Way Out West Weekend

Another fun week in Dallas! Taylor is still loving Sunset High School even though he has some rough days every once in awhile. He really likes being the strength and conditioning coach and is getting excited for track season. I am still having a great time at National Carriers and my co-workers are awesome! This Friday was Breast Cancer Awareness Day at the office so everyone wore pink. I think we looked good!

Friday night was our first date night in awhile. The Sunset football game was really far away, and it was really cold (aka 50 degrees ... we are already to used to the Texas heat) so Taylor said we didn't have to go! Instead he took me to our favorite Oak Cliff restaurant, Jonathan's. Then we had every couple's dream Friday night activity: grocery shopping at Wal-Mart! Woo!

We continued the shopping Saturday morning at Costco, which Taylor enjoys much more than Wal-Mart due to the large number of samples. But our journey to Duncanville ended up being an adventure when we decided to go search for an iPhone 5, which we have been looking for for weeks. We were searching for a Best Buy, ended up at a Sprint store (which has them on 3-week back order), and then got really lucky when we ended up at another Sprint store just down the road that had received a random shipment of white and black iPhone 5s! So Taylor is now officially the proud owner of the first smart phone in our family! Hopefully that means we will have more pictures in the future.

The first picture taken with the iPhone

Easily the best part of the week came Saturday night when we went to Brady and Casey's house for a "Way Out West" murder mystery. There were 19 people there and it was incredibly entertaining. Everything was super detailed and everyone really got into their parts. Taylor played the sheriff's deputy Dan Fairweather while I played the tomboy and Lucy Calhoun. And it was even better, at least in Taylor's eyes, because everyone brought amazing food!

Family Comes to Town

What a great week! Taylor finished up his first six weeks at Sunset High School last week and only had a four day week this week because DISD gives all its teachers and students Friday off to go to the Texas State Fair. We didn't quite make it to the fair but we still had a really fun weekend.

Taylor's parents came down and visited us from Kansas City for our three-day weekend. They got in late Thursday night/Friday morning, long after I fell asleep. But just before they arrived we had a little adventure in our apartment. Taylor went to take out the trash just after midnight and a gecko snuck into our apartment. It took awhile for us to find the little guy but we finally did, trapped inside a stack of printer paper. Taylor solved the problem by leaving him trapped and tossing the entire stack of paper outside the apartment, where it sat all night.

Friday morning we finally got to take advantage of our apartment complex's Free Breakfast Friday (we are usually at work when they serve it at 9), which got the day off to a great start. We went on a long walk to show the Wilsons our neighborhood, then took off for Arlington, where we ate at the BEST burger place in America, Chophouse Burgers. After Chophouse, we stopped by Cowboys Stadium, checked out the store, and drove past the Ballpark at Arlington. We also found Taylor's dream apartments, which sit in the parking lot of both the Cowboys' and Rangers' stadiums.

The highlight of the weekend for Gregory was an amazing three-hour trip to the North Park Mall. We originally didn't plan on spending too long there and just wanted to look around before the Sunset football game, which was nearby. But we got there must faster than anticipated and the game started 30 minutes later than we originally thought. Keri and I loved spending our time looking through the Michael Kors store and H&M, while Taylor and Greg watched the Yankees v. Orioles game in a frozen yogurt place.

By the time we arrived at the game the night had become perfect for football. Unfortunately, Sunset struggled once again and lost 50-0 to drop to 0-6 on the season. But the halftime show was amazing, as always, Taylor got to see some of his students, and I got some popcorn from the concession stand, which made everything worth it!

Since we spent 3-hours in a mall on Friday, we let Gregory guide our day on Saturday. We woke up early, went on another long walk, and headed downtown to the Sixth Floor Museum. It's a memorial to John F. Kennedy and is a self-guided audio tour through his life and the details of his assassination. It's not something Taylor and I would have gone to on our own, so we're both really happy Greg wanted to go, because it was a great experience.

After the museum, Greg and Taylor spent the afternoon watching BYU football while Keri and I went grocery shopping. After BYU finished up another disappointing game, we headed to Jonathon's, our favorite restaurant, to give the Wilsons a taste of Oak Cliff. We all ordered something different and it was all absolutely delicious. Taylor is in heaven when he has good food in front of him, but the most impressive feat of the night was Keri eating her entire plate of Chicken and Waffles!

The weekend ended calmly on Sunday, when we went to church and had another delicious meal, this one a prime rib roast that Gregory brought from Kansas City Steaks. They took off at 2:00 and are still driving home as we write this. We are so happy they could come to visit and had one of our best-ever weekends in Dallas!

Birthday Week :)

It's my birthday week! We started the celebration by going to the Sunset football game on Thursday night with the Garzas. We are still hoping for our first win but Thursday was the most eventful game yet. We were losing 36-0 with 5 minutes left in the game when a fight broke out on the field. It started out small, but then the entire Sunset team ran onto the field, which prompted the entire Richardson team to run onto the field, and a crazy, full-team brawl went on for almost four minutes before they could break it up! After they cleared everyone off the field, they decided to end the game even though there was still 5:00 left on the clock. We are still waiting to hear if Sunset's season will be cancelled or if we will get to go to more games. Crazy!

On Friday my coworkers at National Carriers surprised me with pizza and red velvet cake! It was an awesome surprise and I'm so happy I get to work with such great people. Friday night was another night spent languishing through a BYU football game. We had some friends over, so luckily the ladies got to distract ourselves while all the guys got headaches from watching the Cougars win 6-3.

My birthday was on a Sunday this year, so Taylor decided to surprise me with a birthday breakfast and flowers on Saturday. He snuck out of the house at 7:30 am, bought me some beautiful flowers, and picked up my favorite breakfast (biscuits and gravy, with a side of THICK bacon) from Norma's cafe, and snuck back in. I woke up just as he was arranging it all on the table. He is so sweet!

Saturday afternoon we headed up to the North Park Mall so I could do some birthday shopping. I originally planned on just buying clothes but I mistakenly walked into the Michael Kors store "just to look". Well, I ended up walking out with an amazing silver and gold watch! I love it! (Thank you Taylor, Mom & Dad Jacobson, Mom & Dad Wilson, and Grandma and Grandpa Jacobson).

For my birthday dinner Taylor took me to Eno's Pizza, a nice little pizza place on the Bishop Arts District near our house. We are trying to taste every restaurant on Bishop Arts because they all look so delicious! Eno's turned out to maybe be the best one yet. We got super-thin crust pizza with white sauce, chicken, mushrooms, and basil. YUM!!

Conference Sunday was unique this year because we got to drive to Keller to go to my cousin Emily's baby's blessing. His name is Tait, he is 6 weeks old, and I love holding him! He fell right asleep in my arms! :)