5 blissful years..

It seems like just yesterday, it was June 24 2006. It was so so hot. Everyone I loved was in one room. And I married my best friend. Fast forward to June 24 2011...5 years later. Tommy and I really can't believe it's been 5 years. We've lived in San Francisco, Tommy became a Dentist, we've had two kids, moved to Ukiah, bought our first house and are just about to move again halfway across the country. Craziness. And we are thankful for every minute of all that craziness.

So, we've never really "celebrated" our anniversary in a "big" way. We've always just gone out to dinner.We have decided to do something "big"every 5 years. So, this year, we really wanted to go somewhere...Hawaii? Palm Springs? Then we decided it would be to much to be gone for very long, ie. have someone watch our kids for that long. So we decided to go somewhere close. And we chose to go to this indescribable-unreal-unbelievable place in Calistoga called Solage. My explaining won't even do this place justice. So we took some not so great pictures on our iphone to document our couple days there. And they won't do it justice either. Bottom line: It surpassed our expectations big time. And it wasn't bad being called Mrs. Barrington by the staff all weekend either ;)

*Disclaimer: Many of these pictures will be of food. I had to take pictures of each meal we had because the food was absolutely to die for. Seriously so yummy. And I wanted to remember each meal :)*

Everything here was so simple yet modern and classy. I loved all the little details.

Each cottage had two beach cruisers. How cute is that? Seriously?

The cottages were SO SO SO cute. And oh so relaxing.

A little patio. And a big oak tree.

Heavenly

Kinda weird to be obsessed with the bottom of a shower, I know. But it was seriously amazing. It felt like you were getting a foot massage.

Anniversary dinner started with DELICIOUS oysters. I am a fan. Tommy isn't. It was a fun treat.

My lemon coconut soup. Delicious. And healthy. Which is why I love this place. Their food was so so so good and healthy. Hard to find restaurants where this is true.

Half the time we weren't quite sure what we were eating but it all tasted amazing:)

Tommy's halibut tacos. Yum

My diver scallops. and not sure what else :) but delicious.

Happy 5 years!!!

We got to enjoy some fun pool time. And what a treat. The minute you open the pool gate some one is following you to your seats with lemon cucumber water. And I am slightly obsessed with lemon cucumber water.

As well as sparkling wine grape juice.

I forgot what it's like to swim in a pool and not having to worry about watching my kid jump off the side. Such a great pool. Warm, salt water and quiet.:)

We got to ride our bikes into downtown Calistoga and get ice cream. Such a fun night.

And when we got back to our room they had our room ready with mint water. It's the little things.

And breakfast the next morning was again, so good. I had an egg white omelet with goat cheese and spinach. Tommy had traditional eggs and bacon and hash browns:)

This was SUCH a fun surprise! Solage gives it's guests the opportunity to drive a mercedes convertible for FREE! So we took it out for a joy ride:) Hubby was is in his happy place.

We made a stop at Ferrari Carano winery. It was breath taking. So beautiful.

We had a fun lunch before our spa treatments. I love how the menu had our anni. date.

Tommy had the recommended Ahi tuna burger. It was great

I had the shrimp lettuce wrap. And see that sauce? It was SO GOOD.

I am in love with this spa.

Entrance to the bath house.

How cute is this? It looks like a bar, but it's called their mud bar. They mix oils of your choice with their mud. The whole experience was unreal.

there's my sales pitch:) it was such a great couple days. i am so blessed to be married to such an awesome guy. he's the best.

Fathers Day

To the daddy of our house,

thank you...

for making baseball a fun game in our living room

for all the tickling

for watching Cars for the millionth time

for the laughs

for all the love

for all the excitement when you come home

for your hugs and kisses

We all love you so so much.

Kisses

Kinley loves to give kisses. And they are the sweetest. All you have to say to her is "kiss" and her cute little mouth leans toward you, tongue out and everything:)

Kinley:: 9 Months

Sweet little girl is 9 months already. Seriously, where does the time go? Still the sweetest smiliest baby ever. She loves her food. She loves her sleep. And she loves her paci. She is now the speed crawling baby and loves loves to stand up. Early walker? Not sure if i'd be ready for that. Her new sleep schedule is 7:30-7:30. Heavenly. Her cute little top teeth are just breaking through. We all love her so much and can't resist squeezing her cute little cheeks. And I'm pretty sure her big smile is one of my favorite things. :)

Stand Up

This little girl has become quite the crawler/climber. She loves to climb on me or Tommy and try to stand up. I caught her trying to reach the top of our coffee table and pull herself up. She managed to do it. I also walked in her room to get her from her nap and found her standing, yes standing, in her not yet lowered crib. We lowered it that night.

I got a few fun pics of her so proud of her standing accomplishment:)

She tried to get brave...

Happy girl. *Please excuse the winter fleece pajamas. I know it's June, but it has seriously felt like January.*

Maclennan's Visit

We have some sweet friends that we don't get to see near enough, but they were visiting Peter's family here in Ukiah so we were able to see them! They just had a baby boy in April, little Roddy. And they have an 18 momth old girl, Emmy. We love getting to spend time with them. We all went to NorthCreek church in Walnut Creek, while we were living in San Francisco. Peter and Lisa still live in Walnut Creek and go to NorthCreek. We miss that church and all the wonderful people there.

This is Brady and Emmy, last May. I was pregnant with Kinley.

And now there's 4. Kinley, Brady, Emmy, and little Roddy.

We're Moving...

to the Austin, Texas area.

Well, how we got to this decision would take me forever to explain. It would be very easy for me to go on and on about the negative things, but we were recently given some great advice. So, instead of focusing on the negative, we are focusing on being thankful for God's grace while we were here in Ukiah. We are grateful to have met some pretty great people, for Tommy's great job and an opportunity to work with his dad, to have enjoyed the natural beauty of the wine country, for Brady to have "papa days" on Thursdays, and I could probably go on. So why are we moving? The bottom line is we just don't think this is the right place to raise our family. And with Tommy being a dentist, we had to go to the best place for his job, if he is not going to work with his dad. And we found that in Austin. So, Austin is a great place to raise a family and has a great opportunity for Tommy as a dentist.

Yes, we are a little sad about being a little further away from family, but thankful for what God is doing to strengthen our little family of four. We won't be to far away from some family members...Tommy's brother and his family live about 3 hours away in Dallas, and my brother is about the same distance in Fort Worth. So we will be with in driving distance.

We will be in California until the end of July...Tommy starts work the first week of August. Not only are we thankful for God's grace while we were here in Ukiah, but we are SO thankful for the way He has worked everything out as we transition.

To be exact, we will be in Cedar Park. It's all considered Austin, just different parts of Austin. So Cedar Park is considered Northwest Austin. It's about 10-15 minutes from the heart of downtown.

Tommy, Kinley, and I visited Austin at the end of April. Here we are in downtown Austin. It really is such a great city. The capitol building is in the background. We had a blast. :)