a wonderful weekend

This Friday, Jared and I took a trip over to Houston to celebrate our one year anniversary.  Our first stop was the Houston Temple.  We were able to attend a session and then walk around and take some pictures.  It was a gorgeous afternoon :D

 

Later that evening, Jared took me to downtown Houston and surprised me with a wonderful dinner :D  This place was amazing.  There was a huge fish tank in the middle of the restaurant - about ten trucks all parked next to each other.

After dinner we walked around the aquarium for a discounted price because we ate dinner there :D

Below are some of the activities we did.

Jared being silly . . . thinking he's a captain

Kissing fish :D

Those are stingrays . . . We both touched one.

 Our ride through the aquarium and shark tank!

Saturday was another wonderful adventure.  Jared took me to the Nasa Space Center :D

We saw mission control (sorry the picture is dark) and to see rockets.

I know, lots of stuff this last weekend, BUT our last stop on the way home was a gas station called Buc-ee's, it's HUGE.  It's practically a grocery store, so naturally we had to take a picture with the beaver out front - if you couldn't tell, Jared is mimicking the beaver :D

best year ever

This last Sunday, the 24th, Jared and I celebrated one year of marriage.  Best year ever with this man.

I woke him up and told him he was going to go on a scavenger hunt :)

Before he got started, he made me a wonderful french toast and sausage breakfast.  YUMMY

I wrote quotes on each gift and he had to follow the clues to find the next one.  I ALSO made him wait to unwrap each present until the sticky note with a time on it said he could open it (every two hours for the whole day - from 8am to 9pm).  Needless to say, this man was anxious.

Here's some of the pictures of his presents.

       

It was such a fun day watching his facial expressions each time he opened another present.

BEST YEAR EVER, and we can't wait for the years to come.

crazy shenanigans

First off, let me apologize for how long it has been . . .  Second, someone very wonderful (*cough, jared, cough*) pointed out to me, that our blog should have more pictures of us . . . yeah I'm usually behind the lens.  I had to change that . . . I have what's called photographer syndrome :)  SO when we have adventures, I've tried to be a little better about taking pictures of us.

My work has been having themed parties every Friday night, and this last Friday it was Candyland themed.  I somehow convinced Jared to come with me, and he even dressed up :)  We had lots of fun!

Ok before I get too ahead of myself, let me first back up all the way to Halloween.  Jared and I took a trip to Target to get some ideas, turns out we just messed around for about an hour . . . and Jared tried this wonderful hat on :)

However, we wanted to coordinate our costumes (and by we, I mean me), and I didn't have any ideas to go with this hat, so we ditched it.  I kept looking and looking for ideas that were inexpensive and fun. Found it :)

Jared was such a good sport and wore this costume.  For those who don't know, we're Google maps.  We went to our Church ward's Trunk or Treat and most of the kids just looked at us with confusion; however, there were some smarties that figured us out.  The adults all thought it was hilarious.

Ok, now fast forwarding a couple weeks.  I have wanted to make zucchini bread ever since we got married, and we finally did it.  My cousin Kristi was sweet enough to give us her recipe and the loaves turned out delicious :) Here's a before and after picture.

The middle of November, Christmas things started popping up in the stores.  I decided to get a little crafty and decorate :)  These are just a few of the crafts.

houston weekend

Jared and I were able to drive out to Houston a couple Saturdays ago for my work.  The event was known as a showcase - which is where all the students get to show off their progress in all the dances that they are working on.  Here's a few pictures I was able to take of their performances.

We also got to stay in the stinkin' nice hotel that my work paid for!  Needless to say, it was a wonderful weekend away.

After a long Saturday, we started to head back to Austin at about 10 p.m.  We made a quick stop by the beautiful Houston Temple.  Seeing it at night was absolutely amazing!  Around the area on nearby streets there were lots and lots of mansions.  The Temple was behind some trees, but because it was all lite up, it looked like a castle.

yay family

Last weekend we had the wonderful chance to fly up to Boise, Idaho and participate in the lovely Sarah Owen Dennis' and Braden Dennis' wedding!  Seeing all of the family was fantastic!

Aren't they adorable??

 aww cute, cutting their cake

loved the balloons!

busy saturdays

A couple of Saturdays ago I participated in a "dancing with the stars" event with the dance studio that I teach at.  Arthur Murray helped with a fundraiser put on by the YMCA in our area.  Needless to say, this was an expensive fundraiser, but well worth it.  Jared came and supported which I was very grateful for!  The event lasted from 5 to about 1030.  We were both exhausted after all the dancing.  The instructors of the dance studio were the professionals and we had 20 lessons to teach our partner (who was an important "star" of the area).  This night was to show off our performances.  My partner, Tony Dale, is a state representative and did a fantastic job learning how to dance the ChaCha.

Here are all of my co-workers!

And the whole gang!

This last Saturday, Jared and I were able to again attend the San Antonio Temple with our ward.  It was wonderful and we all took a bus which was relaxing not to have to worry about traffic.  We spent the whole afternoon there and then went out to dinner at a wonderful restaurant that was generously paid for.  Another busy Saturday for us!  And they just keep coming!

our weekend

Friday night I worked all evening :(  Jared, however, had a nice relaxing evening enjoying coding here at home.  I got home about 11pm and was exhausted after dancing all night.  The next morning we got up at 730ish and headed over to our Church building and prepared for the ward breakfast that morning at 9am.  Let's just say it was a crazy morning and we didn't end up leaving the building until about 1130am because of clean-up.  Great turn out though for the breakfast.  When we got home we weren't really hungry for lunch so we just lounged around and after a little while I zonked for 2 1/2 hours.  After a nice refreshing nap, Jared and I thought we should probably go grocery shopping because we were running out of meal ideas.

We really wanted to go out and be social Saturday night, so we asked a bunch of friends to go to Gourdough's (gourmet donuts/doughnuts - I never know which spelling)!  They deep fry their own doughnuts and then top it with a bunch of various fruits, candy, anything.  We got the doughnut called the carney.  This doughnut is topped with apple pie filling and roasted peanuts.  DELICIOUS!  One is definitely enough for two people.

We'd never been and wanted to see what the hype was all about.  It was worth it, but little did we know . . . the BYU vs Texas game was on.  I was shocked when our friends wanted to go here over watching the game . . . (gourdough's must be really good we thought).  We decided to go downtown during half time.  Gourdough's was amazing!  BYU beat Texas 40-21.  Needless to say, it was a good night, but shhh don't tell people we were cheering for BYU . . . we don't want to get run out of Austin :)

another day

Jared and I decided to make another adventurous trip to San Antonio this last weekend.  We left just after lunch and it's supposed to be a little over an hour drive, but traffic always seems to be not so friendly.  It ended up taking us about an hour and forty-five minutes . . .Our first stop was our LDS Temple, beautiful as always and so great to see so many people from Austin :)

Our next stop was dinner.  We wanted to go to a pasta/pizza place, but didn't want to drive to far.  The gps found a place called Zio's Italian Kitchen, it was amazing and we highly recommend it :)

When we first got there . . . we weren't quite sure what to expect.  It looked okay from the outside.  We went inside and it was adorable.  All the waiters were clean cut and sharp looking (all black with ties).  With a place looking that well put together, we were grateful we chose here.  All of their tables were covered with white paper as their table cloths, haha equipped with crayons :)  After a little coaxing, I convinced Jared to color with me.  So much fun and entertaining.  The food was fabulous.  It's a must go.

After a delicious dinner, we headed to downtown San Antonio.  We found super cheap parking for only $2.50!  Usually it's $5 or $10 for the day.  We got lucky.  We walked around the shops and places around downtown and happened upon a young man who was spray painting art.  It was the coolest thing ever (but very smelly), we couldn't stand too close.  Check out his work, we watched from beginning to end and still didn't believe that the only thing he used was spray paint, paper, lighter and a knife.  This picture below is similar to the one he did in front of us.  Some of his work is a little more abstract than we liked, but some are super amazing and talented.

After walking around downtown for a while, stopping into shops and stores and entertainment places (that were ridiculously overpriced), we decided that we'd seen enough :)  Great, fun, exciting trip to San Antonio.  We loved exploring and getting in a good walk downtown.