July

The month of July has been a busy month for us! We can't believe it is already over! Here is what we have been up to...The 4th of July was a relaxing day for us. We swam and ate BBQ at Alan and Jana's home, and later watched a fireworks show. Pretty American if you ask me....The dessert I made. It was pretty tastey.Dad, Mom, Ryan, Roxie, Cherie and Bill, enjoying the Fireworks show.

Ryan and I went with Bill and Cherie to Mamie's house for a day. I love the country life. Ryan shooting, just because he can.We did a little bit of fishing while we were there, too. I caught two, and Ryan caught one. Not that I'm rubbing it in or anything.....:)

I recently visited my good friend Julia at her new home. I realized that it had been a year since I had seen her! Too long! Well, she has a beautiful 4th month baby boy now, Cooper, so I was glad to be able to visit. This is Mr. Cooper. So adorable:) He looks just like his daddy.

Derik, a family friend of the Bassham's, and I share a passion for cooking. We decided we would make a scrumptious meal one evening, so we did! I must say, it was one of the best meals I have had in a LONG time. We make a great team Derik! :)Derik (Red Dog) and me cookin' it up!The AMAZING appetizer Derik madeMy yummy raspberry and lemon tart.

When the new iPhones came out, we had to have one. So, we got in line at 5am and waited until about noon. It was pretty rediculous, and actually we felt quite stupid. But hey, we have iPhones now.

Me and my mom in line. I was the 30th or so person in line....there were several hundred people behind us. Mandy and Matt were about 10 people behind us. Matt was the 2nd to last person to get one...and then they ran out. We saw several people from church in line. Kinda funny.

Ryan has been getting ready for the hunting season. He has been diligently working on a duck blind! I must admit I never knew he was so handy, this is good to know:)So manly.The floor of the blind.The finished product, complete with doggy door for Roxie. I will post more pictures when it has been painted. Way to go hunnie!

My parents recently had their 25th Wedding Anniversary. To celebrate, us kids took them to Maggiano's, a VERY yummy Italian restaurant. We surprised them with family there waiting to celebrate with us! Congratulations, Mom and Dad, we love you!

All of us at Maggiano's. Thanks to everyone that came! It was a really fun evening!

Ryan and I have moved!!! We are sooooo very excited to be in an actual house! We feel so blessed to have found this rental house when we did because it is exactly what we need. We loved where we lived before, but this is cheaper, private, and we don't have to deal with drunk students barging in our back door at midnight....long story and very scary. Anyway, I will post more pictures of the move later. Thanks Mom and Dad, Bill and Cherie for helping us. We couldn't have done it without you. Here's our cute little house:) We can't wait to go back to College Station, Yay!

And here are a few pictures of Roxie. I wish I had half the energy she does.

Jumpin' on the band wagon

Well, it has been a long time coming, but we finally invested in a DSLR camera. We are sooo excited about it! We have been going back and forth, trying to decide on a Canon or a Nikon. After a lot of research, we decided to go with the Nikon D300. It is AWESOME! We still have A LOT to learn about it, but the little bit that we have been able to mess with it, we have seriously fallen in love. Here are a few pictures that we have taken.Roxie keeps us on our toes...stay tuned and you will see why.... Sophie girl...oh man...she is a monster. A cute monster though.Usually we put Roxie in her kennel when we leave the house. We have been slowly letting her stay outside of the kennel. We started with 10 minutes, up to 30 minutes, up to an hour. Now she can stay in there all day. She was doing pretty well for about a month but one day this week she took some major steps back. I came home for lunch, went up stairs to let Roxie out, opened the door and saw money ripped to shreds all over the floor! She immediately knew she was in trouble! After I got mad at her, I decided I needed to take a picture. She felt really bad. Anyway, after picking up all the tiny pieces and trying to put them back together, we found out it was only 3 dollars. She no longer stays in the room...we have reverted back to her kennel.Smokey is loving life. She has plenty of room in the house to avoid any other specie of any kind.

We hope all of you out there have a wonderful 4th of July holiday weekend!