Gobble! Gobble!

This year our Thanksgiving was spent at Stephanie and Gene's with Stephen's side of the family. We were very fortunate this year to have lot's of family join us. We had Stephen's parents, Steph, Gene, Gene's parents (Leo and Ina), Stephen's cousins (Clarissa, brad and Christina) and Stephen's aunt and uncle (Uncle Jerry and Aunt Gloria).

The days leading up to Thanksgiving are always fun cooking and preparing for the feast! This year I made my first Pecan Pie. I got inspiration from the William Sonoma catalog and tried to deliver a great presentation as well as great taste. It was so much fun! All of the girls got together the night before and made the dressing, which was fun too!

Thanksgiving day came and we had plenty of food! Steph had lot's of fun games for everyone to play including, charades, pin the tail on the donkey, karaoke and some other fun games. The guys always have to fit in a little football, so they entertained us for a while with their spirals and phenomenal catches.

We had a great Thanksgiving. We are very thankful to have a healthy happy family this year. We look forward to another great year and seeing my family at Christmas.

Steph's Birthday

Happy birthday to Steph! We celebrated Stephanie's birthday last month. We had a great dinner at Uncle Julios and then went back to their place for cake and presents! We had lots of celebration and hope for another GREAT year for Steph this year!

AGGIES vs. OKLAHOMA

We went up to Oklahoma to visit with friends and go to the A&M vs OU game last month. We got a chance to visit with Ashley and Kyle for a short amount of time and then we spent most of the weekend with Kristina and Kyle. We spent some time tailgating and then went in for the dreadful beatdown from OU. We stayed long enough to watch the Aggie band which always makes us feel like winners, even when the football team isn't pulling their weight. After that we went back to the tailgate and had more fun! Good times were had by all!

Another Fun Weekend and Live Music

This weekend we didn't have much planned so we were excited to have a nice relaxing couple of days off. Friday night we went to Hanks to see Cory Morrow play. Cory Morrow sang the song "Always & Forever" that Stephen and I had our first dance to at our wedding reception, so we had to go see him! Once we got to Hanks we found out that the band opening the show was Dean Seltzer (the band that played at my brother and Shelly's wedding). I guess it was just a good night to reminisce on family weddings. Dean Seltzer opened the show and did a great job. Then came Cory Morrow with another fantastic show! It was so much fun! Stephen and I had a great date night!

Saturday we relaxed and really enjoyed the day. We actually took some time to enjoy being at home. I noticed the leaves on our trees beginning to change. I just love the Fall when all the trees start changing. It was beautiful, so I had to capture it.

Saturday night we went out with Stephanie and Gene. We headed to San Miguels for some yummy Mexican food and then had an improptu stop at Delaney's Irish Pub where we got to see the 8 Tracks live in concert! hahaha These guys were a 70's cover band and were hilarious! Stephen and I actually felt young for once! It was great people watching. We laughed a lot and then came home for some more fun and games.

Sunday was another day of rest, errands and chores. We're not ready for another work week, but we had a fun weekend! =)

Family Time + Cowboys= A GREAT WEEKEND

Last weekend mom and a friend of hers came down to spend some time with us. Friday night we went to dinner at Cafe Malaga (delicious tapas place in downtown McKinney). After a great meal we headed to Hanks to see an old family friend perform in Brandon Jenkins Band. Jonathan has been a friend of ours since he was in pre-school and is now a great Bass guitarist in this excellent band. I highly recommend you pull them up on ITunes.

After a fun evening of music and dancing we went home and spent most of the day Saturday relaxing/recovering from the late night. We managed to get in a quick shopping trip with mom Saturday afternoon (always fun). Then we headed home to get dressed up and hand out candy to our trick-or-treaters Halloween night. We went out and hung with our neighbors for a while which was fun as well. Always fun to play a little dress up. Stephen was a jailbird and I was a little devil. We had fun!

Sunday we met up with Stephen's family and we all went to the Dallas Cowboys game. Cowboys vs. Seahawks in their inaugural season in the new stadium. It was our first Cowboys game to attend and we had great seats! Cowboys won which made it even that much more exciting! We had so much fun!

It was a great weekend with family, can't beat that!

Introducing the new VP to our family

Last week Stephen got promoted to Vice Preseident at North Dallas bank! =) We are very excited and super proud! He had gone to a morning meeting with the Officers, and his boss Jay(the President of Stephen's banking center) had said he wouldn't be able to attend. Not expecting anything like this to come out of it, Stephen presented his banking centers updates and before he sat down, one of the directors said, "Hey I think that's Jay. Jay, do you have any updates?" Jay then got up and proceeded to tell a story about when he was younger at his first job, his boss called him a "stepper". Jay not knowing what a stepper was, went home and asked his dad. His dad proceeded to tell Jay that a stepper is someone that always works hard, is always taking that next step to get things done, no matter what else might be going on. He then proceeded to say, "we have a true stepper with us this morning and I'd like to introduce you all to our newest Vice president, Stephen Mota!" He went back to his office and they had sent him flowers and balloons to celebrate. He really works with some great people!

Well deserved babe! I'm soooo proud of you! Thank you for all you do to support our family!

Komen Race for the Cure

Last weekend Stephen and I participated in the Komen Race for the Cure. We had only planned on walking it, but got some energy and ended up running the 5K. It was a lot of fun, something we had never done and for a good cause!

Oprah's On!

Oprah came to the State Fair of Texas (the largest state fair in America) and did a live taping that we got to see! We woke up at 4am, managed to get Steph, the Mota's and Stephen out there with me, stood in line and made it to the very front row of the show! It was so much fun! Gayle King, Nate Berkus and Martina McBride were all there, seriously a once in a lifetime moment for me! Oprah was fun as usual and Martina McBride was truly amazing! Watch Oprah Monday October 26th to see the show.

We hung out the rest of the afternoon and enjoyed all of the delicous fried foods the fair had to offer, including fried butter! Good times!