lately...

i've been dreaming of faraway lands..

le sigh

on the way

this past saturday, I had the honor of attending Melanie and Evan's wedding in Crawford. It was so cute, sweet, and glorifying to the Lord. They were married in a little white church surrounded by pastureland. My GPS took me down a bunch of one lane roads through this:

It was so pretty! and since it was stormy, the sky looked really cool. After driving through this for a while, I was greeted by a little hand-painted sign that simply said, "WEDDING" so I knew I was on the right path. Between the ceremony and reception, I went back through the roads to take some more pictures.

I won't post any pictures of the bride and groom without their permission, but I will say it was such a joyful occasion!

On the way back to Houston, I passed through Calvert, TX.. which is about two blocks of "old town" very quaint. I stopped to explore a little and found this cool building with trees growing in the middle.

it was a nice trip, and I decided I love Texas a lot, and someday I want to build/buy a plantation house with creaky wood floors, a huge wrap-around porch, and lots of pastures, cows, and rope swings .. where my kids can spend their summers smelling like fresh air and sunshine, not coming home until dusk, and catching lightning bugs. yep that would be nice.

yashica

I recently got an old roll of film developed.. black and white.. my 1970's Yashica

and these are my favorites

anniversary party

My parents' 30th wedding anniversary was on April 26, so the weekend after, I threw a surprise party for them! I was pretty exhausted by the time the party started, so I totally forgot to take pictures til after dark, so most of these were taken by our family friend, Judy. Thanks Judy!

We had the party at my uncle's house - which used to be my grandparents' house - in the SAME backyard my parents were married. They had absolutely no idea about it.. I had been planning for a little over a month, and had to lie to them about a plethora of things. The big one: I told them I was going to the lake house with all my friends that weekend. I needed an excuse to leave the house to set up, and needed to keep them from making plans to go! I had to give specific details, make up a reason why I would be driving instead of anyone else, tell all my friends to lie to my mom if she asked about the lake.. On Friday night, I had to send my mom a text to tell her we made it ok, and she promptly called me back to ask questions about the lake.. after a 15 minute convo about the water level, the condition of the dry grass, and other things, I hung up the phone - scared at how easily all of those lies came out! hah

Anyway, they were SO Surprised.. My mom pretty much burst into tears immediately, and was in shock that I was there, "you drove all the way back from Austin for this?" hahahaha She said this was the first surprise party that she was actually surprised.. and before my parents arrived, my uncle was about to jump out of his skin with excitement, "I've never been to a surprise party before!"

I set up the receiving table with photos, their wedding album, and a guest book idea I had seen online..

guests left their thumbprints as leaves, and signed their names..

My grandma made these Mark and Kathy look-a-like dolls for their wedding, and we still have them! they look a little raggedy, because we all played with them as kids.

Thank you, Martha Stewart, for teaching me how to make these pom poms!

Before I "left for the lake" I asked my dad if I could borrow some of his vinyl to take to the lake. He was a little reluctant, but said I could take some. I asked him and my mom to pick out their favorites, and things they think we should listen to. So, we had all of their favorite albums playing at the party.. My dad was pretty happy and played DJ all night!

We had several cakes.. this one was a carrot cake with cream cheese icing that Kimberly made:

I made a dark chocolate cake with peanut butter cream cheese and a chocolate glaze:

and we had Three Brothers Bakery (My uncle is good friends with the owner, Bobby) make the sheet cake with a wedding picture on it:

at night:

everyone was still there! They had moved their seats over to watch a slideshow I put together.

and all the guests got to take home a chocolate, chocolate cream cheese cupcakes packaged in these boxes:

It was a fun night!

Here is the slide show of my parents'/family's life if you are interested.. here.