The Big 3-0

Yup, it came and went... I turned 30 on Sunday. (Hudson turned 1 on Saturday, post coming.) We celebrated our birthdays by spending four days in Dallas.

Back in April, I made this list of things to accomplish by my birthday:


1. Finish reading the entire bible. I just started a couple weeks ago and am almost through Numbers. Sadly, I did not make it through the whole Bible, not even quite close. I'm about halfway through the Old Testament, but I'm slowly, but consistently still working on it. In Proverbs right now.

2. Lose 15lbs. I have not talked about the baby weight that I have not lost...it's a sore subject. Well, not sore, just depresses me a bit. I'll post about this soon. Another negative. I've probably lost about 5 pounds since April. But this week I'm kicking it into gear! (More on that later)

3. Make a trip to Dallas with the family. Do some shopping, hopefully see a baseball game, go to the aquarium and zoo with the kids. Accomplished!!

4. Start and finish C25K. Sure did! Ran a 5K in 31 minutes. Pretty proud of this accomplishment.

5. Start learning how to quilt. Nope, haven't sewn at all lately. I feel okay about that though.

6. Have straight teeth. Getting Invisalign this next week and it should take about 5 months. Yes! I finished by Invisalign program! But... I'm electing to get some additional trays to refine my teeth and make them even straighter. 

Well...didn't accomplish all my list, but the losing weight thing is the only one I'm that bummed about. I've been reading the Bible quite a bit, but also along with other Bible studies.

Now... here's some pictures of our four days in Dallas.

On my birthday, we started the day at Gateway church in South Lake, Texas. It was awesome, great worship and a great message.

Then we ran around, had lunch, went to Costco...and then ended up at Benihana for dinner.

 

On Monday, we went to the Dallas World Aquarium.

 

 

And on Tuesday, we went to the Dallas Zoo.

And there you have it... pretty much sums up our time in Dallas in pictures! :) 

 

New Zealand Wrap Up

So, I haven't finished blogging about our trip to New Zealand, and so I felt like I wasn't ready to move on the regular ole blogging. So here is a recap of the rest of our two and a half week trip to New Zealand. :)

You already saw pictures from our trip to Willowbank Wildlife Refuge and also some from Hanmer Springs and the wineries.

Here are a couple more pics that I love from the winery. Hunter and Jesse were just hamming it up for the camera.




Our big activity while we were out there was a road trip to Queenstown! It's about a six hour drive from Christchurch to Queenstown, but we were excited for a little time on the road!

On the way there we stopped at Lake Tekapo. It was stunning!








We scored on finding a place to stay in Queenstown. The Pepper's resort where we were staying in Christchurch, called their resort in Queenstown, and got up a 1 bedroom lake view apartment, for only... $140/night. We looked it up online and they were going for around $400! We got there and were amazed by the room but mostly the fabulous view from the balcony!







We soooo enjoyed our time in Queenstown. We walked around the town, went on a steamboat to an island where there was a farm tour, went up the gondola, and then went on the luge ride down!

















I probably have a few more cool pics I'll want to share, but these just got a whole lot of them of my shoulders. Maybe now I can move on the some regular blogging :)

Not A Care in the World

Towards the beginning of our trip, we took a day and drove out to Hanmer Springs. It's a quaint little town with nautrual hot springs, just north of Christchurch, NZ. We all had fun relaxing in the warm pools and hot tubs. Hunter and Jesse played, jumped, and just enjoyed each other like fathers and sons should. And I did what moms should take the time to do more often, sit back and just enjoy the beautiful sight of their son and husband.






On the way back from the springs, we stopped at a couple of wineries. The second one had beautiful grounds full of grassy hills and ponds. Jesse taught Hunter to roll down the hills and then I had to get in on the action, too.