Everything IS Bigger In Texas

#1.. Super-Sized Everything!

This is a picture of some Texas-size fireworks. Lets just say that things come in four sizes: small, medium, large, and Texas-sized. That last one, Texas-size pretty much means ridiculously gigantic. If you order a Texas-size dinner, it will probably feed you and your whole family for a week(or close to it!!)

#2...BUGS! What, might you ask, is this on our door? That is a good question! All I know is that I was walking up the stairs to our apartment and as I stuck the key into the keyhole, looked up, screamed, and jumped a mile back. Then, I proceeded to run all the way down the hallway to the apartments on the other side of the building, pull out my phone, and call one of my friends to come rescue me and help me get rid of ...this. It took us 30 mins, 10 of the neighbors newspapers (which they never bother to gather up), about 15 throws, a couple of mad down-the-hallway dashes, about 6 screams, and two girls. Needless to say, it is gone!

This is just the beginning. This is the lovely visual outside of the gym. You open the blinds and whala! There it is...waiting to eat your hand off! This spider is literally the size of your palm and the web that it sits on is probably 3x3 feet! The jagged stitches in the middle are the spiders recent artwork. It pretty much has a mind of its own. I have a video of one of the girls husbands feeding it. Yes, feeding IT.

#3...Appetites

Out of all the restaurants in Mansfield, Texas Roadhouse is the only one that stays open past 10 pm. This is probably why the whole office goes there once a week. This picture is quite deceiving because Shawnee, the girl on the left, is truly excited to be here and I, on the right, am faking it. It's a fun lil Texas tradition although I must say, I am still a true sushi fan at heart!

We thought that we would express our love for the Texas Roadhouse! All of us at the table decided to take these wonderful pictures to serve as memories of how much we love this place!

#4...Ambition

Ambition is truly bigger here in Texas! Mr. Brown, on the left, is a gentleman I have mentioned before whom we go and visit on a weekly basis, among many others, at a hospice in Fort Worth. He truly is an example of ambition because one of the girls out here got him a 300 piece puzzle, which he told us he loved to put together, and he actually completed it in less than 2 weeks!

#5...Green Trees

Matt and I love this park! I had to make the #5 biggest thing in Texas be "green" trees because a green tree is just a beautiful tree! In Vegas they all typically look brown and in Utah, most of the time, white. Thus, the green trees here are beautiful!!

#6...Creativity

You all wonder what we do during our spare time. Well...here it is! jk. Shawnee, on the left, got a huge balloon making kit for her birthday and we thought we would put it to good use. You be the judge! Do we have crazy circus balloon making skills or not?!

#7..Last and definitely not a shortage here in TX...PRIDE!

Seriously, I have never in my life seen so many state-pride items. Anything from coffee mugs, to t-shirts, to bags and hats, to jewelry, to shoes, to whatever can be painted red, white, and blue with the state of TX on it! Pretty much everyone from TX has a huge star in their homes, a TX symbol, and I never thought too much into it.. So I thought it would be cute to put one in our apartment! It is now Matt's least favorite thing in the home! We, in this picture, represent the TX Platinum Wives Red Hat Society. Texas pride baby... Cant wait to come home to Vegas!!

One Great Example

Matt and I are obsessed with Michael Phelps! Every night after he gets home from work, we hurry and eat dinner so that we can be completely dedicated to watching Michael Phelps without any disctractions when its his turn to compete! He is such an inspiration to us. What really impressed me about him was the fact that before he even began competing this year, he declared that during the Olympics, we would walk away with 8 gold medals. 8!!!! Not 1 or 2 but 8! He is such a great example to us of someone who believes in themselves 100%! Everytime that Michael competes, Matt and I find ourselves screaming (yes screaming in our apartment) for Michael! Everytime without fail he either places first OR places first AND breaks the world record! One word: AMAZING!!

Our 2 Year Anniversary!

Yesterday was our 2 year Anniversary! I woke up as Matt grabbed the bedroom door and said "Dont come out!" as he shut it. About 25 mins later I woke up as Matt re-entered the room with a huge bouquet of roses in his hand! He is SO thoughtful! He bought two dozen roses, for the two years we have been married, one dozen pink and the other dozen orange, which were part of our wedding colors! Then, he spent a half an hour arranging them in this beautiful bouquet!

We were planning on going to PF Changs for dinner but since Matt got home kind of late, the only place that was left was BJs. Then, out of nowhere, Matt said we were heading to Kona Grill (one of our favorites)!! So, at 10 pm, we were speeding to get to Dallas (45 mins away) and we were determined to get there before Happy Hour ended and before they stopped seating in the lounge at 11. Well.... we ended up taking two wrong turns and the arrival time on our GPS kept getting later and later. When we finally arrived, it was 10:57pm. We ran across the parking lot into Kona just to stand at the desk for a couple of minutes waiting for someone to seat us. Then, we were informed that lounge seating has ended and the bar was our only option. I was a little crabby patty. The night ended up being so much fun though! I think the both of us were just really hungry and tired!

I'm a sucker for cheesecake! I have never seen cheesecake that looks like this and let me just tell you how delicious it was! Matt and I ate the whole thing! I highly recommend it! My husband is so thoughtful and sweet and I am so grateful for such a wonderful eternal companion! I love him so much and these past two years have been amazing! I'm so excited for our future!!

Twilight Prom Party!!

The 4th Twilight book - Breaking Dawn- came out at 12:01am on August 2nd and Barnes and Noble threw a huge Prom party for the release! Let me just tell you how excited all of us girls were! This was THE day we have been waiting for! Plus, we got to dress up in Prom dresses! What more could you ask for?!

Me, Shawnee, and Mariah all getting ready for the big night! We were running a little behind and then one of our friends that was already at the party called to inform us that the doors of Barnes and Noble were going to be locked once there were 900 people in the building. The count currently was around 800!! I dont think I have ever drove so fast to a bookstore before! All three of us girls, in Mansfield, TX (of all places), all married, dressed in prom dresses, speeding to Barnes and Noble at 10 pm! It was quite a sight!956,957,958...were our numbers as we ran through the parking lot and dashed through the doors! We couldn't believe we made it! About 10 mins. later the doors were shut and locked because there were over 1,000 people there! We even had fans!! These are some of the other girls that are out here for the summer that came to support us!

Do you ever have those moments when you think you complete understand something and then someone presents to you another viewpoint and you realize that what you thought you clearly understood wasn't even close? Well....thats exactly what happened! On the Prom Party invitation flyer it stated that there would be a dance competition so naturally we thought.. Great! We are making up a dance and winninng free books! (My part in this dance was supposed to consist of me holding a flashlight and shining it on the girl who was dancing) Mariah and Shawnee made up a dance with the help of Dmitri who is a cheerleader at BYU which emphasized the battle that Bella (in the book) was facing with Edward(every girls dream). Then, Shawnee came to a realization on Thursday night, the night before the party, that perhaps by dance competition what was ment was that the DJ would turn on music and you got to dance your heart out. (I think we were too influenced by "So You Think You Can Dance".) After placing a phone call to Barnes and Noble, we quickly found out that that is exactly what was ment by dance competition! Well surely the girls and Dmitri worked so hard on their dance and could not skip performing it!! Thus, they danced a "special musical number" right after the real dance competition!

At 10:45 pm we found ourselves in line for the 4th Twilight Book! Here we are reviewing the last chapters of the 3rd book to make sure that everything was fresh in our minds before we began reading the 4th book!!

At around 11:50 we were a little tired of waiting! Then...Mariah had a thought. Why should we wait in line here at Barnes and Noble with the other 1,000 screaming 13 year old girls if we could head over to Wal Mart who would probably be a lot less crowded and would be releasing Breaking Dawn on their shelves at midnight as well! So after placing a couple of phone calls and telling the Wal Mart lady on the phone that Twilight was a BOOK literally 10 times and not a CD, like she thought, our hopes were confirmed! So across the store and into the parking lot we dashed!

Here it is!!!!!! Breaking Dawn!!! We couldn't control ourselves! FINALLY! It was ours for the taking! Another thing we couldn't control was how many shoppers were staring at us. Well...we were quite the sight to see!

I just have to show you all MY Edward! Here he is, of course, with those boneless Buffalo Wild Wings in both hands!..