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Thursday, January 31, 2013

Historical Thursday: Stillman House

Hello on another beautiful Thursday!
Today I wanted to introduce you guys to a lovely house museum.
It's called the "Stillman House", mostly because the founder of Brownsville,Texas first resided in this here house.
The house was built in 1850 by a man named Henry Miller, he was a business man who also owned a well respected hotel in the downtown part of the city.
Mr. Miller rented out the house to the Stillmans for a couple of years(1851-1853).
Charles Stillman was a true businessman! He laid claim to several properties, river steamboats, he was involved in cotton brokerage, mercantile operations, and ranching.  His steamboat business is what actually brought him down to the area from Connecticut, where he was born.





Wow, right? That's a pretty insane amount of things to take control over. As if that wasn't enough he also got the title to a tract of land north of Matamoros, Mexico, which is now Brownsville, Texas. I know, you have probably never heard of these places. I promise you they're on the map! At the very tip of Texas. Go and take a look!
Charles would go on and lay out the city, and actually start it up into the bustling commercial and cultural center that it was in the mid 19th Century.
Even though you might not have heard about Charles Stillman he had a lot of power and money during these times. 
His son, James, would go on to be president of the First National City Bank and his daughters, Elsie and Isabel, married two of William Rockefeller's sons.
It might surprise you to learn that the Rockefeller's were actually marrying into money in the above marriages. The Stillmans were that wealthy!


I hope I haven't thoroughly bored you with that little history lesson. I'll give you a look into some of the inside of the house in the next couple of pictures.  This door above  is still the original door from the 1850s. So awesome.



These two pictures show the bedroom of the house, which is immediately to the right as you walk in. 
I would seriously love a bed like this. Wouldn't you?



This room is just in front of the bedroom and was considered the parlor in those days. This is where the Stillmans would entertain their guests. The mannequin above is supposed to be Elizabeth Stillman, wife to Charles, in her actual Wedding dress. Beautiful. I love sleeves on wedding dresses and oh, the lace!



The hallway showing where the bedroom, on the left in this picture, and the parlor were.


Hallway again but this time standing at the front door. I need to get a fancy candelabra so that Bob, the kids, and I can have a fancy dinner EVERY night.


This is where the exhibition space of the house began. It was put into the later additions to the original 1850 house. 






Pictures of the kitchen. I've always wanted to have one of those irons just to see what it would've been like.
I might just go buy one and try it out. I know. I'm so weird. 





These last three pictures are looking into the carriage house, which was not connected to but was part of the original house, an authentic carriage, and a picture of some of the shutters from the outside.

There's tons more that I could have said about this house. Believe me, there was. It's just so beautiful. I also completely forgot to take a picture of the inside courtyard that the house has. Oops! I was just too excited I guess. 

Hope you enjoyed this mini tour.

With all my love,

Pati






















Tuesday, January 29, 2013

What I Wore: Purple dress/Jean Jacket

       Hiya guys!
First outfit post. I've been wanting to do one for ages and, oh my, was this a theatrical production.
I was taking pictures with the timer mode because apparently the remote that I bought doesn't work or something. Lame. I know!
I could also just be using it on the wrong mode. Anyway. Took like 45 minutes. haha.



This is just a super comfy outfit that I reach for a lot. Well the gist of the outfit anyway. 
A dress and a jean jacket. Perfect combo much? yup.
Also I would like to address the sparse grass. I live in Texas. This house never got grass planted in the back. I love nature and just can't justify watering a lawn when we're constantly in a drought situation. End rant. Hence why this is my lawn.





I don't take myself too seriously and couldn't not smile in any pictures. I'm a smiling machine. Yup. I said it. Kill someone with kindness for sure.



I also live with some type of bow or flower in my hair. It makes me feel girly and I don't care how old I get, there will be a cute flower in my hair, dammit!


I couldn't figure out how to logistically get my feet in the pictures. So this is what you get! I will figure it out though.. eventually. I'm a believer in comfy shoes. I live in vans, converse, and flats.
Also, if anyone was wondering if this is how I actually went outside in January, yes, yes it is. 
It is currently 77 degrees as I type this. A curse really. I like seasons and envy all the snow pictures.
Hope you enjoyed them!

Dress: Forever 21
Jacket: Thrifted
Necklace: Betsey Johnson
Flower: Gift
Socks: Target
Shoes: Vans

With all my love,

Pati

Monday, January 28, 2013

Geocaching- Wilderness edition




Hellllooo gals!
Decided to just start fresh this week. I needed some rest.
Wanted to introduce you all to something the kids, Bob, and I all love doing, GEOCACHING.
It's seriously the most amazing thing ever invented. I just wish I would've found out about it sooner.
That's the logo above and the website explains it as a treasure hunt for logs and containers using GPS coordinates, in case y'all weren't familiar.
We've been doing it for around 3 years. It's free, gets you outside, makes you use team work, and just overall sooooo fun!



This weekend I took the kids for a four hour caching session. We hadn't been in months and it was time we got back into the groove of things.
They are hidden anywhere. They could be in places that you pass by every single day. That's the best part about it. 
It is kind of time consuming at first. Even the easy ones take a while to get but with practice you'll develop a caching eye. 


She found it! It was behind the huge sign the whole time!


This is one of the containers we found yesterday. They range in size from tiny to a large tupperware. I once found a hollowed out bolt. So rad. 



The ones that are this small usually just contain logs like the one above.
Those are just as fun as the ones that contain swag, in my opinion.




This particular one took a good while to find. Mostly because I let them find it before I even look for it.
I usually spot them pretty quickly.
So, how do you find where they are hidden? I guess I haven't cleared that up. Have I?
I use an app for it but the hardcore cachers have handheld GPS units that are way more accurate.
I will at some point invest in one but for now all you need is your phone.


Hurray! Found! I got Pia to take this one. Not the best but what do you expect? She's six. 



I love Texas country roads. The windmills everywhere are so beautiful. Had to take a minute to snap the awesomeness of nature around me. We're cooped up for way too many hours of the day.


This was one of the last ones we found. It was underneath this amazing tree. 


It was underneath that pile of bark I put in front of it. So, really they're everywhere.



This one was large enough that it had a log and some stuff inside. Usually randoms little things that people put in there. The rule is you take something, you leave something. 
We always travel with a baggie of stuff to leave.
You never know when the caching bug might hit you!
These are all out in the middle of nowhere but only because we had already found all the nearby city ones. I'll do a city edition soon. Promise.
For now go check out Geocaching.com for any questions you might have or you could ask me below.

Have you ever been Geocaching? Let me know!
Happy HUNTING gals.

With all my love, 

Pati




Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Las Vegas Cafe

Hiiii!!! I finally have my sanity back enough to sit down and write a post.
I've had both kids with the flu these last two weeks.
It has been chaotic and totally exhausting! Totally mommy life though. 

Today I just wanted to do a quick post about a restaurant we went to this past weekend. 
I don't like knowing there are undiscovered gems around town, or even near us, we haven't been to.
I'm so glad we went because it was delicious!


It was dark already when we got there and I couldn't get a proper picture of the sign. Found this one above.


My lovely handsome hunk of man. He wouldn't properly pose for me. What a stinker!
It was also really quite crowded in there. I feel super awkward grabbing my camera and constantly taking pictures.
I will get better at this. Who cares right?
The pictures that follow are all food pictures. The decor in there has to be mentioned though. It was so bright and colorful!
There were streamers hung all along the ceiling of different images, including roosters, hats, people dancing, etc.
So mad at myself that I didn't take pictures.


We started off with this delicious monstrosity called queso flameado. It's basically melted cheese with chunks of chorizo in it.
This was the only place I think that has ever given us this much. 
It was AMAZING!



My dinner was an order of flautas with rice and beans. Literally everything about this was delicious.
Look at that guacamole! Totally fresh and yummy.


The boy's dinner. It was a combo of enchiladas and beef tacos. NOMS!

That's it for today, short and delicious.
Now that I have made you hungry I shall leave you... until tomorrow.

With all my love,

Pati