A Journey Worth Remembering

Sunday, August 5, 2012

August Birthday

I wish I was better about birthdays and making a bigger deal about them. Really my heart is in each one. I have images of a fabulous birthday cake. Happy smiling people. Great presents. But they don't seem to turn out that way... there's always some grumpiness to some degree. And the cakes...ummm are always so homemade looking. The presents always seem to go too quickly.

This is my homemade cake. Well, its not cake. It's brownies. With ice cream, ganache, squished Oreo cookies, cool whip, and chocolate shavings. (I really need to invest in better candles, that should help them look better!)

Can you spot the grumpiness in this picture?

Now this is a better picture. At least one boy has a smile on his face. (btw He had more than one gift to open.)

If Jasper could smile it would be in this picture. He found a bug to play with while wearing his new reflective collar.

Finally getting to blowing out the candles. Another happy smiling boy. I think Jake thought he wouldn't be able to blow them all out.

And....he almost did it. He got a little help from Josh I think when he ran out of breath and still had four more candles to blow out.

I think this was the highlight of the birthday day. The motorcycle date.

We had to take pictures of the event since this is the first time it happened and probably the last.

The helmet was necessary but a bit uncomfortable.

A picture driving in the parking lot to dinner.

Another picture after dinner. The funniest part I thought about this dinner was here we are riding on a motorcycle and Spencer chose dinner at a salad place. I think that's SOOOO funny. Who does that? Well, we do apparently. Happy Birthday Spencer here's your salad.

Another picture driving on side streets closer to home. The speedometer is broken. We were going faster than 0 mph.

And our yummy birthday brownie ice cream dessert. It is really good!

Happy Birthday Spencer!

We LoVe You!

Monday, July 30, 2012

12th Anniversary Getaway

For our 12th anniversary, we were able to get away for the first time. in a REALLY long time. too long. We stayed at a Bed & Breakfast in Chapell Hill. It was a beautiful farm. This is the house we stayed in.

the living room

one of the bedrooms

one of the bathrooms

the bedroom we stayed in

the entry and stairs that led to a locked attic. I loved the painted floors.

the pool (that was dirty because of all the rain)

the chicken coop

We had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. It was so quiet inside. We are so used to struggling to hear each other if we go out to eat. It was very nice to literally enjoy a nice quiet dinner together.

my eggplant lasagna

my cute husband, chewing

our raspberry cheesecake

so glad I married this guy!

We spotted a Texas longhorn on a nearby ranch.

this is what I usually see attached to his ear

at our B&B there were two little ponies that wandered eating

and eating some more

sunrise

doing a little antiquing before heading home. Back to the kids. Back to reality. Back to our home. Back to our family- something I cherish and am so eternally grateful for.

Promotion

The day FINALLY came after taking the Engineer Operator (E.O.) test a year ago.

Such a proud moment for father and son

Such a happy time for husband and wife

so grateful for the support of Aunt Renee

group picture with Fire Chief Garrison

FD has some traditions: on your birthday you bring cake & Blue Bell ice cream. yes it has to be Blue Bell- its a HFD thing I suppose.
for promotions, you bring a steak dinner for everyone including dessert. yeah, its expensive!

So we went to the station for the promotion steak dinner. The hot dogs were for the kids. The steak was great!

While we were there, they got a call and we had the whole fire station to ourselves. It was kinda strange. Off they go pulling on their gear and getting in the truck

and driving off. Spencer is driving that Suburban looking thing which is the Medic.

That's really what the EO promotion is, the driver of either the ambulance, medic, or fire truck.

It's the first promotion of many. We are so proud of you Spencer and love you so much!

A Fire Station party

So we have a boy who loves fire fighters and fire trucks. His name is Josh. So the invitation to to a birthday party at the fire station was super exciting to him.

The fire truck pinata hanging from the ladder truck

Climbing into the fire truck to check things out

The alarms went off and the fire fighters got a call so the kids had to stand back and watch them step into their boots and pull up their suspenders....