Dinner and Scrapbooking (Or Lack Of)

Last night, Brandon made one of my favorite meals - jerk chicken. I love his jerk chicken! I'm not sure why we don't have it more often. He uses this basic recipe and tweaks it a little. I know he adds garlic & ginger...I'm not sure what else he does. Whatever he does, it's delicious!!! For a side dish, I tried a new recipe I got from Becky Higgins' blog. I actually just made the lime-cilantro rice. We boiled the remaining jerk marinade and drizzled it over everything. YUM!!!
My next project will be altering a small composition notebook for myself. I am determined to lose some weight in the very near future and have decided to start counting points again. It seems like I do better with that when I have a notebook in my purse to write everything down. It's amazing how knowing you have to write something down makes you rethink if you want to eat it or not. So anyway, I'm planning to do that tonight. I want it ready to go for Monday morning...I have to get the Super Bowl behind me before starting! LOL

One of these days I'd really like to actually scrapbook when I sit down at my scrapbook table. Lately I've been sitting there a lot, but I am either altering something, cutting out vinyl to personalize something around the house, or scouring the internet for fonts & svg files. I need to actually work on my albums!!! Maybe tonight I can do that too. We'll see!

What a Way to End a Night!!!

Last night on the way home, we were passing through a small town that shall remain unnamed. This small town only has one 4-way stop, no traffic lights. Actually, to give you an idea of what a rural area we live in, our entire county only has one traffic light.

So anyway, at 10:00 last night, we stopped at the single 4-way stop and then went on our way. Being that everything in town shuts down at 7:00 or 8:00, there was NO ONE around. No one, that is, accept the lone police officer sitting on the side of the road near the stop sign. Apparently, he disagreed with the fact that we stopped at the intersection (which we DID), because maybe a mile down the road, we had blue lights behind us. Ugh.

Isn't it funny how you totally forget things until something happens that makes whatever you have forgotten suddenly pop into your mind? That happened to me last night. As soon as I saw the blue lights, the fact that I had been forgetting to put our up-to-date insurance card in our car popped into my mind. It had been sitting on our desk at home for a couple of weeks. We have insurance...but the card to prove it was at home. Thankfully the police officer believed me because after running Brandon's license, etc., he let us go. Needless to say, the new card is now in my car.

The night gets better...

We had decided that since we would only be gone a few hours, we would give Bogart the liberty of being left out of his crate while we were gone. This was the first time we've done that. And it will be the last time for a while! THIS is what we were greeted with when we got home:

Brandon had sat the garbage over into the utility room temporarily until he could take it down to the road. We have always kept a baby gate up, about 6-8" off the floor, so that the cats could get in there to their food & litter box, and Duchess couldn't. In 7 years, she has never even tried to knock it over. Enter Bogart. I think we're going to have to find one that's more sturdy. And we're definitely not leaving him out of his crate again with such a temptation in the house.

So, at 10:30 last night, Brandon & I were cleaning up garbage and disinfecting the floor. YUCK.

Project 365 Day #26

Daddy stopped in yesterday to say hello. As is her custom, as soon as Sam realized he was in the house, she made a beeline to him. If it were anyone else coming in, she'd run the opposite direction, but she loves my dad! Actually, I think she just loves his hands. She always licks & chews on his fingers when he comes over. I'm pretty sure it's because he smokes. Apparently, my cat has a nicotine addiction. LOL Whatever the reason, though, it's pretty cute. :)

Weekend Report

Friday was a long day at work. We had lots of testing to do, and we were having some problems getting everything to work out as it should. I finally got to go home at 4:00. I say "finally" because I work a 6:00am - 2:30pm shift.

As soon as I got home, Brandon and I left again for Tupelo. We ate dinner at the new Old Venice Pizza Company. We split a large pizza. Brandon got his half the way he wanted it, and I did the same. It was delicious! We couldn't eat the whole pizza though, so the rest came home with us.

Afterwards, we went to Petsmart, Hobby Lobby (I got a couple of albums while they were 50%), and Kroger. Brandon actually dropped me off at Kroger and ran back to La Vino for a couple of things. When he came back to pick me up, he had a long-stemmed rose for me. So sweet! Here are all our spoils (Project 365 Day #23). See my rose in the middle of it all? :)

Project 365 Day #24: Saturday afternoon we had company over for snacks and dominoes. Kim, Alicia, Kayla, and Matt all came over. We had a really good time with them. We laughed all night! I think we played 3 rounds of Mexican Train. It was a lot of fun!

The food we had was great too. Kayla brought corn dip & Hawaiian bread, Kim brought chicken salad and granola cookies, and Alicia made a fresh apple cake and brought some decaf coffee to brew. I made Mississippi Sin and some prosciutto wrapped asparagus (click for the recipe), which was delicious. Here's the recipe for Mississippi Sin (also delicious).

Mississippi Sin

1 loaf Hawaiian bread

8 oz. cream cheese

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 1/2 cups sour cream

1/2 cup chopped ham (I used a can of Hormel lean ham.)

1/2 tsp onion powder (The recipe actually calls for green onions but I have an aversion to the real thing. LOL)

Slice top off bread and hollow out. Save the insides for dipping. Mix remaining ingredients and fill the bread with it. Replace the top, wrap in aluminum foil, and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Yesterday after the meeting, Brandon and I went to eat lunch then he went to visit his mother. She lives 1 1/2 hours away, and I had to login to work for a while and check some things that afternoon, so I let him go by himself. Before heading home, I wandered around Walmart for a while and picked up a few things, including an adorable Disney Cricut cartridge I found on the clearance wrack for an unbelievably cheap price. I didn't really have any need for a Disney princess cartridge, though, so I gifted it to Jeannie & Madilyn on the way home. They loved it! :)

Speaking of Cricut, last night I jumped off the fence and ordered Sure Cuts a Lot. This program is amazing! You can cut any true type font that you have installed. The only problem I've found so far is that I can see myself spending many hours searching for adorable free fonts now. LOL So anyway, my first SCAL project was using some scrap vinyl to decorate the tub I bought to keep the dog food in. This will be Project 365 Day #25. I thought it turned out pretty cute!

Can't Get Going Today

I woke up with a headache this morning and although it's pretty much gone now, I just can't seem to get going...My sinuses have been bothering me for weeks, and I feel like my head & ears are stuffed full of cotton. Ugh. Can I just go back home and get back in bed for a while??? No? Well, I guess I'll update my blog then.

Yesterday was a really pretty day so when I got home from work, I took the dogs out back to play for a bit. It was short lived because Bogart got so worked up he kept jumping up and grabbing my arm (big no no) and even knocked me down once. He's so hyper! LOL I did get him calmed down enough to take some pics before going back in though. I believe this one will be my day #22 photo.

When Brandon came in from service, Bogart was ready to love on him. He's so funny how he "hugs" us! He'll keep his back legs on the floor but his front legs up on us and put all his weight on us. He'll lay like that as long as we'll let him. It's really cute. See? He even does this if one of us is laying on the couch. He'll put all his weight on our stomach while keeping his back feet on the floor. Silly dog...

This afternoon when I get off work, Brandon & I are going to Tupelo to do some shopping. I got my latest $50 gift card from MyPoints earlier this week and am looking forward to spending it. I also want to hit Hobby Lobby and get some albums & page protectors while they're 50% off. And of course, we'll have to go to Kroger for groceries too. I'm planning to have my list made out and all my coupons matched up before we get there so that won't take so long. Tomorrow we're having some friends over to play dominos, so I don't want to get home too late. I need to be able get up early in the morning and get some housework done before service.

Just Some Random Catching Up

So I thought I'd take a few minutes to update my blog with what all has been going on since Sunday and some random stuff on my mind. There's nothing to exciting, but I do have my Project 365 pics for the last few days, so I'll share those too. :)

Sunday evening after I got the kitchen cleaned up, I started another loaf of bread in our bread machine. I am loving having fresh bread all the time, and it's really a lot cheaper than buying it at the store. It's much better too, and you can control exactly what you're eating. I've been trying different recipes and experimenting with different ingredients. The bread machine makes it so easy! I don't bake my bread in the machine, but all I have to do is transfer the dough from the machine to the bread pan, let it rise for a while, then pop it in the oven.

Monday after work, I was excited to settle in and watch one of my favorite movies - the A&E version of Pride & Prejudice. A friend in our congregation let me borrow her DVD set Sunday. Brandon even sat and watched it with me. I hadn't intended to watch all six hours in the same day, but it was so good I couldn't turn it off! Mr. Darcy & Elizabeth were just too captivating...love me some Mr. Darcy. ;o) So that pretty much took up the entire evening. At 10:00, the movie was finally over, and I took my sleepy self to bed!

Yesterday I went over to my aunt & uncle's house to clean up their computer. It was loaded with an unbelievable amount of video games, which had pretty much filled up their tiny little hard drive. It should run a lot faster than it was now that all that stuff is gone. I was glad to be able to help out. The idea was to also install his new printer, but unfortunately there wasn't enough memory to do that. I'm going to see about getting him a newer model.

Before I went home, I had to run to the store and get an emergency bag of dog food to get us by until this weekend. We feed all our pets Nutro, which I buy at Petsmart, but Petsmart is nearly an hour's drive from our house. I usually don't let us run out, but the bottom of the bag crept up on me this time. Thankfully, our local Piggly Wiggly actually (amazingly) sells a small bag of holistic dog food with no by-products, chemicals, or fillers. That's my backup when I do run out of Nutro. Anyway, when I pulled into the parking lot, I snapped this pic for my daily photo. I thought it would be interesting to show the temperature in my book every now and then. And yesterday was COLD!

The more I read the Cricut message board and messages on Two Peas in a Bucket, the more I've just about talked myself into downloading the trial version of Sure Cuts a Lot (SCAL) for my Cricut. SCAL is a third-party software that you can use with your Cricut to cut any true type font or dingbat you have installed on your computer, along with other files that you can create of just about anything. You don't need any cartridges! The only thing that has me holding back is the fact that ProvoCraft says the use of third party software will void your warranty. I really don't see how something installed on your computer could possibly harm your Cricut though. I think they just want to keep you buying their expensive cartridges. LOL The idea of cutting practically ANYTHING out is very, very tempting though. I think I will download the trial this weekend when I will have time to play around with it.

So Ladylike...

Here's a video I took of Duchess snoozing last weekend. Make sure to turn on your speakers and see how ladylike our little girl is! LOL

Fresh Bread & Altered Boxes

It was super cold out this morning and Brandon didn't sleep much last night, so we stayed in this morning.  I took the opportunity to do a little project I've wanted to do for a few weeks now.  The guys at work saved me these cute little wooden boxes that a vendor sent them cookies in at Christmas time.  They said they figured I'd want to cover them in pretty paper.  They were right! 

Here's what I came up with.  I used 29th Street Market paper by My Mind's Eye, chalk ink by Color Box, and cardstock by Paper Studio.  The butterflies were cut out using my Home Accents Cricut cartridge.  And of course, the whole thing has a couple of coats of Mod Podge.  I love the results!!  I'm going to put these boxes in our brown nightstand in our bedroom.  They'll match our newly painted walls and the brown  vinyl over our bed perfectly!  I never did post that, did I?  Well, here that is too: 

Last night, Brandon and I had a nice dinner of his homemade beef stew, and a freshly baked loaf of sour cream & onion bread.  It was quite tasty!  It was a good thing we got to eat some of the bread too, because this afternoon Bogart snatched the rest of the loaf off the counter and ate it before we could catch him.  It's nice to work on a loaf of bread for hours and then have the dog eat it...really, it is. :op  Anyway, this pic of our dinner will be my Project 365 Day #16 photo.

Today's photo is one I snapped of Brandon and our doggies before he left for work.  Aren't they all cute?

Getting In Touch With Old Friends

I never did get around to taking my picture of the day yesterday, but I think I know what I'm going to do. An old friend who I've been thinking about lately but for whom I didn't have contact info for contacted me through Facebook. I don't really use Facebook much but am glad I have an account just for this reason! I was so happy to hear from her! So I think for yesterday's picture, I will take a shot of the e-mail I received from her. :)

Video for Cat Lovers

I don't think I've posted this here before, so I'm sharing it now. If you have a cat, you'll appreciate it!

If you have a slow internet connection, click Play then pause it to let it load up so it will play smoothly.

Poor Bogie!

You may have read about our trip to the vet last week. Bogart had an upper respiratory infection and was given antibiotics & steroids that he has to take twice a day for ten days. So we've been doing that...

Monday was a rare day because Brandon and I were both gone all day. When he works, he usually works the night shift so someone is almost always home with Duchess & Bogart. He worked the day shift Monday though, so Bogart spent the day in his crate. (We don't trust him to be loose in the house unattended yet.) Imagine my shock when I came home at 3:00 and there was a yellow LAKE next to his crate! For the dog owners out there who use crates, you know this is unusual. So, I washed all his bedding, which was also saturated, and cleaned the floor with enzymatic cleaner. Thank goodness for our laminate floors!! Then I just wrote this off as a freak occurrence that happened because he's unaccustomed to being put up for so long.

Fast forward to yesterday morning...Brandon worked the night shift Tuesday night, so I had left our bedroom door open. He doesn't like the cats in the bedroom at night, so he shuts them out when he's home. If he's not there, I let them come and go as they please. So anyway, a little before 4:00 am, Duchess woke me up needing to go out. I got up and turned on the light and found a wet trail that led from our bedroom door, all the way down the hall, through the den, and to the back door, where I found another yellow puddle. Now I knew something was wrong...it was as if Bogart woke up needing to go and just couldn't hold it to get to the back door to ring the bell. Poor baby! :( Needless to say, I was mopping at 4:00 am yesterday.

On my lunch break, I called our vet. I told them what had happened and wanted to know if I needed to be concerned. I knew I wasn't dealing with a behavioral issue, but rather a health matter. They confirmed what I had been thinking - the steroid he was put on has incontinence as a common side effect. Nice. And we will probably be dealing with this for the next 2-3 weeks until it's all out of his system. Maybe one of us will be home most of the time so that we can let him out on a regular basis and we won't have any more accidents. Poor thing...

What do you think?

I tried this template before and had some problems with it, but I think I've got it figured out now. What do you think? Can you see everything OK? Do you get any errors when clicking links, etc? Feedback would be appreciated! :)

Edited to add that I got my template here. Lots of people have asked. Sorry I didn't post a link before!

Rethinking Project 365...Again

Until now, I had planned on doing my Project 365 as full weeks from Monday to Sunday. To do that and encompass the 1st of January within the week it fell on, I started taking my photos on the 29th of December. That was all when I still thought I was getting the "official" CK kit though. Now that I'm doing my own thing with this project, it occurs to me that I would rather have my "Year of Photos" actually start on January 1st. What a novel idea! LOL Seriously though, all my other albums are chronological and organized by year, so why should this one be any different?

Another thing I've been brainstorming about is incorporating all of my layouts from 2009 into this album. That may not work - it will depend on what happens this year and how many photos I take. Typically, I have an album (or two, depending) per year. I had originally intended to let this project supplement my regular 2009 album. If I can make it fit though, I think it would be neat to have my 12x12 layouts of events and trips intermingled with the divided page protectors that hold the more mundane daily photos. I guess we shall just see. I can't wait for Hobby Lobby to put their albums on sale again so I can get mine & get started!

All of that being said, here is my Day #12 photo. (Yep, now it will be "Day #12" since I'm renumbering!) I got my new issues of Creating Keepsakes & Good Housekeeping yesterday. Now I just need to find time to read them both!

Unless something exciting happens later, today's photo is this one I just took of my desk at work. This is what I look at from 6:00 am - 2:30 pm every day. Good stuff, huh? LOL I do love my laptop, though. There have been several times I've had to spend a day or two in other areas of our facility, so it's easy to just pack up and take my computer with me. And see my earbuds? I love listening to music while I work!

Alrighty, enough for now...gotta get to work. I hope everyone has a great day!

Cirque du Soleil

Yesterday after the meeting, we road with Kim, Rachel, and Lee to Tupelo to see Cirque du Soleil "Saltimbanco" at the Bancorp South Center. I had really been looking forward to seeing the show. I had watched all the commercials on TV and read about it online. And I *did* enjoy the show...but it really wasn't exactly what I had thought it would be. I thought it would be amazing acrobatics the entire time, which is not the case. There was a juggler and dancers and mimes. It was entertaining, but not exactly what it looks like it would be from the promotions. Anyway, we did enjoy it.

After the show, the five of us went to O'Charley's for dinner. I hadn't been there in a long time, so it was fun to go somewhere different. I couldn't decide what I was hungry for, though, and their menu is huge. I finally decided on a combo dinner and ended up bringing half of it home for lunch today. But that's OK! We had fun with everyone and enjoyed our evening out. :)

Weekend Pics

Friday evening, Brandon wanted to grill some "faux wings" (chicken thighs cut in half then prepared like hot wings) for supper.  When he went to the store to pick them up, he decided to get some chicken gizzards (blech!!) to cook for the furbabies.  Boy, did they love him for that!  This pic of him giving Bogart & Sam some of his yummy treats will be my Project 365 Day #12.

Yesterday Brandon had to work the 7am-7pm shift, but I went ahead and met with the group for service.  It was rainy & yucky so we stuck to RVs for the morning.  After I got home, I changed and went to Tupelo.  I got in touch with Heather before I left, and we decided to meet for lunch.  That was fun to have a girls' lunch.  :)  We decided on the soup, salad, and chips & salsa lunch at Chili's.  Yum!  

After lunch, we headed to Hobby Lobby to look around for albums & page protectors for our Project 365 projects.  Here we are in the scrapbook album aisle.  People probably thought we were nuts, but we didn't care.  We needed this pic for our Project 365 Day #13 shot! :)  Actually, I'm going to have to get a copy of the one she did with her camera because I like it better.  But this will do for blogging purposes. LOL

After Hobby Lobby, we went over to Petsmart.  Heather wanted to get some new fish, and I had to get cat food.  We looked around for a while before getting what we actually came for.  One of our stops was the cat adoption room.  I always like to go visit the poor little kitties who are waiting for someone to come take them home.  There were some really cute ones in there yesterday.  This calico got my attention.  She was very friendly and kept reaching out for my basket.  I hope someone picks her soon!

Heather picked out some fish, then we checked out and went our separate ways.  I still had to go to Sam's for another dog bed and then to Kroger for groceries.   I must be a weirdo, but I do enjoy grocery shopping!  I meticulously clip, sort, and organize my coupons, then I get a little thrill out of how much money I can save at the store.  I love Kroger b/c they double coupons up to 60 cents.  Yesterday I saved over $30!  Woo hoo!

This afternoon we're going to see Cirque du Soleil with some friends.  I'm really excited about it.  Gotta go get ready for that!  I'll tell ya all about it in my next post. :)

Bogart Goes to the Vet

Bogart started coughing earlier this week, and his cough has gotten progressively worse.  He has also been losing weightI could tell last night he didn't really feel good.  (This pic of him on our bed last night is Project 365 day #10.)  Today I took him to the vet to see what was going on.  We've gotten so attached to this little (Can you call a 60+ pound dog "little"??) guy and were worried it might be something serious!

After waiting for a few minutes in the exam room, Dr. Brad (one of my classmates) came in and checked Bogart out.  Thankfully he didn't find anything more serious than an upper respiratory infection.  Bogie got a couple of shots and some steroids & antibiotics to take over the next ten days.  By then, he should be as good as new!  Thank goodness! :)  

This picture of Bogart waiting for Brad to come back is my pic for Project 365 day #11.

Layout Issues - Your Input is Requested!

I'm still not sure what's going on with my blogger layout. Do you see it as all my right-hand stuff being at the very bottom of the page??? That's how it shows up on my work computer, which is Windows based. On my Macbook, however, it looks perfect.

Please leave a comment and let me know how you see my blog. Maybe it's just my computer here at work. If everyone else is seeing it messed up, I guess I'll have to find different template to use. :(

This makes me happy!

Tonight, I finally finished a project I've wanted to get done for ages. For the longest time, if I wanted to find a specific layout, I had a hard time remembering which album what year was in, so I had to drag out several and look inside to find what I was looking for. And I never could keep them in any kind of order.

While I was off work, I used my Cricut to cut out chipboard tags and covered them with patterned paper and labeled them with the year or whatever the theme of the album was. Tonight I finally finished tying them all to the posts of my albums. Now I've got all my completed albums lined up on our shelves nice and neat and in chronological order. I love it!

By the way, this (well a horizontal version) will be my Project 365 Day #9 photo. I am going to try to share most of my project photos here, but probably won't get around to posting them all. I'm going to try to keep up with it though! :)

Project 365 - No Kit for Me

Well, the Project 365 kit sold out almost immediately after going on sale Thursday morning. Since we were on the road to Dallas, I missed out on that. I did try several times - online when we stopped for lunch and also by multiple phone calls while going down the road - but no dice. That's OK though - I'm not giving up that easily!

The creative gals at Two Peas in a Bucket have shared their own take on the project. Many of them have put together their own "kits" using product they already had and supplemented with just a few more items from their local craft store. I am going to do the same. Now that I think about it, I really don't need much beyond a new album and some divided page protectors to continue with this great concept. I'm making a list now and plan to pick up everything I need this weekend.

I'm still taking my photos every day and will be sharing as I have time to download them from my camera. Last night I got a really cute pic of Brandon and Duchess taking a nap on the couch. Brandon wasn't too happy with it when I showed him later, but I like it and so I shall be using it for yesterday's photo. :)

ETA: What's up with everything on the right side of my blog getting scooted down to the bottom??? Is that how your browser is displaying it? Anyone else ever have this problem all of a sudden? :(

What a Game (Part 2)

So as I was saying, when the game finally started, we were all fired up and ready to watch some football. We had paid $100 per ticket and driven 9 1/2 hours to watch Ole Miss play. If you watched the game, though, you know the first quarter didn't start out too hot...before we knew it Texas Tech had scored two touchdowns. I was thinking, "OH NO...we've paid all this money and driven all this way to see them get stomped!" But then Ole Miss got back on track and tied it up 14-14. :)

Here we are at our seat. We were sitting right in the sun, and it was up around 70 degrees. I definitely didn't need the hat & scarf I had crocheted for the game. Oh, well. And who thinks to bring sunscreen in January? We sure didn't! We both got a little sunburned.

I couldn't believe the crowd that was there. It was a record for the Cotton Bowl - over 88,000! And almost half of the people were there to see the Rebels play. It was awesome seeing that sea of fans...And talk about loud!!

I've never heard the "Hotty Toddy" so many times at a game. Over and over and over - the fans were so pysched up! And it progressed as the game did...especially as the scores kept climbing. It was a really good game, but by the middle of the 4th quarter, the Texas Tech fans had already started clearing out. And when the game was over and Ole Miss had won 47-34, the crowd around us were really celebrating! It was SO fun!

Here's some video I took of the celebration going on after the game. Ole Miss's version of the "Hey" song probably isn't very classy...but it is what it is I suppose. In any event, you might want to use headphones if you're at work!

We stuck around for a while after the game and then started walking back to the parking lot to catch a shuttle back to the train station. The lines waiting were huge, and they didn't move quite as quickly as before, but that was OK. We had had such a great time, we didn't mind the wait. What we did mind was waiting for about 30 minutes at the station for our cab that we had to call twice. It wasn't the greatest neighborhood to be sitting around after dark. :os

Back at our hotel, I was so ready to crash!! Brandon really wanted to go out and celebrate, but I was exhausted!! And we had paid for cab fare twice, plus our train/shuttle tickets We really didn't want to pay cab fare again, and I wasn't about to walk anywhere after dark, so we decided just to stay in. I cooked supper, and Brandon watched the Sugar Bowl. It was nice to just stay in and relax after such a crazy day!

Saturday morning, we went down to breakfast and sat next to one of the Ole Miss players and a friend of his that plays for Wake Forrest. That was pretty neat. There were kids in there that kept going up to them for autographs. LOL After breakfast, we finished getting ready and hit the road. We finally made it around 9:30. It was a long ride, but it was totally worth it!

What a Game (Part 1)

Yesterday was awesome!  We had such a great time at the Cotton Bowl!   Getting there took a little work though...

After breakfast, we got ready and called a cab to pick us up at 10:30.  We had him drop us off at the nearest DART station, where we each bought a premium day pass for $5.  That pass would cover our train ride, as well as shuttles to and from the game.  We got on a southbound redline train and road from Park Lane Station to Pearl Station, where the game shuttles were located.  I couldn't believe how many people were there!  We had to get in a huge line that wound all around the block.  Surprisingly, it only took us about 30 minutes to make it to the end where the shuttles were, then we were off to the stadium!

When we arrived in the parking lot, we still had a good little walk to get to the stadium.  There were people everywhere!  I think we were probably close to even as far as the fans for each school.  The weather was beautiful!!!  It was such a nice day to be there.   

Even after all the time it took for us to get there and walk to the stadium, and then around to the other side to our gate, we were still in our seats about an hour before the game started.  We had time to talk to the fans around us and find out where everyone was from.  By the time they tossed the coin at the beginning, we were all fired up!

We're Here!

Just a quick post to say we finally made it to our hotel this evening around 5:00.  We stopped for lunch and then got slightly turned around when we got into Dallas - even with the Garmin.  The roads here are terrible.  

Our hotel is great!  We have a suite with a nice soft bed and feather pillows.  There was a reception downstairs from 5:30-7:00 with lots of tasty food - caesar salads, hummus & crackers, spinach dip, chicken soup, etc. - and beer & wine.  After we ate, we took our drinks out to the courtyard and sat by the pool.  It's a beautiful night.

I'm exhausted and ready for bed.  Can't wait for tomorrow!

Cotton Bowl Bound!

We were up really late last night after the meeting, packing and decorating the truck. (Can I just say again that I love my Cricut???) Then it was up bright and early this morning - 5 a.m. for me - to finish getting the rest of our things packed and hit the road. At 7:00, we were dropping Duchess & Bogart off at Mike & Jeannie's, then we were really on our way. Dallas, here we come!

Mike offered to let us use their Garmin for our trip, so that's been handy so far. Before we left their house, I plugged in the address to our hotel, and now it's telling us every little turn we need to make. It keeps up with how long you've spent at stops, your average speed, and an estimated time of arrival that adjusts as you go. It's such a neat little gadget! I've added it to my list of "things that would be nice to have one day".

We're about halfway to Dallas right now. We've stopped for lunch at a McAlister's past Little Rock. Brandon said we were "behind enemy lines" when we crossed the Arkansas state line. LOL Anyway, the further we go, the more frequently we're passing other Rebel fans on their way to the game. It's fun to point and wave and share the excitement that tomorrow we'll all be at the Cotton Bowl watching the game.  I can't wait!