Babymooning on Lake Travis

It's no secret that I am not an avid blogger. Let's be honest - I don't exactly have that kind of time on my hands. I do like to take pictures and I do like to document certain "goings-on" within our lives. Since we are now over 7 months pregnant with our sweet baby girl, Alana, we felt that a much needed getaway was in order. Gregg found a beautiful and relaxing B&B overlooking Lake Travis, Austin. We enjoyed two nights away in a completely relaxing atmosphere, just soaking up God's' creation and enjoying one another's company before becoming a family of 3 very soon!

Tranquility on Lake Travis. We were the only couple there so it was very quiet and peaceful and the owner was extremely nice and helpful!

View from our back door.

Wonderful gourmet french breakfast every morning! YUM.

Gregg made me pose for a belly photo-shoot. I haven't taken many belly pics along the way, other than the weekly fruit pics so cue multiple belly pics:

Our trip to Lake Travis would not be complete without dinner at the Oasis.

 

 ...where we each took a belly pic:

We also had the blessing of stopping by Rachel & Evan's house to meet 5 day old Trenton Kelly. He is precious - so calm and sweet! Other typical Austin-type adventures included "Hey Cupcake", Wahoos, and Jo's coffee. 

All in all, it was such a blessing to have a fun and relaxing weekend away together. It's truly not long now until we meet our daughter and our lives change for the better, forever. 

Celebrating 2 Years of Marriage

Looking back over the past 2 years....

Tomorrow is our 2 year wedding anniversary! Time has really flown by. It seems like only yesterday these pictures were taken!

We have both grown a lot, and learned a lot over the past two years. There have been ups and downs, highs and lows, and we are both stronger and closer because of these. God is faithful and he will continue to be faithful, and he blesses us even when we don't deserve it.

What a beautiful and blessed day we had!

    

Highlights of 2 years of marriage....

Attending my brother's wedding and inviting Janaye into the family. They are having a baby boy in March & we are so excited to get to be an auntie & uncle!

Going to Disney World for the FIRST time ever! I LOVED it! Thank you Kite's!

 Visiting Jonny & Janaye in Louisville, KY. 

Surprising my family in Ireland for Christmas! They had NO idea. 3 flights, a bus, and a train, and a 2 mile walk to the doorstep.

 Vacationing in Colorado. Thank you Groupon Getaways!

 Gregg's Birthday present 2012. Why, oh why, are you not this cute and tiny anymore?

And just for laughs.... I got my wisdom teeth out and I am crying because I am not funny and we couldn't make a funny youtube video of me. 

The Art of Fermenting

Gregg finds this very strange. I probably used to think it was strange too. But I will try anything once! I have made batches of sauerkraut from scratch before, and my latest craze is kombucha tea. It costs about $3 for a 16oz bottle of kombucha so it is much cheaper to make your own.
So you purchase a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria & Yeast) that is alive and feeds on the sugar in the tea, which ferments the tea. It is full of probiotics, detoxes, high in anti-oxidants, improves digestion, boosts energy, and supposedly is cancer preventing, as well as many other things!

Here is a picture of the SCOBY on top of the tea. Usually when you add the "mother", it produces a "baby" on the surface of the tea, like the one pictured here.

Pretty gross looking, right?

Anyway, Gregg still thinks I am out of my mind for making and drinking this stuff, but I actually like it! You can also double ferment it with fruit juice and after bottling it, leaving it out to ferment some more will make it have a little more fizziness! 

I made another batch of sauerkraut tonight, which will be ready in about 2 weeks. I used cabbage & carrots in this one. Should be interesting. Well that's my exciting blog post on my obsession with probiotics.

Well, here we are! This summer we did a very grown-up thing and bought a house. We are new home-owners! I have to admit, it is a little stressful knowing that if something breaks we have to figure out how to fix it. There's no property manager to call! But at the same time it is also wonderful having a place we can call our own. It really is a cute little house and in great condition.

Now comes the interior decorating part of things! I have decided to stop where I'm at and just let it develop over time. It would be a little pricey to completely deck out this place! So I shall wait.

Exciting times are up ahead. I will begin my work in the special education doctoral program this fall and will be working at a preschool autism clinic (which I am VERY excited about)! I am a little nervous heading back into the world of academia, but am ready to face it head on.

We feel very blessed by all that the Lord has given us, and how he has taken care of us over this past year. We could not have done it without His strength and provision. My continual prayer is that we would keep our eyes fixed on Him through all these new developments and changes.

Our Wedding Videos!

Ok, so there's a fun story behind this video. Well, maybe not fun, but it's definitely a story.

Out computer crashed, so I thought that all of our wedding videos had gone. I had pretty much given up. Then, about 6 months later, in the last week in fact, I had a hunch, and when I followed it (I won't bore you with technical stuff), there they were!

I've also been trying to learn more about video editing lately using Sony Vegas Pro, so I got to put together a lot of the videos of the ceremony to make this little gem...

And now I've even finished up getting the footage together for a quick featurette of the Reception! Here it is. Enjoy!

Shout out to Janaye Atkinson for doing all the videography during the ceremony!

Molasses

I have been enjoying cooking from "Make it Paleo" over these past few weeks. They have quite a few good dessert recipes as well. I don't think I have ever used molasses in baking before today. I found this recipe and decided to give it a try.
Paleo Gingerbread cookies
I tasted the molasses mixture and thought I was in heaven. I could probably just drink the bottle... well maybe not. The main ingredients are the molasses, and blanched almond flour. The problem I came upon was that they were so sticky when I rolled them all out that it was hard to cut the gingerbread men out individually. I ended up baking the whole rolled-out sheet of dough and then cutting then gingerbread men after it had baked - this worked fairly well, but a lot of the poor little guys lost their legs or arms. It also meant that there was a lot of left-over cookie in between each gingerbread man, which Gregg and I ate as we were separating each one! Gregg said, "I wonder how many cookies that actually was that we ate?" Probably a lot.

YUM.

Here is another recipe from their cookbook that I decided to give a go since it looked interesting. Interesting is the only way I can describe this breakfast dish - made a nice change from just regular eggs though!

Beat egg whites until stiff  peaks form and fold in 1/4 cup of shredded coconut. Form into nests on parchment paper and put yokes back in the middle (i broke mine!) and bake at 350 for 10 minutes, or until starts to brown.

Gregg loves paleo.... sometimes.

So I (Libby)  have been eating Paleo (in and out) for just over a year. It is definitely an adjustment in lifestyle.... no more cereal for breakfast, no more rolls with dinner, not more bread, tortillas, or grains of any sort. Most of our meals consist of meat and vegetables. I enjoy fruit and nuts for snacks. This has been the hardest part for Gregg as he doesn't really like nuts, and has a limited amount of fruit he will eat. The part he does love though, is the MEAT. Tonight we had steak topped with whipped chive butter, and roasted balsamic onions. Ahhhhmazing.

Recipe courtesy of  "Make it Paleo"

Gregg's response? "They should sell this at Cafe Eccel" and "This is way better than Roadhouse". A success then, I believe.

What did Buddy do the whole time we were eating?

He stared longingly.