Summer Lovin'

Im telling you, I cant keep up this summer! Where is the time going?
We are gone EVERY weekend. I am thankful that we have family and friends to go see. I am thankful that we have cars that will get us where we want and need to go. I am thankful for a nice cozy house to come home to and a job that allows me to travel on the weekends.

BUT... Im exhausted! After the lake on the Fourth (which was a blast by the way!), I went to New York City with my best friend, Lindsay. It was the most time Ive gotten to spend with her one-on-one for probably 2 years. She and I have been best friends since our moms introduced us in the 2nd grade. We have had countless sleepovers, makeovers, dress-up parties, tea parties, play dates, dates with boys, school dances, dance teams, and FUN together! She was my Maid of Honor, and while we got to see each other a lot with all the wedding events, there was always an agenda, and always other people around. We went to NYC to visit her sister who is doing a summer internship in PR up there in Manhattan... what a cool opportunity! (and she has NO problem getting people to come visit her either...)

We had a wonderful time. So many laughs, a few heart-to-hearts, lots of adventures, and just girl time. I miss that, and my other 3 best friends back in San Antone.
ONE DAY hopefully I'll be back there...

Last weekend, we had my "baby" cousin's high school graduation party! What!! Stop growing up everyone! We had the party in Ft Worth at my grandparent's house and Meredith came up from Waco with her boyfriend, Tucker, and her brother, Travis, who happened to be home on leave from the Air Force. We were so happy he could make it.

Meredith came with me to my new student conference at A&M when she was 12... and it seems like last year we did that. Now it is her turn for her new student orientation! She is attending UTA for Nursing and I couldnt be more proud of her. She is so mature for her age and really has her sights set high for her career.
WAY TO GO MEREDITH!

This coming weekend = the crazy, jam-packed wedding marathon weekend!

We have 2 friends getting married (well... 4 friends, 2 couples), one Friday night, and one Saturday night. Matt happens to be a groomsman in the Saturday wedding, so our agenda is: Drive to Dallas, check into hotel, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, wedding, and reception on Friday; wedding day festivities, pictures, wedding, reception, and seeing our friends Saturday! Pray that I get some beauty sleep in there sometime!

My summer might be busy, but it's anything but boring!

Hope your summer is FUN and maybe a little RELAXING, too...

Stampin' Up!!

I went to my friend's card-making party last night, and it was a blast. As people may know, Im into scrapbooking. I have a die cutting machine and lots of paper, stickers, glue, ribbon, buttons, brads, etc hanging around in my "craft" room. Basically the only supply Im short on is TIME. I wish I could scrapbook more, about vacations and events.... *daydreaming*

Matt encourages me in this hobby, as well as sewing, and I am thankful for that. I've made some stationery for people before (people = my mom) and they turned out really cute. I just used cardstock and patterned paper die cuts and letters. However, I have never really gotten into stamping. There are soooooo many cute stamps out there, that it can get really expensive! After going to this party last night, I feel like getting more into card-making and stationery gifts. Im pretty excited. Now I just need to look through this awesome catalog at all of their adorable stamp sets and get started!

In other news, the Fourth of July is coming up! I bought our FIRST American flag to hang in our front yard (we had a flag holder on one of our trees already, just no flag). I found some USA window clings and Im making a wreath for our porch. I love decorating for holidays! Something I know I learned from my mom. Thanks a lot, Denisa, for giving me this obsession.... There may or may not also be stars-and-stripes-themed table linens on my dining room table right now....
We're going to the lake for the holiday with family for some wakeboarding and waterskiing, but thanks to hurricane Alex, we may be playing dominoes and eating in the house the whole time! But thank God for rain. Our yard looks thirsty!

Here Comes the Sun...

Completely contradicting the title of this post, it is actually pouring rain in Bryan right now... absolutely flooding. The auditors that are here this week took our office out to lunch (BBQ, Mmmm!) and on the way back I had my windshield wipers in panic-mode-high-speed, and I still had trouble seeing! The funny thing is.... Matt watered the lawn last night. Doesn't that always happen? I should have washed my car, too, and seen what happened. Tornado? Hurricane?
Anyways, SUMMER is officially here, apparently. I counted it as summer long before the solstice, and I believe that the solstice must be what yankees use to tell if summer is upon them. In Texas, all you need is a thermometer. It's been summer since May, easily. The day I had to stop running outside at 4:30pm because I was going to have a heat stroke was the day it became summer.
And along with summer, comes summer trips! We're going to our sister/brother-in-laws house to swim this weekend in NRH with the fam, and have a big joint birthday celebration for summer birthdays. The weekend of the Fourth, we're going to Matt's brother Jake's girlfriend's parent's lake house. Did you get that? My brother-in-law Jake has a girlfriend named Cortney, and her parents have a lake house and wakeboarding/waterskiing boat. Needless to say, Im pretty tan already from the beach and I only foresee my tan getting darker. Exciting for the girl that turns yellow underneath her flourescent lights in the office all day, all year. We have every weekend booked up til August, and every single one will be spent with family or at weddings, and mostly outside. I LOVE SUMMER. Let me leave you with a few words from my boys, the Beatles:
Here comes the sun, Here comes the sun, and I say it's all right....
Little darling, its been a long cold lonely winter.
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun, Here comes the sun, and I say it's all right
Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces.
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun, Here comes the sun, and I say it's all right.

Port Aransas

We went to Port Aransas this past weekend for my mom's birthday (I wont tell you how old she is, she may catch wind of it and spank me) and for Father's Day. Port A is our favorite family place to go. It's only 3 hours from San Antonio, so we went there a lot growing up. From Bryan, its almost 5 hours! Matt and I left Friday after he got home from work, so we didnt show up to the condo til almost 11. We decided to take Wiley with us for his very first beach trip! We were a little skeptical about how he was going to react to the water... he's definitely NOT a water dog. However, seeing as how he loves to dig in the back yard, we were hoping he'd dig a lot in the sand and get it all out of his system before we came back home! He did fairly well in the surf and played in the shallow waves. As soon as a wave hit him in the face though, he wasn't having any more of that. The funniest part was the face he would make when it would go in his mouth. Hilarious. He'd forget it was salt water, try to drink it, and then sneeze and stick his tongue out. He acts like a little kid sometimes, I swear.
Anyways, Friday night was an interesting night. There was a bachelor party in the condo above us on the 3rd floor, and they were CRAZY. Im all for fun and games, but this was OVER THE TOP. We could hear their music and chants of "Shot! Shot! Shot!" in the parking lot. Three stories and 30 yards away. My dad had gone up there to chat with them earlier about their deadline of midnight, and after that point we were going to be calling the cops for noise. As expected, they got twice as bad. They were on the balcony throwing beer cans off after they chugged them, and they were landing on our balcony (which we were sitting on and trying to enjoy). The point of no return was: urinating off the balcony. Yes, you heard that right. I was sitting on the balcony as an inibriated man above me urinated. The wind was blowing. I was furious.
I yelled a few words at him that Im not proud of, and ran inside to tell my dad what had happened. Big mistake. 911 was called. Police AND constable came. Guy was arrested. Other guys were evicted from the condo and cited. The end. Want to hear the best part of the whole thing? The guy who went to jail had to have his mommy and daddy come bail him out and they were ALL wearing Baylor shirts.. I LOVE IT!
Saturday brought peace and quiet (ahhhh!) as we relaxed on the beach and tried to forget the night before. My dad took Wiley swimming in the surf over his head (poor little guy) and I went out there to save him. As he swam towards me, his claw came in contact with my hand, hooked my Aggie ring, and flung it into the ocean. In the surf, never to be seen again! I was in shock. I started diving immediately to find it. Waves were pushing me around and I was gulping for breath. My adrenaline causes me to lose my breath quickly I think, because I had an underwater limit of about 5 seconds. Everything I ran my hand across on the bottom of the ocean was a seashell. My ring was gone. About that point, my mom came to save Wiley, who had fallen by the wayside and was still swimming around. My dad was feeling along the bottom with his feet, and came across something hard. It was a seashell. He came across something else, and he just KNEW it was my ring. I was skeptical, but I swam over to check it out anyway, as he held his position against the crashing waves. I found his leg and shimmied down it and dug something out from under his foot. As I washed the sand off, I realized it had a hole through it. IT WAS MY RING! I was elated and my dad and I started jumping around screaming and hugging. A couple in the surf next to us looked at us like we were CRAZY but I could have cared less. Now for those that dont know, the Aggie ring (to Aggies) is just as important as the wedding ring. I was going to be so depressed if it was lost. Seeing as how I can't afford to buy another one right now, I would have been ringless.
After wayyyy too much excitement packed into one weekend, we had a nice quiet dinner in the condo and did birthday presents and Father's Day presents. We went to bed fairly early with no one above us stomping and yelling. Sunday we went back out to the beach for more peace and quiet. Ahhhh. I can almost smell the salty air as I write this and look down at the Aggie ring on my hand.
Hope you had a happy Father's Day!

One Year Already!

Well, we are going to have our ONE YEAR anniversary in 2 days. I cant believe how fast the time has gone. Between Matt's school, my work, all our trips out of town on weekends, getting Wiley, time with friends during the week, working on our house, etc.... its just flown by. It's been the best year of my life so far. I cant wait to see what's in our future!
We are celebrating this whole weekend in various ways. Matt has homework for his ACCOUNTING class that he's taking this summer (Im so proud!! and I can finally help him with homework!) so we wont be completely free. Tonight we're going to First Friday in downtown Bryan. This is one of our favorite things to do! There is "Art Step", which is a showcase of local artists and photographers at different galleries, and you can just walk in/out and browse. Also, all the restaurants and bars are open late, and its a big event for the community - lots of people come out, and you inevitably see someone you know. Tomorrow, we're going to our friend's son's one-year-old birthday party! It's going to be a big cookout, playing washers and watching babies smash cake all over the place. Good times. After that, we're coming back to Bryan to eat out at Christopher's, one of the nicest restaurants in town. It's a steakhouse with EXCELLENT food and dessert. This will be our big celebration dinner. We decided not to get each other gifts this year... because.... drum roll.......
next week, we're going to the BAHAMAS. Random! I know. Our friend's dad owns a sailboat, and sailed it down to the Bahamas a couple of months ago, and we have the opportunity to visit him. He and his wife will be staying in a hotel, and we will be living on the 2 bedroom, 2 bath sailboat, free of charge. So, pretty sweet deal and too good of an opportunity to pass up. We feel very blessed and lucky to be going and can not WAIT to be beach bums living on a sailboat for a few days. It feels like a dream! This actually IS my dream; live in a tropical place and be a beach bum. So, I will be journaling our trip on here and cant wait to post pictures of beautiful, turquoise and green water. Last year we were in Jamaica on our honeymoon on Matt's birthday, and the way it worked out, this year we'll be in the Bahamas on his birthday. I told him I could get used to spending his birthday in the Caribbean every year if he could.... ;)
til next week.......

Locks of Love

I really love this charity. If you have a lot of hair, and you like to help others, read into it. Or if nothing else, if you're changing your look and cutting a bunch of hair off anyway, mail it in! I learned about it in high school, and have done it twice now. It's scary at first, but hair and fat always grow back, as my grandma says.... Heres a before and after. Buh bye, 12 inches! Make someone happy!

Long Time, No See!

Wow, this blogging thing is more difficult than I thought it would be to keep up with!

So much has happened in the near 2 months its been since I posted. Matt was super busy with grad school, finishing up his first year (yay!), but that also means the wifey is really busy, too. As much as I love it, its a lot of work! I've heard before that wives supporting their husbands through school claim to have a "PhT" degree (Putting hubby Through) and I would agree with that statement. Anyways, on to the fun (and crazy) activities.

Me and my old roommate Amanda started running together again, almost every day, after I get off work at 4. She and I were potluck roommates in the dorms at A&M and lived together the next 2 years as well, until she got married. In college, we used to work out and run together a lot, so we're trying to get back into shape together. Its really neat because we now live in the same neighborhood in Bryan, so we see each other a lot and can run to each other's houses easily.

the Northcutts and their puppy

Let's catch up on activities and events from the past 2 months: Spring break at the beach was a lot of fun... We went to the ranch in Mason to hang out in March but it was FREEZING... Then we had my cousin's wedding in Ft Worth and Easter... Then my brother Aaron came to Bryan to stay with us and go see Willie Nelson in concert (way awesome!)... We went back to the ranch to see the bluebonnets and take pictures... I hung out with a lot of my friends for the last time since they are graduating from A&M and moving on... I went home for Mother's day and Ms. Lindy's FIFTH birthday... I can't believe she's old enough to be 5! ... I chopped my hair off for Locks of Love (see separate post).... and this past weekend, we threw a housewarming party for Aaron! My grandparents all came to town, and we also celebrated my dad's 54th birthday. He wanted us to ignore it, but we couldnt pass up an opportunity to make him feel old. ;)

I've been having TERRIBLE allergies this spring and I hope they go away, along with all the pollen and mold. Guess that's what I get for living in east Texas. Ick.

On to PICTURES! Enjoy! I hope everyone is having a great start to summer!!

Patricia and Jim in Port Aransas

Matt and I on the jetties

Benny and Laura on their wedding day

Wiley eating an Easter Egg!

Our family on Easter Sunday

Willie Nelson LIVE!

Bluebonnets and Cactus... stark contrast

in the field, surrounded

Miss Lindy on her birthday

me and mom at the Spurs game

Housewarming Party

 Happy Birthday Dad!

That's all folks!