Over the next few days, I'll be sharing bits and pieces of our epic road trip to the east coast. It was 13 days filled with joy, sibling fights, a bazillion rest stops, one major meltdown on the side of I-10, great memories and lots of hugs with awesome people. Oh, and we saw a ton of cool stuff, too. You can read all about it by city: New Orleans, LA; Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; Washington, D.C. and Knoxville, TN. Here. We. Go. Because our sweet, reliable, amazing Honda Odyssey was hovering close to 230,000 miles on her, we opted to let her sit this 3,700-mile road trip out and rent a van. What was originally supposed to be an 8-seat capacity Suburban turned into a 12-passenger … [Read more...]
BBQ: It’s a Family Affair
Texas and barbecue go hand-in-hand, kinda like chips and queso or beer and Mexican food or, my personal favorite, vanilla and Dr Pepper. When Texas Monthly came out with its top 50 BBQ joints in the state, our family was all in. Every four years, the BBQ editor (yes, that's a real thing) Daniel Vaughn and his staff scour the state for the best in 'cue. But, this go around, they upped the ante by partnering with YETI to provide incentive prizes for various challenges. Honestly, it started out as a top 10 brisket challenge for us (the prize was one of these), as well as hitting a few Austin joints. Several of the places on the list were already family favorites and we'd visited them on a … [Read more...]
2017 in Review
I hope I'm not the only sucker out there for "in review" posts at the end of the year. Just yesterday I went down the Instagram rabbit hole. I guess I just love hearing how folks have grown, what they've learned, mistakes they've made and what they hope to accomplish in the new year. Believe it or not, this post marks TEN YEARS of blogging - a whole decade! My very first blog post sure is a chuckle. So as not to disappoint, this is for your New Year's Eve reading pleasure (assuming of course you aren't living the high life at some swanky party, but rather in your pjs on the couch, drinking a beer and watching Ryan Seacrest). Here is a recap of the "best of" in blog posts, Pinterest pins, … [Read more...]
Week in My Life: Sunday, Nov. 19
Once a year, I document our life for seven days. I share the real stuff, the hard stuff, the funny stuff and everything in between. Mostly, I do it because our lives are full and I fear I’ll forget the little things we do that really form our family. Maybe someday the kids will enjoy these posts as much as I enjoy writing them. Ha! You can read all about it: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. After a full, but fun, weekend we got a slow start to our Sunday morning. We enjoyed breakfast with cousins before they headed home and probably a little too much screen time. Oh well, vacation. Scott headed up to the church to assist with a class on stewardship … [Read more...]
Week in My Life: Saturday, Nov. 18
Once a year, I document our life for seven days. I share the real stuff, the hard stuff, the funny stuff and everything in between. Mostly, I do it because our lives are full and I fear I’ll forget the little things we do that really form our family. Maybe someday the kids will enjoy these posts as much as I enjoy writing them. Ha! You can read all about it: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I would like to tell you that my day was crazy busy and full of lots of fun, but I handed all that nuts over to Scott! While my cousin and her boys headed off to a college visit at Texas State, Will and I and two friends trekked east to College Station for a 4-H … [Read more...]