Houston Day 2 & 3

The primary reason for heading to Houston was for an annual Fourth of July party held by Karson's friends, the Browns. With the 4th being in the middle of the week, they moved the party and opted to have it the weekend before. They've got both a pool and a hot tub and had a massive amount of food and beverages as well. They were great hosts!

Some of the food for the party

There were 5 dogs at the party. This was the biggest dog there, but she was very well behaved.

Getting ready to hop in the hot tub with Matt's awesome homemade margarita. :)

On Sunday, Karson and I headed out to be tourists at the Johnson Space Center. We were going to do some other outdoor activities, but it kept raining and that put a damper on plans - so after a few hours at the Space Center, we went back and spent some more time hanging out since we were taking off for San Antonio the next day.

At the Johnson Space Center. I don't think either of us is cut out for a life in space.

Texas 2012

Omaha to Houston

The day of our traveling was mostly spent getting to Houston. We left the Omaha area after work on Thursday and drove to Wichita, primarily on two lane roads. Being the planners that we are – and since we’re experiencing a heatwave in the Midwest, we brought along a cooler of water bottles. It was a godsend. I also made a ziplock baggie of trailmix to cut down on gas station snack purchases. We encountered some road construction, but nothing awful on our way to Wichita. After getting to Wichita and paying the toll, we went to our hotel. We arrived around 10 p.m. tired and ready to call it a day, there were two vehicles from out of state in the loading area. Karson went in to check us in and I waited in the car. A little over five minutes later he came out shaking his head. The people ahead of him had not booked rooms and were trying to pay with cash.  They didn’t understand why the hotel still wanted them to put some type of card down for damage purposes.

Friday morning we set a goal to leave Wichita by 8 a.m. – so we were up and going by 7 and on the road by 8 a.m. We were rolling along just fine, we decided to stop in Norman because I was jonesing for an iced coffee – I needed my fix, we both needed a bathroom. We gassed up, decided we’d wait a bit longer to get lunch and got back on I-35. And by got back on I-35, I mean that we then sat on the interstate for an hour or more, waiting. There had been an awful accident at 6 a.m. that morning and 5 hours later they were still cleaning it up. So, our schedule got messed up. We’d hoped to get to our friends’ house in Houston at 5, we arrived around 7,  STARVING.

Karson had been telling me for two months that when we went to Houston, we would would go to the best Mexican restaurant EVER. He would then go on and on about it. Eventually, I told him he needed to quit talking about it because I was a afraid it wouldn’t meet expectations. It reminded me of when people build up a movie and then you see it and your opinion is, “That’s it?”  Fortunately, El Tiempo was not the overhyped movie. http://www.eltiempocantina.com/

After freshening up at his friends’ house, we headed out to dinner at El Tiempo. I don't think I've ever been to a Mexican restaurant with a valet before. The place was busy and apparently there are multiple locations throughout Houston. If you're ever in Houston, I highly recommend it. The drinks and food were both quite tasty. After that, we headed back to the Browns' and it wasn't too much later before I called it a night.

Post 4th update

I know, I've been absent. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some pics up from our Texas adventure (Houston, San Antonio and Austin). Karson does most of the picture taking, not me. Here's one of of from the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio. We went there for drinks and appetizers at sunset - which I totally recommend for watching the sunset - it was really cool. We're in the lounge area - the hostess told us there was a 3 hour wait for the restaurant - however we noticed plenty of empty tables. The restaurant rotates around - the lounge didn't - our view was still amazing.

In wedding related news - we've purchased invitations, thank yous and Save the Dates are on the way to us, or at least the first batch of them. And when we were in Austin, we went to IKEA and got some cute laterns for our reception centerpieces.

The Dress

My mom and sister came to town over the weekend for what I thought would be the first of a few shopping trips to find "the dress" for the wedding. I'd invited Karson's mom along to, but she was unable to join us. After doing some looking online and a prior trip to David's Bridal because I had a giftcard for $50 - I had a basic idea of what I wanted: A-line, strapless, not super busy, probably off white.  I had heard about an outlet place in Wahoo that had great prices on discountinued designer type dresses and thought we should go check it out. OMG! We got an amazing deal on an Ella by Essense. My parents are generously paying for my dress (and items associated with the dress). I will not be posting pictures of the dress on here since certain people look at the blog from time to time. :) But it's everything that I wanted. I just need to get a few alterations and have it pressed and cleaned and I'm good to go. Love it. I thought we'd be looking for a month or two and have to order something. Now to find cute shoes...

Change in Plans

Things were humming along with the wedding plans until last week. We had lined up our reception site, and scheduled an appointment with the chapel. The colors have pretty much been decided, my mom and sister will soon be visiting to look at wedding dresses. And then last Wednesday, Karson dropped a bomb on me when he arrived at my house. The Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting is taking place on our wedding date. For those of you not from Omaha, here's what that means - 35,000 people descend upon the city to hang on Warren Buffet's every word, buy B-H products and such. And for you out-of-towners, it means higher hotel rooms costs and plane tickets. Much higher, in some cases double. Why? Because people will pay.

I discovered a handy site called, hotelplanner.com. It sent a request out to 85 hotels in Omaha rated between 2 to 4 stars. 25 have no availability and of the 14 that offered me a price - all but 2 were way over their normal rate. There's a hotel on base, but it only allows rooms to be booked 30 days in advance. With all this information, my head had begun swirling, who would come and stay in a crappy, slasher hotel, paying $120/night?

And so, despite how much we like the first weekend in May, moving the wedding seems to be the only logical option since we only have so many bedrooms at our homes. Karson contacted the coordinator at the club and asked if the weekend before or after May 4th was free. The weekend before was open. So... new wedding date: April 27th, 2013.

Uh Oh!

So, I broke into my own home today. (I mentioned losing weight yesterday and today being in somewhat better shape came in handy.)  I walked out the front door of my house, after I'd already locked the handle to realize I had no keys. No keys to my car, no keys to my house. The Jeep was sitting in the driveway and it was, of course, locked. I remembered that the deck door was unlocked, I thought. Sweet. I was also dressed for work in business professional clothes. Thankfully, I didn't wear heels today. My deck sits about six feet off the ground and there are no steps that go to the ground.  What to do?  Yup, hopped on the a/c unit, and jumped onto the deck.  Into my house I went, hoping no one saw me.  I then locked the deck door.

Weight Watchers

I restarted Weight Watchers eleven weeks ago. I say "restarted" because it isn't my first time doing WW. I'm planning to lose 20 - 22 pounds total. My goal was to cross the midway point with tonight's weigh in.  I lost 1.4 pounds this week. Total weight lost: 11 pounds! I've just been eating smaller portions and incorporating more fruits and vegetables. We're also eating at home more, which helps with the portion control - I use smaller plates whenever I can. Next goal is 15 pounds!

We've Got a Date

We picked a date for the wedding!! We met with the reception site yesterday and settled on the first weekend in May 2013. So May 4, 2013, will be our wedding date. I picked the weekend as only the first and last weekend of May were available. Karson loves it because he's a Star Wars geek. May the Fourth be with us! Ha Ha!  Love it.

Engagement photos

I finally have a working laptop again! Very exciting. I have a feeling this blog is about to be filled with wedding related posts.  Here are some pictures from our engagement from the Bob Kerry pedestrian bridge. (Clicking on any of the pics should make them fullsize.)

Here's where Karson first proposed

Just a bit shocked

Woohoo!

The happy couple :)

The ring (needs to be resized)

The Scrabble board Karson used to propose. He Superglued the pieces to the board.