weekending...

I think I'm still weekending in my head...or maybe its the time change??? ANYways....we had a great weekend...a really fun Sunday. Our friends Mike and Michelle (Michelle was one of my roommates in college) have, pretty recently, moved to Austin from the East Coast and just had a sweet little boy on Saturday night, Finley Michael. So the three of us decided to drive out to Austin Sunday morning to see them...

It was really great---always great to get on the road, especially to Austin. We packed up little Kallen and his "entertainment," had lunch at P Terry's (really its not AS good as you'd think from how often we eat there---I think its just become a tradition...), of course had to go to Whole Foods---found some gorgeous knock-out roses to plant in the garden, went running at the lake (ALWAYS a favorite for the Smith's!!!) and then best of ALL----got to meet sweet little Finley!!!

(Sorry the pictures are from my phone because of COURSE I left my camera in the CAR!!! :)

He is gorgeous and precious and so sweet and so LITTLE!!!...I mean, the "normal" size of a newborn, but I'd never believe Kallen was ever that small---I had to keep asking Brian, "was Kallen THIS small??" and he'd have to keep answering "yes honey..." those little eyes, and little nose, and fingers and mouth...awwwwww, just precious....AND huge bonus, I got to see my sweet friend Becca too (another one of my roommates) which was so special!!

The one thing that was NOT precious was being back in a hospital...I think I started feeling kinda woozy the minute we stepped off the elevator into L&D...they say you forget, but, wow...yeah, still haven't forgotten...still pretty traumatized in fact!!!...Yeah, as for RIGHT NOW I'm pretty much 100% sure that I NEVER EVER want to go through that again!!! :)

But anyway, that made for a great little roadtrip for the Smith family...actually Brian and I like being in the car together a lot...it gets us talking in ways we don't have time to at home...we are doing a little series on marriage in our small group from church---its awesome...anyways I had downloaded a couple of the videos onto my ipod and we watched (well, Brian just listened) to them and they started some really great talks...talks we REALLY needed and I think changed some things...

Marriage is REALLY hard---its great, its amazing...but you can't really let it go on cruise control---and honestly, I never WANT to...I always want to work hard on making it better, making us stronger. And that does take work. And its hard to love someone, and be loved, for WHO YOU TRULY ARE!...there are so many emotions in the beginning, and then all of a sudden things settle, and you realize that this is forever. And I don't want to just "make it"---I want it to be all that it can be...I want us to be in love forever...not necessarily fireworks and flowers and candles and blah blah---although sometimes thats nice...but raw, real love...when you are truly looking out for that other person, more than you are looking out for yourself...wow...that's beautiful. But that's really hard!...

So anyways, that was our little weekend...much too short might I add...and it surely seemed like 4:30 came a little earlier this morning... :)