A Golden Birthday

This year I turned 24 on the 24th, which by tradition, made this year my "Golden Birthday". It was a really great day! Joey got home Thursday night and had the whole day Friday planned for us to celebrate.  My mom and two youngest siblings were driving through Waco Thursday night, so they stayed the night and celebrated with us on Friday morning too. 

Joey woke up early and cooked a big breakfast.  As was a tradition of my family growing up, I was woken with breakfast and presents in bed.  Joey did a great job... it was yummy!  Then, mom and the kids left to head on to Dallas and Joey revealed his first surprise of the day.  We were going to make homemade ice cream!  He had gotten all of the ingredients and found a recipe for Butter Pecan Ice Cream- one of my favorites.  We put it all together so that it could finish freezing during the day. 

Then, Joey revealed our next activity when he came out of the room with a kite.  He said we were going to the park to fly a kite.  There was no one at the park, so Harley got to get off of her leash and run around.  She loved it!

Harley tired out fast in the afternoon heat and parked it in the shade by her water bowl.

With neither one of us as expert kite fliers and the wind not being very strong that afternoon, we experienced a little difficulty.

And, after switching jobs, the kite eventually broke when I was holding it and Joey took off a little faster than I had anticipated...  It was a fun afternoon though trying something that we don't normally do.  After our fun at the park we came home for lunch and a much needed shower.  Joey told me he was taking me to Marshalls to spend some of the gift cards I had gotten for my birthday.  Does my hubby know me or what?! :)  It was a big success, and I had no trouble filling my basket with more than enough to fully redeem the credit I had.  I ended up with two adorable pairs of shoes and a great dress!  Thanks Momma Hance, Grandma, and Kimmie!  

Then, we went out to dinner and came home to eat that yummy homemade ice cream we had waiting in the freezer for us. 

It was delicious!  With full tummies, we drove out to a park by the lake to watch the sunset, another one of my favorite things.  Watching the sky turn a golden orange was a perfect way to end my "Golden Birthday".  Only I didn't know we were not finished... 

We got home and Joey said he still had one surprise left, and he hoped I was still hungry.

He said you couldn't have a birthday without birthday cake... duh!  Take notice the candles are black and white to match the black and white Oreo Pie he picked out.  Also, the candles are backwards in the picture, but see he did a group of two candles and a group of four candles... Get it? 2-4 for turning 24!  I thought his thought process was pretty cute! :)

The best part of all was spending the whole day with my hubs and having him home!  He put a lot of thought and planning into my special day which made me feel cherished and loved.  I'm grateful to be married to and celebrate one more birthday with the man that makes me feel special everyday.



Dad's Day Weekend

Last weekend we were in Houston to celebrate Father's Day with our dads.  We left Waco Friday morning and stopped for lunch with Joe, Angie, Matthew, Macie, and their newest addition- puppy Reecie.  The boys grilled burgers and we celebrated Joe's birthday and an early Father's Day. 

Joey and his dad

Matthew and Reecie

Reecie, Macie, and Angie

pictured above: Daniel, Jennifer, Joey, me, and Carol

After our afternoon with Joey's dad we continued on to Sugar Land for dinner to celebrate Momma Hance's birthday. 

We stayed at my parent's house for the weekend.  Papaw and Denie came over to celebrate Dad's Day on Saturday and we enjoyed some great family time catching up.  Though it was a Father's Day celebration, my dad insisted on cooking his world famous steaks, beans, and baked potatoes.  We helped where he would let us.  It was delicious! 

Later that evening the family surprised me with my birthday present a little early.  They gave me two beautiful dresses that are going to be great for some events I have coming up.  The style of both of them is so me, and they fit... A-Mazing!  Go Mom!

pictured above: Harley, Joey, me, Hunter, Taylor, Mom, Dad, Claire, and Noel

Sunday, we went to church as a family and then out to lunch to celebrate dad.  I am very blessed with an amazing family and a wonderful dad.  My dad is an incredibly hard-working and loving man.  I have learned a lot from him over the years and we are lucky to have him in our lives.  We had a great weekend making memories and celebrating with family.

Trendy Digits

I usually have my nails painted.  I enjoy painting them myself and take pride in my large collection of polish.  I love browsing at the grocery store for new colors and have been know to leave with my nails painted a multitude of colors from trying several on (a habit learned from my mom). :)  I have seen some interesting colors on the shelves lately which made me curious as to what the new trends are.

According to a a Refinery 29 Fashion article nudes, pastels, purples, gun metal grays, and unique top coats are all part of what's hot this year.  Nail polish is a relatively cheap fashion accesory, so I enjoy changing it up and trying new colors.  A fun pastel is next on my list to try... maybe mint green.  What's on yours?

Photos from Refinery 29

Glorious Girl Time

God gave us girl friends for a reason, and I am thankful for mine.  Friendships fill a place in a woman's life like nothing else can.  This place in my life was filled this week!  Sunday I got to catch up with Emily on the phone.  Em and I have been friends since we met in preschool and haven't missed much since.  We stood next to one another in each other's weddings and feel a lot more like sisters than friends.  Em and Brittan just celebrated their 1year anniversary and enjoyed an awesome anniversary trip in L.A.!  Congrats, Pittmans!  We love you.

Monday, Megan came in town to relive our tradition of Bachelorette Monday nights.  It was really fun.  She got in town right after work and we went to get our nails done, caught up on life, made dinner and dished our opinions of all the guys during The Bachelorette.  She spent the night and then Tuesday we had breakfast together, went to work, and then met at Marshall's during our lunch break to shop.  Let me just say, Marshall's on Tuesdays right after they receive a new shipment is a dangerous but glorious place! :)  We both did a little damage, but found some great stuff.

I got to have lunch with Dana, one of my college friends, twice this week!  Dana and I cheered together at Baylor and lived together for two years.  She is in law school at Baylor now and in town for classes and an internship in Waco for the summer.  We hadn't seen each other in quite a while considering we live in the same city, but it didn't feel like we had missed a beat.  We had a great time catching up and decided we needed to do it more often!  I love friendships that are so comfortable that you can just pick right back up where you left off.

Shay and I both work for the same organization, so we often talk several times during a week.  This week was no exception.  Shay called me about a work thing and we ended up talking for an hour just catching up on life!  We get to go on a trip for work together to Florida in July and get to room together.  It will be a lot of fun!  This is a picture of me and Shay at my rehearsal dinner.  We need to take some new pictures together!

So thankful for the girls in my life!

Feels Like Home

Have you ever experienced the feeling of being at home when you are with a certain person?  I experience that comfortable feeling of being at home when I am with Joey.  I think I probably knew that spending time with him was something that I enjoyed and even made me happy.  But, this weekend, having him home and getting to just do life together felt like home.  We didn't do anything terribly significant- just hung out at home, washed cars, went to dinner and saw a movie, went to church together...  I didn't realize when we got married that I would be able to love my husband any more than I already did, but I do. Of course these sentiments and reflections are probably amplified because we are apart during the week and only together on the weekends right now. But I am thankful for these sentiments, the comfortable feeling of being at home with Joey no matter where we are or what we are doing. I am thankful that God allows us to live life with another as one. How rich the blessing of marriage is.



Below is a blog post by Lysa TerKeurst that I loved.

The Moment
So familiar can some of our relationships be, we forget. We rush. We assume. We feel like we have forever.

And feeling like we have forever cheapens the right now feelings.

Each morning I have a routine with my man. It’s simple. Nothing profound. Nothing for which we’d ever stop and snap a picture.

It’s just a moment.

He asks me to help him pick a tie. He then goes away to fuss with this fixture of his professional job. Soon, he returns with a flipped up collar and a pressed down, knotted tie. He needs gentle hands to fold the collar over. No, he doesn’t need. He wants gentle hands to fold the collar over.

And I do.

It’s just a moment.

But it’s something I would miss with the deepest ache imaginable if today was the last of the moments.

If today.

Tears slip as I think about this. Dear God, help me think about this. Let me snap a hundred of these moments with the lens of my heart to be stored and appreciated and thought of as the great treasure they are.

Let my mind park there.

Let my heart relish there.

Let my mouth dare to whisper what a joy this is. “I love you. I love us. I love this moment each day.”

No, our relationship isn’t perfect. No relationship is. We’re two very strong willed people with vastly different approaches to life. And oh how easy it would be to list out all the differences. He likes the towel hanging in the same spot. I am more creative. But I stop the list here.

I stop because great love isn’t two people finding the perfect match in one another.

Great love is two people making the choice to be a match.

A decision.

To fold his collar and snap the heart lens and find myself grateful to the point of tears.

Tears of relishing today are so much better than tears of what was missed.

It’s just a moment.

Or is it?

Heavenly Home Inspiration

It's not new news to most of you that I love dreaming about what our house will look like one day.  So, after reading Shay's blog post about Pinterest, I thought it would be fun to start a couple of pinboards with home inspirations.  I'm always cutting things out of magazines and emailing pictures to myself of things that I plan to look back at one day when we are creating our own home.  In college I took a Housing class where we had an assignment to create a House Floorplan and a Design Board with samples of fabrics, finishes for flooring and countertops.  We also started a Style File to collect pictures of accessories and housing elements that we liked.  I thought it was a neat idea that could come in handy one day, so I update it occasionally. 

Pinterest can be used much like a design board, so I have created a couple.  There are small pictures of my pinboards below, but to better see the pictures you can check them out by clicking here. 

You too can create and account and start pinning!  It's really a handy way to save things that you like and want to be able to look back at.  I also like that you can follow friends to see what they're pinning and browse pins of everyone using the site to repin items you like to your own profile.  Thanks, Shay for sharing!  I think I will get a lot of use out of this fun tool.  Happy pinning!

Memorial Day Weekend

This was a nice long weekend with Memorial Day on Monday.  I got half of the day on Friday and all day Monday off from work, so it was a great time for a short trip.  I left Thursday night and got to Dallas just in time for dinner with G-Ma, Howard, and Joey.  Joey has been staying with G-Ma and Howard in Dallas while he works in Fort Worth for the first half of the summer.  They have loved having him so far and I was glad to have a chance to visit.

Friday, Joey and Howard went to watch our friend, Martin, play in the Byron Nelson golf tournament in Dallas.  I worked in the morning and then G-Ma and I spent the afternoon at the galleria.  G-Ma got some new sandals and I got a cute grey cropped jacket that I actually wore to work today.  We came home to freshen up, meet the boys, and then G-Ma took us out to a great dinner at The Ranch Steakhouse.  Yum!  The food was amazing.

Saturday, we went to see the Roush's new apartment and they took us out to lunch and gave us a quick tour of Coppell.  Then, we all headed over to Shay's parents' house to hang out by the pool.  It was great to spend time with our Dallas friends.  Rich and Megan had plans to meet some of their other friends for dinner, but me and Joey stayed over and grilled burgers with Adam and Shay.  They were great hosts and we had a fun time catching up.

Sunday, we went to church at Valley Ranch and got to see how much Rich & Meg's new church family already loves them.  Shay came and met us there too since VRBC is the church she actually grew up in.  We had lunch at a fabulous pizza place in Coppell and then hit up the local TJ Maxx & Home Goods of course! :)  G-Ma and Howard had never met the Roush's, so G-Ma made a big dinner for all of us that night.

Monday was filled with more relaxing and quality time with family.  I don't have any pictures from this weekend.  I did bring the camera, but guess I was having too much fun to be bothered with snapping any shots.  Whoops!  It was a very much welcomed time to catch up with some of the people we love and reflect on the freedom we are blessed to enjoy because of the many people that serve.