Tidbits

Well, we are getting ready to leave for a family road trip to South Padre for Labor Day weekend! I wanted to share a few pictures before we leave because otherwise they will be stuck in the computer never to be seen again! Here is our family plate all glazed and ready to go! I LOVE it! Next week will be one year...what an unbelievable year at that!

Jeff got me these beautiful flowers the other day! They have made my day every day since!
We decorated our master bedroom months ago. We painted, got new furniture (really just had a bed frame and mattress before), and got a new comforter set and curtains. I love it and it is so relaxing...and just the other day we got new carpet! The boys love it because it is much softer than the old Berber. We may have had our first big fight 4 years ago over my desire to NOT purchase Berber. Oh well....you live and learn
This is my favorite room in the house now....especially when there is peace and quiet, like after 8 pm.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Life's been pretty hectic lately so blogging is definitely on the back burner, but I had to get a post in before midnight in honor of our 3rd wedding anniversary today! We planned a weekend away just the two of us a few months ago, well I should say Jeff did. He is really great at planning romantic times for us and this weekend was an amazing example of that! We went to downtown Dallas and stayed in the Hyatt Regency connected to the famous Reunion Tower. I mean really, just look at this picture perfect scene!

We snapped a self portrait before dinner on Saturday in our gorgeous room!
The hotel lobby had a fountain that mimicked the look of Reunion Tower. The artist in me really loved that touch!
Here we are at dinner at this wonderful restaurant we highly recommend called, Craft Dallas! We shared this giant steak, great side dishes, and a yummy chocolate dessert!
Then we were off to a Nickleback concert at the American Airlines Center. All in all, our weekend away was just what the doctor ordered for us and we came back refreshed and reconnected! Praise God for 3 amazing years of marriage to the man of my dreams and falling in love with him all over again while watching him become a father!

Look what I got...

from my boys!

SO sweet and pretty! Jeff's officially entered the busiest time of his year and is working at least 6 days a week, this week 7. He works until the wee hours of the morning and then rests a couple of hours before doing it all over again. It's exhausting...for all of us! Thankfully we took some time out this weekend to enjoy a marriage conference at church. Jeff had to work Friday night but I represented for us-go team Albus! We had a long week complete with 3 visits from agencies regarding our "foster home" so some quality time was much needed!

Suite Deal Again

In August of 2008, we wrote this post about a trip to Texans game compliments of Jeff's company and their suite. Well, we got the opportunity to go again and we had a great time! Thanks Stephensons for watching the boys so that we could go! We owe you one!

The Texans played the Colts and had the game ended just a bit sooner, the Texans would have won. Unfortunately football has 4 not 3 quarters and so the Colts took the win. Maybe next time, Texans!

The match up. I'm so proud of my shot of the Colts huddle because you can see Manning's face!

The awesome half time show compliments of Prairie View A&M and.....

ICE CREAM SUNDAES made the game so much more fun!
And the best part was being there together!

Flower Power

Check out what my sweet boys and their handsome daddy had delivered for me!! I got my first note addressed to "Mommy." What a fun surprise! I am one blessed Mommy!!

Today we are celebrating J's 4th birthday with a baseball party extravaganza! Stay tuned!

Colorado, the Finale

We stayed at The Westin Riverfront Mountain Villas in Avon, CO. for three nights. It was a fabulous find of Jeff's on Hotwire.com. We had a condo with a kitchen so we saved money on meals and the room was a fourth of its original price!

The condo was very spacious with a dining table, sitting area and...

kitchen. We made our breakfast and lunches here and then ate out for dinner.

This is where we enjoyed breakfast each morning, enjoying the awesome view and cool weather from our balcony! I always brought out my rose from the waiter at The Blue Spruce Inn to add to the ambiance.

On Wednesday of our trip we spent the day in the Beaver Creek Resort looking at the shops. Here is a picture of the shops and the outdoor ice rink.

We especially loved looking in all the galleries at some of the $250,000 pieces of art! We're not quite sure who can actually afford to buy the art, but Jeff says most of it has been there every time he's come to visit each year, so maybe no one can!

Jeff's favorite is a big statue of a bear and a hunter. We will just have to settle for a picture of it and possibly another trip to visit it in the future!

It was a very relaxing day to say the least. Wednesday night we had a lovely meal at the Avondale Restaurant at our hotel. Jeff had lamb steak and this was our favorite meal of the entire trip! After dinner we sat out on the patio of the restaurant by one of the toasty fire pits.

On Thursday we woke up early and Jeff said "Let's take a short ride over to Aspen and come back the back way to see Independence pass and the one lane roads with big drop offs on the side of the road." It ended up taking five hours but the drive was well worth it. We saw some fantastic Aspen trees and beautiful mountain views.

Later that evening we returned to Vail and rode the Vista Bahn Gondola up to the top of the mountain.

Our self-portrait from inside the gondola.

At the top we saw the Mount of the Holy Cross, which is a huge crevice in the mountain that fills with snow and looks like a cross. Due to it being late in the summer most of the snow had melted and the cross was hard to see, but the views were incredible, and brought back many fond memories for Jeff.

Thursday night after the gondola ride, we happened upon a jazz concert occurring in the square of the shops. This added to our romantic evening as pleasant pre-dinner entertainment. We ate at the Lord Gore at Manor Vail - one of Jeff's favorite restaurants in Vail. Jeff had a wonderful prepared meal of salmon, and I had scrumptious duck.

On Friday morning, we visited Vail Village to look at the shops and had another yummy pizza lunch before heading back to Denver to spend the rest of our trip with Lisa and Jamie.

Here is a picture of another one of Jeff's favorite statues with some aspen trees.

We also captured a picture of Gore Creek that runs through Vail, CO.

On Friday night we went to a Colorado Rockies baseball game with Jeff's sister Lisa. The views were fantastic. The only downer was the Colorado Rockies lost against the San Francisco Giants 6-3. Check out the gorgeous sun set over the Rocky Mountains in the background!

On Saturday we spent the last day of our trip sleeping in and relaxing at Lisa and Jamie's house. We had lunch and dessert at a local fast food favorite, Good Times. They had awesome burgers, french fries with "wild sauce" dipping sauce, and frozen custard. Of course we had to try all three! We got one last picture with Lisa before our drive to the airport to catch our plane back to Houston. Thanks guys for all your hospitality and we'll see you in November!

It was a wonderful vacation that will not be forgotten. We were so excited to be back in town and visit our church home on Sunday morning - it was promotion Sunday so it was a big day in the life of the church. This was our last vacation as just the two of us - how great it was!!! It was the perfect mix of time with family and time just the two of us and offered the relaxation we desperately needed!

Colorado Part 2

Let me just start this entry by apologizing for the delay. I was hoping to have finished all three blog entries I have planned about our trip before now, but am just getting to #2. We've had a roller coaster of emotions this week in regards to the adoption that I will save for another post. We will share it with you though.

On Monday, 8/17 we headed over to Golden and toured the Coors Brewery - the largest single site brewery in the United States. Let's just say that we made the 40 minute tour last 2 hours with all of our excitement and picture taking.

Jeff was trying to make it look like I drank a lot of beer when really I had 1/2 a non-alcoholic beer and 2 diet cokes. Silly guy!

Here Jeff is enjoying his beer sample. Jeff's photo that he used on E-Harmony was taken at the Coors Brewery so we re-created it for posterity's sake.

After the tour we went to lunch in down town Golden.

The restaurant where we had lunch "The Capitol Grill" was the original meeting place of the Colorado legislators. We sat under that first umbrella there on the patio. I had some awesome fish and chips and Jeff had a buffalo burger. My man loves wild game!

We then took the Peak-to-Peak highway from Golden, CO to Estes Park where we would spend the night. We enjoyed many fantastic mountain views along the way.

After arriving in Estes Park, Colorado we looked at the shops and enjoyed the views. Here's a photo of the Downtown Waterwheel.

We had dinner at the Historic "Stanley Hotel" - the supposedly haunted hotel that inspired "The Shining". Stephen King stayed in this hotel in a room overlooking the mountains while writing the book. It opened in 1909, making this the 100 year anniversary of the hotel.

We had an awesome dinner at the Stanley Hotel. I ate meatloaf made out of elk, bison, and pork. I was so proud of myself for trying new foods and it was actually very tasty! Jeff had a scrumptious Buffalo Steak. Here we are with dessert.

On Tuesday, 8/18 we headed to Rocky Mountain National Park and then to our new hotel for the next couple of days in Beaver Creek. We headed into the park for a great day of enjoying nature and a ton of wild animals! It was Jeff's 5th trip to the park, but my first.

A picture of us in the National Park about to gain altitude majorly.

This is either a ground squirrel or a chipmunk. We saw both but for us it was sometimes hard to tell the difference. A chipmunk is a little smaller than a ground squirrel. The animals are so used to people, they just walk right up to you. We were starting to think this was the biggest animal we'd see all day, but boy were we wrong!

See how much closer we are getting to the mountains! We went all the way to the top of most of them on some very winding and sometimes scary roads!

Scenic View- check out the bird enjoying the view too from his little perch (bottom center of the photo)!

Our first elk sighting - a herd near the top of the Rockies. We saw at least 100 or more elk on this day and several herds along the road. We drove along the "Trail Ridge Road" - the highest continuous paved highway in the United States, which takes you up higher than 12,000 feet in elevation.

It was snowing at the "Top of the Rockies" like real snow, not Texas snow! Giant flakes!

Here we are freezing at the top of the mountain, while all our friends in Houston are sweating!

Jeff captured this great shot of a marmot! He practically walked up to us and said "cheese"!

Here is a closer picture of one of the elk herds we saw.

This giant elk was so close he stopped traffic! He and his friend got right out in the road with NO fear!

We crossed the Continental Divide several times on this trip, but here's the picture we got of us the first time we crossed it. It was taken by a nice group of motor cyclist.

We had dinner at the Blue Spruce Inn in Historic Frisco, CO after a long day at the park. Jeff had visited this restaurant on a previous trip, and thought it would be nice to go back to. At the end of the meal the waiter gave me a wonderful rose that we used to decorate our room for the next three nights in Avon, CO. Avon, CO is close to the "Beaver Creek Resort" and to the city of Vail, CO.

Tuesday night we checked into our home for the next three days - The Westin Riverfront Mountain Villas in Avon, CO. WOW - it was time for nap.