This Week: Europe!

Wednesday, I am leaving to go to Europe with college friends Abbey and Jennifer, and Fort Worth friend Erin. Abbey lives in Spain so we will be starting with a week in Italy, followed by a week in Spain. This is what I am looking forward to:


Thursday-Sunday: Tuscany
We will be staying at a villa with wine tasting, cooking classes, and relaxation

(This is not our exact villa because I lost the email with the link but the feel is the same)

Sunday-Wednesday: Rome

Abbey goes back to Spain and we three are staying in Rome at a hostel with a private room and shared bathroom (we're living big!). Last Euro trip with Abbey, we only stayed in hostels and I loved it. It's not for everyone, and something that I will probably outgrow, but I love it for now. It's cheap, clean, lots of young people, and easy.

The Colosseum

Vatican City

Borghese Gallery

Wednesday-Wednesday: Southern Spain

Erin heads back to the US while Jennifer and I fly to Spain to meet Abbey. She lives at a European dude-ranch in the southern region of Spain (as best as I can tell...). We will meet in Seville, stay the night, then head to her dude-ranch to lay on the beach, ride horses, and chillax. 

I really have no idea what her area looks like. This is a guess.

I have been so busy A) trying to get the big stuff on the wedding planned and B) working that I haven't had time to get excited yet. These pics definitely helped!

The Proposal!

We're engaged! Here's the story... 

Background: I am an extreme planner. I want to know every detail of every event. When I asked him a million times what we were doing, what I should wear, etc., he kept saying, "You just need to go with the flow." 

Last Thursday, he sent me an email saying he won a trivia contest on one of the football message boards he frequents. Below is the letter. He told me I could pick what I wanted. I said either the tour or the koozie. Ha! PS- I couldn't figure out how to put a document on a post so here's a screen shot.

We went to Austin for the weekend to "visit his sister." We got in late Friday night and just went to dinner with his sister's family at Chuy's. Saturday, we got up, had breakfast, walked around their neighborhood, and then the two of us went to watch the Tech and Texas games. We ended up at a sports bar and watched the games with a billion other people. He told me we had to leave at 5:00 PM because he had a surprise. He said we were going on the tower tour he won. When we got there, they asked us to just hang out because they were waiting for a large group to show up. 10 minutes later they told us that the group didn't show so it would be the two of us alone. Below is us waiting:

When you go on the tour, they make you walk through a metal detector and Johnny went off! This was NOT supposed to happen. First, the person letting us through the metal detectors said really quickly, "Ohh let's just use the hand wand for him!" Then the guides at the end of the hall yelled at me to "come on down" to the elevator so Johnny could get frisked in private. Once we got to the top, they let us walk around the top and it was so pretty! We got lucky because we missed the rain by about 30 minutes. 


View of the south mall:

We made the loop and he stopped me, said all of these great things, and popped the question! Self-pic after: 

View of the ring. Every pic we took came out blurry! I saw a picture of a similar ring on the internet but never saw it in person. The ring on that website was not exactly what I wanted so we had someone make our ring with a few changes. Click here to see the inspiration ring. It came out perfectly! 

Another after pic! 

Where it happened

He had another surprise lined up for dinner but told me our reservations were not until 8:30 so we had an hour to kill. We went to Eddie V's for some celebratory drinks. I found my new favorite drink: ginger vodka, ginger ale, and lime. 

My surprise was dinner at the Vince Young Steakhouse! I had been dying to go there and even made a joke earlier in the day that he would never take me there. Johnny's friend knew one of the owners so Johnny let him in on the secret and they spoiled us all night. 

First, they treated us with yummy champagne. 

We started off the meal with a cheese plate and yummy salads. 

We both got steak and I had mine topped with Crab Oscar. 

Our surprise dessert! 

The meal was one of the best I've ever had. Highly recommend! 


Behind the scenes:
1. There was no large group we were waiting for. Johnny had purchased all of the tickets so we would have a private tour. 
2. Saturday afternoon, he packed a bag of my dress and my make-up so I could change before dinner. To get the bag to the car, he needed a distraction. He enlisted the help of his 6 year old niece, Avery. She took me to her room to show me her red coat. Random. 


The whole experience was amazing and perfect and I am so excited for everything to come! 

The Overnight Socialite

Book of Choice

The Overnight Socialite 

By: Bridie Clark

Background: 

This book was recommended to me from Kindle. It looked like a girlie/fun book so I took the chance and bought it. I am not one to read reviews so the only clue I had to the book was the title. I was intrigued. 

First Thoughts:

This book was like the movie She's All That on steroids. The characters live on the Upper East Side and have a crazy life of parties, money, and drama. When a nobody from middle America comes in and rises to the top of the social scene (thanks to her mentor), their stable society gets shaken up. Throw in a few love stories, and you have The Overnight Socialite. 

Final Thoughts:

This book was a quick, fun read. It's not going to change your life, but it was a good time! 

Room

Book of Choice

Room 

By: Emma Donoghue

Background:
This book was, again, recommended me to me by someone at work. Room is a story told by a 5 year old boy who is held captive with his mother by a bad guy. His mother was kidnapped as an 18 year old and little Jack was born 2 years later. His whole life has been lived in a small room in the back of the guy's house. 

First Thoughts:
I had heard it may get annoying to read the 5 year old's verbiage but I thought the author did a really good job showing the point of view of the young boy and adding adult conversation to break it up. 

Final Thoughts:
I loved this book. I read it in 2 days! Highly recommend.

PS This was my first "real" book to read since I got my Kindle. It was a nice change!

Addendum: I forgot to add this sooner... My only dislike of the book was the way it ended. It was one of those endings where I thought it was really just the end of a chapter and turned the page to read more.

Cruise: Key West

Key West was our final stop on the cruise. It was such a pleasant surprise. I expected it to be nice, but I didn't expect to love it so much! The Keys will definitely be on my Travel Bucket List.

Johnny and I ventured out alone for the day. We started with a 2-hour trolly tour all over the area. It was nice to sit back and allow someone to drive us around. 

On the tour, we saw the "0" mile-marker of Highway 1

This is self-explanatory

Part of the beach in Key West

After the trolly tour, we stopped for a refreshing Key-Limeade

The second stop on our excursion was the Key West Aquarium. They had a shark tank full of nurse sharks. They wanted to warn you not to put your hand in the shark tank, in case you didn't know.

Sea turtle!

Holding a star fish

Yucky conch! 

Shark Feeding! They went crazy!

Our final stop was the Shipwreck museum. This museum is in tribute to those who made their money pillaging wrecked ships off the keys. 

We finished our Key West day with some Conch Fritters. Yum!

Our friend was waiting for us when we got home! 

Cruise: Bahamas

On to the cruise! We boarded Monday morning to Majesty of the Seas. We immediately made our way to the bar section to buy some beer packages. Below is the beloved Chris holding our cool new coolers. The day was pretty rainy so we spent it exploring the ship and getting to know the bartenders. 

Tuesday, our first stop was in Nassau, Bahamas. We chose an excursion that went to the Atlantis resort. I had been before with my family when I was in middle school and was so excited to go back. Our excursion allowed us access to everything at the resort. We spent the day at the beach, on the water slides, and in the pool. It was, by far, the best day we had. I don't have very many pics of Atlantis because I put my camera away to avoid the water. I decided I need a water-proof digital camera for Christmas!


The Royal Towers

On the beautiful beach

Drinking a local beer

Dinner the second night at the ship. We ate at the nice restaurant every night.

Chris and Amanda pretending to take the cruise's portraits.

Our attendant showed his love.

Bingo! We played Bingo 4/5 days on the ship. Amanda and Chris won twice!

Wednesday, we were set to go to Royal Caribbean's private Island: Cococay. There is not a dock on the island so we were tendered in.

The boys' favorite activity was searching for barely-there bathing suits.

Cococay Beach. The cruises that were scheduled to go to Cococay earlier in the week were diverted due to the hurricane so we were the first ones there. Everything looked fine minus some small debris on the beach... no biggie.

View of our boat from Cococay's beach. It started POURING down rain at about 11AM. We were scheduled to go jet skiing but that was cancelled. Sad face. We headed back to the boat and took a nap instead.

Dinner on Wednesday

The Bahamas was beautiful. I can't wait to go back... with a water-proof digital camera!