Welcome to the wild, wild west

Bebe and Paw Paw decided to back their bags and head out west to visit Kelly and I. They are our first and only visitors of Spring Training. We had a wonderful time with them. Bebe has been here once before but Paw Paw is a rookie. We love showing first timers everything that we love and even sent them on a couple of road trips. They went to Surprise, Phoenix, Cave Creek, Scottsdale, Glendale, Sedona, The Grand Canyon and even to a Casino in 5 short days! That is what I call a trip!

We took them to lots of yummy places. Don and Charlie's in Scottsdale, Macayos in Surprise and our favorite hole in the wall pizza joint - La Piazza al Forno - in Glendale. Guy Fieri of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives fame, featured this pizza place on his show and everyone knows how we live for the Food Network, so we gave this place a try. So far we have been there 3 times and have taken people with us every time. So good!

Three trips, three slices of lasagna. It is that good.

Kelly's favorite - The Meat Pie. OH SO GOOD. They make their dough daily and once they run out, they run out. They cook it in a coal fired oven and use italian tomatoes. It is almost like Italy...oh wait, we wouldn't know! Thanks World Series!

The best double date couple! Lots of laughs, food, wine and cheesecake

Please note that Kelly is not wearing a UT shirt. It was part of his Valentine's and says

"Everything is Bigger in Texas". It just happens to be burnt orange....

Bebe is obsessed with Rangers baseball. Seriously, she slept in a different Rangers shirt each night during playoffs (you gotta know that Paul loved that) and named a goat Big Bad Vlad. She could not contain her excitement during the game. She was the first person to hold the AL trophy when they put it out for display, sat with the scouts, walked the offices, drooled over Mitch Moreland (just ask her about his thighs!), and drove the backfields. She even gave Michael Young a standing ovation when he came out on the field. She is a heck of a fan!

Bebe and Paw Paw with AL. (AL is the name of the American League Trophy). Don't worry, they didn't get too close as standing off camera is a Surprise police officer with a gun. Didn't anyone tell them that the average age of the crowd is 74? Doesn't seem like a high crime area to me!

Bebe is trying to keep warm by staying right up close to Paw Paw. Pretty day but the wind was so cold! Maybe that is what happened to the Rangers pitchers...arms couldn't get warmed up!

We lost 4-2.

After the game, I gave them a golf cart tour of the back fields, and then went to find Kelly. We found him slaving away in the Visiting Clubhouse. He is getting the VCH ready for the start of the season. He is really excited to start the season...can't you tell???

Home Sweet Home

I keep reading updates on blogs and it makes me so sad to realize that life does in fact go on without you. All of my sweet kids are growing up too fast!I just had to take pics from all your blogs and put them on mine so I can look at these sweet kids. They are all so special to me.

These crazy group of kids (cousins and nieces/nephews) are: Gibson (making the funny gesture on the left), Wills, Stella, Cameryn, EK, and Thomas. We are always entertained by this group. Especially my Cameryn. She makes me laugh like no other.

Look how sweet these kids are! I am so so excited to be Aydia and Elijah's aunt. They are such great kids and I can't wait to go home and see them (and their parents too!). The chunk of love in the middle is Whitney's nephew Roman. Isn't he delicious?

Look how sweet Emery Kate is being with Molly. Thanks Amy for posting this on your blog. We got a kick out of it. EK is a wonderful big sister! Doesn't Molly look like she is having fun?

The Cox Bunch. Best group of kids I know! Outgoing, friendly, mannerly, sweet, and oh so cute! Today is Sterling's birthday. Wish I were there to celebrate!

Double Trouble. This is what baseball season is all about...brothers, teammates and best friends.

My BFF Stef's kids (that is right, BFF!), Tye and Macie, Lacy's main squeeze Matthew and Brody and Kate. Lainey is hiding behind Matthew so you can't see how cute she is. These are seriously funny kids. When I was talking to Michelle today, Brody was just singing away to the Black Eyed Peas! Tonight is going to be a good, good night Brody! It was too cute.

I am going to have to put in a request to babysit all of these kiddos as soon as I get back to Texas. They are going to forget who I am!

You are my sunshine, My only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are blue. Arizona has sun and lots of it about 98% of the year. The other 2% is composed of a nice monsoon season during the middle of the summer and a week of rain right around the time the Rangers decide they want to start the work outs. It never fails. For the past few years, we have had rain and cold for about 5 days. That is a lot for Arizona to handle. Everyone (the snowbirds) dresses up like Eskimos and pulls on the parkas. For us Texans, we are sad because we are ready to thaw out from the Texas. We want sunshine!

Our most recent rain was this past weekend. It actually was cold and pretty miserable. The rain did, however, provide for some great cloud shots.

The clouds are officially starting to roll in.

Thank you Whitney for making me see the beauty of the clouds. God makes storms look so pretty in the desert!

A crazy shot of the mountains, dark clouds over head with blue skies in between....and you thought Texas had wacky weather!

We definately did not bring an umbrella with us!

It rained and snowed alot up in the northern mountains. It is pretty to look out every day and see snow capped mountains while driving to and from work.

Duck and cover!

This was shot on another day. I was talking to Kelly on the couch and looked out the windows and saw this. It was so cool. I immediately thought of Whitney's niece, Kaiya. I just love Kaiya skies!

Home Sweet Home?

About the time Texas starts to get all the nasty cold weather, Kelly and I decide that we have had enough and head west to for a little fun and sun in the desert. Wait...that isn't exactly how it happens. Due to our jobs, we have to uproot our lives, pack all the essentials and anything else we can think of, and move to Surprise to work at Spring Training. Surprise is a pretty little city north west of Phoenix. Mountains all around, 10,000 snow birds that drive 15 miles under the speed limit, lots of places to eat, cool new things to see, and fabulous weather. I have been coming out here with Kelly since 2008 and we have stayed at a new place every year. This year we are at the Residences at Stadium Village in the heart of Surprise. You could not possibly live any closer to the ballpark than we are. We are practically in the Royals back fields. In fact, from my desk at the office, you can see our apartment!



This is our building #8. It is super fun with all the colors, textures and shapes. It is pretty quiet community.

We like the high life and choose the 3rd floor each time. Lots of stairs but at least we don't hear anyone above us. Nothing is worse than to be woken up to people stomping around above you.

Come and knock on my door...actually, if somebody did, I would totally be freaked out!

This is our little eating area. We have not once had a meal on this table and I can safely say we don't plan to. The good thing about life in AZ is that we eat out every meal! Thanks for the meal money Rangers! No cooking, no mess and no dishes! If the glare wasn't so bad, you could see out the right window the White Tank Mountains. It also over looks the pool!

This is the view from our kitchen sink. We get the best sunsets and are able to see the mountains when we are washing our....cups? No dishes, remember?!?

I would have taken a picture of the rest of our 2 bedroom casa but it is not clean and I didn't feel like trying to fake it for the camera. We love having guests so start planning your trip to Arizona now!

Introducing the newest Marable...

Miss Molly Elise Marable. The newest member of the Marable family and the sweetest little niece! She joined our family on January 10th and is absolutely perfect! We got to visit them at the hospital and just fell in love.

Of course, Emery Kate just stole the show. That girl is SO FUNNY! What a personality. Molly is going to have a great time with her big sister. Look at the sweet family of 4!

We met up with most of the family in Hillsboro for Paw-Paw's birthday dinner a few weeks after Molly was born. A lot of the family hadn't met her yet so she was definately the most popular at dinner.Even Ashton told me she was more excited to see Molly than she was to see me....don't you know that killed me! Ashton is my daughter from another mother! She eventually gave Molly back to Amy after lots of loving and came to sit by me. That's my girl!

We are so excited to have you in our family, Molly. You are going to be so so loved! I look forward to taking you to your first Rangers game, fishing at the Funny Farm and eating the Bob Armstrong Dip with you.

So much to say, so little time

You are probably thinking where the heck have I been? Well it has been one heck of a year. Let me just sum it up for you...

Kelly and I got married in May at Moon River Ranch. It was so fun to be with our family and friends in the middle of nowhere. We rented the whole place and enjoyed being with everyone. Too bad we didn't rent it for longer. We were wiped out after that weekend! We took a short honeymoon to San Antonio because we were waiting for our real honeymoon to come at the end of the season.


Summer flew by. We worked of course but also traveled alot! We went to the river twice, Oklahoma City, Vegas for Kelly's Big 4-Oh, spent some time in Valley Mills with the family, and began remodeling our house.

Mom and Ashton joined me for a game. We always have to go see Kelly!


River Trip Extravaganza or PD as Wesley likes to call it. We had a great time and made a new friend...STAFF!

Then the postseason hit. Yes, that is right. I said POSTSEASON! The Rangers finally won their division and are headed to the playoffs. Great right? Wrong! We were supposed to go to Italy!!! So instead of drinking lots of wine and sightseeing, Kelly followed me across country as I traveled with the team taking care of the wives. We went to Florida, NYC, and San Francisco in a span of 2 weeks I think. It was crazy but really fun. Another bucket list item checked off!

So proud of this team. Thanks for letting me sit in the suite, Ash, and see this. It was so fun!


We really enjoyed the ballpark in San Francisco. So nice! The fans, however, were not! John Legend sang the anthem. They sure know how to rock the house there.

After the postseason, we had 3 months off. What to do during that time? Let's gut the house and remodel. Sounds like a great idea, huh? It took all of 3 months to complete the house. We did not decorate for Christmas, the kids stayed with their grandparents, we lived out of boxes and had no TV! It was just a nightmare. Thankfully, we are done and so excited! Now to focus on little Jelly Beans (thanks for letting us borrow your baby, Kate!!!)


That pretty much wraps up our year. We leave for Arizona in 4 days and I can assure you, I will start blogging more. Promise!