Happy End of January 2013!

January 2013 marks my new adventure with Stella and Dot!

I am officially an independent Stylist and would love to help you find some fabulous jewelry to add to your collection!  There are some fantastic pieces in the new Spring 2013 line and you could receive them FREE when you host a trunk show!  

OR just clink on this link and start your shopping!

http://www.stelladot.com/sites/emilystanley

I mean, come on, who doesn't want to hang out with girlfriends for a few hours after work and try on great jewelry?!  It's so much fun if you haven't been to a show you need to ASAP.  

You're going to love it!

January 2013 also marks Brandon's last month of on service rotations in the second year.  Wow.  That is huge.  I don't think words can do it justice.  He'll start Trauma Team on Friday; pray that goes well, is fun and educational!  

Happy NEW YEAR 2012!!

Well a good year has come and gone!  2012 was exciting!  We rang in the new year with our friends, the Bells and got a funny picture or two out of it!

 Brogan, a mere 8 months old, so cute, us...we needed to stay the babysitter for the remainder of 2012!

We were all dolled up to go downtown and watch the fireworks after dinner.

That night also introduced me to homemade fondue, which I believe everyone should make at least once a year.  In January 2012, Brandon finally came off service for the first time in 7 months, and anesthesia started.  What a roller coaster that was.  Everyone told us how fantastic it was, nice, relaxed, home early, etc.  Well, Brandon had a few very sick patients, two of which really tried to die.  He learned so much in those four months; it was unreal.  He'll probably never see that kind of activity again in his practice.  So residency is good, and was good in '12!
Also in January, the annual San Antonio Rodeo comes to life!  We kick activities off with the BBQ out at SeaWorld where we get to do fun things like ride the mechanical bull:

I do have a video of me doing it, but it's rather ridiculous!

And there's the whole bunch we were there with!

February, came and we went to dinner at my favorite Hibachi grill.  Much like my thirteenth birthday party.  It was awesome and the people that came made it even better!  We are blessed!
April used to bring Spring Break, in San Antonio, it brings Fiesta!  We always enjoy the Oyster Bake and help bring in the scholarship dollars to St. Mary's.  Then to the '09 party at UIW to help those kids too.  It's fun.  The parades are the hit, though.  Schools close so the parades can happen!
May brought baby fun to Dayton, where we celebrated Lauren Little and precious Krista Rose!
In May we hit the lake- WE LOVE the LAKE.  It's a fun time in the water, out of the buildings we work in, away from the stress, we get our Vitamin D and recharge our batteries!

 In June, we got to the lake as much as possible!  We bought a wake surf board and really wanted to test the waters, it's so fun!

In June I headed to Las Vegas for a Bovine Wedding, it was lovely!

In August we went to Nashville for Kelly Bacon's Wedding- Beautiful!

In September I was working for an independent pharmacy, and I too, saw activity that one only experiences once in a lifetime.  I then quit.  For the first time in my life I was completely unemployed and not in school.  Talk about bored; my house was clean, though.  Finally, after what seemed like forever, I got hired!  I started back to full time work in November with the State of Texas!  And the holidays came.  God is so good.  He truly is amazing and never ceases to blow my socks off with what He is doing.
We hosted Friendsgiving again and can't get enough of it!  After we were cleaning up Brandon and I realized, we only have two more, San Antonio versions of Friendsgiving.  We were sad and delighted at the same time.
The Bovines came before Christmas and we had a smashing good time.  It was Nathan's first visit to the Alamo City and it was great!

That brings us to this New Year!

I smell...

FOOTBALL TIME IN TENNESSEE!  V-O-L-S GO VOLS GO!  In two short, oh so short, weeks Brandon and I are flying to HOTLANTA!  We will be back in The South, together.  Ready to take the Christmas Card picture, celebrate birthdays, go to see an SEC football game, see family and get to see the beginning of fall.  Do you even know what FALL looks like here in Texas?  It's so simply brown, it's so not fair.  In Tennessee and Georgia, fall is FABULOUS, orange, yellow, green and red.  Fall in Tennessee is bright and beautiful and festive and fun-filled.  I can't wait to be there in September and by golly I am going BACK in October.  For the big ole CE courses, the old memories, the law school, the pharmacy school, the dorms, the football field and the sorority house, I'm headed to Samford for Homecoming!  I love being here, in Texas, with my husband and puppies, but geez there are so many great things scattered between that lovely tristate area.  It's going to be nice to visit.

In other news:
 I looked back on the last post I wrote: the Buckley/Emily time.  That weekend has since made my really awesome awesome time list and at one point I totally took advantage  of the picture of health in that puppy.  Buckley is three years old and 5 Sundays ago Brandon woke up to a paralyzed dog.  Buck had lost all control of his back end including bowel and urinary function.  Brandon took him to the emergency vet, then we went straight to the MRI at the next vet, had a diagnosis of 3 ruptured discs, and Buck was in surgery decompressing 5 discs within a few hours.  His back was shaved, his legs were crossed, he was cooped up in a very small kennel for days.  We brought him home a week after surgery and have been counting on really great people to help us regain his ability to walk/pee/poo/stand/sit etc.  So the moral of the story: enjoy the health of your puppy.  He totally can walk/pee/poo today!
 It is officially two months into year 1 of Oral Surgery at the Stanley's.  It's rocking right along...
 I am bowling and volleyballing...it's awesome.

Have a great night!

Our Corpus Christi Weekend Getaway

This Friday I got the distinct pleasure of working in Pleasanton, Texas...lucky me, huh?  So  I headed down South about 45 minutes and worked at a great Wag.  We headed to Corpus with puppies and Cory after work so that they could hunt and I could hang out at the beach.  Brandon/Tucker and Cory/Jack hunted early in the morning so Buckley and I got Emily/Doggie morning on Shoreline Blvd.  We watched the birds, walked the walk, checked out tons of boats and had a great relaxing morning.

 Buckley's view of the Bay

Me and Buckley, awesome morning

After the boys got back from the hunt we played on the beach; Buckley LOVED the water and the waves!  Tucker was absolutely thrilled to enter the salty goodness of ocean if you threw a bumper in for him.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't great so we didn't get to enjoy the water...

 But these two puppies jumped in again and again

 Tucker loves his bumper

My two big little swimmers, they slept like babies that night.

 Even without the sun it was so bright!

Second try, I love this boy!

During our outing at the beach Dan and Hannah met up with us and then we went to eat at Grimaldi's Coal Brick Oven Pizza.  It was excellent, we had an assortment of Cold Adult Beverages, Cesar Salad, and a HUGE calzone.  Good times.  Hannah and I then struck out to find the U.S.S. Lexington:

 Hannah and the HUGE propeller

 A boy scout took this picture in the Bridge

 Flight Deck=AWESOME, cool helicopter

We just thought we were cool cause we got in (free!) 45 minutes before the museum closed.  

Just so you know, the stairs to get to the flight deck are VERY steep and the Bridge is even steeper.  We decided it would be tough to live on this boat but we want to come back to see more!
For dinner we headed to Buffalo Wild Wings and UFC fight night.
We came back to San Antonio today and ended out weekend with Christmas Card pictures!

Tomorrow we prepare for TURKEY DAY!
Happy Thanksgiving Week!

At the end of the Park take a right...

I had the BEST time this past week with my lovely mother in BOSTON (Bahston)!  I started my Wednesday morning EARLY, try 4:30 at the airport early.  Yes, it was awesome (the flight was nearly empty; I slept the whole way to the ATL.  Then I scrambled to the gate that changed just like every departing flight in the ATL airport to meet the beautiful Rhonda Bovine.  And off we were to Boston!  On our list of things to do: Eat at Legal Sea Foods, visit Faneuil Hall, Shop at Filene's Basement, check out the great architecture all over, eat Italian looking at the North Church, see Paul Revere's house, eat a cannoli at Mike's Pastry Shop at the North End, figure out the T, see Harvard, travel the Freedom Trail and the list continues.  I can tell you it was a great trip from start to finish, I only wanted to come home because the hubs is in TX, of course, and it was so cold.  So here's a little peak at our trip!
  The Lobster I tackled at Legal Sea Foods!


Outside the Old North church in the North End was Paul Revere's Mall.  It was a nifty building that looked renovated and lived in.  How COOL is that?!  Literally LIVING where history was made!  Anyway then we went to MIKE's 
Check this out:



The famous box: unfortunately there is no picture of the actual tasty dessert but, trust me, it was awesome.  Before we ate the dessert we did have dinner: Bruschetta, VINO, Lobster Ravioli it was awesome at Cafe Florentine!  By the end of the second day we had the T figured out and we could get where we wanted when we wanted.  Then...I was coming back to the hotel on the green line and all of a sudden the train stopped and did not restart.  Oh, and by the way, it was the most crowded I had ever seen the train...The announcer then said the train wasn't running, the Boston police and fire departments were on the scene.  Oh lovely!  So I headed out through the Make Way for Ducklings exhibit in the Park.  Loved it!   The way home was fairly flawless and definitely warmer here in TX! 
Thank you Mom for inviting me!  I had a great time!

It's the weekend in Texas

Friday was a great day at the Stanleys'! Brandon got home early so the weekend started early for me! We decided that it is officially Friday Night Date Night. On a recommendation from a dear San Antonio resident, Jill Bacon Whitfield we checked out Paeseon's. Great restaurant if you're ever in town by the way! So that was a great night that we ended at the Alamo Heights Highschool football game; we sat on the opposing team's side. Alamo Heights lost, bummer.  Saturday we began a big adventure starting with mowing the yard, weed eating, and a Boston Butt purchase. We came home and did a little rub a dub on the meat as pictured, start with twine so it doesn't fall apart.

 

The Rub ingredients:

Ready for the Big Green Egg!

We did eat all the food, mac and cheese, chicken, boston butt, baked beans; it was great.  We had Angie and Dave, Dorene and Max, Dan, Ashley, and sweet little Drake!  The only picture of the crowd is below:

We had a great time!    Happy Weekend!

In other news: I start working tomorrow.  

I hope I can find all these stores they are sending me to...hope the GPS is in good working order.  

We're here!

We have officially been in Texas for three weeks this Saturday. Our home is put together, we really like the neighborhood, the neighbors, and I'm certainly learning my way around this HUGE city. On the work front: my license is here and Brandon's work is good. So in my last post we were ten days from heading here...let's recap:
Sept 20: End of work in Birmingham
Sept 21: Tie up loose ends as much as possible; Study for test on Wednesday, Sept 22
Sept 22: MPJE at 2:00, Brandon flew in at 8:00
Sept 23: 7:30 am packers arrive!
Sept 24: 8:00 am the 53' tractor trailer arrives


ON A SIDE NOTE: I called the lady who was in charge of our move she told me that our things would arrive in Texas October 15. I can't even describe my panic. Can you imagine not having packed enough underwear for three weeks and thinking, "that box they just put on the truck probably has ALL the rest of my undies in it!" So I had a sit down talk with Steve, the driver. He told me he had a load to drop in Austin the following day and wanted to be in San Antonio Monday! There was a second wave of panic then. Monday meant Brandon and I couldn't dilly dally on the way out we had to drive straight thru, for that I was a little sad. So they finished the truck up and we hit the road.

Sept 25: ON THE ROAD to Texas
Sept 26: We made it! Unloaded our U-Haul, we had to do everything we could to get this house ready because they were coming to UNLOAD Sept 27!
Sept 27: The Mayflower pulled in and unloaded!
Sept 28: I think that day I was in a daze, I lot had happened.
Sept 29: Brandon's 26th Birthday! Big Green Egg joins the Stanleys as well as AWESOME beach cruising bikes.
Sept 30: Looking way forward to Mom coming to HELP me!!
Oct 1-2: Went to Austin-great town by the way- then we went to Fredricksburg for Oktoberfest! Great weekend
Fast forward Oct 6: Mom is here!
Oct 7: We stayed up very late rearranging and redoing, then did some more on the 8th as well as some shopping!
Oct 8: Yes we did more more more
Oct 9: Mom left me with a house that is gorgeous and great for Thanksgiving and visitors otherwise!
Oct 10: Off to the lake with Dan, Matt and Anne, good times renting a boat, wakeboarding, skiing, and I took a whack at knee boarding
Oct 11: Great church service good fellowship, what we needed!
Oct 12: The waiting game for this pharmacy license!
Oct 14: License CHECK!! Today is going to be awesome. I certainly hope you have a good one too

And now my blogger thing is freaking out on me and I can't upload pictures...but I have them and I will certainly share them later!