It's been 3 years

I'm one day late but yesterday we celebrated our THIRD anniversary! Where has the time even gone? While this has certainly been a great year, we are looking forward to all that the next year has in store for us. This is the year Matt will hit the big 3-0 AND the year that we will be taking another overseas adventure. This is the year that my mom and dad will move to Virginia and the year that my sister and brother-in-law will graduate from seminary. So much to be thankful for and so much to look forward to! 

Love you Matt--you are STILL my Rushmore!

Proud

I am so excited to finally be able to share that my dad has been named the new Dean of Faculty at Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond. This job has been in the works for a long time and is truly a perfect fit for dad's skills and gifts. 

The position begins over the summer so mom and dad will wrap things up in Texas over the next few months, hopefully sell their house, and make the move to Richmond, VA. We are excited to have mom and dad in the same city as Mary Beth and Caleb---even though Birmingham is still quite a good distance from Richmond. 

We are headed to Texas this Christmas for one last holiday in Dallas/Fort Worth. It's bittersweet as we have always called Texas home but are so very excited about all that is still ahead for our family! 

Congrats Dad! We are so proud of you and look forward to your new adventure! 

Long Month

For us November has been a month full of sickness. I began the month with a sinus infection, then Matt followed with some sort of cold, which I followed up by picking up some sort of random stomach/chills/aches virus, and is ending with both of us fighting off the cold of the century. 

Needless to say, we are VERY happy to see the start of a new month. And December at that! Here's to health, happiness, and lots of merriment for the closing of 2012.

Still Here....

What we've been up to in our silence....

We spent a Friday night at the Alabama Theater for the Indigo Girls in concert with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. Seriously one of the most beautiful concerts ever. 

We said goodbye to Matt's Passat Wagon. It needed some serious (read expensive) maintenance and we had already been considering buying a different car for Matt. So we decided to bite the bullet. 

Here is the new car. It's a Kia Rio. We rented one in Portland and loved it. It's been a great car and gets way better gas mileage than the Passat. 

And when we aren't out and about, we are at home snuggling our sweet pup :)

Portland!

We escaped to Portland for a week long vacation at the beginning of August. Niether of us had ever traveled in the Northwest before but we absolutely loved it. We spent our time enjoying the cooler weather, eating delicious food, drinking good, locally brewed beers, and celebrating the beauty of being outdoors. We hiked a bit, biked a bit, and just enjoyed not having an agenda. We even made it out to a Portland Timbers soccer game and found our way to some black light miniature golf! The city was beautiful and definitely worth a visit if you've never been. 

City View

Japanese Gardens

The Coast

Mirror Lake & Mt. Hood

Wedding Festivities

Good Beer 

Soccer

Rose City 

Bike Riding 

Our recommendations? We stayed at the Inn at Northrup and loved it. Each room has a kitchenette, free parking, street car passes, quiet, free breakfast, free wi-fi, and wine on Wednesdays. Bamboo Sushi was by far our favorite restaurant and it's sustainable at that! I will dream about the Green Machine roll for years to come--it was that good. And we visited too many breweries for me to name a favorite--ask Matt, I'm sure he has one. Also, if you go, rent bikes. I loved seeing the city from two wheels--plus they have bike lanes! 

Portland--you were good to us. I'm sure we will see you again someday! 

Poor Buddy

Somebody scratched her cornea and now she has to wear this....

Boston

A few weeks ago Matt and I took a quick trip to Boston. We spent most of our days wandering around the city, eating at different food trucks for lunch, and enjoying a leisurely pace to life. 

Yummy Grilled Cheese Truck

Boston Common

Watermelon Ale from Boston Beer Works (my fave)

We even helped Fenway celebrate it's 100th Birthday! 

Red Sox Game

Red Sox Win! 

(also, this was actually the view from our seats...way to go Matt!)

Boston during the day

We opted for a nice dinner on our last night at a Japanese restaurant called O Ya! It was SO good. The chef is a James Beard winner and the food was to die for. You would definitely have to know it was there or else you'd miss the place altogether. 

All in all it was a lovely getaway to a city we only wish we could afford to live in full time. It was all too short but I'm sure we will be back again soon for another Red Sox game. Until next time Boston.....

2 Weeks Old

I am WAY overdue but 2 weeks ago, we planted our garden. This year we tried mostly to use seedlings. We were successful in everything but the basil, the okra, and one big boy tomato plant. I can't wait to see how it all comes to life! 

 This year we also decided to try something different for our squash and zucchini. I've had so much trouble with vine borers in the actual garden plot, I thought it might be helpful to plant them separately. So far, so good. 

Everything is in the ground and ready to go....so now we wait! 

(note: I'm afraid we might have already lost the eggplant seedlings. We have had some serious rain over the past few days and I'm afraid they didn't make it out...)

Simplify: Round 5

I know, we are WAY behind but I am determined to finish up this project (note: most of this was actually photographed during Lent, I am just lazy in posting).

So....here are our final items for Simplify.

31. 

Another pile of my clothes

32. 

Jewelry

33. 

My books (yes, I know my pile is significantly smaller than Matt's)

34. 

Work out clothes, t-shirts, & pajamas

35. 

Matt's clothes

36. 

Bookshelf...this one will be making its way to my office at some point

37.

Some of Matt's nice suits and suit coats that no longer fit

38.

Things from the kitchen that we never use anymore

39.

Curtains that were here when we moved in (still not sure why we kept these....)

40. 

An oversized umbrella 

I must say this project became fairly difficult once we got to the last several items. It certainly felt good to simplify...particularly for items we no longer need. I had a lot more trouble giving away things that I am using or "nicer" things. I think there is still much to be learned about simplifying our lives. 

The Backyard

I know I've said it before, but I will say it again, I LOVE our backyard. We spent some time out back this weekend fixing up a few things so that we can enjoy the warmer weather that's on its way.

We began by ditching the old, dirty, moldy swing cushions and replaced them with some color! Although it took forever to figure out the right size cushions out there, I think it turned out quite nicely (and a little green and gold....)!

Then we moved on to our bigger project for the day, re-creating our gravel path. Since we moved in 2 years ago we have wanted to do something different here as the gravel is not comfortable to walk on nor is it very pretty. We toyed with paving the whole walkway but realized with the curves, that would be rather difficult. So...we decided to space pavers along the path instead and now I think it looks more garden-y and delightful.

Here's to nights spent enjoying the backyard!

Simplify: Round 4

I'm behind again but a couple of weeks ago we moved our simplify project to the shed. Here were our findings:

22.

Our old, rusty fire pit...it's pretty useless at this point.

23.

After last spring I bought several new chair cushions at a serious discount so these 6 bad boys are out of here.

24.

I don't think this chair was supposed to be left "in the elements," but it was here when we moved in and perhaps has seen better days.

25.

Over a year ago we installed a new microwave above the oven....and we still have the old one in storage....

26.

This is the first Keurig we bought. It doesn't work. We set this box by the curb (it was missing some parts that we had to send in to get our replacement) and it was gone within a day. I hope its new owners find a way to salvage it.

27.

An old hanging bag.

28.

Matt's old frisbee seat, frisbee, and some other random stuff inside the seat. (These were all useful in his college days when he played ultimate regularly...not so useful now).

29.

Some nice shoes given to Matt that have never fit and never made it any further than the shed. I am really happy that someone will finally be able to give these nice shoes a good wear.

30.

More towels. I forgot that I had a whole box stashed away to be used when we didn't want to get a good towel dirty. Ummmm that box hasn't been opened since I stashed it 2 years ago. Oops!

Lessons Learned: Often we stash things that we think we might need, use, or pick up again someday. Often that is just because we can't let things go and not because we really plan to use them again. Also, sometimes we keep things because we are too lazy to take them somewhere but the reality is that someone else probably needs and will use what we have discarded (note: this is not always true, but in the case of the items above, it is). We need to be better about sharing what we have...especially when we aren't using it.

They Did it!

The Baylor Lady Bears won the 2012 National Championship game last night against Notre Dame! But not only did they win this game....they went 40-0, something that has never been done before by a men's or women's team. A Perfect Season.

I have loved watching the Lady Bears dominate this year. They won almost every game by a good 10 or 15 point lead. What a great year to be a Baylor Bear! Sic 'em!

Sweet 16!

The Baylor men made it to the Sweet 16 this year and once I realized they would be playing in Atlanta, I decided we HAD to go. I haven't seen the Baylor men play in person since I was in college! That's way too long considering how much I loved Baylor BBall while in school. So I bought us tickets and away we went!

We beat Xavier to head on to the Elite 8. And although we couldn't take down Kentucky, I am so very proud of how far the Baylor men's basketball team has come! I'm already looking forward to next season (and looking to get my hands on some NEON Baylor gear!). Now to cheer on our Lady Bears to another National Championship.....

Garden Prep

I am SO excited that Spring is finally here. I love working in the garden and it's finally time to begin our preparations for this year! Inspired by something I saw on Pinterest, I decided that our garden needed some color. So...

We painted the wood around the garden (don't mind all the weeds in there...that's a work in progress). I love the way it turned out! The outside is blue (obviously) and then the caps around the corners are yellow.

We also painted the wire cages for the tomatos. I was feeling especially Baylor Proud so we went for green and gold :) Sic 'em!

And last but not least, we planted our first little seedlings. This is our first year to plant from seeds so I am very excited to see how this works out for us! So far we have several baby Roma tomato plants, Bistro tomatos, Eggplants, and Peppers (both hot and sweet). We also have seeds for Okra, Squash, Zucchini, & herbs that will eventually head straight into the ground once the garden is ready and we've decided there are no more freezes in sight!