Abuelitas 80th Birthday

We had the opportunity to go to my Abuelitas 80th Birthday party. We just got the pictures back and I was SO excited. I don't get to see my mom's side of the family a whole lot because they live far away so it was nice to get together with everyone and also have pictures of my family. I realize now how important it is to get to know my Abuelita even more because she it my last living grandparent. She is one of the most amazing women, and has gone through so much. She is 80 yrs old and acts like she is 60. Not only is she a joy to be around, but she always finds a way to make me laugh.  Me and Ian went down with my mom to Fort Worth where we were all meeting for dinner. We went to this Mexican Restaurant that I swear had no air conditioning. It was burning hot and we were all sweating to death. We waited for the rest of the family to show up and waited for my Abuelita to arrive as well. It was nice to just sit and enjoy the company of the Garcia side of the family. I wish we were closer to them and spent more time with them. I feel like I dont know them very well and they dont know me very well. I am very happy that they all absolutely adore Ian though. 

                                                          

 When everyone finally arrived we started taking pictures with Abuelita

. She was all smiles and just looked to cute in her little pink dress. I

  dont think we will ever get JD in a cowboy hat again, but at least I have one picture to remember it by. While we were all taking pictures the Mariachis arrived and started playing. I love listening to the Mariachi music and just enjoying the atmosphere. CJ got the courage (after much convincing) to go and ask our abuela to dance and it was a site to see! CJ doesnt have a whole lot of rhythm sometimes but he looked so handsome dancing around the room with her and she was just all smiles. We finally ordered because we were starving from our trip down and after a LONG time waiting for our food to come it was AWFUL! It was almost comical how bad the food was. Ian wasnt feeling too good like always so he ordered the carne guisada which was literally a little bit of meat and flour tortillas..... I ordered

 the chile relleno and could barely down it. All I could think of was waiting for the cake to be cut to get some REAL food inside of us! Ian got a 

little claustrophobic and had to go outside for a bit to get some fresh air. I had the chance to sit down with my Tio Cesar and catch up. He is my closest uncle and always makes me laugh. I remember when me and my sister were younger, he used to ask us how many boyfriends we had and it would make us so embarrassed. He also always invited me to come and see him and I just never had time. Thats one thing Ian and I really want to do still. 

We sang to my abuelita and cut the cake. There was a little more dancing and Mariachis before we had to leave because both Ian and my mom couldnt take it anymore. It was dreadfully hot and my mom nearly passed out. We said our goodbyes and started on our long drive back home to Austin. We had alot of fun and look forward to my Abuelita moving to Austin soon so that we can spend more time with her. She will only be about 5 minutes away and it is so exciting to know I can go and see her whenever I want to now! Happy Birthday Abuelita! 

Texas Heatwave 2008

This summer in July Jess and I attended the Custom Sounds Texas Heatwave car show out at the Expo center. We finally got to go this year after missing the last three years. Let me tell ya, Heatwave definitely lives up to its name as Jess and I both got FRIED outside all day. Jess took an instant liking to all the large trucks there and I was impressed that she could practically walk underneath most of them. 

We got to see the tail-end of the burnout contest where the last contestant had a hard time getting the LSD on his Z28 Camaro to spin but on the third try he finally got his tires lit up. Afterwards we checked out his car to find that he had completely shredded one of his tires completely off the rim! 

Later on I convinced Jess to sit inside an audio-demonstration truck from Treo Audio. We were both a little bit hesitant to get inside because as we were waiting to get inside, we could actually see the doors bulging out from the insane amount of bass. We got inside and it was so loud it made our eardrums 

tickle and one of the TV screens inside blew out! Once we received our hearing again, we headed outside to the monster truck show. While we were waiting for that to start, we saw some idiot in his Hummer H3 (the wimpiest of all Hummers) who was probably drunk and/or stupid actually try to drive over all the crushed cars that are set out for the monster trucks. Of course he got high-centered and couldn't get off. He delayed the monster truck show and they had the sheriff come out and give him a 

ticket while a truck tried to pull him off with a tow strap. He was stuck so badly that eventually they had to have one of the big monster trucks come out and pull him and he had screwed up the bottom of his Hummer so bad! By this time, the whole crowd was mad at him and yelling like crazy. It was a sight to see.

Last but not least we headed back inside again to see the hydraulics contest. We saw quite a few cars get above 72 inches but nothing was as amazing as seeing one of the cars almost flip over on the announcer's booth. Everyone was literally diving out of the way of the flying truck! Later on, they brought out a truck on air-bags that could actually flip it onto its side!

1 year Anniversary Weekend

For our one year anniversary we decided to finally go to the Oasis. It is SO beautiful out there! This is one of our favorite shots because it really shows how pretty the sunset was. We had to wait about an hour for a seat and it was dreadfully hot outside, but it was totally worth it. We dropped the hint to the host that it was our anniversary and told the manager too, so they got us one of the best seats in the entire restaurant. In case some people dont know alot about the Oasis, it seats over 2000 people in the restaurant and the table go down a hill so almost every table has a view. We were lucky enough to be inside the building, right on the rail. So it wasn't TOO dreadfully hot, it was just perfect. Ian and I had some of the most incredible shrimp and finished off our meal with a HUGE chocolate mousse cake that was to die for.
From there we went to go see Get Smart at the movie theater before we went back to our hotel. That particular weekend we had to get a hotel because our house wasn't quite ready to move in yet. It was nice to have a little hotel for the weekend though.
The next morning we woke up extra early and decided to drive to Enchanted Rock to go hiking. Ian had just won a GPS system at work so we were pumped to use it on our drive. Little did we know, that GPS needs adjustments such as "shortest distance, or avoid highways".

So Ian and I are driving and were asked to turn onto a farm road, we crossed over cattle guards and this is what we saw...We were laughing hysterically because this was not where we were supposed to me. We ended up hitting another cattle guard that said NO TRESPASSING or you will be fined. So we decided to turn around and see if the GPS would take us somewhere else. Well we ended up being directed to another road just like this one. So me and Ian ended up having to navigate all by ourselves. This 1 1/2 hour trip ended up taking us over twice as long to get there. But the trip was so much fun and we enjoyed spending the time together. When we finally got to enchanted rock, it had to be over 100 degrees outside and the Rock looked HUGE. We started out hike only to make it up a small distance before already needing a break. The view was incredible but we were just melting in the heat. Everytime we thought we were reaching the top, we would see even more of the mountain to climb. It didn't take us too long to reach the top and the view was well worth it.
Ian climbed this other huge rock that I couldn't get up. He had a hard time getting down, but I love this shot. He looked like he conquered the whole mountain.
I decided to conquer a smaller rock, on the left hand side. I was just happy to get on that one because on the way down my bad knee started shaking really bad and Ian did everything but put me on his back to make sure we made it down safely. This was one of the best weekends we had spent together because it was just the two of spending some quality time with each other. Since out lives are so busy with school and work, we cherish these types of activities. I cant believe it has already been a year that we have been married. It flew by so fast and look forward to the many more anniversaries we will have together.

New Home

So me and Ian bought a new home in Round Rock! We are so excited to finally be in a home and not have to deal with apartments anymore. What a blessing it is to be in a home of our own at the ages of 22 and 23. We thought we would post some pictures of the home to share with everyone!


This is our beautiful home from the outside! We love that we have a red door because it adds a little more personality to our house!
We have a corner lot and huge trees in our yard!




On the right is our entry way to the house, I had been cleaning so you see the bucket and mop too (oops)!





Here on the left is our guest bedroom! I love black and white and thats what the whole room is themed around. So if anyone decided to come and see is, this is the official Hotel Harlow.
In about a yr or 2, this will also be converted into the nursery :)!




This is our pride and Joy! We finally have an office and whats best is that it is UT themed. We took forever to paint the wall. It took 4 coats of paint to finally get it to look right. This is also Ians music room where he can make his beats and DJ a little bit. We love this room! HOOK EM'!


This is the master bedroom. We bought a whole new set including a King size bed, we LOVE it. Ian and I both move ALOT at night so it is nice to actually have space to toss and turn. The room is big and we love the dark furniture.




The living room is where we spend most of our time when we are actually home. We like that there are big open windows because it lights up the whole room. The living room is not very big, but it is just cozy enough for us.

Our master bedroom is something that totally sold us on this house. We have a double vanity and a walk in closet. What you cant see is that we have a garden tub! Does it really get any better than that? We also have a stand up shower as well. The guest bathroom is similar to this but it is a sage color with a beach theme.






Ok so i dont want to spend the whole evening posting more pictures of the house, but i think this gets most of the house across. We would love visitors if you want to come and see it. We are just so thankful that we can enjoy this wonderful home together and start our future family here as well.

Starting Off

We just had our housewarming party and decided that maybe we should start a blog to let our family and friends know what we are up to! I might be back tracking a bit and covering some stuff that has already happened, but it will catch up soon! Off to post a worthwhile blog.....