This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

Posts tagged ‘mcneese state university’

To Louisiana For Morgan

This past weekend I set out to Louisiana with sister time on the mind. We moved her in the very first weekend of August. Then, my dad needed someone to drive with him at the end of August to her first game so I went. The brothers and I had plans to drive to one of her away games that was closer, but we never made it. I asked her if she wanted me to just come up one weekend and I could stay with her, she said yes, so we made plans for this past weekend since I hadn’t seen her in about 2 months

I took a half day at work so by noon on Friday I was southbound on I-45 to Louisiana…coffee in hand. You just have to on a 6 hour drive.IMG_9564

I arrived at 5:30, which is of course when she had to be at the field for her game that night. I met her in front of the field house for a hello hug and then took her dorm keys to go put my stuff in there and hang out for a little while until I had to be at the game.

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At 6:50 they started announcing the starters and Morgan’s name was called. #proudsistermoment

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She told me to get there a little before start time because she had a ball to throw to me. I just said okay, but mainly because I knew what that meant. We used to do this in high school.

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I don’t know how it started but somehow the siblings started calling me Giss pronounced like it rhymes with siss. Anyways she told me that her teammates saw it and thought she called me “Jizz” so they wrote it on there. So funny. I brought this to work to put in my office as a little way to make me smile when I look at it.

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Within 15 minutes MORGAN SCORED HER FIRST COLLEGE GOAL!!!!! And I was hooping and hollering. She told me she was going to turn around and point to me, but she chickened out. Ugh. But I was so so so so proud of her. They ended up winning the game with her 1 goal. YAY! And at halftime we were introduced to some costume contest kiddos.

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And after the game we went back to Morgan’s dorm for her to shower and then headed to a local Mexican restaurant for some fajitas, chips-n-salsa (I could live off this), and a margarita!!! I had some marg leftover but didn’t want to leave it because I paid 12 darn dollars for that thing. And since you can’t take open alcohol we asked for a togo cup for water, threw my margarita in there, and bolted out of the restaurant hahah.

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Then we went back to her room to watch some Grey’s Anatomy and call it nights. Her schools fall break was this weekend so there weren’t any students there for us to go out, but we enjoyed hanging out and watching movies. Now, doesn’t this make you wish you were still in a dorm 😉 Morgan’s obsession with Spiderman wore off on her pumpkin that she carved the other weekend.

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Saturday morning we hit IHop pre-practice. This was the worst iHop experience ever. We ended up not even paying for our food and tipping out waitress. The manager was rude to us as well and we called our mom as we left to tell her she’d need to bail us out of jail later 😉

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While Morg was at practice I wasted time in her dorm watching friends…then doing crunches…then looking through her food…and brewing coffee that I didn’t even want. Longest hour and a half ever!!

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After her practice we came back so she could change…into another freaking t-shirt because that’s all homegirl wears. But to be honest so do I. I can’t blame her that much. We went up to the mall to do a little shopping.

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And afterwards went to a restaurant she is OBSESSED with and has taken everyone that has come to visit her. Her dish is basically a Hawaiian pizza on salmon. Mine was salmon with shrimp, artichokes, mushrooms, and tomatoes on top. Both were so delicious and I totally see why she takes everyone there!

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After dinner we went to Old Navy, did some grocery shopping for her, then went back to her dorm for another successful movie night consisting of a chick-flick and The Wild Thornberrys movie because we Middleton girls are crazy.

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Sunday morning she woke up late so we opted for a breakfast at her cafe, to which I always sample everything. Because when it’s unlimited, you have to. It’s so funny that everywhere you go in Lousiana there is red beans and rice plus grits offered. (The lighting is really weird it’s not that my food is discolored FYI)

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She left me at the cafe in all my gluttonous glory while she went to the field for her game. I didn’t have a key so I had to walk over there to get a key so that I could shower and pack up. And wow this is a flattering picture.

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They unfortunately lost this game in overtime because the ref called a handball in the goalie’s box. STUPID. Refs that call that type of stuff are ridiculous. But it didn’t stop me from being a proud sis this weekend. Morgan has done so well with soccer and school and making friends and all things college. I miss her a ton but I love seeing her do what she does out of the field.

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About halfway through my drive home she realized that I had her socks that we bought this weekend, so I took a picture to make her mad. Hehe.

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And on my way home I also said goodbye to ol’ Sam Houston.

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And I always hear people saying they stopped at Buccee’s or they’re wearing a shirt with the little beaver on it. If you’re not aware, it’s just a really big and popular gas station in Madisonville, Texas. I think it’s other places too though. I stopped in for a potty break and to get some water and look around to see what all the hustle and bustle was about.

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I mean they had a variety of things. I think they are known for their beaver nuggets, which I almost got but I just wasn’t wanting anything sweet, so I got a fruit bowl. Which was still good! And so fresh!

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Less than 30 minutes outside of Dallas I hit this awwwfffuulllllll traffic. It just so happened the day I was driving through and the day after from 6pm-6am they were doing construction on 2 lanes of the highway. COOL.

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But eventually I hit D-Town and boogied all the way through to home.

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And got up early Monday morning for work. It’s hard being an adult sometimes. But it was so worth it all just to spend some time with my sis and see her goal in person. I love weekends like this. Thanks for having me, sister!!!

Orange Beach and New Orleans

I hope everyone had a relaxing weekend! Today I am going to share about our vacation last week. We spent a week in Orange Beach, Alabama. And we had so much fun. On Saturday morning we were all packed up and on the road by 6:30am. 6 people with our luggage on top of the car.

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We were under the impression from dad that it would only be about an 8 or 9 hour drive. We ended up in the car for 13 hours. All I wanted to do was run and run and run after sitting for that long. But finally, we arrived!

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Girl’s Room

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Boy’s Room

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Stocked up Kitchen

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Family Room

When we got to our condo and unpacked after dinner it was about 9:30/10:00. First thing we wanted to do was get out to the water! So that’s just what we did…a night stroll along the beach.

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After we woke up on Sunday we went to Pensacola, Florida to meet my dad’s friends for brunch. We then stopped at this place:

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Joe Patti’s is a popular seafood market down in Florida. This is where we got our seafood that we made for the week. As soon as we thought we were leaving my dad saw something else he wanted. Shrimp, shrimp, scallops, sea bass, crab claws, peaches, tomatoes (at an outside stand), gumbo, clam chowder…he went to town! The rest of Sunday was spent hanging out. We didn’t plan any activities because we didn’t know what the weather was going to do. So the majority of the night we strolled through gulf shores and orange beach. And spent the majority of our night out here:

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We were able to go out to the beach Sunday, but Monday was our main beach day.

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and it was so much fun! We started planning our activities Monday when the weather looked as though it would be okay but nobody had availabilities until Tuesday, so Monday night we went to the local “Adventure Island” to ride go-karts, paddle-boat, and we even got into a hurricane simulator machine.

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Tuesday was our ziplining day in the afternoon. Morgan, Ryan, Myself, Rick, Mom and Dad. A picture of our whole motley crew is at the end.

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This was definitely the boys’ favorite activity that we did. After this we had a little downtime before our sunset dolphin cruise in the evening. All aboard!

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Morgan claimed this was her favorite activity. I bet I know why…we both held a LIVE CRAB! My brothers were way too scared. Chickens!

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This crab’s name was Georgette and she lost a claw before I got to hold her. One of the little girls was holding her she squirmed and dropped the crab. The deckhand had to step on her claw to get her, but let me tell you. I laughed for a good 10 minutes afterwards.

Tuesday went by pretty quickly. We had a reservation to Parasail on Wednesday, but it stormed during our time so we had to improvise after they cancelled our flight. Wednesday we just hung out along the beach in the morning during the good weather. Whenever it started to rain we decided to drive around, stop for lottery tickets, and get our t-shirts/souvenirs. Wednesday night we drove across the gulf into Florida to a quiet little beach to take our own pictures with our camera, and tripod.

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We got some pretty good shots with the camera that we have. Even this was some quality time together and the boys didn’t get that cranky. Morgan also took some senior pictures while we were there.

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My little sis is a beaut. We went to the condo to make seafood after this. We were leaving the next morning, but we were able to sneak in an 8:00am Parasailing Flight. It. Was. Worth. It. My dad did not want to go and the first thing he said when he came down was “That was really fun”. It was so much fun and so relaxing being up there. We went doubles. So it was mom and dad first, then Morgan and Rick, then Ryan and I.

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See how excited and happy we all look? Because it was exciting and happy! If you haven’t parasailed, do it once in your life! I promise you won’t regret it. After our Parasailing flight we had to go pack up to. We drove to New Orleans for the night. We just walked around New Orleans because my dad and I were the only ones who had been there. For dinner that night we went to the restaurant of the guy who created “blackened” as a seasoning. It. Was. Delicious. and we got to sit at the Chef’s table.

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After, I took everyone for the famous beignets

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We walked the streets of NOLA

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We wanted to get in before dark though. So we hung out in the hotel room for a while. Friday morning we woke up and traveled to Morgan’s college that she’s playing soccer at.

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After a trip to a local hole-in-the-wall diner for lunch. We were sad to say goodbye to vacation.

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I’d tell you what we ate the whole, but really all it was is…

Scallops

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Seabass & crab claws

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Shrimp & Gumbo

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And more shrimp!

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Foodie Heaven. With some kids’ chicken tenders and fries with a dinner of BBQ thrown in.

This truly was a vacation of a lifetime. And so much fun to hang out with the family. I’ll never forget this trip. If you are planning vacation to Gulf Shores/Orange Beach area, or even New Orleans and need phone numbers of the places we went to for activities, or food. E-mail me! colorsoflifeblog@gmail.com

Everywhere we went, we enjoyed and I would be happy to share names!

Happy Monday, friends!

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