Our Marriage is LEGAL!

This year Brent and I celebrated 21 years of marriage! We're legal, ha! We're planning a big vacation this summer, so we didn't do anything wild this year - we went out to eat twice on our actual anniversary {I'll share why} and then out with friends on the Saturday after our anniversary because their anniversary is also in October. I didn't take many pictures - except of food and drinks apparently!

So early in the week, I asked Brent if he would want to go to lunch on Thursday {our anniversary}, and he said sure. I assumed he would be at the office, and I'd meet him, but he ended up working from home that day - I assumed for our anniversary. Wednesday night when we went to bed I said 'happy almost anniversary'. Thursday when we went to lunch he admitted he didn't realize I asked him to lunch for our anniversary - he had no idea it was our anniversary until I said something Wednesday night! Ha! BUT then he didn't understand why I wanted to do lunch because we do a lot of date nights at one of our favorite restaurants and sit at the bar and have drinks and split appetizers. I said I chose lunch since we were going to dinner on Saturday. Well, he didn't like that answer and wanted to go to dinner that night too. So we did!

TWENTY ONE

Drinks and yummy treats

Saturday night I took zero pictures of us or with our friends! We had gone out to eat with this couple in July to the yummy steakhouse in our town and decided to go again for our join anniversary to split a tomahawk steak...and so we did!

And that's how we ate our way through 21 years!

February Fun

Continuing in my rewind of the first half of the year with all our February happenings! Sometimes I do a good job of having the girls' birthday parties near their birthdays and sometimes...not so much. This was a year of a double miss {I blame our trip to NYC so it was totally worth it!} and both girls had their parties late.

We celebrated Paige turning 8! 

She had a tumbling party at the gym where both girls  take classes. 

Sorry not sorry...more Gus cuteness!

Brent surprised me on February 13 with Valentine's flowers!

He loves to keep me on my toes.

We are all obsessed with the littlest of #theSwopeseven!

We went to see Dog Man with friends. This is most definitely not worthy of a separate post as it was...not great. Paige loved it and that's what matters but I maybe read a book for part of it.

Random bits of life!

Little Miss was Marie Curie for their Living History Museum presentation

Fun with friends!

Work coffee catchup ~ Surprise bestie visit ~ Jazzercise!

LJA Christmas: Year 6!

I can't believe Brent has worked at LJA for 6.5 years, time flies when you're having fun being a smashing success. {grin} We did our typical routine and went up on Friday and had a fun night out with all our other friends who work for LJA. LJA added Rhonda to the payroll this year, so 4 of our 5 traveling couples were there!

I never get tired of taking a picture of the pool all decorated!

Friday night we had dinner at a local Mexican food restaurant and hung out in the hotel bar. Somehow I stayed up WAY TOO LATE after saying I wanted to be asleep by midnight. Oops!

It's become tradition to take a picture in the hotel's snow globe.

Saturday was insanely cold, but we were able to enjoy our favorite brunch spot, Leeland House. Then we hopped over to The Rustic, another place we typically visit each year.

We girls got our hair done, went back to the hotel to get fancy, and met up with our spouses.

I went to 10 stores, tried on SO MANY DRESSES, bought and returned 5...

and ended up wearing a dress of Susie's! Ha!

I'm so coquette {grin} - bows are big this year if you didn't know!

I got Brent to take a professional pic with me right away, yay!

Posing with my ladies! Trying to be serious...not doing a good job of it!

A Christmas miracle - I got Brent to take another professional picture!

Silly friends/neighbors!

Always keeping it classy!

The band was amazing, the food was great, and time with our friends was priceless! Can't wait for more adventures with this company and group of friends.

Nashville '24

We finished off the month of October with a super fun trip to Nashville with Brent's cousins and some friends. We left on a Thursday morning and stayed through Sunday and packed in a lot of fun.

Obligatory airport drink picture - whose is whose? {grin}

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We stayed in an apartment over a ice cream/coffee shop with Brent's cousin right off Broadway in downtown Nashville and it was so cute and right in the heart of things.

The first thing the girls did was go to Rustler's and make custom cowboy hats! The impetus for the trip was Philip's wife's {Kristi} birthday, and this was something she wanted to do and the rest of us thought it sounded fun too.

Having a drink before hats!

Kristi ~ Carla ~ Misty ~ Heather ~ Allena

The experience was so cool - there were so many hats to pick from and then a million ways you could customize. I always get overwhelmed when I have a lot of choices but ended up loving what I did with my hat!

I had my initials branded into it, it was so cool to watch the process.

All the girls with our new hats!

Carla and I were the 2 Aggies on the trip and got a maroon-ish band around our hats.

You can see some of the branding I did - this in addition to my initials.

Brent looking like Howdy Doody in my hat!

We hung out that evening in 2 bars - one on Broadway called Redneck Riviera and one in Painter's Alley. We ended the night getting Raisin' Cane's chicken and going back to the apartment!

Friday, Philip had booked a pontoon cruise on the Cumberland River {which I had to google to find out what river ran through Nashville, ha}. It was a beautiful day, and we had a blast!

Brent and David getting cozy {grin}

That night we had reservations at a restaurant but ended up just bumming around Broadway and hopping in and out of a few places.

I had to try the coffee/ice cream shop so Saturday morning Brent and I went down there. He got a root beer float and I got, of course, a chai.

Yes, we were sleeping in bunk beds ha.

Our big activity Saturday was brunch at White Limozeen, a Dolly Parton themed restaurant. Kristi asked us to wear pink, and we happily complied!

And then in a twist of events no one would have ever expected, I went and got 2 tattoos! I'm going to save the story for another post, but I'll share one pic of the 3 of us who got tattoos that day.

Gig 'em after a Fighting Texas Aggie WIN!

We stayed out pretty late on Saturday night but luckily didn't have a SUPER early flight on Sunday. We made it home in 1 piece and our babies were happy to see us! This was definitely a vacation to remember!