TRM - Totally Random Monday

Alright, y'all.  I am back from my non-intentional blogcation.  I have been super slammed at work and have missed my bloggy and tweety friends!  It's been awhile, so this being my first post back, is going to be completely random.  Here we go!

Soccer

Our little Pink Ponies are doing SUCH a great job!  They are getting better every week.  Practices are still a bit of a challenge - getting eight 4 year olds to focus AND listen at the same time is still proving to be difficult, but they'll get it eventually.  One of my sweet girls who has been so game shy has finally come out of her shell!  The first few games she was really sad and scared, but last week we had a breakthrough and she is loving soccer practice and games now.  Success!

In similar news,

Ava doesn't take crap from anyone.

The shot that was missed during the picture sequence above was #3 on the blue team grabbed Ava's jersey and pulled her away from the ball.  Ava was completely.hacked.off.  Like, told her all about it.  I do not condone trash talking the other team (especially when they are 4, hello!), but I do appreciate that Ava is not going to let someone sling her around, then stand there and cry about it.  I did talk to her about asking nicely for people to not grab her, so we'll see if it takes.

In other soccer news,

FC Dallas games are really fun!

No picture for this one, sorry!  We've been to two games this season and have yet to take a picture.  If you live in the Dallas area and have any kind of interest in soccer, I definitely recommend going.  There are usually good deals on tickets, parking is free, and I don't think there is a bad seat in the house.

In related FC Dallas news (hey, maybe this post isn't so random),

What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks do the FC Dallas cheerleaders do?

So far all I have seen them do is hand out programs, walk around with their pom-poms in little groups and do one or two sideline cheers down in corner of the stadium.  Random!  I was expecting a glorious some fashion of halftime dance, but I was sorely disappointed.  Maybe they are fair-weather dancers, which brings me to my next point:

What happened to summer?!?

We have been completely spoiled lately with temps in the 80's.  It was supposed to be 86 on Saturday, but we never got there.  Major sadface.  I still shouldn't complain because our cold is nothing like the cold some of you gals are experiencing.  My sis sent me a picture of her lawn covered in snow.  No bueno, Mother Nature.  No bueno.  But, hey...

In 31 days I will be at the beach!

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Woo hoo!  Yes, I am on an official vacation countdown (as if you couldn't already tell).  You would think that I would have been on a major vacation diet/exercise routine at this point, but no.  I cant.stop.eating.carbs.  For reals.  The sad thing is, it's not even like I'm eating a ton of chocolate or desserts, because I gave those up for lent.  (Don't start hating if you don't like people posting about what they gave up for lent, because it is relevant to this random thought.)  Anywho, I'm getting back on the wagon this week I hope.  I'm headed back to the gym tomorrow for my daily weekly sporadic runs and incidentally enough, I just got an email from New Balance with...

These adorbs running shoes...

I'm going to need new running kicks soon, and I'm seriously thinking about these.  They are super cute and light, both of which are very important in a running shoe.  ;)  I'm thinking about going to Luke's Locker for a shoe fitting.  Has anyone ever done this at Luke's or any other running store?  Going back to my travel thought...

April 13 - May 25 In-Air Mileage will be 14,788

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Holy schnikies, I'm going to be seeing a lot of the view above.  I can't complain, at least my destinations are a little nicer than my sweet husbie (whose territory leaves much to be desired travel-wise).  I have trips planned to Puerto Rico (most important!), San Francisco, Long Beach, Boca Raton and Washington D.C., where I may or may not have already made a date with Ana.  ;)

Part of the reason for all of this travel is that...

I got a promotion at work!

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I'm not going to lie, my title makes me feel like a pit of a poser.  It's a big title and a big job, but I am definitely excited for the challenge.  Our company is in a big-time period of growth as the economy continues to rebound, so this move couldn't come at a better time.

I think that catches us up from the last couple of weeks.  Whew!  I'm looking forward to catching up on everyone's blogs tonight.

Have a great Monday, lovelies!

Monday Musings (aka: Random, Random, Random!)

Hey girlies!  I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!  I have a whole bunch of random to throw out into the universe, so hang with me...

Steelers are headed to the Superbowl...

Image via espn.com

Woo hoo!  Heath Miller is my homeboy, for reals.  Anyway, super excited that the Steelers will be in town for the big game.  While my dad has informed my siblings and I not to expect that he would be getting tickets to the game (I cannot believe that he wouldn't pay $2K per ticket. haha - kidding!), we are still going to try to seek out some Steelers parties/rallies.  No one is looking forward to it more than my sweet Ava, who is quite possibly the biggest 4 year old football fan ever.  So funny!  She got to school today and told her teacher all about how the Steelers beat the Jets and now we need to beat the Packers so that we can WIN the Superbowl.  So cute!

Best find of the week...

Yumilicious.   OMG, so ...wait for it... yumilicious.  Ha!  Sorry, I had to.  Anyway, Ava and I went for a break from running errands yesterday and I had the red velvet fro-yo.  If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw my tweet a couple of weeks ago about Sonic's Red Velvet Cheesecake Blast.  I put just a few cheesecake bits on my fro-yo and it tasted almost exactly the same.  Yum, yum!  Here's Av with her chocolate with sprinkles.  They have several DFW-area locations and a couple of others.  Their location here is within walking distance of my office.  This is going to be dangerous - especially this summer!

Currently sick of...

People beating the shit out of my car in parking lots.  I came out of World Market yesterday to a HUGE scratch/dent in the side of my car from someone hitting it with theirs.  So.freaking.rude.

Our downstairs heater being out.  It went out Thursday night - which was one of the coldest nights of the year.  Fantastic.  We are waiting on a new something-or-other to come in, it is supposed to be here today.  So, I am waiting for a call to head home so they can get that sucker up and going.  Rotating space heaters is getting old.

Sister beach vacay...

So, my sisters and I are trying to plan a weekend trip to somewhere warm and tropical, which is proving to be excessively difficult.  Our middle sister is a Labor & Delivery nurse and in school pursuing her NP degree, so trying to do it around her schedule is ridiculous.  Also, we're trying to do it this spring and we have waited WAY too long - flights are expensive and hard to get to pretty much anywhere tropical.  We thought about doing a Bahamas cruise, but everything I am reading online says the weekend cruises are on crappy boats with sub-par food.  Has anyone done a weekend cruise out of Florida?  (don't care which port)  We wanted to do Bahamas because it stops somewhere each day, but now I'm reading that a large portion of the time the boats can't even stop at the private island because of rough water.  Boo.  We may be putting this sucker off until the fall. 

Giveaways...

I try to always post giveaways on my sidebar, but I wanted to call these out in a post because they are super fun:

• Wine-a-Rita Party in a Box from Megan @ In This Wonderful Life
  Yum, yum, yum!  I'm majorly kind of wanting a Peach Bellini right now.  Basically, Wine-a-Rita are box mixes that you combine with your favorite kind of wine (sparkly, flat, or otherwise) to create different drinks such as the above mentioned Peach Bellini, CosmoRita, Wine Glace', and SenorRita.  Megan also mentioned that they have a new flavor coming out in February.  The winner will be announced next Sunday, 1/30.  Details available here.
• $50 Your Choice Giveaway from Neely @ Life of Neely
  To celebrate 300 followers, Neely is giving her readers a $50 gift card of your choice to one of her favs - Target, Starbucks, Sephora, Anthropologie, LuLuLemon, or Banana Republic.  This one ends next Monday, 1/31.  Details available here. 

Image via weheartit.com

Currently loving...

You, my sweet followers!  Thanks to everyone for reading, commenting, and sharing your insights and thoughts on my blog posts.  It makes me so happy that I have such a great group of girls that I can rely on for support and feedback.  Big cyber hug to all of you!

Random Tidbits

Bear with me on this one, ladies, it is going to be completely random!  

I want to start off by saying Yay!  Welcome new followers!  So glad that you stop by my little corner of the blogging universe.  :)

Prayers for Sweet Babies

There are so many sweet babies (and mommies & daddies) that need every prayer they can get right now.  Check out my sidebar for links to find out more about them, in case you haven't already.

(The Horror of) Eating Out

So sorry for depressing everyone with my last post!  Nothing depresses me more than realizing that I have been stuffing my tummy with all of this crap.  :(  Boo.  JPO had a great point about portion control - things aren't nearly so bad if you only eat 1/2!  My mom used to preach this to me constantly when I was growing up.  I have a girlfriend that eats 1/2 of her portion at restaurants and then dumps salt on it so that she won't eat it.  It's a little strange, but it saves the picking that I always do while waiting on someone to come steal my plate away.  I should also point out that there are some sensible (yet still yummy) things to eat if you have to do the drive-thru:  McDonald's 6 piece Chicken Nuggets have 17 grams of fat and 250 calories while Taco Bueno Chicken Taco Rollups only have 8 grams of fat and 210 calories.  

Local DFW Area Christmas Needs

While I know not all of my readers are in the DFW area, if you are one that does and feel so inclined, check out this story about Hope's Door.  They are a Plano women's shelter that caters to women and their children who are in need and have possibly (and probably) been a victim of domestic violence.  The charity who had committed to providing Christmas gifts for the women and children at the shelter refuse to do so without receiving the names of those living at Hope's Door.  It is against Hope's Door's policy to divulge this information, as it is a safety matter for everyone living there, not just the domestic violence victims.  You can read the news story here.  If you, or someone (or company) you know that is interesting in becoming a donor, contact information is available at the bottom of the story. 

Why do my children want the most obscure Christmas gifts?

Every year they just have to want the hardest-to-find items to come from the big man.  Seriously.  Last year it was the Zhu-Zhu pets, which my husband single-handedly tracked down via a combination of Craigslist and eBay.  This year it is the Zhu-Zhu princess collection (which I think were an eBay-only release as I have not seen them in any stores and the people at Target had no idea what I was talking about) and this beauty:

The Barbie 3-Story Dream Townhouse.  This thing is awesome.  I think I might want it for me more than the girls.  Just kidding.  I think.  Anyway, it is very cool and has all sorts of working lights, sounds, and overall jazziness that my 80's dream house didn't.  I did see a big stack of them at Toys'R'Us a few weeks ago, however, they were about $50 more at TRU than at Wal-Mart.  So, I foolishly decided to wait patiently for them to come back in stock at Wallyworld.com.  They are still out of stock with no signs of coming in anytime soon.  In the meantime, TRU is sold out, as is everyone else except Amazon.  Amazon, where they are priced $100ish more than they were at TRU.  Freaking ridiculous!  Husbie and I decided that the Barbie house would make a great Valentine gift.  About 10 minutes after this discussion, my assistant comes in to tell me that she has found it on Amazon for cheaper than the original TRU price.  Holy crap, she has redeemed herself!  *I should note here that I did not assign her with the task of finding it, she did it on her own.  Mainly b/c I think she would rather shop than work, but that is a whole different topic*  So, it is on its way here.  Hooray!  That was a huge item off the list.

The Best Laid Plans

My feelings toward TheLimited.com right now are not thoughts of sugarplums, they are thoughts of coal.  I ordered the adorable skirt from my Office Party WWW post on November 29.  It is still not here.  Husbie's office party is tomorrow night.  The skirt is supposed to be to me on Saturday.  NOT helpful.  The Limited never communicated that it would take over a week to get it out of their warehouse.  To make matters worse, it is coming via FedEx SmartPost, which I have learned is the shittiest (language, sorry) way to send a package.  It has gone from Ohio to Massachusetts to Dallas.  It is now sitting in a sort facility in Dallas and I cannot pick it up!!  SP packages are delivered by the post office, not FedEx.  I am hoping our post office can catch it and hold it tomorrow so I can pick it up.  Tonight I will be searching for an alternate skirt in case it doesn't.  Husbie's office environment is of the bureaucratic federal variety, so it is always difficult for me to find a cute outfit that is appropriate and doesn't make me look 20 years older than I am.  This was THE outfit!  Fingers crossed that all works out!

Tweet, Tweet!

Do you tweet?  I do!  My twitter username is @applesfalling.  My tweets are private, primarily because I don't like all of the spammers following me and there are certain individuals that I know IRL that I may or may not tweet frustrations about sometime.  So, please follow me!  I try to reply to some of y'all sometimes and you don't see it because I am private.

I'm a total space cadet.

Sooo, I posted about a really fun blog hop that I was doing here, and I never posted the responses I got.  Bad blog hop cruise director!  I'll be posting them later today, I promise.  

I hope everyone is having a great week!  It's almost the weekend!  :)

46ish things about me for my 64 followers!

I have gotten lots of new followers lately, yay!  Thanks for following my blog and welcome!!  One of my favorite things about blogging is the unique perspectives you get from so many different ladies.  I guess you could get dude perspectives, too, but my following is all Betty's!   

To catch you up on me, here are 46 facts about me.  I thought about doing 64, but that would take forever and I think everyone would stop reading about halfway through.  I know I would!

The only states I have not been to are Alaska, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Wisonsin and Maine  

I have recurring nightmares about being trapped in a crashing elevator

I danced competitively growing up - tap, jazz, ballet, pointe, lyrical
I spent almost as much time at the dance studio as I did at school

I quit because I wanted a life outside of dance in high school

I wish my mom wouldn't have let me quit

 I met my husband in a bar
I was intending on being with wing-woman for my friend, luckily for me he turned out to be to young for her!

A month-ish after we met

We met when Haley was 3, he loved her instantly - good thing she was in her cute & well-behaved phase!  ;)

She doesn't remember a time when he wasn't in our lives - I love this

Trip to the zoo - she was petrified that the lions were going to eat her - weird!

I am OCD about lists - I love them
I like them to look neat, so if I make a mistake, I start all over

I think this is a problem

I was voted Best Dressed & Most Attractive in High School 

I was on every Court my Senior Year and was 'Activity Week Queen'

I went to a very small high school!  ;)

I once sat behind Snoop Dogg on a flight and was mortified when my dad poked him through the seats to introduce us by calling him 'Mr. Dogg'
We were on our way to a Steelers game, Snoop was too
We're all big Steelers fans, so that makes Snoop my homeboy

I gained 60 lbs when I was pregnant with Haley and swore I wouldn't do that again.

I gained 80 lbs when I was pregnant with Ava

I had a stressful pregnancy - I stress ate - Taco Bueno was my friend

I have lost it all, thankfully

I've lived in three states:  Texas, Tennessee, Missouri
We almost moved back to Nashville in high school
I would love to move back to Nashville - Tennessee is so beautiful

I wish I could find my best friend from Brentwood (Nashville) on Facebook

I have tried several times (Lindsey McCauley, if you're out there, here I am!)

I started college as a Radio/TV/Film major

I wanted to be a news anchor

I decided against it because they make crap $ and have crap hours

And I didn't want to be the chick chained to a tree reporting hurricane wind speeds

I don't like putting red and green together when it doesn't pertain to Christmas
I really want to change the colors above, but I'm going to leave it.  Take that, OCD!

My best friend is my roomate from freshman year

The orientation chick said Good Luck! when I signed up for a 'pot luck' rooming assignment - it couldn't have worked out better!

Erin & Me - August 2009

My natural hair color is dark dark dark brown

I haven't seen it in 11 years

Me & My Dad at graduation - BROWN hair!

I caddy for my dad when he plays in the Byron Nelson Pro-Am every year

My favorite pros he has played with are Luke Donald, Vijay Singh, and Mark Wilson
The Byron Nelson is my favorite thing about May

My very first car was a 2007 Honda Civic

My dad and I made a deal that if I got straight A's my sophomore year, he would buy me a Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible

Needless to say, I didn't get straight A's (damn Geometry!)

My family is my favorite thing in the world!

Now that I have bored you :) with all of these facts about me, it's your turn!  Leave me a factoid about you in the comments section of this post.  The most creative/surprising will win a fun prize!  Get your comments in by 5 PM next Tuesday (11/9) and I'll announce the winner and the prize on Wednesday.

Random! Random! Random! - 100th Post!

I was trying to plan some big, exciting, fun 100th post.  However, I'm have so much to catch up on that my big exciting, fun 100th post is being replaced by Random! Random! Random! 

Halloween
Halloween was great!  We had gorgeous weather here over the weekend and it was around 75* when we went Trick-or-Treating.  Love it!  I hate having to figure out how to bundle up the girls under their costumes.  Russell and Jackson came with us.  Kristin stayed home with Ryder because he was afraid of his Blues Clues costume.  Poor little guy!  Apparently he was also not down with carrying his candy bucket.  As you may have seen from my Tweet, both grandmas were out of town over the weekend.  While we love to have family close by, it was pretty nice to just be us for one holiday.  Here are a few pictures from Trick-or-Treating:

I hate that my camera does not take better pictures in dark-ish settings.  If anyone has a recommendation for a point & shoot that functions well in low light, send them to me!

October marked 1 year since I was diagnosed with and began recovering from Guillain-Barre Syndrome.  I have plans on writing an entire post about this, but wanted to share a quick picture.  During the first week of October 2009, I lost all movement in my face.  I was hospitalized and began the road to recovery.  The picture on the left was taken on October 31, 2009 and the picture on the right on October 31, 2010.  

 

Work, Work, Work... blah!

I'm starting to feel a little stir crazy at work.  I don't know if it is because I have been here almost three years, bored with my current position, don't feel like I'm making any progress, or what.  It's probably a combination of a lot of things.  Yesterday I got to work from home and it was awesome.  I got so much stuff done - work, house, Ava.  I feel like I got more done there (even doing a few personal things at the same time) than I ever get done when I am here.  Plus, I got to take Ava to dance and be a good wifey and have a clean house and dinner cooked.  It will never be like this every day - husbie usually works from home but had to go into the office for training - but I kind of wish it could be.  I'm scared that if I did something that I worked from home all the time, I would go crazy.  I'm also scared that if I ever decided to be a FT SAHM I would go crazy, too.  I'm just in a funk and need to get out of it!

Christmas is Around the Corner

I'm so completely craving Christmas this year - not sure why!  I always love the holidays, but this year I feel like I'm looking forward to it more than usual.  I don't love the inundation of toy commercials.  Every 30 seconds I hear Ava screeching that she wants a different toy.  Boy toys, girl toys, baby toys, it makes no difference.  Those toy marketers are smart, smart folks.

Fall-ish Weather... Finally!

Fall-ish weather has finally come to DFW!  I'm sure we'll have another couple of doses of warm before winter really hits, but if every day could be the mid-50's to low-60's, I would be a happy girl!  We kicked the heater on for the first time last night.  I do not love the nasty burning smell it makes after it has been turned off for 7-8 months!  I need to pull my sweaters down from the top of the closet and maybe pick up a few new things.  Here I come, LOFT & Limited!

H&M

Dallas is finally getting an H&M.  WOO-HOO!  For the last few years, every time I travel I carve out a couple of hours in which I can find an H&M and go shopping.  I have always thought it was complete BS that we didn't have one.  It's opening in North Park in 2011 and it cannot open soon enough for this girl!

Ava's Birthday

I can't believe my little baby is going to be 4 this month!  We're having a party for her girlfriends on the 14th (eek - less than 2 weeks!) and her family party on her actual birthday, the 21st.  Both will be Tinkerbell themed and I hope they turn out cute and that the weather holds for her friend party!  We're getting a Tinkerbell bouncy and a simply do not know what I will do if we can't use it.  Note to self:  need to come up with plan B just in case!

World Series

I've watched more baseball in the last 3 weeks than I have in the last 3 years combined.  Sheesh!  So proud of the Rangers for all they accomplished this season!  My brother, SIL, sister and nephew got to go to Game 5 (thanks for the invite people!  not!).  Luckies! 

White iPhone4Word on the street is that the release is being delayed until the Spring of 2011.  Not cool!  I have been holding out waiting to get a white one and it's looking like I might be caving before then.  Apparently there is some issue with the opaque white over the IR receiver and two different manufacturers are making the front and the back, and can't get the whites to match.  What a debacle!  

I think that's it for the current moment!  Hope everyone had a great Halloween and is having a great week!

Double Rainbow

Maybe I'm behind the times, but when I posted about this double rainbow, I was completely unaware that the video below even existed.  If I did, I might have done a spoof or, at least, posted them with my pictures.  It is HIGH-larious!  Watch the first one first, then the second.  

A Mid-Morning Amusement

Husbie showed me this YouTube video over the weekend and I cannot get this song out of my head! So, I'm sharing it with you girlies so it can get stuck in yours. ;) It looks like the video is a month or so old, so you may have already seen it.
Above is the news story in it's entirety and music video.

Here's my disclaimer - I do not think rape is funny. It is absolutley horrible and I cannot imagine what it would be like to be attacked in my home. However the way this news story is treated is pretty amusing and the kids that made it into a music video are brilliant and are probably cashing in on it. Here's to teenage ingenuity and sharing earnings with the victim and family!

I'm Back... with Total Randomocity

I've taken a bit of an unplanned break from the blog, but I'm back!  I have been so crazy busy that I've just been trying to keep my head above water on everything.  I'm already feeling like our lives have changed in the past couple of weeks in that we aren't going to have idle nights at home during the week now, like we used to.  Lots has happened since I have been away, so this is going to be complete randomocity!

As I mentioned before, we had a really great trip to Missouri.  Very relaxing and lots of quality time with the family.  Here are a few pictures:

The girls with my dad (and Winnie) at his office.  We take a picture like this every year, except this year, we have Winston.  This picture cracks me up.  Here's one that's a little more poised:

We did get to play a round of golf at my dad's club, Dalhousie.  It is such a hard course!  Plus, it was 98* with 80* humidity.  We did not take pictures - the boys refused.  When we finished our round we were completely soaking with sweat.  Gross.  We had fun, though!  Also, every year we have dinner at the club with my sister.  This year a girl had rented out the dining area for her Super Sweet 16 which I can only imagine was outrageously expensive.  They were sweet enough to set up the upstairs lounge for us to have a private dinner.

After we got back from Missouri things got so busy.  Haley and I spent the day shopping for school clothes AND she got her ears pierced.  I was so proud of her!  She is usually very wussy about this kind of thing and she really stepped up and was so brave.  She is doing a great job taking care of her ears and they are adorable.  

The same day, we kept husbie's little cousin for the night.  We all went to Main Event, one of our favorite activities, for games and bowling.  There was an hour wait for a lane - crazy! - so we played games before and finally ended up getting home around 10:15.  My little party animals usually go to bed at 8:15-8:30, so they were way past tired when they finally got to bed.

Over the weekend I went to spend some time with bestie and helping her get the last minute things before her baby comes, which we suspect will be soon.  She's not due until September 10th, but has already lost her mucus plug (sorry to any guys that are reading).  Does anyone have any experience with this?  I never recall losing mine (I was induced with both of the girls).  If so, how long was it between losing the plug and going into labor?  I'm sure it varies widely.

School started on Monday and with it much longer and busier days.  Since Haley is going to a new school which is less than 2 miles from our house, she doesn't get to ride the bus any longer.  For the last couple of years I have not missed sitting in the drop off and pickup lines at school!  During the school year, Haley, Ava and I have to leave the house every morning at 7:30.  So early, but it is nice to be at work by 8 and get started on my day.  Here are the girls on the first day of school:

Dance started on Tuesday.  Ava is taking ballet and tap at 10 AM and Haley is in tap at 6 PM.  They are at a studio that just moved in directly below my office.  My mom brings Ava on Tuesdays, so I spend my 'lunch hour' watching her dance and then I come right back upstairs.  Talk about convenience!  Ava was so good during class that we let her throw 'monies' in the fountain when class was over.

After Haley's class I dropped her at home and headed to my Women's League board meeting.  We ran so late and I didn't get home until 10:30, which made for a really long day.  

Today, Haley has ballet and jazz and starting next week, Ava will have soccer practice on Thursdays and games on Saturdays.  

It is so fun that they are doing several activities and it has really hit me that they are growing up so fast!  I'm trying to enjoy every moment and not get caught up in the madness of it all.

This post ended up being so long!  I have several other things to post about, which I will be doing separately.  I have got to get better about writing posts and setting them to auto publish.  I've missed reading all of your blogs and will be doing so today and tomorrow.  Looking forward to catching up!
 

July 4th Weekend Wrap Up

Our July 4th weekend was pretty laid-back, we never felt like we were rushing from place-to-place, which was nice.  I was out of the office Friday as we were attending my husband's step-grandfather's funeral.  Papaw lived a long life and died in his sleep last weekend.  We were very sad to hear of his passing but it is, I think, somewhat comforting to know that he went so peacefully.  The service was very nice - one of the grandchildren did a great job with the eulogy - telling funny stories about Papaw, many that I had never heard before.  The burial was quite a bit South of here (about 100 miles) and driving back up 35E, we saw some interesting landmarks.  We stopped at Dairy Queen for a little Blizzard snack (sorry, carb desert!) and this is what we saw:

This used to be some kind of arcade at one point.  It is closed now, otherwise we totally would have gone in to check it out.  Right next to it was this:

It's hard to tell from the picture, but it is a caterpillar made out of domes.  Apparently whatever town we were in has some sort of 'Dome Institute.'  I'm going to have to learn more about this!  I'm not sure if there was anything inside the caterpillar or not, but I really want to find out.  I'm going to try to decipher the website on the side (thank you, crap BlackBerry camera).

Friday and Saturday we contended with the rain leftover from Hurricane Alex.  We had tickets to the Frisco RoughRiders, our minor-league baseball team, and were taking my parents.  About 30 minutes before we were planning on leaving to head to the ballpark, a huge deluge of rain came through.  So, we waited it out and headed to one of our favorites, Kenny's Burger Joint, to have dinner while they finished the first game of their double-header.  We headed over to the park half-hoping that the game would be delayed to Sunday, but no such luck.  But, as soon as husbie went to buy us ponchos, it stopped raining!  :)  Go figure.  Here's Ava all wrapped up:

They did a fireworks show after the game, which was really impressive.  Ava loves fireworks like a fat kid loves cake, so she was super pumped.  We finally got home around midnight and let her do a couple of sparklers before bed.  Considering her usual bedtime is 8:30PM, she did exceptionally well staying up that late!

The rain finally subsided by Sunday morning.  Husbie earned mega brownie points by letting me sleep in until 11 AM!  I don't remember the last time I've slept that late.  I battled major sinus issues all weekend, so I definitely appreciated getting some extra zzz's.  We went over to our neighborhood pool for a bit, then after Ava's nap we headed to hang out with husbie's parents and go to Rockwall's fireworks celebration.  It had cooled off just enough in the evening to the most pleasant temperature I remember on the 4th in Dallas.  Socke Monkie joined us for the festivities.

Yesterday we took it easy and hung out around the house.  I worked on some of the decorations for bestie's baby shower and we also went to my parent's for lunch and swimming.

It was a great weekend!  I'm super pumped about having a 3-day work week and having a sibling cook-out and game night at our house next weekend.  Just have to get through the next 3 days!

Happy Monday Tuesday!