Mom and Dad's 30th Anniversary Surprise Party!

This last weekend was an extremely fun.. blur. I hardly know how I lived through it, though I'm not quite sure yet that I have since I have been going non-stop still this week. I'll finally get a breather tonight (if cleaning a neglected house counts as a breather that is..) and I'll let you know if I didn't lose my sanity.

Quick recap of the weekend - we flew in Friday night and hung out with our family. Saturday morning, we headed to downtown Houston and spent the morning with Kanyon's family at our nieces' (Emry and Micah) birthday party. We got back early afternoon and watched the OSU-A&M game (Go Pokes!) with the family before heading out to a family pictures session with our photographer friend Megan Thurman. From there, we "kidnapped" Mom and Dad and took them to their surprise party where we were up until the early hours of the morning visiting with family and friends. Sunday morning, we went to church and Mom and I skipped lunch to get home because we hosted a wedding shower for one of my best friends Camille! That lasted until just before dinner when we just relaxed with Kalum and Ashley and then another of my best friends Rachel and her boyfriend Jeremy came to visit us. Bed, got up early, caught our flight Monday morning, flew into Midland and Kanyon dropped me off at work and I worked that afternoon.

I can't even see straight after thinking about all that.

Let me just focus on one thing that we did this weekend at a time. I'll start with what I alluded to in my last post (where I told you I'd be telling you about it the next day.. ha).

Back in May, my friend Ashley, who is the youth minister's wife at my parent's church and who, along with her husband Kalum, have become family to us, were talking about how fun it would be to throw a surprise party for my parents. Their 30th wedding anniversary was on August 14th and we wanted to do something big to celebrate. Another family friend, Jolene, told us she would help in any way she could, so knowing that I had their help, I decided to go for it!

I mentioned it to Cole and Kanyon and they both said that they'd love to do it for our parents. We knew Mom had been talking about flying Kanyon and I down to Houston in September for us all five to be together one last time before Cole leaves for Patagonia for his study abroad (I really need to do a post on that..) so we decided it would have to be that weekend since she would find it odd if we told her we wanted to fly down another weekend as well so close to that one.

So in the beginning of July when my parents and Kanyon and I visited Cole in Denver, Cole and I (Kanyon had already flown out a couple days before) brainstormed all our ideas for the party and got the ball rolling. That week, I booked the restaurant where the party would be and informed all of my parent's close friends to make sure they had that weekend open.

From then on, it was mostly delegating out jobs to several people. I couldn't have gotten it all done without my Aunt Jenny and Uncle Dean and cousins Emily, Sara, and Bethany, Ashley and Kalum Tuggle, LeeAnne Robbins, Jolene Curtis, Starla Jones, Cindy Rogers, and Megan Thurman.

My aunt, uncle, and cousins decided they would tell Mom they were coming for the weekend to see Cole before he left, too, so they could spend the whole weekend with us. Thankfully, Mom didn't suspect anything.

We got them to the party by telling them just before leaving for dinner on Saturday night that all the cousins had a surprise for all four of the parents. We wanted to throw them off entirely so we blindfolded Jenny and Dean, too. The car ride to the restaurant was pretty humorous since Mom is not a fan of surprises and was clearly agitated and nervous while Dad was giddy and totally relaxed about the whole thing because he loves surprises! So without further ado.. I'm going to let the pictures do the rest of the talking!

The party was a huge hit. It went perfect! There were 80 people there!! A whopping 20 of them were from out of town. Joseph even came from Chicago! 

After the food was served (bruschetta, meatballs, and gourmet pizza), we played a great slideshow of pictures that had everyone rolling and loving. And then we had toasts from Kanyon, Cole, and I. After that, we opened the floor for people to add to it and several people came up and said heartfelt sweet things to my parents. It was wonderful. 

After that, we cut the cakes! Kalum and Ashley had a cake made for Mom and Dad. It was gorgeous. It was champagne flavored with raspberry filling and white buttercream frosting. It had pearls on it for the 30th anniversary and a 30 on top.

We also had a couple of chocolate sheet cakes for Cole's birthday! Cole's birthday is on the same day as Mom and Dad's anniversary so I surprised him with a birthday cake. Then, at the party, it turned out it was Jerry's, Mom's cousin, birthday that day! So we sung Happy Birthday to the two of them.

It was a great night and I hope my parents will always remember it and remember how much they are loved.

Here's to 30 years of an inspiring and loving marriage!

This is why I've been quiet on the blog.

 

These are my parents. And this is the invite to their SURPRISE 30th anniversary party last weekend!!

It's been a crazy weekend and I have lots of pictures and stories. But.. I'm recuperating today and alone at work so... See ya tomorrow.   : )

P.S. The gorgeous invitation was custom designed and made by my friend Kelly. She has great prices (better than Snapfish, etc) and I highly recommend her for any invitations or cards! Click on this link to go to her website.

Happy 25th, Kanyon!

We spread Kanyon's birthday out a week or so, since it was actually on the 12th of September, last Monday. He had worked a Walk to Emmaus the weekend before and we both had separate meetings or something on Monday and Tuesday of last week and then church on Wednesday. So we finally had his birthday dinner on Thursday night with his parents!

I made him a Red Velvet Cake this year. And it flopped. I made it Tuesday night and I was so mad about it that I stuck the parts in the fridge without putting it together yet.

I don't know why it flopped because I know its a good recipe. Its Pioneer Woman, who else? The only thing I can think of is that I didn't have as much red food coloring as the recipe called for. It came out dry, pink and not red, and... crumbly. This was the first layer I took out of the pan..

Immediately after taking this layer out of the pan, I had to go sit on the porch for thirty minutes with our dog, Zeb, and cool off because I was so mad about it. I couldn't go cool off with Kanyon because I didn't think I could voice my frustration without throwing something. So the male in my house that can't talk or understand English was the one I went to. Its handy to have options like that.

The other layer came out in an almost whole piece so I iced it the next day and made up for the short cake (in my mind) with silly decorations. So... presenting Kanyon's birthday cake of 2011.

I do have to say that the cream cheese icing was so good that it almost made up for the whole disaster. But only almost.

We ended up only eating half of the iced cake so last night I put the messed up layer's crumbles, the left-over icing, and the half of the remaining cake into a bowl and mashed it all together and rolled it into little balls to make cake balls. I'm going to try to get rid of them asap at church tonight. Those things are so dangerous and pretty.

So Saturday came around and Kanyon and I headed to Lubbock because for his birthday, "I" bought him a recliner! I say "I" in quotations because I still find it a little strange to buy gifts when you're married since technically its both our money paying for it.. Anyways, we shopped around for a couple hours at a few furniture stores. It was a lot of fun!

This is our first piece of furniture, believe it or not, that we have shopped for and bought together. And since it was for Kanyon's recliner, several people have told him he is a real man now that he has a man chair.

So.. the man chair:

We went with a La-z-boy. It was between this one and one at Haverty's but I'm really glad we chose this one. Its really pretty! I loved another La-z-boy that had a really cool design but it wasn't quite a man chair. More like a trendy girl chair. So maybe I'll get it for my birthday :) Maybe not.

Where's my raincoat?

Well, hello! Had a good weekend?

Sorry about the silence on the blog.. got a few things to show you! But I guess I should break it up into a few posts. First, I'll show you what I finished a week ago:

I love it! It really brightens up that porch and the pillows match the blue on the door perfectly. Just don't look too close at them.. There's a couple of ripped seams from Zeb's baby days.. The color is called "Soft Mint" but next to the door, it looks like a baby blue. I'd really like to paint the porch where the orange is right now a cream to match the trim but Kanyon thinks it would make the very imperfect porch stand out even more. So what do you think? He wants to replace it altogether but that'll have to wait a while.

Thursday through Sunday, I was a single woman. Kanyon was in Stanton working our community's Men's Walk to Emmaus. It was an amazing weekend from all the stories I hear. Three men accepted Christ that weekend! One in particular, I had been praying for for months so I was ecstatic to find out!

Friday night was Homecoming at Dawson so the whole community (except several of the men working the Walk) came out for it. We didn't win the game but it was a great night!

 

Tac in his football uniform!

Check out this little player picking up chicks before he can even talk (he'd never met these girls):

Saturday, Vaughn and I headed to Lubbock early that morning because she had bought me a ticket to the Beth Moore event! She was in Lubbock and her simulcast reached 180,000 people that day! Even one women's prison!

Wow, it was amazing. Vaughn and I were a little sad that we were going to miss helping out down at the Walk but by the end of the day, I don't think either of us wished we had been somewhere else. It was so good. The worship itself was unbelievable. And of course, Beth did a great job. I'll never forget that day.

We even got a chance to have lunch with one of my Abilene Young Life girls! Chandler is a freshman at Texas Tech and I haven't gotten a chance before this to go see her. I miss YL!

That night, we headed down to the Walk to help with some stuff and see a bunch of our friends. It was a great night! Kasha and Tac came and spent the night with me for a sleepover since both our husbands were working the Walk! We made blueberry muffins the next morning and walked over to church. Grandad and I rode together down to the Walk's Closing and I finally got to see Kanyon for the first time since Thursday morning! He was a tired pup. Speaking of pup, Zeb was beyond ecstatic to see his best friend when Kanyon and I got home. Being cooped up in our backyard, even though it is huge, is not near as fun as working with Kanyon every day.

After checking water that night, we came home and watched the 9/11 shows on TV. We ended up watching the show following a particular fire house in NYC on that day ten years ago. It was heartbreaking to see how hard they worked and still felt defeated. And even worse to see how they all still suffer in different ways to this day. One of the guys said it was so hard to see just how evil evil can be.

It really upset me to find out that there are (unforeseen at the time) health repercussions from the air that all the rescue workers were breathing in down there. It is unthinkable that all those men and women could die from the lethal air conditions. Satan is ruthless. Please be praying for those men.

On a happy note, look at what we woke up to this morning:

 

 Thank you, Lord!! Unfortunately, I've learned to be skeptical because I've seen a few similar forecasts like this with not a drop of rain all day but it was raining when I woke up at 7:00 and was still raining when I left a little after 8:00!! PLEASE CONTINUE!

Holy Smokes.

Of course, I've been hearing about the fires around Austin this week but hadn't done much news watching or reading on the internet about them until I stumbled upon these pictures on another blog today...

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Lord, please send rain!

Coming Along..

Kanyon has been hard at work on the leather shop and its coming along nicely :)

He has gutted the window and door frame and then rebuilt both and replaced the door and threshold. That alone made a huge difference!

The last week or so, he has been work on the inside with help from his dad and Uncle Dan.

They replaced part of the flooring, one whole wall's sheet rock and insulated and sheet rocked the ceiling.

The last couple days, Kanyon has been kilzing and painting the walls and ceiling. We got a creamy tan for the color. I haven't been able to help him paint since I've been at work which is a bummer because I like doing projects like this with him.

Next up after painting is the floor, I think. He has chosen a rubber matting for the floor. Kind of like what you would see at a work-out gym under the dumb bells. At first I was bummed it wouldn't be something a little more "aesthetically pleasing"... but its better for him when he is having to do his work standing and we're also going to be moving all of our work-out equipment back there so it only makes sense to have that. 

There is a large closet in this apartment, too, that after I clean out (there is a lot of stuff we have in boxes that we labeled garage sale that now I'm thinking more along the lines of donation) will be a great place for me to store all of my Christmas stuff and get it out of the guest room closet. I'm pumped about having so much more closet space after all the leather and Christmas stuff is out!

No Labor Day Weekend

Wow, another week flew by! Last week was a little draining at work.. I won't lie. It pretty much sucked all the energy and patience out of me. A three day weekend seriously could not have come at a better time!

I do have leather shop update pictures to show you but they are on my camera at home so that will have to wait and I wanted to tell you about our Labor Day weekend!

My mom came in town on Thursday night to stay for four nights! It was the first time since Kanyon and I have been married that she's been able to stay that long! Cole and Dad are backpacking through Italy right now (no big deal..) so she took the time they were gone to go visit her sister and mom in Oklahoma half the week and the other half with us!

Thursday night we spent at home, we had dinner and didn't go much of anywhere. But Friday night, we went to the Dawson football game at O'Donnell. Kanyon and I didn't realize it but Mom had never been to one of Dawson's football games before or a 6-man football game in general! We thought surely she had been to at least one with us. I don't have any pictures actually of last weekend's game but I did find some pictures of the first home game that I had forgotten to post. And I can't believe I did because look how cute these boys are!

Tripp and Tac!! They were playing football together in the stands and entertaining everyone  : )

They're Kanyon's little buddies. That purple blur is a football that Tripp threw at the unlucky person in front of him  : )  Love those boys!

The game was a lot of fun as usual because we got to see a lot of friends, even though we didn't win the game. 

Saturday was a great day! After sleeping in a little, my cousin Vicki and her husband Brady came over! Vicki and Brady live in Montana now and so I don't get to see them near as much as I did when they lived in Galveston and I was in high school. When Brady was in his residency there, we saw them all the time. After residency, he got a job in Miles City, Montana, as a radiologist. 

But thank goodness its a small world after all, because he grew up in Seminole, about 30 minutes where I ended up in Welch! So his grandfather lives in Brownfield and they were down for Brady's high school reunion this weekend and came to see Mom, Kanyon, and I!!

It was so exciting to see her and spend time with her for a few hours. Kanyon and I both had decided by that afternoon that we were going to go visit them in the next year in Montana.

Mom and I wanted to go visit the antique shop in Brownfield that she always visits when she's here so after taking Vicki back to Brady's grandfather's house, we swung by. Mom didn't find anything this time but I did!

There was a very .... weathered... outdoor bench in the back room. I say weathered.. Kanyon says junk. But he'll see : ) Here's the before:

I got the shaky parts a little more stable and nailed a few boards back into place, but mostly taking out a million nails that weren't even necessary and were cracking the wood. I got the first coat on last night and will hopefully finish it up tonight. I've been looking for something for a while to go on our front porch but really didn't want to buy something because I wanted a little project. Hopefully it will be a success!

Saturday was Al's birthday so Al, Kasha, Kanyon, me, and Mom headed to Lubbock for dinner at Caprock Cafe.

Happy birthday Al!

On Sunday, we spent the early afternoon lounging and then headed over to Al and Kasha's new house. They weren't there but Mom had been wanting to see how it looks. After looking inside, I stepped outside to see how the outdoor kitchen was coming along and look.. what.. I.. saw..

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 I ran inside and told Mom to come look at the huge snake and we both shivered a few times out of creepiness. I sent this picture to Kasha and Al texted back "you didn't kill it, did you??!" 

Uh.. NO way, Jose. I didn't get within twenty feet of it, thank you. But thanks for your concern for my safety, Al. 

It was a bull snake - not poisonous. They actually eat mice, so they're considered "good" snakes.. yah right. The only kind of good snake is a dead one.

Sunday night, Mom and I rearranged my living room (good times, y'all) and then headed out to Vaughn and Kalith's (the in-law's) house. Kanyon's uncle Dan's birthday was this week and to celebrate the boys had a skeet shoot. Kanyon lets me shoot his new pistol and it was pretty fun. I even got within an inch of the target at one time. Zeb was in hog heaven playing with all the dead birds that the guys shot. Yuck.

Mom headed out Monday morning for the 10 hour drive home and I got some stuff done around the house. I cleaned out a huge crammed closet in preparation for moving around some of our storage now that the closet in the leather shop is going to be more accessible now. AND (I know you're wondering how this weekend could get any better...) Sena, Addalie, and Asher arrived for the week! So after bible study last night, I headed over to Vaughn and Kalith's to see Sena.

Whew, long post. Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend, too!