Yikes

It's been awhile...not like that Staid song from 2001, but that is officially stuck in my head now.  Ha.

As I write this I am playing the music video on You Tube and Tyler is officially making fun of me for being a nerd.  Oh well, he has me till death :) 

Anyways, been thinking about blogging for awhile but lets just say I've had a bit of writers block.  

Will post updates soon :)

M

P.S. A little treat for the rest of your week...you're welcome.

29 Ways to Stay Creative

I found this list online and felt very inspired by it today.  I hope it will inspire you!  Happy Tuesday!!

365 Days

It's hard to believe it's been an entire year since Tyler and I got married! Seriously - it flew by.  So I thought it'd be fun to share a few pictures from this past year.  These are all since we moved to Austin...

We got to see Tech play in Austin for the first time, sadly we lost. 

After living in Texas our whole lives we finally got to visit the state capital and take a tour.  Here's Tyler with one of the cannons out front.

In December Tyler was the minister for his first wedding. 

We also took a group of students to see the Christmas tree at Zilker Park.  This is a picture under the tree.  If you spin-around fast you see the swirls. It was cool, but also really cold that night. 

For Tyler's Birthday I made my first recipe from Pintrest - homemade cinnamon-sugar donuts.  We also went and ate at Kreutz, which supposedly has the best BBQ...the only catch is there's no sauce and no eating utensils.  

We spent our first Christmas as a married couple in St. Louis with Tyler's Dad and Step-mom.  We decided to fly out of Dallas and got to see Tyler's Mom and my parents before and after too which was really fun.  

Here's a picture of me and our nephew Kade! Love this kid!! Hard to believe he's 14 months.  He's running around everywhere and getting into everything.  

Ok sorry had to show another one of the little guy. I'm a bit obsessed...he's just so cute!

We went to Fredricksburg (an hour and a half outside of Austin) to celebrate our one year anniversary.  It was perfect.  We stayed at a bed & breakfast and shopped around town.  This is us outside the airport diner where we got to watch planes take-off and land while we had lunch.  

Hunting Season

This weekend was the opening weekend for deer hunting season.  I've always considered myself not much of a hunter, until this past week.  I was officially initiated to Central Texas...  

Wednesday night as Tyler finished up stuff at our church I decided to head home since we took different cars.  The road we take back to our apartment is a two lane road, until we hit the highway.  Well just before I hit the highway a full-grown doe, ran out in-front of my car.  Without anytime to react my car, which was going around 40 - 45 mph, hit the deer.  

I'm a Dallas girl.  I've lived there 23 of my 27 years of life.  Meaning - I had no idea what to do if I were to hit a deer.  We never had to worry about deer in suburbia.  So to spare you the details, I kept driving.  I know, I'm a terrible person.  In a state of shock and panic I had no idea what to do...so I kept going.  I hit the deer, ran over the deer and didn't pull over until I came to a gas station where I could see what the 100-200 pound deer did to my car.  

I've include a picture of my poor Mazda.  Although it messed it up pretty good, I consider myself a very lucky girl.  It could have been much, much worse. The deer could have popped up on my hood and gone through my windshield, which could have seriously injured me.  

I'm thankful that my car was still drivable after the accident, that I walked away completely un-injured and that I have car insurance.  Right now I'm rockin' a rental while the Mazda is in the shop.  

Waiting for Fall

So tonight during the baseball playoffs I decided to play around on our blog to check out new updates.  So, here I am two hours later after re-designing the blog.  Hope you all like it!  I really had no idea what I was doing but enjoyed learning as I went.  Not to mention, I also learned how to follow people.  It's funny how the simple things can hang us up sometimes.

So I know technically fall is here, but I don't really consider it to be fall until I am able to wear scarves.  So here I am holding out for some cooler weather.  Although it's nice having 80 degree weather, I'd like to enter back into the land of scarves, sweaters and boots.  Who's with me?

I got your comments from last week and I will take pictures of our place this week and post them for all of you to see...

Summer has come and gone

So last time I updated we had only lived in Austin for a few weeks, it has nearly been four months now...crazy.  The apartment is fully decorated, Tyler has settled into his new job nicely and now after taking some time off I am officially on the job hunt. 

A few highlights from our summer were going on a mission trip to Progresso, a beach trip to Port Aransas and a family vacation to Playa del Carmen...

Our church took a group of about 25 people to Progresso.  We had the opportunity to build an additional bedroom and bathroom for a mother and her two children who were living in a one-room house.  We also held a vacation bible school for the children in the neighborhood.  It was such a humbling experience being able to help out this family.  Julia (the mom) made our whole team tamales and they are by far the best tamales I’ve ever had!

In Port Aransas we took our church youth group on a beach trip.  We enjoyed watching students feed seagulls french fries on the balcony of the original Whataburger.  They also took mud baths in a sandy beach hole.  It was hilarious to say the least.

We went to Playa del Carmen with Tyler’s family for a week.  It was my first time to Mexico, with the exception of my two visits across the border forever ago.  The resort was beautiful and we had such a great time.  My favorite part was planking in playa…don’t ask questions. Haha.

Sweet Home Austin

We've officially been Austinites for two weeks now.  Hard to believe.  Almost every box has been unpacked...Wahoo! Our apartment is starting to look like people actually live here, instead of a land of cardboard.  Everyone has been super nice in our complex.  We're really interested to meet our neighbors above us and their small children or large dogs.  We're pretty sure they have racing contests from one side of the apartment to the other.  Tyler thinks their herding buffalo...who knows.

Since we got here things have been anything but dull.  For the past two weeks, while Tyler goes to work I have stayed home, unpacked and decorated.  And maybe I've occasionally made my way to the pool and the mall :).  We also floated the river with some people for our first time last weekend.  Loved it!! We made the short 20 minute drive to San Marcos to float the river by Texas State.  I have to say it was a great way to spend the afternoon in 100+ degree heat.

I also noticed that the landscape is quite different down here.  When they say the hill country, they mean it.  To give you some background, I've only lived in Dallas and Lubbock.  Two amazingly flat places. You can see downtown Dallas from like 10 miles away...not so much here.  While driving to the Barton Creek Mall this week I had a momentary freak out moment where all I could see were hills and no mall.  Come to find out, the mall is on a hill. Problem solved, although frightening at the moment when you have no idea where you are.

We've also done our best to try good local food down here.  Dan's Hamburger's = delicious. Kirby's Lane queso = delicious.  Amy's Mexican Vanilla Ice Cream = mmm, delicious.  More to come in my next update!

- Meghan