Bishop Newman

Chad was called to be the Bishop of our ward here in Longview. For those of you that don't know what this means you can look here. It's a big deal and he's going to be great. Chad is an amazing man. He takes such good care of our family and I know he will do the same for our church family. He is wise, he listens to the spirit, he prays diligently and he knows his stuff. If you have a question about scripture, he's your man. He's awesome and I am blessed to have him as my husband and now as my Bishop.

Chad also felt impressed to have Devin as his 1st Counselor. Now I really know it's not a coincidence that we ended up in the same town and living on the same street as the Hugginses. I know that Heavenly Father needed both Chad and Devin in Longview at the same time. And Jana and I are so happy to be on the same street because now our husband's have the ward in their hands, which means they'll be out of our homes a lot more. We're happy to have each other to lean on. It will be a trying time, but I think we're up for it.

We had a really great day on Sunday. Chad's mom came in from Dallas as did our law school family, The Fishes, and Chad's good friend/mentor, Doug, flew in all the way from Utah. Doug has been a huge influence in Chad's life, especially with regard to the church. Doug's daughter is the one who introduced him to the church. Doug baptized Chad and helped to make it possible for him to serve his 2 year mission in Portugal. We love Doug! It was really great to see him!!

The Fishes stayed after church and came back to the house for dinner. It is always so great to catch up with them. They are really great friends.

Here's a picture of all of us from Sunday.

Note: I am REALLY bummed about his picture. I was using my remote with my camera for the first time and I thought I had it focused, but I guess I did something wrong so the picture is blurry. Grrrrrrrrr!!!!!! Oh well, you get the idea. Grrrrrrrr, again!!!!!

Baking with Oma

Jackson is quite the cookie maker.

He was so excited to help Oma make sugar cookies.

He helped add the ingredients.

He helped mix it all together.

He helped with the cookie cutters and the decorations.

And he helped eat them.

They really were very good.

Great job, Jackson!!

***By the way, this is my 300th post.

Wow!

Thanks for sticking with me through all of them.

Here's to the next 300.

Photo Booth

Nate and Randi had a photo booth set up at their reception.

It was a hit with all of the guests.

This crazy couple snuck in

for a few photos.

I love the gun in the front suit coat pocket.

Seems like a reasonable place to keep it. Right?

Here's a group one.

Can you count how many people we crammed in?

I was laughing so hard through all of the group ones. We really were so crammed in there and then we all had to lean back as far as we could to get in the picture. It was hilarious!

Fun, right?!

Party of 2

Chad and I got to take a weekend for ourselves. (Sigh)

It was fantastic.

the view from the car as we drove down I-20

One of Chad's high school friends was getting married in Austin on Saturday so we enlisted Eileen/Grammy to come and stay with the kiddos so we could have a mini vacation.

We left Friday evening and made our way to Waco where we stayed Friday night.

We never thought we would "vacation" in Waco, but one perk to doing so is

this place...

and these.

The VERY BEST Apple Wheat pancakes EVER!!

Look at the size of that thing!

It was a fabulous way to start the day and we ate way too much. But that's ok because who knows when we'll get back for more.

After our pancake feast, we completed our drive down to Austin. We didn't have any big plans for the early afternoon so we thought it'd be fun to park and walk around downtown. It was fun. Our first stop was...

Wait for it...

WHOLE FOODS.

Yep, that's right.

A grocery store.

But this isn't just any old grocery store.

This place makes food look like art.

I could live in their produce section.

I mean, just look at this.

I was only able to snap these 4 before a Whole Foods employee walked away from spraying some lettuce to let me know they don't allow photography in the store.

Bummer!

At least I got these, right?

We picked up some fabulous organic sodas and some SUPER yummy smoothies and headed out to wander the streets.

We did just that. We wandered and talked and laughed. Fabulous!!

We stopped in Waterloo Records to check out their collections.

Chad found 2 record albums that he couldn't leave without.

We walked some more, talked some more, laughed some more. Chad's really funny. I mean, really funny!

We knew this wandering fun couldn't last forever. We had to head to the hotel to get ready for the wedding.

The place where the wedding was held is called Hacienda del Lago and it's on Lake Travis and it's Beautiful!

Check out the white peacocks that roam the property.

The ceremony was short and sweet and very nice.

We gathered with friends and made our way to a table to await the meal that we were just beginning to smell.

It was so fun to catch up with everyone that we hadn't seen in a while.

We talked and laughed. (That seems to be the theme for the weekend)

We played with the cute centerpieces.

each table had flowers and different salt and pepper shakers. Cute, right!?

Chad tried on Rob's Bowler hat that he wore in the ceremony.

That's Rob in blue in the reflection of Chad's glasses.

I walked around the beautiful grounds and snapped some pictures.

This is where the ceremony was held. All the chairs had been moved at this point. But I think you can get the picture.

This house is beautiful. It has the greatest bathrooms I've seen in a long time.

Fun lanterns in all the trees.

And finally, the reason we were there.

Nate and Randi

Don't they look great!

these kids were blowing bubbles onto the dance floor during the first dance

the flower girl couldn't wait until the first dance was over to get out there so she danced circles around them

Here are some of our friends that we talked and laughed with.

Jorge and Carrie

Weston and Michelle.

I actually knew Weston before I knew Chad.

Britt

He wrote and performed a song for the newlyweds.

It was fantastic.

It was a great weekend. Can't wait to do it again!

To come tomorrow - our awesome photo booth pictures. You'll want to see these. Trust me!

Memories in pictures.

Well, Fletcher is on his way back home but we have some fun memories from the last couple of days. Take a look at all of the things these little Newmans did side by side.

Fletcher was in heaven with all of the "new" toys to play with. I think he kept a Batman with him at all times.

Caroline kept a close eye on them.

They fought crime in the backyard for a while.

They went a few rounds in the living room.

We topped off the weekend with a trip to the park and pizza.

And here are my 2 favorites from the weekend.

This was an accident. They were running toward me and I snapped a little too late, but when I got it into the computer I found that I loved it. I love that you really only see their capes.

These boys love capes.

Here Fletcher was working so diligently with his stick under the tree. I heard him at one point say something about a "home for ants". Whatever he was doing, he looked very cute doing it.

Fletcher, we so enjoyed having you at our house. We hope you come back soon. I promise we'll plan more fun things and you can play with Batman as much as you want.