Headed west for the weekend

Josh and I headed to Ft. Stockton for Labor Day Weekend. It was so nice to get out in the middle of nowhere for a few days and not do much.

We went down to Marathon to eat dinner at The Gage Hotel Saturday night. It was so good and the day was absolutely beautiful!! Beautiful enough for Josh and I to talk about quitting our jobs and moving our west! :)

Gorgeous west texas sunset

I don't know what it is about being out there, but I love it. There's just something about the environment that makes me feel so at peace with the world.

And when we got home yesterday afternoon, this was awaiting me! One of the first oxblood lilies of the season! Yeah!

Still here

Well, I'm still here and still alive.

I went to Nacogdoches last weekend for a visit, so it has kind of thrown my schedule off a little. I left last Thursday morning and got to Nac early afternoon. I immediately went to campus to visit with my aunt and and check in with Ms. Meads, my old boss at the AARC. It was so good to stay with my aunt and get to hang out with her. I haven't really spent any time with her since I left SFA.

Friday morning I drove around and looked at all the old apartments that I have lived in when I was there. Everything is still the same. Nacogdoches is still the same. The campus is still pretty much the same, but there are new buildings popping up everywhere!! Friday afternoon, I went back to the AARC to visit and Ms. Meads asked me to come along to their happy hour that afternoon and I was going to be the surprise guest. She told me that everyone was trying to guess who it could be! The looks on their faces when they walked in and saw me sitting at the table! It was priceless!! And so much fun! I had a really great time catching up with all of them! Laura came by with her daughter near the end. It was so good to see her and get to meet Madeline, who loved me! Josh says that I am the "baby whisperer." I am beginning to think he might be right! :)

Saturday morning my aunt and I got up and went to the Nac Farmers Market. We got some really great stuff and they had so much more that I wanted to get, but I didn't have the money or the space to bring it home! We then went to a photography exihibit at the SFA gallery that was awesome! Jennifer came into Nac and went to lunch with us and then to my aunt's house to visit some more. It was so good to see her and talk to her in person! Then that evening I went over to Laura's to visit some more, which was really nice because I rarely get to talk to her.

Sunday morning we got up, went to eat breakfast, and then I packed and headed back home. I was sad to leave because I had such a great time! It's a shame that it's so far away. It only took me about 4 1/2 hours, but that's not somewhere where you can just jump in the truck and go. Hopefully it won't take me another three years to make it back!!

This week has been lazy and crazy all at the same time. I have been more tired than usual, so I did take a few naps, and not get out of my pajamas all day! I am wanting to get my garden going in a few weeks, so I have been thinking about plants and what I want to do this year. We are expanding it, so I have been getting measurements for my dad and hoping we can get it done shortly! I can't wait for fresh veggies!!!

I haven't taken a picture in weeks! I hope to do a little better in the coming weeks!

Kalina Family Christmas Vacation

This weekend my family, minus my sister, came to San Antonio for our old Annual Kalina Family Christmas Vacation. When my siblings and I were younger, my parents would take us for a little mini vacation the weekend before Christmas to finish shopping and spend time together. It started out going to the Galleria in Houston, but we then ventured west to San Antonio to spend the weekend on the Riverwalk. We stayed at many different hotels through the years, but always loved the Hyatt and the Menger the most.

Once we were all in college and in different places, we have slowly stopped this tradition because it was so hard to get us all together. This year, my brother decided to revive it. At first, he was going to come himself, but my parents to decided to join in. They all came to stay with me this weekend. It wasn't a full weekend, but we still had fun!

They got here Saturday afternoon. After they settled in at my house, we headed downtown. We started out at the mall to see if Ryan could find a few things. Then we made our way down to the river for dinner. We have a favorite restaurant that we eat at every time we are at the Riverwalk - RioRio. They have a plate supposedly designed for two people to eat, but all 4 or 5 of us can eat off of it and be full! Of course, the chips and salsa beforehand don't help matters!! :)

After eating, we always go next door to a store called Mr. IceCream to get dessert! They have Blue Bell Ice Cream, so it's nothing fancy, it's just something we always do!

The tree at the Alamo

The tree at the Menger

Trees in the lobby at the Menger



After walking around on the river for a while and hanging out in the lobby of the Menger, we made our way back to the mall to shop a little more. We stopped in at the Marriott to check out their decorations. One year, they had a life-size gingerbread house! This year it was just a tree, but it was gorgeous!

These beautiful light-up stars were hanging over the lobby

My mom and me!

These ornaments were hanging in the mall and I thought they were really cool

Merry Christmas from the San Antonio Riverwalk!

West Texas

The first weekend of November is the annual Terlingua Chili Cookoff. Every year we say we are going to go and we never do. Well, this year we went!!!

My dad was going to go with my brother and a family friend, but they bailed on him at the last minute. So, the Wednesday afternoon before, dad calls me and asks if I want to go with him to the cookoff and quail hunting at Black Gap Wildlife Management Area. Since I don't have much happening in my life, I decided to go with him and take Rylie with us!

I was excited to go because I have heard how crazy the cookoff is and wanted to see for myself. And I wanted to go hunting, especially with Rylie, because I heard from dad how good she does. And I really wanted to get out of town to get away from having no job!

Terlingua did not disappoint! I think it was a little crazier than I was expecting! But we had a lot of fun walking around checking out all the cooks and everyone else who came just to party.

Speaking of crazy...we watched a 'Best Breast' contest! Talk about quality father-daughter bonding time! The top pictures are of the stage and the bottom are some of the "spectators."

We spent the weekend at Stillwell Store in a rundown trailer, which actually turned out to not be as bad as I thought it was going to be. Thankfully it had AC because it got quite warm a few nights.

We hunted at Black Gap two days and had a pretty good time. Dad got 7 birds, and it was a good thing Rylie was there to find a few of those. She did awesome hunting! Better than I expected! She really does have a nose for it.

There was only one problem. She got a thorn in her eye. Her eye eye. And I had to pull it out! On the first day, in the evening when we took her boots off, she immediately started rubbing her eye. I just assumed she was rubbing it because she had had the boots on all day. When we got back to the trailer I noticed that she was holding it closed, so I got a flashlight and was able to see something on her eye. It looked like a big piece of dirt, so I go a tissue and while dad held her I tried to kind of wipe it off. That's when I realized that the "dirt" wasn't moving. I got the flashlight out again and held it to the side and could then tell that it was a thorn. I don't know how I did it, but with dad holding her, I was able to take the tweezers and pull it out.

Poor baby was miserable! She woke up with her eye goopy and crusted over! Thankfully I had some eye medication from last year when she scratched her eye. I wasn't sure if I could use it though so we drove the 10 miles to the National Park where there was cell reception and got a hold of my friend Jennifer who told me that I could use it, but to watch her.

Once we got out hunting, you wouldn't know anything was wrong with her. She was such a trooper! Once we got back home, I checked her eye again and could tell that there was still something in there. I kept putting the medicine in and luckily got through this without a trip to the vet! Jennifer had told me that if it didn't get better I would have to take her to a veterinarian opthamologist! I can't imagine how much that would be!

Rylie and her Grandpa RoRo!

Wildflowers blooming and mountains in Mexico through the window of an old adobe house

The only blooming Ocotillo that we came across

Beautiful grasses

I had a lot of fun and was worn out for days! So was Rylie! She slept for two whole days once we got back! But now it's back to civilization, the real world, and to the grind of trying to find a job.

Show Us Your Life - Vacation

This was very hard. I'm not a world traveler by any means, but I've been on some cool vacations. Mostly around the state of Texas though. My absolute favorite trip, however, was actually my study abroad trip to the Yucatan.

I did my Master in Landscape Architecture work at Texas Tech. The summer after my first year, one of the professors put together a study abroad design trip around the Yucatan Peninsula. When I say "around the Yucatan" that is almost literal as we were all over the whole peninsula! This trip was four years ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy on some of the details. And I had a really hard time going through the pictures!

The trip was also a way for us to study eco-tourism, so we were able to visit a few eco-resorts and lots of ruins.

We started out and Merida and kind of used that as a base that we came back to a few times. One of our first outings was to Celestun on the west coast

We took a little boat ride to an area in a mangrove forest where the fresh water & salt water mix, and we got to take a little dip in the cool water.

And then on the way back, we got to see a huge flock of flamingos!!

We got to see some ancient haciendas.

We climbed and toured lots of ruins. I believe this is Uxmal

I can't remember exactly where this place was, but I believe it was on the outskirts of Celestun. It was an eco-resort that let us hang out for a few hours on their beach.

We went all the way down to the south end of the peninsula to Calakmul, which is about 20 miles from Guatamala. These are the views from the top of the tallest ruin.

We stayed on the patio at Hacienda Tabi in hammocks!

Touring more ruins

The "vacation" part for us came when we got to spend a few days in Playa del Carmen!

Touring Tulum

We also got to take a tour of the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve. It was so cool because we got to float down man made Mayan canals.

The ruins at Chichen Itza.

We also got to go to Xcaret. If you ever get to that area, Xcaret is an awesome place to go!

The main reason for our trip was to redesign two different town squares (zocolos) for the villages of Yaxunah and Yaxachen. This was a really cool and interesting part of the trip. We were able to interact with the locals villagers to learn what they wanted in a zocolo and also to learn more about the culture.

In Yaxachen we were able to make homemade corn tortillas with a few of the villagers.

One of our favorite activities was taking a break to swim in the cenotes. This one was in Yaxunah.

I believe this one was at Ik Kil

The last place we stayed was Kaxil Kiuic Bioreserve. We were the first group to ever stay there!

And just to prove that we did do design work while we were there! When we were in Yaxunah, a storm came through and knocked out the electricity, so we had to finish our work by candlelight and flash light!

It was definitely the trip of a lifetime and I would love to go back some day, if even just to visit of few of the places we visited.