Culinary Conference

I love love love my job. It seems to just keep getting better! One of the perks of my job was this really cool Culinary Conference at Le Cordon Bleu in Austin. It was an amazing and fun weekend. I learned so much and met some really great people.

Above is the Bleu River Grille, this is their grab and go restaurant and since we had only 30 minutes to eat before the conference started we decided to try it out. It is their casual bistro and it was very good. I had the Southwest Chicken Salad but was so hungry and rushing...I didn't get a picture! Above is one of the many really cool quotes all over the school.

Friday night we had a SteakOut at the Ranch courtesy of the Texas Beef Council. The menu was above and is was just amazing! We also walked out of there with great materials and posters that are very nice and usable.

Here is our dinner. I was already stuffed with the nice appetizers and salad but definitely found room for this! I was all so good!

Here is my chef jacket from the weekend...really helped for learning everyone's names.

On Saturday at our group work seminar they announced that they were putting us in groups to have a Culinary Competition on Sunday. I was in group 2 and so we named ourselves the "Deuces Wild". I truly believe that I couldn't have picked a better group! These ladies were amazing and several had won competitions with their students so their knowledge was awesome! We didn't win anything but we had so much fun working together and talking.
Our menu was
Two Toned Strawberry Cantaloupe Soup
Flat Iron Steak with balsamic carrot rounds
Twice Baked Potatoes
Double Down Dessert (Creme Brulee and Chocolate Almond Cake Balls)

Summer Fun

Fourth of July pictures

Watching the rain

Grateful for American freedom and ice cream!!

After dinner, we headed to the theater for Toy Story 3D. Cambria did not like the 3D images at all! Luckily some of it doesn't really need 3D so she could enjoy it just the same!

Potty training...is not fun! We are working on that this summer...she's interested in sitting on it and on the big potty and has gone on the little potty but it's so far just a "toy".
This picture was taken at the NCHS Natatorium locker room...she finally decided she had to go potty and wanted to use this potty! Ugh...I was changing her so she had no shoes on...GROSS! I had to let her go, though. I just scrubbed her hard after that!

Last, I felt I had to add in this guy...he's from Cambria's favorite iPhone game...Elmo's Monster Maker. She loves this game and it's so cool to see how she knows how to do everything will little to no help! So I have a bunch of these monster pictures on my phone. Yay!

We love Incredible Pizza!

**Edit** Here are a few pictures Kendra had on her camera!


Yesterday, we met my good friend Kendra and her children, who were in Houston, at Incredible Pizza. She has a 4 year old son and 2 year old daughter. It was a great place to take all the kids! They could choose from a huge buffet what they wanted to eat. It was great! The game room was also a lot of fun! They loved the skee ball, basketball and bowling. Cambria and Laney had a lot of fun throwing the balls and watching each other. I have a feeling all Todd's future birthday parties will be there! Ha ha!
Here are a few pictures of our adventure...I brought my camera minus the card and batteries....so these are from my phone! Kendra took some so I'll add those later.

Father's Day

For Father's Day we wanted to go to Outback Steakhouse...after getting out late from a great church service....the wait was waaayy too long. We decided to go to Todd's other favorite place, Wings 'N More! It was a great relaxed lunch and we even went to go get Coldstone afterward.

Todd is an amazing father to Cambria. She loves being able to be rough and crazy with him. He's always willing to play and wrestle with her. He takes her on long bike rides where they sing songs together. He loves this little girl so much. She is so lucky to have Todd as her daddy!

This last picture is of Cambria at my in laws hotel last night. They had to stay over a night in Houston because they missed their flight due to mechanical difficulties on the first plane. We drove over to their hotel and saw them for a few hours. In this picture, Doug was making the hot tub turn of and on (with a switch). Gigi would tell Cambria to say "go bubbles" and then Doug would hit the switch. Cambria thought she was magic! She loved it!

Our SIXTH Anniversary

Yesterday, was our sixth anniversary! We are so blessed to be celebrating this wonderful event with our child. We started off by going downtown to the original Pappasitos. We LOVE that place so why not go to it on our anniversary? We both had Sangria Margaritas with our dinner and Cambria felt that she needed a drink to toast, too. So our sweet waiter went and got her a virgin daiquiri. He also brought a kids cup to put it in but she wanted it just the way he gave it to her. Then, we headed to Minute Maid Park to watch the Astros play the Rangers. We decided to go a little early and I'm glad we did. We got to park for $1! Last night also happened to be Texas Tech Night so we got great seats and proceeds went to the Alumni Association. Cambria had SO much fun at the game. At the Astros game, they have a train that blows it's whistle at the beginning and end of each game as well as for home runs. Cambria loved this and kept saying "train, woo woo" with the hand motion. At one point she says the same line, and adds "bye train, I love you!" We had some sweet people behind us two rows back who just loved Cambria and all the smiles, waves and "Hi's" she kept giving them. They even shared their food with her! They sent down a whole tray of popcorn for her. Another memorable part was during the seventh inning stretch when they play the songs. Cambria and her dancing got us all on the jumbotron BOTH times! Those sweet people behind us were so ecstatic for Cambria and her debut!! Finally, on Fridays they retract the ceiling and have a fireworks show. It was awesome! The ceiling retracts very fast, 10 min or so it seemed. Cambria was crying and scared at first but then decided it was very cool. She then started shrieking and clapping saying "did you see that daddy?" She clapped when it was over but was disappointed, asking "all done?" All in all it was a memorable anniversary and Todd couldn't have made better choices! It was a great night. We want to go back!

The Train!

The cake I made us....lemon with raspberry mousse...sooo good!

San Antonio!

This past week Valerie and my mom came to visit us in Kingwood for a few days. We had a lot of fun shopping and eating at the local Kingwood places. On Sunday, Cambria and I rode back to San Antonio with them. We got to spend even more time with Valerie, our families and some wonderful friends. Here are a few pictures of the time we spent together. I'm really sad I didn't get any of Valerie and Cambria!!!! However, it was great to be able to see Valerie before she heads back to Oklahoma City.