Tailgating - It's a family affair!

The tailgate

This past Saturday marked my parents and Ryland's first ever UT tailgate.  For an extra special touch our tailgate joined forces with Major Applewhite's family tailgate!  We arrived around 10am and began showing JuJu and Opa the ropes - you know, scouting out the location of the kegs, food and TVs.  :)  The food selection for this tailgate was slow cooked chopped beef brisket sandwiches and fried boudin balls.  YUM!  The MSU vs UofM game came on at 11am and thank goodness there were 2 TVs as the A&M vs. Baylor game was on at the same time.  MSU played an awesome game and spanked UofM, 28-14.  :D  Go Green!  Ryland had a blast and was a social butterfly.  He didn't want to miss anything and pushed out his nap time by almost 2 hours.  Can you tell everyone had a good time? :)

Wearing an MSU green and white hat - had to represent!

Happy baby!

Happy grandparents

Sissy and Ry

Like father like son

Someone's tired

22nd Annual La Dolce Vita!

We didn't attend last years wine and food festival as we missed the early bird special and I was preggers, so this year I made sure to buy tickets early (in June).  It was my parents first time attending the event, and they loved it!  The wine was flowing, the food was aplenty and we left feeling like little piggies.  :D 



10/13/2011



Ready and waiting for the gates to open

Bring on the grub!

How's that wine tasting?

Weekend Getaway

Back in May my husband found a weekend escape on LivingSocial for a bed and breakfast in Wimberley.  We decided this would be prefect for a little mini trip and to celebrate my birthday!  Our weekend stay included a Bottle of Wine and Chocolates; Complimentary Hors D'œuvres at Kate's Place; Saturday-Morning Breakfast Delivery; and a Four-Course Champagne Breakfast on Sunday!! 

We dropped Ryland off at my parents house Friday after work and then we were on our way.  Serenity Farmhouse Inn is a charming B&B - they had several other cottages (ours was called the Poet's cottage), gazebos, and other little oddities to explore.  Once we checked in our next mission was to find food, or maybe that was just MY mission :Þ, so we headed into town to find Ino'z Brew & Chew.  We loved this place!  They had outside seating (which we love), a live band, and the food was pretty darn good as well.  Maleks sandwich takes the cake at this place, that buttered sourdough bread was delicious.  After dinner we came back to our cottage and headed out to the pool to relax and drink our complimentary bottle of wine. 

Poet's cottage with heart shaped tub

Sun and wine

Ino'z brew and chew!

Saturday we enjoyed breakfast on our patio and then headed back into town for some window shopping.  Before heading to Bella Vista Ranch for an olive tour and wine tasting we ate a small lunch at the Wimberley cafe.  Later that night we went to the Cypress Creek Cafe for dinner.  They had a covered patio out back and TV's so we could watch some football and stay dry.  Yup, you read that right, stay dry.  Texas finally got some much needed rain the same weekend as our getaway.  The rain was quite nice and didn't bother us at all, it actually stopped raining for us during our wine tour and we saw a lovely rainbow.  I really enjoyed sitting outside under the covered patio watching the rain fall as we devoured our AMAZING dinner from CCC.  Seriously that food was AWESOME!  That night a HUGE thunderstorm rolled in, waking me up around 3am.  There's nothing like an insane thunderstorm out in the middle of now where to make you feel safe! 

Texas first olive oil co

Relaxing by the pool before it started sprinkling on us

Yes please!

Inside out nachos for the win!

OMG sooooo good!

Sunday morning came all too soon.  We ate breakfast, checked out and headed back into town to buy some gifts.  Our last meal was at Kate's place and then it was time to head back home.  Ryland was a perfect little angel for Juju and Opa.  It was a wonderfully relaxing birthday weekend!  And yes, I did miss my little guy the entire time!

Goodbye Serenity!

CASA Superhero 5K

Sept 25th was the CASA Superhero 5K, which marked my first official race back since becoming pregnant last year and having Ry.  It was a good race for me to get back into the swing of things.  The course was relatively flat, the weather was perfect, and they had free tacos and smoothies at the end!  :)  I especially LOVED all the costumes.  I think I was more excited than the kids as I'm a Halloween superfan!  I enjoyed the run except for the last 1/4 mile where we had to run PAST the finish line for a final loop.  That was a bit of a let down, my body felt as if the race should have been over yet we had to keep going.  Overall I'm please with my time, my goal was 30 mins or less, and the course was actually 3.2 miles instead of 3.1.  :D  Now I need to work on running more than 2x's a week and increasing my speed and distance.  I have the Race for the Cure in Nov (5K) and then the Capitol 10K in March!

PL	No	Name	Age	Pace	Chip Time	Gun Time	Time Back
193	483	Christina Malek	32	9:36/M	29:58	30:08	10:14

Giving blood, Saving lives

It's been over a year since I last donated blood.  The hubby and I were deferred back in June 2010 because we traveled to Mazatlan (malaria zone) and then of course I was pregnant, those vampire Dr's took enough blood to satisfy several blood drives!  Today was the first blood drive that we were eligible to particpate in at work.  I love donating and have been doing it since HS.  I feel like a better person when I give blood, knowing that I can help save the lives of 3 people every time I donate.

Football and Tailgating!

Football is back, bring on the tailgating!! 

Ryland will make an appearance at the next home game in Oct, when it's hopefully much cooler outside.



Let's get this party started! 9/10/11



The awesome smoker



The setup - Ready to watch MSU and various other games before UT plays (they have satelite).



Mutant Virus

I'm not sure what I caught, some crazy mutant virus, but it took me out for 2 weeks!  It all began 2 Monday's ago (15th) with a sore throat and cough.  I went to the Dr that following Wed and they actually said I was fine, that there was nothing wrong with me.  Seriously?  I was coughing like crazy and my throat was red and it hurt to swallow.  They gave me a nose spray but would not write me a prescription for antibiotics.  PFFT.  The next day I practically lost my voice from all the coughing, my throat was worse and my nose started to run.  I was a mess.  All I could take was Robitussin, Tylenol and Sudafed.  By Sunday I was running a 101 fever and my throat was coated in white stuff.  :(  I even started having night sweats and chills, I just wanted to curl up in the fetal position and cry I felt so awful.  Come Monday morning I was back at the Dr's.  They took a 2nd strep culture (even tho first time it was negative) and they took some blood to test me for mono!!!  Holy moly, mono!?  This time they actually prescribed me a z-pack, thank god!  Unfortunately the z-pack didn't seem to help.  By Wed I was back at the Dr's office for a 3rd time.  It wasn't strep, it wasn't mono, they had no clue what I caught, so they took a gazillion more cultures and prescribed a different antibiotic.  Finally by Thursday I started feeling a bit better and by Saturday my throat we clear.  Hallelujah!  I received a call from the Dr on Monday (29th) and all my tests/cultures came back negative.  They still couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, I guess I just had one heck of a virus.  Besides a slight fever today, I seem to be on the mend.