More birthday and holiday pics

For my birthday lunch Josh and I went to Top Golf for the first time. I LOVE THAT PLACE! It was so much fun, and I actually beat him 2 out of the 3 games.

Then we picked up the kids and went downtown for some shopping and a visit to The Big Top Candy Shop.

Then we ate and looked at a bunch of cool lights and went to Mozarts for the awesome lights/music show.

Today my Dad and Rebecca came down to visit and shop for dresses for the girls for her house party (for her wedding). We had SO much fun hanging out and found 2 perfect dresses. I so wish we could do this more frequently. I love my family. I had no idea how similar my sister and I are, since we didn't really grow up together, it must be the genes. I wish we all lived closer.

Random pics from the last few weeks

Hannah is 17!

cousins at Thanksgiving

Michael and Jordan's first purchases for their apartment next year. She is in love with this color blue. (so am I ) 

Josh eating a jalepeno - he's nuts

My wedding ring broke!! After 21 years it finally came unhitched. Will have to take it to the jewelers soon :(

my beautiful girl playing at our Anderson Mill campus this morning

Josh playing at his company Christmas party (with Chris, Abel and Kristian)

Josh and I at his company party

We found the gown!

We didn't intend to! We decided to go check out the gown buying process, see what's out there, how long it takes to order, see what she likes, etc.. All in preparation to start serious shopping next weekend when her bridesmaid Erin would be home. Then visit a few more and decide over the holidays. Well of course the very first one she tries on, she LOVES!! She tried on 5 more just to be sure, then put back on the first one with a veil, and it was over. She insisted she didn't want to shop around when all the dresses she would see she would only be comparing to this one. So we ordered it! (Even with the veil and petticoat it cost less than I had anticipated which was a pleasant surprise!) I just can't believe it happened so fast. We've been watching dress shows and pinning dresses on Pinterest for years, imagining all the dresses she would try on to pick from. I was almost kind of sad to not go through that whole process of parading around town trying on tons of dresses, but when I saw how happy she was in that dress, what I wanted was irrelevant. This is all still so surreal.

Oh, we also booked a venue last week!! It's the mansion she wanted on west campus. August 3rd is the big day. It's a Sunday, not ideal, but that's all that was available. We are soo excited this is finally in the books. Major stress off our shoulders.


In a much different start to our day we did a self defense training this morning with some other women. We had a blast! It is amazing how simple moves can completely throw a man off you, and also amazing how much confidence that gives you. Both my girls came along and are glad they did.

Friday I got to take Jordan to her first Christmas Affair. I've been going since she was a baby but have never taken her. She really enjoyed it, and I think I have a new shopping partner every year! I always get a huge jump start on the shopping at this event, you should check it out if you've never been.

*Becky's cancer surgery went as well as anyone could have hoped. The cancer was not in her nearby lymph glands, which is great news! She's still recovering in the hospital but is hoping to come home early next week.

Lots of exciting things happening here at Revelation Guitar Amps in Austin Texas! Hoping to announce a cool partnership soon. Josh is busy cranking out some amps for the company to play with over the holidays. If anyone you know is in the market for a custom, hand made, high quality amplifier, check us out.

Revelation Amps website

2 social media posts today that made me happy. Hannah is always managing to get Oscar in some funny poses for their "selfies". And when the big kids showed up at church this morning Pastor Lori wanted a pic with them and was SOO excited for them she even posted their photo.

Just returned from a trip to our nations capitol.

very eye catching awareness tool

Our team went to a trafficking conference last week. It was really good, practical material, and we heard amazing stories from actual survivors. It was very inspiring. We also got a night time tour of the capitol, which was pretty darn cool. We got to sit in the House chamber where the president gives his annual state of the union
address. That was REALLY cool. We weren't allowed to take pictures in there, or I would have. We also toured alot of the monuments and Smithsonians, but I already posted pics of those several years ago, so I won't do it again.





As soon as I got home the wedding planning commenced. We toured our first venue last night and ruled it out. We have 5 more this week. Apparently we are months behind schedule. Planning a wedding these days is a year long ordeal. One venue she really likes is already completely booked on all saturdays through next summer. But if she likes it enough we may choose a Friday or Sunday. This is gonna be a crazy ride.

The Proposal

The proposal was so beautiful. He had several friends and family there before we arrived and we were there pretending to do a photo shoot. Then Hannah had her listen to a song on her phone that was Michael singing her a song he wrote. Then one by one during the song her friends and family brought her pictures that he had drawn her of some of his favorite memories of their relationship. At the end he came up with blank paper for their next memories, and then he proposed. I think there were very few dry eyes. 

collage of all the drawings

Jordan's 20th bday

"indoor skydiving" at Ifly

everyone loved it, except Michael who would like to "never do that again" :)

Miles wanted to help with the candles

In other news, Michael asked Josh's permission to propose to Jordan.  He took him out to his favorite breakfast spot and had a very long, very good conversation.  Shhhhh.. don't say a word, she's not supposed to know...    :)

More news hopefully coming soon!!

Here are some pics of the bathroom redo's. I'm still not done with them. I need to frame the mirrors and put up some decor in the kids bath and also repaint their cabinets. I still love how the grey brings out the color in our slate tile. Pictures just don't do the room justice..

before  and   after  

before  and  after

kids bath in progress - LOVE the color! New dark tile with white rugs :)

Josh is back home after another whirlwind European tour of London, Norway and Sweden. While he was away I redid our bathroom as a surprise. He was definitely surprised! When he left it was a red cluttered mess. It is now decluttered, painted grey, with black and white photos from our Paris trip hung up, chrome accessories and bright white trim and white linens and rugs everywhere. It really brings out the color of our slate tile in there. It looks great. I was very happy with the transformation and was therefor motivated to do the kids bathroom as well. Theirs is now Tiffany blue and white with some dark flooring. It looks absolutely adorable.  Next project on the list is redoing the entire upstairs flooring. Ripping out the 12 year old carpet and putting down some wood laminate.

I think it really just occurred to me that my last child is a senior. This is the last year of their "home" education. Next year I will not be a homeschool mom. It is absolutely unbelievable. I never thought it would go this far and there were years I never thought we'd make it this far. But we did it. I can't believe this adventure is on its last year. It all happened so fast. Especially these teen years. Wasn't I just yesterday worried about how to get them through high school? How does time get away from us like that? The thought of them both being gone sometime soon took my breath away. I don't think I want that. I'm still not ready. I would miss them too much.

Josh got back in town late friday night from yet another business trip.
My friend Rene gave us her box seats so we could attend the Saturday part of the Le Mans race weekend. Josh and I had a blast. I didn't know that Patrick Dempsey was a race car driver! I saw him up close, then watched him race later. It was a very cool experience spending the day out there and touring the pit area between races.

"these are the best of times, these are the worst of times.."  Isn't it funny how they can be at exactly the same time? Things going along just swell in our non profit and out of nowhere we are hit with extreme cruelty from an ex member. I'm sure she's just bitter, but to try and take down a non profit who is only trying to help save people? Who does that? Just evil I tell ya...
Other than that, things are moving along rapidly. Yesterday we met with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Texas office. That was very informative and they gave us a TON of contacts for introductions moving forward. So beyond cool.

We're all very excited to be headed to Washington D.C. in November for a national trafficking conference. The head of that organization wants us to get introduced to some high level people in our field. Very exciting stuff.
Gotta get ready for Bunco tonight - looking forward to some downtime with friends.