McAllen Mayhem

Well, I have not posted lately, but that is probably because there really hasn't been anything exciting or uplifting to say. We have had some serious craziness going on the past few weeks. The abridged version goes something like this: I had a wreck. My car was towed. The car goes missing. Dad comes to town. We find car with no license plates. Dad goes home. Jesse, my father-in-law, comes to town we file reports. Jesse tows my car to Houston. My car is finally being fixed.

Looking past all the chaos we got to have some fun. I got to have an unexpected quality time visit from my dad. The older I get, the more important the time I get to spend with my family gets. So even if the purpose is just to help me find my stolen car, I'll take it.

At this assignment, there were four IMs. Where there are IMs, there are IM wives. It was very exciting to have other girls around to hang out with. We got together a few times, but the last time we all hung out we crotched. Abby is super advanced so she was working on a huge blanket. Kelly and I were both beginner so we made infinity scarves. After we were all crotched out, we headed to Chick-fil-A for lunch!

Abby the professional.

Kelly was cracking us up. She told everyone
 that she was making the scarf for them.

 

My finished product.

Jesse came to town later in the week to visit Justin and me. It was fun. Jesse and I spent most of our time together running errands while Justin was at work. He had to be my chauffer. I have recently developed a fear of driving in McAllen. Probably, a rightful fear, since every time we got in the car we witnessed at least one wreck. I think the craziest thing that we saw was a little car shoot out of a parking lot with out even pausing before entering the road, the car then proceeded to cross three lanes and then drive up the side of the on ramp to enter the ramp to the interstate. Thank God it did not result a wreck, but it definitely made our jaws drop. We also did a little Christmas shopping. Jesse bought Kayla and Ava a planetarium for Christmas. He could not wait to check it out and insisted that we play with it as soon as we got back to the hotel. I was like, "Seriously? We can't play with their toy before we give it to them." But, despite my resistance, I somehow ended up lying on the middle of the living room floor with Justin and Jesse looking at all of the stars in our galaxy being projected on the ceiling. I must say, it was a pretty cool toy and the guilt of playing with their toy seemed to disappear as we gazed up at the stars. That weekend we went to see Star Wars in 3-D. We had a great time.

The day after Jesse left, my parents came down to celebrate Christmas with us. My mom is one of the greatest cooks. She pulled off a delicious Christmas dinner in a hotel. That requires skill. You could seriously smell our meal all the way down our hallway. We of course continued our tradition of Christmas pajamas and a movie on Christmas Eve night. We watched Fred Claus and snuggled up in our pajamas. We had to skip the hot chocolate this year though due to the 91 degree weather. Santa came to see as us usual, and we were super spoiled as usual too. It was a wonderful weekend that ended all to quickly.

Saturday, Justin and I took all of our boxes to Fed-Ex so they could be shipped up for our transition to Iowa City, Iowa. Sunday, we headed to the airport at 8:00 AM for our flight. At 6:00 PM they finally officially cancelled our flight and had us reschedule for the next day. We were scheduled for the first flight out of McAllen at 5:40 PM the next day. Our hotel was kind and sent someone to the airport to get us since we had turned in our rental car that morning. The next day we woke up and checked the airline website to see if any new flights had been scheduled. There were listing of flights every two hours so we called to see if we could get on an earlier flight. The lady was very helpful and scheduled us for a flight that was leaving in exactly an hour. So we did the flight of the bumble bee to get all of our things together and make our flight. When we arrived at the airport the line was so long. Half of the people were trying to reschedule flights and the other half were just trying to get checked in for the flight they were going on. After what felt like an eternity, we made it to the front of the line. The airline attendant then let us know that our 12:44 PM flight had been rescheduled for the next day at 8:35 PM. By this point, Justin is stressing out. He is ready to get to his next assignment. He called his travel agent and they were able to book us on a flight out of Laredo first thing the next morning. So we grabbed our bags and headed down to the rental counter.

The very long "Please help me fly to anywhere!" line.

A scarf I made for Garth while we waited for our plane.

Justin rented us an SUV and we were told that ours was being pulled around and to meet them on the curb for our vehicle. He was told we were getting an Equinox, but when we got out side the man handed us keys to an FJ. Justin questioned then man and the man told him that this was the correct car, so we took it. We must have been 20 minutes down the road when the car rental company called us and asked us if we took the FJ. I don't think the people who rented the FJ were pleased that it was missing, but we were too far gone to turn around. We were almost to Laredo when we entered a sleepy little town. On the side of the road was an adorable lab/beagle mix puppy who was trying to cross the road. It was almost hit three times and it even tried to jump up on the step of one of the trucks passing by before it was flung backwards. I yelled for Justin to pull over and we grabbed the puppy and pulled him in with us. If we would have been home, I would have had to keep him. But, there is no way we could have a big dog and travel all over. Justin pulled me up to a little grocery like store where I had them call the local dog catcher. They told me that it would be a slim chance that he would actually come. They told me to leave him outside. I walked outside and told Justin what they said. My lip started to quiver and I told Justin that we couldn't just leave him. "We will bring him with us to Laredo, but then we have to take him to the pound," he said. So I held the flea and tick infested puppy as we headed out of town. Just on the outskirts of town we saw a firework stand. We pulled over and found some people who agreed to keep him.

After we arrived in Laredo, we met up with a family we had been with in McAllen. We had our last hoorah at the little restaurant across from our hotel, where we indulged in cake and milk. A great way to end a crazy few days trying to escape the McAllen mayhem.

Motions of McAllen

Through all the craziness that we always seem to have going on, God always pops in and gives us some peace. This week had been a bit of a bummer trying to deal with the wreck and trying to find a doctor that would take a new and out of town patient. Thank God for my mother-in-law who has connections everywhere. It turns out that she was in the army with a doctor who lives her in McAllen. (It always blows my mind how God can perfectly weave everyone and everything together to work for good.) She was able to call for me and explain the situation of "The Traveling Belchers" and viola, I got an appointment. This place is amazing too. They are so caring and gentle and they got me in right away to start working on my shoulder and hip.

This week Justin had a lot going on too. The new store that is only about a half mile from the store he and the other IMs are working in opened this Thursday. The new store looks amazing! It has the interior design package called "The Heritage." But, basically that means it looks like it is a restaurant version of Chip and Joanna Gaines' farmhouse. I hope we can get a store that looks like this one day. While there, Justin got to introduce me to several of the people working for corporate. I met a girl who is in charge of Marketing for Grand Opening stores in this area. I just applied to work on her team, so I might get to have a few of my own CFA adventures in the future as well. With all that being said, Justin and all of the IMs are still working on getting the store that they are working at ready to be taken over by a new owner. They are still training, trying to schedule some remodeling, and watching the balance of sales between their existing store and the new store.

Sunday evening we attended the annual CFA Christmas Party. It was a lot of fun and their marketing director did a wonderful job planning and preparing the evening. The guys brought in a huge smoker and made fajitas out back. There was also traditional Christmas food and tons of dessert. At the end, we played White Elephant and were cracking each other up trying to steal our gifts back and forth. (I forgot to take pictures this week. These are the only two I have. I will try to remember to take a few next week.

 

Until next week, we will be navigating through the motions of McAllen.

It's Always Something

This week has been an adventure to say the least.

At this hotel, they have some really cool rolling laundry carts. They are available for guests to use to do their laundry. The pups and I have been putting them to good use this week. While they are not actually any help doing the laundry, they sure do make it more fun!

Justin and the other two IMs, Tate and Josh, have been crazy busy this week. They have spent most of their week going over tons of paperwork and forms. I am sure that they are all ready to get some face to face time with the guests, and especially with the employees.

The CFA team here is outstanding. These workers are all so hardworking, self driven, and friendly. They have truly made this transition so wonderful. We are both loving working at this location. Yes, I said both! I even got to work a few day this week. I was so excited! I love getting to work the front counter and in this case, even practice my Spanish skills. Maybe one day I will become fluent, but right now I am just satisfied taking orders in Spanish correctly.

On Thursday, I was in a wreck. I was hit by another car in a parking lot. My car is pretty banged up and I have some pain and numbness in my shoulder and hip. Justin came in like Superman to save the day as soon as I called him. He made fun of me later though, because he said I sounded totally fine and calm over the phone, but once he got there I cried. I think I just kept it together until I knew there was someone else there to help me handle the situation. I am sure this is going to be a bit of an ordeal since we are out of town and everything. We are both just thankful that we are safe and we had car insurance. God is so good.

Friday night, we all had dinner over at Tate's house. It was very exciting because there are also two IM wives here as well. It was nice to get to hang out with some girls. We grilled out and all talked about our adventures. And as far as I can tell, there are going to be a few planned shopping outings in our near future. (Isn't that what naturally happens when a group of girls get together.)

On Saturday night, we went to go visit Miss Rose Mary in Corpus. It was so fun. She made us guacamole and tamales for dinner and then we drove around town looking at all of the great Christmas lights. There were two houses that had every inch of their yards covered in amazing settings. One yard was Santa's workshop with a choir led by Jesus. The other yard was the city of Bethlehem.

 

The choir with Jesus playing piano.

 

We also showed Justin my house from when I was a little girl. The next morning, we hit the road and headed back to McAllen for the store meeting.

This is our early morning, no make up, selfie

Even Roper and Garth got to visit their friend Sonny.

After the meeting we ended our weekend with a date to BJ's and a redbox rental. It was a great relaxing evening after such a crazy week. Can't wait to see what next week holds, because if it is not this, it's always something.

Moving into McAllen

We arrived at McAllen at 2:45 AM on Sunday night. It seems that we are excellent at packing up and moving quickly except for when we are having to say goodbye to our family in the process. We were so glad to see our family over the weekend, but we had to be on our way to our new destination.

We are loving McAllen. At first, we were not sure what to expect here, but we love it. Our hotel is in an excellent location and it shares a parking lot with HEB, which makes grocery shopping super convenient. We are glad to have a few of our favorite Texas restaurants available again, and though it may seem strange, we are glad to hear people speaking Spanish again. All of those things combined make us feel right at home. It is funny how things as trivial as a certain brand of groceries, restaurants, or a language can bring such a sense of comfort.

Justin has a lot of excitement going on at his current location. He is the first of four IMs to arrive here in McAllen. The other three will be arriving next week. This week he was doing some inventory and equipment checks in addition to a ton of hiring. He has really been enjoying getting to know both of the operators that are here in town, and he is totally in love with this team.

Justin and I spent our first Thanksgiving alone without any family. A few local CFA employees very kindly invited us to join them, but we ended up just being bums together. We both wore hats all day, made lunch, and went to the movies. (They have a brand new Cinemark here in town, and it is AMAZING!)

We finished the weekend off by going to the movies again. We love movies, and if you are a movie lover like us I am sure that you noticed there was a "movie drought." I mean there were movies out, but not really anything we would want to watch. Now it seems like they released a whole bunch of good ones at one time. And we totally can not get enough of their movie theater. I am so jealous of this theater!

We are looking forward to what the rest of this month will hold. But, we are having fun on this move to McAllen.

Nice to Know you New Orleans

We started the week off with a twist! When we received word on Justin's new assignment we found out that we would be leaving a week earlier than expected. So this was our last week in New Orleans.

On Monday, Abby, another IM's wife, and I decided that we would head to the French Market for one of the city''s free tours. After stopping in four different spots that we thought were the beginning of the tour, we finally made our way to the actual gathering place. The website said that there could only be 16 people in the tour group. Even after making it there early, there was a massive group of people. The tour guide was very nice and let us all stay, but we couldn't hear what she was saying. So, Abby and I headed off for our own tour. We made it up as we went along and walked around. She showed me some places she knew, I showed her some I knew.

I began taking an online certification class for event planning and design. I could not be more excited. I have been interested in event planning for sometime and I have some future aspirations of opening up a venue one day. So, we figured what better time than now for me to begin learning all I can about it.

Later in the week, Justin and I went to the annual Christmas Tree lighting ceremony in the city square. It was so much fun. We listened to all the Christmas carols being sung, and watched as the lit the tree.

On Friday morning I dropped Justin off at work and then drove to Grand Bay to go visit my Mawmaw and Pawpaw for 2 hours. It was such a short trip, but due to the fact we were leaving New Orleans early, we were going to miss getting to see them at Thanksgiving. The weather was amazing so we spent our time swinging on the back porch. Then before I knew it, it was time for me to head back and pick up Justin.

Justin was able to get special permission to drive and have Saturday off so we could stop by Houston to see our family and pick up my car. It was a very short trip, but we were able to have an early Thanksgiving with our families before heading back out of the road to our next destination.

It sure was nice to know New Orleans.

New Orleans Adventures

We are truly loving our location here in New Orleans. We are within walking distance to all the fun activities. We went to the Pelicans vs. The Dallas Mavericks game on Tuesday. Believe it or not, the Pelicans put a smack down on the Mavs. We were thankful that we had bought Pelican shirts and were cheering for the home team. Plus, these New Orleanais are pretty serious about their sports and I would probably be a little fearful to root against their players.

It is hard to tell, but that is a picture of Drew Brees and
 his family in their private suite.

Justin's work has been rather eventful this week. There have been multiple situations to be dealt with, and he is handling them like a champ. Since I have no work to do, Justin came home one night with a surprise for me. I have always talked about what I want our future home to look like. (We are planning on building.) I have hand drawn on paper what I want the floor plan to look like. Justin brought home the HGTV Home Design computer software. I am able to virtual build and design our home that I have hand drawn. It is so exciting. I have been playing with it all week!

This week the weather has been amazing. It did not rain, and the temperature was just slightly cool. Friday, we enjoyed the weather on our walk to The Theatres. It is like Star Cinema Grille, but it is on the second floor of a super fancy mall, here in the downtown area. We saw the movie Burnt, which was excellent. Afterwards, we took a stroll down to my favorite place to have bananas foster, Palace Café. Justin had neither been to Palace Café nor tried bananas foster. He is now a fan of both. I have a feeling we will be taking another trip there before we leave.

Saturday, we took a Ghost and Haunted Mansion tour. The ghost tour was excellent. (I found it on Groupon for 50% off!) Our guide told great stories. He even took a little detour and walked us to Brad Pitt and Angelia's home. He told many stories and related them to the 3rd season of American Horror Stories. He would tell us what parts they got right and what parts they got wrong. Justin and I had never watched the show, but after he told us that it was about New Orleans we were intrigued and thought that we would try it. That idea only lasted about the first 5 minutes of us trying to watch it. GROSS!

It is crazy that it just looks like a normal row house, but they said they paid
 somewhere between $4-$6 million for it.

Sunday, we went to our second Groupon find of the week, St. Joseph Plantation. It was a beautiful plantation that is still running today. The Plantation is still owned and run by family members of the original plantation owners. The woman working the tickets and gift shop is a grandchild to the family, and our tour guide Sylvia, is a great family friend to the owners. She gave wonderfully detailed information. The last family member to live in the house just moved out in 2005. They said that they even had workers who resided in the original slave cabins until 2000. (The cabins had air, electric, plumbing, and sheet rock added, but later were restored back to their original condition after the workers moved out.) They still had many artifacts from the home. They had the original slave quarters, outdoor kitchen, school room, barns and work spaces, and store. They even let us touch the items and take pictures! There is a second home that is on the property known as the Felicity Home. It is part of the plantation and owned by the family as well, but it is currently being used to film a movie. It has already had the films Twelve Years a Slave and The Skeleton Key filmed there.

St. Joseph Plantation Home

 

 

A child' toy fire truck dating pre-Civil War.

 

The items to the left of the wash basin are a curling iron and a crimping iron.

A partial view of the yard from the front porch.

 

Outside the outdoor kitchen.

 

Inside the outdoor kitchen.

 

An original slave cabin from the late 1700's.

We find out our new destination for the month of December tomorrow. We are always dying with anticipation as the days approach to when we find out. Either way, until the end of November, we will be enjoying our New Orleans adventures.

The Belchers are Back Together

We have arrived! Justin and I are finally back in the same city. And by city, I mean right smack dab in the middle of downtown New Orleans. This is our first assignment to be in a real city and we could not be more excited to be here. We both love New Orleans! We are so excited to be in a city that we are pretty familiar with, not to mention only a few hours away from family.

We could not have timed our arrival more perfectly with all this rain even if we would have tried! LOL The first nine days here it has either sprinkled or been a deluge! The rain has not stopped us from enjoying our time. We are loving our hotel. This Residence Inn used to be an apartment complex, so we have more room than usual. We are living a one bedroom apartment, but we have all the added bonuses of being at a Residence Inn.

Saturday, we had all these great plans of things we were going to do in the city, but as you know, The Traveling Belchers have to have at least one crazy thing happen a week. We had planned to go to the French Market and shop around, have dinner at Mother's, see a movie at The Theatres (a movie theater with recliners as your chair), and end the night listening to live bands on Frenchmen Street. Well, little did we know, that was just not in the cards for us that night. The extreme rain kept us from going to the French Market, so we went to plan B and headed straight for dinner at Mother's. We parked in the parking lot next to the restaurant. While I was waiting for Justin to put the parking ticket back in the car, I asked the parking attendant if I could stand in his booth with him so I could stay out of the rain. He allowed me to do so and made small talk about where we were from and where Justin works. We then headed inside to eat. When it came time to pay I realized that I was missing my wallet. (Now of course I happened to be the one responsible for all the cash this particular night.) I remembered leaving it in the hotel room, so we averted a panic attack. But, when we got out to the parking lot to pay our parking fee we had a whole new dilemma. We were parked in a cash only parking lot. Luckily, the parking attendant said he trusted us, (I feel pretty sure it was due to the fact that he knew Justin worked for CFA) and he said we could go back to the hotel to get our money. We made it back to the hotel got our money and headed back with our parking fee and a free chicken sandwich coupon for the awesome parking attendant. Now if you thought me leaving my wallet was the hiccup in our night, you are wrong. We headed out the movie theater. When we get  there the rain had not let up for a second. We drove around and around a parking lot waiting for the people to clear the parking meter over-hang so we could squish in and pay. So we pay our TWENTY DOLLAR parking fee for a two hour time period and sprint inside to buy our movie ticket. We get to the ticket booth and our movie was SOLD OUT! And our parking will run out before the next showing starts. But, wait for it, the movie attendant says, "Here is a ticket to validate you parking for the parking garage." WHAT?! There was a FREE parking garage. We jumped back in the car after our twenty dollar detour and tried to find another theater. Which we did, and missed that showing by about 15 minutes. Needless to say, we headed to Sonic, got Coke Zero and a Sonic Blast, and headed home to watch Gotham on Netflix.

Sunday made up for Saturday. My dad drove into town and the three of us went to the Saints vs. Titan's game. It was an awesome game. It was so close and it even went into overtime. It didn't have the outcome we were all hoping for, but you can't ask for more than a close nail biting game. Dad then took us to Deanie's Seafood for some fried shrimp. It was delicious!

Please ignore the disgusting angle, it's the best I could do without dropping my phone.

Dad even brought a treat for the puppies, sent by Mom of course! Raincoats. Seriously, I am not sure who comes up with all these puppy clothes, but they are so cute! The dogs loved their raincoats and are ready for the rest the of rain coming our way.

These Belchers are glad to be back together. We are looking forward to the rest of our adventures here in NOLA.