Best of '18

I make plans to be consistent with blogging, but inevitably life happens. Instead of giving up, I'll keep going from where I'm at! Here's a few highlights of our 2018.

January:

We explored the Market Square in San Antonio.

We had a frozen day in Austin. Most everything was shut down because
Austin has hardly any equipment for dealing with ice.

February:

We explored the University of Texas campus here in Austin.

This is a small portion of the football stadium. Yes, everything is bigger in Texas.

We celebrated our anniversary in College Station.

March:

We celebrated Jonathan's first day of work at Home
Depot with delicious tacos.

We found blue bonnets!!!

April:

I still can't believe that I've actually been to Europe.

A cute little side canal in Amsterdam. 

We visited Begijnhof in Brugge.

This was the view of Brugge right outside of where we were staying.

A view of Venice.

The Duomo in Florence.

We had a beautiful day in Vernazza.

We finished off our whirlwind tour in Rome.

May:

The cacti were in bloom.

We found the perfect beach.

We finally explored Fredericksburg.

June:

I finally hung up some pictures.

We visited the museum at Camp Mabry here in Austin.

We didn't eat enough delicious Texas peaches.

July

These two ran us up and down the length of Texas!

August:

We went to Family Fun Day with Home Depot!

We enjoyed a Round Rock Express baseball game.

We celebrated our 15th half-iversary.

September:

We found where all the cowboys get their boots.

We explored the new downtown Austin library.

We tried Top Golf with my cousin David and his friends.

October:

We watched General Conference with the missionaries.

We bought Jonathan a second bike after his first one was
stolen. The second bike is still in our possession.

We took a trip to the Houston Temple.

We celebrated Jonathan's birthday in Florence, Texas.

November:

We went to our first hockey game with friends from work.

For Jonathan's birthday trip, we went down to Houston.

This is a working model of the International Space Station.

We got to go inside both the airplane and the shuttle.

We visited the 1940 Air Terminal Museum in Houston.

President Nelson came all the way to San Antonio to speak to us.

We found an amazing view of the skyline with fall colors.

December:

Jonathan and I found a delicious cheese store.

The Home Depot Christmas Party involved bowling and playing pool.

 I went on a last minute trip to California.

I was there for my grandpa's 90th birthday.

I also went to say goodbye to Ginny. She was my
grandpa's girlfriend for 16 years and she truly was
a grandma to all of us even though she had her own family.

I also was able to see Lyla perform in the Nutcracker!

Ryan is now officially taller than me. I still can't believe it!

We saw the Christmas lights in Georgetown, Texas.

We decorated with our presents. It was a bad idea because I didn't want to open them.

I finished reading The Book of Mormon.

It was a wild year with many unexpected twists and turns. I don't know what this year will have in store, but I can't wait to find out!

Dallas Temple

Back when my parents visited in July, we made it to the Dallas Temple. It is so much prettier than the pictures show.

I definitely want to go back again!

The Birthday Part Two

Last month, we took a trip down to Houston as part of Jonathan's birthday celebration.

Our first day was spent at Space Center Houston. It was awesome! We spent 6 hours there and it doesn't feel like it was long enough. There were all sorts of exhibits and games to learn more about how they do things. 

We got to take a tram ride around the different buildings that make up Space Center Houston and we even got to go inside of one of them. There were scientists and engineers at work.

A scale model of the International Space Station.

The other stop on the tram ride was seeing a real Saturn V rocket. It is MASSIVE!!!

It's hard to describe the scale of this rocket.

After the tram ride, we had lunch in the food court. Naturally, there was a transporter from Star Trek in there.

After lunch, we headed out to see the space shuttle Independence. It is a scale model of a space shuttle and was amazing how much detail it has.

We also got to see rock samples from the moon.

This is a little moon rock that people can touch.

One of the last things we saw was the Apollo 17 command module. It looks beat up, but the bottom looks worse.

After it closed, we took some pictures of the space shuttle and we realized we accidentally took the headsets with us.

Jonathan took them back and the worker jokingly accused Jonathan of stealing them.

 I like the astronaut on the McDonalds down the street from Space Center Houston.

The next day we went through downtown Houston on our way to our next big stop.

The next place Jonathan wanted to visit was the 1940 Air Terminal Museum. It's still attached to the tarmac of the current airport in Houston.

Our guide was very knowledgeable and answered all of Jonathan's questions.

After spending a few hours there, we drove around the University of Houston campus on our way to dessert.

I'm grateful for friends that know yummy places to visit because I probably wouldn't have found the Red Dessert Dive on my own.

Our desserts were so rich that neither one of us could finish them.

 We had to head back early for some Saturday church meetings, but we were able to stop off in Smithville for lunch. This little town was the setting for the movie Hope Floats. It is one of the many cute little Texas towns.

Even though we were a month late in celebrating Jonathan's birthday, it was a great time!