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!

Happy Birthday to Mom!

We celebrated moms birthday the weekend of October 9th. Stephen and I went to her house and decorated while she wasn't home and she came home to a fun little surprise. =) We ate pizza, watched the UT game (for mom) and enjoyed some fun time together. It was a fun weekend! Hope momma had a happy birthday! Love you lots mom!

Spontaneous Family Day

A couple of weekends ago we randomly decided to have Stephen's family over for a fun day of games and lots of food. It was a great day. We are very thankful to have such a wonderful family!

Just Because

So its always a wonderful surprise to get flowers from that special someone, but when they arrive just because it means so much! A couple of week ago, Stephen surprised me with flowers just because. They arrived at my office and I swore they were sent to the wrong office until I read the card from Stephen. It was super sweet and totally made my week! I am so fortunate to have such an amazing husband. I love him so much!

Steph and Gene TRI!

Steph and Gene have accomplished something nobody else in our family has...a TRIATHLON! They participated in the Stonebridge Ranch Tri-Athlon and both finished. It was such an amazing accomplishment! We arrived early with fun posters to cheer them on. We were proud and very excited to see them both cross the finish line. Congrats guys and great job!

Grandma's 77th Birthday

Happy birthday to you grandma! Last month all of the family got together to go celebrate grandma's 77th birthday with her. This year it was a little tough, because we had to celebrate at the nursing home for the first time. Grandma has Alzheimer's and unfortunately its gotten pretty bad. Too bad for mom to take care of her by herself. She is in a pretty good place though with really sweet people.

We celebrated with lots of balloons and delicious cake! Riley and Kaylin helped the nurses pass out cake to everyone, they did such a great job! It was a special day and I'm so thankful we were able to share it with grandma! We love you grandma!

Stephen Graduated with his MBA

It has been a while since I last posted. Stephen has been super busy with his last class of his MBA program and finally finished! He graduated last weekend and we had a fun celebration with some friends and immediate family. Our best friends from Oklahoma came in Kristina, Kyle, Ashley and Kyle and Stephen's college roommate Mike and his wife Jakki made it over too. Of course our families made it for the festivities. We all had a blast! It was a great group and we truly celebrated...until 3:30am! Whew, didn't know I could do that anymore. =) Needless to say we've been catching up on our rest this week. It was great times! CONGRATULATIONS Stephen! You worked hard and it's finally paid off!