Christian and Country

This past week has been a blur of amazing concerts and fun friends!  Within a week I was able to catch my first Christian concert - Winter Jam, the classic Clay Walker in Nacogdoches, and dancing the night away at the Houston Rodeo with Mr. Worldwide, Pitbull himself.   Enjoy the photos and check out the links and tags below for more info!

Lauren Daigle 

Friday night I headed out with a couple of friends (pictured below) from my church ladies group to our basketball arena, Toyota Center.  We attended Winter Jam for $10 cash at the door!  How amazing is that?  Such a great group they are.

*Not pictured is the RIDICULOUSLY TALENTED For King and Country who put on the best show of the night to close it.  I am definitely seeing them next time they are in Texas, though.  Check them out here!  What a good example of musicianship, message and what it means to be a man (their message was incredible).

 Sidewalk Prophets - What a genuine guy!

This was the funniest part of the evening.  The band Red totally took us by surprise with their screaming heavy metal sound LOL  Totally not what we expected!

Matthew West - What Christian music is made of!  Will see him every time he's in town now.  His message is so good, genuine, heart-felt, and he was super funny too.  Click on his name to hear one of my favorites!  Oh and this one for my world changers!

I've been wanting to see Crowder for YEARS, or since I started listening to Christian radio about 3 years ago.  He played in Austin a year ago but I couldn't find anyone to go with me.  Check him out!  In fact, download this song and play it loud on your iPod.  One of my all-time favorite songs.

I love my ladies church group!  Such amazing friends.

 Saturday was spent relaxing in the AM with my fur baby...

Until it was time to hit Nacogdotches with my girlfriends Heather and Lori.  They have been following Clay Walker all over Texas and invited me to go with them.  Glad I did!  Since the concert was late we ended up renting a room at the Quality Inn.

Though the lobby looked alright the coffee was cold and it didn't appear that ANYONE who worked there realized that a BUISness center is not really a great place to do your business...  Seriously, everyone who worked there had no idea that ALL of their signs had this...  However, they did have an indoor pool so I can't hate on them too bad.

 While heading to the bar I found this amazing well art.  

Opening for Clay was an upcoming star Justin Adams.  If you follow him on Facebook or Instagram you will see he's a total social media hound and spends a lot of time taking pictures with you after his set.  He is super entertaining, and covers a lot of super popular country classics.  I'd definitely see him again and I highly suggest following him if you're a country music fan (or gorgeous man stalker).

And then there was Clay...

 I think it's the colors that makes me love this shot...

So, we had fairly good spots in the tables where we were enjoying some throwback drinks like Smirnoff Ice.  But my friend wanted to be closer so I pushed them into going to the front.  Glad Heather was there to push us through to the FRONT!

Best line of the Clay trip.... "You know it's been a good night when you take off your bra and confetti comes out."

FIREBALL!

Then, LASTLY a few days later one of my entrepreneur heroes, Pitbull came to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and luckily my Thirty-One girlfriends all wanted to get tickets.  We got the cheap seats for like $30 and it ended up being a total blast.

This guy is a role model for spreading his message of turning the negative things into your life into positive things.  Yeah, yeah, he has a bunch of half-naked girls all over him for a couple of hours but come on... Lol

Helpful tip: Create a Pitbull channel on your Pandora station or Amazon music.  You'll never have more fun during your work outs!

These girls... The best thing that came out of my 3.5 years as a business owner!  Jillian even came in from Corpus Christi for the night.  The weather (which was predicted to be HORRIBLE) held out for us.  It ended up being a great night and I wish I could've stayed even longer.

*How can you not post something like this and click Publish with a huge smile on your face??  What an amazing life I get to live and I couldn't do it without all these people that bring such light into my little life.  #lifejustkeepsgettingbetter #musiclover

Girls Gotta Eat, Y'all

So the Saturday night after Christmas my two travel girls and I were chit-chatting about the rest of our Christmas breaks.  One shared she wanted (or had) hit the casino and the other wanted some crawfish nachos from a previous trip to NOLA - New Orleans.  Well, since we had some free time we ended up meeting on New Years Eve and heading out on a fun day trip to Lafayette and Coushatta Casino in Louisiana.  

The first stop was Prejean's, a Cajun restaurant in Lafayette (yeah, look it up on Maps, we drove 4 hours for food but girls gotta eat, you know).   Prejean's (pronounced preh-shaun, like the fancy French would say with that whole fancy jjjjjj sound.)

It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be just hanging off a highway.  The inside of the place had a LOT of character and really hit home with a lot of the authentic cajun/Louisiana hot spots I've traveled to.

My favorite decor was the 12 foot gator with the Santa hat.  Somehow, though, we offered to be seated anywhere and we ended up back in the bar.  Not a huge problem but was tricky to get a good open shot of the restaurant, although if you've stumbled upon my blog to find out about Prejean's perhaps the mystery will fuel your curiosity to try it out!

Now, if you are one to click on the picture and explore the menu, I apologize for any drool that may hit your shirt and any humiliation that may ensue if in a public place.  This menu is LEGIT and thankfully after ordering you get some pretty tasty bread to hold you over while your stomach groans in anticipation.  If you're going for the Southern experience I definitely recommend ordering a glass of sweet tea like I did.

Then BAM!  Crawfish Nachos... Tasty, cheesy, meaty pieces of heaven.  Please note that I rank nachos in my top 3 best foods of all time.  So that being said the nachos were amazing!  The dark chunks you see in Texas would be beef pieces but here they are jalapeños which really add a great kick without having to consume big amounts of water or sweet tea.

Because we're girls we like to share food so we actually ordered a few things and just had a feast.  This big looking thing coming near you is a crawfish enchilada which was equally cheesy and amazing.  We didn't even need those hush puppies peeking through in the back but want to give a shout out on the freebies we got from our awesome waiter.  Overall, I have a new place to stop each time I pass by Lafayette!  I'm not sure I'll have the will power to try anything else but would love to keep exploring the menu.

*Just a small note...  I have been eating a clean diet for the past few weeks so about an hour or two of eating the nachos I did have a bit of a stomach ache but it did pass fairly quickly.  I mean, it's Mexican-Cajun food so if you've been eating like a rabbit just be careful with consuming large amounts of delicious, greasy food.  

Coushatta Casino 

Just a fun update of Coushatta for this last trip in case anyone needs to know...  New Years Eve wasn't a horrible time to go but it was a bit too busy and the tables were fairly full.  I was really disappointed in the dealers and pit boss who wouldn't allow us to sit down and play our favorite card game.  We've played our game often in Louisiana and what feels like weeks in Vegas and never has the service been so bad.  I mean we know the rules of letting new people come to the table and doubling down your bets.  I'm hoping it was just a bad dealer... "Girls, are you looking for black jack?"  "Ummm no."  I don't want to get into it but suffice it to say...boo on them.  Having vented that little mess, I must say the reward program at Coushatta is completely worth the effort of giving them your email address and standing in line for a bit.  Lots of freebies (even gas at the connected station) and easy to rack up points.

Funny story though: I only brought a light amount of money to play with.  When I gamble just for fun on limited funds I change some of my $20 bills to $5 and play slots I like the names of.  Because we had just booked our cruise to the Bahamas I saw a fun game called the Caribbean...sat down and ended up turning my $5 to $40.  Not bad, huh? I didn't do too good on anything else but that made me smile.

So.....I ended up being somewhere in between the casino and Houston when the 2016 year started with my two best girlfriends and I have to say it was a super fun feeling to know I've found two like-minded travel friends to explore the world with.  It's been quite a change since Where is Brandy? started, when I was just blogging so my parents and friends could keep tabs on me for safety.  What a great world we live in, you know...  Here's to a happy 2016 to everyone and safe travels til next time!

Back and Ready to Explore Everything the World Has to Offer

After a 2.5 year hiatus I have returned to the wonderful world of Where is Brandy? an online account of my travels that I can use to write stories and share with friends/family about where I am in this crazy world.

But first...

Where have I been?!  I got SO behind in my blogging that it almost seemed irrelevant to continue.  Blogging about my travels 6 months later kind of defeated the purpose since I put the majority of my tips on www.virtualtourist.com.  After June I quit my teaching job to attend the University of Texas at Austin for a 2-year masters program.  I'm excited to have graduated last May and am now an elementary education curriculum specialist in Houston.

Any updates?  I have met two amazing travel girls who love to the explore the world too!  We have been as far as Ireland with dreams to traipse the world one country and adventure at a time.  They'll be making appearances on here soon enough.

Where are you headed in 2016?  Travel plans are in and I'm headed on a cruise to the Bahamas in April, Mesa Verde, Colorado in the summer and New York City for Thanksgiving.  I'm excited to say that my mother will be joining us in NYC!  She's not much of a traveler but I'm hoping to open her eyes to this glorious travel world I live in.  :)

Up Next: The girls and I headed to Louisiana on a whim this New Years Eve in pursuit of some magical nachos and tried our luck.  Stay tuned for the next post tomorrow about how we rang in the new year of 2016!

Happy Birthday, Lucas!

So, my brother and sister-in-law are not big on birthday parties...I don't know.... Don't ask.  However, I found some fun things going around in town and one of them was an arts/craft activity at the Michael's Craft Store.  After asking Lucas if he wanted to go we took off to see what they had!  Unfortunately there was no one else but him and I had a fun time...for a good 15-20 minutes.

 "How old are you today, Lucas?!?"  "I'm 5!!!!!!"

Coloring...

 I think I colored some of the giraffe and the rest was the Birthday Boy!

***SILLY BOY***

 Then we met up with the rest of the family for some Red Robin's lunch. Yum!

 Birthday boy!!!  He was so freaked out while the waitresses sang to him. LOL

 "Who's 5 years old today?!?!?"

 Have to admit that's a pretty good BATMAN cake!

 Reu liked the cake!  (And the stickers I had...I love stickers.)

 I just have to post this picture for my own amusement!  We have Lucas opening his "Big Gift" and the look on his momma's face is PRICELESS!  Like, "What in the h*** got into you?!?  SIT DOWN!"  LOL

After we opened presents we got out a new game, Cooties.  And here you have it, the winner of Game Night!!!!  Reu's complete Cootie!

Christmas 2011

So we started our Christmas events by making cookies.... My mom makes the BEST Christmas cookies (well, her and my grandma...but they're the same, right?)  Decorating was super fun.  The kids had a GREAT time, as you can see.  And we were all in our pajamas so it was comfy and they didn't last but a day or two! 

  Reuben learning how to put sprinkles on a cookie

 The boys and their finished products.  (Almost looks like Halloween colors lol)

 Soon enough it was Christmas Eve and Santa was GENEROUS!  So blessed is our family.

Christmas morning!!  The boys had a BLAST opening presents...  Was excited to get 8 books (that I still haven't read 2 years later lol but I have an AMAZING collection of books! :) 

And I had to take a picture because this was a BIG Deal!  I cooked Christmas Breakfast for everyone :)  I was so excited... I have to cook this stuff every year for the stupid school breakfast and I ruin it because of all the stress of the last day of school before break.  But when I had time off I actualy made it, and everyone LOVED it and I felt so accomplished.  Lol, it's truly the little things in life.

And after presents and breakfast we spent the rest of the day riding bikes...truly....until the sun went down!  So happy the boys loved their bikes and so excited that I got to spend the day with them.  Hoping to spend another Christmas with them soon.                                    

On to See THE BOYS!

So, I've been SEVERELY busy with ... life.  But I still want to blog my travels... even though I won't be traveling TOO much for fun the next few years.  I recently was admitted to the University of Texas at Austin to study Education Policy and Programing along with an internship at the Texas Capitol.  I've also recently started my own business and have become GUNG HO on all the arrangements it takes to leave the classroom.  But, I still have a job to do with my kiddos this year so I haven't been able to blog lately...

Having said that, I still love to keep a record of my travels and I hope to offer some good tips for those traveling where I've been.  Hope to see you on the road!

Christmas 2011

Christmas 2011 was a big deal.  We were invited to go to North Carolina to see my nephews, even though my brother was deployed.  Since it was the first Christmas since my dad's health issues it was important to me to have the family together, as much as possible.  So when we were invited I made sure we all went!  My parents both flew out...but I decided to drive.  I wanted to spend the Christmas break somewhere traveling around the South and figured my best bet was somewhere along the NC-Houston route.  But Christmas break started late so as soon as school got out I was booking it to NC! 

 I made it to Gulfport, Mississippi the first night.  I found a Holiday Inn Express for cheaper since there didn't seem to be any Hampton Inn's around the exit I got off on.  I usually just use my GPS.  Unfortunately it was like 3am so I didn't get a LOT of sleep for what I paid for ....

 The room was really nice, though, and the beds were super comfy.  I even slept kind of late, until check-out.

One of the reasons I wanted to stop around Mobile was to try The Brick Pit again.  The last time I came here (years ago) with my dad we tried to beef ribs.  That was back when I didn't know a lot about BBQ and my preferences.  They only serve ribs or pulled pork so I came for the pulled pork!  And to make sure I had my pictures updated for scrapbooking purposes and Travel Channel info.

It was pretty festive...and just like I remembered!

The pulled pork was AMAZING!  The sides were great too.  I think when you travel without the negative comments of others it makes you really tune into what YOU think about your experience.  Last time my dad hated it so I think I kind of fed off that.  But the pulled pork was great and it gave me the fuel I needed to do the next leg of my journey.

Interesting things I encountered on the way....

*Getting to North Carolina at 4am because there are no hotels past South Carolina

**Getting pulled over at 3:30am because I took a wide turn and got yelled at for not pulling over in the pitch black by a cop with a major attitude (no ticket though, whew)

***Starting off on the wrong foot with my sister-in-law because when I walked in the house the alarm went off