too. I've slacked off on the whole weeding thing these past couple of days. Things are growing like crazy. We're going to have way too many tomatoes here in the next couple of days. Dan built a scarecrow because we suspected birds were getting into the garden. That doesn't seem to be working so we are moving on to plan Z. Something called 7 dust? Some people told us to try that so it's on our shopping list. I am finding myself getting frustrated with the garden since something keeps eating our stuff. I decided maybe next summer it would be easier to just go to the grocery store and buy the produce. Although the tomatoes we ate yesterday were pretty good!

And so I don't become a couch potato, I'm working up at Dan's restaurant a little bit. It's fun and it gives me something to do and oh yeah, I make a little extra money, too! Always a good thing because I'm sure I'll get bored with the whole summer to-do list pretty quick, and then I'll probably start doing some summer shopping!

Well that's what I'll be doing for the next couple of weeks. I also have a fun trip planned to Plano to see my friend Ra'chel get married. Then mom and I are heading up to NY for a couple weeks and before I know it, Dan and I will be off to Maine!

And it may be a tad bit too early to bring this up.........but after summer is over, you do know what comes next, right? Yup...FOOTBALL. :)

Shopping in the Rain

I had to run some errands last night and I didn't realize it was going to rain until I saw the huge cloud in my rear view mirror. I was already out so I figured I would hurry and try to make it back home. My last stop was Kohl's. I had been in there no more than 5 minutes when it started pouring REALLY hard. So I decided to just keep shopping. Dan called me from work to ask me how the rain sounded on our tin roof. When I told him where I was, he told me to stay put until it stopped raining. I wanted to make sure I heard him right because what I got from that was, "keep shopping until it stops raining". Well you don't have to tell me twice!! I kept right on shopping after promising him I would call him when I made it home safely. Hmmmm, maybe I should shop more during big storms...

It was storming pretty hard and the power went out in Kohl's for about 8 minutes. They made us all go to the front of the store. I guess so we wouldn't steal anything in the dark! As soon as the power came back on, I finished up my shopping and safely headed home to show off my new things to Dan. And thank goodness, he liked each thing I bought!

Our backyard oasis

Well, maybe it's not exactly an oasis. There is no waterfall in the background which you probably need to have a soothing oasis. But we do have pretty flowers, a decent garden, a porch swing, and a little bird feeder.

We started the garden last year, but we planted the seeds way too late. We learned our lesson and started earlier this year. We have okra, jalapenos, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro, and strawberries. We have a slight problem that we are currently trying to solve. Something is eating the tomatoes and the strawberries. We thought it was a stray cat, but now after some research on the Internet Dan informed me it could be a rat. GROSS! Or maybe a squirrel which I can handle, but rats are just gross. That is a bit of a bummer, but like I said, we are currently trying to solve this problem. Right now we have cayenne pepper sprinkled all over to hopefully get rid of the pest. Everything is growing fantastically, and we've already picked our first jalapenos!We also added some more flowers to the backyard this year. I don't have much of a green thumb so I typically can only keep a couple of hanging baskets alive. This year I'm going to attempt to take care of several more plants. We are also trying to grow two flowering plants that will turn vine-y and hopefully grow around some latticework that we are planning to hang. We'll see how that turns out. It's the two plants sitting on the deck. Our last project is attempting to nurse our grass in the backyard back to health. We live on a corner lot on a cul-de-sac so we have a LOT of grass in the backyard to water and no automatic sprinkler system to water it with. Add that to the fact that we were out of town a lot last summer, and we had a very cold winter. So much to our disappointment, we discovered that not all of our grass decided to come back this summer. We are trying to water it as much as possible, and I've actually noticed it seems to be working. Thank goodness the front yard decided to cooperate!

I love sitting on the swing after it cools off at night and enjoying our backyard. But, I must say, I wish I was rich enough to hire my own personal gardener. All this weeding and watering is going to wear me out after awhile!

Dan's Birthday Weekend

Since my husband's birthday always falls near Memorial Day weekend, we usually end up going out of town since we have the 3-day weekend. This year we had a very low-key celebration at home on Sunday. I bought some of his favorite snacks and we started off the afternoon just relaxing at the house. Then after giving him a choice of going to a movie of HIS choice or going to Primetime, my sweet husband chose running errands and doing some shopping with me. This is how we typically spend our Sunday afternoons and he decided to keep up that tradition in the hopes that maybe since it was his birthday celebration he could get to pick out something for himself! We started at Best Buy to research getting a satellite radio car kit for his truck. Part of his birthday gift is to add his truck onto our satellite radio package. We didn't have much luck so we went to Academy next to try and use up some gift cards he had accumulated. We went in looking for a small charcoal grill to use when we don't want to use the big smoker we already have. We ended up scoping out the pools, baseball equipment for my new obsession with going to the batting cages, and we left with nothing. I'm sure we will be back soon to use up those gift cards or he'll use them on golf stuff. We finished our shopping trip at Lowe's. We needed a new weed-eater since ours bit the dust. Somehow we managed to buy a shopping cart full of other things including new flowers for the back patio. I was hoping they took Academy gift cards, but no such luck! We drove through Sonic on the way home where I think I discovered my new favorite drink this summer. A strawberry limeade chiller. It's a strawberry limeade made with my favorite thing: ice cream! We worked out in the backyard for a little bit and then relaxed before going to dinner. Since it was his birthday, I gave him some restaurant choices that I typically don't like going to. He picked CiCi's. (If you think I'm a bad wife because I took my husband to CiCi's Pizza for his birthday, don't worry, I took him out to Abuelo's on his actual birthday). We had a good time and then finished off the evening at home using our new weed-eater, watering our lawn, and watching the Rangers lose. Again.

Happy 30th birthday to my husband!!

Răchel's Bachelorette Party

This past Saturday was Rachel's bachelorette party in Ft. Worth. We were sorority sisters in college. We all stayed in a hotel right in Sundance Square. When we all got there we had a fun shower for her at the hotel. Then we headed to Joe T. Garcia's for some good Mexican food. I had never been there before and could not believe how big the place was! It was fun seeing girls I haven't seen since practically college. We must get together more often!!! After we ate we went back to Sundance Square and this is awful, but I don't remember the name of the place we went to. They had live music and a giant outdoor patio. I don't even think I saw the name of the place when we went in. It was a fun night out with the girls and I can't wait until her wedding! I'm so excited for her as she begins this new chapter of her life.

Some of us girls at dinner

The bride-to-be and me!

Nicole, me, Ra'chel, and Candace

Fun times with my family...

I woke up Tuesday morning to a fun surprise from my husband. At the last minute his sister and her boyfriend decided to drive to Dallas to meet Dan's dad for the Rangers/Angels game, and they wanted us to go, too. Having not been to a game yet this season, I of course said yes very quickly! We left right after school and met up with them. We sat in one of our favorite sections-the all you can eat seats. I think at one point in the game I had a bag of peanuts, some popcorn, a hot dog, and nachos in front of me. And since they don't have any dessert out on the buffet, my sweet husband who knows my sweet tooth bought me a cookie ice cream sandwich after I was done stuffing my face. The Rangers won and it was a great night even if we did have to drive right back to Abilene after the game. My husband was nice to drive so I could sleep since I had to work in the morning.

Friday night I headed back to Dallas to meet my dad for the Rangers/Cubs game. I got us the super cheap seats, but if you know my dad, you don't sit in your assigned seats the whole game. We started the game right behind the bullpen and had fun watching the pitcher warm up. When the section started filling up we decided to head to our 'real seats'. They were actually pretty good seats and there was a nice breeze. They had a fireworks show after the game so that was a fun way to celebrate the win. I think I need to get back to the stadium quickly seeing as they are on a 2-game losing streak.

Colby Lewis warming up

My second home in the background

I am discovering more and more each season how much I like baseball. I have to be careful though because there is no way I can get season tickets to the Rangers. That is 81 home games!! Luckily I can watch them all on TV. I am so passionate about the Cowboys that I just don't have room in my life to be that passionate about TWO teams. Maybe someday when I'm old and retired and the Cowboys stadium is too loud for me, I'll switch over and get Rangers season tickets.

I was excited to get to Plano after the game this weekend because my mom and I were celebrating a belated Mother's Day on Saturday. We went out to breakfast at our favorite spot, Mimi's, and then we went shopping. The Cookie Bouquet store near my mom's house has half price cookies between 3 and 4 on Saturday and we finished off the day by buying a cookie...or maybe two. Fine, we bought three...or was it four? Ok, confession-we bought 5 cookies. But we split them and they were good and that's all that matters.

I love my family and I love spending time with them!

So Proud of my Little Family!

This was a great week of celebration for my family! We have so much to be thankful for and this week reminded me of just that many times.

My parents drove in Tuesday to see my "Teacher of the Year" reception/presentation. It was such an honor to be nominated several months ago by my coworkers, and I was so appreciative of both my coworkers and my family for coming out to see me get the award. It kind of felt like graduation all over again. Walking across a stage, shaking hands with someone, smiling while your parents took your picture, etc. But it was fun and we ended the night by heading out to Perini's. Dan and I love going there and we were excited to share it with my parents who had never been. This photo is of us after dinner. My parents spent the night Tuesday, so I took my mom to school with me the next day while Dan spent the day with my dad. They left Wednesday afternoon so it was a quick trip, and I'm so grateful they were able to make the trip to support me. I'm looking forward to celebrating Mother's Day with my mom next weekend when I make a trip out to Plano.

Wednesday night we celebrated Dan's mom. His sister, Michelle, had a bar-b-que at her house for all of us. His mom brought her dog, I brought Charlie, and then Michelle has a dog as well. They are all about the same size so they like getting together and playing. They were all tuckered out by about 10 p.m. so we knew it was time to go. It gave me a glimpse into the future when all of us 'kids' will eventually have our own kids and instead of our dogs getting tired, our kids will be getting tired! Fun times ahead for us! I had to laugh when Dan's sister, Heather, told us about how when Dan and her were little and receiving a spanking, Dan whispered to her, "Put a book in your pants and it won't hurt as bad". Michelle and I couldn't participate in any of these spanking stories, because as we remember it we were too good to ever receive any!

Charlie made us proud because he won an award for a photo I entered of him in our newspaper. He won 3rd place for best dressed. It's a photo of him in his Cowboys jersey watching the game. They displayed them in the Grace Museum Thursday night and since dogs weren't allowed inside, I posed next to the picture in his place!Dan also had a proud moment this week. He has been working really hard at the restaurant lately, and since business has been way up, his boss gave him a raise for being such a great manager! I couldn't be more proud of all the hard work and long hours he puts in up there.

And that is why I am so proud of my little family!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

I'm so lucky to have such a great mom. She is my best friend and just a great person! She has a very caring spirit and is always doing things for other people. I can always count on her for anything and she has always been there for me. She will be a wonderful grandma someday. She's proved that already by being a fabulous dog-grandma to Charlie! She loves kids and I know she will love my future children even more!We always have so much fun together. Our favorite thing to do when we're together is talk and eat, eat and talk, and then eat some more and talk. We know all the best restaurants and bakeries. And of course when we're done we love to shop, too! I can think of a million good memories with my mom growing up and even more recent ones. It's hard to just pick one. As a kid we used to color together and read lots of books. When I was growing up I used to love going grocery shopping with her and taking walks together. And now since we are 3 hours apart, I look forward to our daily phone conversations. It's fun sharing our school stories since we are both teachers. I'm also excited about our new annual mother/daughter trip that we started last year!Every year when I see my kids in my class and the difficult family situations some of them are in, I am always reminded how grateful I am for such a loving and caring mother! Love you, mom!

Broken House

We've lived in our house for almost 3 years and I have 'broken it' on several occasions-the latest one being this past weekend. I used to be embarrassed about these little mishaps the house and I were having, but now they make me laugh. Let me back up to the first two incidents. Right after we moved in, I was closing a window we had opened and I forgot our windows have storm windows on them so when I was gently letting the inside window down, the other window came crashing down and broke. Oops.

The second incident was probably the worst. I was leaving to go to Dallas with Charlie and I remembered I forgot his leash after I had already backed out of the driveway. I was in a hurry so I quickly pulled back into the driveway and was going to run in real quick to get it. Can you guess how I broke the house? I may have forgot to put the car in park and my car (with Charlie inside) was headed towards the garage door! I quickly opened the car door and put it into park as fast as I could, but too late...it already hit the door pretty good. When I walked into the house I was so afraid Dan would be upset. Once he realized his truck, that was also in the driveway, was okay, he just laughed at me. And luckily he was able to push most of the dent back out. But you can still see remnants of my near collision with the rest of the house. Lesson learned: teach Charlie to drive in case this happens again.

Now back to this weekend when yet again, I had to confess to my husband that I broke our house......again. Apparently I wasn't paying attention when I was backing out of the garage on Saturday, and I was a little too close to the left side. My side mirror decided to take a little chunk of the siding with it as I pulled out of the garage. Don't worry, my mirror is okay.

I do feel better about all these things though because as I was watering our yard the other day, I noticed there are little pieces of siding chipped off on the bottom side of our house. When I asked Dan about it, he confessed he may have accidentally had a weed-eater collision with the house.

I love this house dearly and I do feel terrible for all the pain I have caused it. But, I've stubbed my toes many times and ran into enough walls/doors/etc. that I kind of feel like the house has gotten it's revenge with me.

Day Trip to the Metroplex

Dan and I drove to Lewisville Sunday morning for a bar-b-que with some friends. One of his good friends from high school was in town from Michigan, and two of his other good friends from high school were there as well. It was nice to be able to catch up with them since we don't get together as a big group very often. It was also fun seeing all their kids. Between the 3 of them, they have 4 girls, and another one on the way (...which may have put on a little added pressure for Dan and I to get started on the whole 'kid thing').Here are most of us girls minus Kristi, who refused to be photographed 9 months pregnant, and her little girl, Tatum.

After we left there, we headed to the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine. It's a huge hotel on Grapevine Lake. The Dallas Cowboys were hosting a fundraiser for the North Texas Food Bank. We went last year and had such a good time we decided to go back. They had 25 chefs from local restaurants who provided the food. There were also former & current Cowboys players and coaches. They had live music, dancing, a silent auction, and a raffle. It's really fun because the Cowboys players are mingling around just like you are, so you can stop and talk to them. This may not be fascinating to most people, but I rarely get the opportunity to talk to them in a regular conversation setting so I love it! I talked with the wide receivers coach, Ray Sherman, and as you can imagine, he's excited about coaching Dez Bryant! I also gave Deon Anderson, the fullback, a little lecture. He got in some trouble a few months ago with a gun and I reminded him to be good! Hopefully he'll take my advice :)

I was so excited to meet George Teague again. About 10 years ago, I was selected to be on a Cowboys draft special on TV featuring George Teague. I was picked to ask him a question that I submitted, so while most people know him as the player who attacked T.O. on the star at midfield, I remember him from when I was on that TV show.

One of my favorite players, Jason Witten

As always, my husband was great! He isn't as starstruck by the players as I am, so he is very sweet to take my picture with them, hold my purse, hold my drink, and drive me back to Abilene after it was over. It was good to get away because the pressure of giving my 3rd graders their state mandated testing in math and reading this week was starting to get to me. It was nice to be able to spend the day relaxing with my husband, our friends, and of course, my Cowboys!