Tales of a Shopaholic Woman and an Economical Man: 8 weeks and The Cotton Bowl!

My first week to week pregnancy post! Yahoo!! We are 8 weeks pregnant this week. According to my books and such our little O is doing all kinds of developing this week. Fingers and toes should no longer be webbed, the breathing tubes are extending over the developing lungs, and the best part, the baby's "tail" is almost gone! YAY!!! How freaky would a baby with a tail be, I chose to refer to that as it's rump for lack of a better term. So here I am at 8 weeks along, BTW, no bare belly pics for this mama...I'm not that proud ; )

8 weeks along and getting ready to make the trip to Dallas to watch our Hogs play in The Cotton Bowl!!! YAYYYY!!!!! We had made ourselves a promise to try and make it to the bowl game this year if it was close and within reason expense-wise. Lucky for us, the Hogs got an invitation to play in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas! First of all, I LOVE Dallas! It's not that far from us and has so much to offer for entertainment. It has been a while since we have made the trip but the last time we went we had so much fun. Secondly, our good friends Luke and Millie (Jason's friends from college which I adopted), live in Dallas and making the trip there is just a great excuse to get to spend some time with them. Luke and Millie got married one week after us and we all took our first Anniversary trip together to Playa Del Carmen in August 2010. We always have the best time with them and they are also huge Hog fans having graduated from U of A so they were certainly down to join us for the game!

We made it to Dallas on Thursday Jan.5 and got freshened up for dinner with Luke and Millie. They took us to a local restaurant called The Porch! DELICIOUS!!!! Everyone enjoyed their dinner along with a good glass of wine or a house beer...and I enjoyed my virgin strawberry spritzer sans alcohol. : ( Definitely an adjustment for me but what I didnt miss out on was DESSERT!! After dinner we went to another little restaurant and had a fantastic chocolate cake and creme brulee! YUMMY! Exhausted, we headed back to the hotel shortly after and got some sleep to get pumped up for Game Day the next day. Luke and Millie had to work for a little while on Friday but they were able to get off early and we headed down to Cowboy Stadium to check out some tailgates and what all the stadium had to offer. The stadium was truly AMAZING! Nothing like anything I had ever seen in my life! I was so happy we took the opportunity for an experience like this. Of course, the game was intense and I was literally losing my voice from screaming my head off. I actually got a little worried about the baby the way I was jumping around and getting all ruffled up! We won the game 29-16 over Kansas State and it was definitely SWEET victory!! The crowd was wild!

So after we sat in traffic for about an hour and a half we headed back to drop Luke and Millie off at the their apartment and back to our hotel to crash. Kinda funny but as we drove through Uptown Dallas we were noticing all the people out just for a typical Friday night. Never mind the influence of the big game that just ended. Jason and I talked about what we would've normally done pre-pregnancy in that situation.....the answer is DUH, park the car, get out and walk around and check it all out. I'm sure we would've stopped at one of the little outdoor patio bars and had a few drinks and talked and people watched just the two of us. Usually even if no one was up for going and doing something, we never minded going alone, making the most of any fun opportunities. BUUTTTTT.....fast forward to present day...and pregnancy...and we rolled on past all the nightlife en route to the hotel. The old me would be dying to get out there and see what all was going on, the pregnant me was having visions of laying my head on a pillow and deep sleep since about 9 pm that evening, and by this time, the clock was pushing 2 am...ugh OUT!

We got up the next morning and went and joined Luke and Millie for brunch at Breadwinner's. Another fabulous little Dallas eatery. We had actually eaten there the last time we were in town so I knew I liked it a lot. The brunch was out of this world. I wish I could clone that place and have it built right down the road from my house. Brunch would definitely become my favorite meal of the day! After a yummy meal we said goodbye to Luke and Millie, possibly for an extended period of time as they are getting prepared to move to Spain for 18 months. Luke got accepted in a program through his job at Ernst and Young where he will be working for the company in Spain for awhile. Crossing my fingers this works out for them and is a smooth, safe transition. And I'm so happy that we got to spend some time with them before they left, they always show us a good time up in the big D!! So back to good ol' Arkansas and Saline County we headed. We rushed back to get ready to meet up with all of our friends to go to dinner for Amy's 25th birthday! All in all, a GREAT weekend! Lots of good times and laughs with lots of friends and the Hogs made us PROUD!! Way to go guys, you deserve that big win! Here are some pics from our trip!