My ma has this amazing tree in the front yard. Every spring, for a very brief period of time, it fills with millions of little white flowers.
This year, we braved all the busy, buzzing bees visiting all the flowers so we could take a picture under it. It was worth the risk to get a picture with my honey.
We had Irish soda bread buns for breakfast, but we haven’t found any four-leaf clovers yet. In honor of today, I looked through some of our Ireland vacation pictures from a couple years ago. We made it to Dublin the morning after St Patrick’s Day, so we barely missed the greenest holiday in the greenest country. Many fond memories were made on this trip. Here are some pictures of us in front of the Irish Sea, the garden at the Dublin Castle, standing on a bridge overlooking Dublin, and St Patrick’s Cathedral. Don’t forget to wear your green!
Last weekend, we took an adventure day to go climb up Enchanted Rock. We went all the way up to the top. I was a little terrified coming back down, but we made it round trip in one piece!
It was a nice, sunny day, with a little bit of chill in the wind. We were glad we had long sleeves when we got to the summit. The wind up there was cold on our ears.
When you are this far away, you think, oh it doesn’t look that steep. Extremely deceiving. Like a stair stepper times a hundred, plus the added danger of falling off the side.
We took a different route home and stopped for some bbq. The meat here is good, but they don’t have pickles on the side. Instead they have jalepenos. Just in case pickles with your bbq is a deciding factor.
We made it home in the afternoon, and then took a nice nap. All that danger and sandwiches made us sleepy.
A couple weeks ago, I tagged along to one of Jon’s business meetings in Seattle. We were there for about 24 hours, and tried our best to keep count of every Starbucks we saw.
We got to our hotel pretty late in the evening, and missed our dinner time. So we ordered a massive amount of room service food and had a hotel bed picnic.
While Jon was doin business, I had about 4 hours to kill. I prepared by stepping into the map Friends style. (I swear we got this exact same map on our 4th grade field trip to Seattle. I have it in a scrapbook somewhere.)
I walked through the market, and as always, those flowers. What a beautiful job.
I decided to walk through the Olympic Sculpture Park. Also, this was the most beautiful fall day there ever was.
Once I walked a good long way, Jon saved me and we had some seafood for dinner. On the way to get coffee, we found a magnificent yarn store.
See ya later, Seattle! Next time, maybe we’ll actually take a trip up the Space Needle.
One of my favorite things to do is to go on an evening adventure with the girl. Sometimes it’s pie. Sometimes it’s coffee. Sometimes it’s just to get the exercise. The view isn’t half bad either!
We took the more direct route back to Texas. So we drove through eastern Oregon, south through Utah, a little Colorado, some New Mexico, and then back to Austin. There really is some beautiful scenery in those parts. Some of it looks like The Land Before Time. Like a dinosaur family might be roaming about right on the other side of the mountain.
When we started off, it was so foggy we could barely see, and everything was covered in a layer of ice, except the road, thankfully.
But then suddenly, the fog cleared, and it was a beautiful, chilly, sunny day. It was like angels singing cleared the fog away.
We drove through all types of terrain: gorge, mountains, desert, hills, and these kinds of magnificent, ancient land formations. We saw snow on the ground, but we never did see any fall from the sky.
I kept a sharp eye out for this rock with a hole in it for miles. I was starting to think it was just all a publicity stunt, and then, there it was.
A road trip is like 50% snacks. We had to eat this box of cookies right away, since the sun was going to melt the chocolate.
The sun spent about 8 hours a day glaring me in the eyes, and then it would go down, and I could spend a nice 5 minutes being able to see before it went completely dark.
Yay! We made it to Texas! You are happy for crossing the state line for a couple minutes, and then you realize that you have to drive like 8 more hours before you get to the middle of the state.
Even though there were some long driving days, our road trip was the best. I would do it again, with a few minor changes, in a heartbeat.
Here are a few tips for long couple road trips that we learned along the way:
On our way back to Texas after the holiday, we stopped at THE Pendleton Woolen Mills. We were driving through Pendleton, so it would be silly if we didn’t stop, right?
They sadly don’t do tours on Saturdays, but we still snooped around a bit.
We got a couple presents to ourselves. We decided that we should stop there on our way to Christmas next time, and just get all our gifts there. Especially those awesome slipper socks.
Thanks to my dream come true for taking a little detour, and making all my woolen blanket dreams come true.
On this day, we drove about 11 hours or so through northern California, all the way up Oregon, into Washington. The southern Oregon part was the worst, since it was dark, the roads were curvy, and it was rainy. Only time it rained on us the whole trip. It was a long day of driving, but now I just remember all the laughing.
Northern California is gorgeous. Love me some mountains and trees.
We kept joking about how disgusting it was outside. Just really awful to look at.
History lesson number one: The guy says that this is the mountain where all bald eagles are born. And of course, the only cloud in the sky is covering the mountain at the same time that we get to the viewpoint.
History lesson number two: This is the mountain where all vultures are born. Because it is dark and sinister looking.
When we tell people about our trip, they always ask what we did to pass the time. Well, we talked to each other. Commented about the scenery. We sang along to road trip music. We just genuinely enjoy each other’s company. Makes me want to go on another road trip right now!
Our big goal stop for the trip was San Francisco. We had to actively try not to fall in love with it. Who wouldn’t love a city that put a prison on its own island.
Christmas lights also make everything look more magical. Super festive.
We knew the streets were slanted and all, but it was like intense upward hiking to find this.
We couldn’t get a decent picture together in front of the bridge because the sun was attempting to burn holes in our eyes.
A very nice gentleman offered to take our picture in front of the bridge, and told us to stand here, but bless his heart, there is no bridge in the picture. He did tell us that pictures and memories are very important, and I do believe he is right on that one. 
I half want to and half don’t want to go on an Alcatraz tour. I don’t want to end up being used in a hostage situation.
What is more festive than chocolate?
Excuse the blurry night picture, but we are young and in love.
We sensed there was a theme to this hotel, but we couldn’t quite put our finger on it…
Next is a drive through northern California, featuring history according to Mr Sander.
I love going through all these pictures. Such good memories.
The idea of the holiday road trip to the northwest first popped into our heads a little after Thanksgiving. Basically, it was a “why not” type of thing. Driving is definitely slower than flying, but we decided that it would be an adventure. If we did it, we probably wouldn’t look back and think it was awful to spend a couple weeks together exploring.
So a week or so before Christmas, we jumped in the car, stopped at the store for some snacks, and began our journey. We had the basic route map, and some goal stops along the way, but we mostly just went day by day, just the two of us.
West Texas is mostly flat. There was a lot of this on our first driving day.
This bakery is apparently the “thumbprint cookie capital of the world.” I would raise them my house at Christmastime.
There are some pretty epic sunsets out there though. Gotta give it that.
We spent the night with the guy’s family in a cabin in New Mexico, and woke up to snow!
Talk about a cozy little cabin. Full of pups pretending to be people.
Onward through New Mexico and Arizona. Hashtag sky
Its like all those pictures of Arizona you see of the striped mountains are true.
This picture looks incredibly moody. No filter. I love it.
I was in charge of taking pictures of scenery whilst in the car, in case the driver missed something epic.
So close to the Grand Canyon, but we would have had to wait another day to see it. Next time we are coming for you, canyon.
And another gorgeous sunset. Next stop, California!
guy and his girl 