Happy Birthday, David!

My sweet Husband had a birthday last week.  We kept things pretty low-key with a night at home on his birthday.

I made a special dinner for us.  Lucky for me, David is not very picky about food so I got to experiment with something new.  I made The Marlboro Man Sandwich from the Pioneer Woman and it was really good!  And we had some onion strings on the side

 Then David got to open his gifts (with some help from Lily!)

A couple of movies and a book (not pictured)

 For dessert I made us homemade pizookies.  I love to bake, but David does not really like cake, so I have to get creative when making desserts for him!

Over the weekend we got to go to Cleburne and celebrate with David's family.  We had  a yummy dinner at a new restaurant outside of town and then enjoyed banana pudding at the house.

Last night we got together with my family for dinner to celebrate.  Our sweet 3 year old nephew kept saying "I want to celebrate Uncle David's birthday" because he didn't quite understand how a birthday can be celebrated without a party at the park or the pool or a trampoline park!  He told us then "David's birthday is different from Chase's" (because they are gearing up for his big 3 year old party next month!) He realized we were just eating dinner for the birthday celebration so then he settled on the fact that hopefully there would be cake--he settled for the ice cream and cookies we had in lieu of cake.  We just thought it was cute that he kept wondering when we would actually start celebrating David's birthday!

So grateful for this man that God has brought me to and all the celebrations we've already enjoyed in the past year... and looking forward to many in the future!

Year of Dates: Top Golf

This month's date was golf-related.  David is a big fan of Top Golf and we've been there on a few date nights in the last couple of years.  So I figured I'd plan it for the beginning of the summer time before it gets too hot.  We decided to make this month's date a double date and invited our friends Lucas and Yali to join us!

Lucas wanted to take us to try one of his favorite restaurants near downtown Dallas.  Velvet Taco is close to his work and he has introduced several friends to it.  David and I each tried 2 different tacos--I had a rotisserie chicken taco and a fried calamari taco and David had the Hangover Burger Taco (eggs and beef) and a Crispy Chicken taco.  They were all delicious!

After dinner we headed over to Top Golf.  We had a little wait for our bay, so we enjoyed some of the lawn games while we waited

The 3 engineers played giant Jenga... and I watched :)

I'd only ever been to the Top Golf in Allen, but we tried the one in Dallas this time.  It has fewer bays, but I really loved the atmosphere there--the lawn games, fire pits, and lots of places to hang out while you wait

It was a really nice night to be out there!

Yali and I decided to team up and play together, so we each only played half as much as the guys.  But on the 2nd game, I somehow got 22 points on one shot (we really have no clue how that worked) so the girls won by a lot!

I had a great time with my date! :)  It was a perfect summer night

May iPhone Rewind

So I haven't ever done an iPhone rewind, but I really like the idea of looking back at the month and summarizing it all.  Looking back at what I've posted and sharing what I haven't gotten a chance to post yet, so I decided to do one today for the month of May

I started off May with a trip to Canton with Erin.  We had to start off our road trip with our traditional Taco Cabana breakfast.  It was a great day looking around with her and seeing all the Canton treasures

On my way back from Canton, David texted me to say he though Lily's tail was broken.  She had been acting strange and not really wagging her tail since the night before and he started doing some research.  We called to make her a vet appointment and I took her in the Monday morning.  Luckily her tail was not broken and there was  a relatively easy fix for her.  This is her on the way home--happy as can be

 In honor of Cinco de Mayo I made us some tacos and queso.  May brought the winding down of many of our weekly activities, so it was nice to enjoy a few nights at home

We went on our date of the month to play Disc Golf at the Park.  It was fun getting to spend time outside with the weather getting nicer.

 I made 2 cakes for Mothers Day.  I made a chocolate bundt cake to take to David's mom when we went for Sunday lunch.  And then we had my mom over for dinner that night and I made her grandmother's Carrot Cake for the first time.  I thought both cakes turned out very well!

 I was able to celebrate the graduation of 2 dear friends and meet Yali's parents on their trip here from China (Ivy's parents are coming this summer, so I hope to meet them as well!)

 We went to a Sunday afternoon Rangers game with my family.  My brother got us seats in the lower deck, but under the overhang so we were able to enjoy the game in the shade, which made it very nice.  It was fun getting to spend the afternoon with my family--especially our nephew who likes to cheer on the Rangers

 We took a few more trips out to the trails by our apartment.  It was crazy how much greener everything had gotten since our last trip out there.  We stopped for a picnic lunch on this rock and Lily had a great time!

And yesterday we ended May with a trip to Ham Orchards for blackberry picking!  We were able to go out with our friend Amy and a few of our international student friends.  We picked blackberries, bought produce and goodies from their country store and enjoyed some BBQ at their pavillion.  You can read more details about this trip on Amy's blog post about it :)