WE'VE MOVED!

I started documenting in this space in August of 2007, but changed was needed and now the journey continues on over here! If you love popping in to see slices of our life over here, well, I hope you continue to follow over there! There are lots of good things to come, so I hope you decide to stick around. 

If you read through google reader, rss subscriber, bloglovin', you will need to update the address. Thanks friends! I hope you like the new change. 

SEVEN

{circa 2005 on our honeymoon. dang. he's hott!}

It's our seven year anniversary on Monday. Seven? Really? That flew by really fast. We aren't quite sure what our plans are and seeing how we just got back from a road trip, we aren't sure we want to go on another. Whatever we decide, I just want to relax and be with Ben. 

I am taking off from this space until Tuesday and will be back with some fun announcement (hopefully) by then. And in case you're wondering... no, I am not pregnant.  Happy weekending friends! 

THE FOURTH

Ours was filled with fun, family, food, and of course fireworks. No matter how old you are and how many times you've seen it, fireworks are still pretty captivating.

If you're stateside, I hope you had a good time celebrating too!

THE FIRST HARVEST

The tomatoes are growing like crazy and doing better at this time than any of our previous years. Ben attributes it to the special concoction he put in when they were planted. We finally picked our first harvest and this is the first time ever we had any to pick in June. And boy are they good! Out of this first harvest, the snow white variety was my fave. It was so sweet. Sweeter than any tomato I have ever had. Get ready for all the tomato show and telling that will be happening this summer. I have a feeling there will be a lot.

What's your favorite type of tomato?

WEEKEND COLLECTIONS

Kids are natural collectors. They really find the beauty and fun in the simplest of things. Their most favorite collection from this weekend... their "sleeping" beetles. Brave even took hers to church, kept it in her pocket and was showing everyone and kissing it. Yes, kissing it! She was also getting everyone to pet it. Not everyone was quite enthused about it, but they did it. Brave is so cute with her pet beetle!

What sorts of things do your kids collect or did you collect when you were a kid? I was a barbie collector and had a granite rock phase. 

HUZZAH!

I am big picture kind of gal. Though with that, I think I have been forgetting to stop and enjoy the little things. The details. I am going to work on that. Can you tell by huzzah posts of late?

Since we got back home, I find myself just watching the girls a little bit more and savoring. Not that I am just staring at them and doing nothing, but still doing things that need to get done but really taking note of them and watching. Trying to memorize them in my heart. Then late last night when all was quiet, Ben had fallen asleep, I was thinking of all of them (Ben included) and prayed for them. I honestly feel frantic all the time. It may not look like it and may not seem like it in this space, but I do feel it. I want to be more still, in my heart and not actually physically, and just savor this time God's given me.

Learned and links...

Melody is so smart. Justice who?! I think I better start educating myself on this stuff more.

I love this house. This will be on the must make this summer list.

A pink lake?!! Adding Lac Rose on my list to visit... one day.

Glow yells. For food at least. She jumps, scream, attacks the minute she sees that baby food come out. Sometimes, I even call her my little glanimal.

There will be some blog changes in the coming future. It's being worked on and I am pretty excited about it.

My friend Helen's wedding photos are amazing. This one... so good!

The ipad is i-mazing!

Behind in emails, if you're waiting for one. Getting to it soon.

I love all the color in this home. I love neutral palette homes and wish I could do it because it seems so clean, but I am really much more drawn to homes that have pops of color.

Ben goes back to work Monday, but is off on Wednesday... yay! Then we celebrate our anniversary next weekend. Have a jolly weekend friends!

THE LOOT

This is the extra stuff we brought home from our road trip that got jam packed into our already full car. That chair has actually been sitting at my MIL's house for a year and a half now. I saw it for sale on a blog based near San Antonio, so I emailed to find out if they could drop it off in San Antonio (or meet my MIL somewhere to make the exchange), the seller happily obliged. It was $25 and a happy color, so I thought that was a pretty good deal. 

We've done some tiny house fixing up since we've been home. Knobs are up in the kitchen now and we've got some new curtains hung, but once everything is settled, there will be a house tour. Promise. Until then, I still have a couple lights fixtures to buy and add.

HELLO SUMMER ROAD TRIP

This post is sponsored by Dreyer’s/Edy’s® Slow Churned Light Ice Cream: all the taste of regular ice cream, but with half the fat and 1/3 fewer calories. Now that’s a reason to smile. Give a smile here.


Road trips definitely make me smile.

Whew! After 10 days of being gone, we are finally home safe and sound. Road trips are fun, but definitely intense. Though based on the number of smiles I got from my girls while trekking along, it was definitely all worth it. There were 3 major stops on the agenda (Abernathy, San Antonio, and South Texas) and over 4,000 miles now added to our car. 

We really love road trips. The thought of planning another brings a smile to my face and gets me excited! Flying with all the kids can rack up some bucks quick, so getting in the car and going is pretty much our MO. This was the first time with all 4 and it wasn't bad at all. I think the girls do really well on road trips. There were just 2 fights between the big girls, though there were several tantrums from #3. I think it's just that when it comes to nap time, Soul doesn't know what to do with herself, so she kind of combusts. And the baby, well, she did fantastic! Ben and I take turns driving, we had our special road trip playlist, so we did a whole lot of singing and I did a whole lot of dancing. Not to mention, I just love seeing all the different terrains we pass and simply admiring how beautiful nature is. All of these things combined make for lots of good memories and lots of smiles.

So tell me, what has been making you smile lately?

HELLO CASTILLEJA FAMILY REUNION

Not only did we get to see the town and farms of Abernathy, but we also got to spend time on a ranch in South Texas. I guess we were pretty much were all over Texas. The annual Castilleja Family Reunion, his mom's side of the family, was at Ben's cousin's ranch and it was a pretty amazing place. During our drive in North Texas and in South Texas, we would talk about how nice it would be to have a house on some land where your neighbor can't peer straight into your house to see all your business. This is kind of a funny thing because when Ben's dad passed, he left us some land (Ben shared it with his sister and his aunt) in North Texas that we sold and was pretty much the only reason we were able to ever buy anything in Southern California, so the fact that we talk about wanting land in Texas is kind of ironic. For now, we will just keep the wide open space dreaming conversations happening every time we drive through Texas. I think Ben and I are such homebodies and pretty much do all our shopping online that we could pretty much move to the middle of nowhere.

The reunion was so much fun and it was especially wonderful to see the girls running around everywhere and playing with their cousins. They don't have any cousins here, so it is so great that they were able to spend time to with some over there. In addition to little cousins, there were horses, chickens, roosters, cats (and kittens), dogs (and puppies), oh and lots of mosquitos (I look like a spotted leopard now). There were family meals, games, hay rides, horse rides, auctions, picture taking, swimming, eating again, and basically just a whole lot of family bonding. The fun this past weekend was pretty endless.

Ben's cousin and her husband, the owners of the ranch, would tell us all about ranch life and particularly the horses and we really loved hearing all the stories. We really just love hearing stories. You could tell they were so proud of this place they have built and the beautiful family along with it. We were in such awe at all of it. It is also evident that a lot, I mean a whole lot, of hard work goes into maintaining it, but it's what they love, so it makes it all worth it.

I am so happy that we were able to go to the reunion this year, especially since the last time we went was 10 years ago when we barely started dating. I would look at my girls throughout the day and smile because they were having so much fun being free and spending time with animals. Well, True and Brave were, but Soul doesn't care about animals so much, at least not yet. When we first got the email that the reunion was on the ranch, Ben and I knew we had to go because the girls would be all about it... and boy were we right!

HELLO ABERNATHY

Abernathy is a small town in North Texas and there is a family there that makes this particular town quite special... the King family. Ben's dad passed away a year before we got married, therefore he never ever met his grandchildren. We tell the girls stories about their grandfather and show them pictures from time to time, but it just isn't the same. Besides Ben, his mom, and sister, his father is survived by his sister and her family.

The last time we had visited Abernathy was the summer that his father passed away. Since the girls never got a chance to get to know their grandfather, we wanted to make sure they would get to know his family and so when we were planning our summer road trip, we made sure Abernathy was on our road map. It had been 8 years since we had seen any of them, so it was definitely about time!

We met everyone at the town pharmacy, which is run by Ben's cousins Mark and Laurie. Laurie knew exactly what the girls liked and had the perfect gifts waiting for them. Anyone who gives them My Little Pony is pretty unforgettable in their book. We chatted a bit, then had lunch at a little restaurant down the street, then went back to the pharmacy to spend more time together.

It was really cute to see the girls with them. There is part of them in my girls and I think that bond is really special. Family is just really special. Besides seeing the girls with their Grandma Mayna, Grandpa JD, Aunt Laurie, and Uncle Mark, Ben and I really enjoyed spending time with them and hearing old stories. I love hearing old stories.

One of my favorite things of the visit was seeing how cute Aunt Mayna and Uncle JD were with each other. It was a playful sarcasm and teasing, but you can definitely see how they have grown to love and appreciate each other through the years. And Aunt Mayna kept raving about how good Uncle JD is with this or that and that reminded me of how I am a bit biased with Ben and that I think he is best at everything too.

They live on a farm so we also loved hearing the farm stories. At 78, Uncle JD still tends the cattle and there is pretty much no such thing as retiring. Ben and I have dreams of a farm, but we can only imagine the real intense work that goes into having one and we don't think we are ready for that. It sounds ideal, but really to have one there is a lot of labor and love that is involved. Having a farm isn't for the faint of heart or fickle minded for sure. Maybe we'll stick to dreams of a blueberry farm or maybe a tomato farm, we get better at tomatoes every year after all.

We were only a few short hours in Abernathy, but there are for sure plans to go back. We are so glad to reconnect with them and can't wait for all of us to spend more time together. Life is busy and family who live faraway can easily get forgotten, but it is important to always stay connected. Ben and I will both be working on that. We both tend to be bad at that.

Dear King family, Thank you for sharing your afternoon with us and we love you guys and hope to see you again soon! Love, the CA Bratchers.