My Family

My Family

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

The Weekend...

It seriously is crazy how quickly time flies! The weekend is over in just a blink and honestly, most weeks seem to pass just as quick! So, here was our latest busy/fun filled weekend!

This past week was Tulsa's Oktoberfest. Trevor and I have made it a habit to go at least once every year. Normally we would go on Wednesday because it is corporate night and Trevor got tickets through his work, but his job now doesn't do that. So we went on Thursday and met up with some friends that we hadn't seen in awhile. 

Such a fun group. Trevor and I got home wayyyy too late and then we stayed up talking for a few hours after that...I'm surprised my alarm woke me up the next morning. But I'm glad it did, because I have never been late to work!

On Friday we both went to work and then came home and caught up on our shows. Modern Family, Chicago PD, Nashville, etc. That night we had tickets to see Josh Abbott Band at Cain's ballroom. We made tacos at home and then headed downtown. We made a pit stop at Inner Circle to play corn hole and then headed to Cain's to see the concert. We were both actually really impressed with the opening act. Her name is Carly Pierce. I ended up buying her EP while we were there so we could listen to it on our drive the next day. 



We had initially planned to go to OSU's homecoming walk arounds, but Josh Abbott Band is Trevor's favorite band, so I told him I would take him to the concert instead. 

On Saturday morning we woke up, got packed and hit the road for Paris, TX. A friend of ours was getting married there that evening. We got to town pretty early, which was nice because we had a lot of friends in town that we wanted to see. So we went and hung out at Chilies for a bit and watched the OSU game before we went and got ready for the wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and the company was even better!






Congrats Price and Ava Ashley!

The next day we had to explore Paris a little before heading home, so we went to breakfast and then to the Eiffel Tower!

Sadly, we were a little disappointed in the size of the Paris, TX Eiffel Tower. 

We then headed home to see our pups and do loads of laundry!! We love getting to see so many friends in a weekend and get to have quality time with each other. Definitely a great weekend for the books!

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Free Spirits

This past week has truly been so much fun! Since I was on fall break Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Trevor decided to take off on Thursday and Friday so we would have a little vacation. Initially we had planned to go somewhere; we had talked about Kansas City, Branson or Dallas, but when push came to shove, we decided to have a staycation. We wanted to do all things around Tulsa that we hadn't done before. We made a list of a few items we wanted to check off our list, but really, the whole week just kind of ended up being spur of the moment decisions. 

On Thursday morning we both slept in (my favorite) and then got up and ready for the day. The only thing on our agenda was to borrow our friends' Vespa and go explore Tulsa. We decided to eat lunch at Blue Rose on Riverside and then ride the Vespa around downtown. 

The Vespa only goes about 30 miles per hour, so the downtown speed limit was more our style. We literally just rode all around downtown, near Hodges Bend, by OneOK and all over the OSU Tulsa campus. We had never driven through TU before, so we drove over there and explored the TU campus. We even stopped in to see some friends that live over there, but they weren't home. We ended up driving to Cherry Street and stopping at The Pint. While we were hanging out there I might have mentioned that I was having a great time and that a motorcycle would be so much fun. That's when Trevor said "should we be free spirits today?" and I knew we would probably end up with a motorcycle by the end of the day! The last time Trevor said "should we just be free spirits today?" was the day that we sold my Jeep and bought the Honda Pilot, which we had not planned for at all! Basically, when Trevor takes off a day of work, we get ourselves into trouble! ;) 
We left The Pint and still wanted to keep driving around, so we went and explored the neighborhoods near Lewis/Harvard. The huge oil money houses. There was only one huge hill that I thought we weren't going to make it up, but we survived. 

Trevor was serious about this motorcycle comment, so after we had our fun filled day of the Vespa, we put it in the back of the truck and headed to a couple motorcycle places. To make a long story short, we ended up back at the first place we started purchasing the first bike that Trevor said he wanted! I was literally running to the bank at 5:00 on the dot to get cash out! Somehow we made the purchase and got some helmets to top it off!
It didn't really sink in until we were purchasing helmets. Holy moly, we just bought a motorcycle! 
My helmet won't be in for a few days, so I just borrowed the helmet that we were using on the Vespa. 

On our drive home we were passing right by my parents house, so we stopped in to say hello before heading home. 

When we got home it was time to meet up with our friends because we were having a pumpkin carving night. I hadn't taken a ride on the motorcycle yet, so we decided to drive the motorcycle to our friends house and forgo carving pumpkins since we had no one to transport them. When we left there we drove out to Coweta to show Trevor's mom and stepdad since we hadn't told them we purchased it yet. It was beautiful weather, so we were all about driving everywhere!

Since we were having a staycation, we decided to build a fort in our living room and camp out! Now, this is my kind of camping! 



We had quite a few shows to catch up on, so we watched Nashville, Chicago Fire and Modern Family. I think the dogs enjoyed "camping" with us! 

On Friday we got up, made some cinnamon rolls, watched Chicago PD (I realize these are all my kind of shows...Trevor is just nice enough to watch them with me. I think he slightly enjoys them all as well) and relaxed a bit in the morning. We were excited for more adventures on the motorcycle, so we got out and ran a few errands and then we had a couples massage appointment at Red Canyon at 11:30. We had never been there before and I really liked it. I've had quite a few massages in my day and this one was at the top of my list. Trevor then surprised me by going to Rustic Cuff and purchasing my choice of bracelet...I should let him buy motorcycles more often! ;) 

We then headed home to get ready for our next adventure. We took the pups on a picnic. I honestly don't really know where we went. Trevor knew of a little spot because that is where him and his dad put their boat in to go duck hunting. We got some wine and cheese to eat and just hung out. I'm pretty sure the dogs thought they were in cheese heaven!!! 







It was fun to just relax, listen to music and enjoy each other's company. 

We then headed home and got ready for a delicious dinner at Molly's Landing. It was pretty chilly outside but we decided to brave the weather and we took the motorcycle. We are just having so much fun! It was pretty cold, but luckily we have these super warm jackets that a friend gave us! Thanks John! 

Our dinner was so delicious! If you have not tried Molly's Landing, you should go! Trevor and I had a super cool thing happen to us. Someone surprised us and paid for our dinner! Our waiter eventually told us it was the family sitting next to us, but we didn't know them at all and they were gone by the time the waiter spilled the beans. Seriously, how cool it is to be on the receiving end of that! We were just overwhelmed by their generosity! 
I wasn't planning to tell anyone, or post it on the blog, but I just thought it was a neat opportunity to share. A couple weeks ago the sermon at church was about generosity. The guest speaker at church told a story about how he keeps $100 bills in his wallet and when he feels that God is prompting him to give, he will give it to someone. Trevor had just been paid $100 from his dad that morning for helping his dad move hay around on his land, so Trevor thought it would be cool to try this out. We were at Andolinis and decided to pay for the couples dinner next to us and then give our waiter the rest of the $100. We also left him a couple invite cards to LifeChurch and he said he was going try it out. What a cool way to bring people to know Christ! I don't want to share that story for the reason of us giving, but I definitely think this was a God thing. We were blessed because we were a blessing. I do not think this was a coincidence. If you want to be used by God, if you ask him for that, he will find a way to use you. A couple verses came to mind when this happened. 
Give freely and become more wealthy; be stingy and lose everything. The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed. Proverbs 11:24-25. 
You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure. For "God loves a person who gives cheerfully." And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with other. 2 Corinthians 9:7-8

Obviously we did not give to "become more wealthy" but because we want to honor God in this way of being generous. And what a cool thing to be a part of. It is  a really neat feeling being on the receiving end of such a gift, but it truly made my day to be on the giving side. Anyway, we left Molly's Landing with an extra skip in our step because of this neat experience! We are so excited to start this whole "pay it forward" thing again!

We had good intentions of getting in the hot tub when we got home, but I was so tired, and full, that once we sat on the couch, I just passed out. We re-made our fort, Trevor watched a movie and it was lights out for me! 

I was happy to have my house looking normal again today! 
Today we went and got breakfast, we were going to make waffles, but we didn't have all of the ingredients. Then Trevor headed off to help a friend move and I practiced for church most of the afternoon...and cleaned! Seriously, this was the most perfect fall break! 

Monday, October 12, 2015

OKRA

Seriously...one of my favorite foods!! 

Trevor's dad recently moved to Porter and bought a house on several acres of land. They planted a garden and they now have a plethora of okra...and they are so kind to give us bundles of it when we go and visit! I think the first thing that comes to mind is making fried okra, but obviously we don't want to fry food every night (1. Not the healthiest and 2. Frying makes your whole house smell for a couple days!). So we had to find another recipe and here it is! Super easy! 
Get your okra...

Chop both ends off and chop it into bite size pieces. 

Drizzle some olive oil over it, and choose some spices to sprinkle on it. We used a combination of pepper, garlic, seasoning salt, etc. 
bake for 25 min on 425 and voila! Deliciousness!!!

Happy cooking!