Day Trip to Boulder

Well, for a couple of months now, we've been taking turns planning weekly date nights and it has been so fun! This week was Alex's turn and he went all out by planning a date day in Boulder. We went on a morning hike in Chautauqua Park, headed over to Pearl Street for falafels/gyros and a little window shopping, checked out the Boulder farmers market (which was amazing btw), went to the Avery taproom, then finished off the day with Larkburger for dinner. It was a busy but very fun (and yummy!) day!

Boulder in the distance

I must say my favorite thing about today was strolling down memory lane. Four summers ago, when Alex and I had been dating just a few months, he took me up to Boulder to hike the Royal Arch (same park as today, just a little harder hike) and eat falafels on Pearl Street. Here's a little throwback pic for you :)

Hope y'all had a fantastic weekend!

What a GREAT "read"!

Well, we're officially Colorado residents! We left Dallas last Sunday morning, stopped in Canyon for the night with my sister's in-laws, and got here Monday afternoon. We have been working hard all week to get the new place together and it's really starting to feel like home!

Back to the lovely 14 hour drive we did to get here, to say I was worried about getting bored is a HUGE understatement. :) Being in the Jeep by myself didn't sound appealing in the least, though I was excited about the roadtrip w/ Alex and my dad. So we decided to download an audio version of a book I'd heard about and Alex and I listened to it in separate cars and compared notes. We're cool, I know.

Please do me a favor and buy this book right now. I absolutely loved it! Besides the wonderful fact that it made the drive fly by, it completely challenged the way I live out my faith. It's so easy to look through what the Bible says through the lens of the "American dream" and not stop to notice how the Lord really calls us to live.


If you want a little more info about just how life changing this book is, check out this post from a blog I stalk (she led a bible study I was in my senior year of college so I guess it's not REALLY stalking :) )
or just read the book and see for yourself.

Bye Bye Dallas!

pic found here.



Dearest Dallas,

While I'm really excited about moving to Colorado and all the adventures that lie ahead, I thought it would be appropriate to take a moment and say goodbye. You were the city where I started my first job, made that strange transition into "adulthood", had my first little married apartment, built a wonderful foundation for my marriage (thanks in huge part to our amazing FG), and spent the last 2 years surrounded by wonderful friends and family. Though your current hot weather is making me itch for Denver (especially when our AC was out earlier this week, but that's another story) , your random cold winter this last year was a little gift to me. I joked all winter that all that snow was God's way of preparing us to move to Denver one day.... little did I know that was the truth.

This time in Dallas has been nothing short of wonderful. The Lord has been so purposeful in equipping me, breaking me, and growing me in this place and the people positioned around me during all that were just what I needed. I have complete peace in the fact that our little family will thrive in our new home, so much so that I'm totally overwhelmed. I feel so confident in the Lord's guiding and am very eager to see what this past 2 years has been preparing us for!

The main things I'll miss about you, Dallas, are your abundant bounty of Tex-Mex (esp queso), living within walking distance to my sister (maybe not"walking" in this heat but oh well) and easy driving distance from my parents, knowing my way around a city/state, getting a little cred when I wear my aggie ring, all the nostalgia associated with our favorite date places and "firsts", how your seasons (or lack of) so appropriately fit with my wardrobe and love for dresses and skirts, and the people here who "know me-know me".

Thanks for making the first step of my journey as a Herndon just-right. I'll make sure to enjoy my last week here and then I'll see you over Thanksgiving (please make sure to stock up on queso before then)!


Sincerely,

Your faithful resident since July 2008

New home!

That's our home for the next year or so! Precious little townhouse B.

(Thanks to our amazing realtor for spotting it and my super helpful MIL for taking notes/pictures/etc!)

Normally, I would be more than hesitant to sign a lease sight-unseen but I'm in this "my life is SO out of my control that I won't even TRY to be in control of it" stage right now. It's incredibly freeing. The Lord has really taken care of us every step of the way and I'm quickly realizing His plans are FAR better than mine anyways. :)

So all the new home details I know you're dying to hear about... it's 1800 sq ft, 3 stories (well one is the finished basement. Growing up at sea level, basements are so new to me. Weird.), 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths (I'm refusing to think about how much I hate cleaning bathrooms with this one), a gameroom/ loft area, decent size kitchen, and it's only 10 minutes from my new work! I was a tad worried about my commute in the snow so the short drive should really help. Poor Alex has to drive to the Springs 2-3 times a week, though, but I'm vowing right now to cook super extravagant, yummy dinners those nights to make up for it (hear that, hun?)!

From what I can tell (aka google map), our new home is 20 minutes from downtown/nuggets games!, 30 minutes from Watermark Denver, 15 minutes from the in-laws, 30 minutes from the Coors factory, and an hour and a half from Keystone/Breckenridge/WinterPark. As you can tell, my priorities are the nuggets, the Lord, family, beer, and pretty scenery (in that order of course).

Colorado Survival Kit

Seeing as the furthest north I've ever lived is Dallas, it's about time to start stocking up on necessary items for our new climate. Not to mention, I love having an excuse to shop!

So far I'm excited about:

EMU snow boots

and because as my lovely husband stated last week, I "don't wear pants..."

Sara Blakely (the genius inventor of spanx) leggings & tights

I am BEYOND excited about wearing these under dresses & skirts all fall & winter long!

Lastly, a few fall pieces to add to my wardrobe that can transition easily from August to November and go with boots and tights!

Bring it on, cold weather!

In other news, someone signed a contract on our house here in Dallas so it looks like we won't have to be paying double rent after all (praise the Lord!). Now, we just have to find somewhere to live up there....

Party in the city where the HEAT is on...

Earlier this year, we planned a summer vacation to Miami for the week after July 4th weekend. Little did we know how perfectly timed this vaction would be for us!

After a busy couple weeks of house showing, job hunting, a teeney bit of stressing (mostly from me), and lots of prayer, we were ready for a week of relaxing and laying out on the beach.

We woke up Tuesday morning to a text from our brother-in-law, Bart:

"Bouncin in the club where the heat is on,

All night on the beach til the break of dawn"

(if you didn't grow up in the 90s, that's a little of Will Smith's Miami song)

and of course had that song in our heads the whole way to the airport.

Upon landing in Miami, we turned on our phones and I saw I had just gotten a job offer from Johnson Controls in Denver! A good friend of mine, Anne, works for them here in Dallas and passed my resume along to her friend in the Littleton office. After just one phone conversation, and a few emails (and texts) with the manager up there, they opened up a position for me that's very similar to what I'm doing now. There is no POSSIBLE way for me to think this job offer was any of my doing... God is so good. He has been laying out this path for us so perfectly over the past few months!

Tuesday through Saturday was spent celebrating, drinking mojitos, attempting to taste test every fried plantain in South Beach, reading, laying out, enjoying the gorgeous ocean, and relaxing.

After dinner at Sushi Samba

The only downside of the trip was that the entire time we were in Miami, my sister, Suzanne, and her husband and litle ones were in Dallas. Thankfully, we got to see them Saturday afternoon and today!

Farewell to Texas Tour: June Edition

Where did June go? As you can tell from the lack of blog posts last month, we were BUSY.

We both celebrated our 24th birthdays, saw Wicked with my sister and brother-in-law, met up with Alex's sister, Hillary, and her bf in Austin, celebrated father's day with my dad, took a weekend trip to Houston & Galveston, saw our friend Layne get married, spent lots of time with friends, ate large amounts of Tex Mex and Texas BBQ, and much more!

We've been really praying that we would be purposeful with the little bit of time left here in the Lone Star State. We have been so blessed to have so many friends and family nearby during our first year and a half of marriage and want to make sure we soak up all the time with them we can!

Here are pictures from the few times we remembered to bring our camera along (I'm vowing right now to get better at this!)

Celebrating Alex's birthday at the St. Arnold's Brewery in Houston

The ladies
My grandparents' 80th birthday party/ family reunion in Galveston fell on Alex's birthday so they all 3 blew out candles. It was so fun catching up with cousins I grew up with and all the rest of the Pyne side of the family.Meeting up with Houston friends to celebrate both our birthdays at Taste of Texas. Alex took me here to celebrate my 20th birthday... my goodness, how much life changes in 4 years!
Layne's wedding in Dallas! Layne and Ashley (below) were neighbors of Alex's in college and those girls were huge blessings to me during the MANY weekends I made the trip up to Waco.