Redneck Vacation

Last weekend, Andy and I went to Dallas/Ft. Worth with our friends Justin and Kelli. We drove down on Thursday night and stayed with Justin's mom and stepdad. We slept in on Friday, went for lunch at Genghis Grill and then headed to Speedzone. Since Kelli and I are both pregnant, we couldnt drive the go karts but we had a great time watching the boys. They drove the slick track several times while they waited for the drag cars to open (they were being repaired). The slick track was apparently pretty tricky to navigate and at each turn nearly 75% of the cars would fishtail/drift/completely spin out around the corner.

andy starting the racejustin making around a corner without spinning out

andy making it around the corner with only a little troublejustin and andy both heading the WRONG way on the track.

they had so much fun. i think they drove this track 4 times...?

the drag racing track FINALLY opened. I am not sure how fast they actually went, but they said they had 350 horsepower.

Friday evening, we met some of the Jesters local friends for dinner at Uncle Julio's--mexican food. Great salsa--ate way too much. Saturday, Andy and Justin got up early and went to Top Golf. It is a driving range where you aim at targets. Each person has golf balls with a chip in them so they keep track of the points you score depending on how close you are to the target. Apparently it was great fun because they stayed for 5 hours. Kelli and I slept in a little later and went to IKEA. I bought some curtains for the new house, cutting board, and dish towels. I just love walking around IKEA. If I had unlimited time and $$ I would have needed to rent a trailer to get all the stuff I wanted home. We may have to make another trip once we move so I can get some more of their great LOOOONNGGG curtains for our tall windows. After IKEA, Kelli and I went to the mall to grab some lunch and then get a pedicure. It had been over a year since I had a pedicure and I forgot how great it felt. Since it is getting more difficult to reach my feet, I think I will need to get at least one or two more pedicures before the baby comes! Then we went back to the house and sat around on the couch for awhile, watched a movie, and then decided we would head out for dinner. We went to Babe's, a great chicken place. They serve all their sides family style and then you order your main dish--chicken strips, fried chicken, chicken fried steak, etc. This was Saturday night and a pretty popular place. We were told the wait would be 55-80 minutes!!! It was a beautiful evening and we didnt really have anything else going on, so we waited about 45 minutes and then they called our name! It was yummy but, yet again, we all ate wayyyyy too much and then got dessert. It was painful walking back to the car.Sunday morning we packed up, loaded the car and headed to Texas motor speedway!! This was the main reason for the trip and the reason I called this our redneck vacation. We went to the NASCAR race. We allowed ourselves plenty of time to get to the track since 250000 people were going to be at the race. It only took us about an hour to get to the track and get parked (much less time than we expected) so we had a lot of time to walk around and take in all the redneck culture. It was pretty chilly and windy that morning!Once we got to our seats we warmed up quickly. We were in the sun, but it was only 60 degrees. I was afraid I was going to fry being as pale as I am, but 2 coats of SPF 60 served me well :) only a slight sunburn where my hair was parted. white trash pregnant nascar fan picture. I considered wearing a wife-beater and holding a koozie with a beer for this photo, but decided against it. ha. i am not sure what face I am making in this pic....maybe I did have a few beers???

the other white trash pregnant nascar fan and her hubby

here is a short video of one of the restarts after a caution. it gives you a little taste of how LOUD and how FAST these cars are. You just can't understand by watching it on TV. It was really a lot of fun. It was amazing to hear all the cars start up and then rev up as they start the race. The middle part of the race was a little boring because there were no wrecks and I really dont follow nascar enough to know about all the drivers. The end of the race was exciting though because it was a pretty close finish and our favorite driver, Jeff Gordon, won! and just FYI, I was curious how the baby would handle the loud cars....but I think he just slept the whole time. I didnt feel him more than a couple times during the whole race. Kelli said she didnt feel her little girl move much either. maybe nascar is a soothing sound for babies....? It took us about another hour to hour and a half to get out of the parking lot and on the road toward oklahoma. We got home and picked up the dogs then headed to bed so we could work the next morning. boo. we had a REALLY great time and didnt want the vacation to end! We are already talking about a repeat trip.

this is a blog post

Very quick blog update based only on the photos on my camera..... Yoda and his friend Izzy, resting up for more wrestling
New house, mantle stained and covered in plastic in preparation for painting the walls

Kitchen, ditto with the plastic covering for painting

Outside of house...only thing not painted is the front door. it will be black.

Belly is growing. i feel like it has doubled in size since this weekend.

I will try to do better with my next post. i know this was pathetic...

what's up

Our new house is bricked...sheetrock is finished and textured (we dont have pictures of that yet) with the exception of the laundry room wall which was apparently framed IN THE WRONG PLACE. so they had to tear it completely down and will rebuild it about 2 inches out. trim will go in next week. we are set to close at the end of april....yippee!!! and we are having an open house at our current house this weekend. please please pray for buyers!!

the garage door and outside trim still needs to be painted

view from front door

the entry hall is the arched doorway to the left...we are standing in the living room looking at the fireplace we chose to move to the corner instead of in the middle of the wall.

My belly is getting bigger and bigger and today I FINALLLLLLLLY found some maternity jeans. I have been having a really hard time with this because apparently maternity clothes makers think only short people get pregnant. well i found some jeans that are nearly long enough and i will have to live with that for now....still considering ordering some talls from Gap, but cant psych myself up to spend $70 on jeans i will only wear for 4 more months. and just FYI, old navy does have maternity jeans in longs, but they are not at all comfortable because the tightest part of the panel hits you right in the middle of your belly which is ok if you are standing all the time, but when you sit down it makes it uncomfortable. i threatened andy that i would just wear a denim skirt with leggings underneath until it warmed up---that is obviously not a trend/fad that I would normally "sport". Andy laughed at me and told me NO. I am feeling baby boy move around a ton---it feels to me like I have a 1# fish swimming around inside. A little strange and amazing at the same time.


Congratulations to Mike and Ame--my brother and sis-in-law. They bought a house in Owasso and will close at the end of March. So exciting! I know they are sick of living in an apartment-- Parker will love the house and yard and they will have more space with baby #2 on the way--due in August.

I just finished shampooing our carpets--preparing for the open house. They were nasty thanks to Yoda and Tucker, but now they are beautiful and almost like new. I took the opportunity to do it today because both dogs are at the groomer getting summer haircuts. Can't wait to see how ridiculous Tucker looks--i think they will have to shave him because of all the mats he had in his fur. his owners should really take better care of him.

here are a few pics from last weekend and our visit to Josh and Sara's to see the new froese baby girl. Bethany is such a pretty little girl! We also got to see cousin David play basketball--he is a senior at Hillsboro HS and a bball stud. We had so much fun!

Baby Boy Froese

profile shot

profile shot with some legs

head on right, body on left, arm up top

baby foot!

another profile shot--looks like he is blowing bubbles

this is proof of a boy.

bump

still small, but it's coming. I am sure I will wake up one morning and wonder "where in the world did this basketball come from?"

New house

...still going through the building process, but we can see so much progress now. This weekend they have been putting up the sheet rock. The brick was delivered about a week ago and hopefully it will go up this week. We should be hearing soon about our expected closing date--probably early May, though I am actually hoping for a little earlier now.

We put our house on the market about a month ago. We are averaging a family or two looking per week, but no one looked this weekend. We are really hoping to sell soon to avoid 2 mortgage payments when the baby comes, but we still have some time. If you know anyone looking for a house, just send them our way. It is a great house! :)

Crib

So Andy and I found a crib that we both liked...and after making a list of all the gazillion things we will need for the baby, we decided to just go ahead and cross one of the big things off the list. Plus, it was on sale and in stock! We won't set it up in this house since we will be moving in May, but at least we have it!