March in Review

Almost 4 weeks have passed since our UK trip, and we have been busy with some fun stuff going on in March. Immediately upon our return to the States, David headed to Florida for the annual Raymond James Conference. Although he is always really busy, it is a great time for him to reconnect with his former Atlanta colleagues, enjoy great food and network with energy professionals.

After the conference, David had about 24 hours in Houston and then headed to Coushatta, a resort and casino in Louisiana, with some of his guy friends from church. They played golf, enjoyed a manly steak dinner and gambled the night away (without whatever funds their wives allowed them to use). It was a short trip and he came back exhausted, but David always values this bonding time with guys. While he was gone I coordinated another wedding at our church. Normally I am a part of our church's wedding coordination team and I assist someone else. But this was my second time being "in charge." While I do enjoy it, I am usually pretty stressed!

After the Coushatta weekend, we had one quiet weekend in Houston where we caught up on laundry, yard work, and finally just relaxed. After such a busy month we needed to just breathe for a little bit. Lucky for David, March Madness was in full swing and we spent most of the weekend outside at Cedar Creek (our favorite neighborhood restaurant) watching the games.

And then during the last weekend of March, my parents came to visit!! There aren't very many touristy things to take people to, but we enjoy cooking with them, going out to eat, walking outside and just catching up on life. Although we didn't have any big plans, it was one of my most favorite weekends! Friday night we grilled some grouper, experimented with Israeli couscous and tried out a new goat cheese and asparagus recipe. And of course, we had to watch the UNC game.

On Saturday, we headed straight to Nadeau (our furniture obsession) because I had gotten an email the day before announcing a new shipment. We went in search of a coffee table and came away with two bedside tables and a bench for the end of our bed (I will post pictures later this week). My poor parents had to experience David and I's extremely slow process for selecting furniture but it was exciting nonetheless. After an awesome lunch at Hungry's outside, we then took part in the Woodland Heights Home Tour. We all love looking at houses (and by we I mean me, my mom and dad; David was a great sport!) so the Home Tour was a fun treat. I was expecting it to be mostly the Craftsman style homes that our neighborhood is famous for but there was actually a huge range and it made for some interesting discussion about why certain families choose different features.

Then, on Saturday night, we tried out Stella Sola, a new-ish place in our neighborhood that we had been meaning to try. In all honesty, I thought it was a little bit overrated but I am still  glad we went. We are in that window of perfect Spring weather, where the mosquitos still lie dormant and the humidity hasn't reached 90% so it was nice to take advantage of being outside.

On Sunday morning, we went to church (although it has been so long since we went to the morning service and they keep changing the service times so we were about 30 minutes early). And then after church, we had a church-wide Fried Chicken Picnic! They are so generous with the free food, I brought key lime cupcakes and we just enjoyed the fact that my parents got to meet some of our friends. Sadly, my parents had to catch a mid-afternoon flight, but we still managed to clean out my closet and re-arrange the guest room/office before they left. All in all, great quality time and very productive for us!

We love visitors and are looking forward to hosting our Atlanta friends John Neal and Hailey in May!

The first weekend of April kicked off with an amazing Passion conference with Mike and Melissa and then my professional TACAC (Texas Association of College Admission Counselors) conference in Dallas. I will write a separate post about Passion because it was awesome, but once again we are looking forward to a few quiet weekends at home in April!