Elgin, DFW, San Antonio, & Victoria

That's where I was this past weekend.  As relaxing as last weekend was, this past weekend was the complete opposite.  I was on the go, non-stop -- but it was a lot of fun.

My alarm clock went off at 3:00 am on Thursday morning {although I'll be honest -- I snoozed it for about 20 minutes before dragging myself out of bed}.  I had to be in Dallas before 9:00 o'clock that morning for a WTS Texas Conference, so Ben drove me to Elgin to meet up with a girl from the San Antonio chapter, and I rode with her the rest of the way up there.  As tired as we both were, Leslie and I had a great time getting to know each other and talking about everything -- work, WTS, family, and just life in general. 

We got to the Hyatt Regency DFW a little before 9:00, got checked-in, and then left for the DFW airport tour.  I have been to the DFW airport before {although only during layovers}, but until this weekend, I had never realized how big the airport and the grounds are.  DFW has 7 runways, and roughly 160,000 passengers travel either to or from DFW each and every day.  DFW property consists of over 18,000 acres and operates similar to a small city where they have their own fire department, police department, and EMS.  Crazy, huh?  We took a tour of where they train firefighters from all over the nation and also took a tour of both the AOC {airport operations center} and the EOC {emergency operations center}.

After the tour, we went back to the hotel for lunch and a presentation about "balancing it all".  That afternoon, we attended sessions on funds development, programming, and STEM initiatives, and that evening, we headed to Farina's Winery and Cafe in Downtown Grapevine.  The food and wine were amazing, and I had a great time socializing with so many wonderful women.  About 40 women came for the weekend from Austin, San Antonio, Houston, DFW, and Corpus Christi.  The thing I love most about WTS is the diversity.  Not everyone is an engineer {there are planners, environmental scientists, marketing, admin, etc.}, and there are women at all experience levels {although I was definitely one of the youngest}.  At the end of the evening, the president of the DFW chapter invited everyone back to her hotel room for a little more fun, and as exhausted as I was, I was so glad that I went.  There were only 7 of us that stayed up a little later than the rest, and we had a great time talking {and learning} about how things "used to be" for women in the transportation industry.

On Saturday morning, we had breakfast and then a few more sessions on mentorship, professional development, and membership.  I was a panelist during one of the sessions and spoke about the student chapter that we recently started at UT.  I really wasn't looking forward to speaking in front of everyone {public speaking is not my thing}, but I'm so glad that I did because I feel like I got to meet so many more people than I would have if I hadn't have had that opportunity.  After the last session and before lunch started, I grabbed my bags and took the shuttle to the airport.  Ben and I had a wedding in Victoria at 5 o'clock that evening, so after eating a quick lunch at the airport, I caught a flight to San Antonio.  Ben picked me up there, and then we drove the rest of the way to Victoria.  I had tried to find a flight that would let me stay at the conference till the very last minute while still getting us to the wedding on time, so I knew that we'd be cutting it close. We pulled into the parking lot about 10 minutes before the wedding started, discreetly changed in the car {classy, I know}, and got to the ceremony just in time.

It was definitely hot outside, but Hillary looked beautiful.

Hillary was a Construction Science major with Ben, and because we now live so far apart, we hadn't seen her since graduation and were really looking forward to seeing her and to finally meeting Kody.  I loved watching the two of them together during both the ceremony and the reception.  They are so cute together, and their love seems so genuine.

Dinner was delicious, and we had a great time catching up with Justin and Natalie {two other people that we don't get to see nearly as often as we'd like}.  It's hard to believe that their big day will be here in just 3 short months.

Just as we expected, the DJ played the best songs, and Ben and I had a great time out of the dance floor -- despite the fact that I was exhausted and had worn heels all day for the past two days.

 

The Co Sci cuties.

The girls.

We decided to sleep in that morning {it felt amazing}, and on our way back to Austin, we stopped at Black's Barbeque in Lockhart to have lunch with Justin and Natalie before they drove back to Dallas.  I had never been there before, but I will definitely be going back.  The food was awesome, and the turkey was definitely the best that I've ever had.

G stayed the Annie and Amos while we were gone, and they obviously loved having her over to visit.  They were excited when we first got home, but it wasn't long before Annie was lying at the front door waiting for G to come back.

I think it's safe to say that Annie loves her G!

Thanks again, G, for watching A&A so I could travel all over Texas.  I had a blast, and now, I have a lot of sleep to catch up on.

Relaxing Weekend

We spent most of the weekend just lounging around the house.  Ben was sick this past week with a virus {so sick that he missed 2 whole days of work and only ate half of a Wendy's kids cheeseburger for dinner one night}.  He still wasn't feeling 100% this weekend, so we figured it'd be best for us to take it easy.  Obviously, the dogs were pretty fond of the idea, too.

Nobody in our family relaxes quite as well as Annie does though.

Thankfully, Ben's starting to feel better, and as soon as he can kick the congestion, he should be good as new.

Heaven is for Real

I just finished reading the book "Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back", and I loved it!  If you haven't already read it, you need to -- like now. 

I borrowed the book from Holly who borrowed it from Nelson {thanks Nelson!}, and although I'm a pretty slow reader, it was a really quick read.  I started it on Sunday night and finished it last night, and to be honest, part of me wants to read it all over again just because I'm not ready for it to be over quite yet.  Parts of it had me crying tears of joy and tears of sadness, and other parts had me grinning ear to ear and laughing out loud.  A quote on the back cover reads: "A beautifully written glimpse into heaven that will encourage those who doubt and thrill those who believe." -- Ron Hall  And as a believer, I couldn't have said it better myself.

I love living next door to the Sotos...

And here are just a few of the reasons why.

• Miles {need I say more?}
• Cheryl's amazing cooking
• Our very random conversations
• All of the laughter
• Beating Jason at his Wheel of Fortune game :) 

Thanks again for having us over tonight.  Cheryl - the dinner was awesome, and Jason - better luck next time. ;)

Labor Day Weekend

I have to admit -- even though this past weekend was a long one, we weren't the slightest bit productive, and we didn't get a single thing done around the house.  We did however have a great time relaxing and hanging out with family and friends.

On Saturday, I met up with my running group for a 12-mile run and a dip in Barton Springs, and Ben went dove hunting with a couple of guys from work.  Later that afternoon, we went over to the Messerli house to watch football, but I'll be honest -- I didn't watch much football.  I spent most of my time hanging out with these two.

I hadn't seen Will and Ella since they moved, and I had missed them both so much!  Will must have missed me, too, because as soon I got there, he grabbed my hand and led me all over the new house.  He's talking up a storm now, and Ella is crawling all over the place.

Will doesn't want to be left out of anything, so when anyone suggests doing anything with Ella {taking her picture, giving her a bath, feeding her, etc.}, his response is always, "me too, me too".

We spent most of the afternoon eating, playing, and watching "Elmo Goes Potty" {yes, really...}, and later that evening, Stephanie and I gave them a bath.  Actually, just Stephanie gave them the bath.  I spent most of my time trying to get them to {a} look at the camera and to {b} smile at it.

After their bath, we played a little more.  Will loves the Pooh car that he got on his 1st birthday even more now that he can do donuts on the wood floor.  He's such a cool dude.

I couldn't come over and not bring something for Will, so I wrapped up the viking hat that Ben got when he competed in the Warrior Dash.  Nobody can pull off the look quite as well as Ella though.

On Sunday, we went to church, and later that day, Ben went over to a friend's house for the live draft of fantasy football while Annie, Amos, and I took a road trip over to my mom's house to hang out with her and G.  Annie absolutely loves riding in the car.

But unfortunately, Bubbs doesn't.  He sits as close to Annie as he can and looks super nervous the entire time.

I had a great time hanging out with G and my mom, and Annie and Amos had a great time checking out my mom's entire house and backyard.  Unfortunately, Holly wasn't able to join us for our girls' night since she is currently at Disneyland with Nelson, but I know that they are having a blast.  They both ran the half marathon on Sunday, and now they are having fun at the parks.  Buzz Lightyear sent me a "galactic greetings" email on Sunday afternoon with a picture of Nelson and Holly flying around in space.

When we got home on Sunday evening, we turned on the news and watched some of the footage of the wildfires that had started earlier that day in Bastrop, Steiner Ranch, and Dripping Springs.  I feel so badly for all of the people that have lost their homes and pray that the firefighters are able to get the fires contained soon.  Shortly after we went to bed on Sunday night, Ben got a call from a guy with Texas Parks & Wildlife who suggested that he go out to Bastrop to move all of the equipment on one of his jobs before that area caught on fire. He left at about midnight and didn't end up getting home until about 5 o'clock in the morning, so we slept in before heading out to Uncle Pat and Aunt Beth's house later that day.  Here are a few pictures that I took on the way out there of the fire out in Steiner Ranch.

We had a great time hanging out with Ben's family and spent most of the time out on the back patio while Uncle Pat grilled.  It was a high of 90 degrees yesterday, and it felt amazing!  Especially compared to the 112 degrees that it was just a few days ago.

I also spent most of the afternoon hanging out with Molly and Charlie, both of whom I don't get to see nearly as often as I would like.  Unfortunately, I'm not as familiar of a face to Charlie as I would like to be, but after a game of peek-a-boo, he warmed up pretty quickly, and I had him smiling and laughing in no time.

I didn't get any pictures of anyone but Charlie, but in all honesty, he was the cutest one there yesterday, so you're really not missing out on anything.

I love you, Charlie, and hope to see you again soon.

After we got home on Monday, we decided to make some sugar cookies.  For some reason, I've been on quite the cooking/baking kick recently {anyone who really knows me knows just how crazy that really is}, and I have to admit that everything that I've made has turned out pretty good.  When I made these Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies a couple of weeks ago, Ben said that they were the best cookies he's ever had.  Score!

{If anyone's interested, you can find that recipe here.}

 

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with the sugar cookies though.  Even after refrigerating the dough, it was so sticky that we couldn't even use the cookie cutters.  We tried several times and finally just ending up making some circles by hand.  When they were baking, something smelled a little "off" to me, so when the first batch came out, I decided to taste one before wasting anymore time on the others.  I am so glad that I did because YUCK!  They were really hard and really gross.  Total fail.  I immediately started cleaning up the kitchen when Ben {being the big kid at heart that he is} decided that the best way to dispose of the already baked ones was to launch them over the back fence.  And, boy, did the fly.  They went so far into the ranch behind us that we lost sight of them, and when he threw them off the side of the house, they went over the roof of the house that is 4 houses over.  I was really disappointed that the cookies didn't work out and that we didn't get to ice them, but Ben reassured me by saying, "To be honest, I think I enjoyed throwing them even more than I would have had eating them."  So I guess it wasn't a total fail.

Overall, I'd say that I had a pretty good weekend.  It's times like these that I remember just how blessed I really am and just how much I love my life.