7th Anniversary

This past weekend Ryan and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary! Our real anniversary is this Sunday but Ryan will be away at Young Life camp. How has it already been 7 years? It seems so fast and yet we've lived a ton of life in those years! 

It was my first time leaving little man over night. I think I did pretty well....I had a few tears when we were driving away but was okay the rest of the weekend. I'm so grateful that we have both of our parents living close to help with our kids. It makes it easier to leave your little blessings behind when you know they will be loved.

We checked into our fabulous suite at the Gaylord Texan.  We stayed here for our 1st anniversary, too, so it was fun to go back.

The view from our suit. If you've been you might remember they have a replica of the Alamo and our room was on the 8th floor directly above the Alamo.

After settling in we decide to relax and enjoy the pool. We went to their new(ish) water park area but then spent more time relaxing in the regular pool and hot tub. I hadn't been in a hot tub since in like 4 years! That's too long. 

We dined at the steak restaurant that was inside the Gaylord. It was so fancy and delicious. 

For dessert we headed over the the Glass Cactus. The patio over looks Lake Grapevine so we also enjoyed seeing some Friday night fireworks. Our table was perfect for watching the sun set.

We ended the night by going inside and dancing around with the band. They were an 80's cover band and so funny! I think we only lasted maybe 5 or 6 songs before calling it a night but for us it was perfect. Even without my children I'm just not a night owl. 

We enjoyed a relaxing morning the next day before heading to see Jurassic World, which was awesome!

Thankful for my husband who is always there by my side. It was so wonderful to leave the children and get time to ourselves. Here is to lucky year number 7! {Or was that actually this past year?} Hoping for 70 more years of life with this handsome guy!

To the father of my children

Okay, so I know Valentines is way past (Hello, March!) and that some people will think this post is too mushy, but I just had to write out a big THANK YOU to my wonderful husband. This man has been so wonderful and helpful lately that he deserves some extra praise. He was always great when it was just me, him, and Eva, but now with the addition of Jensen he has really gone above and beyond.  

Confession: sometimes when he walks in the door it can be easy for me to come across as too easily irritated with him, when the reality is that I'm just tired and maybe a little stressed from taking care of two very dependent little people all day. The truth is that Ryan is an amazing husband and daddy. The other night I was thinking about when we were in the hospital and I would be up pumping milk every few hours all night long. Most of the time Ryan would make the long walk down to where Jensen was just to hand off the little bottle of fresh milk. He didn't have to do this. The nurses station was right outside of my room and they told us we could hand it over to them to take, especially in the middle of the night. But most times Ryan took it. I didn't realize until this past week why he did that - he wanted to see Jensen :) He wanted to just peek in and check on him. He wanted to pray over him. He made that extra effort to love on Jensen even though he couldn't even hold him or feed him yet.

Now that we are adjusting to our routine at home, Ryan gets up to do Jensen's first "middle of the night" feeding around 1 AM almost every night. When it was just Eva, I rarely ever asked Ryan to give her a bottle at night...like I could probably count on one hand the times and it was usually only when I was sick. It wasn't that Ryan didn't offer, I just figured it was easier. Eva never really took to a bottle and since it was only her I could sleep during the day while he had to work. Two  kids is a whole different game! I am lucky to get to rest for a short time during Eva's rest (if that actually happens) and I am way more exhausted. Then the other day it hit me that Ryan actually likes to help feed Jensen at night. Since he is at work during the day and helping with Eva a lot in the afternoon, giving Jensen at late night bottle is a special time for them. How sweet is that?

And let me give this wonderful husband some props for helping with Eva. We love Eva. That girl has some major energy. When I am exhausted and at my breaking point Ryan tries his best to keep her entertained and cared for. Thank goodness there are two of us, because our sweet girl definitely needs to attention and energy of two parents. I know there must be days where he works long hours at work and then comes home to pour more energy into having a dance party with Eva, and I really appreciate it. 

There are moments when we might feel like two trains passing in the night, as we shuffle back and forth between feeding the baby and tucking in the three year old (again...) after she had a scary dream. There are moments when we get to steal a few laughs sitting at the table late at night, sneaking brownies after the children are finally asleep. There are sleepy moments when we feel so tired that we aren't sure how to make it off the couch after a good marathon of Parenthood. And through all of these moments, I love him so very much. Thank you, Ryan, for all that you do.

June & July

Oh HELLO, old blog. Haven't posted in quite a while...almost 6 weeks! Basically during that time we suddenly decided to buy a house and spent most of our time packing, unpacking, and living like they did in the dark ages - without Internet! We've either been super busy, or busy trying to catch a moment to relax! I will be writing about the house later because that story is incredible enough to deserve it's own post. So, what have we been doing this summer? First, Eva learned to love riding her bike. This was back before temps sky rocketed but she has gotten pretty good on her tricycle.

While Ryan was at Young Life camp we stayed a night at Nana & Papa's. Eva took Mallory for a wagon ride :) 

I got to see my friend Tasha's precious new TWIN babies! Tasha was my friend way back in middle school but I haven't seen her much since those days. She lives near Ryan's parents so we were able to meet up and I got to love on sweet Sadie. I loved on the other twin, Rylan, but Rylan wanted her mama more than me. I understand.

Eva and I went swimming with Aunt BB. When Brooke (BB) was little she never understood why all I wanted to do was lounge on a raft. Now she has finally mastered the art of tanning, just in time for Eva to want to play with her! #circleoflife

We played with my parents' dogs. I love that they are all tilting their heads!

We had a girls' night with some of our BSM girls and laughed a lot!

We moved! Yes, I am writing a separate post but I had to throw this one in there. A big THANK YOU to everybody that helped us move! 

Home sweet home! Nothing like that sweaty, moving day photo. And we want YOU to come visit us!

My friend Ashley got married at a beautiful winery. Her ceremony was so sweet and Jesus centered and the best moment was when she, her new husband, and her little boy Jude all poured sand together in a jar. Jude kept adding more tiny pinches of his sand. I love him!

We celebrated our friend Brett's 18th birthday! Woot-woot! 

We played in the wonderful July rain! Can I get a PRAISE GOD for the rain and cooler temperatures we had last week??? So refreshing! More, please! 

And finally, Ryan and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. We went to the Wild West Texas Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre. We didn't solve the case correctly but we did have tons of fun! 

I sure am blessed to be his wife! Our life may be crazy busy at times, but all the in between moments make it so wonderful!

SaturDATE

Saturday morning we let Eva go stay with my parents. Can I stop for a minute and say how incredibly THANKFUL I am that both of our parents live close enough for Eva to see and stay with them regularly? I am also grateful that all of her grandparents are wonderful people and that we love both of our families so much. I know lots of people don't have this benefit or great relationship with their families and I don't ever want to take it for granted. Mamy, Baba, Nana and Papa - you are the best grandparents our baby could ever have!!!! So....we sent Eva to my parents so we could have a fun "SaturDATE". That's my made up word for a Saturday filled with date time. You may use it :)

What did we do first for our big day of dates?! Umm, we took 15 middle school students bowling. Not exactly a date but we did have a good time. Bowling is fun. Students are fun. Why not, right? We had been wanting to do a middle school hang out and the timing worked out well to do it that morning.

Before I get to the romantic part of our date let me share the way Ryan and I come up with date ideas. We state the obvious choices (usually places we have gift cards for). We throw out the more adventurous ideas (like going to a Mavs game). We google date night ideas. We talk about how the weather can ruin lots of those ideas. We have a thorough one hour discussion of the pros and cons of each idea. We kill any amount of spontaneity. We remember that we are on a very limited budget. We decide to stick to our original list of obvious choices. We laugh and roll our eyes at ourselves for going through this process for the hundredth time in our relationship.

So we ended up going with the thrilling option of dinner and a movie! Yay! No, really, we were looking forward to eating at Brio for the first time and getting to see a movie we had been wanting to see since October. Dinner was good - Brio is definitely as yummy as people said it was! On to the movie....

During our time of pros/cons we decided to see 12 Years as a Slave. I was a bit hesitant because I don't always like seeing heavier movies on a date night but we went with it. We bought the tickets. And then we realized they only had front row seats left. NOT HAPPENING. We went back and exchanged the tickets to see Gravity instead. This was actually a great choice because it gave us a good hour to walk around the Southlake Townsquare while talking and listening to live music.
Gravity was good and pretty intense.

We really enjoyed our date. I got to spend a long amount of quality time with the love of my life. And if you are ever in need of someone to help you have a long detail-oriented conversation about planning a date, give us a call.

Ryan's Ordination

This past Sunday my husband Ryan was officially ordained as a pastor at our church. This was a really special day for us to share with our faith family. 

Before Ryan's ordination we had a final farewell for our church's summer interns. These college students have worked so hard and each of them made such a contribution to our youth ministry this summer. They will be missed as they go back to college! Plus they are seriously some of Eva's favorite people in the world - she talks about these students all day long. Thanks to all the interns for the love and time you invested in BSM this summer!

Then some of the men of Bara were called up to the front to pray over Ryan. Ryan loves these men so much and we are grateful for the leadership in our lives as well as the church.

Pastor Joel officially anointed Ryan's head with oil from Jerusalem. I really appreciated what Joel had to say in sharing that this one moment is simply a symbolic acknowledgement of what God had already planned for Ryan to do with his life. Being ordained doesn't suddenly make his some kind of super hero or "Super Christian," rather it is a public acknowledgement and blessing for Ryan's role in the church.

The whole church prayed for Ryan. This was such a special moment. And then we surprised Ryan with a wonderful slide show of pictures of all the ministry we've been involved in over the years. Tears were flowing from both of us! Thank you to the friends that worked so hard to make the slideshow awesome!

Finally I got to join him up front as he received his gift. He got a beautiful crystal cross that was engraved with his name, the date, and his favorite Bible verse. I also received a really pretty corsage to wear.

Next we headed out to the foyer for a Dr. Pepper and cupcake reception - just what this man loves! 

If they made a blooper reel for the day this moment would definitely be on it.  Right as we were starting the toast my corsage started to fall and when I went to fix it I poured ice water all down the front of my dress. Sometimes awkward moments happen to me.

Us with our pastor's daughter,  Emily. She is such a wonderful blessing to our family! We all love Emily!!!! 

 Us with one of our youth, Beth. We are so happy that God brought Beth to Bara to serve with us!

After the reception our families and some church members were treated to lunch at the country club. We really appreciate all of our family that made time to drive out to be there. It's always nice when the whole Bradley crew is together! 

My family also took the time to come shower us with support and love. We are amazingly blessed to have two wonderful families that love us so deeply. Thank you family!!!!! 

All 4 granddaughters! I love these little people so much. I want to take them all home with me every time we are together.

 Ryan and our pastor, Joel. I'm glad that he has a boss that loves people and is great to work with!

Then at youth tonight two of our girls decided to put on a skit. They did a hilarious reenacted of what "Morning at the Bradley's" would be like. How did they know we have dance parties? They must be secretly filming us :) 

And just in case his ordination wasn't official enough, they decided to knight him with a golf club. Now I know there is no going back. Hahaha, these girls are so funny. 

I love my husband and am so proud of him. It is an honor to be called to be his wife. I hope our life in ministry is fruitful and glorifying to God and I look forward to see what God has planned in our lives!

5th Anniversary Vacation - Part 2

Here is part 2 of our vacation story. Saturday was set aside as our "adventure day." I thought it would be magestic to start our day off with seeing the sunrise and end it at sunset. Ryan, being a loving husband, went along with this idea and we set our alarm for a few minutes before sunrise. Beep, beep, beep. We were up and waiting on our balcony for several minutes....until we realized that we were facing the wrong direction and trees were blocking the sunrise from both our porches. Back to bed. It was a nice idea.

Ryan had gone horseback riding at camp in June and really liked it. Since I had never ridden a horse before we decided this would be a good thing to do. My horse was named Sleepy so you can imagine his personality. We got a while to practice in a corral and then were led by a guide around the ranch. The scenery was so beautiful. At one point there was nothing around us but wide open prairie! I kept thinking about how the pioneers would have felt riding horses through undeveloped land. 

 Saturday evening we went zip lining. We were up in the mountains as the sun set which was so beautiful! For part of the zip line we had to walk across an air bridge.  I love zip lining because it is thrilling without being scary.

Sunday morning we enjoyed our last breakfast at the resort. Let me tell you, this place knows how to make breakfast. Each morning we had a choice between french toast, cobbler, and waffles or pancakes plus eggs, frtitata, a biscuit with gravy, turkey bacon and fruit. It was all so delicious and way more food that I could ever eat in one sitting. They even had fresh fruit toppings (like jelly or preserves) that were made from the fruit in their orchards. Amazing hospitality, scrumptious food, good coffee - can somebody please make this happen for me every morning? What a perfect way to start each day. 

Our last big adventure was to take our first try at canoeing. We went out on the Lake of the Arbuckles. We were actually sharing one canoe, we just took our pictures separately. Canoeing out with the tide sure is a lot easier than canoeing back to shore against the tide. It really was enjoyable and we were able to row out as far or as close as we wanted. Sometimes we just rested a bit and talked. Finally we cleaned up and headed home.....

Well, we thought we were headed home. And then we drove past the new Chickasaw Cultural Center. We had originally planned on visiting here but didn't end up finding time and hadn't realized it was right near our canoe location. We decided to seize the day and make one last stop here for a while. We learned more about the Chickasaw Indians. We walked around on an insanely hot day to see pretty sights. We ate buffalo burgers in the cafe. It was a good time. I would recommend visiting this place on a day when the temperature was not 100 degrees but I'm still glad we stopped. 

Then we really did head home. I have been wanting to try a Dairy Queen dip cone all summer (I've never had one before) so we stopped on the way home. Turns out it was national ice cream day!

I am so thankful that we got the chance to take a vacation. I'm already ready to go on another one. I loved spending quality time with my husband without so many distractions. He's a pretty fun guy :)