P-Dubs!

P-Dubs, aka PW, aka Pure Wow (my personal favorite), aka Pioneer Woman came to Houston last Saturday. When I found out she was coming out with a cookbook I was on top of the world! I love this woman and anything she does seems to be a huge success so I was pretty pumped. I woke up bright and early that morning to assure prompt arrival to Lauren's house. All the boys were going "camping" which entailed them going to Austin, staying in a hotel downtown, and sitting at multiple bars until the wee hours of the morning. Not what I imagined when they said they were going camping, but it gave us girls a weekend of fun, so I'm good with it! Lauren and I left her house and made the trip to the book signing. It was held in a very unique location. Kind of like a little market for organic foods. Totally random for a book signing. We walked in and were told we needed a ticket in order to get her to sign our books. Kind of like a golden ticket I guess, except ours was lime green and it put us in 11th place! No bueno. There was approximately 20-25 people in each color group and we were color 11. Hmm, I immediately whipped out the iPhone and started calculating....25 people in each group x 1-2 minutes of chit chat x 11 groups = A LONG TIME! We were looking at anywhere from 4-6 hours. In line. For a book to get signed. Hmmph. We took a moment to pull ourselves together after PW talked and re-evaluated our priorities and shopping ranked #1. Sorry P-Dubs. :(

So we went on to our next adventure and hit up Highland Park to get some Christmas gifts bought. We had a complete blast. I bought/spent way too many/much ornaments at Crate and Barrel. Good thing for that separate account I still have or A would have killed me! Sorry honey :) It was the perfect day. So cool and crisp. Before we headed back home we stopped at PF Changs for a little afternoon cocktail to re-energize us for our night ahead of baking!

After sifting through the beautiful glossy pages of PW's book, we felt inspired to make something! I think the wine had a little something to do with our new found love of baking as well! We decided we'd attempt sugar cookies. How hard could they be, right? Boy were we wrong! The rolling of the dough, cutting out the shapes - especially when the dough you're rolling out is not 1/4" thick like the recipe says, *coughs*, Ski, *coughs* and don't even get me started on the icing part. "What were we thinking" crossed our minds a few times that night, but then we would have another sip of wine and just laugh. I have to tell you the funniest part of the night is when Lauren handed me her sugar jar and the sugar had somehow crystallized and hardened inside of the container! She then lets it slip that she's had this sugar since she got married....over 2 years ago!! I was dying! It was so funny watching her dig it out over the trash can. It was stuck in there good!

Cheese! I love you

Don't ever let me wear an apron over a cable knit sweater again. Thanks.

2 year old sugar!!

might be a little thinner than a 1/4" thick ;)

comfiness is key

Whoops, wine spillage. Now that was funny!

PW!!

When all was said and done, we had a pretty amazing weekend. Our cookies weren't the prettiest, but as Lauren said (about 50 times that night :)) "It's not how they look, it's how they taste."

Thank you Lauren for letting me stay with you!! I had the best time. And thank you boys for going on your "camping trip" so we could have a fun girls weekend :)

Also, head over to Ski's blog and check out her post and extra pics!!

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Snow Day

This weekend was a blast! It all started on Friday when it started snowing, in Houston mind you (!!!) and I received an email allowing employees to leave work due to the "deterioration of weather conditions." Don't you love how people in Texas, especially my area kind of freak out about snow. We don't see it that often people so heck yeah it causes some anxiety! It also causes early release on a Friday which is A-OK with me!

I didn't get much done that morning because I spent the whole time with eyes glazed over staring out my office window. I haven't seen a lot of blizzards in my day, but I think you could call it a blizzard - for Houston at least. My sister dared through the rough terrain and rescued me from work. Yay! We went to her house and did what most people would do; took pictures, lot of pictures. I did grow up in Oklahoma so I'm not totally googly eyed for snow, but it was pretty dang exciting. We tossed her cat around the bushes and made him pose. He loved it, obviously.

When Aaron finally got off work we decided to head over to Rainbow Lodge. This was the perfect place to spend a snowy afternoon. And they had 1/2 price glasses of wine for "Snow Day." Dangerous. I also indulged in the most delicious sandwich I've ever had. A Panini with prosciutto, goat cheese, roasted red peppers on ciabatta bread. Amazing! But the night didn't end there. We headed over to a new restaurant/brewery and did a beer sampler. It was tasty. As were the mini burger sliders and fries. :) Yes, I ate again. A few hours had passed since my sandwich, so I gave myself the green light. But enough about food. Let's see some pics! Onward and forward.

And now I leave you with this last image of my little reindeers. We were trying to get some poses out of them for our Christmas cards. We didn't use this pic, but I thought it was hilarious how Daisy had her paw on Chester. She stayed like that for a good minute too. They are BFF's for sure!

I will also be doing a full recap of Saturday/Sunday. It's too good so it needs a whole post of it's own! I'll give some hints: Pioneer Women, cookbook, shopping, vino, and sugar cookies. Not sure about that combination, but it was a ton of fun!!

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