Building a life together

July 8, 2011 marks a very important day in my life. See on this day Jordan asked me to marry him. From this day forward I no longer have a boyfriend but a fiancé, soon-to-be husband. From this day forward it is no longer me, it is "us". From this day forward I get to start building a life with my best friend and the man I love.

It was a quiet Friday evening. I came home from work to see some flowers on the table and him preparing dinner (No red flags here). I had plans to go work out so I changed clothes and headed out. When I got home he had Wade Bowen (my favorite) playing and we cooked steaks out on the grill. I went out to the garage to get us some drinks and found our wood pile scattered out. (A little background: Jordan and I are project people. On the weekends we normally have some sort of wood working project going. ) I went back inside and asked him why the cedar was all over the garage. He said, “I thought after dinner we could go look at our scraps and see if we could get us a project going for this weekend.” “Okay”, I thought. This is really no different than other Friday nights we’ve had before.

After we cleaned up the kitchen he told me to go on out to the garage and start brainstorming projects he would be there in a minute. So unaware that anything was up, I went to the garage and started looking around. In a minute he joined me, laughing at me as I try to come up with interesting projects to build. After a little bit he comes up behind me and gives me a hug and says, “I thought maybe we could just build a life together.” Of course, me still being unaware, responds with “well honey, I don’t think we have enough wood for that.” He turned me around, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him -with me still in my workout clothes mind you! In the midst of trying to hug him to death and crying tears of joy I said “YES”.

We went back in the house to visit and to try the ring on. I had gotten so caught up in the moment that I didn’t even get the ring from him. It fit perfectly and is beautiful! We sat a talked for a while and then started calling our family.

The proposal was just like him; everything I could have asked for and more. A complete surprise and absolutely perfect for us; I will never, no matter how much I rewrite this, be able to describe it well enough. We are so blessed with loving families that were so excited for us and that have been such wonderful examples of what love looks like. This has been such a wonderful reminder that it’s all in God’s timing…glad I didn’t rush Him.

Jumbo marshmallows and watermelon seeds

We celebrated Memorial Day weekend at the Smith’s lakehouse in Granbury. Previous to meeting the Smith family I had only been out on the lake roughly four times. Even though I lived in Granbury until college, going to lake was not a Tabor pastime. I must say, it’s starting to grow on me.

Gilley loves riding the knee board with Jordan......



....and the jet ski.

We used jumbo marshmallows to make these smores. They were awesome!

When Gilley isn't skiing he rides up front with me.

Memorial Day 2011

"Tornado Central, this is Hannah speaking..."

Generally I don't write about my childhood. No particular reason why I just don’t. But as I reflect back on my evening last night I am reminded of a day roughly 22 years ago.

As I was sitting in my bathtub covered up with pillows, blankets and the dogs, I listened to the tornado sirens going off. It made me think back about the last time I was in this same situation. 1989 a huge tornado came through Somerville County. I was about 6 years old and mom had my brother and I safe and secure in the middle bathroom of our old ranch house. The news blaring and mom yelling at my father for running back and forth from each side of the house on "look out." I remember mom letting my brother and I peak our head out once just so we could see what a tornado looked like in person. By the grace of God the tornado missed our house. However the hay barn and our blue mini plastic swimming pool were not so lucky. The tornado moved the hay barn a couple pastures away and demolished it. As for the pool, it's still MIA. Come to think of it mom and dad never got us another one to replace it either. I digress. So the more things change the more they stay the same, right? Last night I was still camped out in the middle of the house in a windowless room just like before except this time I was alone. No TV blaring because the cable had gone out but watching the storm come in via WFAA’s interactive radar while talking to my mother on my cellphone and Facebooking. Ahh, technology!

cinco de mayo de graduación

On cinco de mayo my youngest, coolest, favorite and only brother graduated college!!!! Ben has been living in San Antonio for a couple of years while going to school at the University of Texas at San Antonio. It hasn't always been easy and it hasn't always been fun but his dedication and hard work paid off. It was so great to be down in San Antonio with my family to watch Ben graduate. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. This was by far the coolest graduation I have ever attended. The ceremony ended with music by the UTSA Mariachi Band. Very impressive!

It brought back memories of my own college graduation-minus the mariachi band. What a fun and fearful time that was in my life. So excited to finally say I’m finished with school, but at the same time having no clue what the future holds for you as a "big kid." I don't know what the future has in store for my brother. What I do know is that it will be great. He's got amazing talent, a great attitude and has never met a stranger. He's one of those guys that when you meet him; you immediately want to be his friend, which is handy because he already considers you one. I'm so proud of him for all he has done and for what is to come. Best wishes Bubba!

“Hello California! Sure is strange to be here today.”

For those of you that actually read this, I apologize for being gone for so long. Life gets busy and our ambitious goal of documenting it gets overlooked. I won’t even try to recap, there’s just been too much. We’ll start this blog off with one of my all-time favorite vacations with my favorite person.

Jordan’s job has him travelling all the time these days. Luckily most of it is in state. However for the month of March he was based in Bakersfield, California. I would be joining him there for a little mini-vacation halfway through his stay.

I flew out late on a Thursday night; two flights and a different time zone later I arrived. Friday we spent the day around Bakersfield seeing the sites (which didn’t take long) and looking at all the places Jordan had been working on. We ended up in Los Padres National Forest. Below are a few photos from that brief visit. At dinner that evening we decided that the next morning we would venture towards San Francisco. Neither one of has had been there before, in fact this was my first trip to California, and we wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge while we were so close.

Now, San Francisco is about four hours north of Bakersfield.With map in hand we took off. No plan, no reservations, and a lot of anxiety. First, stop, the Golden Gate Bridge for some great photo opts…..we thought. See it started raining that morning on our drive in and only stopped during part of our Fisherman’s Wharf visit Sunday before we left. We went to the bridge in the pouring cold rain and wind. Snapped a few bad photos and loaded up in the truck onward to our next stop.

Muir Woods National Monument is located a little outside of San Fran in Mill Valley. This was one of our favorite stops on the trip. This Redwood forest is amazing and my photos cannot even begin to do it justice.

After our trip to the forest we went back to the hotel. Once we were dry and had thawed out we headed out to a local restaurant that was on the San Fran Bay and only a few miles down the road. I would highly recommend The Spinnaker to anyone, and I mean anyone. Good service, great food, glorious view. Fruity drinks to celebrate a great trip? Yes, please!

We had great intentions of roaming around Mill Valley some more but the crazy storm that blew in that evening changed our plans.

The next morning, thanks to the hotels recommendation, we got up early to watch the sunrise at the Golden Gate Bridge. Feeling adventurous and having some time to kill we tried a different road. Doing so lead us to the top of this cliff where we parked and ate our dry cheerios watched the bridge from a different angle and without any other spectators.

Though it was cloudy and the sun never really came out we did get to see the moon (largest it had been in 20 years). It was an amazing site to see the city so still and quite. Of course once it started to be daylight the boats moved in and the traffic picked back up….ahh, San Francisco.

We finished our San Fran visit at the Fisherman’s Wharf. Walking around the Bay, staring at THE BRIDGE, and eating a lot of seafood. Yum!

This was one of those trips “luck trips”. You know, where you just stay lucky the entire time. We met the nicest lady at the first hotel we stopped at that pretty much helped us lay out our entire trip. The Spinnaker required reservations, which of course we did not have, but we walked right in and they had an amazing table there with no wait. Now it could have been a little luck but I have no doubt that God had his hands in this trip. He was definitely helping make the memories of this trip special for Jordan and me.

Jordan Smith, thank you so much for an unforgettable and wonderful trip. And I promise, I will always get up early to watch a sunrise with you.

Big State Fair of Texas Weekend...

"Howdy, Folks!"

Sunday morning, Jordan and I loaded up in his pickup and headed north to Dallas; where I made my first trip, as a spectator, to the State Fair of Texas. I had been once before a couple of years ago but never made it passed the cattle barn. On this beautiful fall day we toured the grounds, enjoyed a classic fair food lunch; corn dogs and cotton candy. We even venture out and tried the Fried Frito Pie, which I highly recommend. I enjoyed it so much that I would almost drive back right now and stand in another long line for the fried goodness. Later in the day we met up with his sweet family to watch the Limousin show and walk the fair some more. Now, I’m not a fan of crowds and though there were a jillion (yes, I counted) people out due to the lovely weather, I had a blast. I highly recommend going at least once, or once a year, and enjoying all the offerings of this big as Texas event.

Of course, you can’t leave the fair without seeing Big Texas.

Luau of Love

Saturday evening we went to Flower Mound to celebrate in the marriage of my sweet friends Katrina and Brandon. Brandon and I met several years ago when I lived in Electra. Katrina and I became immediate friends my first day at TSCRA. These two make a wonderful couple and i'm thankful to call them both friends. Congratulations you two!

TSCRA girls

Jordan and I

The happy couple

Me and K