A weekend with friends

Although weekends may be something that most families look forward to, I look forward to every other weekend. Yes, I get my "heck yes it's Friday!" mood at work on Friday's but with Will being on call every other weekend, I tend to look more forward to those.

This past weekend, my best friend, Layla came to Midland to start her house-hunt in Midland! I'm so excited that she's moving to Midland, it's not even funny. Layla has been my friend for aaaalmost 9 years! Everyone has a few best friends, but Layla is my go-to, number 1, sister from another mister best friend. We've been there through thick and thin for eachother, and I'm so glad to have her, and her family, closer to us.

                                 

2007

2008

Also, this past weekend, Will's best friend, Jerrot came down to visit! He lives in Guthrie, TX so it was great to see him! We don't get to see him often due to his and Will's job, we definitely enjoyed his company. 

While Will, Stephen, and Jerrot went to the Odessa Boat, Gun, and RV show, Layla and I ran around town, doing a little shopping and a lot of looking! Saturday night, Will and I decided to take our "guests" out to The Bar (a must go to place when you visit Midland, in my opinion) for some good food and drinks.

2013 :)

Jerrot and Will, clearly Will didn't think whatever Layla said was as funny as Jerrot did.

Layla and Stephen

Nothing like spending time with the ones you love most (all that was missing was my Momma).

Happy rest of the week, y'all!

Three is currently a crowd......

Let's just start off by saying that I was not raised with dogs. Surprising, I know.

When I was younger, we had 2 cats, a hamster (that I'd rather not talk about), a turtle, and 2 sugargliders. It wasn't until I was 15 that I finally talked my mom into getting a puppy.

Now, 8 years later, my 2 girls (Cayley and Luna) are my life. If I could convince Will that being a stay at home poodle mom was a good idea, it's for sure what I'd be doing. My desk at work is full of pictures of my girls, and my clients usually think I have 2-legged instead of 4-legged babies! I've had Cayley since she was a puppy...about 3 months old, and Luna came to us when she was 1 year and 1 month old. The girls are only 6 months apart, so they have become very close, yet are sooooo different.

On January 10, 2013, I saw a Facebook post from a local Facebook group called "Pets around Midland" with a precious picture of a 5 year old red heeler that needed a home, or else would be put down. Will had a blue heeler, Tex, when we first got together, who shortly after had to be put down. He was Will's world, it was probably one of the hardest decisions we've had to make. Ever since, no heeler was good enough to be part of our home. I thought to myself, "Although he isn't a blue heeler, maybe Will would go for it." and sure enough, I was right.

After meeting this sweet 5 year old red heeler, there was no turning back. Riggs is now a Payne family member, regardless of how he feels about it. The first few nights were a little rough.... Riggs didn't understand that he was "home" now and sat by the front door all the time. Finally, he realized that we loved him as if he had been with us his whole life, and gave in to our hugs and kisses. As I lay in bed, typing this post, he's sitting on the edge of the bed making sure to have a clear view of me. He loves us so much now, I can just see it in his eyes and the way he lays himself on me. I often wake up to find him laying inbetween myself and Will, with his arms around one of us.

Riggs is my first "big dog" and it's still an adjustment. Not only for me, but for my girls. Cayley is clearly the alpha dog, and this has been established since day one. Luna came in to our home and knew that Cayley was alpha. Riggs, however, is having a hard time being accepted in the group. Even though dogs have no sense of size, my girls can definitely tell that Riggs is not a poodle. He also is having a hard time understanding that his slow walk is the equivalent to their run.

Luna and Riggs are currently trying to figure out who is "second in command". I'm sure that isn't the right term, but I'm not sure what else to call it. They have their good days, but definitely have their bad ones as well. Luna has "middle child syndrome" that's for sure.

Enough of my rambling, here's our newest member's sweet face!

 

Happy Monday y'all! :)

A recap of the past 3 months......kinda

Hello!

I know it's been a while since I've blogged; sorry about that! Incase you haven't heard, the "boom" is crazy in Midland; so between my work and what little time I have with Will..... I just haven't had a chance to get on here!

November

Will and I decided that we would treat Layla and Stephen to their first college football game, which just happened to be Tech vs. Texas (a game that we don't like to talk about). This was a birthday gift to myself, therefore Layla and Stephen (who are sadly Texas fans) had to wear Tech gear! :) They secretly loved it

Layla and Stephen, don't they look happy?

Waiting to grab a bite to eat before the game

Ohhhh Layla :)

This girl right here is my best friend; love her.

The week before Thanksgiving, Will and I took a trip to Corpus Christi, TX to visit his father's side of the family. I've never been to Corpus before; I fell in love! I wish we could move there, it was perfect. Will's Aunt and Uncle were kind enough to let us stay with them and show us around the town. We had a blast. I fell in love with Will's grandmother Claire, she's the sweetest!

Love this picture of all of us. Cayley just loved Grandma Claire!

Will's Aunt and Uncle took us to the Texas State Aquarium and I got to hold a Sea Urchin!

Loved the dolphin show :)

Had to :)

Uncle Randy, Aunt Gayle, and Will

Thanksgiving was at our house, as usual, since Will was on call. My mother and Grandmother drove down for the day and had a fun late lunch and watched football while I put up the Christmas tree! Per my posts earlier, I absolutely love Christmas time! :)

This is the only picture we got on Thanksgiving...... lort.

 December

December is always a busy month for us; with my family being so spread out and Will's being in Fredericksburg.

First thing - I finally got to see Bryan Adams in concert! He came to Odessa; I was in heaven. I had 5th row seats, and the set was an acoustic set; He played perfectly. Towards the end, he left the stage and then of course came back. He said that he wouldn't play until everyone filled the orchestra pit infront of him. I RAN up to the front, and here was my view, with NO ZOOM! 

I WAS FRONT ROW CENTER!!!!!!!!!

Our next adventure was off to San Antonio for Chanukkah! Almost all of the Goldstein family gathered at my grandfather's house to spend the day. I just love getting together with everyone.

Friday night, Will and I took Goggie to services. It was Will's first time.... it was pretty entertaining for him :)

I was an only grandchild for quite some time..... and now finally have cousins! Excuse how I look... I think I had about 4 hours of sleep and was running on fumes.

On our way back to Midland, we stopped in Fredericksburg to see Will's family and exchange Christmas gifts.

Will and his dad checking out our Christmas gift; they had it made for us!

Will and his mother :)

Will's mother and I

Part of Will's family; just missing Tara and Laura

Finally, it was time for Christmas with my family :) We got to go to Sweetwater for once, and I really enjoyed it. I'll leave it to the pictures to tell the stories :)

Romi with one of her gifts from Aunt Weah and Uncle Wheel

Jake with one of his gifts... he clearly saw my intent of how to use them

Although Layla may kill me for posting this.... here's one of her gifts :) COFFEE!!!

This is my favorite picture of this whole post. Oh Stephen...

Me and my sweet daddy; thanks for photobombing it mom!

Christmas dinner :)

Will with all of his Christmas gifts

Daddy and his gifts

Mom with her gifts

Pmom with most of the babies; love Momma Toe's smile!

One more thing happened in the past 3 months.... but it requires it's own post.

I promise I'll be better about this! :)

Birthday Post #1

As many of you know, I'm an Oilfield wife; which means I don't get near as much time with my husband as most people do. This past week, he's been home at a decent hour almost every night, so please forgive me for neglecting my blog. I try and soak in as much hubby time as I can. :)

The past two weeks haven't been much to blog about. Normal day to day stuff, nothing fun or crafty going on over here. This past week, I spent most of my time getting ready for my birthday party! Will was thoughtful enough to invite some of my friends over for a small party, but then realized how much goes in to acutally throwing a party. So after the house got a deep cleaning, it was prep time!

We did small finger foods, nothing big. The biggest hit, as always, was the green beans wrapped in bacon. Yum!

My biggest accomplishment was my pumpkin keg!

Although it was super easy to make, it was a big deal for me.

How to make a Pumpkin Keg:

Start off with any size pumpkin you'd like. I used a big pumpkin since we were only going to serve one type of beer via pumpkin keg.

Cut the top so you can remove all the fillings.

Once you've removed all the seeds, there's 2 options.

Option 1:

If you're going to use an Oktoberfest beer, you won't need to clean the inside of the pumpkin. It helps give the beer a better flavor.

Option 2:

Scrape all of the insides of the pumpkin out until it's hollow. This way there isn't any pumpkin flavor in your beer. If you'd like, you can add a small (4gallon) trashbag on the inside. The bag makes the nozle portion tricky, but we'll get to that in a minute.

You'll need a spicket/nozle as pictured above. Simply outline the nozle then carve the circle in your pumpkin. If you're not using a bag, you can screw your nozle in and you're good to go!

If you're using a bag, you'll need to hold the fastner(I don't know the acutal term for the piece inside the pumpkin to hold the nozle on, sorry!) on the inside of the pumpkin and turn the nozle itself. This helps from tearing the bag inside.

Here's a few more pictures from our gathering, hope y'all have a good day!

Party favors :)

Poodle cake!

Will's so crafty. He carved me a Poodle Pumpkin!

Weekend "getaway"

Tuesday already? :(

This past weekend Will and I went to the Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma University game...... even though Texas Tech lost, we had a great time! It was Will's first Texas Tech game, which he said is much different from all the Aggie games he's gone to. We had awesome seats, 50 yard line, row 15! Of course, Will went for the game, I went for the band :)

We arrived in Lubbock late Friday night, thanks to Haleigh Foust for watching our girls. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on Marsha Sharp Fwy, which was very nice and clean! Will told me that he use to be able to stay in any hotel, but since meeting me, he can only stay in nice hotels! Maybe he'll grasp my "camping is considered anything less than a 3 star hotel" concept too?! Doubtful.

Will and I stay at Holiday Inn Express' when we travel if at all possible, and have earned a ton of reward points. When we arrived, they gave us a small goody bag and a Priority Club welcome letter signed by the manager of the hotel; How nice :)

Come Saturday, it was game time! We found out that it was the "Black Out" game, so we were off to find black shirts to wear! We of course went to the mall, got our shirts and maybe a few more things, then headed to the food court. While trying to decide where to eat, I saw Jimmy Zimmerman! I haven't seen him in about a year, so good to see him! Got the chance to catch up with him at lunch, then headed off to the game.

We all know that Texas Tech got an ass whooping, so we won't even get into that....... either way we had a great time! Here's some pictures from the game :)

Warming up, we got to the game about an hour early

School song time!

Wish the guy in front of me had sat down, or not been so tall! hahaha

Loving the panoramic option on my iPhone!

Did you watch any football this past weekend? Luckily, this was the only game I had to watch!

Hopefuly, I'll have more to blog about next time... have a great week y'all!