NKOTBSB, Baby

If you had told me when I was in 6th grade, that I would be going to a New Kids on the Block concert when I was *mumble* years old, I would have said 'Duh, because I am going to be married to Donnie and be on tour with the whole group!'. Then if you had told me when I was a Junior in college, that I would be going to a Backstreet Boys concert when I was *cough* years old, I would have said 'Duh, because I am going to married to Nick and will on tour with them year round!'. As you can see I have grown and matured a lot over the years. :)

When Sterling, Brooke, Amanda and myself went to see BSB in college, we made shirts to wear, because that is what you do if you are totally cool, right? So we figured since two of the four were going again, it was only appropriate to recreate said cool t-shirts. Luckily, the two new people coming with us are just as awesome as us, so of course they immediately agreed to the idea. Here we are in all our awesome t-shirt glory...


The concert was, in one word, seriously freaking awesome. I am not kidding. It has to be one of the best times I have had in a long time. I was honestly never a big New Kids fan. I remember friends of mine literally crying about them when I was in the 6th grade, and I knew the songs, but I never had a picture of Donnie hanging (tough?) in my locker. I actually knew girls who had the New Kids bed sheets. Weird. But I SO enjoyed seeing them. It was still a huge dose of nostalgia and they still sound pretty good! Some have aged better than others, but overall the entire show was great.

They basically took turns singing their own songs, brought people on stage, went in the audience, rose up in the air on platforms and pretty much just rocked it. They performed for 2 and 1/2 hours, sang all the popular songs, and even some that weren't singles that only the TRUE fans would know. :)

Anyway, I won't keep going on, but I would suggest if NKOTBSB comes to a city near you, that you get a seat near the stage so that you can be one of the lucky ones selected to be serenaded.

Welcome to my NEW World

Greetings everyone. Notice anything different? I have finally joined the world of people who actually try to make their blogs look presentable. My genius friend Tamra helped me (ok she basically just did it for me) put together a beautiful new blog! If you are like me, you read your blogs in Google Reader and you never see what people's blogs actually look like. If you are not, then you may have been avoiding my eye sore of a blog. Well, now you have some catching up to do! =)

I am doing my darndest to actually write in my blog more, and keep your eyes out for a new blog announcement! What is it you ask? Well, you will just have to stay tuned. And NO I am not pregnant. It is blog related.

Anyway, hope everyone likes the new updated blog!

Destin

At the end of May, me and some of my best girlfriends took a trip down to the beach house in Destin. These are the girls who I worked with at TXU, some of whom I knew in college, and we all went to A&M, so we have a lot in common, except that we are all pretty different! I love these girls and I thought I would take a minute to introduce them before getting to the details of the trip.

Here is a group shot of them. This was the first night we got there. By the time we got in and got settled, it was too late to go to the beach, but we did take a quick walk just to check things out.

Private note to my girls: I promise to try not to show a bunch of pictures of us in our bathing suits, but it is, after all, a beach trip, so there may be a little skin showing. I promise I have only included shots that were flattering.

Here is the cast of our trip. First up, KC. KC lives in Lake Highlands, obviously the cool place to be, and was friends with Courtney in college, but I did not meet her until TXU.

Courtney - Sorry, Court, I realize this is a full body shot, but I just think it is a cute picture and wouldn't put it in here if you didn't look awesome! Court and I worked at Bath and Body Works together in college, and she also worked with my roommate at Old Navy. She was a busy girl. =)

Shawna I have known the longest, since Freshman year at A&M. We had some good times cruising College Station in the Camaro...

Lacey - Also did not meet her or Tamra until I worked at TXU, but now we have regular playdates with her two daughters Kiley and Presley, Bella and Tamra's daughter Caitlin. She is also one of my "Blogs I Love" if you would like to know more about her. :)

Tamra - Obviously likes to party as evidenced by the double-fisting below. ;) Ok, I think she was actually holding my drink, but it looks funny. Tamra is mother of Caitlin, and also one of the "Blogs I Love", as well as the executive producer of my blog (ie - she took it from totally geek to totally sheik - if anyone gets that reference, you are my new best friend).

The first night we went out to eat at one of my favorite places, The Back Porch. I think we go here almost every year. And every year I order crab legs and make a mess eating them and I love it! Here is a pic of me and T down on the beach after procuring some drinks.

All the girls while waiting (and waiting and waiting) for our table...

Pretty much most of the trip we just spent all day at the beach. Laying on the beach with a good book, a good drink, soaking up the sun is about my idea of heaven.


Shawna and Lacey boogie boarded...


The other place we went to eat while we were there is in the town of Seaside (most famous for being the location that The Truman Show was filmed) at a place called Bud and Alley's. It was a great bar/restaurant right on the beach, with an upstairs bar so you have a great view. Here we are in the square...


Having a toast on the balcony...


Another shot of the group enjoying our beverages...


After a couple of days we were pretty crispy so some of the girls went shopping at Baytowne Wharf. It is a little place in the Sandestin community that has cute little shops and restaurants. I just think this picture is really cute...


So that is pretty much it. No major stories, just had a blast with some of my favorite people. I honestly can't believe that in the 10 years we have all been friends that we have never done a girls only trip with all of us!

Science and Nature Museum

Isabella and I have made some friends recently at Little Gym. Our new friends Kyli and Caroline invited us to go to the Science and Nature museum recently. I had been once a long time ago, but Isabella really wasn't old enough to enjoy it at that time. This time around, it was a blast. If you have not been here with your kiddo - or even yourself, there were some awesome displays for adults as well - I would highly recommend it. There are all different sections that teach about science while also being really fun for the kids.

I took some pictures with my crummy iPhone camera, but most of the time they were blurry since the kids were running around the whole time. Here are a few of the better ones...

Isabella and Caroline 'took turns' (meaning Bella kept grabbing the magnet wands from Caroline) playing with the magnet wall.


There is also a water section that the girls loved. I think we spent more time in this room than anywhere.

Bella giving Caroline a hug at the water table.

This is in the farm section. Bella is once again channeling her inner farm girl.

Caroline riding on the tractor.


Thanks Kyli and Caroline for inviting us to go with you. We had a blast!

Thank God I'm a Country Girl

My dad's dad has a large piece of land down the road from his house that has a little house and a large pond. We have been going there my whole life for family get togethers, and Bella had never been before. So for my granddad's birthday the whole family went out there to celebrate. There is a huge tree out front of the house with a couple of swings on it. Swinging is one of Bella's favorite things so she spent a lot of time having me or Grandpa swinging her.

Isabella loved sitting at this little picnic table with her cousins to eat. She found a new favorite snack - strawberries covered in whipped cream. This was her third serving.


After eating, we went down to the pier and fished for a while. Uncle Jared showed Bella how to hold the pole and reel in a fish. They caught several little brim that we had to throw back. My mom was showing her the worms and she would touch them and then just squeal! It was pretty funny.


My dad was the only one that caught anything worth keeping. A big 'ol catfish!


This was the first day in Isabella's entire life that I did not put her down for a nap. I kept thinking I would, but she was having such a blast so I just let her play. About 6:30 mom started kind of holding and rocking her and she just passed out! We put her down in my cousin's babies pack n play that she had out on the porch.


After she woke up we got in the car and left. That is when she started getting cranky. The funniest part is that as we were heading out she started crying that she wanted 'sweet milk' from Starbucks. She loves those Horizon Vanilla milks so I usually get her one when we go to Starbucks. So we are in the middle of nowhere in East Texas, probably 100 miles from a Starbucks and my 2 year old is crying in the back seat "Starbucks! Want Starbucks!" Haha. Ohhh I am raising a city girl. Note to self - take more trips to granddad's farm!

Hawaii: Maui

After the traffic and busy pace of Oahu, we were very relieved to get to Maui. It is absolutely beautiful and a much slower pace. We were also there in off season, so we had no traffic or anything. Not sure if it is usually like that.

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua. It was a beautiful resort. It is kind of set up on a hill away from the beach and you walk down this path to get to the beach and restaurant.

I had never stayed at a Ritz before, so I was excited and had some pretty high expectations. As soon as we pulled up, the valet says 'Mr and Mrs Trent?'. How do they know that!?! I seriously want to know if someone knows how they figure this out. Do they have the rental car records or something and read our license? It is amazing to me.

When we get to the front desk, same thing. They know who we are and tell us we have been upgraded to a suite. Yea! When the bell boy took us to our room he gave us the tour and I had to try to stay cool so as not to show myself as a Ritz newbie, but I wanted to be like 'Holy Moly!' The room was bigger than my first apartment. They had a whole bowl of fresh fruit waiting for us as well as a huge assortment of teas and coffee and I was just in heaven.

It was after dark when we got in, so we just ordered some room service and went to bed. The next morning I got up and put on my fancy robe and then went out on to the balcony. Again I wanted to just jump up and down. We had a beautiful view out over the pool and you could see the ocean on the other side of that. It was absolutely beautiful. We decided since it was our first day, and we were still tired from Oahu, we wanted to take it easy and be pampered for the day. So we rented one of the pool cabanas where you have your own fridge, TV, iPod dock, chairs and a waiter to get you whatever you want. It was pretty awesome I have to say. Here was our view from our cabana.


Another perk of going in February is that you are there in the height of whale season. I had kind of just forgotten about this, until that first night. We had reservations at Mama's Fish House, so we headed that way and on the drive out there I just happened to catch a glimpse of this in the water...


If you can't see that very well, it is a whale's tale sticking out of the water. We pulled over and Jason took a bunch of pictures. This whale was just slapping his tale on the water for I swear like 2 or 3 minutes straight. And this is just right off shore! For the rest of our trip, just about anytime you were looking out at the water you would see a whale either jumping out of the water or just a blow hole or something. They were so omnipresent that by the end of the trip you would just be like 'Oh yeah, there is another whale'. Ok, not really, it was pretty exciting every time you saw them, but they were just everywhere!

The second morning we found this little place called the Gazebo. It was this little random place in a little motel on the ocean. We got there right when it opened and still waited an hour for our food. It was worth it. If you go to Maui, eat there. I think it might have been the best meal we had and it was also the cheapest (which isn't saying much for Hawaii - everything is freakin' expensive). While we were eating we could see three whales jumping around. The waitress told us that morning before they opened that one of the whales gave birth! We started watching and you could tell one of the whales was a little baby whale! Crazy stuff.

That afternoon we had a reservation to go ziplining down the side of Haleakala. Right before we got to the point where we were supposed to zipline, we stopped at this restaurant called the Kula Lodge. This picture does not do the view justice. We were basically up on the side of this volcano, and there were all these tiers on the way down to sit at. There was a big wood burning stove for pizzas out there and the weather was kind of cool. I would highly recommend you eat here on your way up Haleakala.

After lunch, we went ziplining. If you have never done this, do it! It was SO much fun. It even started raining half way through, but we didn't care. It was a blast. We were going to go ahead and drive to the top of Haleakala after that, but then it started raining really hard and you could barely see around those curvy roads. We opted not to go careening off the side, and decided to head back to our sunnier resort.

Ahhh, isn't that better?


That night we went to the Old Lahaina luau. It is the oldest one on Maui and I loved it. I am an adventurous eater, so I enjoyed all the interesting food (except the Poi - seriously who likes that stuff?). I also loved all the dancing and the stories. I thought it was great. Jason enjoyed it for one reason only. You get one guess...

Our last full day on Maui, we decided to go exploring some more. I had read about these pools you could find if you really went looking. They were made of lava and the ocean had filled them in. The book I read this in was the only place I found any information on them and I am SO glad we sought them out. It was probably my favorite thing we did. You had to follow very specific instructions to get to them, and we got off the trail a couple times, but finally found them. We were told to look for a 'heart-shaped' pool. We finally came to the top of a cliff and saw this.


It may be hard to see, but the middle pool is kind of a heart shape. You had to kind of scale down the side of a cliff (it wasn't actually as hard as that sounds) and then there were all these little pools. It was the neatest thing. We were the only ones there at first, so we kind of felt like explorers who had discovered something all on our own! After a while a few other people came, but we got some cool pictures of it. This was the view over the side. I mean where is water this blue?


We got the first couple who came down next to take this picture of us. That main pool was probably 10-15 feet deep.

This mountain was the view across from us at the pools. Anyone know what this is called? It is too unique looking not to have a name.


After leaving the pools we kept going around the north part of the island to find this small town that touted it had the 'Best Banana Bread on the Planet!'. There is a part on the map that our rental company gave us that says 'do not take your rental car past this point on the road'. Well, that is where we headed next. The next 2-3 miles around the mountain was a one lane, curvy road. If you could not see around the curve, you just prayed no one else was coming around at the same time. If they were you both slammed on your brakes and whoever had the widest berth would kind of back up and let the other person go. It was exciting (read terrifying) to say the least. But we got our banana bread, as well as some delicious coconut candy, and made it back to our hotel room alive. I don't know if it was the best in the world, but it was certainly tasty.

Our last day we spent shopping in Lahaina, and then took an overnight flight back to Dallas. I honestly was not sure what to expect in going to Hawaii. Maui is my in laws favorite place on the planet, and so I worried it had been built up a little too much. No chance. Maui is amazing. There is SO much to do, and see there, or you can just lay at the pool and enjoy the beautiful scenery. It is so beautiful and the food is so good and the people are friendly and I will definitely be going back one day.

Hawaii: Pearl Harbor

We finally made it to Pearl Harbor. This second morning on Oahu our shuttle arrived right on time. They had our reservation. Everything was a go. The guide on the bus was a wealth of information. He told us all kinds of interesting facts on the way there.

I don't know what I expected for Pearl Harbor. I think in my mind I had it envisioned as a tacky, cheesy tourist attraction. It was nothing of the sort. First off, it is beautifully landscaped. Take a look at these pictures...



Beautiful right? Second, there are so many moving monuments and tributes throughout the memorial. This is one of the submarines. You had to pay extra to see this and I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it!


This an anchor recovered from the USS Arizona.


And a bell...


There is also this area that has a ton of plaques with the name of submarines that were lost in WWII. Each plaque had the name of the sub, who the commanding officer was, how many were lost in the attack and then a brief synopsis of what happened, in many cases it is just what they think happened, to that sub and the men on board. At the bottom of each plaque it has a headline saying 'On Eternal Patrol' and then a list of the men's names who were lost at sea. That part was probably the most heartbreaking for me, besides the USS Arizona.

We had a while to look around, then we had tickets to the movie you watch before heading over to the Arizona. It is pretty sad how little knowledge I have about things in history. I mean I guess I know a lot about Germany's involvement in WWII, but I knew next to nothing about Japan's role. I seriously had no idea how powerful they were at that time in history, so this movie we watched was so interesting in recounting what led up to the attack at Pearl Harbor. On a separate note - if you have not read the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, read it. It has a lot more information on what went on in the Japanese camps and such as that. SO moving.

After the movie, you get on a ferry and head over here...


I have seen the image of this memorial a million times, so to see it in real life is kind of surreal. You can see the ship right under the water and there is even still oil leaking, just a few drops a day, in to the water from the ship.

Here is one of the smoke stacks that sticks up above water.


A look inside the memorial.



This wall holds the names of all the men on the Arizona.


I have always heard that lines for Pearl Harbor are crazy long, but we never saw any lines. I guess maybe since it was an off time of year. We went to Oahu, mostly just to see Pearl Harbor, so I was glad we did get to go. It was a very interesting and moving memorial.

After that, we got back on the bus and it took us on a tour of downtown Honolulu and then up to the Punch Bowl cemetery. Again, our guide had so much interesting stuff to tell us. We even saw where Obama went to school. Haha.

As soon as we got back to our hotel, we checked out and walked down to the Moana Surfrider hotel Beach Bar to have lunch and a drink. We didn't get to spend any time on Waikiki so we wanted to at least have an hour just sitting looking at the water. We soon had to head out to the airport to catch our plane to Maui. Stay tuned!