July 4th Weekend

I have only blogged once in the month of July, and it's almost over.  I am definitely behind...  This month has flown by!  I am getting more into the swing of things at work and JW has been consumed with studying for the bar exam.  It is this week!  He drove up to Waco on Monday, and the test started on Tuesday.  He is comfortable with the portions he took Tuesday and today, but prayers please for one last day tomorrow.  Thursday is the day full of essays and the most challenging day.  Please pray for perseverance and wisdom for Joey to finish strong.  We can't wait for this week to be over!  It will be nice to have the bar exam behind us! 

So, I"m going to have to take you back to July 4th to get caught up.  My office was closed that week Wednesday through Friday, so I had a nice long weekend.  We have gotten mostly settled on the inside of our house, but the outside of our house needed a little love.  We had coupons to a home improvement store and a local nursery was having a 70% off sale, so JW came shopping with me for some gardening tools, soil, and plants.  The flower beds I re-did had not had plants in them for awhile, so they needed a lot of work.  I wish I would have taken before pictures, but didn't think about it, so you only get to see the finished product.

Here's the front bed under our big tree.  It makes me happy every time I drive up to see a little bit of color in front of our house.  I am hoping mexican heather and yellow and pink black-eyed susans will grow and spread out a little to fill up that flower bed.

We have two beds against the house on either side of our deck in the back.  They are in the shade all day, so we wanted mainly ground cover there.  Here's how they turned out.  It's hard to keep the dogs out of these, so hopefully they will do okay.

These are my favorite.  I had two matching pots that I spray painted black to go on the back deck.  I planted a fox tail fern, white diamond flowers, and potato ivy in each one.  I really enjoy looking at them since you can see our deck from the living room through the large windows we have.

The container I used to have for this stand rusted out, so I got a new plastic one and painted it black as well.  It has more white diamond flowers, potato ivy, and pentas that add a bright pop of color.  This one has really filled out since I first took this picture and looks great.

Working on the yard took a good day and a half and was a lot of work, but I am really glad we did it.  It looks great and just the few small things we did make a big difference.

Wednesday for the 4th, we went over to my parents' house during the day for grilling and swimming.  Late in the afternoon it threatened to rain, so we headed back to our house to feed the dogs and shower.  Then, we headed over to Momma Hance's house for her annual 4th of July party.

JW, me, Momma Hance, Nana, and Poppa

My parents and Hunter came over too.  We ate lots of all-American food, played Pictionary, and watched the fireworks by the pool.  It was a great day spending time with family, and was easy since we live in the same city now.

Celebrating a Quarter of a Century

Last weekend I celebrated my 25th birthday, and as my dad put it, I am now a quarter of a century old.  Wow, that sounds old!  On Friday, JW told me he wanted to take me out to dinner to celebrate.  We had things planned with family on Saturday and Sunday, so we were going to go out to dinner just the two of us... or so I thought!  Just before we were about to leave, there was a knock at our door.  JW looked at me and said, "Who's that?"  I didn't know, so we went to the door and when we opened it, look who I found...  Shay Bear flew in from Dallas to surprise me for my birthday!

Turns out, he and Shay had been scheming for a month.  I was so surprised!  I had really been missing my girl friends (who for the most part live in Dallas except for Emily who was out of town this weekend), and started crying after I squealed and tackled her.  My mom had picked Shay up from the airport, so she brought her over and got this picture with Shay's camera when I opened the door.  Love it.  Now all the nagging that JW did to pick up the house all week made sense.  He even made sure the guest room was clean and had fresh sheets and towels.  He's a good husband.

Needless to say, I was happy to share my birthday dinner on Friday with Shay too! :)  We tried to go to Chuy's, but it was packed, so we went to another Mexian resaurant down the street from us called Molinas.  Then, we went to the City Center and walked around for awhile and finished off the evening with Marble Slab... yum rainbow morsels. :)

Saturday morning Shay and I had some good girl time and headed to TJ Maxx/Homegoods while JW worked on bar prep, and then had my favorite for lunch- Cafe Express.  My parents had invited us over to swim in the afternoon, and then my dad grilled us yummy steaks for dinner.  His steaks and baked beans are the best!  Mom got this amazing cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes.  It is now one of my favorites.  It was delicious!

After dinner I got to open presents, and then we played Apples to Apples.  It was a really great day.

Sunday was my actual birthday, and JW and Shay sang to me and I got donuts in bed.  Shay did a great job documenting the morning before they woke me up. :)

Lovely morning pictures...

I got to open my gift from JW, a beautiful gold and pearl bracelet he found pinned on one of my Pinterest boards. He is so resourceful. :)

Everyone came to tell me good morning.

Apparently the girls were tired since JW woke them up to be part of the birthday festivities, so they went back to bed. 

We got ready for church and went to BCF again.  We were slightly late because I was having a wardrobe melt-down and couldn't decide what to wear.  It was fun to have a girl friend there though to give opinions on the 50 different things I tried on. :)  After church we went to Cafe Express again for lunch.  Not very creative, I know, but I did order something different.  I just love that place and have been making up for lost time now that we're in Houston.

After lunch we took Shay back to the airport and ran some errands in the afternoon before Jenn and Momma Hance came over and took us out to dinner to celebrate that night.  It was a great birthday weekend, and I sure felt loved!  Thank you friends and family for making it special!