Erika & Kanyon's Wedding

Saturday evening was Erika and Kanyon's wedding. Erika and Kanyon are (well, were) two YoungLife leaders with me and I'm so happy for them. It is always great to see such God-fearing couples come together in marriage. They will do great things for His Kingdom.

Their wedding was so sweet and so perfect for them. They had the ceremony at the Chapel on the Hill at ACU.

If you haven't ever been to ACU, the Chapel on the Hill is so pretty. There is stained glass on two sides and the colors are just brilliant. My favorite memories of Chapel on the Hill are from the days of Sing Song. Before each show, we (Siggies) would always meet and worship together in there. The acoustics in that room are incredible especially when you put 110 beautiful women's voices in harmony worshiping together. It will bring tears to your eyes.

Enough on that, back to the wedding.

Erika wore her mother's wedding dress that was re-built/designed for her and it fit her perfectly!

Here's the front (well, I guess side)

and here's the back.

If you don't know Kanyon, you don't know that he's a true, full-blooded, country boy. It is rare to see him without his cowboys hat. In honor of this, Erika wore some white cowboy boots and they were perfect!

And here's the groom.. there was no chance I would get a pic of the two of them together unless I followed them around, so you'll just have to get over it!

We also ran into some old friends!! Hi Sawyer!

thanks Bryan!

I love this man!

and last, but not least!

I could have taken this precious thing home! He was the ring bearer and his tux with boots and cowboy hat combo were nearly too much to handle, then he started dancing!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Brown! We're so happy for you!

I spent all day in the convention hall here in Austin and things have gone great! I'm headed out now to take about 30 clients to dinner! More pics to come on that later!

New Years Festivities

For New Years Eve this year, B and I headed up to Lubbock to spend the night with Grant and Laura before continuing on to Amarillo on New Years Day to see his Grandparents.

While we were driving I was playing with my camera and my new lens (thank dad!). I only took one picture while we were in Lubbock because we were all having so much fun playing games and wii tennis (by the way, my arm was soar for two days)! The one picture I took I'm atually not going to share because I think Laura might kill me if I do! It was taken right before we left and neither her or Grant had showered yet because they were cooking us a wonderful breakfast, so you don't get to see it.. sorry!

Have you ever wondered what it looks like driving to Amarillo?

Well there you go! There's hardly any trees and until you get closer to Palo Duro Canyon, there's not much change in elevation either.

When we got to Amarillo (after I stopped at Dillard's and bought my Christmas China) we all met over at Manga and Paw Paw's house for a little birthday party for Lindsay.

Here's the birthday girl with Manga, Paw Paw, and Granny.

And here she is with everyone else (minus me). When you're the one with the camera, it's not very often that you're in the picture.. but I don't mind!

Mississippi Mud Cake, by request. It's basically like a chocolate sheet cake with marshmallow in between the cake and icing. Very good, but VERY rich!

The next day everyone else from Brent's side of the family came over for lunch and to open Christmas presents. Before everyone got there, I sat on a stool at the island just snapping away pictures, but I won't bore you with all of them... just some!

Kirk was walking around eating things and making faces at me...

Connie was making pistachio pudding and cooking the garlic bread

and I sat on my stool because I was still sick with a cold and didn't feel like doing anything except holding the camera.

Granny is B's Great-Grandmother and is in her mid 90s. She still drives, still lives alone, and still cooks. Everyone in B's family is glad for that for the reason in the next picture.

Her picture perfect lemon pies!

Granny slaves over these pies for hours every holiday or time that the family gets together. She makes everything from scratch and as B says, "makes absolutely perfect meringue." People have tried to figure out how to make Granny's Lemon Pie for years, but even with the recipe have never been successful. I think it's the 70+ years of experience to make something so perfect. Either way, some one is going to have to figure it out.

Here's a shot of the inside. I'm not the hugest fan of lemon pie, but this one's pretty good. Maybe one day I'll try to make it.. but maybe not, we'll see.

It was good to see family, but I will say it was nice to be home and in my own bed on Saturday night. With all the traveling we've done lately, I just love the feeling of coming home to my own bed--especially when I have a cold!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Years!

Because we don't have any kids...

Because we don't have any kids, we (well.. I) treat Bridger almost as if she were a child. I put bows on her collar, I buy her gifts from Santa... you know, the usual. Well, my sister (did I mention that she's pregnant?) has become a domestic sewing crazy head and has gotten really good at it. Well, one day she found a website that will give you instructions to transform one of your old tacky Christmas sweaters into a dog sweater. Genius!

A couple of weeks ago, I grabbed my measuring tape, followed her instructions, and got her Bridger's measurements. She started with one sweater that I think she found in the big and tall section of the Salvation Army (just to make sure she wouldn't run out of fabric). Once she finished the first one, she had so much fun and decided to make two more. She headed back to Salvation Army and picked out two more sweaters.

After making one more, she decided to go ahead an send the finished two in order to make sure they fit properly before making the third. They were in the mail with enough time to make it before Christmas, but unfortunately.. that didn't happen. They did make it on Saturday though!

The package was addressed to "Bridger Mann" and even included a letter!

Here's what the letter said:

Dear Bridger,
I hope you like your new
outfits. Make sure these fit,
because I saved the best
sweater for last...
I hope you don't get
made fun of while you wear
these. I happen to think
they are very funny and cute.
If the other dogs in Abilene
laugh it's because they are
jealous of your Los Angeles
style.
Hope you have a Merry
Christmas...

Aunt Christy
(and Uncle Mike)

So no, we are not serious when we do these things, but it just makes it funnier... I didn't get the package until about 6:00 Monday morning, so I decided to make her try one on really quick. I told my mom that she was yawning and leaning against me an stuff trying to figure out what was going on, but not really caring. It was like dressing a sleepy child, and very funny.

Then, last night after my Christmas shopping spree (I'll show you that later), I had her try them on so I could send pictures to Christy. *Sorry about the photo quality... all of these were done with my phone so I could text them..

This one is my favorite!

and the Brown one..

She is such a sport to let me have fun with her! B said he didn't really care what I did to her, as long as she still hunts, he's good.

Here are some of the other pictures from Christmas Eve and all the snow that I told you about yesterday..

This was our view out of our front door in the morning when it first started snowing.

and this was my car when it first started snowing..

I took Bridger to PetSmart to get a bath on Christmas Eve because they always do such a good job and I don't like cleaning the hair out of the tub... Plus, they love her so much! They were so excited that she was coming in! When I was there, I knew the sweaters from Christy were coming, but they weren't here yet. I saw this one on the $5 rack, so I decided to go ahead and get it (something I normally wouldn't have done... I promise). This is her looking out the window while B ran in to Lowe's to get some firewood.

This was about mid morning when we let Bridger out in the yard. The snow was starting to get deep!

Bridger was so thankful that Santa brought her a new bed.

Here's the snowman we were going to make... we only used our feet because we didn't have any gloves and it was so cold outside. When you don't have any coal for the eyes, cherry tomatoes seem to do the trick. Later on in the afternoon, I let Bridger out again because she loved the snow. She managed to find the snowman and eat his nose.. I stopped her as she was going for the eyes.

and this is a picture I took while we were driving.. it seriously looked like Colorado, except we don't have any snow plows..

Side note: There is still snow and ice on the ground from the snow we had on Christmas Eve, and guess what? It's snowing AGAIN!!

Guess Who's Pregnant?!

I know what you're thinking, but it's not me.


It's...


are you ready?



MY SISTER!!!


My sister and her husband have been going through the long adoption process, but their adoption method is not your typical adoption, they adopted 8 embryos (that's right, I said embryos) through an Christian Adoption Organization's program called the 'Snowflake Program'. Mike and Christy had their first transfer of three embryos on Friday, December 4th and yesterday she found out she was pregnant! We wont know if there are multiples (hence the three embryos) until the 6 week ultrasound after the first of the year.

I'm so excited to be an aunt! This is such exciting news for our whole family, especially my mom! :) If you could just say a little prayer for that/those precious little baby-(ies) growing inside of her, that they would continue to grow and develop and that the pregnancy would be healthy with no complications, I (and my family) would really appreciate it! If you would like to read more about this adoption process, you can follow her blog where she updates pretty regularly.

Moving on to other exciting news...


ABILENE HIGH IS PLAYING IN THE STATE GAME THIS WEEKEND!

That means we're headed to the Riverwalk for lots of fun and hopefully a victory over Katy! Here's some pictures from the last game since I'm so far behind!

Last week we play my high school rival (well from freshman year), Klein High School. They didn't have that big of a crowd, compared to us.

Funny story on the crowd size topic: this week at the A-High Booster Club meeting, a Houston reporter was in attendance and stood up to ask Coach Warren (the head football coach) how he thought his players would react to all of the fans that Katy would bring being from Houston. Coach Warren stopped, looked around at the room and then laughed a little and said, "I think it's going to be the other way around."

One day I will post about what it's like to live in west Texas and be connected in a community where high school football really is, a HUGE deal, but that's for later...

remember when I told you this would be back? only this week, the eye blacks say "shred the gnar" instead of Phil. 4:13

these two are not dating, and in fact, they are dating other people but they have been friends for a LONG time like most of the kids. I had to show this picture to you because I just loved it!

This could be my favorite picture of all time from a football game. This is Tyler, from Tyler. Ok, I just had to say that, but Tyler is a YoungLife leader with me and he has the junior guys (Kirk and his friends). He is such a great leader and really knows how to minister to these kids! You can tell that they love him and he truly loves the boys. This is a relationship that the kids will not forget. I have really enjoyed getting to know Tyler better on the Abilene High team and eating lunch with him every Monday!

Kirk and Jarvis with the trophy, which I'm pretty sure they announce about 576 times that it was presented by H-E-B.

I didn't take this picture, Brandon's uncle Jon did because I was on the phone making our hotel reservations.. and it's a good thing I did because one of the hotels we wanted was already booked. I like this picture though, it think it's pretty cool!

Here's the whole crew at the game! Tyler and Breanna got married back in August and came up from College Station to watch the game and we were glad they made it!

and lastly...

isn't this hat great? I wish I could have seen the front of it, but I thought I would at least document the back!

2 Week Recap...

So I know I didn't technically blog all week last week due to the giveaway, and last week I didn't even mention a thing about Thanksgiving or the incredible football game, but I'm making up for it now!

Thanksgiving was fun spent in Houston with my family. We were all able to be there this year, which is pretty rare considering where everyone lives! Unfortunately I didn't take hardly any pictures while we were there, and I don't know why... so here is my sister's post about the Turkey Frying that Brandon did, and it includes a lot of pictures!

The Friday after Thanksgiving we left Houston pretty early to make it up to North Richland Hills for the Abilene High football game, and boy was it worth it! The traffic was terrible around the stadium and we ended up just parking in the Taco Bueno parking lot which turned out to be a better solution because the spot we were in was actually closer than any of the ones in the actual stadium parking lot, AND we didn't have to pay the $5 parking cost, which was especially nice because we didn't know they were charging for parking and neither of us had cash.

I've tried to narrow the pictures down for both of these games so I don't overwhelm you. Cedar Hill was the number 1 ranked team in the state and number 2 in the nation up until November 27th, when the Abilene High Eagles dominated them. Take a look at the fans in this picture, both sides were completely full and I know the Abilene side was standing room only!

Just to give you an idea about these men (not boys) that were playing for Cedar Hill... they had two players that were 6'-5" and weigh 340 lbs and too many others to name that broke the 250 mark. Also, Deion Sanders, Jr. plays for Cedar Hill, as in... Deion Sanders who played in both the NFL and the MLB... yes, they were huge and good.

Now look at their fans... the stands are over half-way empty. There was still a good 7-8 minutes left in the game, but they were sore losers and didn't want to stick around until the end... so we scored another touchdown and it cleared out even more.

Victory stance taking a knee.

All of the boys were so excited, and you should have heard how loud all of the cheering was the entire game.

Lindsay came!

Family photo after wards for the Christmas card.

Lindsay and Lirkyy

You'll start to notice this is a re-occurring theme

These two guys are going to be famous, Herschel Sims and Ronnell Sims (they're cousins and they're both awesome!)

He's a local celebrity and doesn't even know it.

Now for week two! This past Friday, Abilene High played Arlington Bowie at Bowie's home stadium, UT Arlington. I didn't really know what to expect out of this team, I mean the last game everyone was nervous because the team we were playing was ranked as the best in the state, but this team's claim to fame was their nearly 4,000 yards passing from their quarterback.

Everyone in town was talking about the fact that there was not enough seating on the visitor side of the stadium, so they told AISD that if needed, they would open up a section on the home side for Abilene High fans. Who wants to do that? NO ONE! So everyone left early, and that's not to be taken lightly.

We pulled out of the driveway at about 12:50 and we were at the stadium before 3:30... the game didn't start until 7:30, and it was 30 degrees. We beat the team bus, but we weren't the first people there.

At about 4:15, when the parking lot was halfway full of Abilene High fans, Connie decided it was time to go stand in line. The rest of us joined her in the front part of the line about 45 minutes later for no other reason than we were tire of being in the car, and we wanted to go talk to friends.

I took this picture about 5:20 or so, and they weren't even letting us in the stadium until 6:00. By the time 6:00 rolled around, the line was well beyond the limits of this picture.

Here's Connie all bundled up and waiting in line...

Carly's ready to get her cheer on..

Just a few of my babies all bundled up!

Carly's sister Christen!

I should probably add in there that Arlington Bowie had no people in line until right at 6 when they were letting us all in, but thankfully for them, they had their own line.

The Jamesons came again! Here' sweet Abby in her adorable pink coat!

The hood was so cute I made her put it on for another picture!

And Jeff! He's getting so old!

Here's another re-occurring theme: fans that leave with half of the 4th quarter left to play because they're loosing so bad...

I told you this one would be back...

And do you remember the picture a few weeks ago when he had the cell phone? They loved taking this one!

So excited to be moving on to the State Semi-Finals!

This weekend we play one of my high school rivals, Klein High School for the last round before state in Waco! Wish us luck!