Sweet Surprises

This weekend I went on a lovely date with my fabulous husband!  We decided to hit up The Heights first since that is where I will be working and spending a lot of time.  Our first destination was the Art Car Museum...we lived in Houston about 5 mins away and this was our first trip there.

We also found this super charming place called Dessert Shoppe on 19th in The Heights, and it was incredible.  They had all kinds of yummy, caloric fabulousness, but Nick and I decided on cupcakes.  It was an amazing choice, but I bet everything there is wonderful.

We also saw Dinner For Schmucks, which was hilarious.  I love Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, and the movie really was excellent...as my brother put it, "it is a comedy that actually has a really good plot"!

Dinner was interesting, to say the least.  We decided to try Tokyohana only to find that it had some sweet surprises and some disappointments as well.  To begin, I have never been to a restaurant where a magician walks around.  I am being very serious, there was a magician who walked to each table doing card tricks.  I haven't quite decided if it was off-beat and fun or just odd and a little disturbing.  Anyway, food was ok, the portions were huge, as was the price, and it is the only hibachi restaurant I have ever been to that makes you pay extra for the soup and salad.  It wasn't a bad experience, just not as good as we would have liked.

We had a very successful date, did lots of exploring in The Heights, and enjoyed a day where it was just the two of us!  On a completely different note, yesterday was of course Sno-Cone Sunday, and my brother joined us and spent the evening with us.  He has since decided that he will always join in on Sno-Cone Sunday and Selina, his girlfriend can't wait to come next weekend!  Weekend was amazing, and unfortunately my summer is officially over and it is back to work for me...

R2-Sweet Tooth

We have a new addition to the kitchen...

Meet R2-Sweet Tooth!  I think this is the cutest cookie jar ever, I love it.  Nick and I watch Big Bang Theory and once we saw their robot cookie jar we knew we wanted one too.  He is already full of homemade chocolate chip cookies, and looks fabulous in his new home!

Work, work, work...and fabulous furniture!

I know I have been super MIA, but things have been slightly crazy!

So, in May I accepted a job with Houston ISD at one school.  Well, skip to a month and a half later and I still have no contract and am getting nervous.  I decide to go ahead and take interviews instead of turning them down in case something happens with the first school.  I went on an interview for a dream job at an amazing school, and they offered me the job!  Turns out the first principal had offered me a job that didn't really exist yet so it was taking forever because HR was still approving the job.  I felt deceived and worried that the job might not even get the ok, and I really, really wanted the second job.  After much discussion, debate, and prayer I called the first principal, told her thanks but no thanks.  I called the second job and accepted it!  I accepted last Thursday and went to sign my contract last Friday!  I will now be working at a Vanguard school in HISD working with GT and Pre-AP kids teaching English...plus, it is a middle school!!  I am beyond excited!  Well, then the school had me attend a class at Rice University this week to learn more about teaching GT and Pre-AP kids as well as getting certified to teach it too!  It has been crazy and stressful, but I know God totally took care of us and we are beyond grateful for this opportunity.

On a completely different note, Nick and I got a beautiful china cabinet off of Craig's List.  I loved it but wanted to repaint it.  Nick on the other hand loved it!  The people we bought it from had just re-done the whole piece so it didn't need work, I was just not sold on the color.  After much convincing, we decided to leave it alone and make it an accent piece in the formal dining room.  I will tie the color in and make it work for the room. So, here it is...

We love it, and as you can see some of our China is already in it.  It is a beautiful antique piece of furniture, and I think it will be gorgeous in our formal dining room.  The goal is to finally get a big table by the end of the year.  It needs to sit at least 8 because just the current immediate family that lives close is 8.  It should really be bigger since we have lots of family, but this will work fabulously!  I can't wait to actually have the formal living/dining area done!

Happenings...

As usual I have been a slacker when it comes to posting.  Nick and I have kind of been all over the place.  We have had family stuff, friend stuff, and us stuff.  Yesterday was the first time we were actually at home most of the day.  Anyway, here is what is going down at our house...

I had mentioned that I was doing black frames down one of our hallways.  Here are some completed frames, and here is the start of the hallway:

It is still a work in progress, but I love it so far.  I love having old family pictures in the house, and having everyone that we love be in our house is awesome.  I think it makes our house feel like a home!

Then I changed the breakfast table to be more summery, and the best part...it was free!  You can't see how fabulous the place mats are, but trust me!  They are from Target and are so so cute.  The red napkins I had.  The sunflowers are from a garden turned farm just across the street.  They said we could take however many we wanted, and I put them in a Santowski milk bottle.  So lovely!

Weekend Love

We had a wonderful weekend!  Friday we just relaxed at home, which was so nice.  Saturday we had a date, and, as usual, it pretty much revolved around food.  Dinner was at Chicken Kitchen and was ridiculously good, and actually healthy!  From there we decided to try something new for dessert...Epicure Bakery.  It was this awesome European place, and the dessert was incredible.

I had the strawberry role.

Nick had the Vienna chocolate cake.

They also had some cookies that looked crazy good, so we got some to take home and try later.  Also, the big thing we had to get because we got them the whole time we were in Italy.  I have no idea what it is, but it is amazing!

Afterward, we went to Barnes and Noble, got Starbucks, and looked at travel books.  It was such a great way to spend our Saturday.  We planned vacations that are in the far future, but it was fun nonetheless.

Sunday was our family day!  My dad's birthday is today so we celebrated yesterday at my brother's house.  We all just hung out outside...they fished in the pond, Ginny and I laid on a blanket reading, we grilled, zip lined, and spent the day in each others company.  My brother lives on 9 acres, so we had plenty to do there!

Great weekend, and I only work three days this week!