Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Muth!

Saturday night my friends Jill and Nick were in town to celebrate their recent nuptials. It was so good to see them again as I hadn’t seen either one since they moved to Nashville about a year and a half ago. The boys spent most of the time watching the Notre Dame football game while the girls talked. When the game was finally over, I was able to get a few pics to prove they were in attendance.

The girls: Candace, Me, and Jill

Candace & Ryan

Jill & Nick

You did WHAT on Saturday morning?

Saturdays are known for being the day of the week where people finally get to sleep in after getting up early all week. Casey must have forgotten this well known fact this weekend. He made me get up at 7am to…eat breakfast? No. Watch the sunrise? No. Mow a lawn? YES! He made me mow my very first lawn this weekend. I can’t say that mowing a lawn was on the top of my list of things to do in life but I guess I can check it off. The high point of the morning was when he wanted me to start the mower myself and refused to help me. While I admire his confidence in me, after my arm muscles felt weak due to the fact that I tried to start the thing 20 times, I was ready to give up. The fact that Casey was laughing and loving every minute of watching me fight with the mower didn’t help either. I finally stepped away form the mower and said “If you want me to mow the yard today, you better start this thing because I’m ready to go inside and lay on the couch while you do this!” Needless to say I got him to start the mower. I mowed and he edged/weed-eated for probably about 45 minutes. I told him the next time I will be mowing a lawn will be while on a riding lawn mower.

Photo Experiments

My friend Jennifer passed on a website that can help you edit photos for free so I had some fun last night playing around with some of my Europe photos. I wasn't sure what everything was so I literally just clicked on everything until I thought it looked kind of cool.

Eiffel Tower

Colesium

Amsterdam Canal

Mt. Pilatus, Switzerland

Greet & Eat

This Sunday my small group had a little thing called “Greet & Eat” at Macee’s house. Every third Saturday of the month is our turn to greet at church but this time we made an event out of it and grilled out at Macee’s house. There was great food and great fellowship. The highlight of the night was when Lori and Dana asked if anyone wanted to challenge them in Redneck Horseshoes because they were the reigning champions and Casey and gladly accepted. Now in order for you to grasp the awesome-ness that was this game, you first need to understand the game. Picture this: 2 sets of PVC pipes that have 3 rungs each. The top rung is 3 points, middle rung is 2 points, and the bottom is 1 point. Yu have these little numchuck looking things that are 2 golf balls with a rope between them. The goal is to collect up to 21 points as a team. You can also cancel your opponents points out if your golf ball numchuck-thing lands on the same rung as theirs did. Ok, so back the challenge. Lori and Dana were able to keep a lead but Casey and I were never far behind and tied them several times on our way to 21. Eventually, we were both tied at 20 points. At this point, we probably went back and forth at least 5 times where we either cancelled each other out on the 1 point rung or both missed completely. Casey had several clutch moments where he cancelled Dana’s point out to keep us in the game. Finally, it was Lori and my turn again. Lori missed all of hers and one of mine landed on the 2nd rung! 2 points for us which put us at 22 points. Now an important point of this game is if you bust (go over 21), you go back down to 11 points. I had one numchuck left to toss. If I was able to knock off my numchuck from the second rung we would still be in the game. Here I go…I make my toss…the numchuck falls off…then one lands on the first rung!!! I went from “I lost the game for us” to “I tied the game for us” to “I won the game for us!” Casey and I were on a high from the win for the rest of the night. I think that game will go down in Redneck Horseshoe history.

I AM a Chi Omega

Last night I went to my first Chi Omega Alumni event. I received a newsletter for the Northeast Tarrant County XO Alumni group and it looked like they had a lot of fun events coming up so I decided to try it out. The first meeting was in Southlake and was a wine and cheese event. I never would have expected how nice it would feel to be surrounded by red, yellow, and owls again. It was just really nice to be around women who even though we didn’t know each other, we instantly had a bond. There were women there from every generation, including a grandma who was wearing her letters and a giant gold owl medallion necklace. She seemed like a hoot! (owl pun intended). After being there for a couple of minutes, I thought I recognized a girl there. It turns out that I did recognize her, she works in the spa at the Gaylord and I had spoken to her last week without knowing she is a XO. So we talked and sat together. I signed up for the Happy Owlers (the group that does Happy Hour together once a month) and I signed up for the book club as well (which I’m really excited about!). Overall, I am so glad that I went and I’m looking forward to more fun events!

Chili Quest - Entry 1

Sunday was a very Martha Stuart day for me. I was cooking up a storm. All weekend it had been rainy so Casey and I decided that it would be the perfect weekend to kick off our quest for the perfect red chili recipe (the quest for the perfect white chili recipe is long over). So I pulled together two different recipes and took what I thought was the best of both worlds and started up the crockpot. While the chili was cooking, I made peanut butter cookies, which was a request from Casey’s friends. I decided to put a little twist on them and dipped them in chocolate though and I only have one word…YUMMY! The next thing on the cooking agenda was cornbread to go with the chili. I was so close to having a completely successful day of cooking when I went to get the cornbread out of the stove (set at 425 degrees mind you) and I must have had the hot pad misplaced because the top of my thumb got seared on the baking rack. As Casey likes to say, Baby Jenna came out a bit. He was my hero/doctor yet again and grabbed my hand and put it under cold water as I whined and whined. The water was followed up with hydrogen peroxide and some Neosporin. Boy did that burn hurt! The only positive from the burn was that I was unable to do the dishes, which I’ll admit, was a big plus side.

To report on the outcome of Chili #1: The spice was definitely there, but had there been no spice, the chili would have been a bit bland. Next time, we plan on adding some green bell pepper and perhaps picking a can of diced tomatoes that has seasoning already mixed in it. Outside suggestions are welcomed!

The other woman

As some of you may know, Casey moved down to live in Fate, TX to work at an elementary school out in Forney. Well, I have come to find out that my worst nightmare has now come true. The other night Casey told me that he has a new girlfriend. Her name is Bailey and...she's in first grade. She loves "Mr. Williams." When she sees him walking in the halls, she jumps up and down and shouts "Mr. Williams!" and runs over to give him their special hand shake which is basically a little fist bump. She showed everyone in P.E. their handshake. Casey told me that she's blonde and always has a big bow in her hair. Does anyone remember a little blonde girl that always had a big matching bow in her hair? Haha, I told him that I would have been that girl only would never have had the guts to talk to the cute teacher.