I Want To Break Free

Seems someone in our house needs some more fun in their lives. This morning around 10:30 Philip let Ruby outside to do her business before he left. After she didn’t scratch on the door as normal he went out to get her only to find her missing and the back gate slightly ajar. Now if you know Ruby you know she doesn’t need an open gate to get out, she’ll simply climb the fence, so there had to be another answer to the puzzle. Seems last night the dogs were barking a lot and we assumed it was a cat or possum…I hope it was not someone trying to get in the back yard because they would’ve been ripped to shreds by the 3 other dogs out back. Perhaps they heard the commotion and decided to not open the gate. (Come to think of it there’s so much junk back on the side of the house that I really don’t know how they could get back there in the dark without tripping over the 2 spare vending machines, pile of kitchen tiles, buckets, piles of bricks and old front door that was stacked up.) I think it was a forgetful hubby.


At any rate Ruby escaped and the chase ensued, Philip in the truck yelling her name through the neighborhood, and Ruby with her nose to the ground on an expedition that was sure to show her the wonders of our neighborhood. He searched the pool where we normally walk her…no Ruby. Surely she’d be at the neighborhood dog park right? Wrong. No Ruby. The next stop, directly around the block from us at Peter’s front door. Philip’s brother lives directly behind us so she may try to go around that way because she knows that terrain as well right? Right! Ruby was found. She was smiling, wagging her tail and having a grand old time….Until Philip found her and she realized she was in trouble. She’s now sleeping comfortably in the a/c on her favorite tile floor, dreaming of another adventure while Philip is at the store getting a lock for the gate.

Happy Birthday America

Experimenting with my new camera and the fireworks!

Yard Work

You may remember Philip and I had our 15 minutes of fame back in May when we were on the Today show to compete in a yard makeover contest.

Well our 15 minutes were extended a bit when we were featured on the actual makeover show on the DIY network. I have it on dvd and if you're ever bored with nothing better to do I'll let you borrow it. After that show aired we patiently waited for our prize from the Today Show- the riding lawn mower Philip used to cross the finish line.

A very nice guy from Cub Cadet called us and delivered our mower. Philip mowed almost everyone's lawns on the block that day and I caught him driving it around the block when I came home from work that day- beer in the cup holder (is that illegal? drinking and driving???) After we had our fun we delivered it to Papa Joe's house (Joe White, Philip's dad) and gave it to him as a present. His yard is on amost an acre and it takes him about 3 days to mow it so he needed it more than us. Pics below!!

Crabbing in the Summer Time

Philip LOVES to go crabbing in the summer, and when I say he loves it, it's hinging on obsession. He'd stay out there all day in the blistering sun if it meant catching that one big crab that's been eluding him all day. We usually go to Matagorda in September after they've had all summer to get nice and big, but we couldn't help ourselves and decided to try it out in July, plus we got a nice new crab trap. While getting ready to head out on a Friday evening our nephew Luke (Peter's son) decided he wanted to check out this crabbing thing and got permission from the parents to go with us. We spent the night on Friday and got up early Saturday and headed out to the beach. We crab on the Colorado river about a half mile before you hit Matagorda Beach. On one side of the road is a canal and that's where we threw in the trap. On the other side of the street is kind of a beach front entrance into the river. That's where we throw in our chicken on strings. Luke was fascinated at all the little tiny baby crabs crawling around and set off to catch them. We did get him to pull in the kite string while Philip netted his catch and he got his first glimpse of an adult crab. His expression is priceless (see pics below.)
We ended up catching 17 crabs all between 5 1/2 and 6 inches horn to horn. We took them home and I made crab stew with the meat Philip shelled. It was awesome, I placed the recipe below if you feel inclined, it would be fantastic with shrimp or any other seafood if you don't have/like crab meat. This stew is an Emeril recipe I altered and has a roux base which was new to me but it's very easy.

Crab Stew
Ingredients:
6 cups of your cooking liquid you boiled the crabs in (or water/chicken stock)
3/4 cup bleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onions
1/2 cup seeded and chopped green bell peppers
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon liquid crab boil
1/4 cup chopped green onions, green parts only
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley leaves
1 cup milk
2 cups crab meat, picked over for shells and cartilage

Directions:
Combine the flour and oil in a small nonstick saucepan and whisk until smooth. Over medium heat, stir constantly until the mixture is the color of peanut butter, about 15 minutes. Pour mixture into a large stock pot. Add the onions, bell peppers, salt, and cayenne. Cook, stirring often, until the vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, crab cooking water/stock, and crab boil. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.

Add the green onions and parsley. Remove from the heat and add the milk and crab meat. Mix to blend. Ladle into individual serving bowls and enjoy.

Our 15 Minutes of Fame

I have been an awful blogger in 2010 I don’t think I’ve written one post and there’s so much to tell! We went to Shiner TX in February with Meredith Jamail and her new husband Mike Rice and had a blast, I had some awesome pictures for you guys but I lost my camera in a bar...no doubt after one too many Shiners. Well, I've got a new camera for my birthday from the husband and it rocks! I've even taken a digital camera class to learn how to work all the gadges, F-Stops, shutter speeds, ISO's and many other new words. So with any luck I will have some awesome photo loded posts for you all coming up!



Now for the most exciting piect of news. Philip and I were on the Today show on NBC in May! My mom sent me information to apply for a show called Desperate Landscapes airing on the DIY Network. Each year they do a super front yard make over worth $25,000. It’s not just plants it’s replacing roofs, windows, porches, siding etc. In her words my mom said ‘you guys cannot NOT win with that front yard of yours’…thanks mom! Needless to say our yard was (and still is) pretty awful. Philip’s décor consists of a rock garden with cactus and cow skulls….yes I said cow skulls in the front yard. Well I guess the folks at NBC and the DIY Network couldn’t pass up a chance to have Texas represented as one of the four worst yards in America, especially when there are dead cattle in the yard. Our yard pictures were posted on their site for all to see and vote on the worst. We got a call from the shows’ producers asking for us to make a short video of our yard.


After we sent in the video we filled out some paperwork and were scheduled to do a conference call with the host of the show, Jason Cameron. If anyone is a fan of HGTV type shows he used to be the carpenter on a show called “While You Were Out.” He also hosts ‘Man Caves’ on DIY currently. Anyways, we do the conference call with him on Skype online with video and he tells us we are one of the four finalists and we are going to New York to compete on the Today Show to win a yard makover. Much screaming ensues and we jump on a plain and fly to The Bigg Aple. It's our second trip there so we didn't do any site seeing. I did visit the Clear Channel office in NYC and meet some of the people I work with over the phone so that was cool. We met up with Philp's friend Mark, who lives in the city. There was a bar under our hotel called Johnny Utah's (think Keanu Reeves' character in Point Break.) The bar had a mechanical bull that everyone was trying to ride. The next morning we had to be up at 5am to walk over to the Today Show. It was raining and we’re being shown an obstacle course that we would have to complete to win the yard makeover. The we were taken to hair and make up and yours truly had her hair and make up done sitting right beside Mr. Newt Gingrich who was on the show talking about something not as important as a $25,000 yard make over! After that we waited around for our segment, because of the rain the hosts elected to not compete in the obstacle course, because their hair would get messed up...yes that was seriously what we were told. So Philip had the unlucky task of having me for a parter.

First we had to roll out three pieces of sod, then maneuver a potted tree in a wheelbarrow around large rocks on the ground. Pick up said tree and place it in a planter box and fill it with mulch (more on this part later.) After that we move on to lay paver stones to complete a pattern that was halfway done. Then pull five flowers from their pots and plant them in a window box THEN jump onto a riding lawn mower and ride to the finish line. Easy right?

Well…it wasn’t. The today show hosts were judging each task to make sure you were completely finished. Where they went wrong was not assigining a host to each team, instead one host was trying to watch everyone at the same time, whomever finished first got a packet of seeds and was allowed to move onto the next task. When we got to the part where you shovel the mulch into the planter box to fill it up everone was neck and neck. When we got to the red line inside the box we called Matt Lauer over to give us our packet of seeds. Mr. Lauer then said 'there's a little bit unfilled in the back corner'...two handfulls later we were done...AGAIN. Jumping around and hollering for Matt AGAIN he ignored us and gave everyone else their seeds first and us last...at that point it was over, we could't catch up. Philip is still holding a grudge against Matt Lauer for not giving us the green light to move on, but we did win a riding lawn mower…not too bad. (I’m still waiting for the mower to be delivered by the way) All in all it was a great trip, we had fun and picked up a cool prize, I guess we’ll just have to do our own front yard now!



(I may be biased but Philip was definitely the cutest husband up there!)


(Our riding lawn mower)

Hopefully that only counts for 5 minutes of fame so we can still use the other ten on something else, I'm thinking we need to try out for The Amazing Race, I love that show!

15 Minutes of Fame

"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes" -Andy Warhol

Well Philip and Nicole's time is coming tomorrow, Tuesday May 18, 2010 as we appear on the NBC Today Show to try to win a complete front yard make over. My (Nicole's) mom informed me of the contest after she saw it on the today show last year. The decided to do the same contest and she stressed that we needed to enter. Maybe because our yard features cactus, rocks & cow skulls....all voluntarily placed there by Philip himself when he decorated his super cool bachelor pad.



Well we entered the contest and they ended up choosing us as one of the final four contestants. We will now be featured on the show as we compete to win a $20,000 yard make-over on DIY Network against three other couples from across the country. Wish us luck!!

Here's a link to the show's website with all the contestants.