Till We Meet Again...

In our church we are very lucky to have young men and women (and some older folks :)) who are out serving the Lord and us for 6-24 months. We have been blessed with having Sister Missionaries in our Ward (congregation). These are young ladies who serve full time missions for 18 months. They leave home, sometimes learn new languages, and spend their days sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others. They do many other things too. Like service. I became very close to the two missionaries from our ward. They shared in my joy, they comforted my pain, and they were always there when we needed a helping hand. For example, they knew we had bought paint to paint our future baby's room but hadn't done it yet. They decided they were going to come over and help us, and wouldn't take no for an answer. They are very awesome, sweet, caring girls. One Sunday we found out they were leaving-missionaries often get transferred to new areas within their missions- and we were all sad! It was even more hard because both of them were getting transferred out at the same time-usually it is only one. I'm excited about the new adventures they will be going on though. I know they will do great things and help a lot of people out. I'm grateful for my Heavenly Father. He always knows who to send into my life at the right time to help me out. These girls were definitely two of those people. I will miss them dearly, but wish them well!!

(This was when we found out they were leaving. Sad faces!)

(Our "Till We Meet Again" picture. Love them!)

(Sister Ferguson, Me, Sister Bruce)

The Eagles!

(The eaglet by his nest. Taken with an iPhone through a telescope!)

This is the second time we have been to see the bald eagles in Llano. They come back each year to these nests and give everyone a good show. The eaglets hatched around my birthday- exciting stuff! There were two of them for 2012. One was flying when we were there, but the other did a lot of flapping but could seem to muster up the courage to take the plunge. That would be a hard thing to- take that leap of faith and learn to fly! Tis truly and analogy for life isn't it? There was this really nice guy there with multiple telescopes set up so everything could see the eagles up close. We got some decent pictures with our new camera, but you would defiantly need a much larger lens to get anything close up. It's always fun to see my dad's excitement at things like this. It stirs up the history, American loving side in him and seems to transform him into a young boy again. I'm glad, by doing things like this, he reminds me to slow down and appreciate the simple things in life. This birds are truly amazing looking though. So we spent quite a but of time watching them through our cameras and binoculars, but they didn't do much. So we did what any true Texan would do- headed to the local BBQ joint! In fact, it is our favorite place. Cooper's BBQ! After a delicious meal we headed back and got to see one of the adult eagles back at the nest and a little flying from the one eaglet. Always a good time with my family. I'm grateful that my dad and brother always find these odd things for us to do- so much fun!

(One of the parents flying by.)

(Dad looking like a true bird watcher)

(Me and my parents checking out the Eagles)

(Me and my Mom. Don't we look alike?)

(Heath and I enjoying the nice, sunny day.)

Visitors!

We love living in Austin, but often miss our family who live spread out across Texas and Utah. The good thing is that we only live 3 short hours from most of our family-The Texas Breinholt's and Barnette's! This weekend we excitedly welcomed Heath's brother's family. As always, we had a blast with them. Saturday we spent the day out doing lots of fun things, but most importantly our traditional visit to Chuck E. Cheese's! This is something we started with Sydney and have continued with Malla and now little Ty. It's so fun watching our nieces and nephew run around (well Syd and Malla-Ty can't even wok yet :)) with a big smile on their face. We can't wait for the day when we can chase our own kids around these type of places. I always went with my family as a kid and can't wait to do it with my own kids.

(We didn't get many pictures at CEC, but this is Malla enjoying a ride!)

Sunday we laid low, attended church, and tried to tend to everyone's cold. The latter was due to another tradition we have- spreading germs! The kids call me Halla so we used to call it the Sydney-Halla strain, then the Sydney-Halla-Malla strain, and now it has morphed into the Sydney-Halla-Malla-Ty strain. Needless to say, we all had the sniffles by the time they left, but it WAS WORTH IT! The girls also whipped out trunks of makeup and hair accessories so they could beautify me. I, as usual, came out looking hot :)

(All "did" up. Me with the girls after our makeovers.)

(This is my GQ face. The girls showing off their masterpiece)

On Monday, when it was time to go, Sydney began her usual flow of tears exclaiming that she just didn't want to leave and that she would just miss us too much. It is sad indeed, but feels so good that she loves us as much as we do her! Earlier we had told her that Summer would come soon and hopefully she would be able to come and go swimming in our neighborhood. Mer texted while they were driving home to tell us that Sydney was crying and saying "Halla was wrong! Summer is never going to come!" Haha, I love that girl. Malla is much more chill. I'm pretty sure she stated that she was glad she could come and would see us again soon. Tyson was too young to understand any of it. We sure enjoyed having them here! We love visitors!

Adventures with the Missionaries!

We are lucky to have Sister Missionaries in our Ward and I am even more lucky to have the calling of a Ward Missionary. What does this mean? I end up having lots of fun adventures with them, and there have been a lot lately. Here is just one of those stories:

One day I asked the sisters over for lunch and due to my excellent culinary skills I decided to take them out somewhere. We picked a place and then headed out the door....only to find out that Heath had taken the car and left his usual mode of transportation-the scooter. We looked at each other, we looked at the scooter, and then we walked back inside to figure out what we would do. We tried to see if we could figure out a way for me to go in their car. We read their rule book- it was pretty cut and dry. My only option was-you guessed it-the scooter. Now, take into consideration that my extent of driving the scooter consisted of a few wobbly trials down our street. The place we were going was on an intersection of two major highways, but with back roads the whole may there. I really wanted to take the sisters out so I strapped on my helmet and they jumped in their car and we headed out. I am happy to say that I safely made it there and back, and I know understand Heath's obsession with the scooter-it was fun!

We have some really great missionaries in our area (especially our Ward). They are so kind, giving, and definitely are in tune with the Spirit. I was in the process of putting my papers in to serve a mission for our church when Heath and I met. Obviously I am grateful for meeting Heath and love being married, but I'm grateful for this calling with the missionaries so that I can fulfill that desire in a small way. Can't wait until we are older and can serve a mission together!

A new puppy....

.....for Mer's brother Cody!! Haha, I bet some of you were real worried for a minute. Cody (our sister-in-law's brother-and our friend) came to stay us with this last weekend. Why, you ask? To pick up this cutie...

As you can tell, I was quite excited to be snuggling with her. It doesn't hurt that she is adorable and a Miniature Schnauzer (Just like our two dogs!). Cody came in Friday night and we then preceded to stay up way too late. Saturday we went to IHOP (Thanks Mom and Dad Breinholt for the gift card!) and then headed out to Marble Falls to check out the puppies. I'm pretty sure Cody fell in love with her as soon as he saw her (I know I did :)). He named her Lily.

(Lily giving Cody kisses)

(Her first bath-so cute!)

We took Cody to Petsmart so I could use my pet owner expertise to load him up with all the essentials. We spent the rest of the weekend trying to make her comfortable, and then they headed back to DFW. Sadly, Ally and Sophie were pretty happy to see her go. When they first saw her I'm pretty sure this is what went through their heads: Ally (our older dog) "Not again!" and Sophie "I'm not the baby anymore?!". Had a great time with Cody and Lily though!

Wicked!!

So I had great plans to go to Wicked with my sister-in-laws, but due to weekend tickets being sold out really fast we were unable to do it. Heath took pity on me and decided to take me as a date night. I was pretty excited because I had always heard bits of it from my sister-in-laws who loved it, but thought Heath would be pretty bored. Boy was I wrong! We both LOVED it, and can't wait for it to come back so we can go again. We bought cheap seats thinking it was a small venue and we would still be able to see. Again, wrong. We were WAYYYY up high, but it was still a great time. It has made me want to see more musicals/plays in the future. Glad that we live in a city that always has them going on! Thanks to Heath for a great date night!

(Us in our seats. Yep, that is the wall behind us.)

The stage! Shhh, we weren't supposed to take photos :)

Heath's "Man Cave"

We've been slowly painting the rooms in our house, and so while Heath was on Winter break we decided to tackle the guest room upstairs. It turned out a little darker than I first envisioned, but Heath loves it. It's part his office and he considers it his man cave so that works out! I plan on either painting or doing a vinyl tree on that big blank wall and hanging random pictures of our family on it. Check out an example here.

Room Before:

Room After:

(New paint and curtains)

(Heath's Study area)

(Heath's guitars now safely hung on the wall)

Phew, painting is A LOT of work. Next up is the Nursery. We got a nice light green color- perfect for a boy or girl! :)