Meet My 225 Pound Friend...

 Meet Max.  I stand corrected from my previous post... he is 225 pounds not 210 pounds.  Max is a three year old Great Dane who just happens to be much bigger than most Great Danes.  Max's mother was about 120lbs and his father was about 160lbs.  In fact Max was recently saw his mother for the first time since he was a puppy, and his mother was terrified of him.

 Although Max is the biggest dog I've ever seen, unfortunately he is not the biggest dog.

 

 Max was pretty overwhelming to me at first.  As he ran around joyfully, his tail felt like a whip if it accidentally grazed your leg.  However, Max may be huge but he is the sweetest dog, and I don't believe he realizes how big he is.  He hides when the garbage truck comes, and he was once scared of a pile of sticks.

 

Max's paws are much bigger than my hands and when standing on four legs he comes to my waist.  When standing on two legs... he dominates me in height.

 

So Max, my 225 lb friend (don't worry, I'm not going to make a habit of introducing my friends by their weight).

Mugs by Mooks

This weekend JP and I drove to Milligan College near Johnson City, Tennessee for JP's brother Michael's senior photography show.  If you remember, Michael is an awesome photographer.

Unfortunately, I had class on Saturday so JP and I had to leave around 1:30 Saturday afternoon to make the 6 hour drive in the very rainy and windy weather.  We stretched the drive out with our stop in Knoxville at "Ye Olde Steak House."  JP and I my Dad had seen this on tv once while watching a Tennessee game and have both really wanted to eat there ever since.  We were already planning on stopping in Knoxville for dinner, and my Dad reminded us of this place.  So we drove through Knoxville until we found this pretty cool restaurant.  We shared a 20oz Porterhouse and JP got mushrooms and I got potatoes.

While we were traveling and eating steak, everyone else was at Milligan preparing for the Sunday show by hanging 21 photos.

The show on Sunday was great! Not only did we get to enjoy Michael's awesome work but so did about 200 other people.

Michael was excited to share his work with other people.  We got to meet a lot of his friends and teachers as well.

I obviously married in to this family.  JP says I need a stool.

 

We were all hungry after cleaning up the show, we were all super hungry so we went to this place Fatz for dinner.  The food was good, and the waiter liked us so much he gave us two free desserts which, as JP said, "left us all feeling Fatz."

 

 Some other notable things we experienced while in the Johnson City area included:

This restaurant called Pal's.  It probably was the most humorous looking place I have ever purchased food, and I'm pretty sure it came right out of this old school Nickelodeon cartoon.

Max the 210lb dog.  He deserves a blogpost devoted completely to himself, and he will get such a post sometime soon.

How to Get Free Lemon Cookies at Maggiano's

When I went to Atlanta to visit Amanda we went to Maggiano's.

When we lived in Dallas, we went to Maggiano's on my birthday.  Of course we told them it was my birthday so they would bring me a free dessert.  We were expecting chocolate cake or maybe even tiramisu.  What we got, however, was lemon cookies.  They were REALLY good, but we thought it was kind of funny that is what they brought us.

2 1/2 years later we are still talking about those lemon cookies.  To be honest, that is why we even went to Maggiano's.  However, we did not have any intentions of buying lemon cookies because we both are trying not to spend a lot of money.

So after we enjoyed our meal, our waiter asked us if we wanted dessert.  We both said no, and as he walked away, we started talking about lemon cookies.  We both stated that we wondered if that is normal to bring lemon cookies for birthdays, or if the time we had gotten them, they had just been out of the normal dessert.  We decided we needed to find out.

So, when the waiter came out, this conversation happened:

Me: So, what do y'all normally give for birthdays.

Waiter: Well we have these lemon cookies...

Me: Oh, so you do give lemon cookies.  I got them at another location once for my birthday, and we didn't know if that was normal.

Waiter: Yeah, they used to give out these mini desserts but then I guess corporate got cheap and started with the lemon cookies.  But, those lemon cookies are where it's at!

Me: Yeah we love lemon cookies.

Waiter: Do you want some?

Me: Well we would get some but we don't want to pay for them.

Waiter: Oh, you don't have to. I'll go get you some.

So he preceded to bring out a plate for each of us with three lemon cookies on each.  The fact he brought them on separate plates was clutch because Amanda and I don't share desserts very well.  Don't worry we thanked him and tipped him well.

Trip to The ATL

I spent last weekend with my dear friend Amanda who just moved to Atlanta recently.  We had not seen each other in about 6 months when I went to visit her in Colorado.

(We did not take any pictures over the weekend so this is one of our favorites which happens to be from my bridesmaids dinner)

After work on Friday, JP and I loaded up into my car and drove to Atlanta.  JP's grandparents live right outside of Atlanta so I dropped him off so he could spend the weekend with them.  I got to Amanda's pretty late on Friday but we still enjoyed chatting until we could keep our eyes open no longer.

We started Saturday off by making a trip to Trader Joe's.  

I LOVE TJ's and wish that there was one in Birmingham.  I stocked up on all kinds of sauces and other yummy things like dark chocolate covered cranberries.

Once we got back from Trader Joe's, it was time for lunch.  We chose to go to Maggiano's which was one of our favorite places to eat in Dallas.

Fortunately Maggiano's was only about a two mile walk from her apartment so we decided on such a beautiful day, walking would be the most appropriate transportation.  We enjoyed lots of water once we got there (it was a hot walk!) as well as yummy bread and pasta dishes and free lemon cookies (more on that later).  After enjoying our meal we walked back and rested for the afternoon.

We headed out to a couple of malls to do some shopping.  Neither of us really bought anything but it was still fun!  Dinner was Chickfila.  We watched "How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days" and then went to bed.

I left Sunday morning after eating yummy Trader Joe's chocolate filled croissants and met JP and his grandparents for lunch.  We ate at a yummy local Italian place.

Overall it was a great weekend!

Duke vs Butler/ Me vs Sister

The beginning of this month meant the wrap up of March Madness.  My sister and I have always been fans of March Madness, and ALWAYS fill out our bracket.  Every year for the past 8 years I always but Duke in the finals and every year for the past 5 years she always puts Butler in the finals.  We are such big fans of these teams that even if the chances of them making it to the finals is slim, we still put them in the finals.

Well, this year BOTH of our predictions FINALLY came true.  As the 64 (well really 65) teams started narrowing down, we began to realize that our dream of a Duke Butler final might come true!

And on April 5th, the final game played in Indianapolis was just what we had hoped for:

VS

Apparently more people than just my sister and I were excited.  Almost 24 million people watched this game, which is the most viewers for the championship game in the past 10 years.  However, I bet few of the viewers were "for real" fans.  There were definitely more "for real" Duke fans out their than "for real" Butler fans.  See I highly doubt the people cheering for Butler that night had been cheering for them the past 5 years, went out of their way to see them play, and owned a shirt.  My sister, however, had done all of these.  I do see where these "bandwagon" Butler fans were coming from.  If had not been such a huge Duke fan, I too would have been cheering for this "cinderlla" team. (Although many-including me- would argue that they were not a "cinderella" team as they were in top ten most of the season).

The game was everything we had hoped it would be and more.  It was such a wonderfully played game.  

Taken from Wikipedia because it can say it much better than i can (if you aren't a basketball fan just read the larger font):

The second half was played very closely, with neither team taking a lead larger than two points until a Brian Zoubek layup put Duke up 47–43 with 12:27 remaining. Butler stayed close, keeping within 5 points the rest of the way. With 3:16 to play, Duke took a 60–55 lead on two made free throws by Nolan Smith. Butler missed its next shot, but forced a missed shot and turned Duke over after an offensive rebound. Matt Howard made a layup for Butler to make it a 60–57 game with 1:44 remaining. Smith missed a layup for Duke and Howard got another layup after collecting an offensive rebound on missed three-pointer by Shelvin Mack. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski then called a time out. Kyle Singler missed an open jump shot with 36 seconds remaining, giving Butler a chance to take the lead. Butler was unable to initiate their offense and Stevens called a timeout to set up a play. They were then forced to call their last timeout when they were unable to get the ball in-bounds. Gordon Hayward then missed a short fade-away jumper. Zoubek came down with the rebound, forcing Butler to foul with less than 4 seconds remaining. Zoubek made the first foul shot and then intentionally missed the second, knowing Butler had no timeouts remaining. Hayward was forced to throw up a desperation shot from half court. The ball bounced off the backboard and then the rim. According to analysis by ESPN, Hayward's aim was off by three inches, or less than one degree, on the x-axis.

The final score was Duke 61- Butler 59.  What is interesting is Duke was one of the very few teams to score 60 points or more on Butler this season.