louisiana love

this weekend, we drove to louisiana for a long-overdue visit with family and friends. we stopped to see the new and improved allen home in ruston (well, actually its residents...the house was just a plus :) ). we had not seen walter since february and the kids since april so we picked up right where we left off...eva loving uncle lee, emma & jonah sharing all of their latest stories with us, and mario kart on the wii for the guys.

we later made our way to mr. joe's house, grabbed some dinner, played with the kids, and settled in for our first night. monday morning, we woke up to a delicious breakfast from mr joe...but of course i was too excited about food to stop and take a picture.from there, the guys went on to play a little golf while the girls went shopping. let me just tell you, if you ever need a shopping buddy or two, our nieces are the best! seriously, even at 18 months old, eva is an excellent shopper and picks out all the "cute" clothes and shoes. lee also spent a little time in the afternoon working with jonah on his pitching technique.monday night, mr joe and emily whipped us up a delicious catfish & shrimp dinner. we were all sad to say goodbye after such a fun day but it was only for a few hours.tuesday, we met fred and allison for lunch. fred is one of lee's oldest friends and allison is his wife. fred and lee are hysterical when together and today was no different. i had every intention to snap a picture of at least fred and lee, but alas, no picture captured.

we stopped by in ruston again for one last, quick visit with walter, emily, & the kiddos before getting on the road to head back home. our last detour was in shreveport to see lee's mimi. with such a large family, i am continually impressed with how well she keeps up with everyone...all the way down to her many great-grandchildren.

we were both very thankful we were able to squeeze in such a great visit before traveling becomes obsolete for us for a couple of months.

in the kitchen

as may came to a close, our school years ended, and summer began, i promised lee that i would get back to cooking more. our lives were crazy throughout the spring for various reasons...mostly good, just too many to name here...and cooking was generally the last thing i wanted to do at the end of a day.

with summer in full swing, i did not think the excuse of spending too much time at the pool or perusing target was going to justify as a reason to not cook dinner. plus, we are also trying to eat healthier and eat out less (which i realize are pretty much the same thing). i have stocked up on lots of fruit, chicken to grill, and salad greens to mix for tasty eats throughout the day, and i am trying to think of filling, healthy meals for dinner.

over the past few days, i have really amped up my time in the kitchen and begun to follow through with my promise. not all of my recent adventures in the kitchen have been healthy, but they have been tasty :).

• saturday night, i made delicious peanut butter chocolate chip cookie bars from the website healthy food for living.
• sunday morning, i woke up and made lee a scrumptious father's day breakfast of almost-made-from-scratch biscuits (bisquick mix), scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, and fresh fruit cups. monday night, i made the baked ziti from cook this, not that that we love so much.
• AND, for my grand finale (at least up to the point of writing this blog), i made homemade whipped cream for the first time!!! i was nervous it was not going to turn out since i only had enough of the ingredients to make a little bit, but it was delicious & the perfect topping for a dessert fruit parfait!

sadly, i did not take a single picture of any of this food...it was just too good to stop to capture it before digging in!

summer in alabama

after a weekend together in college station, we quickly came home, repacked, and headed out on our summer trips. i went to alabama, and lee headed out to san francisco for a week with his dad and brother...hopefully, he will guest blog again about his week soon :).

my week was full of family time...swimming, shopping, eating...everything we do best :). i also got to catch up with dear friends as well...more to come on that. the (almost) week flew by, but we managed to squeeze in everything we could along the way. even though the camera was on standby the whole time, i forgot to take pictures at a few stops...
-my first day in town, my brother gave a speech to the rotary club my dad is a member of that awarded him with a college scholarship. can't believe he is going to college in a couple of months...
-my aunt and cousins came to swim one afternoon. she will kill me for saying this on the blog, but my aunt swam for what i can remember as only the first time since i was about 4. silly as it may seem, it was a big deal to us! yet, i did not take a picture!
-one morning, i met my dear friend andrea for breakfast at chick-fil-a. we have so many stories and memories together from waaaay back, but it is always so good to catch up and share stories of our lives now.
-that same day, my mom, brother, and i met my grandmother for a quick shopping trip and lunch at red robin. our waiter seemed to have drifted away from our table for a while so we had more than enough time to take a picture but just never did.

now the photographed parts of the trip...
i have mentioned them before, but two of my oldest friends are erin and kimberly...erin, i have known since kindergarten and kimberly, i have known since 7th grade. whenever we can, we try to get together when our schedules allow. they both still live in the prattville area so (unfortunately for them) these times occur whenever i am in town. they have a standing invite to houston anytime which could make for a very fun get together! we went back to the tea room we visited last october, and i think we had an even better time than we did then. the place is adorable, the food is delicious, the hot tea is tasty (and i am generally not a fan of hot tea), and the old ladies who also meet there are hysterical to listen to.of all places, i was able to meet up with shauna & the boys at the cracker barrel in prattville! remember, lee was the one in san francisco, but i got to see most of that pilgreen family. the boys are as cute as ever and were freshly tanned from their week at the beach in georgia. shauna and i got to catch up and share a precious hour-long, breakfast-for-dinner time before i had to leave and they had to finish their journey up to birmingham. can't wait for ben & shauna to make their way to houston in october!my sweet cousin hannah had a piano recital, and i was so excited to actually be able to attend! i do not think i have been able to attend anything like this for her since her kindergarten graduation and dance recitals when she was little. she is very talented and just this year has begun to learn to play by ear. i am very proud of her and so glad i could be there to support her in person.my dad decided he wanted to do father's day about a week early since all three of his children would be home at the same time (for a very small window of time), and this does not happen all that often. we went to his favorite mexican restaurant in town and gave him his presents then. he is a pretty awesome dad, if i do say so myself. he tends to work too hard but always wants to do the right thing and take care of his family so it is hard to fault him for that.lastly, brendan was blessed and showered with gifts once again by the ladies at my parents' church, the church i grew up going to. more from this shower (including photos) will be in a later post...

like i said, a busy week but a sweet, sweet time with many of the people i love dearly.

summer is here!

we officially kicked off our summer with a long-overdue weekend in college station. we had not seen an aggie baseball game in person since probably march or early april. however, with summer upon us and the aggies hosting a college world series regional (i do not even know if that is the right name for it), we were itching to get out of town.

we made it in right after the first game had started and sat down just in time to see a sweet in-the-park homerun which was soon followed by quite a few more runs that evening. the aggies played my favorite kind of baseball game: quick and lots of runs!saturday, we began our day with breakfast at rudy's because you just cannot start a day in college station off any other way. boy, had i missed those yummy breakfast tacos! we went shirt shopping, caught a couple of heats at a swim meet while 2 of the garrett girls competed, and finished that up with a swim of our own at the garrett house. saturday night was capped off with another aggie victory and possibly hotter temps than friday night....we were excited to see 93 degrees on the scoreboard...at the end of the game!

with both of us about to leave on separate trips (posts to follow, of course), we decided it would be best to head back home before the last game of the series so we could get everything packed up and ready to go. even though we may have jinxed the aggies by not staying (they received their first loss of the weekend sunday night), we did get to spend some quality time with baby will which is infinitely better than a baseball game :).