Christmas 2013

My mom and dad were supposed to come for Christmas this year but were unable because of health reasons. Although a bummer, my husband and I found some fun things to do Christmas week.There is a lot  going on in the Dallas area for Christmas and here are some of the things we did.

We started off the Saturday before Christmas going to the Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas to see Irving Berlin's White Christmas, The Musical. We sat in the very last seat in the theater, but with binoculars, it wasn't bad at all. It was great! What a great way to start the season.

 

Then we drove to the Anatole, a hotel in Dallas, to see their Christmas "Sparkle". They decorated their hotel and set up a ice skating area outside.

 

Inside they had a nice Christmas tree for pictures. We actually were fortunate to find a professional photographer who took some pictures of us on our phone camera.

 

 

 

The Anatole had a manger display by a certain artist which was interesting.

 

They had the largest Nutcracker

 

This was a train display at the Anatole

 

This was the ice skating rink at the Anatole. It wasn't busy at all. Great place to ice skate that wasn't crowded.

 

These were some of the trees near the ice skating rink outside the Anatole

 

We then drove to the Bass Pro Shop where it was Christmassy and looked around.

 

We ended up in Grapevine, TX and walked around. This is a fun place to go around Christmas time. They have the dancing lights with music, coffee shops to get Christmas cookies and cocoa, usually some sort of Christmas show, light displays and fun shops to go in.

 

 

Christmas Eve we went to see the AT&T stadium where the Cowboys play. I'm a Steelers fan since I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, PA, but it was very impressive to see the stadium. We got tickets on Groupon and thought it wouldn't be very busy this day and it wasn't. Of course I wore my Black and Gold. :-)

 



The very top seats in the nose bleed section cost around $80.00. Cheapest tickets are the standing tickets for $29.00

 

This stadium is massive. The St. Louis arch can fit inside this stadium as well as the statue of Liberty.

 

This field is very cushy. They spread shredded tire rubber over the entire field after it's laid down.

 

This opening goes back to the Cowboy's locker room. The box seats behind me a little below the field are $500K for the year and then it cost $300.00 for the tickets on top of that. Wow! Mostly corporate boxes.

 

We heard each "locker" costs around $10k. The wood was imported from somewhere in Africa.

 

This is the media room where the coach comes to speak after a game at Cowboy's Stadium.

 

 

We also went to look at Christmas lights in the Plano neighborhood where we went last year. It's amazing how many houses decorate in this neighborhood. However, the traffic is really bad and it's a little hard to maneuver. I was impressed at how many manger scenes there were and it was great to see that.

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ice Storm of 2013

So today marks the third day that we are home bound! We had been warned by the weather man that a storm was coming to Texas starting onThursday night. It was kinda hard to believe because on Wednesday it was 77 degrees! On Thursday the weather seemed to drop quite drastically and by 1pm it started to sleet, not snow, sleet. So everyone in the Dallas area left work early...around 3pm or so. They had to of because it took forever to get home. It took me about an hour and a half and took Scott around 2 hours. The farther north we got the worse it got. By Thursday night the Dallas/Ft. Worth area was shut down for the weekend. I mean almost everything! Church was cancelled on Sunday, stores were cancelled. They warned everyone to stay at home and so we did! I personally love staying at home. I have so many projects I need to get done and so that was wonderful news to me. No cabin fever here! :-) So I baked cookies and got some cleaning and organizing done. It has been so nice.

In my Christmas letter this year I mentioned that I had coordinated 14 weddings, 4 events and moved offices as well as helped my mother-in-law move...plus had a full-time job. It was so nice to have a reprieve to get some home things done for sure!

Here are some pictures of our ice storm. This is the front of our house.

 

Our icy street

 

We tried to take a walk a couple of blocks away to take back the movies we rented. We walked to the end of our alley and it was pretty much like ice skating with boots on, so we turned around and went back to the house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside there was cookie making going on...

 

Our traditional Candy Cane Cookies!

 

Raspberry tarts and Cranberry Oat Bars

 

It's nice to have great neighbors to hang out with as well! We spent some time last night just playing cards with them. We are greatful to have heat as well. Many did loose power.

 

It's actually going to get above 32 degrees today so we might venture out for a walk. At the busiest time of the season we got to slow down. Thank you God for the ice storm!! :-) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August Wedding

Finally posting my August wedding. Kristy and Austin. What a sweet couple! Here is a picture that they sent me after the wedding. This was just a very easy couple to work with and their families were wonderful. This was their wedding party outside the Denton Bible chapel.

 

 

Here is the wedding music:

Seating of the Grandparents and Parents: Come Thou Fount

Wedding party - The Processional

Presentation of the Bride - The Processional

Congregational Song - In Christ Alone

Wedding Song - Love Never Fails

Unity Sand Song - A Page is Turned

Recessional - random instrumental

 

Here are some of the pictures I took

 

These are the beautiful flowers trying to revive in ice water. You can't really tell, but the Hydrangeas were wilting a bit. It was a hot day and they were taking pictures outside for a few hours. We put them in ice water for a while and they started to revive a bit. The flowers were beautiful and colorful.

During the wedding ceremony (another professional pic)

 

Praying with their parents during the ceremony

 

Guest book table with the couple and their parents wedding pictures

 

Adorable picture! This is the flower girl that came down the aisle in a wagon. She did great! She was so cute!

 

This is the wagon that was used in the wedding. I forgot to take a picture during the ceremony. This is the ring bearer taking it out of the chapel.

 

Just married!!

 

 

Kristy and Austin

 

Fun picture

 

The day was hot so they had a little trouble with the flower, but other than that, it was all beautiful. Kristi was very sweet and e-mailed me some pics after their wedding. It's so nice to hear from the bride after the wedding. :-) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Travel Adventure show in Dallas

It has been a long time since I have posted, I know. Two weddings, two conferences, a sinus infection later, and now I'm finally posting. I do have a lot to catch up on, but I wanted to write something current...something we just did yesterday. My husband asked me if I wanted to go to the travel show at the Dallas Convention Center. We love to travel and we are hoping to make a trip to Europe next year, so this would be something fun to go to. One other request he has was to take the DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit)...so we did. We started off at the Plano station...the farthest point north that the DART goes and it travels right to the Convention Center where the show was. We haven't been on the DART in a long time.It was kinda fun to travel this way. Public transportation is not my favorite, but sometimes it is good to rub shoulders with different kinds of people. It makes me both greatful for what I have and sad for what some do not...and I don't mean necesarrily material things, but spiritual things. It was good thing.

Here is a picture of the DART as it entered the station at the Dallas Convention Center.

 

Here is us on the train...ready for our day in Dallas.

 

 

It was a little chilly in the morning, so the walk to the doors of the Convention Center was a bit cold...especially after trying to get over a sinus infection, but oh well. It was fun! Not as crowded as I expected so that was good. They had several speakers at different stages and lots of booths concerning travel to stop by. Lots of local places like Louisianna and Oklahoma as well. Not much on Europe that we saw.

 

We attended a few speakers sessions. One was by Chris Harrison of The Bachelor called: The Bachelor: A Reflection on Romance and Travel. It was interesting to know how many places have become tourist attractions just by being features on The Bachelor. Most of the questions related to the show so it was quite entertaining. :-)

 

 

 

 

One of the best speakers we heard was Pauline Frommer on What You Need to Know Before You Plan Your Next Vacation. Her talk was very informative. She gave us tips on when to book your flights (Tuesday or Wednesday), websites, and travel tips. Here are just a few:

 

Follow your favorite airline on Facebook or Twitter...some of the best deals are listed here.

Websites: Hipmunk.com, DoHop.com, Momondo.com

Places to stay: Airbnb.com, wimdu, roomarama and Evergreenbedandbreadfast.com

For Rentals: airbnb.com, homeaway.com, VRBO.com, zonder.com Flipkey.com

Cusomized Vacations: vayable.com, context travel, eatwith.com, eatwithalocal.com

Small Group Tours: Intrepid Travel, G Adventures, Djoser Tours

 

I haven't tried any of the websites yet but will look into them. There is much more information she gave us as well.

 

We checked out a few booths, took some materials and headed back to the DART. We took it to Dallas' West End, got off and ate at a nice western resturant called Hoffbrau.

 

 

 

Then back on the DART to Plano to get our car and go home. We were quite tired after today. It was a nice date and day trip to Dallas. It's nice to get out of the regular routine and go explore something close by that was fun.

 

 

 

Peach Pickin and Lavender Sniffin

My least favorite season in Texas is what we call "super summer" which is July and August. When you walk out of an airconditioned room into the great outdoors it feels like you walked into an oven! It's hot! When it gets into the 100's it's unbearable to do anything outside. Well, this year there was a little bit of a relief on a few weekends and we took advantage of it. A friend of ours told us about a place call U Pick Peaches, http://www.redriverpeachorchard.com/. It's up in the Gainesville, TX area, very close to Oklahoma. I love fresh picked fruit, but the last time I picked fruit was when I lived in Virginia and that's been several years ago, so I was happy to hear about this. It was a cool July Saturday in the low 90's and in Gainesville, high 80's. It felt like a cold front had come through. A perfect day for picking. It was also nice to spend time with just my husband since I had been so busy doing weddings all summer and haven't been around too much.

When we pulled up to the gate, it was just a house with a little store front out back that worked the peach picking business. They had homemade peach ice cream for sale, peach jams and jellies and free lemonide. Also a clean restroom...which is important, and a place where you can wash your hands afterwards. It was a perfect day! We met some people up there from our church that were picking as well.

Grab a bucket and go pick! They weigh the fruit, put it in a box and you pay...cash only.

 

They have something like 900 trees!

 

Tons to choose from

 

 

We picked three buckets full

 

After we picked our peaches, we headed to the Lavender Farm, which was about 15 minutes away. http://lavenderridgefarms.com.

 

 

This is where you cut Lavender, but we were there after the season had finished.

 

They have a small café and an outside eating part as well. All the food on the menu includes Lavender in their ingredients. We had Lavender infused iced tea and lemonade. We shared a trio salad that had some Lavender in it as well as gooey butter cake with Lavender sprinkled on top. Not my favorite accent to food, but it was nice to try.

 

They had this nice little gift shop where you can buy Lavender things. We bought Lavender musk soap which smelled so good.

 

It was a really nice little get-away for Scott and I. Of course we had our work cut out for us when we got home, peeling peaches, but we got that done and made some yummy things.

 

Peach freezer jam. I had no idea how easy that was.

 

Peach preserves. Yum!! Never made this before, but it was pretty easy as well. I just watched a YouTube video and taught myself. Now we have jam/preserves to share with others...as well as lots of frozen peaches.