AlleyFest 2009

This weekend Casey and I went to East Texas (my East Texas, Longview, Gilmer, etc) to visit my family. My cousin Jen and her husband Chris were in from North Dakota with our beautiful God daughter Abby. I miss them so much so it was great to be able to see them this weekend. On Friday after work we drove up to Gilmer and pretty much went straight to bed because we were both exhausted. Saturday morning I woke up at 6am to let the dogs out and OMG was it ever beautiful that morning. The weather was absolutely perfect - about 60 degrees and the sun was just coming up so it was the perfect time to sit and watch the dogs play and enjoy the tranquility of the country. Mom and Mr. Paul have a pond in the lower field and I could hear the frogs croaking... a sound I haven't heard in a long time living in the Houston area. I went back to bed for an hour or two and then got up and helped Mom cook breakfast. French toast, bacon, fried eggs, and wheat toast - yum! We hung out a little while after that and then we helped Mom and Mr. Paul load the trailer with furniture for Alesa Kay (my cousin who is pregnant and just got an apartment with her boyfriend Chance) and then Casey and I got ready and went over to my Aunt Karen's to see Abby! Here are a few pictures of Abby and the fam!

The infinitely adorable Abby Nichols with her cute green sunglasses- I love this picture!

The whole group!

Extremely proud God parents with Abby!

and of course my gorgeous cousin Jen

After visiting with the fam for a while we went to Daddy's and then to Cotton Patch to eat lunch. Cotton Patch is probably the restaurant I miss most. Why doesn't Houston have a Cotton Patch yet???

Saturday evening we went to AlleyFest and Jordan Mebane and Andrew Fisher met up with us there! I can't believe I didn't get a picture of all of us! Foghat was playing at AlleyFest but by the time they came on everyone was so tired we bailed before they played Slow Ride - oh well! Here are a couple of pics from AlleyFest!

Me and Jen!

Abby with her sippy

Me and this handsome man that I ran into :)

The drive back to Houston was bittersweet today. I love being in East Texas and seeing family but I also love being at home. The drive back was beautiful - weather was awesome and the dogs were great. Here they are sleeping in their "bunk beds".

East Texas and the beautiful weather

Casey telling a story

Riley cuddling with his wiener dog

The boys!

My first full week of teaching at the preschool starts tomorrow so I am excited! Clara (my teaching partner) and I have our classroom pretty much set up the way we want it, we just have a couple of things to tweak. Here is a picture of us with our cute "Road Trip" themed board with all the kiddos names on the little cars.


That's about all I have to report now - hopefully I will post more later this week! That is if the ESL assignments I have to do don't kick my butt!!