Our trip to Dallas

Last week was super busy for us! We both worked a lot and Mitch's grandparents and cousins we in town from Memphis! We were able to spend some time with them throughout the week, and since neither Mitch or I work on Friday's we had Emma and Lindi stay the night on Thursday! We had a lot of fun and Mitch even enjoyed a night with the girls :) 

When I got off work, they came over and we made spaghetti for dinner! They both helped me make it and it was a lot of fun! 

After dinner, we went on a walk and played frisbee. Then we came home and made chocolate chip cookies! Yum! We made a pretty big mess, but it was fun and the cookies turned out delicious!

The girls got up early on Friday and left to go home, and Mitch and I were planning on heading to Dallas that morning, but my ring was being resized and it wasn't going to be ready until noon, so since we were already up we went and played a early round of golf. There is something about being out on the golf course early in the morning... it is so peaceful. 

When we were done, we headed home to pack up, went to lunch and then headed to Dallas. 

We got to Dallas about 7 that night and just hung out at Will and Michelle's house. They cooked out burgers and we spend the evening planning out all our excursions for our cruise. We could not decide what we wanted to do where. We are going to 3 destinations and we wanted one where we could just hang out and the other two we were going to do excursions. We decided we weren't going to do anything in Mexico.. We all wanted to go horseback riding and that was only offered in Jamaica, so that made up our mind for us. We also knew we wanted to do a snorkeling excursion and if we snorkel in Grand Cayman, we get to snorkel the great barrier reef, which we couldn't do in Mexico. So thats what we decided and we are all really excited!!

Saturday, Michelle and I got up and went shopping! We found some really good deals on some stuff for our trip! Then we met up with the guys for sno cones and went to the Rangers Game!

We met up with Elizabeth and Kevin and it was so nice to get to spend some time with them. I wish we lived closer.. maybe one day :)

The game was a lot of fun and we were in the shade the whole time, so we were actually able to enjoy the game and not fry! After the game, we went to Salt Grass, a steak house and it was so good! We always love going to Dallas and spending time with Will and Michelle! 

Since it was our anniversary, they got us an awesome gift ha! 

There is this restaurant in Memphis we love to go to and they have this dessert, but it is HUGE!! And there is also a place in OKC and Dallas that has a little smaller version and Will and Michelle know we love them... so now we can make them ourselves! And it comes with a little book of recipes.. lots of desserts, but also some dinner options! We are so excited to use it. Thank you! 

Sunday, we got up and Michelle and I went out for breakfast and they guys wanted to do their own thing and meet up with us later. When we finally met up with them we figured out why... ha! 

They went to this place in downtown Dallas called the Heart Attack Grill. Weird.. I know...

This place is crazy... they pretty much applaud being overweight and all their food is soo bad for you! For example... they had a stick of butter on top of their shake.. gross! Mitch also told me that they have a big scale right when you walk in the door and if you weigh over 300lbs you eat for free. Here is a picture of the menu it is hilarious... 

Mitch and Will both had the double bypass burger if that tells you anything. 

We hardly ever make a trip to Dallas without hitting up the outlets! The boys met up with us and actually did a little shopping with us. We had a great time and the guys even bought us a gift...

Yes!! They bought us new coach purses! We were so excited!

After that, Mitch and I made the 6 hour drive back home to b'ville. We got in around 8 and were welcomed back with many anniversary cards/gifts! Thank you- we really appreciate it! 

This week has been busy- we are trying to get ready for our guests this weekend!!! I am so ready to spend the next four days relaxing with friends! I hope y'all have a wonderful and safe 4th! 

One Year Anniversary!!

Today is our one year anniversary!! It doesn't feel like a year ago when we got married! This has been the best year and it was flown by. I also can't believe I have been living in AR for a whole year now. I remember when I would come and visit Mitch, and for the first few months of living here I still felt like I was just visiting, but I can finally say it is feeling like home. I mean... I will always consider Tulsa my home, but I am really starting to settle in here.

This past week we have been super busy and the weekend we went to Dallas. I will do a post about that soon! We had a blast visiting Will and Michelle and I was also able to spend some time with my good friend Elizabeth and her boyfriend, Kevin.

We didn't do much today, but shop and then make the 6 hour drive back home to AR. But last Wednesday night we went out to celebrate! Mitch took me to a really nice restaurant in Fayetteville called Bordino's and we loved it! It was such a fun atmosphere and the food was so good. Mitch had lasagna and I had seafood pasta! They bought us an appetizer and a dessert since it was our anniversary! While we were finishing up dessert he slid a box across the table and I was so confused. I opened it up and it was the diamond band for the other side of my wedding ring!!!

I was shocked! I was not expecting that.
I had given him his gift earlier in the week so he could be using it. I got him a golf range finder. He has been wanting one for so long and he is putting it to good use!

We went golfing early Friday morning and he loved having it!

Now I will leave you with some wedding pictures... it still blows my mind this was a year ago! I am so blessed by Mitch and look forward to many more wonderful years together!!

New Recipes!

Happy Saturday! I hope y'all have had a good week! My went sent by surprisingly fast, considering it was my first week back after being got for a week on vacation. I think I was ready to get back and get things done. I have to day off today and it has been so nice. I was able to sleep in, run some errands and go for a run outside!
Yesterday was Mitch's first day back and he started ICU and he really likes it. He only has one patient compared to having 6 on his previous floor. He said it is more calm, but really sad since they are all in such bad condition...  he is liking so much better than his previous floor. I am happy he is enjoying it.

Not much has one on this week.. so I have nothing too exciting to share, but I do have some new recipes for y'all...

First, Tuesday night we cooked out steak and we wanted fresh green beans to go with them. We both would rather buy the fresh veggies from the store or farmers market than buy them in the can, but for some reason we have not had any luck cooking the green beans. We have tried multiple times and they just don't turn out good. So, I can across this recipe from another blog and thought it sounded really good... and I was right! They were delicious and I am so happy I found a way to cook fresh green beans that we both like. Here is the recipe...

HONEY BALSAMIC GREEN BEANS
16 oz green beans
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon onion powder
salt and freshly cracked pepper
*Bring a large pot of water to a boil over medium heat. Add the beans and blanch them for two min. Immediately remove beans from the water and add them to an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Drain.
In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and green beans. Cover and cook for 10 min, stirring occasionally. Uncover, then stir in the vinegar, honey, onion powder and salt and pepper to taste. Cook to desired degree of doneness, about 6 min.
Transfer beans to bowl and serve.

These are delicious, easy and I highly recommend you try them!

The next is one of my favorite things... coffee!! I am always looking for new and fun coffee ideas and a friend at work told me about this.

COLD BREW COFFEE
1 cup ground coffee
32 oz (1quart) container
strainer
large coffee filters
*Place ground coffee in container and fill with 1 quart cold water. Cover and let sit for 12-15 hours.

Place strainer over large bowl and place a coffee filer inside strainer. Slowly pour about half of the coffee and let sit until strained. Replace filter and repeat.

Now you have your coffee and you can either use it to make hot or cold.
To make hot: Place equal place of coffee concentrate and water in cup and heat.
To make cold: Place equal parts of coffee concentrate and milk in a glass. If you want iced, then add ice... but I like this because since it is already cold you don't really need ice so it doesn't end up watering it down. This makes the coffee very strong so I add a little extra milk when I make my glass.

Mitch's orange juice bottle has now become by coffee container.. ha
I always go down to Ozark Natural Foods and get their cold coffee in these glass bottles and so I am just reusing them since I can make my own now! I put a little over half milk in the jar and then the rest coffee. I also add 1 pump of Starbucks hazelnut syrup.

You can make it as strong as you want or add more creamer/half and half to weaken in. I love it because I can drink some, put back in the fridge and there is no ice that melts and waters it down!

The next thing isn't a recipe, but it is something that I have come to love and cook with. It is called Teaoli and it is just olive oil, but they have different flavors! When I went to visit Summer on Edmond and went to the tea house, one whole side of the store was these different kinds of olive oil. You could sample them all and I ended up getting the butter flavored.

It is so nice, because it is plain olive oil, but tastes like butter. I put butter on almost everything and I know it is so bad for me. I use it to cook in all the time too. So this is a good substitute! I put it on my popcorn and cook all my veggies, etc in it and it taste just like melted butter!! Yum! If you want some, you have to order it and here is the website:
www.teaoli.com



I hope y'all enjoy some of these.. we sure do!
Last night we tried a new recipe, chicken picatta and sweet potatoes. It turned out pretty good and then we went out for ice cream with Caleb.
I hope y'all enjoy the weekend and this beautiful weather!!

FLORIDA!

Hi! Sorry it has been awhile since our last post.. we just got back from Florida! We got in last night, unpacked and were in bed watching a movie by 8:30 ha! We were so tired!
Here is a little recap of our trip...

Friday night we headed to one of our friends wedding in OK and it was so nice to see all our OBU friends.. and the wedding was beautiful!

We didn't get back to Bentonville until about 11 and still had to load the car. We finally got in bed around 12 and we got up at 5:00 and left for Florida!!

We got to our condo at about 5:00 and my parents we tired as well, so we just ordered pizza and sat out on our balcony. We were on the 16th story penthouse of this condo and it was so nice!! We had our own huge balcony and hot tub!

After dinner, we noticed some dark clouds moving in and we could see everything so well being up on the 16th floor. It kept getting closer and the wind really picked up. My dad went outside to move some of our furniture inside b/c the wind was so bad and right when he did the wind blew our chairs across the balcony! We were all watching out the window and the next thing we see is our glass top to the table lift up and fly across the balcony. It shattered everywhere and glass went all over the balcony and over into the pools below. It was the worst storm I have ever seen, and I think being up that high made it worse.

All the glass! 

They ended up having the close the pools the next day because of all our glass went in it and they had to come clean our balcony. It was a mess! 

The rest of the week, was pretty much relaxing on the beach!! I love more than anything to relax in the sun and just lay out.. I could literally do it all day every day. Sunday and Monday we were in the sun a lot, but we were down on the beach and I had not got burned at all yet. Tuesday, I decided to lay up on our balcony for the morning. I was out there for about 3 hours and then we went and got smoothies. When we left, Mitch noticed I had a rash on my neck, but I didn't think anything of it. As the day went on I noticed I get scratching my neck and chest and was very uncomfortable, so I went in early. When I got to the condo, I was broken out in hives all over my chest. I thought it had to be something I put on that I was allergic to. The next day, the same thing happened, but it spread al down my arms and to my stomach. I had little bumps all over me but I noticed as the day went on, whenever I would get in the sun, the would whelp up. By Wednesday afternoon, I was so uncomfortable and itching like crazy, so we went and got it checked out. They said it looks just like sun poisoning, and that there was not much to do except take some medicine for it. They said being in the sun won't hurt me any, but it will juts be very itchy and take longer to heal. Since I was on vacation in Florida, I did not want to stay completely out of the sun, so I just went out for periods of time and since my chest was so bad, I had to keep a towel over it. 

I got some pretty interesting looks ha! 

So that was the downfall to our vacation, but I still enjoyed every bit of it. I still have a rash on my stomach and chin, and hoping it goes away soon! 

Here are some other highlights of our trip..

We ate at Five Guys...

We got smoothies almost every day that were delicious..

We had some amazing seafood...

We ate breakfast at our favorite place in Destin, The Donut Hole, and they make the best Key Lime pies so we brought one back for dessert! (please excuse my shirt.. I had to put this medicine cream all over my body and so Mitch cut one of his shirts, so it wouldn't touch where I was irritated ha)

We watched fireworks over the Harbor...

That was our trip in a nutshell. We had an amazing time and it was nice to be off work for a week. I love Florida and can't wait til we go back!

Tonight, Caleb came over, we grilled out steaks and sweet potatoes, and I made a dessert!

We finished up dinner and are now watching the Mavs game! I am excited to get back to work tomorrow, but not excited about having to get up at 5 :( Mitch is off until Friday then he starts ICU! I hope y'all have a wonderful week!!

My weekend in Edmond!

Happy late memorial day! I hope y'all got out and enjoyed this beautiful weather over the weekend! I had a very fun weekend in Edmond!!

Since mitch had to work all weekend, I thought this was the perfect time to go visit one of my friends, summer.  I havent seen her in almost a year so we were due to hang out :) I got up early and left out house by 7:30 so that put me in Edmond around 11 and it was so nice to get there early so we had the whole day to so whatever!

She made reservations at this local tea room for lunch and it was amazing! I love little quaint tea rooms and this one was so cute! They brought you each a tea pot with whatever flavor of hot tea you wanted.. And they had more flavors than I have ever seen before! Then of course our lunch was wonderful and we each got a huge piece of cake for dessert! I def will be going back to this place! I had some cute pictures, but the lighting was bad.. Sorry!

After lunch, we went to Penn square and did some shopping. I bought mitch some new thunder stuff and I got a new thunder shirt as well. All of the Thunder stuff was so cheap in okc and especially since they are out of the play-offs now :(. Mitchs favorite was his new KD jersey I bought him!

All of the Thunder stuff around OKC! 

I also got a new bathing suit and gap was having a huge sale so I got some more work clothes!

Later that afternoon, I found out two of my friends from school were in okc for the day! So we met up with Elizabeth and shannon at a cupcake place! It was so nice to visit with them and all catch up!

For dinner, Summer and I went to this place called Cafe 501. I had never heard of it, but it was delicious! It was very modern and had a fun atmosphere! The only thing (Which turned out to be pretty funny) was that we decided to sit outside and it was a very hot day, but summer and I are very cold natured and we would rather be hot outside and than freeze inside. We were the only ones eating on the patio, probably because it was pretty warm out, But it was in the evening and we thought it would cool down as we ate. Well it never cooled down and we werent overly hot by any means, but we were warm! So randomly this waiter come out and lights three of those huge heaters that were all right by our table. We immediately start laughing bc we thought it was some kind of joke! Well it wasn't and they left them on. At this point we were sweating and so I decide to look up the temperature on my phone.. Well we were right.. It was hot... It was 95 degrees outside ha!

Once our waiter came back out we asked him to turn them off, but by this time we were finished eating and were dying! I thought id share that funny story with you! So minus the heaters, we had a pretty good dinner!
After dinner we rented a movie and watched it at her house.

Sunday we got up and went to church then her parents made us a wonderul lunch! Her dad made his fettuchi Alfredo and it was so good! I knew her mom was an amazing cook, but I found out quick her dad is as well!

Later that afternoon, her mom took us shopping and then summer and I headed over to lake Hefner! We spent the evening there and ate at my favorite mexican restaurant, Mama Rojas! 

We tired to get some pictures of us out by the lake, but it was so windy! This was all we could get ha...

That night, we stayed in a played games with Summers family and had her moms homemade brownies.. yum!I am going to try and attempt to make them for our trip!

Also, one of my favorite parts about this trip was I got to see summers dog. Ha I have always loved her dog and want one so bad one day! It is a great pyrenesse so it is pretty much like a small horse! It is huge, but it is the most relaxed calm dog I have ever seen. 
Meet Maverick..

The pictures doesn't do justice on how big he is!
It made me so excited to get our dog! Ours def isn't that big, but I can't wait! I talked to our breeder last week and she will be born in July!! We are so excited!

Monday morning I got up and left around 10:30 and made a trip through Tulsa to see my family! I was able to have lunch with them and hang out at home for a while!

Tuesday night, we were able to go
out with some of our friends, katheryn and jeff. We went to dinner in Fayetteville because I ended up not getting to leave work until 7 :(. We went to noodles, it is an Italian restaurant that is really good. Mitch and I have been we love it!

Yesterday, we both worked and I had my training session at 4! It was Mitchs last day of work before he moves to the ICU.. And he doesnt start that until June 17th! So he has  pretty long break! I have been trying to pack and get ready for our trip. We leave Friday for OK for a wedding then off to Florida early Saturday morning! I am so ready as couldn't of asked for a better time to take a vacation! We actually had two weddings this weekend, and one next weekend, but b/c of our trip we can only make it to the one tomorrow night. We will miss getting to see everyone! 


On another note... I got a package in the mail today from one of my good friends Sam! She played on the tennis team with me at OBU and is from Australia. She moved back there after school, so I haven't seen her in a while, but we keep in touch a little through facebook. Well she send me a package today with different type os vegemite and chocolate!! On tennis trips she always brought along her vegemite and everyone hated it except me.. I loved it! You can't buy it in the states, so she sent it all the way from Australia! 

I had a busy busy day at work, and I am so ready to leave. Tonight we are packing and then headed to OK tomorrow!!Sorry for such a long post! We will update you again when we get back from the beach!!