Thankful

We went out on a date night this week to have a child-free dinner while my friends were in town. And because our family members that usually would watch Isabella are spread out traveling between Virginia, Australia, and Buenos Aires we hired a recommended babysitter that was not family or one of my close friends for the first time. I was a little nervous about the whole thing, but Isabella was happy when we left and asleep when we got home, so it was a success. (And this morning when she was in time out and was calling for everyone she knows: Dada! Mimi! Cappy! Nana! Papa!, the babysitter she knew for 3.5 hours made the list of people she wanted to come save her from time out. CARLY!!!)

Headed out with no diaper bags or car seats. (I still thought about her a lot.)

We poured over restaurant choices for a long time to find a place that would entice the foodies along with the not-so-adventurous ones in our group, and settled on The Metro. The cheese plate was great, my filet was very good, and the bread pudding was possibly the best thing anyone had.

It was a really fun evening! We laughed a lot and enjoyed finishing our conversations without interruptions.

The past two weeks have really flown by. Today was our last day together and time to say goodbye. 

I will miss talking about everything, laughing together, scouring Whole Foods for fresh ingredients for dinner and Emily saying things like "I was just thinking we could throw together a deconstructed ratatouille for dinner", and cooking together.

We knew this trip was planned for several months so it was great to look forward to. I'm not sure when we will see each other again so it makes goodbye a little more sad this time.

So I'm going to end today with some of my gratitudes from the week:
- Having friends in our home
-Isabella's funny personality and crazy faces this week
-My mom coming home in two days
-Laughter 
-Being married to my best friend
-Leaving for vacation tomorrow and getting to spend time together as a family and with friends in a beautiful part of God's creation.

living in the moment

 Its been a bit of a whirlwind week. My friend from graduate school has been in town this past week. We have been enjoying catching up, listening to our children laugh together, cooking, and sipping chai tea lattes.  Emily is a gourmet cook, and I love learning from her. I've taken hardly any pictures of our adventures and none of our amazing food this week.

I had a biopsy on my thyroid this week. I'm a HUGE baby about needles. For a few seconds during the procedure I felt like I was back in a birthing room squeezing Michael's hand through the painful parts. Ugh, glad that's over. Now to just wait for the results. 

 This weekend we soaked up some family, friend, and couple time.

 I will be enjoying time with Emily this week, working one day, and packing to leave on vacation this Friday.
Things are a bit crazy the next month with several work trips Michael has coming up and some changes going on around here.

I'll be practicing taking it one day at a time. One moment at a time.

 Happy Monday!

Dallas World Aquarium

We went to the Dallas World Aquarium on Saturday. It was different than any aquarium I've been to, but very well done with lots of interesting things to see. I will let the pictures tell the story, but if you are in the area I recommend checking it out. 

Fort Worth Stock Yards

Friday morning we went to the Ft. Worth Stockyards.

We met truffles the baby camel at the petting zoo.

Isabella loves the Llama llama red pajama books. I thought this llama was pretty cute.

We walked around, checked out some shops, and waited for the herd to come that takes over the street.

Stopping for a sno cone break.

And finally the herd started coming. People lined the streets to watch.

We left Ft. Worth and went to Five Guys for lunch, (which I thought was great). Then back to the RV for Isabella's nap and Paula and I slipped away to Ikea, the mecca of all kinds of awesome things. We grilled out that night and went swimming. It was a fun day!

WEEKEND ADVENTURES

One thing about marrying in to another family is gaining a whole new set of experiences that you might not have ever had before. Since being a part of Michael's family, some of my new experiences have been boating and tubing, sea-dooing (i think i just made up a word), tent camping, peanut butter on pancakes, OU football games, banana boats, homemade macaroni and cheese, and the latest: RVing. We headed out on Thursday in Michael's parent's new RV for a weekend trip.

On the road. The view from the front seat is pretty great.

Isabella read books, colored, played games on the phone, and napped on our way to Dallas.

We had a fun weekend and Isabella loved spending time with her grandparents. And while she is too young to remember the fun things we did 20 years from now, I believe in 20 years she will know that her grandparents love and cherish her as that foundation is being laid now.

Meeting puppies and trading tricks of the trade

We went out on some fun adventures and went swimming at the RV park. 

Our little girl who was just crawling this time last year wore her first set of floaties and "swam" by herself.

 It is crazy how much she has changed in one year's time! More on our adventures later...