Sunday, April 22, 2012

Special Olympics, Main Street Arts festival

Saturday morning began bright and early for us, we were at the UT Arlington Stadium for volunteering for Special Olympics by 8am.
The morning began slow... We were helping out the atheletes get from the stands to the starting line.

It really was a humbling experience to help out, and realize of how much we truly are blessed.  The people that we helped were some of the nicest people, and they were very competetive... they all were going to be in "first place" but they were so excited to be there, and to run, it really was nice. all of them were just so excited, and so happy.
Our "shift" was from 8am-12pm.
our races ended a little early (11am) and we ate lunch at the group tent - then we had a group picture, and we were headed back to Steves house at noon. :) we went to his house, took a little nap and got

About 4ish we headed back out, went to Fort Worth for the Main Street arts festival. We only spent about an hour or so out there, (lots of people, didnt see a whole lot that interested us) so we went back and made dinner. :)

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Camping at Lake Mineral Wells

Steve had never been camping.

Taylor had been camping since she was 'knee high to a grasshopper' ---

Steve had been wanting to go camping, so we decided to go camping, it was a quick decision. we had about a week to prepare.

Taylor suggested a place just a bout an hour and a half away (just in case if something happened)

We watched the weather-- as the week was going on , they had anticipated rain during the week, but then kept pushing it back,  then the weather people said "it will be raining this weekend...."
we were very much hoping that it would either fizzle out and not reach us, or they could push it back for a few more days.

Nope.

We went anyways-- we loaded everything up in the car... tent,  sleeping bags, blankets, pillows (well we actually forgot pillows.) lantern, flashlight, chairs, food, icechest... cameras, everything we needed.
and headed out west about an hour and a half, and arrived at our destination, in time to set up our tent...


set it all up got it all ready, then pulled out our dinner (sandiwches) got everything out, began to make our sandwiches and then was getting dark... the bugs came out all of a sudden, (irritating) then we quickly ate dinner-- then we headed to the tent - had an early bedtime.

Didnt sleep much during the night, it was windy, and made the tent flap - and make noise... so would wake us both up, so we didnt get a good nights rest whatsoever.
Just before daylight, before the birds were even chirping, we were about ready to go ahead and get our day started....
right at daybreak, we had breakfast. (bagels, yogurt)
then we headed out for a hike.
we hiked for a few hours, it was about 10 am when we headed back to the campsite (ready for a nap)
kinda glad we had gone out so early, we had the trails to ourselves, so nice and peaceful.

We got back to the campsite, and ended up taking a 2 hour nap, since we didnt sleep well at all the night before.

We had lunch (sandwiches again, i know very original here.) -

Then we decided to head to town- we needed some things for dinner- so off we went to get ice and charcoal. We were going to make burgers for dinner. so we got our stuff, as we were out, i was keepign an eye on the weather on my phone...

high chance of storms during the night.

We went ahead and did some things that we wanted to do -
We went for a nice hike, then Steve wanted to go for a swim, so we went to the swimming area for about 30 mins or so. When we got back to the campsite we talked on what we would do - do we stay... Stick it out, and deal with it?... Do we stay and at last second pack up?... do we go ahead and pack up and get out of here?....
So we decided fot the time being we would go ahead and pack up things that we knew we wouldnt need, stick around for dinner, then during the night when it got bad, then we would take down the tent and would head home.

so we began to pack stuff in the car. then I (Taylor) got to thinnking of how miserable that would be--- the wind will be picking up, if we couldnt sleep last night because of the wind, we definitely wouldnt be able to sleep that night because of the high wind.
So I suggested that maybe we need to think about going on and heading home - (everyone else was packing up their tents....so that was a good indicator) I knew that we wouldnt get much sleep, then it would be raining, so would be just muddy and just difficult trying to take down the tent, get it in the car and everything while raining, possibly hailing, then driving home while storming, all the while we are exhausted. just knew it would be a complete disaster.
Steve agreed that would be best to do that... just go ahead, pack up and head home.

so we werent rushed - we packed everything up, and we headed out... we stopped on our way out at a church (sister church to mine.) and we took some pictures of some flowers and stuff out there, then we went on back to steve's house and we cooked dinner (bug free!)

Steve does want to go back out and go camping again, so we will definitely be doing it again, hopefully it wont get cut short from storms.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

San Francisco for Easter

This past weekend we went to go see Steve's family for Easter out in California.
We got out there Thursday night, and didnt do a whole lot,
Friday Steve took me to go to Trader Joes, a store out there, that is coming to Texas... I wanted to see what it was all about. I walked in, and loved it, (especially the prices) and some good food too. :) I absolutely cannot wait until we have one here in Ft worth. :)

We then went with his parents, and went to the ferry - rode the ferry across the bay into San Francisco.

















 then we spent the day in san francisco, spent quite a bit of time in a building, like a market place then we had lunch with his brother and his Fiance

, then we went and hopped on a cable car and rode that for a bit,

jumped off, and then spent a few minutes down by the wharf, then we headed back we were running short on time since we had to be at the ferry by 4:15, we waited in the line for a cable car, but the line was long, and the cable cars were slow, we decided to "hike' back to the ferry.... then we took the ferry back and then went back to the house we rested/ napped, then we went to his brothers house and had dinner with him and his fiance. it was a fantastic time, we really enjoyed our time with them. then we headed out....
We were supposed to go see a movie with his parents and younger brother, but we left too late, and we would have been about 30 mins late... plus we both were tired, so we went back to the house and went to bed.
saturday morning we got up and went to go look at his high school, then we went to a coffee shop  "Peet's" was delish!

 then we walked a little bit of a trail, then went home real fast and we then all went to a skydiving simulater thing... they all did it...i was the photographer.. they all had a wonderful time, and I had a fantastic time watching taking pics and video. :)

(Jon, Kendra,Steve,Jeff)

Steve Flying

We then went back home and started getting ready and went to church (I really liked it)

then afterwards Steve and I stopped at the store and got a few things so we could make a carrot cake that evening... then we went to the house had a wonderful dinner of Smoked ribs and chicken and all the fixin's :)

 then we all got in the kitchen and we all were working on desserts and such, for the next day. it was really good.

 then we all went upstairs and we watched "baby videos" then called it a night.

Sunday morning we got up and got ready for the day - for brunch with the family at Grandma's, did that, was delicious and we had a good time, was good to see all the grandparents. then we went home and rested and took a little nap, then Steve and I took a walk, and then some other family came over and we had appetizers, and then they left and we all had lamb... was delicious.then we went and started packing since we were leaving at 5:30am...
The next day we left and came home.
it was an absolutely wonderful trip. I had alot of fun, it really was nice to spend so much time with the family. I am so happy that I was able to go. and cannot wait to go again.

 I have videos that I'll have to work on getting it on here...
My photo album of our trip

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Gardening update

We didnt do alot of work out in the yard this weekend... just some minor stuff, we got to steves house friday evening to find his trees were GONE! the people came and cut them down, when we thought they'd be out the next week... surprise surprise! - The stumps were still there, (But were out by monday) 
I also had gotten my new camera in the mail on friday, so I spend alot of the weekend looking at my new camera and playing with it around the yard. :) (and I LOVE it. ah so much better than my other one, where I had to lug around different lenses :) ) 
heres the update from the weekend:

 I planted a few daisy seeds in our little pot that we got last year :) 

Blueberry plant #2
 Blueberry Plant #2


Blueberry Plant #1

Blackberries

Fig
 Peach Tree :)
 A rose





Trees came out on friday... looks good huh? little bare right now, but you can actually see the house!! :)