Mini Series #1: 4th of July . . . a couple months late

Okay, as promised here is the first installment of my greatly anticipated mini series. Well I guess I declared the previous post as my first installment, but who's keeping count. So Nathan and I went to San Antonio for 4th of July and we did some pretty cool things. Of course this was the time my camera decided not to keep the charge. I did get some pretty good pictures in though. Here's some of us and the brothers at Sea World.

I love the look Stephen has on his face :)

I know it's hard to tell, but this a dolphin and her baby. It was so precious to watch her baby stay right by her side.

So at this point, this was all my camera could handle and it shut off.

So I took it back to the house to charge so I could take these glorious pictures of the circus!

Again, a nice facial expression from Stephen. I'll have to remember to thank him for giving me a "nice smile."

Send in the clowns

Oooo . . .

Ahhh . . .

So at this point, my camera is dead again. I am so glad I have rechargeable batteries that allow me to take three pictures at a time!

So I charged it again to take pictures at the fireworks show.

This is not the greatest picture of me nor is this my favorite shirt but this is our 4th of July picture and it's all I have. I did get more than one picture with this third charge but I didn't get any of the actual fireworks because, guess what, it ran out of battery before the show started. Shocking, right? Anyway, we camped out in a shopping center parking lot to watch the Six Flags fireworks. It sounds ghetto, I know, but it was really fun and besides, Teddy got to come. 

Well, I have gotten new batteries for my camera since the 4th of July fiasco so hopefully I will have some better pictures in the future. In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying my mini series and please keep me accountable. Love!

Siesta-inspired post

Okay, okay. I know what you're thinking . . . "Is she still alive?" Yes I'm still here! I have simply not found the time between all the packing and unpacking and working and waiting for the internet to work to stop and update my blog. Now I know that I can probably always come up with an excuse to not post and I will probably never really "have time" to post, so from now on, I will try my darndest to post at least twice a month, if not more. And I will try, (please note I used the word try) to get over the notion that a blog post must have pictures. I am such a visual person and I want to give everyone the same mental images that I have. Please understand that I must write out this covenant for everyone to read. Otherwise it will simply be in my head and will never really be kept. So even if these things don't matter to you, please know this is simply a little self-therapy, if you will.

Anyway, I need to move one. On to the explanation of this post's title. This weekend I went to a Beth Moore conference with some ladies that I work with at Southwestern. We had such a blast and wow I can't even begin to describe how powerful the message was! Well, my boss, Courtney Williams, reads Beth Moore's mininstry blog (livingproofministries.blogspot.com) and they were going to have a special party (the Siesta Fiesta as it's known) after the conference for all the bloggers. Well, of course she signed all of us up to go even though we weren't all regular readers of the blog. Anyway, I went on and read the blog today (mostly out of pure remorse for being a big fat fraud at the bloggers party) and I realized how much I missed blogging on my own site and I really wanted to blog about my trip and everything that's happened in my life. So in light of all that, this post is Siesta-inspired.

At Rachel's suggestion (she is another work/Beth Moore buddy), today will be the first of a mini series in an attempt to catch everyone up on the events in my life I have failed to post about. (I have declared Rachel my blog therapist as I seem to be having issues with the fact that I am incredible inconsistent and yet I want to be so very thorough in informing my adoring public of my life's events. Rachel says the mini series will break down my task of catching everyone up into manageable pieces.) Below you will see a list of topics for the upcoming installments in my mini series:(This is another one of those written contracts between me and reader that may not mean much to you but certainly gives me a nice visual checklist to work from. . . deep breaths now . . . )

- My Fourth of July trip to San Antonio (of which I promised pictures in my previous post)
- Before and After Shots of our old aparment
- Pictures of our new apartment
- An actual post about the Beth Moore conference (not just a pathetic apology/therapy session from a detail obessesed wannabe blogger)

Well I hope you are excited about the mini series. I really love saying mini series because it sounds so official and organized which I am everything but. I was expecting to come up with more than four posts so I suddenly don't feel so bad about my lack of blogging. I think I was expecting like a list of ten posts (which by the way is another good reason to write all this out) so I don't feel so overwhelmed anymore. Okay, that's all for now. Check back for more soon . . . I promise!

It's been a while . . .

I realize I haven't posted in a while, but that is because I keep forgetting to take pictures on a regular basis. So I thought I would get at least one post in for the month of June (cutting it close, I know.) I have this problem with taking pictures all the time because I feel like I'm missing everything because I'm so focused on getting good pictures. Anyway, I just thought I would give an update without pictures.

So . . . since last month . . . well nothing has really happened. Nathan and I are moving to Fort Worth though. We finally decided it was time to be closer to the seminary. I'm so glad because the 30 minute commute both ways was kinda wearing on me. We'll also have a two-bedroom instead of just one so now we can have a guest room/computer room. That's way exciting to me, but I realize that may be way boring to everyone else.

This weekend Nathan and I made the trek to Midland for Ty Morris's retirement from the music minister position at Crestview Baptist Church. We only stayed in Midland for 24 hours, but it was well worth the trip. Ty served at my home church for 34 years. We are sad to see him go and we are thankful for his loyal service!

Well, Nathan and I are leaving tomorrow after I get off work to go to San Antonio for 4th of July. That will be a much-needed vacation. We are going to the circus and SeaWorld so hopefully I'll get some good pictures (if I remember.) Wow the summer is going way too fast. Is today really the last day of June?! I know this was a bit scatter-brained, but this is all I have.

Our Anniversary Continued

Monday May 19 was officially our anniversary and we didn't do anything too special, but we did have a pretty cool meal. We made our own pizzas and they came out a lot better than I thought they would. Then we ate the rest of our wedding cake.

Nathan's Pizza

My Pizza

A one-year-old piece of cake (eww)

Our First Anniversary

On Friday May 16, Nathan and I headed to Waxahachie, TX to a Bed and Breakfast to celebrate our anniversary. It was a random choice of destination. I simply searched for the most charming B&B on Google and hoped they had a vacancy. Well, little did we know that Waxahachie, even though it is only 35 miles from Dallas, is maybe the most charming little town we had ever seen. It is so rich in history and they have preserved it so well. Waxahachie is a cotton town that flourished in the late 1890s. All the houses on Main Street have kept the early 1900s architecture and it really gives you a glimpse into what life was like back then. Well, I won't bore you with the details, but if you get a chance, you should go sometime. 

Anyway, the B&B we stayed in was built in 1900 and the current owners remodeled the whole house from top to bottom in 1990 and it totally immaculate. There are six or seven guest rooms in the house and each one is named after an author and decorated like the time period that author lived in or wrote about. We stayed in the F. Scott Fitzgerald room and it was decorated like the 1920s because he wrote The Great Gatsby. There's a Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and Teddy Roosevelt room to name a few. 

The town square was amazing and there was simply not enough time to do everything. We ate a restaurant on Friday night that used to be the General Store in the late 1800s and the cowboys traveling on the Chisholm trail would stop in and eat there. It has been a restaurant ever since. Wow! That's so cool. Okay no more history, I promise. Anyway, when we were done eating and walked out to our car, we realized that there weren't any cars parked near us and we were blocked in by a city truck parked perpendicular to our car. Well, we were able to get out thanks to Tatum's tight turning radius. But when we tried to get out of the square we were blocked in at every exit and there were people everywhere putting old tires along the curbs of the streets. We later found out that they were setting up for a mini Grand Prix in the square and we finally found a way out. 

Okay this is a novel, but Saturday Nathan and I went antiquing and Nathan actually admitted to liking it. Don't tell him I told you that, but I think that's the first time he's said he enjoyed shopping with me. The whole time on Saturday, the mini Grand Prix was going on around the square and we stopped and watched it for a little bit. We headed back home around 4:00 and called it a weekend. Good times.