Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday I turned 26. Now I'm closer to 30 then I am to 20.. yikes, that's scary! I had a nice relaxing day and didn't do a thing until the evening. Mary and Jason met us in Dallas for dinner and then we grabbed some coffee. It was nice of them to come all the way here just for my birthday. They told me they wouldn't miss it for anything though.

The weather is suppose to start cooling off today with the rain we are getting from RITA. We have still been in the 100's with humidity and its been just horrible. The rain should put us in the 80's which will be much more pleasant.

This is the first weekend in what seems like forever that we don't have any plans! It will be nice to play it by ear and not worry much about everything we have had going on. Next Sunday Michael is heading to New Hampshire for 2 days for another conference. We floated the idea of us both going up on Friday and making a long weekend out of it, but decided against it. It's probably better that way anyways because its still so hot, we aren't able to just leave Hendrix outside yet like we usually would. Please Dallas, please cool off....

House Guests

Well Michaels family came and left. It was great to have them around for the weekend. They were excited to come and check out our new place and city. We had a full house -Michaels mom, stepdad, sister and her boyfriend. It was really great that our place was big enough to hold all of us very comfortably. Hendrix also enjoyed all the extra attention he got. We celebrated 3 birthdays. Michaels moms, sisters and mine. They gave me a crock pot which I have been wanting for some time now. Funny thing is, I didn't think of a crock pot when people started asking what I wanted for my birthday. Apparently, they were talking to Nana (Michaels grandmother) and she said, I know what Nichole wants, and told them a crock pot! I was so surprised. I think next year, I'm going to be asking Nana what I want because she always does that kind of stuff. I swear she knows more about Michael and I then we do ourselves!

The weather here is just awful. We are still in the 100's and will be for the next few days. I am really anticipating fall. I just love autumn, but it doesn't seem to want to come yet. It is predicted to get down into the 80's next week, but I am not holding my breath for it.

Carpe Vino

Wine festival was fun. We got there at 10:00 and stayed till about 4:30. While it wasn't like the other wine festivals we have been to in the past it was still pretty neat. It felt more like a street festival then a wine festival. You actually had to go searching for the wine here. Others we have been to, it was hard to see anything BUT wine!! I suppose it had to do something with that it wasn't taking place at an actual winery and just in a town. It was great hanging out with Mary and Jason. We did some shopping, some eating, some drinking, more shopping, more eating, more drinking.... Good times :) We realized on our way out there, every wine festival but one we have been to with Mary and Jason. I guess it just wouldn't be the same without them there. Heres a few pictures:

Who will we see next?

I forgot to mention this to I think everyone! Michaels third day of work his boss to him to lunch to some BBQ place. Before they arrived he told Michael that Ross Perot use to eat tat this place all the time. When they got there and got seated, sure enough Ross Perot was sitting two tables down from him. Crazy! Then we went to the gym a couple days ago and guess who was working out at our gym? Carly Patterson, the girl who won the gold medal in gymnastics at the Olympics last year. Makes sense, since she is from Allen and 24 hour fitness is the official gym of the Olympics. At the grocery store last week I saw what I think was one of the players on the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. He looked similar to one of the players but I'm not 100% sure it was him or not. This guy was a GIANT! He must have been at least 7'0!!! (I checked online to see a picture of this guy, and sure enough the guy I thought he was is 7'5) I literally wasn't much taller then his stomach!

Tomorrow we are heading to a wine festival in Grapevine with our friends Mary and Jason. We are looking forward to it and to spending sometime with our best pals since we haven't hung out much since they left Lubbock to go to Fort Worth a few weeks before we left.

Missing Denmark

Michael is home and is already wanting to go back to Denmark. We experienced that when we came back the first time and he's going through it again. For I awhile I was thinking he wasn't going to come back!! The trip was perfect and the conference was great. He said it was a surreal experience to be back there again and loved every moment of it. While I wish I could had gone also, its probably better that I didn't because he would have had to drug me to get me on the plane to come back here!! I think this excitement will help give him the drive and motivation to get us through our year here. Hendrix and I were glad to have him back! He passed out about 7:30 pm and slept sound all night long. Here is on of the few pictures Michael took. This is the castle in Hillerod in the town that the conference was in and that we spent a lot of time in while we were living there.



Yesterday we found a gym that we love so got a membership. They don't do contracts which is super nice because when we renewed our phone contracts it ended up costing us more because we weren't able to sign a two year agreement. We thought about it and currently Michael has 4 gym memberships and I have 3!! YIKES! We each have one through Texas Instruments, 24 hour fitness in Allen, Bodyworks in Lubbock and Michael can still use the rec center at Texas Tech. Bodyworks will run out at the end of this month though, it was cheaper to let it run out then to cancel and pay the fee. So anyways, it will be nice to start getting a schedule and a routine for our days now that we can start really getting settled here.

Also I got pictures of the inside of our house posted in our Photo Gallery.

Our New Blog for Our New Home

Well, now that we have completely removed ourselves from ALL of our family, we figured our website needed a little more information on it to keep everyone updated constantly. So, welcome to our new blog. For those of you that don't know what a blog is (and I know there are some of you out there) it is basically an online journal where we will write about what we are doing and you can check in, read all our thoughts and chime in with your own opinions and comments.

We picked the name "Learning to Love Dallas" because as most everyone knows, neither of us were very excited about the move. We both wholeheartedly hope that within the one year we are here, we will grow to love it and enjoy our short stay. Hence the name, "Learning to Love Dallas." Worst case senario, we don't love it and we deal with it for a year and then get the heck outta here!!

Our move to Allen was smooth. We have been here two weeks and are getting use to the area and the horrid traffic, long driving distances and the crazy fast drivers. Michael is currently in Denmark giving a talk at a conference. He left Hendrix and I in this new town all by ourselves, but we have kept ourselves busy.

Here is our new house:


We are enjoying our new house and are slowly getting everything where we want it and organized and trying to make it home and not simply a house.

We have already had our first overnight guests. Scot, Michaels dad came down for a couple days and my friends Mary and Sara stayed the night also. We have a guest room with a new comfy bed. Now, we are ready for guests...So come and see us! :)

I hope you will continue to check our ramblings and our adjustments to big city living. It will be an interesting year... Also please feel free to leave us comments on our postings so we know this is being read! To leave a comment just click the link under each post that says, "comments"