Remembering a Wonderful Weekend

The Weekend to Remember conference at the Gaylord Texan hotel definitely lived up to its name. The speakers were funny, the material was great, and the weekend was definitely romantic.

We haven't been having marital problems, but like any marriage it's good to have a refresher on the roles in a Godly marriage and how we are each God's gift to the other. It opened my eyes to areas I have been lacking in and need to correct so that I can be the wife the Lord wants me to be. Aside from my heavenly Father, Michael is the next most important person in my life and I want to honor and respect him in every way possible.

Here are a few pictures of the hotel:

Giant guitar in the atrium

By the Riverwalk in the atrium

Cute village and train in the atrium

A view of the atrium from our room

Michael's new friend

During the summer at the Gaylor Texan the hotel has various "summer" activities such as fireworks, dive-in movies at the pool, and little acts that can be found around the atrium like this monkey with his handler. Right after I took this photo the crazy monkey reached in Michael's shirt pocket, pulled out our room key, and handed it to his handler. That is one strange trick.

Gaylord Texan & Weekend to Remember

I am very excited about this weekend. Michael and I are going to stay at the Gaylord Texan hotel for a Christian marriage conference called a "Weekend to Remember." Let me put your mind at ease...we are not having marital problems. We just have heard that this is a wonderful conference that re-centers your marriage around Christ and what the husband/wife roles are. We figured this will be an investment in our marriage and everyone needs a little reminder of what God's model is for Christian marriages. So, tomorrow afternoon we are heading down the road (all of about 2 miles) to the fabulous Gaylord Texan hotel. Man, I love this place!

Here are a few pictures of what the hotel looks like from the outside and the inside. These aren't our pictures. I will post some of ours after we get back.

Green Egg

Now that we are in the DFW area, Michael decided to buy a proper grill. We've had a George Foreman grill since we've been married, but there's nothing like a good steak (or chicken) cooked on a charcoal grill. The grill is called The Green Egg and it looks like a giant avocado, or, just a green egg.

Michael decided for his maiden grilling experience to roast a whole chicken. He rubbed the chicken with olive oil, sprinkled salt & pepper, sprinkled oregano, and stuffed the inside of the skin with lemon slices and garlic.

Here's the "before" of the chickie:

And, here's the "after" of the chickie:

YUMM-O! It was quite possibly the best roasted chicken I've ever had! Great job, Sweetheart!

Boxes, boxes, and more boxes

The day after Michael's graduation my dad and brother, Michael's parents, and our friends from church graciously helped us load the moving truck for our move to the DFW area. There was hardly an inch of carpet showing but everything was finally loaded and ready for takeoff.

This is our living room before everything was emptied out of our apartment. It was quite the obstacle course!

Graduation--Hooray!

Michael is officially finished with school forever! We are so excited about this new chapter in our lives and our move to the DFW area.

My parents hosted a graduation party for Michael after the ceremony for the family. I worked for 4 hours the night before amist a sea of boxes to bake him a cake and decorate it in a pharmacy theme. It was hard work and my back ached afterwards but I was proud of the results for a first attempt at cake decorating.

Tagged

Well, I'm back from a few week's hiatus of blogging. Erica tagged me almost a week ago so here are 7 random things about me.

1) When I go grocery shopping I place the items on the checkout belt in the order and groupings I want my groceries bagged in. Of course, things never end up in the bag I intend them and then I get home with my frozen fruit juice concentrate bagged with my cotton balls. Maybe I should just throw caution to the wind and randomly place items on the checkout belt and then they'll all end up in the bags I want them in. Now, that would be nice!

2) I'm allergic to all sensitive toothpaste except for Sensodyne. When I brush my teeth with any other sensitive toothpaste my skin turns red wherever the toothpaste touches my face. Michael always says I'm the messiest brusher of anyone he knows because I'm always getting toothpaste all over my face outside my mouth. I, therefore, end up with a clown mouth every morning and night because I refuse to spend $4 on Sensodyne. Thankfully it's gone before I get to work.

3) Every night when I get in bed I check, check, and recheck that I have my alarm set. Even when I tell myself that I know it's set I check again. I know, weird, but it's probably a little of my self-diagnosed OCD surfacing. Hey, it's a medical condition...I can't help it.

4) I am crazy ticklish when Michael blows on my neck. I absolutely can't stand it and I squeal and squirm like a little kid.

5) I have a tendency to fall asleep in the middle of a conversion at night in bed. Michael and I will be talking one minute and when he's waiting for a response to a question he realizes that I'm totally knocked out. This happens more often than not. On rare occasions I'll answer his question with gibberish because my mouth is still awake enough to move but my mind is completely dead.

6) I was in the 4A all-state band my senior year in high school. I played the clarinet (and still do sometimes) and passed the divisional, regional, and area tryouts to make it all the way to state. We played an awesome concert at the Lila Cockrell Theatre for the Performing Arts in San Antonio. This is an experience I'll never forget.

7) I can never keep a gift I am giving someone a secret. I'm getting a little better about this as I get older but if I buy someone a gift I have to give it to them immediately because I can't keep it a secret. I get too excited about the act of giving the gift that I just can't stand it and have to give it to them NOW. To counteract this, I'm trying a new tactic where I don't buy the gift until a day or two before. I talk a big talk but just watch me buy Michael his anniversary gift and crumble by giving it to him 2 weeks early. I'm such a wimp.

Shopping, St. Arnold's, and Milkshakes...Oh my!

Saturday our small group at church got together and had a fun filled day. The guys went to St. Arnold's to do their tasting while the girls went shopping at the new outlet mall in Cypress.

Here's a picture of the crazy bunch.

(Left to right: Roy, Claire, Michael, Mike, Teresa, Evan)

Thanks to Claire we girls were able to dodge some of the traffic getting to the mall by taking a side street that took us along the back side of the mall past all the traffic exiting the highway (thank you, Claire, you're a lifesaver). The Lord knew we needed a little break getting there because the true test would be finding a parking space. Thanks to my old college days where I gained a ton of experience hunting people down on the way to their car we were successful fairly quickly and with only a few minor winces from the backseat. I'm telling you, the outlet mall was so busy that you would have thought Miley Cyrus was making an appearance at Old Navy.

The guys had wings from Wings & Things that were wonderful. While at St. Arnold's Mike insulted the owner by comparing him to Dirk Nowitzki who is on the Dallas Mavericks which gave everyone a big laugh. The owner didn't take too kindly to the comparison so it sounds.

Crazy Teresa...

After a day filled with shopping and St. Arnold's tasting we decided we needed a little fuel so we went to Niko Niko's for some yummy Greek food. For some reason or another Mike looks as if he's contemplating whether it was the chicken or the egg that came first with his very serious look. I guess great minds never stop thinking.

Who can be so close to Katz's and not go for a cheesecake milkshake. Oh, sinful calorie, fat laden strawberry milkshake...why do you tempt me with your sweet strawberryness? Thank goodness there were three of us that shared because it is way too rich for one person to tackle alone.