KC & Sterling

September

2011-02-09T10:02:00.000-08:00

September- My Best Friend's Wedding

Well 5 snow days has allowed me the opportunity to try and catch up on some very overdue blogging. The truth is I've been putting off blogging about September because I want to do Ellen and Cal's wedding justice. Their wedding was so wonderful it's hard to know how to capture it all, but here we go...

Ellen's wedding started off with a few hiccups as every good wedding does - but Ellen is not your average person so her "hiccup" involved her wedding venue burning down 3 months before her wedding! Ellen pressed on in true Ellen fashion and was determined to have the best wedding ever!

The wedding ceremony was held on the lawn of the Barr Mansion in Austin, TX. We had cocktail hour on the lawn and guests enjoyed Belgian and Texan beers - a nod to the bride and groom's heritage.

The FOB

The Darius Family

Pommes frites (Belgian fries) were served as a late night snack and inflatable guitars and microphones were handed out on the dance floor and kept people entertained until 1AM! Ellen is a DANCER and so are all of her family and friends! The dance floor was full the entire 5 hours, I think I sat down for only 1 or 2 songs the whole time!

Get it Cal!!

Dancing

More Dancing

Even MORE dancing! Please note Sterling in the back gettin his groove on!

Made for each other!

Cheers to Ellen and Cal!!

Ellen's FABULOUS wedding review!

August

2010-12-28T19:03:00.000-08:00

KK Reunion and Ellen's Bachelorette Party!

Both of the wonderful events took place at one of my favorite places on earth - Kickapoo Kamp. I always look forward to reunion weekend. Some of my best friends, in my favorite place and all we have to do is lay on the river and eat smores! That's my kind of weekend! Just a couple weekends after that I was back at Kamp for Ellen's Bach party! Since KK is near and dear to Ellen as well we thought it would be the perfect setting. It was so wonderful to have the people that care so much for Ellen all in one place. We had a great time at Kamp and then hit the town later on Saturday night. I'm pretty sure we were the best thing to happen to Kerrville, TX in a long time! What a wonderful weekend dedicated to my wonderful bestie!

Trying to catch up...starting with July

2010-12-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

So since its been an eternity since I've posted I am going to do a quick recap of the last 6 months. We'll start with July and hopefully I can get through the rest of the year before 2010 is over.

July

Annual Meeting
Every year Sterling goes to Milwaukee over the summer for his annual meeting with Northwestern Mutual. This year I was able to go with him and we had such a great time! It's a very family focused event with lots of fun activities. The first night we had a big group dinner with the Dallas offices. The next day everyone participates in the 'Roots and Wings' 5k or 10k race along Lake Michigan in the morning and then heads out to the Milwaukee Zoo for the Garden Party that evening. Northwestern reserves the entire Zoo and brings in enough food to feed an army! All of the exhibits are open for us and we get to roam the entire Zoo! It's my favorite event! There are meetings on Monday and Tuesday for Sterling to go to. I was able to go with him to some of the meetings and we got to hear amazing speakers like Tom Brokaw. Lastly, Northwestern Mutual always brings in someone really great for a private concert. This year it was Keith Urban! You better believe me and another wife got in the line super early to get front row seats. It paid off big time because we were front row and center stage. He gave an awesome performance! We even hung out with the band afterwards at our hotel! We look forward to this annual meeting every year. It's so much fun to get to spend time with co workers (who are really more like friends than co workers) and other friends from all over the country. Everyone leaves with new ideas and a renewed passion for their business.

Northwestern HQ

Roots & Wings Race

Sterling was in the top 100 for new clients in the entire company for 2010!!

Our private concert with Mr. Keith Urban

There is no zoom used here, we were really this close!

Annie & Brad's Wedding

Also in July was Annie and Brad's fabulous wedding! Boy do they know how to throw a party! Every last detail was so beautiful and the dance floor was hoppin! We are so grateful to have been a part of their special day to mark the beginning of forever!

San Francisco

2010-06-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

For Memorial Day weekend we went to San Fran with some friends from Sterling's office. He qualified for this trip based on his number of new clients! It was a jam packed 5 days, but we had a blast! My legs have never been so sore, those streets are crazy!

We started the trip off right with dinner in China Town and walked around to all the shops. The next morning we made it to the farmer's market, then to Golden Gate Park and to a Giants game. Instead of having vendors in the stands selling cotton candy they had people with a keg of hot chocolate strapped to their back with a belt of whip cream dispensers! We don't get that in Texas! Day 3 we went to Alcatraz. I had no idea it was so close to the bay, kinda scary! We ate lunch at In-N-Out Burger! I thought it was awesome and definitely as good as people say! We continued on to Ghirardelli Square for some delicious ice cream. Made the trip to Lombard Street and then got some Clam Chowder at Pier 39. We pretty much ate our way through San Fran! Day 4 was probably our favorite - We went to Muir Woods and saw the huge redwood trees! We could have spent all day out there! Then we rented bikes and went down North Beach. The weather was absolutely perfect the entire time! I told Sterling, let's be very honest about our trip....its was a FUN trip to San Francisco, but it was not a vacation! I was so tired by the end that I needed a real vacation :) We had such a great time, but as always it was wonderful to get back to the great state of Texas!

MS 150 (actually 160)

2010-06-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Sterling rode in his first MS 150. The event raises over $2 million dollars so thank you to everyone who donated to Sterling's ride! The race started in Frisco and went 85 miles to Texas Motor Speedway. We camped out for the night and in the morning Sterling got to start day 2 by riding a lap around the track. He then continued on to bike another 75 miles to downtown Fort Worth. Luckily Massage Envy was their title sponsor and gave the riders on the team free massages!

When Sterling first got into cycling, he was vehemently against spandex. After such a long ride he fully understands the need for padded shorts! This race is so well run and everyone had a lot of fun! I even had a really great time cheering him on at all the different locations. I am so proud of him for completing this ride!

Sterling with his team at the Starting line

Speeding out to Texas Motor Speedway!!!

WOO HOO!!!!

Birthday Weekend in Austin

2010-05-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

I know it's been forever since I've blogged. After you let too much time go by there is all this pressure to make your next post about something really important. Well, not that we haven't done anything important in the last few months, but this time someone had a camera!

We went to Austin last weekend for a little birthday celebration! My birthday, my best friend Ellen's (B2B) birthday and her fiance Cal's birthday are all within about 8 days of each other. Our wonderful friends Sarah and Eric had the great idea of getting us all together. Friday night there were 9 people and 2 labs at the Newton household :) Never was definitely never a dull moment. Austin is so relaxing and fun. We had breakfast at Taco Deli (top 5 best queso I've ever had!) then we headed to Town Lake to let the dogs run around and swim. The weather was perfect! Sarah and I also got to do a little wedding planning with Ellen! :) Sterling and Eric wrapped up the weekend with a bike ride in the beautiful hill country. It was so fun to get away and be with such wonderful friends! We're already planning our beach trip to Galveston this summer! Yea!

Eric, Sarah, Sterling, me, Ellen and Cal

B2B and her MOHs!

And the hardcore riders!

We've been busy....

2009-12-10T18:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it's been insanely too long since I've posted anything. We've had so much going on that keeping up with the blogging was a daunting task. So I'm going to do my best to catch up. Well in the last 2 months Sterling and I moved into our first house in Frisco and Sterling's 97 Avalon finally bit the dust so we also got a new (to us) car...pictures coming soon! Sorry to disappoint, but I only have picture from moving day. I apologize for the mess in the house and the exhaustion on our faces! We absolutely love our new home!! We are getting use to the commute, but we try to carpool as much as possible so we can atleast be together in traffic.

All the painting was already done (which we are so grateful for) and we just love the colors! The red room is the dining room.

This is our rotunda and our kitchen.

The view from the living room to the rest of the house.

I'll try and post more pictures as we get more done to the house. We do have a guest bed for any interested!

In the last couple of months we also went to Georgetown to celebrate my brother, Tyler's 21st birthday. I cannot believe my little brother is 21! We had a great time going to the Farmer's Market in downtown Austin then spending the day at Hamilton Pool.

We also took a trip to the Grand Cayman Islands!!! Sterling qualified for this trip through work, so the best part was it was FREE!!!! We had such a great time and I'm especially missing the warm beaches right now in this freezing weather! We went to Sting Ray Island and we both held a stingray!! It was so crazy, it felt like a wet mushroom. And you better believe I asked about Steve Irwin and what went on there! Don't worry it was a different species of sting ray that he ran into. There was a beautiful reef right outside our hotel so we went snorkeling all the time. I even went scuba diving for the first time!! Sterling is certified so he was super excited to go diving again! We saw some amazing things and it was just amazing to be able to breath under water! We stayed at the Ritz which was fabulous! They definitely gave us the royal treatment!

Overall we've had an amazing past couple of months! We are excited to have some time off at Christmas to spend time with family. We hope you all have a Merry Christmas!!!

Wicked!!

2009-09-27T13:01:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to blog for a while now because we have had so much going on. I was trying to make an effort to blog in sequential order, but since I don't have our pictures ready from our White Family Vacation, we'll have to come back to that. Right after we got back from the vacation my parents took us to see Wicked. Sterling had seen it previously in NYC, but this was my first time. To say it was amazing, phenomenal, and the best show I've ever seen would be an understatement! I caught myself multiple times just watching with my mouth gaping open in awe. I haven't been able to stop listening to the soundtrack! We all had such a great weekend together and it was great to finally get to see Tyler and Katy's new apartments in Austin.

Ellen's Engagement!!

2009-08-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

Ellen is also one of the most fabulous people in my life. I have been so fortunate to have her here in Dallas with me over the past few months. She and her boyfriend (now fiance!) are one of the cutest couples out there! They are the definition of support and dedication to one another. When I got an email from Cal saying he was going to propose I was so excited!! However, I unintentionally caused quite the commotion leading up to the proposal. I thought I would throw Ellen off by asking her if she wanted to go to dinner that night knowing that she and Cal had dinner plans. Well, we hadn't seen each other in a while so she actually wanted to go to dinner and asked Cal if we could join them. She then proceeded to get upset when Cal kept insisting that it just be the two of them. Cal had to email me to tell me to 'abort plan' because Ellen really wanted the four of us to go to dinner. So I texted her back to let her know that Sterling had made other plans and she was ok after that. Sorry Cal for the added stress! oops :) Everything ended up fabulous! Cal made it so personal and even had an intimate little group of family and friends waiting inside to help celebrate!! Cheers to the happy couple and cheers to the next year of dresses, flowers, cakes and overall awesomeness!!!

Ellen's initial reaction

Soooo happy!!!!

The happy couple!!

Sarah, Ellen and me

I think she's on cloud 9!

Anne's visit :)

2009-08-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

My best friend from high school is one of most fabulous people I know. She currently resides in Iowa :( booooooooo!!!! So I absolutely LOVE when she comes to visit! I know I need to return the favor and visit her, but the cold scares me! We all had a great weekend going out to eat, laying out and ....eating some more!

A mini Georgetown reunion - Anne, me, Aaron, Laura and Cynthia

Me, Laura and Anne

All the ladies - Krista, Anne, me, Laura and Cynthia

Kickapoo Kamp Reunion Weekend

2009-08-30T20:32:00.000-07:00

August has been a crazy month, so this post is way overdue. Kickapoo Kamp is one of my favorite places on earth. By the way, at Kickapoo we spell everything with a 'K'. My mom went to this kamp as a girl, I have gone since I was 10 years old and even my brother worked there many summers as a work boy. Kickapoo is in my blood! Reunion weekend is one of my favorite weekends all year. We do nothing but hang out and reminisce about good times!

Ellen, Anne, Jenna, me, Courtney and Meaux at Mammacitas!!

Right before we all fell off!

The slide and water trampoline.

This is what we do all weekend...nothing but relax!

All of us at Vespers with Falling Rock :)

A weekend in my favorite place with my favorite people = one happy kamper!

Just an excuse to wear spandex....

2009-07-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

This morning Sterling did his first sprint triathlon at the Cooper Clinic in McKinney. In this event Sterling swam 350 meters (about 7 laps), biked 12 miles then ran a 5K. Ellen and I went to cheer him on and document his first race. I think this could be the first of many races for Sterling.

Sterling preparing diligently for the race with a free massage
(Gotta love the spandex!)

His cheerleaders!!!! Goooooo Sterling!!!!

Sterling & 499 of his closest spandex wearing friends waiting to start the race

And he's off!!!!

Stage 2:
Apparently shirts are not very aerodynamic!

Future Triathlete

Finishing Stage 2

More cheering!!! Phew, this is hard work!

The Final Stage! Almost Done!

Note: This video is not in slow motion, it is simply nearing the end of the race :)

Ellen recruited some more cheerleaders for Sterling

THE FINISH!!!
He finished in 1 hour and 12 min!! Way to go!!

I'm so proud of him!

Sterling's Stats:

Swim - 7:06
T1 - 1:27
Bike - 36:41
T2 - 1:07
Run - 26:13

Sterling finished 124th out of 500!!! Not too shabby for his first time!

Sterling's Birthday

2009-07-17T17:05:00.001-07:00

We just celebrated Sterling's birthday last weekend. Sterling has been wanting to get a group together to go play Whirly Ball since his birthday last year. So this year we went out to eat and tried our hand at Whirly Ball. For those of you who may not know what Whirly Ball is (like me), you are sitting in a bumper car with a scoop/lacrosse stick. You get points by throwing the ball at the goals at either end. We had the best time! I don't think we stopped laughing the whole time!

The right side of the table - Marcos, Ruth, Liana and Collin

The New Yorkers, Brad and Heather

The Left side - Suz, Shelbee, Evan, Todd, Melissa and Amanda
Mubeen and Caleb with Lily (who belongs to Collin and Liana)

WHIRLY BALL!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STERLING!!

Memorial Day Weekend

2009-07-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

I know this post in insanely overdue, but better late then never. Over Memorial Day weekend we went to Houston to see my best friend Anne who was in town from Iowa and some family. It's been so nice to be able to see Anne multiple times this year even though she lives so far away. Krista was so nice to organize an evening for all of us to hang out. We all went to the Astros game and then out to eat. Although finding a restaurant was quite a debacle, we ended up going to one of the most Amazing Mexican restaurants I've ever been to - Lupe Tortillas. I wish there was one in Dallas! It was so nice to get to spend time with Anne and her family. I think the last time we were all together with her sisters was when we were in high school. Now they have beautiful childen who were running around entertaining us! It was a wonderful weekend with great friends!

Cynthia, me and Anne

All the girls at the game - Krista, Cynthia, me and Anne

The nice man that held our purses while we took pictures!

The ladies at dinner at Lupe Tortilla's. Yummmmm!!!Me, Anne, Carissa, Rachel, Cynthia and Krista - Gig'em!

All of us with spouses - so much fun!

We also were able to spend a lot of time with my Uncle, Aunt and cousins. Sterling got his fill of video games with Kendall and it was so good to see Katy before she left for her summer at Disney Land to be in the Disney All-American College Band. She is having the time of her life and I'm so proud of her!!

This is a medley with the 3 Little Pigs. I mean this in the nicest way, she's the pig on the right! :)

Birthday Fun!!

2009-04-21T21:01:00.001-07:00

I had a simply fabulous birthday weekend! Sterling surprised me by having our wedding album made! He did such a good job and I'm so happy to finally have our pictures in an album! I also got some beautiful flowers at work! We went out to dinner with friends to my favorite place - The Cheesecake Factory! Of course I had my dose of avocado egg rolls!!! Delish!

Ellen also treated us to dinner Monday night. We currently are trying to taste cupcakes from all of the specialty shops in Dallas, so my birthday was made complete with cupcakes from The Cupcakery! As you can see the taste test went well! Thank you to everyone who called or left me a birthday message. I love you all!

Easter Weekend

2009-04-21T17:46:00.001-07:00

We went to San Antonio to visit family for Easter Weekend. We had such a great visit! Sterling was chomping at the bit to go mountain biking with his brother and they had a so much fun they went twice in one day!

Everyone joined in the biking fun!

Preston kept it real with his scooter, hat and spiderman backpack!

We love these boys so much!! We had a fabulous Easter weekend !!!

The Float House

2009-02-27T12:56:00.000-08:00

This past weekend Sterling and I joined my family on Lake Travis in Austin to celebrate my Dad's 60th Birthday. My dad never wants any presents, he just enjoys time with family and friends so we decided to get everyone together and surprise him with a weekend on the lake. We stayed at a place called The Float House and it was awesome! It's a double decker house boat equipped with shuffleboard, pool, a fabulous deck with a fire pit and one heck on a rope swing that goes off the roof! Happy Birthday Dad!!