MAV'S Game

 Even on a school night, we ventured to Dallas to party with the Garza's. Even with nosebleed seats the game was super fun! Reed worked his magic and found a great deal on Groupon for tickets. We're not huge Mav's fans or any basketball team for that matter, but we cheered them on and had a great time, even though they lost.

 Anything is extra fun with the Garza's.

It just feels good to be around them.
Like we're family.
Thanks for the fun night Garza's.
GO MAV'S!
    

B O Y E R S

 So lucky to have had this cute family stay at our house for a few days on their way to Houston from Oklahoma where they are going to Med school. Braden, Mandy, Brightyn and Jack were so patient to put up with our crazy family in close quarters. They got to our house Sunday morning and were able to come to church with us, and then we just hung out! Ate some yummy food and played a great game of Wizard, which was a must just like old times. We could have stayed up for hours and hours talking and playing, but we had late nights with kids and early mornings for school. Monday I took them to see the historic stockyards downtown. Who doesn't think the famous long horns are so sweet?! After the stockyards we went and ate lunch at a park.

 My boys LOVE Brightyn and Jack. Cohen still keeps talking about his "new" friend Brightyn. The last time they saw each other Brightyn was TINY and Co wasn't much bigger. They are just under a year apart and they had a BLAST playing together. It was so much fun watching them and seeing, like always, the difference between boys and girls. Brightyn is into Princesses and I LOVE her! She is a doll and makes me want to have a girl in our little family one day. And baby Jack is the happiest baby alive. All smiles even when he had two rough nights of sleep. Poor boy.

 Brend wanted to be in Jack's personal space as often as possible. Jack was so patient and still all smiles!

 Wish we lived next door to the Boyers! 
Mandy and I and our kids would be inseparable.

Thank You Boyers for staying with us, and being such good friends, for teaching me how to be a better parent and mom and wife. I truly look up to you both.

We love and miss your darling family!

Hope to see you soon.
    

take me away!
Spring Break
(Part three)

The day finally came when Brock and I TOOK OFF on our get-a-way to Granbury, Texas. Only 45 mins south of where we live but we felt like we were thousands of miles away, in such a different town. A very nice, quaint, relaxing town. We stayed at Plantation Inn on Granbury Lake. 

We were like two kids running away from all our worries and responsibilities. We had no track of time, and were spontaneous for the most part, trying to accomplish everything on our list. We did it all! We were away only for 3 day, two nights, but it felt like a week or more. Granbury is so small that you can drive around and do so much in so little time. Wonderful! One thing we realized while on this trip is we are NOT big city people. We would much rather have a simple life, no commute down town, no more than a couple freeways. 
He I am next to General Hiram Bronson Granbury (March 1, 1831 – November 30, 1864) was a lawyer and county judge in Texas before the American Civil War ("Civil War"). He organized a volunteer company for the Confederate States Army after the outbreak of the Civil War and became its captain. He rose to the grade of brigadier general in the Confederate army. Granbury was one of the six Confederate generals killed at the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864. This monument is "down town" in Town Square, the happening part of town, full of shops and historical sites.

Our favorite part of the trip?? THE BEACH! We spent at least 10 hours there. No, it's not the ocean, but just as good. The city made this park on Granbury Lake, imported nice white sand and cabanas. We mostly sun bathed, played frisbee and people watched cause the water was freezing cold still. I got in to my knees to cool off and Brock dove in of course. The weather was PERFECT if you ask us, 80-85 degrees and blue skies. It was a little windy one day, but the beach and our activities that day were still great.

Sportin' the sun hats! I'm sure we looked like foreigners. This was right as we got into town and checked in. We didn't even change before headed to relax in the sunshine.

The first night we went to the famous Babe's restaurant. Nothing special, but now we can at least say we've been to Babe's.

One of my FAVORITE parts of the trip was being able to sleep in with Brock then go running with him. One morning we ran around our Inn and explored a little. We did some tree climbing and "post yoga". Acted like kids. The other morning we ran to the beach and back.

We took a free historic trolley ride around town. It picked us up from our room, which was nice. The driver was a doll. His name was James, and he had an extremely think texan accent. Combined the accent and the fuzzy overhead speaker he was a little hard to understand but he was great! Very entertaining. When we told him we were from St. George, Utah he brought up Salt Lake City where "that Mormon temple is". He then asked if we had ever been to that Brigham Young home? We said yes and he then he rambled something along the lines of "woo ee, I heard he had enought wives to fill two floors of that house, one in each room.....who knows how many kids that man had". Brock and I just laughed.

Here are some things we saw on the trolley ride:

The two houses are very famous bed & breakfasts that claim to have ghosts in the upstairs? The train car is hundreds of years old from the old Railroad there. It's never been moved and never will be, they say.

After the trolley ride, we wanted to explore more about the places we heard so much about. Our first stop was Hood County Jail Museum. This place was very interesting. Just the fact that it was up and running with inmates in the 1970 was intriguing.  

Pretty nasty place. There was a mens side and a womens side. They both would scrape out tiny peep holes to "spy" on each other.

In the city cemetery, we found the graves of Gen. Granbury and his wife, the grandson of Davy Crockett and Jesse James. Jesse James is claimed to have been buried in Granbury as well as in Missouri. We pretend it was Granbury, that make our trip more fun. :)

The HUGE tree on the left is older than Texas as well as the house behind it. The little green house was/is a log cabin from the 1800's and was never torn down, a house was just built around it. Years later then tore a wall down and realized the log house was still there. It was a safe house back in the day, now it's a boutique/museum. The bottom right picture is a plane the the Veteran's Museum that we just drove by.

Dinner at the Dock was a different experience. Such a cool place right on the water, literally. We have a little bit of a bad taste in our mouth for it, for two reasons. It took over an hour just to get our food, and Brock's catfish was half way cooked. The place had just got a new kitchen crew and things were crazy. We felt awkward and embarrassed for all the workers, but still a good memory. My coconut shrimp was delicious, and we didn't have to pay for the catfish.

Brock's raw fish, and the real fish swimming in their cage, waiting to be cooked. Brock had eyes on multiple bikes in the parking lot. Keep dreaming baby! Maybe one day when you live close to your work and can drive it there and back home.

MORE BEACH!! We love the beach.

We found a way cool Antique Mall by the beach. It was be such a good place to find treasures to remodel or decorate with.

That's my kind of coke can.

And a sweet old lawn mower.

Bathtubs, swingset, washing machine, jukebox...

Old coke machine, vacuum, waffle maker and radio.

Friday night we went to the drive-in movie. It's a classic and still up and running. We watched two movies there, Escape to Planet Earth and Safe Haven. They always play a family film first then an adult or PG-13. We both enjoyed Safe Haven a lot. Very cool place, every one turns their cars and lights off and the sound plays through the radios. Most people bring trucks to sit in back, our sweet mini van worked just fine! Ha.

MORE BEACH! Brock's cool picture of my silly silhouette.

We went on a great weekend and didn't even know it. It was the huge celebration of Gen. Granbury's birthday. This town goes all out for holidays, even small ones. There was a big party around Town Square with booths, food, rides, games and the even reenacted scenes from Gen. Granbury's time, with a humorous twist. They handed out free cake and ice cream to everyone.

Below, Brock entering to win a bike or 20,000 dollars, and a look of the reenactment in from on the old Theater where plays are still held.

Here's the Granbury Opera House that is no longer open. This is where John Wilkes Booth worked as a famous actor.

One of two breathtaking sunsets in Granbury.

What a perfect trip. We made every minute count, and loved it. We were young and in love, and laughed and played til we dropped every night. A few things I don't want to forget: eating a half gallon of ice cream in a day (thank you fridge/freezer in our room) watching the finale of White Collar, jumping on our bed, running to the beach and doing lunges across it, naps on the beach, our talks, the feeling of no track of time and the feeling of being next to my love and best friend for three days. Words can't describe how much we enjoyed each other and this time we had to be alone with no distractions. Well needed trip, that needs to happen at least twice a year. Or more!
Thank You Brock, for making Granbury so memorable!

*Side note: The boys did great while we were gone. I was expecting Brendon to have a hard time since this was our first time leaving him, but they both had a great time. They stayed with the sweet Grajeda Family Thursday afternoon until Friday evening. Then Audi Ashton from our ward came and stayed at our house with them Friday until Saturday afternoon. We got home a little later than planned/wanted due to the overheating of our car. Not cool! Pretty sure the radiator has a leak. We filled it up with a gallon and a half of distilled water. Boo! for car troubles. But YAY for get-a-ways!!  

S p r i n g   B r e a k

{Part two}

Tuesday Morning we headed to the Jump House and the boys jumped their little hearts out. No pics, cause we already have one million from past jumping times. After jumping, we headed to Johnson's Park in Keller for a picnic and play time.

Cohen did a pretty good jon snapping this pic of Brock and I, the finger in the corner is my favorite part.

 

 Monkey bars and matching shoes. :)

 Mr. Lady Bug loved our banana.

 Wednesday we relaxed at home and got some things done, then after naptime we headed to the Zoooooooooo!

The giraffes and Lion were Cohen and I's favorite of the day.

Cool elephants enjoying their day, Grouchy Cohen not enjoying himself so much. Maybe he has seen the zoo one too many times, not sure what his deal was. Tired? Needed alone time? Bored?

Dad and Brend spotting the BIG LION! Roar!!!

I have never heard the Lion's roar while we were by them at the zoo, until this day. This HUGE guy below let out one heck of a ROAR, that made everyone stop in their tracks and not move a muscle. I have it filmed on my video camera, we loved it!

This handsome young boy of mine is looking a WEE BIT BIG for me! He is still a sweetheart even if he's a tiny bit grouchy. I may or may not have had to bribe him to take a picture with me....

CRAZY-busy-spring-break-half-price-admission day at the ZOO but we LOVED it.
Anything is fun and memorable when us FOUR are together.