Sneak Peak: NYC

My man sent me to NYC on a girls' trip for my BIG birthday!
Aunt Julie, me, Mom, and Aunt Sheri on the Empire State Building Observation Deck.

Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard...

On the afternoon of July 16, 2005, my hometown experienced light rain showers as a product of Hurricane Emily. Ironic, as this was the day my husband would marry me those five years ago. The past five years have been full of wonderful highs and not-so-great lows, but no matter what, we're in all of it together. We know that our foundation is not in ourselves, but in Christ.

I would go on and write very flowery sentiments to my husband on this page, but he's not big on public declarations and such. I will say one thing--I'm glad he's all mine!

To celebrate, we took The Company Plane to sunny (at times) California for a nice long weekend. Our accommodations were in Santa Monica at the beautiful Fairmont Miramar, right across Ocean Dr. from the beach and about two blocks from the Santa Monica Pier.

We were surprised to find that the temps were right about 70 degrees. Definitely not what we expected, but a wonderful surprise nonetheless (and let's face it, a perfect excuse to shop as I had packed for warmer weather.) Luckily, we were also a block from the Third Street Promenade which had a ton of my favorites (H&M, Anthro, Zara, J. Crew, etc.)

In-N-Out = Not all that, but not bad.
I was pretty lame on the photography front. From the looks of what we're wearing, I took pics on exactly one day.

One evening we drove up Highway 1 a few miles to Malibu for seafood. A couple of days we toured around LA and visited the Kodak Theater, saw the Walk of Fame, and all the other tourist places. This was our ride!

So fun and relaxing. We had no agenda, just slept in late, took naps when we wanted to, and played when we wanted to. I highly recommend Santa Monica. It's located near so many things, but has a good night life when you want to park at your hotel and walk close by.

Here's to many, many more years with the one I love!

July Celebration

I finally got around to downloading the pictures from the month of July off of my camera. To start the month off, my cousin got engaged right before the 4th! so of course we threw a family fiesta to celebrate.

For 20 years I was the only granddaughter on my mother's side of the family before my youngest cousin was born. We are so excited to welcome another girl into the family, especially this one. She's very sweet, and I hope they will be so happy together.


Cute couple!

Couch and Compromise

My beloved red floral couch broke at some point back in September of last year. That set of living room furniture was my first grown-up non-secondhand purchase of furniture. I shopped for approximately 1 minute for them as my mom had seen the set in a store window in my hometown and was convinced I would love them. She was correct.

During our engagement, when the time came to decide whose stuff would stay and whose would go, Brad begrudgingly agreed that we would keep my living room set and store his beige couch until such a time that we had room for it again. (I also talked him into giving up one of those poofy La-z-boy recliners. Thank goodness!) I heard more comments about my beautiful and girly floral couches in that first year of marriage--enough that I would not have been shocked had they mysteriously broken in that duration. But after a while, he conformed.

And since I loved them, I didn't really pay much attention.

When it broke, I was in the middle of a project at work and had little time to shop for a replacement. We would occasionally stop into a furniture store and look around, but I found nothing that did it for me. Also, I had something very specific in mind, so that didn't help matters much. (Picky? Me? Never!)

Finally life calmed down a little in April, and I picked a "New Couch or Bust" weekend for us to finally pick out a new one. We finally decided that since we couldn't find a ready-made one we'd just have one custom made (which I was surprised to find is close in price to a ready-made one.) We walked into a store with over 300 fabrics to choose from, which was a recipe for disaster with too many choices and none that were what either of us had in mind. We walked out of that place, calmed down a bit, and drove to the next place where they had exactly the fabric I wanted, and exactly the style I was looking for--houndstooth and a traditional camelback.

So while I still haven't gotten around to downloading our vacation pictures, I did find some pictures of our new couch on my hard drive. It really changed up the living area. I love them, and Brad is satisfied with their comfort.

In my book, that's a win-win.

Oh, Summer.

I know I'm not alone in feeling that with each passing year, the summertime flies just a little faster. I'm not entirely sure how it is already July, but I'm pretty confident that it has something to do with spending a week at camp with our students back in mid-June. We headed to Roach, Missouri on three charter buses to spend a week at Camp Windermere on the Lake of the Ozarks. It was a huge blessing to spend time with the Lord, hang out with high school students, be off work, and soak up some Vitamin D on the lake. {Although, I think I am still catching up on my sleep 4 weeks later.}

A few weekends ago, I was so happy to spend part of my weekend in College Station catching up with some college girlfriends and their babies. It was such a sweet time with lots and lots of little girls. It's so fun to visit College Station with them living there--it's such a different dynamic than when we were going to school. I love it.

This week I'm wiped out from a visit to Santa Monica celebrating our wedding anniversary, and hopefully at some point I will recover enough to upload pics. Pacific time always gets me that way.

When we haven't been traveling, we've been working quite a bit which has prolonged my updates. I'll leave you with one picture I snagged of my dear Mr. Gentry from Facebook. Someone had a good time at camp! His rec team was the Underdogs, and you should notice the precisely engineered duct tape "U" on his shirt. That's my man.

More of Brad's 30th Birthday.

Our last couple of weeks have been so fun! As per my usual MO, we celebrated Brad's birthday for several weeks. Now it's June, and time to move on because seriously everyone in my family with very few exceptions has a June birthday--including my parents who are born on the same day, a few years apart.

But back to Brad! He's THIRTY!

When I started brainstorming a fun group activity for B's birthday, the first thing that came to mind was something I had remembered a couple of our friends mentioning a few months before--indoor rock climbing. There is a great place over in Arlington called Dyno Rock where they had climbed. The folks at Dyno Rock were wonderful to work with and let me set up the party wherever I wanted in their warehouse/rock climber's paradise.


I thought it would be fun to throw him a surprise party since it was a big birthday. Let me just mention here that I am terrible at keeping surprises. I have such a hard time at Christmas not just coming straight out with what I buy my people! The venue was not far from the Ballpark at Arlington, so I had high hopes I could have a friend faux-invite him to the Ranger game, but they were out of town. And I knew Brad would check out the schedule and figure out that something was up. So, I punted and just had them swing by the house and kidnap him a couple of hours after I left to go "shopping."

When my accomplices stopped by, they had him convinced we were going somewhere that he would need a swimsuit, so he had no idea what was going on. So awesome!

I ordered pizza delivered to the location to save some foot work and had cake along with trail mix as snacks/favors. It seemed appropriate for the night's activity.


Some of our awesome friends gathered with us to celebrate Brad's thirty years. One thing that is cool about Dyno Rock is that kiddos can climb with a parent (and a signed waiver, of course) so we had all ages.


I love that guy so much and am so thankful for the day he was born. He's my best and favorite.

Mystery Date!

Golf is a day
spent in a round
of strenuous idleness.

--William Wordsworth

My man turns the big 3-0 next week. To celebrate, last weekend we went on a mystery date--at least, a mystery to him.

I told him to pack his golf clubs and leave the cutoffs at home. He didn't
find out the destination until we checked in at the airport. Off we went on
the Company Plane--to North Carolina!

We took a long weekend at Pinehurst, about 90 min.
from Raleigh. If you're a golf person--which I am not--you would
know it as the home of the 2014 US Open and a couple of past US Opens.

The No. 2 course was where Payne Stewart won in 1999, his last
Major win 4 months before his tragic death. This statue
commemorates the day of his big win.

Here was my posture the day Brad played No. 2. Most of the
pictures I have of us are from that day, because I spent a lot of
the my free time in the spa or by the pool. He also played No. 4
one of the days we were there.

All the pine trees--hence the name. We also met Ben Crenshaw
during this round. He was out with a group looking over the course and
deciding what changes should be made before 2014. He was incredibly nice.

We did a lot of eating too.
Very good food.

The goal was a milestone birthday to remember. And I think it was accomplished!
We spent plenty of time just relaxing and enjoying each others company.
A perfect weekend.