Trooooouble

If you watch golf in your house as much as we do, you've seen this a million and a half times. If not, here it is...

Trouble

Our Friend, Rex

Ryan and I spent this weekend in Beaumont to throw a shower for our two lovely friends, Thomas and Shelly- soon to be the Sittons! They are wonderful friends of ours, and we're so excited about their big day!

(PS- I look like a giant next to Shelly... she is teensy tiny!!!)

On the way home we stopped in Houston at my parents' house to pick up Bella, who always stays there when we are gone. We call it her Disney World because they take such good care of her. They take her swimming, walking in Memorial Park, she eats and drinks whatever my dad does, etc.

Well, we left Houston a little later than we thought and headed down I-10 and then over to Hwy 71 on our way back to Austin. Just a few miles from Columbus we had a small adventure. We were driving down the road at around 70 mph when a dog darted across the highway. (Side note: I grew up with a dog, I love my dog, but I don't love just any old dog...I'm working on it. Dogs with long hair kinda gross me out because, unless they're really well kept, I don't feel like they're clean. In fact, the word mangy comes to mind) So, this dog darts across the highway, and my heart just drops. I mean, there is no way that he is NOT going to get hit by a car. So Ryan and I, in total agreement, turn around to go pick him up. On our way back to where he is several other cars swerve to miss him as well. Poor little friend.

We get to where he is and pull over to the side of the road. I jump out and try to call him over to the side of the highway- which is difficult when you don't know the dog's name. I went with Bailey because I've always wanted a Bailey. Anyway, Bailey was pretty freaked out but shyly came over to me. He had on a collar but no tag, but you could tell he was really well cared for. After a lot of coaxing we got him in the car, which was not an easy task.

So, now we have a stray dog in the car. Fantastic, he's not on the highway anymore. I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure we really thought about what to do next because if we can't find his owner, he's pretty much coming back to Austin with us. Um, what? I don't really think I thought that through...

So, long story short, we now have Bella

and our new friend, Bailey

who have quickly become two peas in a pod... in the back seat of our car.

We drive around to a couple of gates that lead back to people's ranches. They're all locked, and the houses are so far back on the land that we can't even tell if anyone is home anywhere. One of the ranches as a key pad... We try in vain to punch a few numbers in to see if anyone will come to the gate, but we're out of luck.

So, we make the decision that Bailey is coming to Austin with us, and we'll just try to look up some of the ranch addresses and send them letters to see if they know whose dog this is. In our minds we are already setting up a vet appointment and thinking about where he'll sleep.

Until we come across....

which is a summer camp, located just a few hundred yards up the road.

So, figuring that we have nothing to loose, we drive in to see if anyone there has seen this dog before. I went into the office while Ryan hung out with the kids who, again, are now BFFs.

The office staff knew of one of their counselors, a college aged girl, whose family lives on the ranch next door to Pine Cove (the one with the keypad at the gate). So, they asked her to come and see if she knew who the dog belonged to. After waiting for her for about 20 minutes, she came running over with a football jersey, tall socks and face paint shouting,

"Reeeex, how did you get out?!?!"

I couldn't believe it... What are the chances that the girl who lives next door to Pine Cove was a counselor there? Whoa.

Anyway, she kindly gave us the gate code to her parents' property and swore that they weren't home and would not come and shoot us for entering on to their land. Thanked us a million times over, and we were on our way to Brushy Creek Ranch.

I'm not going to lie, at this point we'd spent almost two hours with our friend Bailey/ Rex, and the two of us were preeeetty attached- to the point that we were sad we found his owners. But, we took him home and said our goodbyes. I almost cried... at least twice.

I guess the whole adventure wore Bella out because she was oooout the rest of the way home.

We love you, Rex!!!! When we got home, you definitely inspired us to go here to think about getting a friend for Bella.

Let me introduce you to...

cakewrecks.blogspot.com

I had the time of my liiiife...

In 1999, when I was a freshman at Texas A&M, I decided to go through rush. I didn't really think much of it... my mom had been in a sorority and had had a really good experience and it just felt like the natural thing to do. After a looooong week of standing in alphabetical lines outside of multiple houses in the HOT August sun, I was ready for the week to be over. At the end of all of the madness I was given a bid to be a Pi Beta Phi. Little did I know then how it would change my life.

I met some of the most incredibly fun and absolutely hilarious friends I know and have always appreciated how grounded, down-to-earth, smart and generous they all are. We had a blast in college and have just as much fun now. Out of the six of us who have stayed super close, five of us live in Austin. We see each other as much as possible and always have fun just the girls or with our husbands too. Thankfully they are all golf-obsessed, so it's makes the planning easy.

Bid Day our Senior Year

Sophomore Year Fire Dance

`
Rush our Junior Year

Wedding Shower for Bradley in Austin at TRog's parents' house

Wedding Shower for Ryan and me at Laura's House in Austin

Bradley's Wedding in Dallas 2006

My Wedding in Houston 2007

Couples Weekend in Austin last summer at Bradley's House

Meeting Laura's second baby- Miss Kate

It seemed obvious to the six of us that we would need to do it up BIG in order to celebrate our "Decade of Friendship" (like, making t-shirts big). So... after lots of researching and lots and lots and lots of emails back and forth, we found an all-inclusive trip to the Riviera Maya. We had so much fun during our 5 days of reading by the pool, eating breakfast, lunch, a crepe or two and then dinner and just getting to talk and hang out.

Arriving in Cancun

Bradley, LMerc, TheLoj, Trog, Lynch (me) and Reams

At the Beach

Dinner at one of the WONDERFUL restaurants

Our nightly routine of playing games

I am so thankful for the friendship that I have with each of these girls. I'm so blessed to have such a great support system in them. The Lord certainly knew what he was doing when he put us all together our freshman year in college. We've been laughing and crying together for about 10 years straight, and I know there will be many more fun times to come.

Love you girls!

It sure is hard to take a cat nap around here

Who's ready for vacation? I AM!!!!

Tomorrow night is the night we've been waiting for. My Pi Phi friends and I are heading to Riviera Maya, Mexico for a week of fun and sun at an all inclusive resort to celebrate 10 years of being friends. We cannot wait!

Roll Call! Braids, TRog, Reams, LMerc and ThaLoj..... it's time!!!!

Schooooool's Out For Summa!

I cannot express in words how much I LOVE the summer! It has been so nice being back at the gym, not getting up when an alarm goes off and having time to knock out to do lists that I've been saving for months!

Here's what the Assuntos have been up to leading in to the summer (since it's been a solid two months since I last blogged- oops)...

Eating yummy meals outside on our back patio while Bella plays in the yard.

Replacing old faucets in our kitchen and bathroom.

Ryan did a bike ride from Austin to the Shiner Brewery. (I drove and was also exhausted when I finally got there)

Going to Ryan's family's Iron Chef competition in Lago Vista.

And....

Going to Houston for my 10 year high school reunion.

This summer I can't wait to...

-See my friends Angie Burns, Thomas Sitton and two of Ryan's super fun cousins get MARRIED!!!

-Go to Riviera Maya with the Pi Phi girls for our "Decade of Friendship" (yes, we made t-shirts)

-Go to Charleston, South Carolina on vaca with my wonderful hubby.

-Get ready for another school year... We are moving from the 3rd floor of our building out to the portables. Adios craziness that goes on the halls. Hello pulling straight up to my classroom in the morning.

Happy Summer!!!