Fall Fun

One of my favorite fall memories as a child was doing pumpkin carvings. Carving pumpkins is always looked at as a way of celebrating halloween by putting scary faces and such on it. But it doesn't HAVE to be that way. You can carve whatever you want onto a pumpkins! And in my opinion... they look much better without the faces. :) It came to my attention that my husband had never carved a pumpkin before, since it has always a favorite memory of mine, I wanted to share it with my favorite person! :)

Our first pumpkin we made said "Huskers."

Finished Husker pumpkins! 

We had so much fun doing the first pumpkin... we decided to do 2 more! :)

All ready to be traced! 

Andrew was a pro by the time we got to the last pumpkin! 

Tracing the design

Our handy dandy carving tools! 

After Andrew traced it, I cut it out...

...while he moved on to the next pumpkin! Since we did a husker pumpkin, we thought it was only appropriate to do a Gator one as well. :)

We did this one a little differently, because it it was so detailed, and it would be hard to get it to stay together cut out.

We traced it completely with a knife so that we could take off the top layer.

Finished! :)

That night we put a candle in it. Turned out pretty sweet, huh??! :)

Happy Fall Y'all! :)

English Lesson

Happiness (verb): being married to your best friend. 

My beloved is mine,

and I am his.

Song of Solomon 2:16

Work vacation

We took off driving Friday night with the car pointed west-- our destination? Bridgeport, Nebraska. A tiny little town, at the foot of the Nebraska Sand hills. :)

 Andrew and I started work first thing Saturday morning. The boys were headed out with all of the supplies needed to complete the job, but they would not arrive until 2 or 3 pm. So Andrew (and I helped! :)) started getting the field ready for the irrigation system to be put in. There are so many little things that have to be done before anything can even begin! ...it's amazing.. my husband is amazing. :)

Once the boys arrived, things went into full swing, and even more so than usual as we were trying to beat the rain that was predicted for later that evening. Around 5:00 pm... this was the scene...

These two pictures
were taken at the same time. One I took out the passenger window, and the other out the driver. It was SO cool to see the storm growing, and getting darker and moving towards us. It was a very bad storm, it had hail, tornado's and 60+mph winds with it. But the Lord was gracious and the storm split down the middle, and basically went around us. (We saw that happen too. Instead of being east and west of us, it was north and south.. and we could SEE it moving around us. So cool. God is good!) We were able to get everything done we needed to that day. :)

Sunday we took the day off... and after devotions and watching my awesome Church online, we set out for some adventure. :) Our original plan was to go somewhere in Wyoming or northern Colorado, but These two rocks were about a mile from us, so we decided to climb them instead, and we are SO glad we did. It was totally amazing.

 

 The Big one is Courthouse Rock and the smaller on is Jail Rock... we climbed both.

We took on Courthouse rock first.

 Half way up... Jail Rock.

 Stopped for a pictures with my man half way up. :)

 Annddd then we made it to the top.. which had the most incredible view!

 The boys I got to hang out with all weekend. They were such good sports... even when I held them up from being able to scale the rock in 5 minutes. I tried my best to keep up but when I couldn't, they were nothing but supportive... such gentlemen. :)

 This guy makes me feel like I'm on top of that rock every.single.day. Being his wife makes me smile. :)

 There were lots of bumble bee's at the top... but don't worry, they were the friendliest little things. This one just hung out on Matthias' arm for a good 5 minutes. :) (notice the bee of his forearm)

After climbing Courthouse, we climbed Jail rock.. but I didn't bring my phone with me for that one... It was much steeper (If you can't tell from the picture above) and required a lot more actual climbing, but it was loads of fun!

Monday Tuesday and Wednesday were full work days. The girls came out to help Monday and Tuesday, and everything was finished by Wednesday evening... Andrew and I were the last to leave on Thursday Afternoon after doing a few last minute things and making sure everything was finished. :)

 Tuesday evening, Andrew, Josiah and I went and climbed Courthouse rock again because Josiah wasn't there to do it with us Sunday. Climbing it at sunset was even more amazing that climbing it the first time.

 You can hardly see it in the pictures, but Chimney Rock is to the very right of the bluffs. It was much bigger in real life.

 

My God is AWESOME! 

 

I took so many pictures of the sunsets while we were out there. They were incredible and SO vibrant every night! This was the sunset Wednesday night. I have never seen the sky those colors before. It was so beautiful and lasted for so long. I was reminded of the verses that I shared below. There were so many times over the week that I just stood in awe of my God and His creation. It is truly beautiful.  :)

 "Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world 

stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it 

stood fast."

 Psalms 33:6-9

Our First Anniversary

To celebrate our one whole year of marriage, we took a little, 4 day weekend, trip to one of my favorite places in the world, New Smyrna Beach, FL.

Its terrible how often I resort to taking pictures on my phone, rather than lugging my huge {but awesome} camera around. Unfortunately, I was guilty of the aforementioned problem this weekend on our one year anniversary trip. We were just having so much fun, my camera got forgotten. But I did remember it, once... or twice? lol :)

Sunday was our last night, so even though it was the 4th, we decided to start celebrating a little early. We went out to dinner at a fun little beachy restaurant in New Smyrna, called Flip Flops. If you are ever in New Smyrna, check it out, it is so amazing! And it's one of the hidden gems, too! From the outside, it wouldn't appear to be a 5 star restaurant, but the food, is most definitely 5 star quality. It's actually run by a chef that was on some cooking show, I don't remember the name of it though. oops. :) 

If you need more persuading, here's what I ordered, try not to drool on your keyboard as you read it: Fresh caught Mahi-Mahi, topped with a coconut lime sauce, salsa, and grilled bananas. Oh was it ever good! I could eat it for every meal! And the fact that the mahi-mahi was fresh from the ocean made it even better.  Oh and that other thing, is a fried potato with parmesan cheese. That was really good, too! :)

ps. That is one of my many phone pictures that I took over the weekend. But i just had to share it. :)

When we came home from dinner, we finished off our celebration by cutting our wedding cake topper. But, this one was NOT a year old! :) One of the perks of getting our cake from the place we did, they make you a brand new cake topper for your one year anniversary, free of charge, technically. haha! :) Have you ever had one of the moments when you, taste something, or smell something that instantly brings you back to a certain memory? Well, when I took a bite of the cake, that happened, and I even said "wow! It tastes like our wedding!"

We got to spend lots of time on the beach, and at the pool on Saturday and Monday soaking up some sun, and enjoying the water. Sunday it actually only got up to about 60 degrees and there was 15-20 mph winds! But, it was sunny! So weird. We spent some time in the hot tub, but that was about the extent of our time outside for the day. 

Another phone picture. Isn't my iPhone amazing!?

I love long walks on the beach. It's one of my favorite things. How cliche, am I?! :) But really, walking along the edge of the water, listening to the waves crash, and feelings the sand under my feet just makes me a happy girl. It is so peaceful and so relaxing. Marriage and beaches are 2 of God's greatest creations. :)

After spending the day on the beach, Monday, we came back home and went out to eat again to celebrate our real anniversary. :) We had such a wonderful weekend, enjoying God's beautiful creation, reflecting back on our first year of marriage, and setting goals for our next year together. 

Thank you, Lord for your gift of marriage, and the man you have given to me to share it with! :)

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord,

 continue to live your lives in Him, 

 rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught,

 and overflowing with thankfulness."

Colossians 2:6-7

Andrew

Guess who's 6th birthday is today?!

This Guy! 

Today, we are celebrating my handsome, hunk of a husband's 6th Birthday.... yep, that's right. His 6th. :) 

{For those who haven't realized yet, today is February 29th...I'll let ya'll do the math and figure out his actually age. :)} I'm so excited to celebrate his first married birthday, and his first real birthday in 4 years! 

Happy Birthday, Andrew. I love you SO much!