The Texan & The Canadian

My sister turns 30 today. I love you so very much Allie!!!! I couldn’t have asked for a better big sister. Here’s a kiss all the way from Texas! SMOOOOCH! Love you!

So our neighborhood decided to throw a neighborhood wide garage sale this past weekend. SCORE! We make about $160 and we also got to meet a lot more of our neighbors, as even if they didn’t host a sale they came by to check things out. We had four people put things into our sale and between us all we make just over $400. Not too shabby!

We were also excited to spend most of Saturday hanging out with Jessica and Brad, who ended up making out the best at the sale. Jessica and Brad have currently relocated to Houston, and we’re going to miss those two quite a bit. They love good food, board games, movies, and just hanging out. I KNOW! Our kind of people, huh!?! At least they’re only a few hours away, and we can still see them when we visit the family.

So Julie’s 25th birthday was last night. I told her my gift was to be her designated driver. How late can one really stay out 11pm? Midnight?

We started her birthday off with manicures and pedicures! Then went for drinks and dinner at Z Tejas yum! Then we had frozen yogurt at a very yummy place. Then we hit up Dallas, a country and western night club and went two steppin’! So much fun!!! I also got to meet a few of Julie’s friends, which made me feel a bit old since I was the only hitched one there. I however was very glad to be married by the end of the evening. I don’t envy you single folks waging through that jungle of people to find the right one. Good Luck!! The night didn’t end until the they kick us out at last call. YES LAST CALL! For booze that is! We didn’t leave until 2am. And while Julie may be accustomed to crazy hours, my body hurt so bad this morning it wasn’t funny! I felt hung over and I didn’t even have alcohol! When did that happen!?!

Oh well, I may ache, but I made some good memories with Julie-girl! Happy Birthday!

Well this was Julie’s first Rodeo… literally. Sean Julie and I hit up the Austin Livestock Show and Rodeo yesterday and saw Josh Turner preform. The rodeo was fun and no TOO eventful. No injured cowboys or spaying blood. Just good looking men in tight jeans doing things that most people would think twice about (or more) before doing.

While Josh Turner gave a great performance, and he has a pretty awesome band, I didn’t know that he was so religious or that he needed to push his merchandise so much. Out of the dozen or so songs he played about half were very religious. They were all good songs, but I’m not really into Christian music unless I’m at a Christian function. Hope that doesn’t offend anyone. Also Julie and I both noticed that he pushed his T-shirt  merchandise and CD quite a bit. I mean I already bought the ticket dude, just play your music. I know they’ve got to make a living, but after the third time I was kind of weirded out that he kept mentioning it.

All in all the company, food, show and music made for a good evening. Yea for new experiences!

As many of you whom see me regularly might know, I’ve normally got tummy problems NOT a tummy in heaven. I’ve suffered, since high school if not earlier, with spontaneous and uncontrollable tummy issues. I’d go into detail but some how you don’t really want to know. Recently, after a lot of trial and error, we started to believe I was lactose intolerant, fructose intolerant, gluten intolerant and unable to eat pork. It was pretty troublesome trying to find something to eat, especially if you’re like me and have a sweet tooth. The problem was that although not eating these foods helped, I still had random days where I just felt miserable. Sean finally convinced me to try a new GI doctor. I have been to many over the years and they were all very expensive and wanted to do surgery the first time I met them, I’m not a fan of surgery or hospitals so it was a big turn off.

I found a Dr. Craig Lubin and made an appointment. He started by asking a lot of questions, as did his awesome physicians assistant Mikel (her first name). Between the three of us we came up with a plan. After a few more visits, and in office tests, it was determined that I had an over growth of bacteria in my small bowl. You can read more about it all here or here. After a round of antibiotics, that was almost as bad as the issue itself, I slowly added food back to my diet. I CAN have milk people!! I can also have fructose! Yea for natural sugar and fruit! I can also have pork fat! Yea for bacon and pork belly! I cannot have actual pork meat still, as I’m allergic to the actual protein in pork meat. I also still cannot have gluten as the really bad head aches that last for days (that feel so bad I thought I was developing migraines) I’ve been getting are caused from gluten. So another problem was solved in the process, as I thought that was a girly issue. ;p

Were the antibiotics a cure all? No. I have to take excessive amounts of probiotics on a daily basis to help keep the level of good flora in my tummy from taking over and causing the problems again. I may also have to take another round of antibiotics if the problem persists and I’ll have to get checked for the problem every couple of years. But all in all… HELL YEA!!! Now the only “drugs” I take are allergy meds and probiotic supplements. And the only foods I have to stay away from is pork and gluten. Not too shabby! Yea for solving a problem and not doctoring the issue!

Well I’m just not sure of the things I used to be so sure of. I started back to graduate school last fall and felt that I was on the right track. I truly enjoy law and felt that a master’s degree in legal studies would be a good way to up my chances of making a career for myself. After the holidays, I’m not so sure. Here’s my lengthy thought processes -

Sean and I decided to make new year’s resolutions that involved us not doing something instead of doing something. Sean’s is to quit feeling guilty that we still live in Austin and to quit trying to make a change for no good reason. You see I’ve wanted to live other places since I can remember and for a while there I moved non stop. Since Sean and I decided to get married we had been weighing options as to where we could go. As I’m sure many of you well know, life kept happening while we were thinking about it. Sean now has a stable job he enjoys, we’ve got awesome friends, our furbabies and a home too! Why leave!?! I realized more than a year ago that we would be in Austin quite a while longer… am I upset? NO! We live in a great city! We’re not too far from family and we can always travel. So I asked Sean to stop feeling guilty about the fact that we still live here. He has no reason to, as we’re both quite happy with where we are.

As for what he asked me to quit doing… well he asked me to quit read more »

Well Jessica and Adam’s bundle finally arrived! And its a boy!! Pierce Adam, born 6:45am Sunday, March 6th. He weighed in at 9 lbs 8 oz and is 21 inches long! I’m still getting over the shock that little Jessica had such a big baby!!! We hear that they are all doing fine. Now if only we could drop everything and fly to Michigan and meet him now! I’m so very excited to know that he’s here and I get to meet him in a little over a month!

Photos will follow soon!

So this morning, when I was trying to get laundry together and straighten around the house, I all the sudden became distracted by Daisy being very adamant to be let outside. Thankfully we have potty trained them quite well and when they really need to go they let you know! However, Daisy had been let out not twenty minutes before and had done all her outside “business.” I was curious as to what was making her so frustrated. She kept looking at me like, “Woman! Do something about this situation now!” Then she’d paw at the door and bark one or two times. Then she’d whine and look at me with that stern face again. So I went to look and here is what I saw:

Poor baby was just beside herself! I felt sorry and wanted to let her out, and honestly that squirrel sitting there so hoytie toytie made it a bit hard not to let her at him. Then he goes from being somewhat discreet behind the rocks to this:

I think the little bugger had a death wish. Even poor Duke joined in at this point. A moment later, when I went to turn the knob to the door, he decided it was best to leave. Anyway, I felt this was one of the ultimate pains of being a dog… not having fingers to wiggle that door open and torment that squirrel! Hehehe, hope this made you laugh, I sure did! Happy Thursday!

As many of you might know, my cousin CJ and his wife Heather have been expecting their little one to arrive for about a week now. We were soooo very excited to hear that baby finally decided to join us! Congratulations CJ and Heather! She’s Beautiful!!!

Hannah Irene

Born at: 2:43pm CTS

Lengths: 19 inches

Weight: 8 lbs 5 oz

Yea, yea its a cheesy holiday, but we had a nice one. I hope you all did! Ours started with homemade crepes on my new table top raclette/crepe maker. AWESOME gift honey! Then we worked in the yard and played with the pups, and Sunday we decided to go out for a nice dinner on the town. Monday, the actual holiday, we just told each other how much we love one another! Sean also decided to get me a very awesome piece of lawn art that I’d be pining after. Its a metal artwork pig. AWESOME!

Hope your’s was good!