family dallas trip: day 1.

it's only taken me a month, but i'm finally getting around to posting about the family trip we took to dallas at the end of summer.  haley has never been out of the state of oklahoma, except to visit our aunt who used to live in arkansas. 

haley has stayed pretty busy babysitting for the loves and the leaches this summer, and my travel schedule at work has picked up quite a bit. still, we knew we wanted to get her out of town for a bit, even if we couldn't go for an entire week.

july 25th was a thursday.  haley spent the day babysitting for the loves in barlesville.  we picked her up right after work and headed to the tulsa airport to pick up a rental car.  travis and i had taken the next day off work, so we were going to have a three-day weekend.  instead of using one of those days for driving, we had decided we would drive down on thursday night so we would have all day friday and saturday for activities and part of the day sunday before heading home.  the rental car took a little bit longer to get than we had originally anticipated.  with the plan i have, we can usually get out, pick a car from the aisle, and head on out ... but the tulsa airport was beebopping-showstopping, so we had to wait for one to be cleaned and available.  i grabbed the car and haley and travis headed out ahead of me.  we got to the house and travis and i quickly packed, said good bye to the boys (my mom and sierra helped watch them at the house while we were gone - and then took them to tahlequah and muskogee later in the weekend), loaded up the car, and away we went. 

the drive to dalls from tulsa isn't really all that bad.  we had spotify to keep us company, and i created a fun playlist for our dallas trip.  sometimes almost always, when we get in the car, haley puts in headphones, so i tried to make sure it was a fun mix of songs we would all like.  i even included some one direction songs.

when we drove through durant, haley could see flashing lights in the distance.  she asked what was glowing in the sky.  it kind of cracked me up, because what was glowing in the sky was actually the casino.  (ignore the terrible quality of this picture).

when we got into dallas, we actually hit traffic.  haley was outraged.  what the heck? seriously? traffic at this time?? we explained that texas does all their road construction at night.  the trip definitely wasn't bad, but the last forty-five minutes of the trip i was definitely counting down the minutes until i could crawl into a nice cozy bed.

i wanted to stay at the omni dallas (the hotel that plays in the opening credits of dallas, the show), but they were completely full. so we stayed at the omni mandalay hotel instead. (also in dallas).

now, there are a few perks that come with travel as frequent as mine.  i had earned three free nights with omni because i've stayed with them so much, so our hotel room for the weekend was completely covered -- and we were able to upgrade to a suite for no additional cost.  (yay for free suites for a whole weekend!)

when we finally got to our hotel at a little after midnight this was waiting for us. 

we didn't spend too much time enjoying it, though, because we were all completely wiped out.  we quickly found our pajamas and toothbrushes and started getting ready for bed.

while i was changing, travis tried to make up the sofa bed for haley.  turned out there was no bed in the sofa.  we looked and looked, but there was definitely not a bed ... and there was no other furniture in the room that turned into a bed.  i felt terrible.  haley said she didn't mind sleeping on the couch, so we promised we would get it fixed in the morning, and all headed to dreamland.

flying to houston.

there was an incredible wall cloud that we had to fly around tonight on our way to houston.  the pilot called the flight attendant up to the cockpit to point it out to her.  

i never grow tired of seeing this sort of thing. 

we flew a "C" around the storm and then straight on to houston.  the sky opened up quite a bit once we were around it.  i love when we see wall clouds like that.  this particular one went up higher than 60,000 ft!  pretty incredible.  and since we fly so far around, we can enjoy the view without all the turbulence. 

sleepy girl.

this week haley has been babysitting asher.  monday she had levi and asher, but since then it's just been ashy.  it must have completely worn her out because we barely got out of bartlesville before she was fast asleep. 

 

impromptu road trip to tahlequah.

today travis messaged and asked if the girls and i could have the house ready for a house showing for today.  we got up and got everything ready and then loaded the boys in the back of the car {travis had my car detailed for me last week while i was in houston, so i hated having to load them up, but i made sure to lay down a nice comfy blanket for them}.  we usually put oliver in the back seat of the car and conor in one of our laps, instead of in the cargo area, but this time i decided to give them the entire back area. 

we drove around the block a couple of times, i ran into walgreens and then into GNC.  after that, the showing still wasn't finished, so i decided to head to my dad's land in tahlequah.  sierra was following us in the truck while i ran the first few errands because she planned to go tan after we were finished. she decided to go with us, so she parked the truck in the target parking lot and hopped in with us.  haley was hungry so we grabbed a quick bite at the freddy's drive-thru.  i had a concrete, but remind me to never get burgers from freddy's.  haley got one and it looked terrible.  it was the thinnest burger i've ever seen in my life!

when we got to the land, mom and dad were busy working on the house, but they were happy for the company.  the boys love being out on the land.  it was a little muddy, though, so by the time we left, conor looked like he was wearing little brown socks.

i have the sweetest boys.  {and some pretty sweet girls, too}. 

ringing in the new year with kate & nick.

forgive the grainy pictures. i have my camera now and below are the few shots i captured of the evening.

the new year's ball after the countdown. happy new year!

new year's kiss to ring in the year right ... it's supposed to bring good luck, you know. travis and i smooched as well, but as i was the picture-taker, no evidence exists.

travis and me just moments into 2011

the sweet men in kate and my lives

the girls

the pictures below capture part of our fabulous spread. i didn't get any pictures of our signature drink or our desserts {all of which i made for the night}, but you can still see we had no shortage of delicious treats for the evening.

kate & nick did a fabulous job whipping up philly cheese steaks, chicken quesadillas with peppers and onion, ceviche, cheese trays with fruit and honey, crostini ... the list goes on.

i served paloma coolers, a traditional tres leches cake, and molten lava chocolate cakes.

we spent the evening at the hoback evins household preparing food, watching football, playing comedy movie scene it {the guys won the first round, the girls won the second} and then we moved along to the game dirty minds ... which was a disaster really ... and landed mine and nick's minds in the gutter for the rest of the night, with kate continually asking nick "who are you?"

we quit the games to watch the countdown, share our kisses, and pop two bottles of champagne outside. all in all the night was a perfect, laid-back, success. i couldn't think of a better way to ring in the new year -- surrounded by some of our closest friends, with great food, great drinks, and lots of laughs.

a new decade already?

hello 2011. how did you get here so quickly?

i've wanted to blog all day long, but have been tied up in season two of smallville. have i mentioned this is a recent obsession of travis and mine?

okay, you might say, so you've been wrapped up in season of smallville; can you not multi-task? and a very good question that would be. travis and i have a new toy, however, and i have quickly become spoiled. he recently equipped our tv with a wireless keyboard and mouse ... so while i have a very useful laptop {and a command center in the office} i find it so much nicer to sit from the comfort of my couch with a 42-in screen at my disposal. {the pictures are a little dark, but you get the idea}.

i also realized that i left my camera with all my holiday {christmas & new years} at the hoback-evins household last night when we went over for new years. so while i have more posts to come ... you will just have to wait.

happy new years to you and those you love. cheers to 2011! i don't really make new year's resolutions and don't really feel like a new year is a new beginning so i don't have anything inspirational or reflective to post. what about you? do you make resolutions for yourself at the start of a new year? what kinds of things do you hope to accomplish?

we wish you a merry christmas.

merry christmsas ...

... from our family to yours.

xoxo, the leach lear household 2010

mommy's coming home.

since i've been staying in edmond, i don't get to see my boys very often. it's usually almost a full week before i head back to broken arrow for a few days.

i was driving home last week when i received this heartwarming text from travis and conor. travis had told conor "mommy's coming home" and the following scene unfolded. melted.my.heart.

{i think pics 1 and 2 should actually be swapped, but blogger is not cooperating with me right now.}

a little ahead of myself.

whoops ... the post about mila's daydreams was actually supposed to go on the notably noted blog ... but it's so great, i might as well share it here, too. what a precious, precious idea!

mila's daydreams.

copyright (C) Adele Enersen

oh.my.goodness! have you seen mila's daydreams? a definite must-see, it's an entire blog dedicated to the "daydreams" of mila. while mila naps during the day, her mommy quickly creates a scene around her and snaps a photo {like the one posted above: let's play beauty salon}. i love this idea.

lazy on a sunday afternoon.

when travis and i woke up on sunday, he asked if i wanted to go look at the furniture again at rooms today or if we should head over to mathis brother's again to see if they had anything we liked better. another afternoon out of the apartment sounded wonderful to me. i pulled on one of my new pairs of pants {why is it so wonderful to have new clothes?} and a shirt my sister had gotten me a while back. it has gray in it and matches my new {gray} pants perfectly.

we headed out to the shops once again. we really like the saleslady at mathis brother's. she is great to work with us when we want/need her, but she doesn't hover. she's helpful and kind so we wanted to give her the commission from our living room set if at all possible. after spending quite a bit of time in the store {again} we decided there really was nothing there we liked as much as the furniture we found at rooms today.

away we went. when we got there we had our sales guy check on the bedroom furniture, too. it was such a good deal {basically the two pieces for the cost of most of the other beds in the store} that travis thought we should at least check it out. we decided if it was still available, we would buy the bed and then get the living room furniture later.

the sales guy told us someone had held the furniture on the 27th and were supposed to come back in on monday {as in today} to put 10% down. our sales guy really wanted to sell it to us, but his manager said he wanted to do right by the other customer. i was just shocked they would hold a piece of furniture {especially for that long} with no money down. our sales guy went back and forth several times. he was finally able to talk to the sales person who had originally held it for the customer. in was like a 5 second conversation and that sales person told our sales person we could absolutely have it. we decided it was meant to be.

we had talked about buying the bedroom furniture and then getting the living room furniture later, but we have a payment system with them, so we decided to go ahead and get all of it. the whole reason we started seriously looking for furniture was so travis would have tables to sit lamps on so he would have better lighting to study. the bedroom furniture was too good of a deal to pass up, {and we do need a new bed since our mattresses have just been sitting on the floor} but i just felt like lamps and tables were more important.

we got the living room furniture, the bedroom suite, and two beautiful lamps. i'm going to post pictrues of the lamps below, but you can also see them displayed on the dresser from yesterday's post. i was so excited! the only downside? the furniture we really went to get ... it's not in any of the warehouses!! we have to wait four weeks or so to get our coffee table {which apparently is now called a cocktail table} and our end table. they did have our sofa table, and we were able to take it home with us.

we got home and got the car unloaded and travis set to work putting our beautiful piece together.

it's so silly, but just this one piece of furniture and the lamp made such a difference in changing our apartment from a "house to a home." travis and i both thought so. it's hard to describe, but it was such a good feeling to feel like it was a home. i love our piece. i'll try to take better pictures and share. we did a little bit of rearranging, swapping the love seat and the oversized chair and ottoman. the funny thing? we had done that exact same thing a few days ago and hated it. the sofa table really made all the difference. the place just feels comfortable now.

our bedroom furniture will be delivered tomorrow. i'll share more then.

random update.

since it has been a while that i posted anything of significance on our personal blog, i thought i'd give you a glimpse into what's on my mind today.

01. i'm at the apartment today while travis helps his dad on the roof at his parents' house.

02. i love being back in the broken arrow/tulsa area

03. we've lived in our apartment for about two months, and aside from our new furniture {did i ever mention we got new furniture??} we have done very little to our apartment. when we moved out of tulsa last time, travis gave away a lot of our furniture. it went to his sister who was just starting off on her own. i'm glad we were able to help her, but it left us with very little.

04. since i'm pretty sure i've failed to mention the new furniture before, here are a few {horrible} pictures, but you get the idea.

05. next on our list? a new television since amanda got that, too. =)

06. i'm trying to figure out where i am going to work for the next little bit to bring in money, but still be able to work on notably noted. on thursday i contacted my old regional manager about a store manager position that is available in edmond, and then i also applied for a marketing coordinator position in okc. i'm not finding a lot around tulsa, but am seeing opportunities in okc/edmond. i have also been looking in san francisco.

07. i'm having a terrible time making up my mind about where i would like to go. travis and i have talked about the fact that whatever i do doesn't have to be long term -- a year to two years at most. we both are okay with having a long-term relationship for a little bit, but then i wonder if we're being realistic about that or not.

08. connor is running around her like a crazy man today. he keeps trying to get outside because he met a 3.5 lb yorkie named teddy yesterday. teddy isn't even outside, but i think connor can still smell him or something. he is about to drive me nuts.

09. i had a dream about having two children last night. it was weird. i don't usually think about having kids, and even after the dream, i don't feel a strong desire for them, but i remember how much i loved the two little boys {who were named connor and chase} in my dream.

10. i really, really, really want to decorate the apartment, but i've limited our funds right now by not having a second job to notably noted.

11. i am SO ready for fall. so ready! i posted about it on notably noted's blog a few days ago, but i can't get it out of my mind. haha! kate's comment on that post sums up my feelings perfectly! "...I can't wait for new cashmere sweaters, soft turtlenecks, leather boots, and wool trousers." I'm also looking forward to the crisp fall air {after 100+ degree temperatures since July, I could definitely go for crispness that doesn't refer to the baked grass and leaves}, and all of the yummy fragrances that come with the fall season. oh! and fall television programming. very excited about this upcoming season.

12. i'm ready for us to have a desk in the office so i can get everything back in order again.

13. i'm getting tired of making this list while connor tries to share my lap with the latop ... when he's not running to the door and the window acting like a crazy man!

... so that's what's been going on in our world. hopefully travis won't be too burned when he gets home from working on the roof all weekend. update us on you and your families! for now, i'm going to try to calm down my little man and enjoy an episode of leave it to beaver.