Come Hell or High Water...... or BOTH?!

Well, I am back in Dallas. Rather, now Caleb, Scarlett AND I are all in Dallas. The semester finished up last week and neither of our summer internships start until the end of the month. Since my car is still registered in Texas, we were going to have to bring it back to Dallas sometime this summer for its inspection, and this seemed like the perfect time. I should back up and explain that the reason I was in town last weekend was to see my sister perform in her high school's performance of Les Miserables. It was REALLY amazing!

When I got to Dallas my sinus/allergies went a little crazy. I wasn't really surprised and took some Zyrtec, but when I got on the plane to fly home, my ears just completely stopped up. I hate to admit this but I pretty much cried most of my flight home to DC. Even once we had landed, my ears still wouldn't open up. Luckily I had gone ahead and made an appointment to go by the student health center the next day. When I got in there the doctor said that I was right, I had a sinus infection. Then she looked in my left ear and said it was definitely infected. She looked in my right ear and her immediate response was "oh my gosh." It's never a good sign when doctors say that. My ear was extremely infected and having flown with it, my eardrum had ruptured. Awesome. No wonder I couldn't hear anything!!! She gave me some awesome meds and sent me home to pack for the long drive home. I intended to pack and get to bed early, but I felt so bad things just moved in slow motion.

Our alarm clocks went off at 4:30 Wed. morning (3:30 Dallas time). We loaded up the car and we were off on what should have been a 1,000 mile, 14-15 hour trip. We drove for several hours to get away from DC traffic and then stopped for breakfast.

When people find out that we make the drive in one day they usually tell us we are crazy and ask how me manage it. It's really not that bad. Scarlett just sleeps in her crate in the back, Caleb and I listen to music, we discuss/argue about current events. We try to make as few stops as possible to slow up down. The path isn't all that bad either. You basically drive out of Virginia and then all the way across the state of Tennessee. If you leave early, you'll hit Knoxville about lunch time and Memphis for an early dinner. For this trip, my mom sent me an audiobook for us to enjoy. She's been trying to get me to read the new Pat Conroy book, My Reading Life. I never got to the actual book, so we listened to it (8 hours long) through the state of Tennessee. It was surprisingly good, especially if you like to read - he talks about classic books and what they meant to him at different stages of his life.

The other good part about our route is that just about lunchtime you re-enter the world of sonics. Corny dogs and cherry limeade never tasted so good! Unfortunately, the town we stopped in had a not so nice gas station that we had to use.... I'll give you one guess what the clientele was like based on these pics...

But then we were back on the road and didn't stop again until we hit Memphis. We like to try to stop there and visit with one of Caleb's best college friends Van and his wife Kristin. We don't get to see them very often, so it makes for a good quick visit. This trip was even MORE special because we got to meet their BEAUTIFUL baby girl that they just adopted. I thought she was precious in pictures, but she is sooooooo much more beautiful in real life, and TINY! We could not be more happy for both of them!

To make Caleb even MORE happy, they took us to have Barbeque for dinner. BBQ isn't my favorite food, but it was soooooooo good in Memphis! We were sad that we had to leave, but Scarlett was TERRIFIED of their lab and we were getting tired so we needed to finish the drive to LR for the evening. We were going to spend the night there before heading into Dallas the next morning.

I'm glad I took a picture of the time. 7:55 pm - this was the last moment of happiness on this roadtrip. We were leaving Memphis happy and excited.

And it all went downhill from there. As we drove across the Mississippi River, it should have taken us less than 2 hours to get to Little Rock. These were the first signs that things were not going to go our way.... We knew that the south had really bad storms the last few weeks, but we had no idea that the flooding was so bad. These may look like shrubs, but they are HUGE trees in the river...

We drove a ways and found that I-40, the road we needed to take into Little Rock had been closed down due to flooding and we were going to take a detour. It was 50 miles which seemed like a bummer, plus it would mean getting to Little Rock closer to 10:30 instead of 9:30, but we carried on. There was some pretty bad traffic trying to get off the highway when it closed and we sat for about 30 minutes. Not a little annoyed, but still going. We made it about another 8 miles and then we stopped. And when I say we stopped, I mean we sat there for 45 minutes. Now we were getting frustrated. We called Caleb's dad and he tried calling the State Troopers who basically gave him no information. He tried to reroute us, but the only other way to go (because of flooded roads) was an additional FOUR HOURS out of the way. No way. That was ridiculous. About this time we drove a few more miles, and stopped. And then a few more miles, and then we stopped. This time we sat for over an hour. Here is a picture of our view for a few hours... it obviously didn't bother Scarlett : )

People were turning their cars off, sleeping, hanging out in the road. It was awful. Caleb made a few new friends - the truck driver in front of us, the redneck guy in his truck behind us who gave up and went around a barricade down a flooded road (all I could think about when he told us that was what he was doing was that sign: Turn Around! Don't Drown! - we hope he is okay), and a lady and her small children in the car behind us trying to make their way to Texas. We could have turned around but the small town we went through only had a few tiny motels that looked pretty packed the couple of hours ago when we passed them. We decided we were just going to sit it out. We listened to music, listened to the bullfrogs outside and vented our frustration to each other. At one point I called the State Troopers myself to see if I could get any information out of them. I made up a sob story and used my saddest, most pitiful voice and even lied that we were almost out of gas and she told me that the reason we weren't moving was that a car had stalled and they were trying to get a wrecker in to move it out. Then, people had fallen asleep in their cars and they were slowing things down. Ugh! After a few hours we finally started crawling by. When we passed the stalled suburban, I was tempted to roll down the window and spit on it, but then I remembered we weren't in DC anymore and I was expected to be a lady in the south. Even though we started moving, we were basically moving at a crawl. It was us and all the big trucks out on the road.  FINALLY, at 2:30am, we pulled into Little Rock... 23 hours after we left DC. Talk about miserable. We had joked with each other about a country song that says "The Road goes on forever, but the party never ends." Well this party ended a LONG time ago... You can tell how mad I was that I stopped documenting our day in pictures haha.

We slept a bit at Caleb's parents' house and woke up to a DELICIOUS breakfast of monkey bread. I felt bad we couldn't stay and visit longer (we're going to visit next week) but we had made plans to meet my grandparents for lunch. They only live about an hour away from Caleb's parents' house so we like to stop and see them when we can. We couldn't stop at a restaurant because we had Scarlett, so we met out by Lake DeGray and had a picnic! The weather was sooooo nice. They brough fried chicken and potato salad and all sorts of other goodies. Scarlett LOVED it because my grandma fed her chicken AND brought her a toy. Spoiled little thing....

After lunch, it was my turn to drive. Cracked open a mountain dew for some caffeine, cranked up the tunes and we were off. 4 hours later we pulled into Dallas, so happy we don't have to make that drive again.... at least for 10 days or so! We've been home 24 hours, but it is so nice to be back in the land of Sonic Drinks, Jamba Juice, Mexican Food, Rangers games (without having to stream it on our computers), warm weather without the humidity, open roads that aren't the beltway, not having to ride the metro, no more school for the semester, being with our families..... I could go ON and ON! This means I should have LOTS of good blog posts over the next several days so stay tuned!

The Royal Wedding!!!

I am dedicating this blog post to my mama - my great grandmother on my dad's side. When I was a little girl, I was staying with her when Princess Diana died. I was pretty young, but I remember watching the news for HOURS with her about the tragedy. Even though I didn't totally understand what was going on, I remember how fascinated my mama was. In fact, she was so fascinated that she got up in the middle of the night to watch her funeral. My papa told her she was crazy and wouldn't be getting up for that, which meant I got to sleep in the bed with her AND she woke me up to watch the funeral with her. I can still remember that morning and it is one of my favorite memories with my mama.

So, when Prince William proposed and they started planning their wedding, I was enthralled. I read every crazy news story and conspiracy. My mama started my love of the royal family and I have really been looking forward to the wedding - I even got Caleb excited about it.

I have actually been in Dallas this weekend (surprise!) to watch my sister Grace perform in our high school's performance of Les Miserables. That also meant I was in Dallas for the wedding. What I didn't realize was that the Mavs were going to play until 1:30 in the morning to clinch the 2nd round of the playoff. 3 and a half hours of sleep was definitely not enough, but my alarm went off at 4:55 and I was up! In fact, I even talked my mom and my sister to get up and watch it too. For three hours we say and watched the wedding while we sipped on tea and ate cinnamon rolls. It was quite lovely!

The whole time I was thinking about my mama and smiling. I think she would have loved the wedding. I'm just glad I got to share it with other people that I love.I will never forget the morning I got to share with my mama watching Princess Diana's funeral and now I will never forget the morning I got to watch a royal wedding with my mom and Grace.

Softly Call the Muster

April 21st is a special day for Aggies. It's Muster, the day that Aggies gather together worldwide to honor the lives that we have lost in the past year. As they like to pitch it:

“If there is an Aggie in one hundred miles of you, you are expected to get together, eat a little, and live over the days you spent at the A&M College of Texas.”

And that is exactly what I did last night with 350 Aggies. This was actually my first Muster away from College Station where it is mostly just the student body. Unfortunately DC is the land of money, and it was a little too pricey. They were kind enough to reduce the price for me to go if I would help volunteer. Basically it meant sitting at the t-shirt and raffle ticket table for 2 hours.

I know if sounds corny, but the couple of hours that I escaped to the basement of the Grand Hyatt in DC were some of the best hours I've had in a long time. EVERYONE was from Texas, EVERYONE was friendly, and EVERYONE genuinely cared for one another. I'd never met 99% of those people before in my life, but the fact that we all went to A&M at some point, whether class of 1933 or 2013, we were all friends. We could laugh and joke and complain about DC and reminisce about College Station. It was fantastic! I even got to see my friend Lindsay who I haven't seen since we both worked at the study abroad office at school.

But Muster isn't just about getting together and enjoying each others' company. Muster is a time for reflection and honor. After dinner, we all had the privilege of listening to the guest speaker, Becky Gates, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates' wife. She was great. Then we started the ceremony. We sang the national anthem, and then Texas our Texas. It was sweet to watch the older people get choked up when they sang "God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong. That you may grow in power and worth, throughout the ages long." It's good to know I'm not the only person who misses Texas!

After that they give the history of Muster and the significance of this day for all Aggies. They also read some of my favorite Muster poems. Here are a few clips of my favorites:

In many lands and climes this April day

Proud sons of Texas A&M unite.

Our loyalty to country, school, we pray,

and seal our pact with bond of common might.

We live again those happy days of yore

on campus, field, in classroom, dorm, at drill

Fond memory brings a sigh -- but nothing more;

Now we are men and life’s a greater thrill,

Before we part and go upon our way,

We pause to honor those we knew so well;

The old familiar faces we miss so much today

Left cherished recollections that time cannot dispel.

Softly call the Muster,

Let comrade answer, “Here!”

Their spirits hover ‘round us

As if to bring us cheer!

Mark them ‘present’ in our hearts.

We’ll meet some other day

There is no death, but life etern

For our old friends such as they!

In Memoriam:

We stood a little taller,

and a little prouder then

When we heard the call of Muster

and the Roll Call just begin.

We stood there all together

and wiped away the tears

When our names were called out softly

and answered with a “Here!”

... and so we’ve joined together

with our brothers of the past

To make our final resting place at

Aggieland our last.

We take a toast to our brotherhood

wherever they may roam,

For us the trek is over

Aggieland we’re coming home.

I get chills when I hear them. It really makes you think about all of the Aggies who have gone before us and those who will come after us. I love that they say, Aggieland with always change, but the Aggie spirit will never change.
 

We gather here to mark the day Aggies proudly stand.

To honor those who've gone before to the promised land.

Each name is called upon the roll, comrades answer "Here."

Trumpets sound their sad good-bye to those we held so dear.

All heads are bowed in silent pledge never to forget.

While rifles fire their last salute echoes answer yet.

To their mem'ry we'll be true; we will take their place.

One for all and all for one ever in Thy grace.

We'll meet again another day, reunion while we pray

To ask Thy blessing on each one on this Muster day,

Aggie Muster Day.

And that is exactly what we do. They read the names of those who have passed in the past year. Some go back as far as class of the 1930s, whereas some were class of 2013, still college students. Whether it was their family or their friend or a classmate, someone would say "Here" for them. Because once and Aggie, always an Aggie, even in death. They also would light a candle for them. After all names were read, they played Silver Taps and we sang the The Spirit of Aggieland. It truly was a beautiful ceremony. Some people say it's creepy, but it is nice to know that one April 21st (hopefully a long time from now!) people worldwide will be standing up and saying "Here" for me, whether that is Caleb, my sorority sisters, my friends, my children, or even my grandchildren.

Before we left, they charged us "to remain firm in your loyalty to your country and your God...To keep warm in your hearts your affection for each other and for our Alma Mater, and may God be with us all until we meet again" Of course, they also couldn't let us leave without knowing that a place called "Hill Country BBQ" had opened in DC and had pretty good Texas Barbecue and.......... BLUEBELL ICE CREAM!!!! There were lots of whoops for that! I really didn't want to leave, but after singing the Aggie War Hymn and rocking with my new friends, it was time to return to reality.

This was by far the best Muster I've ever experienced. I think it meant more now that I'm far away from my friends and family. It's nice to know that in all this craziness and with all these mean Northern people, there are still Aggies around who love and care about you, no matter what! So... I guess that will have to do until April 21st next year : )

Happy Birthday Day Scarlett!!!

I can't believe it, but today the best dog in the whole world turned 2 years old!!! Since that makes her 14 in human years, I think Scarlett has finally become a big girl dog. She's stopped eating drywall and shredding carpet and now she spends most of her days sleeping on the couch corner or my pillow. I have to admit, sometimes I miss her being so small though

Today we, or rather I, decided to really celebrate her birthday- we won't be able to separate either of ours until later in the fall. It was hard to decide how to celebrate a dog's birthday, but she's been needing to get groomed, so she got a spa day - had a bath, her fur trimmed, and even got her teeth brushed! Here are the before and after grooming shots

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It's hard to see the difference, but she looks WAY better. Nice and short fur for the warmer weather : )
After her grooming, both me and Caleb went to pick her up (a real treat!) and she got to ride in my lap without having to be in the crate! On our way home we even stopped at Petsmart for a few birthday presents!

As social as Scarlett is, the pet store was a bit overwhelming , which was pretty surprising. We didn't stay for long, but we did get a few bones and some new toys. Unfortunately one of Scarlett's new pastimes is euthanizing old toys...Her new favorite is the goose Caleb picked out just for her

Once we got home, both Caleb and Scarlett were pretty tired so they took a nap while I cooked dinner.

Speaking of dinner, I'm not sure what to think about this, but I came home last week and Caleb had taped an episode of Rachel Ray and told me it was a recipe I should try sometime. Not sure if that was an insult to my cooking or a compliment that I could potentially make a recipe of Rachel Ray? I'm trying not to think about it. I tried it tonight, it's a fish recipe with a sundried tomato butter sauce, with smashed potatoes and asparagus. It actually turned out pretty well!

Unfortunately Scarlett wasn't able to enjoy her birthday dinner, but Caleb and I sure did : ) I hope Scarlett had a great 2nd birthday. I really do think she is the best dog in the whole wide world!!!! I love you Scarlett!

Spring in DC

I know I know, I got bad about blogging again. And I still owe you the Istanbul portion of my mission trip. I PROMISE to get that update up soon - it just takes forever to write it all up and sort through all of my 7,000 pictures (literally) to post. I know that sounds like excuses, but its the end of the semester and things are getting busy, but soon, I promise soon.

It is "officially" spring in DC. By Spring, I mean that most of the time it is out of the 30s. Most people have traded in their winter coats for fleeces and light jackets and we are hoping for the best. The weather is pretty up and down, but I think it is safe to say that we have survived our first DC winter!

To celebrate spring, a few weeks ago we had a visitor come to town. Flat Stanley!!! My niece Ellie sent him to spend a few days with us in DC. I hope he had as good of a time as we did. Here are a few of the things he got to see:

He went with me to my Saturday Russian class... he was a little confused that day : ) 

Of course a trip to DC in the spring wouldn't be complete without a trip to see some cherry blossoms

He braved the protestors and learned some not so nice chants like: "White House, Pentagon, CIA.... Biggest Killers in the World Today!" But he did get to see the White House!

He also rode the metro!

When Flat Stanley wasn't out seeing the sites, he spent time with Scarlett

and with Uncle Caleb

Thanks Ellie for letting Flat Stanley come for a visit!!!

Spingtime has not been all fun though. As soon as I got home from Turkey, I headed to Whole Foods to stock up on some fresh food. It was a rainy day and heading down into an underground parking garage, I got into a fight with a parking garage pole.... and lost

It could have been alot worse, but its still a big bummer. Oh well, what doesn't kill ya only makes ya stronger : )

Yesterday Caleb and I had a FANTASTIC day! We are HUGE Texas Rangers fans. We agonized last week over which MLB.com package to choose so that we could get the most out of the season as possible. A few months ago, we even scoped out their schedule and figured out when they would be closest to us. It turns out that this past weekend they played in Baltimore! We originally had tickets for the Saturday night game, but when Friday's game got rained out, our tickets suddenly became good for a double-header on Saturday. 2 games for the price of one!!!

We left early on Saturday and headed to Baltimore which is luckily only about an hour away. We got their in time for batting practice. Caleb ALMOST caught a Josh Hamilton ball, but a nasty Orioles fan boxed him out and stole it from him. Oh well. Like Caleb said, he'd rather get hit in the face by a Josh Hamilton foul ball so he could get more free stuff... haha

I'm not sure why, but the Orioles have really good ticket prices. We had fantastic seats down the 3rd base line.

As great as our seats were, the people around us were not. Thinking back on it, we both have agreed to give them all the benefit of the doubt since it was a double header and most of them drank beers throughout both games. The more the drank, the weirder they got. Here is just a few of our favorites from the day:

Drunk girl and 2 guys behind us: "You are so lucky your parents never split up..."

Drunk Guy 1: Hey man, do you follow hockey?
Drunk Guy 2: Nah man, not really. Why?
Drunk Guy 1: Well... I picked up hockey when a friend of mine was real depressed and going through a hard time. He asked me to help him get back in the game. So I said to him, anything for you buddy. And so I went out and bought a pair of skates.

Stadium employee literally cutting off a fan during the second game

Drunk Guy 1: My friend is over on the 1st base side. Let's all stand up and wave to him.
Drunk Guy 1, 2, 3 (and the cut off drunk guy behind them): stand up and wave ridiculously for about 5 minutes. At the same time, all 4 of them thought that they single-handedly started the Wave and were directing the fans.... Priceless

There were some Maryland "cowboys" who sat in front of us during the 2nd game in boots and cowboys hats with the biggest redneck accents in the world. I could barely understand what they said to us. Never knew that Maryland had cowboys. Guess I learned something new today...

The fans we sat next to originally were a bit large. We decided that they each had at least 8 beers. Special, very special.

There were a surprising number of Rangers fans there which was nice. Before one of the games, Derek Holland came out to sign autographs. Of course we had nothing to sign and didn't have a pen, but that didn't stop us! We pushed our way to the front, asked to borrow a pen and pulled out our tickets. Tah dah!!! My first Rangers autograph!!!

Overall, we had a fantastic time. We endured the cold, one shut out and endless amounts of weirdo orioles fans, BUT, we got to see our team play TWICE, got to watch one complete blowout with lots of exciting homeruns, got an autograph, and laughed ALOT! (Sorry these pics aren't great, the ushers wouldn't take a pic for us and I was afraid to hand my camera to a drunk...)

As if our day hadn't been fantastic already, they have Sonic in Baltimore!!!! It may have been 20 minutes away, but you better believe we went and got drinks! Cherry Limeade has never tasted so good! It was so good that I saved half of it in the fridge and drank it this morning : )

To top off our great weekend, we had breakfast this morning with my cousin Holly and her husband Josh. They spent the weekend in DC and luckily it worked out for us to get together. It wasn't glamorous, but who doesn't like IHOP. Plus, it was a HUGE deal for us because we don't get to see family very often up here. Thanks Josh and Holly for taking time on your weekend getaway to see us! Hopefully we can see you guys again soon!!!

Well, that's all I have for now! I promise to get that Istanbul update to you soon! Happy Spring!!