11th Anniversary

Holland and I celebrated our 11 year anniversary this weekend! We started off by going to Real Ale's 17th Anniversary party in Blanco. The event had around 1,000 people and it was dog friendly. THANK GOODNESS Hannah did not give us hell and was actually decent. She was going around sniffing everyone and making friends with other wiener dogs. Bleu was the social butterfly like he always is and was literally smiling the whole time. 

After the anniversary party we set off towards the lake house in Sunrise Beach, one of my favorite places in the world! I fell asleep in the car and woke up to Holland veering off onto the shoulder saying "WAKE UP! WE"RE TAKING PICTURES IN THE BLUEBONNETS!" The roads going up to the lake house were FILLED with bluebonnets. It is the best time of year in Texas. 

I had THE BEST shirt for our impromptu photo shoot :) Thanks Chris Mahler.

While I was going through pictures for this post I was laughing so hard out loud at how funny Holland was.

FACEBOOK PROFILE PIC!!

 Okay so my sister and Holland both told me that rattle snakes nest in bluebonnets. I did not have time to research this before our photo shoot and Holland wanted me to lay on my belly. He kept saying "JUST DO IT and GO FOR IT!!"I was hesitant but eventually got over it.

 Today we were REALLY lazy and laid in bed watching tv for what seemed like forever. Even and Hannah and Bleu were asleep and lazy with us. We don't have cable and we overdosed our selves on hoarders, say yes to the dress, extreme couponing and some drug enforcement agency show where they look for submarines. We came to the conclusion that extreme couponing is a form of hoarding. Seriously, you need 500 rolls of paper towels? You need all that formula? Oh and you don't have a baby? Makes total sense.... haha.

Once we got going we hung out at the deck and Hannah and Bleu sunbathed and swam. We went on a boat ride and ate lunch at the marina as well.

We had a fabulous weekend away. This weekend really felt like summer was here.  8 more weeks and we will officially be there!

Easter Celebrations

Holland came back from D.C.  in the evening on Easter so I spent the day with my family at my parents house.  It has been a while since we had a barbecue and it was nice to relax. I made some pasta salad, deviled eggs, and these easy brownie cupcakes.

 All you need is brownie mix, cake mix and cream cheese frosting. Make box mixes as directed- put a scoop of brownie mix then a scoop of cake mix and bake! SO delicious. I got white cake mix and used food coloring for different colors!

Brownie Cupcakes Recipe

Another new thing I brought to Easter this year was conversation dinner starters. I got the questions from this link:
Easter Conversation Printables

Everyone seemed to really like this! I cut up all the strips and put them in plastic eggs and passed them around. It was funny to hear peoples answers. I also learned that my dad always got his Easter basket on the kitchen table. I thought that was interesting since when we were kids, we always got our baskets on the fireplace. I always thought the Easter Bunny came through the chimney like Santa. :)

Cardenas Clan

Tio Greg and I after a cascarone battle. 

I was at the airport picking up Holland when the crazy storm was coming through San Antonio. Luckily I missed all the hail and it cleared up by the time he landed. We got home and I gave him his basket filled with a beer and a chopping knife. He was definitely missed while he was gone. 

Vegas!

Okay, I am doing some SERIOUS catching up on our blog today. I have so much I want to write about but am just now finding the time to sit down and type away. Holland and I were travelistas in the month of March. We went to a friends wedding in Houston, Santa Fe, Vegas and Holland went to D.C. for a brewers convention and thankfully I was able to stay home. This is our first weekend at home together since March 16th! I am going to start off our first catching up blog from our trip to Vegas for my cousins 21st birthday and My 5th annual 21st birthday!

Above is a picture of the whole group! My uncle Greg, PP, Billy, Dawn, Grandma, Holland, Ness, Amanda, me, Danny, Nikki, my Mom and Dad.  We all flew from San Antonio but my cousin and her husband flew from Chicago and they were in for a surprise!!  PP did not know that we had tricked her and brought her dad along with us. It was the best secret I ever kept! TWO MONTHS PEOPLE! I tried to just not talk about the trip with her and her dad did a great job of not spilling the beans either. 

My original surprise plan(insert evil laugh here) MUAHAHAHAHA. 

1.LIE to pp and tell her to meet us at the hotel. She would be so surprised that we were at the airport waiting for her in the luggage dept. 

2. Show her her dads picture on a stick to REMIND her that he was "not here" but here in spirit on a stick. 

3. PP gets all sad because her dad is not here. 

4. BAM!! Have tio greg walk up and we all get excited. 

Well right as PP and Billys flight landed my mom brought up the idea that she probably carried on all her luggage because she packs SO LIGHT. She has like a forrest gump sized suitcase on her long travel trips so I had to quickly revise the plan to. 

1. Tell PP SURPRISEE!!!! We are here, meet us at the luggage claim

2. Show tio greg on a stick. 

3. BAM!!! He shows up. 

It worked soooooo great and my cousin was SOO surprised. She got tears in her eyes and then hit him like the Hill in her :)

This is our Tio Greg pose. 

We all had such a fabulous time. I seriously I am in love with Vegas. I love playing black Jack and I get so addicted to that feeling of excitement!! To me, to win money is nice but I really like just playing the game!! I downloaded blackjack on my iPad and have been coping with that since we are no longer in Vegas!

The Birthday peeps!

 My grandma never looks at the camera!! haha.

  Some of the things we did:

* Walked all the way down the strip! We stayed at the Luxor and did the long walk all the way to Caesars!

* Saw the Beatles Love show. Holland and I saw it 6 years ago and it was still amazing. 

*Ate amazing yummy food! The pizza in Vegas is amazing. AMAZING. I ate that twice. 

*Gambled some money away. Luckily we found it again!

* Ate a sundae at Serendipitys. THE BEST!

*Stalked my dad in the High Limit room- he had ADHD when we were in Sin City!

* me the nicest dealer EVER named Julio. Every time we chanted his name "JU-LI-O", we would win :)

*danced the night away at a fun night club. 

 Billy and I had a dance off :)  I won by default because it was my birthday :)

We also got to meet up with some friends that now live in Vegas!! It is so nice to pick up where things left off. So happy we got to spend some fun times with them! I am also jealous that they are minutes away from the strip!

We had such an amazing time. Every trip I have been on to Vegas with my dad is always one to remember. My mom said it in the best words "He treats us like we are celebrities". I will never forget this awesome trip with some of the best people around. My dad is already itching to go back. I told him " In the summer!" and he looked at me crazy because it seems too far away. He was thinking like we should go again next weekend. Thanks mom, dad and nessa for the great birthday celebration! 

P.S.  I am now on the downhill slope to 30. :) Totally okay with it. 

Santa Fe.

Our Spring Break this year was fantastic! We traveled to Santa Fe New Mexico with four of our friends to go hit the slopes and eat as much green chili as possible! We set off on Saturday morning and drove the 12 hours to Santa Fe. 

I made oatmeal raisin cookies and brought some other snacks for the road. Sarah totally won the award for best road trip ensemble. She made each couple a basket of GOODNESS. That is the best way I can describe it. She made HOMEMADE chexmix! Best chexmix I have ever had. On top of that there was a Sudoku book, skittles, sour patch kids, coke in glass bottles(because that is the best tasting coke int he world). Some other things in the basket were roasted garbanzo beans, cucumber soda, koolaid mix, a disposable camera and so much more! HOLY MOLY. I didn't even get a picture of it because Holland and I duh into out basket within the first three hours of the ride!

Oh and she also made each couple a blanket with the silhouettes of their dogs sewn on it. Yes she is that amazing. 

We skied for 2 days and it was AWESOME. Holland and I went skiing in Vermont over Christmas and it was much more difficult than this since it was mainly ice. This was a ton of fresh powder. We got snow the first day, no snow on the second day but it was still nice but warmer out. 

This was the first place I have ever been where they put a sticker with your name on your skis. SO helpful. 

Holland put these on a few life chairs :) People will appreciate it, most of the people skiing were from Texas!

The Whole Group!

I love this one. 

Holland recorded some skiing action and if you want to see more go to the link below. 

SKI Santa Fe!

Some other photos from our adventure.

We went out to watch the spurs game on Monday night and I found a great sign and had a fantastic idea. :)  It said "Beauty is in the eye of the Beerholder"

For our last night in town we went to a spa and we all got our own hot tub, cold dunk waterfall and sauna. I took pictures with Hollands phone but it is currently nowhere to be found and when I called it it is dead.... so I will have to post some of those pics later!

Thank you so much to Megan's family for letting us stay in their beautiful home in Santa Fe!


Hope you all enjoyed your Spring Break! I am ready to get out in the garden and do something outside!