A Taste of Texas

This past weekend I was very blessed to be able to go back to Texas and be involved in the Annual Ladies Retreat with Second Baptist Church. The only way to explain how I feel right now is to say that My Cup Overfloweth! I was bathed in so much love and laughter mixed with God's Word. It was just incredible....I was left speechless....and my sides still hurt from laughing so much as well as my cheeks from smiling so much. Such precious people have been put on my path!!

The theme of the weekend was Amazing Race. My friend Dena put together a whole race for everyone on Saturday afternoon. There were 14 teams of 4. I was in a team with Tricia, Jen and Hilde. My MIL and SIL ran with us and took lots of pictures. Wait until you see these!

Our team...the name was God's Favorites and our shirts said God's Fave.
Our first challenge was to walk on two boards all at one time. We had to walk from one side of the field to the other. This was actually one of the hardest ones...it was tough to work together like this.

Next, we had to race to the game room and put together a puzzle.

Then 2 members of the team had to walk across this log while holding a full cup of water on their head. If you fell off, you had to start again. Tricia and Hilde did it.

Hilde and I jumped in for the next clue. We had to paddle the boat and find the clue attached to the blue buoy. Well, I pronounce the word buoy as boy. There was a high school group that was also out on the canoes. I yelled to Hilde that we had to find a blue buoy (she heard blue boy). She thought this was going to be easy! We saw a boy in a blue canoe, and I was thinking blue buoyant canoe and Hilde was thinking boy in blue canoe and we asked him if he was a buoy/boy. Well, we kind of yelled it at him. He said yes...as if there were any doubt! Then we asked/yelled for our clue. He had no idea what we were talking about. And I'm sure he thought we were a little senile! I told Hilde the clue probably meant circle buoy which she was like okay, let's find the circle boy. I knew what I was looking for though and found it and we actually did this one very fast! And with a lot of laughs later we realized how confused we both were. Hilde and I in a boat is never a good plan!!

And then there was the zipline. Hilde had never done it before and I said I would go with her..only 2 members had to do it. Here I am, once the adrenaline has started to pass, on the way up thinking "what have I done??!!!!"

My awesome SIL realized my camera had video and was able to catch this terrifying ordeal for us. Listen as we pass the camera...that is truly a primal scream from the depths of our soul that you hear!

Then we had to run to the dining hall and eat a cricket. Now, it was dead and seasoned but it was still a cricket! Jen grabbed it and shoved it in her mouth and I cannot be outdone so I grabbed it, then Tricia. Hilde at that point was stuck and knew she didn't have a choice. She popped the cricket and we were on our way.

Our team came in 6th out of the 14 teams which I think is pretty darn good. We still had to count rocks and dunk two basketball free throws before we could head to the final pit stop. It was sooo much fun and Dena did a brilliant job putting it together!

After the race I did a mini-session on coupons. I was a little nervous but it was very casual and laid-back and I was able to breeze through it. I had fun doing it and I hope others learned how to save lots of money while listening!

I was exhausted at this point and ended up just sitting in the same chair at my round table until dinner time which was almost 3 hours later. I was so blessed during that time. Different people came up to the table to catch up or introduce themselves and my company just kept revolving. I was worried about how I would fit time in for all of my friends and God really used that time to catch up on some much needed fellowship. It was actually one of my favorite parts of the trip.

On Sunday we packed up and headed back to Baytown. We have a tradition, my friends and I, to stop by the sign and take pictures. And they would not leave until this tradition had once again been fulfilled!

Here I am with my precious MIL and SIL.

My dearest friends in the whole world and I.

This one was taken just for fun and turned out to be my favorite. Three totally different women, with three totally different personalities...God has truly blessed us with each other's friendship.

On the way home we stopped near Brenham to get the wildflower shot. There is nothing like the bluebonnets in Brenham.

Once back in Baytown, Mom drove me around to see how the city has changed in the 7 months since we left. I asked her to stop so I could take a picture of my favorite house. I can't tell you how much I loved this house...still do. It was the perfect house for us. I miss it terribly! Look at my pretty roses!

Sunday night we met back up with my girlfriends to have Mexican for dinner. I did a lot of eating of my favorite Texas foods while I was there!! I wanted to see all the kiddos and they were so sweet to take pictures so I could bring them home for the kids to see.

When I moved to Colorado our favorite baby, Hallie Mae, was not even a year old and still just a baby. Now, she is a walking grown up little girl! Oh, so sad! She was just wonderful though and let me hold her and feed her and love on her all through dinner. I think Jimmy was more jealous of this than anything else...we love our Hallie Mae!

I spent the night at my in laws on Sunday night. Mom and I played Skip Bo...of which I am the reigning champ!! Dad had to work nights and when he came in at 5:15 in the morning they woke me up and took me to breakfast at Cracker Barrel (I told you I ate a lot!). It was a great little visit and Dad enjoyed getting to hear all about our weekend and all the updates on my kiddos. Here are the two lovebirds.

And I truly do not have any words to summarize this weekend up. My husband did a marvelous job with our children (I'm pretty sure they are going to tell me to find a job so that daddy can stay home from now on!) and I was able to just sit back and relax and soak up the whole weekend. I cannot believe how many fears I have stared down with God this year and I feel blessed that I've finally calmed down enough to really soak up all of the blessings that have been poured into my life. It's good to be me. And my cup does overfloweth!