Sunday night a few of us went for a sunset cruise on the boat! 

Brothers and cousin!

Riley and I just chillin on the boat and loving life!

Ahhh… the sunset on the water is just the prettiest!

I just love being out on the water.  There is something so calming and peaceful about being at the lake. 

Isn’t nature so beautiful? 

The prettiest sunset ever!

Sunset cruises on the lake make me want to live near the lake again!! It never gets old. 

So stunning.

Back to the house we go.

All the cousins!

We played a few games on Sunday night including one of our favorites, CatchPhrase!  It is always a blast!

Family Pictures in our Family Reunion Shirts!

The whole crew!

Thank you to all our family for traveling to be together for this wonderful tradition.  It is always a trip we look forward to each year!! Until next year!!!

Questions:

1. Does your family have family reunions?
2. Are you a lake or beach or mountain person?
3. Tell me something that is going on in your world this week!

Hi guys!! Who else is loving that this is a 4 day work week?  It is nice that it’s already Wednesday!!  Already looking forward to the weekend. 🙂 

Let’s back up a bit… last Friday we woke up super early for our 6:30am flight.  Once we checked in and checked our bags, we got the news that our flight had been cancelled. 😦  Ugh!!  We quickly spoke to customer service and got rescheduled on the next flight, but unfortunately we didn’t get a direct flight.  We had to fly through Orlando.  Here’s our little boy hanging out at the airport being such a good pup while we waited for our final flight to Atlanta.  Because it was a mechanical issue, we both got flight vounchers so that kinda made up for the inconvenience of arriving later and having a layover.  

Once we arrived in Atlanta we were a little worried about our bags.  Our flight options were to fly through Orlando or Nashville so we picked the one that got us there earlier (Orlando).  They told us our bags would get redirected so we looked and looked for them when we arrive with no luck.  Finally a worker found them on an arriving flight from Dallas.   So random, but we were really happy to have our belongings.   I was so happy to have my clothes and my husband was more excited that his golf clubs made the flight. 😉

We headed to the lake, about an hour and a half from the airport, to meet up with my husband’s side of the family for our annual cousin fest!  

Family pictures at the lake!  

My sweet, sweet boys. 🙂

Every year our aunt gets t-shirts made and this is the 6th annual cousin fest.  We had our shirts on for the big group picture, but managed to sneak them off for our individual family picture. 🙂

Meanwhile back in San Antonio, Callie was loving on our friends and their pup.  It is always so nice knowing she is in great hands when we are away.  

We spent the weekend playing with the kiddos, taking boat rides, reading, podcasting, taking long walks, and eating a LOT.  

This little monkey enjoys being in the sun just like his momma. 

Always somewhere nearby me and I don’t mind it one bit. 🙂

Beautiful views from the house.

We just love being at the lake.

Sweet little cousin playing lots and lots of games with me and the rest of the kiddos.  

Lots of work to make food for a crowd and every meal was delish!

Salad and veggies galore!

Saturday night we played poker and guess who won?? 😉

This is Riley’s favorite spot at the lake.  

On more than one occasion we found him basking in the sun here.

Not a care in the world. 

He likes this spot because he can walk into the water to fetch sticks from here.  Riley LOVES swimming, but he doesn’t like jumping in the water so as long as he can walk in… he is not getting out for hours.  The little kids had a blast throwing sticks for Riley to fetch.  

Love this sweet hubby of mine!! 

One more recap of our family reunion lake trip coming soon!! I hope you all have the best day!! 

Questions:

1. Any Memorial Day traditions?
2. Do you have regular family reunions?  If so, how often?
3. If you have a pup, does he/she like the water/swimming?

Hi friends!! I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend.  Thank you to all who have served so that we can be free.  I am forever grateful for your service.  

We had a long weekend in Georgia at the lake with family and I’ll have some recaps up later this week!  Before we left we had a great week at home with the pups.  These pups and my hubby are my favorites.  The pups end up on my side of the bed ever night, but we have a nightly cuddle sesh before falling asleep.  🙂 I just love them so much. 

This is the usual scene.  Both pups on top of me and me trying to sleep. 🙂 

Two weeks ago I had another tummy scare and ended up having soups and smoothies all week.  Thankfully a few days of taking it easy on the eating really helped and I was back to feeling well in no time.  One of my favorite smoothies: ice, vanilla protein powder, frozen banana, magnesium, L-glutamine, cold brew coffee, unsweetened vanilla almond milk and a little almond butter.  It always hits the spot. 

Riley boy always on momma’s lap.  

I never got into Grey’s Anatomy so my husband and I recently started it from the beginning and we are loving it.  We just finished Dexter, Dead to Me and Killing Eve.  I would recommend all of them!!  Have you watched them? 

Sweet Cal girl always nearby. 

My sweet husband took a tumble off a motorized scooter last weekend in Austin when he was there for a bachelor party.  I made him keep ice on his face the whole week.  He was really happy about it. 😉

Cuddling with this sweet boy.  He will literally sleep anywhere.. it is so cute.

You all know my love for salads.  I have been switching them up a bit to keep them interesting and my latest favorite combination is mixed greens, a broccoli slaw mix, cucumbers, beets, chickpeas, pumpkin seeds, dried cherries, goat cheese and sauteed shrimp.  Try this combo.. its delish!!!

My husband was in the middle of a show the other night so I decided to eat dinner at the dining room table and it made me realize how much I love our dining room.  It’s so homey and cozy. 

I caught up on the bachelorette while enjoying my yummy salad!  Is anyone else watching this season?

I make enough salads for the week on Sunday to enjoy for lunch/dinner throughout the week.  Makes for such an easy and yummy meal without much thought, which is right up my alley. 

Recaps our of lake trip to come!! I hope you all have a great (short) week ahead!!

Questions:

1. Favorite lunch you eat often?
2. Any new shows you are loving?
3. How was your Memorial Day Weekend? 

Happy Friday friends!! I hope you all had a nice week and are looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend.  This week has been tough.. I’ve not been feeling great (stomach issues again) so I have had to work from home a bit and take it easy on eating and drinking.  The frustrating part about this whole this is that I can feel great one minute and then really crappy the next.  As of now, I am feeling pretty good and hoping this continues.  

Since the last few weeks have been a little nuts with my health, I am pretty behind on my blog.  But here we are so I’ll share a bit of what’s been happening in my world lately. 🙂

My husband has always been into boys poker nights and as of late last year, I learned to play so I have been joining in on the fun.  Well guess what?  The last one was me and 10 boys and I took home the gold! I’m on a winning streak and I like it. 😉

Last Saturday my husband and I headed downtown to see an early movie.  We saw Long Shot and I wasn’t expecting it to be very good, but yall, it was hysterical!!! We both loved it!

My man took me out to celebrate… or shall I say, I took him out to dinner to celebrate with my winnings. 😉 

We went to Bistro 9 since we have been wanting to return since we went with my in-laws when they were in town.  I got the seared tuna and my husband got some other fish special and we both loved our meals.  Definitely one of our favorite date night spots! 

But I have to tell yall a funny story… we took my husband’s convertible our for date night and as soon as we parked, my husband noticed something fell from the tree above us.  Well… it was poop.  A bird pooped on my dress!  Too funny. 

One of our favorite things to do on date night is ride around in the car on new roads with the top down and search for beautiful houses.  So we did just that before calling it a night. 

We had another date night a couple weeks ago at a new-to-us sushi restaurant to celebrate my hubby’s birthday.  He’s getting old. 😉

We split a bunch of rolls and they were all soooo delicious.  Yes, we ate them all!

My hubby wanted to show off his new cowboy boots he got for his birthday.  🙂 

We also had another date night with our friends at Capparellis.  Omg it was soo delicious!! Yes, that is salmon on my salad. 😉 

Our friends bought a new house so we got to puppy sit for a day.  Callie loves Brody and it is so sweet.  You guys all know that Callie is much for of a human lover than a doggie lover, but she may have converted due to this puppy.  Her boyfriend. 🙂

Jon and I took a walk to get breakfast last weekend at Rise Up.  We split the chocolate acai bowl and it was so tasty!!

Riley licking my smoothie cup clean.  He is such a chunk, we love it. 

Can you spy Riley waiting patiently for his daddy? 🙂

The dogs go whereever we go… it is a little ridiculous, we know. 🙂

A few of our friends convinced us to join a coed volleyball league.  Last Thursday we had our first games.  Let’s just say, we need a little practice. 😉

Jonny made us some mahi mahi on the smoker the other night and I roasted asparagus (added lemon and Parmesan at the end) and sauteed mushrooms with chili powder, paprika and a drizzle of balsamic.  So yummy!

Veggies topped with veggie burgers is my go-to when Jon has tennis late during the week.  Can’t ever get enough veggies! Can you see Riley behind all my food pictures? 😉

Last weekend we went out to dinner with a bunch of our friends at a local Italian restaurant, Braza Brava.  It was delicious!!! I got the salmon, duh, with grilled veggies! 

We grabbed a few drinks while we were out too and had a blast just chatting and playing bar games. All the girlies!

On Sunday we took the dogs on a long walk, did some things around the house, then got ready to head to our friends house for dinner.  On the way, Jon asked if we could stop so he could hit some golf balls.  I’m a nice wife, so I agreed. 😉 

Once we got to our friends house, we played lots of outdoor games and had some appetizers.  It was such a beautiful evening. 

The pups enjoyed running around and lounging in the sun. 🙂

Someone was ready for dinner! 

Family dinner time!  Callie waiting for some droppings. 🙂

Some of the boys!

We made a big salad, grilled corn, burgers and salmon. It was all soo delicious!

I even had some leftover salmon to top my salad for lunch the next day.  Yum!!!!

Tell me what you have been up to in the comments!!! I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!!!

Questions:

1. What is one food you have been loving lately? (mine is obviously salmon :))
2. What are your plans for the weekend? 
3. Do you play golf? (I am so bad, but my husband plays as often as he can)

Hi friends!! Happy Monday!! This Monday is quite a happy one compared to the previous one.  I’ll keep this post short and sweet and save some fun ones for later this week.  

If you didn’t know (I say this because I feel like my husband let the whole world know with all the sweet messages and cards and flowers I received), last Sunday night I ended up in the ER with constant vomiting and sharp, stabbing stomach pains a little before midnight.  We went to a nearby ER (which is affiliated with a hospital, but not attached) and they ended up admitting me to the hospital so I took my first ever ride in an ambulance. Ahh… didn’t think that would ever happen.  

My husband posted this picture from my long hospital stay last year a couple of weeks ago and we have been thanking the lord for all the progress I have made and how happy we are to be home and healthy.  This particular hospital stay was 6 weeks, which was quite unusual and draining.  At the end of this stay I had a bowel resection surgery and left two days later and have been pretty healthy since.  

Well I suppose we spoke too soon because those same symptoms came back last week and we couldn’t get the pain, vomiting, and nausea to stop so back to the hospital we went.  This time was pretty scary since we are now far away from family and friends in San Antonio.  We also aren’t familiar with many doctors or hospitals here so knowing that I may end up in surgery again in a new town was quite alarming.  

I got a CT scan in the ER and the doctor said they could see the blockage clearly.  We never really know what this means because my last stay I had over 15 CT scans and they said they could never really see if it was a blockage or where it was… that is until they finally decided to do exploratory surgery and were able to see the blockage, remove it, and sew me back up.  

I spent Sunday night, Monday and Monday night, Tuesday and Tuesday night in the hospital.  I did a lot of this while my poor husband worried his heart out.  

Our sweet friends took our doggies for a few days.  We are beyond blessed to have such amazing friends in San Antonio that dropped everything to help us.  Our puppies didn’t know anything was wrong and had a blast hanging with our friends and their sweet pup. 

My momma booked a flight to arrive Wednesday night to be with me, but thankfully I was released and able to go home on Wednesday so she decided to stay in Nashville in case I ended up back in the hospital and needed her help later.  I received so many calls, texts, cards, and flowers, I was beyond emotional.  You truly know who your true friends are during the hard, tough times. 🙂 

After my husband showered me and I felt like a human again!  A shower makes all the difference after a few days in the hospital.  

The real MVP.  I do not know what I would do without this man.  He is truly my best friend and he would do absolutely anything for me.  Could you ask for more??  He spent every day and night by my side…all while working too.  We definitely realized how nice it was having so many friends and family in Nashville (and my mother-in-law coming to be with me) last year in the hospital.  This guy did not get a break this time..and he took it like a champ.  I just love him so much. 🙂

After a couple days of bowel rest (aka not eating or drinking anything), I was feeling much better.  After a bowel surgery, this is a common thing that can happen because of scar tissue and adhesions that build up and form from doing any type of surgery on the intestines.  Some people never have issues, some have occasional issues, and some people have to have multiple surgeries (my nurse in the ER told me he had 4 of the same bowel surgeries).  

I am very grateful that this did not end up in another surgery.  I was back to work (from home) Wednesday afternoon and was able to work from home Thursday and Friday so I could rest if needed.  I actually felt much better pretty quickly and was back to feeling like myself by Friday.  I came home to so many flowers I was completely overwhelmed with happiness.  I am one lucky girl. 🙂

I just want to say thank you to everyone who called, texted, emailed, sent flowers, cards, well wishes, and prayed for me.  You will never know how much that meant to me.  I love you all so much and am so grateful for all the beautiful, caring people in my life.  

I hope you all have a wonderful start to your week and I’ll be back soon!! 

Stay happy and healthy!!!!! XOXOXO