So long 2011

Holy moly this year went by FAST! 2011 was definitely a roller coaster at the Brown house. Daniel's business continued to grow and it looks like 2012 may be a big year for him, I retired (which was the best decision ever), we went to France, Miami, Santa Fe, Dallas, and New York, I started working on my third bachelors degree and we spent lots of time with friends and family. We were definitely blessed in 2011! I think we are both looking forward to 2012 and cannot wait to see what is ahead.

Cowboys!

.....This post will have A LOT of pictures, especially of Miles Austin. Consider yourself warned......

The whole reason we were in Dallas was to see the Cowboys play the Giants. The vendor that offered my dad tickets had a suite, and you do not say no to suite seats. Let me just say, that the food they serve is beyond amazing. On the way to the suite, a lady in the elevator was going on about the macaroni and cheese. She did it no justice. It was beyond amazing and I am still dreaming about going back and eating more. Here are some of the pictures from our adventure.


Heading into the stadium


Christmas tree in the lobby


In the Bombardier suite


The view from our seats


The BEST white truffle macaroni and cheese


Waiting for the game to start


Go Cowboys!


Cowboys cheerleaders


Fancy-shmancy flags


The Cowboys


My angel


Hard at work


I think he said Any Given Sunday, but I was distracted by his beauty


Yay Miles!


Looking amaze on the sideline


They lost but we still had fun

We had so much fun and would love to go back and sit in the suite again (subtle, right?). Stay tuned for my next post when I give every dirty detail of when I met...

The Big D (and I do mean Dallas)

My dad's job definitely has some perks. Growing up we got to travel a lot and got lots of tickets to different concerts. This year, one of his vendors offered to give him four tickets to the Cowboys game versus the Jets. So naturally he invited Daniel, who love the Cowboys, and me, who loves Miles Austin. We hadn't been to Dallas for almost two years, so we were very excited to get to go visit and see some friends.

We flew in Saturday night and went out to eat with my parents in Grapevine. We ate at Esparza's, which is always delish and their margaritas are even better.


The Browns


My dad being ridiculous


My mom agreeing that he's ridiculous


The fish tacos which were good minus the random BBQ sauce


Pretty lights in downtown Grapevine

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas from our family to yours!

Vega adventures

I have a confession. November got away from me and I never really planned a date night. I feel terrible so I decided that since we have a "No Date November" that we would be doing a "Double Date December." That's right, ladies and gentleman, I decided to plan two dates for December, in addition to our trip to NYC.

Our first date was this past weekend. What do you want to do on a small town Friday night? You head to an even smaller town to have dinner, obviously. There is a restaurant in Vega that is ran by a woman who was on some CMT show. It is supposed to be really good and we have talked about going there before, but have never done it. I thought it would be fun to go check it out and that is exactly what we did.

We made the hour-long drive and arrived at Boot Hill. It is decorated like an old saloon and all the waitresses are dressed like saloon girls, which was interesting. We were one of three tables on the restaurant side, but there were lots of people in the bar.


Our bucket o' fried crap


My little bit of green


The gigantic chicken fried steak


It looks like I ate a lot but the plate was really big, I swear


Daniel looking cray cray


Date night success!

The food was good and we had a lot of fun on our little adventure. Hopefully Double Date December will make up for No Date November.

Christmas at the Browns

I know everyone is saying this, but I really cannot believe that Christmas is in three weeks and the year is almost over. Christmas is my favorite time of the year, not only because of presents, and I love all the decorations. I have gotten so many great ideas from Pinterest and was very excited to decorate.

On Thursday, our friend and interior designer Jennifer came to town to help us decorate. I love having her around because she helps validate my decisions and points me in the right direction when it comes to decorating. We decided to have her help because I am hosting the dessert portion of a progressive dinner and Christmas is big business in small towns. This dinner also gave us the motivation to redo our guest bathroom, which I will post pictures of once we get our new shower curtain.

Here are a couple pictures of Jennifer's work. She is amazing and we lucky to have found her.


Our tree


The mantle


A fun wreath


Greenery in front of the television


And on the dining room table


French door decorations



Merry Christmas from the Browns!

Thanksgiving recap

We had such a fab Thanksgiving! My whole family came, which was lots of fun. This also meant that we did not have to travel, which was a real treat. Our small town doesn't have tons going for it, so we are usually the ones that get to travel for holidays, but not this year.

The best part of Thanksgiving, besides family, is the food and we had LOTS of it! I made a breakfast casserole and then my mom, sister, and I got busy in the kitchen. It was definitely more of my mom and sister getting busy and me wandering in and out. We had a turkey (of course!), mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, and green bean bundles for dinner. Everything was good and best of all we had lots of leftovers. I'll give you one guess what we've been eating at the Brown house. For dessert, I made a butter cake and my mom made a pumpkin pie and a pumpkin cheesecake.

The spread


My very beige plate

We were blessed that our family got to come to town for Thanksgiving and definitely gave lots of thanks for all the blessings in our lives!