thankful thursday.

a few things i've been thankful for this week...

1. football season.
college football is back, y'all, and the bristers are SO happy about it. currently, the auburn tigers are 3-0, the texas tech red raiders are 3-0, and the baylor bears are 2-0, so we're sitting pretty. i guess i should note that the oklahoma sooners are 3-0 as well, so our friends here are happy, too. below is a pic of us trying to be contextual or something. two things about this shot should concern you: i'm wearing crimson ("stripe the stadium" made me do it) and chris is wearing a visor. bless it.

{great seats at the ou/west virginia game -- thanks, houghtalings!}

2. texas trip.
when some of our norman friends moved to spring, texas (you might remember them from this post), we promised them we'd visit before the end of baseball season so chris could catch an astros game. we really miss them around here. we loved getting to see their new world, hear about kristian's new job with love146, play with their sweet little boys, laugh a whole lot (kristian + chris = a hilarious combo), and, of course, eat plenty of ice cream (it's what they do).

{how did we not get a picture with kristian and katy?}

on saturday, we drove from spring to longview for my cousin's wedding, so clearly we had to make a stop in lufkin to see two of our favorites. it was quick, but we'll take any time we can get with katelyn and walker. so thankful for them.

3. wicked.
my favorite musical is in oklahoma city right now, and i got to see it with a few girls on tuesday night! i've been singing and dancing around ever since. "so if you cannot find me, look to the western sky..."

4. pie.
my mom and brother have been raving about this pie place in the bishop arts district in dallas, so when i found myself down there for work this week, i knew i had to try it. i may or may not have gotten two slices -- one for dessert last night, and one for breakfast this morning. it was hands down the best pie i've ever had -- and it came in super cute packaging, too!

{my breakfast slice: "drop dead gourdgeous"}

5. sunrise.
when i opened my hotel room curtains this morning, this is what i saw:

{if you zoom in, you can see the state fair ferris wheel!}

are you kidding me?! sunrises are the most incredible. every time i see one i wonder why i don't wake up every morning to see it. donald miller tweeted one time that if the sunrise happened once a year, the whole world would wake up to watch it. i agree. it's so unbelievable that this stunning beauty happens every single day and we act like it's no big deal... and yet, God keeps making them happen. such a picture of his beauty and grace, and his new mercies -- every single morning!

what have you been thankful for this week?

thankful thursday: vacation edition.

a week ago today we got back from spending a full week in colorado -- half of it with my family for a friend's wedding in winter park, and half of it just us in denver. it was a very much needed, very much enjoyed getaway. i've been looking at pictures all week trying to pretend like i'm still there. funny how life doesn't really let you ease back in from time away; it forces you to jump back in full force. it's been a crazy week back, so with this post i'm remembering how incredibly grateful i was for our time in colorado. the 5 things i was most thankful for on our colorado vacay...

1. time with my family.
thankful for four days in a row with my favorite people in the whole world. i just can't get enough of them.

 2. the great outdoors. 
i think the only person on this trip who enjoyed being outside more than me was whit. being outside with a two-year-old boy is the BEST. who knew finding the perfect stick could be such a blast?! sticks, dandelions, rocks, flowers -- his hands were never without at least one of these things. thankful for time outdoors with this little explorer.

3. our hotel pool.
thankful for some down time -- and thankful to learn how to say "no" to seemingly fun things, like going out, and "yes" to seemingly boring things that are actually better for you, like laying low by the pool... because... rooftop pool in downtown denver. what?!

4. breakfast.
we've decided our "thing" when we travel is going to be finding the best breakfast spots in town. i think we nailed it in denver. we found so many good places, but the denver biscuit company was our favorite by far. thankful to taste the best cinnamon roll of my life.

5. time with chris in the mountains.
thankful for so many days away with the one i love in a place i love. i hope i never get over the beauty and just sheer awesomeness of mountains. they leave me speechless and practically force my heart to worship. i so enjoyed us experiencing that alongside each other.

gosh, it was such a great trip. so thankful! can we go back already?!

thankful thursday (on friday): texas tour & people i love.

i know i'm a day late, but i had to write this thankful thursday post. i've been especially thankful this week for time with people i love.

1. hefners.
last week, i got a call from my bff: "hey, are y'all busy on thursday?" when your friend who lives 11 hours away asks this question, your hopes skyrocket. "please tell me you're coming, please tell me you're coming!" sure enough, she and her little family were passing through norman hoping to see us. we dropped everything, cleaned up the apt, and were thrilled to host them for less than 24 hours. it was such a quick trip, but i'm thankful for any time i can get with the hefners -- especially little john john!

2. both families.
on friday, we drove down to duncanville to surprise my father-in-law for his birthday. this is a man who is never surprised and is always in control of the plan. not this time! we completely surprised him. there may have even been tears, but if you ask him, he'll probably just say his eyes were sweating. his birthday dinner of choice was a low country boil... YUM! and, of course, we also enjoyed time with our little sitting-up-and-crawling nephew. what a cutie! we were both so thankful for time with the brister/hardy clan -- it had definitely been too long!

then, on saturday, my brother flew into dfw from a summer overseas in "the sandbox." my family took over the international arrival area and eagerly awaited his entrance through those big double doors. i know he loves his time over there, but selfishly, i'm thankful he's back in the same country as me. whit was pretty excited to see "uncle dew," too.

3. foster families.
one of the services buckner offers our foster/adoptive families is an annual retreat at camp buckner. it was nice to spend a few days in the beautiful texas hill country (a nice respite from the flat land i call home!), and fun to be back in camp world -- blob, sunburn, eating contests, pie throws, and all. more importantly, i was super thankful to spend time around these families. i completely fell in love with the kids, a couple in particular, and loved getting to see what i spend all my time working for -- children placed in loving families! such an incredible sight!

4. grandmothers.
i got to see both of my grandmothers in the same 24 hours! what a treat! after the foster family retreat, i made a quick trip down to san antonio to see gigi, then "on my way home" to norman, i made a detour off of i-35 to see grandmother in longview. i'm realizing more and more what gifts they are, and i was so thankful for time (though brief!) with each of them. also, my grandmother is moving and having to get rid of some things, so i gladly picked up this 1970s (i think?) shot of my dad. too good!

5. the husband.
when i FINALLY made it back to norman, the husband and i celebrated with a night out to our favorite fancy restaurant (thanks, groupon!). it's good to feel missed and even better to be with the one you've been missing. five days is just too long, y'all. (we're such wimps.) thankful for a special night with him.

bonus: less hot weather!
i'm including one more this week, because i checked my timehop app this morning and saw this. last year on this day i tweeted this picture:

what?! how did we live like that?! i'm thankful that for whatever reason, this summer has been mild -- still hot (highs in the upper 90s this week), but much better than 115. hello, perspective. get outside, people! enjoy it!

what (or who!) have you been thankful for this week?

thankful thursday: celebrate.

if you know me at all, you know i love any reason to celebrate anything. lucky for me, the last week or so has provided multiple opportunities to celebrate, and for that i am thankful.

1. july 4th.
in the 24 hours surrounding the 4th of july, the husband and i went to three different cookouts, complete with pool parties, cookie cake, blue bell, and fireworks. that, my friends, is a successful independence day.

i've always wanted to take one of these pictures. thank you, nicole, for finally making that dream a reality. 

2. twister relief concert.
on july 6th, moore's own toby keith hosted a massive, all-day concert to raise money for tornado relief efforts throughout oklahoma. somehow (God's favor, i'm convinced), our friend, amy, scored tickets on the THIRD ROW. it was so hot, and so long, but it didn't matter, because GARTH BROOKS. garth freaking brooks, y'all. also, WILLIE. and ronnie, and trisha, and carrie, and toby. and to top it all off, the night ended with fireworks -- all around the stadium. it was magical. this day for sure goes down as my favorite day in oklahoma so far. so thankful to spend it with fun friends, too!

3. ice cream.
yesterday i discovered july is national ice cream month. thank you, ronald reagan, and thank you, blue bell, braum's, chickfila milkshakes, and my new favorite, talenti gelato, for giving me so many ways to enjoy my beloved frozen treat. i plan to celebrate every single day, especially sunday, july 21st, which i now know is national ice cream day. mark your calendars, people.

4. emails.
when i checked my email first thing this morning, i had emails from both my mom and my mother-in-law waiting for me. i wish i could somehow let you read both of them in their entirety. they both gave me reason to celebrate! mom's was a rundown of a normal day in her summer work life at buckner -- ESL classes, nutrition classes, summer feeding programs, job trainings... you know, just changing people's lives. no big deal. my mother-in-law's was full of stories from the apartment ministry she leads with her church. she's so faithful every week -- even when it's a hot summer in texas. it's been kinda slow recently, but she said last night she had kids piling into her suburban wanting to go to church with her. so fun! i'm so proud of and constantly inspired by my mom and mother-in-law. i'm so thankful to have such incredible examples of godly women in my life!

5. 7-11 day.
today is july 11th, or 7-11, which means you can get a free slurpee at participating 7-eleven stores! and by participating i mean, every 7-eleven store except the ones in oklahoma. after work today, i called my friend, shanae, and convinced her (it wasn't hard) we needed to introduce her 3-year-old, davis, to slurpees (right before dinner... oops). we raced to the nearest 7-eleven, mouths watering, only to discover 7-elevens in oklahoma "are under different ownership and don't participate." whatever that means. so maybe we had to pay for our slurpees, but we still got to celebrate 7-11 day!

what have you been thankful for this week?

thankful thursday: tornado recovery.

here are a few things i've been thankful for in the last week or so since the big tornado in moore:

1. pretty skies.

if i have to hear tornado sirens go off almost every afternoon, at least i get to see pretty skies at sunset. it's probably the only good thing about all these crazy storms. 

2. chick-fil-a.

the corporate chick-fil-a folks sent their big red truck to norman this week to help with tornado recovery. this truck can crank out 800 sandwiches an hour, y'all. isn't that insane?! some friends of ours own the Chick-fil-As in norman and moore, and they were asking for volunteers to help distribute the sandwiches to families and volunteers in moore. i was so thankful for the generosity of chick-fil-a and for a practical way to serve and love people. i mean, who doesn't want a hot chicken sandwich?

"food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate." -- alan d. wolfelt

3. oklahoma pride.

i've always been an obnoxiously proud texan (and still am), but this week i tried to channel some pride for the okie state. we threw an oklahoma-themed party on wednesday night with our missional community to watch blake shelton's healing in the heartland concert. let me back up. we desperately tried to get tickets for the concert, but they sold out in seconds, so this was our best effort at a plan B. our party was complete with a soundtrack of songs about oklahoma, every oklahoma t-shirt we own (thank you, thunder) hanging in our living room, arrows pointing to oklahoma on our giant wall map, a garland of famous oklahomans hanging in our kitchen, and oklahoma-shaped cookies, of course. home sweet 'homa.

we googled "famous oklahoma food" and fried chicken was the answer... who knew?

4. community.

i've been extra thankful for community recently. on a macro level, it's been so cool to see churches from all over the okc metro come together to serve moore, and on a micro level, i've loved watching our prov road community love each other well through all this craziness and seeing the different ways everyone has used their skills and connections to serve our neighbors to the north.

this picture has nothing to do with the tornado recovery, but everything to do with community. the saturday before the tornado, a lot of us ran the super fan 5k that our friend's work put on. it was a great way to support her and all do something fun together!

5. skype.

this doesn't really fit the tornado recovery theme of this post, but i just got off a skype call with one of our favorites that just moved down to houston, and i'm just so thankful for skype. whoever invented it is a genius. we already miss them so much, but somehow it makes it a little bit better that we can see their faces and get a virtual tour of their house. i wish i had taken a screen shot. oh well. thanks, skype!

thankful thursday: weekend edition.

the first things that came to mind when thinking of things i've been thankful for this week all revolved around last weekend. it was a good one!

1. whit. 

on friday, my adorable little nephew turned TWO. i still can't believe it. if you can't tell, i'm pretty crazy about this kid. 

2. waco reunion. 

the husband and i spent the weekend in waco with some of our favorite people from seminary. casey and chris grew up together, lived together during seminary, and now have both been groomsmen in each other's wedding. don't they look sharp?

photo source and better weekend review here

3. katelyn.

i'm always thankful for time with this girl. i'm also thankful that time with her usually includes laughing really hard and eating late night jesus biscuits (you might know them as whataburger's honey butter chicken biscuits). my life is better, and way more fun, with her in it. i also got to cheer her on as she faced one of her biggest fears on saturday. she nailed it -- of course. i'm so proud of her! 

4. time with the bristers.

some of chris's family came to the wedding to cheer on the groom, and the best part was that they brought little ben with them! look at those cheeks! so cute. we're slightly obsessed with our nephews.

we spent the night with them that night and got to have early morning mother's day donuts with his mom and grandmothers. we loved getting to see them and celebrate them even if it was really early and really quick!

5. team rose. 

we made it back to norman on sunday morning to celebrate moms and say goodbye to graduating seniors at church. then, we spent most of the afternoon helping one of our favorite families here pack up a uhaul and get ready to move back to the promised land (texas). we just really love this family and are so thankful for the time that we've had with them in norman. it wasn't easy to say goodbye, although i'm still somewhat in denial that they actually moved and aren't coming back. we're so excited for their new chapter and eager to see how the Lord uses them and provides for them in houston. we love you, team rose!

graduation/going away shindig.

packing party.

and now it's almost time for another weekend! hooray! what have you been thankful for this week?

thankful thursday: good people.

time for another thankful thursday post, party people. here are a few things i've been thankful for in the last couple of weeks:

1. time with friends in the south.
i am nothing if not a maximizer. i attended a conference in nashville last week for work, which conveniently meant i got to see a couple of my favorite friends from auburn and drink my weight in fruit tea. i need a recipe asap so my oklahoma friends can experience what heaven tastes like.

{delicious fruit tea unfortunately not pictured.}

it just so happened that my college roommates had been trying to find a good time for a reunion, so since i was already in the south for the conference, we decided to make it happen last weekend. i drove my little rental car down to birmingham and had the best time with these girls:

i can't believe we graduated five years ago this weekend. that makes me feel so old! we hadn't all been in the same room in almost three years. unacceptable. i loved catching up on everyone's life, and i especially loved watching sarah be a mom and getting to snuggle with my favorite 10-month-old:

those eight girls, y'all. i could not have made it through college without them. so so thankful for time with them last week. such a rare gift!

2. duck dynasty.
speaking of the south (ha)... my husband's new favorite show is duck dynasty. bless it. he was so thrilled over my homecoming sunday night that he surprised me with flowers and two dvds of the bearded crazies. i'm mostly indifferent toward the show, but i LOVE how much it makes chris laugh. if you haven't ever heard his uncontrollable, really high-pitched, tears flowing laugh, then you're really missing out. it's the best thing ever. so if watching silly uncle si means i get to see that laugh, then bring on the duck calls.

3. worship "concerts."
a couple weekends ago, we drove down to ardmore with some friends for a derek webb concert. it was part of his "she must and shall go free" 10th anniversary tour, so literally all he did was play straight through the album and tell the story behind each song. i've blogged about this album before, but seriously people, if you don't have it or haven't listened to it in a while, get on that right now. there's not a bad song on the album.

{i get my concert photog skills from my talented cousin...ha!}

then, last night, shane & shane made a stop in norman, so we of course had to go. i mean, i just really love them. live harmony can't be beat, and they're the best at it. their music has led my heart to worship for a solid decade or so now, and last night was no different. it was good for my soul.

4. postal service.
i love giving gifts and celebrating people, and i hate missing out, so when i have to miss out on celebrating someone, it's not easy for me. thankfully, that's where the usps comes in -- it's the next best thing to being there. and who doesn't love getting a little happy in the mail?! i hope my adorable birthday boy nephew is keeping an eye on his mailbox... you too, mom.

5. cookie dough.
i just ate leftovers for lunch and clearly i needed a little sweet bite afterwards -- a) as a treat to myself for eating leftovers (i'm the worst at leftovers) and b) ... well, let's be honest, i've never needed to come up with a reason to eat dessert. it's just a necessity in my life. so as i searched our kitchen for something sweet, lo and behold i found a tiny little bit of COOKIE DOUGH in my freezer -- just the right amount. where did this sweet goodness come from?!

here's the story that i've put together: chris hosted our missional community last week while i was out of town, and in normal chris (or maybe just normal boy) fashion, he took care of the meal and drinks (read: ordered pizza) but dessert didn't cross his mind (how does that even happen?!). in a moment of what i can only imagine was desperation (remember: necessity) our friend, tricia, took it upon herself to find the ingredients in our pantry and whip up her infamous chocolate chip cookies. they are TO DIE FOR, y'all. hands down the best i've had. so, all of that to say, imagine my delight just now to discover that she was thoughtful enough to leave a scoop of dough (even better than the actual cookies!) for me! i looked something like this:

happy almost weekend, everyone! what have you been thankful for this week?

thankful thursday: belated.

belated because it's now saturday morning.
belated because it's been over a month since my last thankful thursday post. oops!

what a week, huh? way too intense. in the midst of bad news after bad news, here are a few things i've been thankful for:

1. a quick trip to lubbock.
i guess this was technically at the end of last week, but it was so fun to see my husband on cloud nine and to see my cousin before she graduates! i'm thankful buckner has offices in west texas, which gave us an excuse to travel to the land of tumbleweed, windmills, and red raiders.

2. carrie's birthday road trip.
carrie took the week off for her birthday and drove across the country from montgomery to norman (13 hours!!) to visit us. she explored okc, met our friends, and even got to experience oklahoma weather. it was great having her here for a few days -- we love visitors! happy 27th, jehle!

3. a meteorologist friend.
you probably know this about me, but i don't do well with storms... which makes living in oklahoma a blast. wednesday night the weather got a little crazy, but thankfully, we were at our missional community with our weatherman friend. you may remember the mosiers from last year's tornado weather. while my husband was doing this

i was inside with my stomach in knots. the weather passed and everything was fine, but i was thankful all over again that if i have to live in tornado alley, at least god gave me a meteorologist friend.

4. syrup.
i don't get to work there anymore, but i got to eat breakfast there 4 times in the last 7 days. i can't help it, y'all. i'm such a fan of this place and i love the people that work there... and i'm thankful for friends that will get up early to eat pancakes with me.

5. baseball.
even though it was much colder this week than it should be this late in april, i was eager to bundle up and get outside -- away from the tv (news) and computer (social media feeds). we took in not one but two baseball games this week, and last night's was even complete with fireworks! is there anything more patriotic?!

what were you thankful for this week?