The Duke Botanical Gardens are a sight to behold. The only thing we missed out on was the Rose Garden because roses aren't in bloom yet. This place was amazingly gorgeous. From the budding flowers, to the green trees, the water fountains, the sun rays, the covered bridges, and the all male chorus choir who sang acapella while you toured the grounds...it couldn't get much better. Unless you fed me dinner. By this time of the day after 10 hours of Duke and an 8 mile run, I was getting pretty tired and hungry. I held on so we could visit the gardens and I'm glad I did because it was worth it. Dinner was worth it too. Steven WON on the golf course so dinner was on Chris at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Another heavenly meal for this trip! More tomorrow.....
I'm gonna be honest here and tell everyone that I did NOT think I would actually enjoy our visit to Duke University last week. I mean, college was cool and all but I'm super thankful that part of my life is over. I just didn't know what I would expect walking around and sightseeing at a university for hours on end would be like. I didn't think I would like it. I was WRONG! This university is beyond gorgeous. The trees, the hills, the grand buildings, the landscaping, the stone work everywhere. I could go on and on.
On Friday morning when Steven and Chris were golfing the Duke course I took off for my long run. I'm training for a 15k coming up this weekend for anyone who didn't know. This last weekend I was scheduled to run 8 miles. What better place to do it than a university that you've never been to, you know is totally full of hills, and you are alone? Yep, that was me!
We woke up at 6am ON VACATION to come to this place and golf, run, and explore. We arrived at 7am and didn't leave until 5pm. That's 10 hours of Duke for those of you doing the math. Like I said, I thought I would be bored. I was not. Thankfully I snuck right on into the women's locker room after my run and showered and changed there for the rest of the days activities. I couldn't be that stinky and sweaty the rest of the day. Gross!
It was great to be able to see our friend Chris at Duke. This is a guy we have known for 25 years and in that time his love for this university and mainly Coach K and the basketball team have never faltered. It helped that just last month the Duke basketball team came away with another championship. This was their 5th one (as I learned while touring the Cameron Indoor Stadium). I do love Kentucky and will also be a Kentucky basketball fan but now I guess I must add Duke onto that list as well. Hey, they are both bright blue and one of my favorite colors so I guess that's fine:)
The Duke Chapel is a site to behold. I just walked around the whole place knowing that this was something my Dad would have loved to see. I texted him while there and told him he would enjoy touring this college. He agreed and said it looked gorgeous and wanted to come. It even has a huge basketball (and other sports too) museum you can walk through (another thing right up my dad's alley).
Our 4 day trip was off to a great start at the home of the Blue Devils. My run was over and I was ready to indulge in many trips to Starbucks the rest of the weekend, dessert for most meals, and carbs. Bring them on! That's what vacations are for right? Eating what you want and relaxing? Well, that's what I did for sure and we soaked up every minute of our 4 days.
More on our trip tomorrow....
I love these girls so much! Just at the table alone there are 17 kids between all of us but yet they ALL took time out of their busy schedules to come celebrate me at my birthday dinner. I love how we have each met with a little bit of a different story but yet we all found something to talk about while together. These girls push me to try to be a better friend, mom, teacher, exercise buddy, neighbor, and sister. Isn't that what friends are for? I am so thankful for each of them!
This weekend I turned another year older. My birthday was on Saturday when I turned the big 36. Yikes. Much too close to 40 but I feel better than I have in years, and I don't feel 36 so I guess that's good. I got my girls together on Saturday and we headed out to Kellyville to shop the Vintage Market Days. I love this place! I tap into my creative gene (it's not a very big one) but I really do TRY to get creative when I am here. Thankfully this year the VMD came to Tulsa on my birthday weekend. Double bonus for me. My hubby was willing and able to watch the boys so I took off for about 6 hours, got a coffee, spent time with my friends and mom, and shopped all day. Talk about perfect! Amen. These were just some of my purchases today. I didn't buy all of this but my mom pitched in a bought many of these items for my birthday. When I got home I was thrilled to figure out the best looking kind of display for my mantle. This is my "new" mantle and I LOVE it!
On Friday night my family went out to dinner. I picked Texas Roadhouse. Yummy! Once we got there we realized that all the staff were dressed in Avengers gear. Let me tell you...one member of our family was supremely happy about this. He saw Thor, Hulk, Nighthawk, and many more. There was a point in the dinner when Thor walked right up to our table and brought his hammer. Owen lost it at this point. He couldn't eat anymore. He was in Heaven. He was shaking and laughing and the joy coming from this boy was contagious. Thankfully "Thor" was a good sport about Owen and took a picture with him. I'm pretty sure Owen will remember that day forever!
I really had a great birthday and am thankful for all my friends and family who made me feel so loved and appreciated!
We have been busy busy busy lately! Welcome to the busiest 3 months of the year here in our business. March, April, and May are ultimate crazy. I am glad I have things during these months to dwell and do besides work. One of the things we have going on right now is house flipping. We are on house #8 now. I can't believe we have done that many already. This house will require a few trips to Lowe's to pick new paint colors, new light fixtures, and some bathroom/kitchen faucets. Carpet has been ordered, landscaping has been decided on, and new windows are going in on the back to replace the broken ones due to flying golf balls. Did I mention this house is on a golf course? Yep, we've noticed some shattered windows in the back which looks at the fairway. We can only assume these windows were broken by someone's poor golf shot!
Hopefully we can get this house renovated and placed back on the market in about 6 weeks. We are already 2 weeks in and have made great strides towards getting this house done on the scheduled timeline.
The boys have now gotten used to being dragged to house after house and trip after trip to Lowe's and other stores. They are usually pretty good about it and find things to do and play with in most any areas of town we flip or houses we renovate. Hopefully one day we can find an awesome house that has trees for Owen. This boy loves to climb him some trees and does this exact thing most EVERY day after school. He is a true boy who looks at every tree as a jungle gym.
I hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend and spending time with their friends and families. Talk to you all soon!
Will is playing Lincoln baseball for the first time ever. This is only the 2nd baseball team he has played on as his first team he has been with since the age of 3 and T ball. We gave Will the choice to play with the team he's always been with or to play with a new team this year through his school. All I knew is that we were not going to do 2 teams. He picked Lincoln and I was okay with that. It is a much shorter drive to practices and even closer of a drive for the games.
His new team is now 2-0 (I realize it's still very early) but he's just happy they haven't lost. Last night Will got his first home run of the season, got a great catch at short stop to get an out, and got several kids out at first at his first team to play first base with. I was very proud and screaming my head off for him and the other 12 boys on his team.
He is very much enjoying being a Lincoln Bulldog baseball player. Go Dawgs!!!!!
This morning Owen and I woke up to the job of egg dying. I say just Owen and I because (unlike his Momma) Owen doesn't require much rest. He's like Steven and can function pretty well on not a lot of hours at night. Me and Will like our sleep. Lots of it. In fact, after 12 hours of slumber Will was still in his room snoring logs. I HAD to get up with Owen because Steven was already gone to work and the boys were out of school today due to Good Friday. So, just me and my youngster had an egg boiling, dye preparing kind of morning. He loved it and soaked in the "Momma and Owen time"
Soon after we were completed with the dye preparations Will finally decided to wake up for the day (it was 10:30). We all got dressed and hit up the new Broken Arrow Chick fil A for lunch. I was only brave enough for the drive thru lane today. I have yet to venture inside due to the high amount of crowds and screaming children. We ate our sandwiches in the comfy confines of our vehicle while the boys watched a Batman movie and I listened to music on my relaxing drive home. Much better than the crazies inside CFA on a Friday afternoon.
Once home our eggs were finally cooled off and it was time to color. Maybe it's because they are boys or maybe there's another reason I haven't figured out yet but my children have got to be the world's fastest egg dying champions. I mean, you turn your head and they are done. Bam! They don't mess around. They enjoy doing it and it is an Easter tradition that I will continue as long as they find it interesting!
I hope everyone enjoys their Easter weekends with their families and make wonderful memories for many more Easters to come. Talk to you all soon!
Many of you who know me know that spring is my favorite season. It's my favorite for many reasons but the main one is because I love to be outside and enjoying sports, nature, sun, etc. In the summer sometimes you can only be outside about 10 minutes and without a pool of water you are dying. In winter you can only be outside about 10 minutes and you are freezing like a popsicle. Fall is pretty good and I do enjoy the pretty colors and the coolness that comes after a hot Oklahoma summer. Fall is nice but spring is my fave.
Last night my family took advantage of the spring time prettiness as we went for a walk/stroll after dinner around the neighborhood and to the duck pond. Of course, Will wanted me to track our miles on my running watch because everything has to be tracked, counted, and stepped out with him (he is his Momma's child). I was surprised that our little outing clocked in at 2 miles. It was a gorgeous night and we were making full use of it. On a side note...the ducks only got the few remaining goldfish crackers Owen had in the bottom of his lunchbox. We were out of bread. Sorry ducks. They ate them up just like I assumed they would.
Oh, and the ice cream truck came right at 5:00. Perfect treat for right before dinner. I can't say no to the ice cream truck. Ever. I never get anything but my boys light up when they hear him trolling down our road. They scream, they dance, they bolt into the front yard and literally chase the van down the road. How is any parent supposed to say "no" to that?!!
The ice cream man got me to thinking about summer treats. Oh, and my neighbor who let me try their homemade Nutella creation got me thinking as well...I am totally going to Target at my next possible free moment to buy these molds and sticks. Nutella is one of the best foods ever invented and then add to that heavy whipping cream and condensed milk on a stick? How can you go wrong?!
Happy Spring everyone! Get out there and enjoy it!
If ever traveling to Roanoke VA you might like to visit the Roanoke Star. You probably should include it in your list of things to do because there's really not much else to do:) I'm not going to try and knock Roanoke here but unless you have pretty weather you kind of lose a lot of your activities because so many of the best things to do in this town are outside and involve physical activity. Enter 42 degrees and rain the entire time we were in Roanoke. I was totally and completely freezing and made the boys stop me by a store so I could purchase more long sleeved clothing. I saw 50's in the forecast while packing so I was thrilled that I threw in some long pants and a few long sleeved things. 42 and rain (in my book) is Winter weather and I demanded a sweatshirt. Because of the rain we were unable to hike up to the star (80 feet on a mountain). Honestly, I would have loved to do this but I was so cold that I just voted to drive to the top and snap some quick pictures. The boys had NO PROBLEM with this as they had told me no less than 10 times that they had no desire to hike up an 80 foot tall mountain. This was a 3 mile hike people. Round-trip. It wasn't like I was asking them to climb Mt. Everest....
We picked the caverns which were a "warm" 52 degrees inside. Hey, that was warmer and dryer than outside so we decided on that activity. I've only been to one other cavern before in my life (I believe that was somewhere in Missouri). Yep, this one looked just like that one. More on the THRILLING caverns tomorrow....
