Photo Dump

It seems everyone is doing "photo dumps" on their blogs, so I figured I would share our life with you the last couple months in pictures.

First up...our one major snow of the season. It wasn't anything like we've had in the past few years, but it was enough to keep me trapped in the driveway until my hubs got his 4-wheel drive out. :) We celebrated our Valentine's Day with our traditional homemade raspberry cheesecake and cajun pasta. Other than that, we just exchange cards. This year, we actually wrote more of a letter to each other. Ken's mom came to town one weekend and we took her to Perry to see some of our friends AND to see some of the Longhorns that my dad owns (he bought them from our friends who have an amazing Longhorn ranch). This just gives you an idea of how big these beautiful creatures are! They are so gentle with people and come right up to you. You just have to watch their horns. :) Here's the little guy that I was anxious to see! He's our (my dad's) little steer and I was excited to see him! :) Here are just a few others that we saw... Celebrated Jude's 1st Birthday!!! First birthdays are so fun! I loved seeing Jude in his super cute outfit and the best part is always the cake! :) We were so thankful to be there to celebrate Jude's life!!The weekend that we celebrated Ken's birthday, there was a home basketball game that we had tickets to. Since we were going to Tulsa, we gave our tickets to my best friend since college. I was so excited to see her!!! I had been missing her, so this was a great opportunity. We were able to have lunch with them before the game and I loved being able to spend time her and her family! For Ken's birthday, my parents bought us tickets to an event at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. We really had a good time. Neither of us had been there before so it was fun to walk in and see all of the aircraft. The event was held after hours, so we really got to see things up close without battling crowds. We got to see this fly over and land. After the event, we stopped at my parents house to say hello and were able to get a picture of us. It was a fun way to celebrate his birthday. I would highly recommend going to the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. Its great for adults and kids! They have similators, cockpits you can sit in, the staff is very knowledgeable and there is so much to learn! Michelle and I did an early, and kind of spur-of-the-moment, girls trip. It was shorter than our other annual trips...and closer to home. We stayed in Oklahoma and went to the Extraordinary Women Conference. We had a really good time. Good food, great conversation and we loved our one-on-one time! This trip was a quick decision. We'd heard about it on K-Love radio. I mentioned it to her and we decided to go b/c we wanted to do a trip before her baby came. So, we took the opportunity and ran with it. Outside of spending time with Michelle, my main motivation to attend was to see Candace Cameron Bure. A lot of you will remember her as D.J. from "Full House". She has a beautiful testimony and an incredible passion for the Lord. We really enjoyed hearing her speak. I had just finished her book, "Reshaping It All", which really helped in my battle with over-eating. Look at that fabulous color-blocking outfit!!!! LOVE! :) And, I got to meet her too. :) Michelle was so awesome to stand in line with me...wait and wait and wait some more...for the brief meeting and book signing. We were both excited to see her though. We went to a wedding in Austin. It was a nice little mini-vacation. We had a great weekend seeing Ken's cousin, Chris, and just being in Texas! I didn't overwhelm my husband with picture-taking...I just let him enjoy a vacation without a camera in his face all the time (except for one at the wedding). We enjoyed great food and shopping. The highlight was getting to see my long-time friend marry the love of his life. I've known Brian since we were in the 3rd grade. We've always been connected by church or school all the way through college. This was the first time I got to meet his beautiful bride and I'm hoping the start of a new friendship. We also met some new friends at the wedding. We sat with some of the most incredible people we've met! Loved this family and hope we can continue getting to know them! We've A LOT of rain!!!! This is such a blessing after a long, hot summer where we didn't see rain. Someone was quite prissy and hates going out in the rain. My hubs is so precious and sweet to our kids. Finley came to visit us. We had a good time making cookies, playing with Ruger, working on puzzles, having lunch with Uncle Kenny, staying in PJ's all morning and just hanging out. Wow! That was a lot. Its been an eventful year so far. April has slowed down quite a bit and we are enjoying the down-time and all the rain! :)

5th Annual Girls' Trip

Its that time of year again. Michelle and I took our annual girls' trip. The is our 5th trip! Our first trip was actually to Eureka Springs and we decided to return there this year. We knew Jude was along for the ride this time, so we wanted to plan it before he was mobile. This trip came together pretty quickly! It was just perfect for us. Not too far away and perfect for relaxing. Here we are right before we pulled out of the drive.We arrived in Eureka Springs around 1:30pm. The place we wanted to eat lunch closed at 2:30pm, so we parked and headed that way. It was kind of sprinkling but the rain wasn't bad yet. We had a few hiccups getting to the place...but were so glad to finally find it. Its kind of hidden down some wooden stairs in between two buildings. When we walked in with a crying, hungry baby and a stroller...we were not greeted with open arms at The Oasis. Its a very small place...and I mean SMALL. I had read really good reviews about their food and especially their salsa. Its all fresh and mainly vegetarian. I was excited to try this little hole-in-the-wall (by the way they are only open for lunch). When we walked in, they said we couldn't have the 4-top table even though they closed in 45 minutes. We tried to pack all of our stuff into this little area, with Jude crying...and they finally said we could put the stroller in one of their closet areas. Michelle had to go to the bathroom, so I did my best to keep Jude distracted until she came back. He was instantly fine once he could eat. Poor thing (you'll see me say this again b/c he did not like working around our schedule when he was hungry. haha! Thankfully, he won't remember this trip...I'll just have to make sure I spoil him a lot so he likes me as he gets older). Once Jude stopped crying, the two ladies working there started being nice to us. The food was really good, but they were out of chips and salsa. Ugh! We were so disappointed. While we were eating it started POURING down rain, but it stopped right before we left. From here, we decided it was time to check into our house and "call it a day". Between the hiccups and the not so welcoming service, we were ready to just hang out and rest before dinner...especially since the rain was off and on all day.

We rented a house from The Holiday Island Motel and Resort Rentals (if you click on the link, click at top of the page where is says "accomodations". It will show you a list of all the houses they have available. I've stayed at 2 different houses (one twice) and they are so clean! Its definitely worth they stay! All of the houses compete with hotel/B&B prices. They sleep anywhere from 6-16 or 18. Its a great place to take families and friends. Some have tremendous lakeviews and other have hot tubs...and most have their own private deck. All have gas grills and completely stocked kitchens. LOVE IT! We stayed at "Leatherwood Drive 73-A if you want to look at it.). I didn't get many pictures, but as you will read, we didn't use much of the house besides the living room and kitchen. ha! We LOVED walking up the deck-walkway..and at night it was even lighted! It was great!!! We were so thankful to get here and get settled in for the weekend. The rain stopped at some point and we were ready to head into town for dinner. We called the place we had intended on eating at before we left, just to check their closing time. They weren't closing until 9pm, so we were good. However, after we got ready and were out the door, my cell phone rang. We didn't recognize the number and I had Michelle answer it since I was driving. It was the place we were headed (Cafe Amore). They were calling to tell us that they were really slow and they were closing early. They didn't want us to get there and find they were closed. How nice is that?!?!??!?!? I was so surprised and thankful they called. We ended up at The Local Flavor Cafe. We LOVED it! Wow! It was so good!!! Definitely a highlight! After dinner, we headed back to the house to settle in for the night...and watch some of our favorites. :)

This is what we do. Last year, we watched "Sex and the City" on our way to Ft. Worth and while we were there, we went to see the "Sex and the City 2". This year, I brought both movies and two of our favorite TV shows. We only watched "Dawson". :) We started it our first night, before and after dinner, and then it seriously played all. night. long. Yes, neither of us used the great rooms we had....we slept on the couches. Both nights. We are crazy. We got up around 9am, started the cofee, talked forever and watched "Dawson's Creek"! We did this until 1:30 or 2pm!!!! We wouldn't have gotten up, but we were starving!!! We knew we were going to eat out most of the time, so we didn't bring any food (except some champagne...which isn't food). It was time to head into town!We FINALLY got up and got dressed for the "day"...yeah, it was close to 3pm. haha! We had such a good morning though...it was hard to pull ourselves away. We had to grab some pictures before we left though.Our first stop was to EAT! :) We came across The Garden Bistro (they don't have a website, but you can click here and here or more info) and thankfully they were still serving lunch! They were out of their famous homemade bread, but the rest of the food was so good! They use fresh meat and vegetables from the community. All of it was really fresh and yummy! They had a great brie appetizer that we could have eaten as a meal!!! Plus, I had one of the best margaritas I've ever had here. OH SO GOOD!!!!!

Then is was time to SHOP! Now that we were out and about, we were a little disappointed that we had stayed at the house so long...but we needed the time to just girl-talk, so it was okay. Thankfully, there was an art festival going on and some of the stores were staying open longer than usual. We were excited to shop!!!One of the things Michelle and I have in common, is our love for photography and taking pictures. :) Our husbands don't share our passion like we do, so we definitely take advantage of every single photo opp we get! We made a trip up the hill to The Cresent Hotel. Its a really neat hotel and is considered haunted. Its a striking hotel and right below is a quaint and beautiful church. And from the church you can see the Passion of the Christ statue across the way.

It was now dinner time and we drove to Cafe Amore since we didn't get to eat there our first night. We split an appetizer, a pizza and took dessert home. It was such an inviting place! They were so sweet and flirted with Jude....and pizza was pretty fantastic! We really hadn't had a bad meal! We'd had a full day and were heading home for dessert, champagne and (you guessed it!) more "Dawson". (I'm pretty sure that when Michelle told her husband how much we watched of it, his reply went something like, "And, THAT is why you two need a girls' trip every year." hahaha!).Our last day, we actually got up at a decent hour. I think most of it had to do with being "checked-out" of our house by 11am. We went to brunch at The Local Flavor Cafe (dinner the first night was awesome, but we weren't too impressed with brunch. It was okay, but I wouldn't eat breakfast there again) and then hit a few more shops before we headed back. The two places that we were determined to go to were the Christmas store and "Sleepy's".

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Eureka has a Christmas store that is open all year! I was able to buy Christmas ornaments for us this year. They have a HUGE selection and it made me want to buy all new decorations!!! AND....they even had some great OSU stuff! Next, we crossed the street to Sleepy's! They have some really cute stuff...but we mainly wanted the picture opp! ;) They have the BEST oversized "rocking" chair! Poor Jude. He didn't appreciate that we had things to do when it was feeding time...especially when it includes taking pictures. Is this something that all boys are born with....hatred of picture taking???? haha! He was such a good sport....but he does love his feeding time to be "on time"! :)After Sleepy's, we went to one of our favorite places, The Mud Street Cafe!!!! They have great coffee and the most AMAZING homemade desserts!!!! This time, we got some sandwiches "to-go" so we didn't have to stop on the ride home.

Everything about Eureka is so beautiful! Its a neat little town, but their is so much beauty there too! Everywhere you look is so scenic. I love that all the mom-and-pop places are locally owned and just work around their own schedules. If you do go, make sure to call places (especially for dinner) b/c they might just close early and head home. Because some of the places make their food everyday, there is a chance they will run out of certain things (salsa, bread, etc). Also, most places only take cash so make sure to take some. My last tip is that there is a Season that you should definitely go to Eureka. Its from May thru Christmas. The town shuts down after Christmas thru at least March, if not into April. Its a fantastic little get-away for honeymoons, romantic weekend trips, or just girl time (oh, and for some reason it brings in the bikers. Kinda weird, but they were all really, really nice).
Once Jude was fed and content again...and we had some yumminess to take with us, we hit a couple more stores and then headed back to Oklahoma. Michelle and I truly needed one more day on this trip. We really needed that first day to just girl-talk and watch "Dawson" and then a full day of shopping. Oh well, now we know for next year. :)

It was good to be home, but we do love our annual trip!!!Missed my baby for sure!!!!