Austin

This past weekend we packed up and headed down to Austin for Kyle's brother's wedding. Kyle is the middle of three boys and this was his youngest brother's wedding, all three boys have gotten married in the past year and a half! We haven't been on a trip since the cruise so we were excited to get away for the weekend and decided to make the most of it!

On our way down we stopped at Common Grounds in Waco and got to meet up with Aarika and Kendra. I'm sad that I forgot to take any pictures while we were there, but we got to catch up on life, wedding planning, school, work, and everything. I love those girls and I was so glad they got to meet us there!

We got back on the road and our next stop was lunch, which Kyle had planned since he learned that Blake & Erika were getting married in Austin. Lunch was burgers at Mighty Fine. For those of you who know my hubby, you know his love for burgers. The burgers were delicious and the fries are awesome!

Back on the road--hit some traffic coming into Austin, but isn't that the 'Welcome to Austin' sign? haha, oh the traffic was awful all weekend! I guess that's what you get in Austin.
Made it to the hotel in just enough time to get changed and head out to the rehearsal dinner. Blake & Erika asked Kyle to officiate so this was his first wedding, and I think I was more nervous than he was. I wasn't nervous that he wouldn't do a good job, cause I knew he would. I was just imagining having to stand up in front of all these people with this incredibly important job of marrying two people and that was making me nervous. But that's why Kyle is the pastor and not me! haha.

After the rehearsal we headed to Salt Lick BBQ for the dinner, only some of the most delicious BBQ in the state of Texas. It took a little bit to get there since it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere but everyone seems to find it! Their parking lot is huge and we were there early and it was already getting crowded, but rightfully so. It was delicious, they brought out huge plates of meat, potatoes, coleslaw and bread. We ate way too much of that delicious food! And then had some blackberry cobbler with blue bell ice cream :) Again no pictures, probably cause we were too busy eating and having fun with family.

Friday night we decided to go see The Hunger Games since neither one of us could wait any longer to see the movie! So we went to Walmart and loaded up my purse with snacks (hey we are cheap okay! ha) and went to a movie theater right up the street from our hotel. I loved the movie, I thought they did a good job taking it from a book into a movie, there were some things that I missed but overall it was great!


We had most of the day Saturday to just hang out so we decided to go walk around downtown. We got some Starbucks, cause I can't go a day without my caffeine haha. Then we went over to the farmer's market that is set up on Saturday mornings. We had so much fun! They had all kinds of booths set up and we ended up eating lunch there. Kyle had a meatloaf sandwich and I had chicken flautas. Delicious!

Then we headed to the wedding which was beautiful! And Kyle did a great job :) People came up to him all through the night telling him how good he did and how awesome it was that he got to do the ceremony for his brother, so excited for him!

We had planned on going to Austin Stone on Sunday morning, but it didn't happen. We got back to the hotel late after the wedding so we slept in, which Kyle never gets to do on a Sunday! Plus my allergies went crazy at the wedding and I could barely breathe by the time we left so I was still all blah on Sunday morning. We ended up just grabbing breakfast at the hotel and heading out.

Stopped at one of my favorite lunch places in Waco on the way home--Food for thought. It's just this little hole in the wall place that has simple but delicious sandwiches, pizzas and other things. I had a baked avocado which was just an avocado with cheese, chicken, black olives & sour cream that the put in the pizza oven for a few minutes--amazing! I'm gonna have to try it at home some time.

It was such a fun trip, and I'm so thankful for a weekend spent with my hubby enjoying good times, good food and lots of time with family :)

Craft Project

I mentioned a few posts ago that I wanted to make a new menu board for us to plan out our weekly menu. Well thanks to pinterest I found this one that I really liked and she laid out all the directions to make it. I changed a few things and it turned out awesome! I'm still in the process of writing down all of the meals on the cards and then I'm going to laminate them. Here are pictures:

I ended up just handwriting most of it and it turned out good. There are two pockets made from crayon boxes that we painted. The idea is you keep all the meal cards in the bottom pocket and then as you make them you put them in the top pocket to keep from making the same meal every week. I added some fun ones in there like "Kyle's burgers" to let Kyle pick what kind of burger creation he wants to make for us. I also made a few "Leftovers" tags since it's just the two of us we have those nights quite often. In fact, Wednesdays are permanent no cooking nights, it's too hard with youth group to try and cook or figure out when we would eat so we are both on our own that night.

Grace.

Seems like an easy word to get a grasp on, to understand, to know what it means, and yet so difficult to accept. Tonight was God showing me I'm not accepting the grace He is pouring out on me, I'm continuously picking up my burdens and chains and carrying them around with me every day, I'm relying on my own strength and it fails me every time. This isn't the first time He's shown me this, and I would love to say it will be the last but I know it won't be, I want it to be though. I want to be able to lay down my worries and fears and not pretend like they don't exist but just trust in His timing and plan. After I poured all my heart out and sat there discouraged by the fact that yet again I'm in this situation, Wholly Yours came on my Pandora station. I've always loved this song, and tonight it just drilled into my heart exactly what I needed to hear

The harder I try the more clearly can I feel the depth of our fall and the weight of it all.
And so this might be the most impossible thing Your grandness in me making me clean.

Just like I can't rely on my own strength to get through each day I can't rely on my own strength to change my heart, I have to realize that comes through His grace.

"...He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, uncorrupted, and unfading, kept in heaven for you..." 1 Peter 1:3-4