A "Frozen" Halloween and Mom's Birthday

I have about every other Friday off these days and it has been super nice. I will be very sad when we get busy enough to have clinic on Fridays because its only been a couple of months with this schedule, but I am already extremely spoiled! Since I was off and Michael was still on sabbatical, we were able to go home for halloween weekend and see family! Hannah and Abby were super excited for us to go trick or treating with them. They were very generous and offered to let us each have "one piece of my candy" since we sadly did not have costumes or a bag for candy. hahaha
Frozen is still a pretty big deal to them so the 2 big girls dressed up as Elsa and the 2 little girls were dressed as Anna. Lizzy was having a great time telling everyone that she was Anna for the night. So glad we were able to be there because it was such a fun time!

This child is obsessed with dogs, it is so hilarious. Obviously, Gaius is a fan of the attention :)

Last weekend was my mom's birthday, and she is a die-hard UT fan, so we all chipped in to buy her tickets to the game! It was a surprise and she was so excited. Plus, they even won for her! It was kind of a perfect day for a game and then afterwards, my dad invited a few of her old college buddies over for a little party with cake a ice cream at my house. Vincent even made the trip down!

Lunch at Dirty's before the game

cutest parents ever!

House Update: Decorating!

We have lived in our new place about 4 months now (crazy!) and lately have really been feeling a lot more settled.
Since July (really early September) we have:
Put pictures in frames and on the walls
Recovered the window seat cushions in the kitchen
Put in a shelf behind the couch
Decorated the house for fall!

Before

love this so much! Still need to stain it and then seal it

wall above couch in the office

hallway next to the kitchen

outside our bedroom

Fall Decor:

We are still loving this house so so much! Michael has been making some serious garden/outdoor plans so looking forward to how that will all play out over the next few weeks....

Road Trip!

This post is basically going to be a huge photo dump to chronicle our 9 day camping road trip! We planned this trip back in August and it was so fun and relaxing.We loaded up our pop-up and Gaius and took off for some great spots!

We started our trip at Davis Mountains National Park and stayed there for 2 days. There were some good hiking trails with great views. One night we went to the McDonald Observatory and attended one of their "Star Parties." The sky views out there were so amazing!

View from our campsite!

It was pretty cold and he actually stayed under that blanket all night long

After the Davis Mountains, we drove to Carlsbad. We were going to stay there overnight, but the RV park was pretty sketch so we just parked long enough to let Gaius hang out there while we went to see the caverns. We spent almost 2 hours there and were only able to see one area its so huge! It was such a cool place!

Since the Carlsbad RV park was so sketch, we drove a couple more hours to a town near White Sands and stayed at a KOA. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice KOA's are and I highly recommend them. The next day, we went to White Sands since my Aunt Cindy recommended that we should stop. Gaius loved running around in the sand, and I loved that the sand was sparkly :)

After White Sands, we headed to the Grand Canyon!! We were originally going to stay there for 4 days, but the camping area wasn't really the best/what we were expecting. We ended up spending just 2 nights there before heading towards Texas but the views were phenomenal!! We also had a nice surprise with Julie and Josh coming to visit for a few hours! Josh's cousin was getting married at the Grand Canyon, so they came early to see us!

Gaius was so happy to see Julie!!

On our way home we stopped in Tuscon to see Michael's Aunt and Uncle and also drove through Sedona which is a really pretty part of Arizona. 

Our last 2 nights we stayed at the South Llano River State Park and had a really good time there! The river actually did have water in it which Gaius of course loved. 

This trip was just so so great! The weather was beautiful (and cold at times!) and we were able to just relax, play lots of games, go on hikes and have some great talks. Gotta get back to real life now!