South Carolina with the McKee's

The McKee's were our next door neighbors growing up in Winchester Trails!  We have all since moved away, but we try to get together with them a couple of times a year to reconnect.  The McKee's are literally spread all over.  The oldest daughter, Audrey, lives in Durham, NC with her husband Ryan and son Sam.  Laura is the next oldest and lives in Vancouver with her husband Jim and the youngest, Scott lives in Washington D.C.  Ana and George McKee followed Audrey to Durham to be full time grandparents for little Sam.

For our most recent trip we rented a beach house in Charleston, SC.  It was such a fun trip with a lot of catching up, sightseeing and A LOT of amazing southern food!

Gorging ourselves at a southern brunch

the Turley's

Our favorite new drink!  Firefly is a brand of vodka distilled right in South Carolina.  They are famous for their amazing sweet tea flavored vodka.  The pairing I enjoy the most is called an Arnold Palmer. It is half sweet tea flavored vodka and half lemonade!  It is wonderful...and a little dangerous.  It just tastes too good.

Lauren & Rich's Wedding!!

After our trip to NYC Heath and I headed to Columbia, Missouri for Rich and Lauren's (Heath's sister) wedding! It was an absolutely fabulous weekend! Lauren REALLY outdid herself and planned an absolutely amazing wedding weekend! I don't know how she did it; she is one amazing woman! Lauren is living in Columbia, MO to complete her plastic surgery residency and her now husband Rich lives in Austin, TX where Lauren will soon join him. This was a destination wedding from most of the guests, so there were so many fun events planned.

Manicures and Pedicures with Friends and Family!

 the bride with her maid of honor

enjoying manicures

 

Bridal Luncheon

Rehearsal Dinner and Welcome Reception

bride and groom

having fun at the welcome reception

WEDDING!

 absolutely beautiful bride

 saying "i do"

beautiful couple

cake cutting

 time to party

Adam (Heath's bro) and his fiance Christina

 everyone had fun with the props in the photo booth

all good things must come to an end...what a wonderful wedding!

NYC!

September was a great month!  Heath got to choose an elective and chose Acupuncture.  Unfortunately, he didn't learn enough to practice on me, but it did allow him to work only about 9 hours a week (on a bad week)! He got 2 weeks off in September, so he got to return home to Houston for the first time since we moved and we also went to NYC and Missouri for his sisters wedding!

September didn't start out so great for me.  This is typically my busiest time of year and I was extremely busy the first two weeks of the year, so once the September 15th deadline came...I was looking for a vacation!!

Heath was going to NYC all along to visit his friend Andrew who is there doing his transitional year and at the very last minute, I decided to tag along!

It was such a wonderful trip!  Andrew was kind enough to let us sleep on his couch at his wonderful one bedroom apartment.

Arriving in NYC!!!

We had some wonderful meals, great shopping, site seeing and of course a musical!  We visited a few restaurants I had been to before that were my favs!  There is a ton of great Pizza places in NYC, some are just more famous than others.  We went to John's Pizzeria on Bleeker in Greenwich Village!  It was wonderful and just as I remember it.  We also visited Momofuku Noodle Bar on 1st Avenue and 10th street.  It is a tiny spot with a great scene and AMAZING Pork Buns...you must start with that for appetizer! 

Enjoying our Lone Star Beer at Momofuku Noodle Bar

Out on the town after Dinner

Christina Guglielmo, Adam's (heath's bro) fiancé, also lives in NYC!  So while Heath and Andrew were at the Mets game one night, I got to spend some time with Christina which was wonderful!  She lives in an area of NYC that I had never been to before and now LOVE! She lives on St. Mark's in the East Village.  We explored the area, had wonderful sushi, an Ice cream cone and I got to visit her wonderful apartment! 

The view from the roof of her apartment

Champagne Cocktails at a Jazz bar just down the street from her place!

Heath and Andrew on the Brooklyn Bridge

THE BEST PART OF THE ENTIRE TRIP!!!

Our last night in town, we bought discount tickets to see Rock of Ages (you just can't go to NY without doing Broadway).   I had never heard of it before and really had no idea what to expect...it was AMAZING!!!  SO enjoyable.  It was a musical set to all 80's music (who doesn't love 80's music).  Journey, Bon Jovi, Styx, Pat Benetar...it was fabulous! The theater was transformed to look like the Sunset strip in the 80's.  Alcohol was not only allowed in the theater, but was served throughout the show!   You truly felt like you were part of the performance!  The lead was played by Constantine from American Idol.  I didn't know what to expect from him, but he did a great job!  Go See it!!

A few pics of all of us in Time Square after the show!

We love NYC!  Heath and I are both returning in January!!

Our New Addition

August was an especially important month since we welcomed a new member to our family!!  Heath and I had been toying with the idea of adopting a second dog for some time now.  Molly would get bored every now and then and we couldn't play with her all the time. 

So on a normal day, Heath and I were making a run out to the feed store to get more food for Molly, and of course right next door was the North Texas Humane Society so we decided to just stop in.  After spending some time with one dog that was pretty sick and required more time than we had, we saw our Max.  He was in the bottom cage against the wall, so he was easy to miss.  He looked like a giant puffball...you could hardly make out his face!  In fact, that is what the humane society named him, Puffball, which I personally think is an awful name, especially for a boy dog.

An employee saw us looking at him and encouraged us to take him on a walk to see his true personality.  A few steps out the door, we were sold.  He was the most adorable, full of life dog ever.  He was not the least bit bothered that he was stuck in a kennel.  He was bouncing all over the place dragging us along with him.  When he wasn't bouncing, he was on his back waiting for a belly rub!  He was such a sweetie! 

Heath and I are big believers in adopting dogs and I highly encourage every one of you to consider that too.  I understand that some dogs look a little rough in kennels, but you need to look through that, see their personality, and try to see what they could become with a lot of love and a little grooming =)  Our Max was so badly matted that he had to be shaved before we brought him home.  Check out what our poor boy first looked like when we brought him home...

Poor guy!  Heath and I quickly rolled up our sleeves and got to scrubbing.  Here he is the same night after the Crawford team tackled him...

For the 3 months he has been ours, he has gone from 12 to 17 pounds and he has really opened up to us!  A lot of his hair has grown back and he is once again the puffball he once was!

The shelter told us he was 3 years old, but of course they had no clue.  Our vet said he couldn't be older than 1, and you can tell, he's still a puppy!  He was already potty trained when we got him, we just had to get him use to elevators!  He has the cutest personality.  He is deliriously happy..even when you are punishing him.  He is so inquisitive and investigates everything.  If a low cabinet door is open, he will just go right in.  He prefers to sleep underneath the bed, and when he naps in the day he likes to lay on the hard wood floor.  The best part...he sleeps on his back. Check it out...

Molly is loving her new brother.  At first there was a little tension when he would play with her toys, but it is much more calm now.  There is still a little sibling rivalry of course.  They play fight all the time, but there there are times they both give each other kisses...it is too sweet.  Here is Molly out on the porch, we leave the porch door open almost all day long and they come and go...they love the breeze!

I am sure there will be many more blog posts about the pups to come!

Our Top Chef Reality

August was a rather calm month. Heath and I finally got settled into our new apartment and started really exploring the town! Heath was doing Internal Medicine in August and it was his first month on call at JPS (John Peter Smith Hospital). It wasn't too bad. He was only on call every 6 nights. I was traveling to Houston quite a bit for work, although we were able to squeeze in some fun and a NEW family member....

Our Top Chef Reality
Heath and I are huge Top Chef fans. In fact, it is Heath's favorite show. The week we were moving up to Fort Worth, the celebrity chef that was judging the quick fire challenge that week was Chef Tim Love from FORT WORTH. It was such a coincidence. So we knew, we wanted to try his restaurant as soon as we moved up here!

We went to his signature restaurant, Lonesome Dove for my birthday dinner! It is in the Fort Worth Stockyards, which is such a great area to truly see Cow Town. Our meal was AMAZING and if you are ever in the area, I would highly recommend the restaurant. We started out with an appetizer medley of Lobster Hushpuppies, Rabbit-Rattlesnake Sausage, and Kangaroo Nachos. My favorite by far was the Kangaroo Nachos (see pic below)!

For the main entrée, I got his signature Roasted Garlic stuffed beef Tenderloin and Heath had the Yellow tail Snapper. In my opinion, my dish won =).

We ended the night with his Warm Ancho Chile Chocolate cake which was the dish that won him the Iron Chef Competition. As a huge chocolate dessert fan, it was not my favorite.
Despite all this amazing cuisine, the most amazing part of the meal came in liquid form. Being from Texas, I have tried a lot of Margaritas, but nothing in the world has ever been as tasty as his Organic Margarita. Made with 100% organic ingredients and using agave nectar instead of simple sugar, it was the most amazing margarita of my life. Even though it cost $10, it was worth every penny!!

Chicago!

I had planned a trip to Chicago at the end of July by myself, but then at last minute we found out Heath could get off for it!!

In July we visited the Garrens in Chicago!  Since Heath and I had both been there before this was a much more relaxing trip mainly just enjoying our time with the Garrens!

Heath and I exploring Michigan Avenue

Belen and I around town

THE BEACH!

I had no idea what to expect of the Chicago beach...It was like Spring Break for adults!  

We had so much fun playing "Bags" which was new to us Texans!

Here are Heath and I giving it a shot...

In the end...the Garren's were victorious!

Belen and I posing in front of the Chicago skyline.

 

We had SO much fun!  Thanks for having us Garrens!!