A Day at the Beach

Well, actually it ended up only being a morning at the beach but we did manage to make it to Galveston in July with the dogs for some beach time. We have lived in Houston for over 3 years and had never been to the beach at Galveston. Since hurricane Ike, I really had wanted to get down there and see how Galveston was doing but seeing as it is an hour-and-a-half drive from our house, and how busy we have been lately, we didn’t really have the time to make it down there. This summer, we had quite a bit more free time so I was happy when Evan brought up the idea to go one Saturday and to take the dogs. While we both knew there was a very good possibility that they would both hate it, we were willing to try it. It was A LOT of fun! While Baxter wasn’t crazy about the water, he willingly went in if we were all there and we stayed where it was pretty shallow. Jersey had a blast jumping around and running from the oncoming waves. We were both surprised with how deep she was willing to go. We stayed at the beach for about an hour but it was great and I am really happy we went. Here are some pictures:


Checking out the beach


Baxter was not too sure about the water


Jersey enjoying the ocean


Relaxing at the beach....don't you love our dog blanket?

The parts of Galveston we drove around looked pretty good. It was weird to drive on the part of I-45 that we had seen covered with boats and other debris right after the hurricane on the news. It was also sad to see all the dead trees. Every tree we saw was dead. It was encouraging to see people shopping and sight seeing along The Strand. I am thankful we had one last opportunity to go to Galveston.

A Few Catch Up Posts

While I am in San Antonio for a couple of weeks I am going to do some catching up from the second half of the summer. I just have a bunch of really cute pictures I want to post. The next post about new stuff will be about our house hunting visit to Charleston in about a week or so.

It is official...

We are moving to Charleston, WV. We will be moving the week of October 19th. The movers actually came last week and packed up our house and put our stuff into storage. We will have them deliver it to us when we get to Charleston the week of October 26th. We are very excited and thankful for this opportunity. It has been a long journey. While it isn't quite over yet, we at least have a better idea now of what the next chapter will look like. God has been faithful at every step and we are excited to see what He has for us in Charleston. I am staying with my family in San Antonio until we leave for West Virginia so hopefully, I can do some catching up on the blog over the next couple of weeks.

Thanks again to all our friends and family for their love and support!

An Update

So I realize that I haven’t posted anything to the blog in awhile and that at the beginning of the summer, I promised to post more regularly. We have had a very interesting summer and I am going to do a bit of catching up in the next few posts. Before I do that, I will update everyone as to our situation a little. We will be finding out next week more definitively when we will be moving to Charleston, WV. Right now it is looking like the middle or end of October. There is a possibility that we won’t be moving to Charleston at all. Next week we will know more about where we will be this fall.

Waiting has been difficult but it has been a great time of reflection on what God has been doing over the last year. It has also been a great lesson in trusting God with every aspect of our lives. God has something planned for us. It may end up looking different than the plan I would have chosen, but it is best. Believe me, the last 4 months have looked very different than we would have predicted, but here we are and I believe we are better for it. Having gone through and survived other difficult times, it is exciting to see what God has panned this time. My favorite scripture verse about situations like this is Habakkuk 1:5. It says,

"Look at the nations and watch—
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told.”

I admit that if you would have told me a year-and-a-half ago that we would be where we are now, I would have had a hard time believing it. But here we are, and in so many ways, God has shown me that this is where we are supposed to be. While we were tempted to close the door at various points along this journey, we have decided to keep walking on this path until He closes the door.

4th of July

We went to San Antonio to visit family for the 4th of July weekend. It was nice to hang out with family and celebrate the holiday. We went to the Missions (AA baseball team) game on Saturday evening with my parents and sister. IT WAS REALLY HOT!!! It was still fun and a good excuse to get a snow cone. After the game (the Missions lost), Robert Earl Keen played a concert and there were fireworks. No matter how old I get, fireworks never get old!

The whole weekend was great! The only downside was when we were headed back home. We got about half way to Houston and there was a huge traffic jam. It eventually cleared but then there was another one. For miles before both jams, we had seen this unusual cloud of smoke rising ahead of us. We weren't sure if it had to do with the traffic or not. We eventually decided to take a detour and head up to 290 to get into town instead of staying on I-10. It turns out that there was a forest fire along the highway (near Columbus) that had been burning for a couple of days and that was where all the smoke came from. Even as we came into Houston, you could see a gray haze coming from the west. The usual 3 hour drive back home from San Antonio turned into a 5 hour adventure but we eventually made it home safely.

Here are some pictures:[caption id="attachment_281" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Lisa, Mom, and Dad enjoying the concert after the baseball game"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_282" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Robert Earl Keen plays on a stage behind second base after the Missions game on the 4th of July"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_283" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Evan and I enjoying the concert after the baseball game"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_284" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="The smoke we saw while driving back to Houston on July 5th"][/caption]

Kristi's Baby Shower

About three weeks ago, I took part in hosting a baby shower for one of the girls from our small group, Kristi. Kristi and her husband Chet are expecting a baby girl, Adalyn, at the end of July. It was a lot of fun and the shower turned out really well. Not many people were able to attend, but we still had a great time. Teresa, who graciously let us use her house for the shower, also made all the food. Teresa is not only an expert on all things culinary, but she is also the bravest cook I know. When we have Bible study at her house, you can always expect something different but delicious for dinner. My favorite dinner so far was the night she made Pho and spring rolls. Anyway, we were just going to have fixings for sandwiches but Teresa exceeded the expectations by making the bread, roasting and slicing the chicken (with her food slicer), and made potato chips. Everything was delicious. I made coconut cupcakes for dessert that also turned out pretty good. I am terrible at icing cupcakes and I ran out of time so I brought them to ice at Teresa's house before the shower started. You'll see in the pictures that the ones Teresa iced look great while mine are the ones with the icing running down the sides. I will definitely make these cupcakes again for showers in the future but I will work on my icing technique.

We also played a fun game that Shae put together. She made two posters covered with sticky notes that were numbered and had pregnancy terms written under them. You had to choose numbers from each poster hoping to find that you had matched pregnancy terms (like playing a game of Memory). If you found a match, you won candy that went with that term. For example, lets say you were able to find the numbers that both had the term "breast feeding", then you got a Milky Way. It was a great game!

Overall the shower was great and Kristi received a lot of great things. Only about a week and a half left before Baby Adalyn gets to see all of them for herself!

Here are some pictures:

[caption id="attachment_288" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="The beautiful table with the delicious food"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_289" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="The cupcakes (iced by Teresa)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_290" align="aligncenter" width="441" caption="One of the cupcakes I iced"][/caption]

Ali's Wedding

We had the privilege of attending a great wedding the last weekend in June. The wedding was that of Evan's sister's husband's sister (did you follow that one?) Allison and her now husband Richard. I know it may seem weird to some people that we were invited seeing as we are not part of the immediate family but it seemed normal to us. Dave's (Evan's sister's husband) family has a great relationship with Evan's family. In fact, Dave and Allison's parents hosted Evan and I's engagement party at their ranch in Bedias.

Originally, we were not sure we would be able to attend the wedding because we thought we would be in D.C. this summer. Since our plans changed and we have been in town we were excited to be able to go. Ali and Richard also asked me to sing at their wedding. It started out that I was just going to sing with Dave on a song he wrote for them that was to be played during the lighting of the unity candle. It turned into singing all the mass parts and the songs during communion too. I had only sung at one wedding before (my brother's) but was honored to do it, even if I was a little nervous. Thankfully, I was able to meet and practice with the pianist the Wednesday before the wedding and from that point on, I felt really good about the whole thing. Peter, the pianist was incredibly talented and I knew he would make both of us sound great :) I was also really thankful that Ali and Richard were happy. They attended the practice and it was the first time either one of them had heard me sing so I was relieved that they were satisfied with me and the music Peter and I suggested.

Leading up to the wedding was a little stressful because while it was supposed to be at 3:30 PM, there was a quincinera at 2:30, and then we had to be out in time for Saturday mass at 5:00. We all knew that we would have little if any time to set up microphones, music stands, flowers, etc. I would just like to brag on Evan and the wonderful job he did stepping up to help get everything set up when we were able to get into the church at about 3:15. Everyone was actually ready to go about 3:32 but the priest was late because he was caught in traffic. I am not sure but I think it was about 3:50 when the wedding started.

The wedding was BEAUTIFUL!!! The church, the bridesmaids, the BRIDE!!! It was all wonderful. There were a few moments of confusion like when Dave and I ran over to sing the unity candle song but the priest didn't realize there was going to be a song so he encouraged Ali and Richard to light it while he talked about the symbolism. All the while, Dave and I were on edge waiting for an opportunity to start but it didn't come until after they were finished. We still got to sing the song and it went really well. Dave did a great job writing and performing the song and it was an honor to get to sing it with him. The wedding was over with about 7 minutes to take pictures before 5:00 mass started. I am sure that the average spectator didn't even notice how stressed some of us where about the time and the confusion due to the fact that the priest couldn't make the rehearsal the night before. Page (who was a bridesmaid) and I talked about how it was probably only people like us, who were involved enough to know and who were prone to over-stress about plans and preparation, that cared or even noticed. Thankfully, my fall onto the piano bench also went unnoticed by just about everyone. I was getting up from my seat to head to the microphone for what I thought was the unity candle song and while I successfully cleared the cord that I was trying to step over, my heel caught the back of my dress and I came tumbling down. Thankfully, again, the piano bench was where it was, otherwise my whole body would have landed on the tile floor instead of just bruising my knee. I was terribly startled and embarrassed convinced that I had caused a huge distraction. Thankfully, the piano was pretty much out of sight and not even Evan, who was only about 10 feet away but out of sight because of the alcove we were in, knew I fell. I did rip my favorite dress, but I have a great tailor who was able to repair it. You can only tell it was repaired if you look at it really closely.

Here are some pictures from the wedding:

Ali and Richard's Rehearsal and Wedding

Congratulations Allison and Richard!!!