Business cards

My business cards finally came and I'm feeling much more official now. I am loving my new job with Texas Children's Hospital :)

Brandon's birthday

For Brandon's birthday I decided to take him on a surprise road trip. He knew we were going somewhere, but not the location. So, here's what we did:

First stop: Schulenburg, TX

We stopped here to enjoy some delicious pastries and kolaches at the Kountry Bakery before going to the Stanzel Model Aircraft Museum. The Stanzel brothers decided they loved model airplanes and so they figured out how to make them and turned it into an incredible family business. It was quite impressive!

Second stop: side of the road

Brandon was patient with me when I decided we needed to pull off to the side of the highest to get the obligatory Texas photo in the blue bonnets

We will need to work on our picture taking skills in the blue bonnets in the future

Third stop: Ingram, TX

This was our base camp for the rest of the weekend. We stayed at a neat b&b here. We had a small little cabin to stay in and lived being outside of the big city.

The business next to our B&B had a TON of yard art/sculpture things that they have made.
This was the cover over the old chimney.

Fourth stop: Cascade Caverns in Boerne (pronounced Bernie by the locals), TX

Here we did a fun adventure cave tour aka. Spelunking! We walked into the main cave where the"regular" cave tour goes, and that's where the regular part ended. There was a small lake in the cave with a cement tube in the middle of it. We had to jump into the freezing cold water-which quite literally took your breath away, swim to the tube, and climb down the ladder that was there into the lower caves. The rest of the journey involved lots of shimmying, climbing, crawling, and just getting super muddy. It was a blast!

We were actually quite clean in this after shot!

Those were the main highlights from the trip. Happy birthday, Brandon!

Surprise!

JaLeen's birthday is always a momentous occasion. This time around, Brandon surprised her with a visit from her brother Elvon who had just returned from his mission the month before. Elvon and Brandon picked up JaLeen from her work on their way out of town. Elvon came up behind her and surprised her in the parking garage. We didn't get a picture of that excitement. But this one, taken later, does a pretty good job of capturing the excitement of the occasion.

For JaLeen's birthday we went deep sea fishing. Dad, Elvon, Brandon and JaLeen jumped on a boat with one of Dad's friends and we went off into the Gulf of Mexico to go fishing!

You could call it fishing, or you could call it catching. The fish were biting like crazy! As soon as we'd get a baited hook in the water there was a fish on it! That is when the fun started. These 40lb King fish wanted to wrestle! It usually took 5 minutes or so to get them into the boat.

We came back with quite the catch! 10 King fish! We maxed out our fishing licenses!

Heathers wedding

Heather got married!!

Olsen's visit part one

Maddox and Natalya came to visit. So fed them s'mores and made a boat.

Elder Farrell is Home!

Well, it finally happened. After serving the Lord and His children faithfully for two years in the Taipei, Taiwan mission, Elder Elvon Joseph Bay Farrell has returned home. We were able to be back in Utah with the Farrell family to celebrate this auspicious event. Had such a great time with family! Anna and McKay were able to come in from San Francisco after moving out there a few weeks ago, and it was fabulous to spend a bit of time with them. We are so grateful for our wonderful families!

Gocarting

We wanted a fun weekend with the family. So we gathered up the Texans for an epic adventure! We made some sushi for dinner - it was Kelsey and Dad's first time. Kelsey's turned out well... Dad's was more of a Japanese burrito.

The next stop was Track 21 where we played mini-golf... and took pictures with the decor.
We also did some racing on the go-karts. These things get going up to 40mph. Quite a fun ride.