Bye Bye June!

Already a month into Houston living and it has flown by! 

What have we been up to:

Michael started his job! And he LOVES it!! It is exactly what he was hoping for and looking for with his first job. He spends about 75% of his time in the field and 25% in the office or writing. A perfect balance for him. Sadly it is summer in Texas, so it is beyond hot, but as October comes around this will become an even better job. The only big change for Michael is now he loves the weekends and all he wants to do is relax and veg since all week he is going and going. Just wait till we have the house and then he will never have veg time haha!

Coney 2012! Samson had a hot spot on his back right leg that wouldn't go away. It started as a bite and turned into an open sore. It was so sad and we could not get him to stop licking so as a last resort we turned to the cone. We tried bandaids but he and Bella would take them off, we tried these yucky tasting strips that we were told would work and he took those off with no issues, so our last idea was the cone. He hated every second of wearing it and would run into everything, but we are happy to say that he is all better!!!

Bella is the Queen! We are living with Michael’s parents as the house is being built so there are 4 labs which is beyond crazy!!! But Bella – she is nuts! She loves having all this room to play, all her friends in one place ready to play, and endless amounts of water in the pond to drink. Bella plays from about 6:30am to 9:30pm everyday and then literally passes out! I am not talking about sleeping, I am talking about she can not even open her eyes, she is that tired and it is wonderful!

We are under contract on the house!!! YAY!! We signed our contract last week! After about 20 floor plan changes and exterior changes we settled on a plan and are moving on! We now spend our evenings looking at appliances, colors for the exterior of the house, paint colors for the inside of the house, about a trillion other things that go into a custom home, and I am now getting to think of the Pinterest ideas I want to add to the house! Hopefully within the next 6 weeks we will start the actual building!!!! We have a lot of things that have to happen first, but I can not wait for the clearing of the lot to begin (just where the house is going-we are keeping as many trees as we can) which will start the actual building process.

Michael’s parents bought a house in Colorado!!!! YES!!! We are very excited! His parents left today to spend 2 weeks enjoying the new house and the beautiful weather! Michael and I can not wait to get up there in the winter and enjoy this new slice of heaven!

Aquariums. No exclamation point as this is not my thing. The boys LOVE them though! Michael has a fresh water tank and Andy has a salt water tank at the house. They are downstairs in the kitchen/kitchen eating area so we all get to enjoy them when we want. I will say I like Andy’s aquarium. The colorful coral and pretty fish are really neat but SO MUCH WORK! Andy had these adorable clown fish, but they didn't make it :[ his coral though is doing great and is multiplying! 

Meet Pearl! A good friend of Michael’s parents got a new lab puppy and brought her over to play! She reminds us so much of Bella! She has a spunky personality and doesn't back away from anything! She stepped in the water bowl and the fun began!

Bella and her favorite thing, FOOD! Michael found a deal online with the dog food and when it was delivered this is what she did with it. 

Our month of July is going to be BUSY!! My birthday is the 7^th, Michael’s birthday is the 14^th, Michael’s mom’s birthday is the 22^nd, Michael is going to Salt Lake City for 3 days the next week, we are going to Port Aransas with friends the weekend he gets back, and then the following weekend is August! WOW this summer is flying by!

All good things come to an end..

Last week ended the Lake Bryan era for our sweet pups! Both dogs absolutely LOVE this place and could walk themselves the few miles there and back by memory if they one day decided to just take themselves there. (Luckily this never happened and never would as both dogs do not run away and just stick the our yard) When we would turn left onto Sandy Point Road they would start to go crazy in the back seat and the craziness got more intense the closer we got. I know soon I am going to miss the excitement they had, but now I have to find some place new for them to love like they did the lake. I just have no idea how/where I will find such a place.

I thought I would share some of my favorites from the MANY trips we have taken to lake Bryan.

And here are some from our last day, poor pups had no idea it was going to be their last time :[

These two sweeties LOVE Lake Bryan and I hope we can find another place in the Magnolia area that they can love just as much!

Here are some other lake posts and pictures here, here, and here.

Sorry about the picture over load!

B/CS Restaurant Bucket List Update

Our time in wonderful Aggieland has come to an end and so has our B/CS Restaurant Bucket List. Luckily we got to almost everything we wanted to in time.

A little recap, Michael and I have lived in the B/CS for about 6 years (me 5) so we have tried plenty of yummy places, but we had to make a bucket list to make sure we got to all the restaurants we wanted to try instead of always going back to our favorites. By making this bucket list we found a lot of new favorite places that we really liked.

You can go back and read about these yummy places here and here.

Our list is as follows:
La Bodega
Martins Bar-B-Q
Los Molcajetes
Maddens
Koppe Bridge
Lakeside Icehouse Grill
Coco Loco
Pho John
40 Tempura
Top Of The Hill 
Cafe Eccell
J Cody's Bar-B-Q
Sodolaks
Christopher's
Good Time Charley's
Haiku
Hullabaloo Diner
Carter's Burger

BJ's 
The Village 

We added:
Grub

This list is in no particular order, we just add restaurants as we decide we want to eat there and have not been before or if a new restaurant opens up that we want to make sure we go to.

Here are the last few restaurants we were finally able to scratch off the list.

Lakeside Icehouse Grill -- We have probably been to Lake Bryan about 300 times in the past 2 years and have only eaten at the Icehouse one time. My only regret was waiting so long! I had a delicious chicken wrap and Michael had a yummy hamburger with $2 margaritas to finish up the meal. Michael's parents joined us on the nice early summer dinner on the patio overlooking the lake. It was so nice out there and we wish we would have eaten there more often.

Coco Loco -- We had a bunch of friends tell us about this hole in the wall and had to try it. After the Plaza Hotel imploded last week we ventured over for breakfast at 6:45am and were very pleased! We only went for breakfast, but the dinner menu looked really yummy!

 

Pho John's -- I had been pushing this down the list for months and finally Michael said we are going to get Vietnamese tonight no matter what, so we got Vietnamese. For the Dexter fans out there, Michael has been wanting to try pho since the first time Masuka brought it up. Me on the other hand, not so much. Michael's pho is the first picture and I had pan fried egg noodles and beef. I thought Michael's meal tasted like bath water and absolutely loved mine. He thought his pho was good, but loved mine. I would definitely recommend this place based on my meal.

Cafe Eccell -- Yummy brick oven pizza! We had pizza here three times after our first trip. Michael and I love pizza and wish we had our own brick oven, but sadly we don't. The BBQ Chicken pizza here is the best, while the margherita pizza was lacking. Service in the restaurant was not that great the one time we ate, so from there after we picked it up.

 

J Cody's -- Michael and I decided to share a steak the last time we went and it was nice and juicy! We really liked it but did not think it was something we couldn't live without. There are much yummier BBQ places in B/CS.

Sodolacks -- YUM! I had the chicken fried steak and Michael had a nice yummy medium rare steak. And all the sides were delicious! This was very affordable, filling food that if I liked eating southern food all the time I would have eaten there more.

Good Time Charley's -- This was a new restaurant in downtown Bryan that we thought we had to try. We went with some friends and we both agreed it was not worth going back to. It was just ok but there are much better burger joints in town.

Haiku -- We wanted to try a Hibachi grill in town because we love the one back home in Round Rock. My office took us all there for a dinner party and it was yummy! How can you go wrong with fried rice, veggies, and steak! We sat at the end of the table though and got gypped on portions :[ (No link, sorry. They changed the name of the restaurant and I do not remember what it is called)

Hullaballo's Diner -- I already blogged about this experience here! WE LOVE THIS PLACE! Michael actually just ate there again on Wednesday afternoon. Sooooo tasty!!

Grub -- I do not know how this is even possible - we have eaten here about 10 times and somehow I only took a picture one time and it is not even a juicy hamburger?!?! We love this place and tell everyone who likes hamburgers to try it! We have tried all the burgers except the ghost and the mushroom burger and loved all of them. The milkshakes are delicious and so are the sweet potato fries! I'm getting hungry just writing about it.


It is crazy to think this chapter of our lives ended and we will only be going back for hopefully football games and other random events. We only did not make it to sushi and to a really expensive formal restaurant. Which I am thinking is a good thing. When I added sushi to the list I was thinking I would start liking it, but sadly that really just isn't happening. And with building a house, I would much rather spend the crazy amount of money for dinner on something inside the house haha. We loved our time in the B/CS and loved all the yummy places we got to eat :]