Turkey Day

Chris and I were so excited to host Thanksgiving this year!  We had Chris’s Mum over from Scotland and my Mommy and Don came down from Arkansas.  We had a super traditional menu and even cooked a whole turkey!  For the turkey, we did a brine and it turned out SO juicy!  I usually don’t like turkey that much, but ours was awesome (if I do say so myself).

Getting the turkey ready to soak for the night

Chris and Turkey Lurkey

The table!

Turkey Lurkey all cooked up!

Chris carving his first of many Thanksgiving turkeys!

Soup course. Chris's Mum made a lovely Carrot and Coriander soup!

The main course! Soooo yummie!

Chris and I have so many things to be thankful for this year.  We were extra thankful that my Mom was able to come down, even though she didn’t feel that great it was still nice to be able to spend some time with her.  We are also so thankful that Chris’s Mum was able to join us, she was so helpful and I don’t think our house has even been as clean!

We hope everyone else’s Turkey Day was as special as ours!

More House Tweaking!

I know, I know…the story of our lives…working on the house!  It’s a good thing that we 1. like working with eachother and 2. like working on our house!  We got new windows about a month ago and I LOVE THEM!  It is SO nice to be able to open the windows!  We had originally planned to repaint the trim on the exterior of the house since we were getting some wood replaced as well, but when the windows got installed we (and by we, I mean me) decided that we needed a whole new paint scheme and new columns for the front of the house!  To be fair, the columns were rotten and would have needed to be replaced sooner or later!  It’s also a good thing that Chris loves me so much and will put up with my crazy ideas…and build colums for me!  So, here we go…the front of house transformation!

The house before

 

The house after the new windows

Tearing down the old column!

Ew.

Naked column!

Lookin good!

Trim!

Time to paint!

Ta da! We think it is SO much more fresh and friendly!

Now off to finish the 20 other projects we have in the cue!

One down…

three to go…

I’ve been on the look out for new dining room chairs to go with my new dining room table (not done yet…post to come soon).  Chris and I were at the farm many months ago rummaging through Papaw’s shop and I discovered 6 bentwood chairs!  Yes, bentwood chairs!  I asked Grandma about them and she said that they came out of Prescott Middle School, they were giving them away and she took a few home.  I’m pretty sure they had been in the shop since then so she let me take them off of hands!  I was giddy with the possibilities!  They were really dirty and had a few wasps nests in them, but I think they cleaned up pretty nicely!

Before...well, this was after a bit of cleaning. I wish I would have had my camera to capture them in full shop glory!

During...

Lots o painting

After!

!!! I love them!

I COULD NOT keep the dogs out of the pictures! They are such divas!

Does it look as good as the $119 version???

My Grandma will never throw another thing away after reading this post!

Weekend Getaway

For my birthday, Chris arranged a weekend getaway at a cabin in Oklahoma + a spa day at Winstar Casino Hotel!  This past weekend was finally the weekend we got to cash it in!  We headed to Thackerville, Oklahoma after work on Friday were greeted in town by the owner of the cabin who showed us the way to our cabin for the weekend.  It was SO nice and there was no internet or cell service so we were both able to unplug and relax for the weekend!

Chris had champagne, a cake and balloons arranged for our arrival!

The cake was YUMMIE!!

Our little home away from home!

 

Hot Tub!!

Our little porch!

The "creek" when we aren't under an extreme drought, this usually has water in it!

Grill master!

Go on, you know you want to do it!

Yay for relaxation!

Our tex-mex feast on night #2, Chris learned his lesson about cutting the meat/veggies too small!

We had a GREAT weekend and it was so nice to only have to drive a little over an hour to escape the hustle and bustle of Dallas!  I think we might just have to return one of these days!

 

 

 

Vibha 5k

Well, we’ve got another one in the books!  Last weekend, we did the Vibha 5k over at White Rock Lake.  It was a really small race compared to the other ones that we have done, but it was very well put together and we had a great time!  Even though we shaved 1 minute off of our 5k time, we could have done SO much better!  I think every race teaches me many lessons and this one was no exception.  This time I learned the lesson of proper pre-race preparation.  I thought I could go out on Friday night for a couple of drinks…well, a couple turned into a few and a few = dehydration the next morning.  I tried to gulp down water before the race, but the damage had already been done.  The race also started a tad bid later than it was scheduled for so it ended up being pretty hot for the actual race.  Dehydration + heat = upset stomach and stomach cramps 1/2 way into the race…not good.  I struggled through it and my amazing hubby would not leave me behind even though I was begging him to and we ended up pulling out a PR even with the not so ideal conditions.  So, next time, NO boozing it up the night before!  Here are some of our pictures and the race pictures.  Note to self, never wear a running skirt to a race again…I HATE the way all of the pictures turned out, but I’ll share them anyway so it’s not just a big post of text.  Enjoy!

Sunrise at White Rock. LOVE that this is practically in our back yard!

After the race. REALLY hot and not feeling so great...

Walking around pre-race

See Chris? He's right next to the guy in the yellow shirt!

SO mad this guy was stealing our finish line glory!

And we're done!

Upcoming Races:

Sunrise on South Beach-Miami September 18th So excited about this one!  I’m going to Miami for the weekend to meet Chris and we decided to so a race while we are there!

Lost Dog 5k-White Rock Lake Dallas October 9th

Rock and Roll 1/2 Marathon-Dallas March 25th, 2012  We haven’t officially signed up for this one, but we are thinking about it.  It sounds like a really fun race and I’ve heard that the Rock and Roll series is really well put together.  Want to join us Uncle Steve???

Dining Room Makeover-Revealed!

We’ve spent the last couple of weekends doing phase 1 of the dining room makeover.  Being an interior designer, I am surrounded by the most wonderful materials every day at work and probably two years ago I fell in love with this particular wallpaper and knew one day that I HAD to use it.  When we moved into our house and started dreaming about what it could be, I suggested that we use “my” wallpaper in the dining room.  Surprisingly, Chris said yes!  I know wallpaper is a pretty cringe worthy word these days, but I really love how it turned out!  Here is how the dining room looked before:

The walls in that room are pretty textured so step 1 was smooth out the walls.  Chris also wanted to install crown molding to match what we have in the living room.  So we had a fair amount of prep work to do before we could install the paper.

My very own handy man!

Crown molding up, walls smoothed. Check and check!

Time to paint. Chris leaves the painting up to me and my steady painters hand genes. Thanks Mom!

The first and easiest piece of the day! Thank goodness there were only 2 corners!

The finished product! The base color is a metallic silver with matte yellow flowers over it, it looks different from every angle and I LOVE it!

I think we spent close to an hour on that corner! Wallpaper is NOT easy!

The finished product! And, I caught Chris cleaning the windows in the background...is he too good to be true or what??

Here is a sneak peak at phase 2:

Picture Wall Complete!

I finally picked pictures for the picture wall and I LOVE how it turned out!!  Here it is again before:

Before

And AFTER:

I did a little rearranging from the last post and added a big white & sign...perfect for our wedding wall!

And, a little closer. I adore our wedding pictures and I am so happy we found a place to put some of our faves! I also like that we can easily add to the picture wall over the years...should be fun!

Chris is making breakfast and I’m relaxing until we have to start our weekend job…house work!  Today we are finishing up the wallpaper in the dining room and hopefully finishing up the crown molding in the kitchen.  Maybe I’ll have pictures for you tomorrow!  We have some friends coming over for dinner tonight so we better get to work!  Have a happy Saturday!

 

 

Saag Peaneer by Mama Pea

Oh my deliciousness!  This recipe is a keeper!  This dinner does require a bit of pre-planning, but it is TOTALLY worth it.  Mama Pea calls for you to use brown rice, but we used udon noodles because they are so yummie.  Chris says this one gets added to the list.  Thanks Mama Pea!  Go check out the recipe and make it tomorrow night!

http://peasandthankyou.com/recipage/?recipe_id=6002851

Tofu before broiling

And, after broiling. Should be nice and brown.

Simmering the sauce

All together now. That sauce was SO good, I could have eaten it all by itself!

Mmmmm, can't wait to eat the leftovers!

Home Improvement, Part I

Our home improvement list pretty much went on hold during the lead up to the wedding, but we are finally starting to get back on track!  First up, adding a tile backsplash to the kitchen.  We thought the kitchen needed a little sprucing up and I think the backsplash did the trick.  It was our first time to do tile and I think we did pretty good…if I do say so myself!  It took us most of the day one Saturday, but I think it was totally worth it…see for yourself:

Before

Before

After!

We used a blend of polished marble, tumbled marble and glass. We love it!

Next on the list:  crown molding and wallpaper for the dining room.  Yes, I said wallpaper!

The 10k

The 10k…hmmm…where to start?  The 10k was definitely a learning experience…yes, a learning experience.

I learned:

1.  that I never want to do a night run again.  8pm is WAY to late for me to be running 6.1 miles.  Starting at 8:00 is just weird.  All of our other long runs have happened on Saturday mornings…get up, eat a small breakfast, go run.  Well, race day went a little differently…get up, have breakfast, lay around, try not to do anything strenuous, eat lunch, think about what we can do that won’t make us tired, eat dinner, go to the race…my stomach was not having any of this night run business

2.  that I never want to sign up for a 10k that also has a 5k.  Our 10k course was two laps of the 5k course…so…basically, we crossed the finish line at 1/2 way and still had to run another 3.1 miles…talk about demoralizing.

3.  that night runs really aren’t any cooler…temperature wise.  It was hot.  Period.

4.  that I have THE BEST husband in the world!  Even when I was dying (and I.Was.Dying) he stuck by my side and made me finish the race.  He also made me sign up for another 5k in two weeks…I know.

So, if anything, I did learn some valuable lessons for future races…maybe future 10k’s?  Hmmm…don’t know if I’m ready to go that far yet!

Dying. Just ready for it to be over.

I never thought I would see the finish line again!!!

This is right after we were done...and those are fake smiles on both of our faces...