Crested Butte Vacation {day 1}

Last year, we began the Family Vacation tradition and it seems as though we have waited all summer for our vacation to finally arrive.  It has been such a hot and grueling summer, a trip to the mountains is more than welcomed!  We have been enduring months upon months of more than 100 degree temperatures, and are in the midst of the worst drought this part of the country has seen since the dust bowl.  We picked a great year to move to Wichita Falls!  I keep telling myself that it only gets better from here.

Our trip began on Saturday, with an 8 hour drive from WF to Raton, NM, where we stayed in one of the strangest and creepiest hotels I have stayed in to date.  It's not saying much for the town that our hotel was the nicest for miles!  As we pulled into town, so did a huge thunderstorm, the kids didn't seem to mind and were excited to get out of the car and go for a swim.

Sunday morning we were up bright and early to begin on the next leg of our adventure.  Unfortunately, Trey and I had to turn around 3 times due to leaky cups, missing phones, and left behind iPads.  All things we can't live without!  Despite the hiccups we eventually set out to travel over the mountain passes and arrived in Crested Butte just in time for lunch.  CB has many delicious restaurants and we started the trip off on the right note with some pizza from The Secret Stash.  This might be the best pizza I have ever had, despite the somewhat bizarre atmosphere.

The rest of the afternoon was spent unpacking and enjoying the cool temperatures.

Edwards-Graham Wedding

This weekend we traveled down highway 281 to the quaint town of Wimberley, TX for the wedding of one of my college girlfriends, Clare.  Both kids joined us, as did Mary Martha and James.  This was my first official trip to Texas Hill Country, and I loved it!  It was a fun weekend spent outside in the beautiful hill country.  We rented a house close to town which was perfect with both of the kids in tow.  They slept well, and the house was fully stocked with toys!  On Saturday we ventured into town for a walk along the creek among the Cypress trees, followed by lunch and live music on the patio, and a little dip in a local spring.  

Clare and Brian were married in a rustically elegant ceremony at the Old Glory Ranch, that perfectly reflected Clare.  The food was delicious and the dancing was OOC.  Many of my closest college friends were there, and we always have a blast when reunited.  Blaine was our official photographer for the evening, our paparazzi, if you will, and captured some truly classic moments.  Congratulations and thank you for letting us celebrate with you!

Eat Drink and Be Married

This weekend we took a quick trip to New Orleans to help celebrate the marriage of our sweet friends Lindsey and Cuatro.  We were a little nervous about leaving the babies for a whole weekend, but they did great.  It was also nice to have a break from being parents 24/7 and just have fun!  We did lots of eating, lots of drinking, and lots of shopping.

We left Friday morning and arrived in NOLA around lunch time.  After a little Cajun cuisine we decided to wander the French Quarter and found ourselves at the famous Pat O'Briens.  Nothing like a little day drinking to get you going.  We relaxed on the patio enjoying the atmosphere and sun before heading back to the hotel to get ready for our night out.  Everyone headed over to Coquette on Magazine Street for dinner.  The food was TO-DIE-FOR.  Trey ordered the lamb and I had the soft shell crab.  Both were so good it had us nearly licking our plates.  Following dinner everyone went back over to the French Quarter for a cocktail welcome reception and a little Bourbon Street madness.  We gravitated to some random bar that had a great Classic Rock cover band.  Nothing like jamming out to some classics.  It was a blast!

Saturday was full of shopping and wedding day festivities.  While the men were at the WWII museum, we hit up Magazine for a little lunch and shopping.  Sarah and I had a great time picking up goodies for the kids and wandering such a neat area of the city.  Orient Expressed and Pippen Lane are our favorites and have the sweetest stuff for kids!  Everything about the wedding that evening was amazing.  The ceremony and reception were at the New Orleans Museum of Art.  Lindsey could not have been more beautiful and they looked so happy.  It was one heck of a party, and not a single detail was left out.  Beautiful decor, delicious food, amazing entertainment, and a covey of quail grooms cake, what more do you need?  There were even those balloons that they lit at the end of the Hangover 2!

Sunday morning we woke up early to attend Mass at St Louis Cathedral.  What an amazing church full of history!  If you ever find yourself in NOLA go to the Cathedral for Mass, whether you are Catholic or not you will appreciate the beauty.  We all had a great brunch at Patois, they make an amazing fried green tomato sandwich and the most perfect burger.  It was sad to see the weekend end but we were ready to get back to our sweet kiddos.