A Long Weekend Adventure

What a BIG weekend for us over here!! We spent the weekend climbing Mt. Massive in Colorado (elevation 14,421 feet), seeing Mumford & Sons at the Aspen Jazz Festival, and camping in the mountains. I can tell you, I've never had a more exhausting or more rewarding weekend. Don't worry, I'll have a million and one pictures for you soon!

Hope you had a great long weekend too!!

Hiya!

I spent a long time trying to think of some kind of "I'm back!" title that was clever without being cliche or hard to understand without voice inflection ... and I came up with nothing. Obvs I've been away from the blogging world for too long. 

Anywho, can I get a "Hallelujah" that this season of life is over? Summers are always somehow the CRAZIEST times for us here. We were both working full time, and taking six+ hours of summer classes, and moving, and trying to be normal humans who have friends and social lives and all that (pffftt). 

So I figured we could do a little picture wrap up of the last several weeks and call it good. Kay?

We worked, we played, we camped in Colorado, we celebrated my birthday, we went to Dallas, we celebrated my birthday again, we were loved on by my sweet parents and sisters, we made A's in all of our summer classes, and now we're getting ready to start a whole new semester! 

And can we just talk about this sweet guy for a sec? He took his first classes at Tech over the summer and has a 4.0 GPA right now. No joke. He's a business genius, y'all, so look out. The smartest man I know.

So here's to a new season of life! My last year of undergrad and Rex's first year at Tech...so exciting! I'm looking forward to sharing it with you!

Holiday Weekend

I guess technically it'd be a holiday week, but since I only worked the first half of this week, and the fourth was on Wednesday, it feels like its been a very looong weekend. Which is okay with me! 

We spent the holiday with our best friends, Meagan and Austin, and a handful of other people. You can't tell from the picture, but we got to see the coolest firework show ever out at McKenzie Park. 

Now we're heading to Abilene for Rex's dad's 53rd birthday and Rex's cousin's 1st birthday! We're looking forward to spending time with the fam. I hope you had a great Independence Day! 

Cousin Weekend

Last weekend, Rex and I met up with a gaggle of cousins in Dallas to spend the weekend bonding with our much-loved family!

Now, I love my family. Growing up, Taylor and I had Kelsey and Kaila as a second pair of sisters that we could spend time with when we got tired of yelling at each other (just kidding....but really). But now, any time we try and get together, a giant debacle usually ensues. Like Saturday morning, we couldn't find a FedEx that could print out our tickets to the game, so we had to drive to Kelsey's boyfriend's parents' house to print them. 

Since we successfully made it to the game, it ended up just being funny. But from the hours of 11 AM - 1:30 PM on Saturday, we were all just about at the end of our collective ropes. 

It was so nice to get to see everyone. Kelsey and Kaila are both in Dallas, Karmen and Taylor are in Tyler, and I, obviously, am in Lubbock, so we don't get to see each other as often as we used to. But it is just such a blessing to have such a wonderful family.

I am the luckiest.

Okay.

I'll be honest, blogging hasn't really been my number one priority lately. Finishing up the spring semester, starting summer classes, finishing my school year job, starting my summer job, preparing for our summer camping trip, moving out of my old house, moving into my new house, trying to get my computer fixed, and trying to get a decent amount of sleep has really taken precedence lately. And, let's be real, getting up to date on How I Met Your Mother has been pretty important too. But, here's a little bit of what's happened since we last talked.

We tried our hand at fly fishing some Lubbock lakes... not too successful, I'm sure you're surprised to hear. But we got to throw using the flies we had tied! That was really cute.

Meet the wooly bugger.

Annnnddd.....Rex graduated from South Plains!! Yay! He'll be at Tech in the fall in the Business program and I'm super excited and proud of him!

For my mom's birthday, we got her tickets to see Dave Matthews Band in Dallas, so we got to do that last weekend! It was a lot of fun, and of course we didn't get a group picture, but it was great to spend time with the family and hear good music.

Otherwise, we've been working and trying to do normal life things...the usual! I hope you're having a good Memorial Day weekend! Be safe and happy and healthy! 

Birthday Weekend!

I was lucky enough to get to spend the weekend watching little Taylor play volleyball in the Varsity's first tournament of the season (that's right, Varsity!) in Garland. 

Also, I'm in love with Instagram. I wish I had an iPhone just for that cool little application. But yeah, little Taylor plays back row. (She's five foot four...some of the girls are six foot. The gift of height we Winchesters were not blessed with.) And she's got a wicked serve. She's been on the team for a week, so it's still in transition, but she's making friends and practicing her rear off and loving it so far! It was so fun to watch her and her team! 

We also got to spend time with some old family friends from Wichita Falls. This is Camden, AKA Boomer (his dad, Greg, is an OU fan, haha). Greg was our pastor at our old church in Wichita Falls, and he and his wife, Lisa, have remained close family friends over the years. Camden is brilliant; he tested at an 11th grade level in math skills. He's nine. Sheesh!

We had a little pick-up game of volleyball after the tournament was over, with Rex and a couple of dads and older siblings of players. It was fun! I, of course, got asthmatic, tripped over Kaila (second from the right), and busted up my knee. Go figure! It was fun though. I'm the only one with no high school volleyball experience. Hah! 

On Sunday we went to Half-Price Books and had lunch at the new In-N-Out Burger (at Taylor's request) in the Dallas area. 

We also went shopping at a cutesy little outdoor mall in Allen, where Taylor and I got to make free shirts at the Vera Bradley store! And the sales lady sassed me because I wanted a really big shirt, and apparently Vera Bradley does not approve of such behavior! Heehee. The picture above is from a little restaurant/bar called The Londoner. Dad and Rex and I got a beer while Taylor and Mom did more shopping. It had a really pub-style feel, and it was very cool. 

All in all, I had a wonderful birthday weekend! Somehow I never leave a family trip with a photo of the whole crew, but hopefully I'll remember next time. Now I'm back at home in Lubbock, cuddling with little Bear and listening to Andrew Peterson with my roomie, Kallie! I am a happy girl.

Hope you had a good weekend, and have a good week!

More Excuses

So you already know that I don't have internet at the house (should be coming very soon, fingers crossed!). But here are a few other reasons why I've been a horrible blogger lately. 

-School school school! My Summer II class is very work intensive. 

-Work work work! My nannying is very work intensive! Keeping up with Chew (Chase+Drew, heehee) is so exhausting sometimes. Chase is just a whirlwind of activity. Sometimes when I get home, I'm just ready to sleep!

-I'm still trying to get settled in the new house. With my mess, it's like moving in + deep cleaning an already moved into room. 

-Sickness. Getting better and better every day, but the intensive antibiotics I'm on sometimes makes me feel like laying around all. day. 

But, internet is coming soon, and I'm getting into the swing of things with class and work, so hopefully I'll be back to a normal schedule once more!!

Happy Tuesday!

A Weekend In Movies

This weekend, my dear friend from camp came to visit, and since there's not much to do in Lubbock when it's 108 degrees outside (not exaggerating one single bit), we watched movies. A lot of movies. We sat around and took naps and ate lots and lots of good food (we decided it was okay to go a little overboard this weekend) ... and watched movies. Including:

Plus season 4 of Will and Grace and season 3 of The Office! Such a good, lazy weekend. But lordy, lordy it is HOT in Lubbock, Texas. It better break soon, or I'll be forced to move to Colorado until it does.

That'd just be a darn shame.

Just a spoonful of sugar...

Okay so, as much as I would like to say that my nannying capabilities rival that of Mary Poppins', I think we all would see right through that. Let's be real, I'm messy and unorganized, with a general lack of poise and a decent singing voice. However, I do have this going for me:

Mad Lego skills.

For real guys. I'm good. This little gem was my and Drew's project yesterday. He was really proud. He's an impressive Lego-er himself! And today, the three of us (Drew, 7 and Chase, 5) had a Guns 'n Roses sing-off (they only know two songs because they're on GuitarHero...still fun though). Drew told me that I had a good singing voice. Chase quickly corrected him. Does anyone have a good singing voice when they're belting out Welcome To The Jungle? And I got to play a Lego Batman & Robin Xbox game. 

Sometimes, my job is really awesome. 

First Day of Summer!

Happy Summer Solstice! 

What are your plans for (the rest of) the summer? Any fun vacations? Visits to family? Big parties planned? Or maybe all three? We'll just be here in good ol' LBK, taking classes and working. But I'll be having a girl's weekend on the lake with my roommates in July, as well as a trip back to Abilene for a big, family birthday party. And then a weekend on the lake for my birthday in August! And I'm hoping I can slip in a trip to Ruidosa somewhere in there too (but shh...Rex doesn't know about that!). Anyway, be praying for at least a little rain this season for us here in Texas...it's getting pretty dangerously dry. 

Hope you are excited about this summer and already enjoying the season!

(Photos found here, on this gem of a Flickr. Don't you just love all of his work?)