Six Month Anniversary!

So time is flying and we've been married for six months now. Crazy! The real shocker is that it took David a whole 6 months to finally give me this award.

It was also the day we flew back from California so we celebrated our anniversary by visiting all three states that I had lived in (California -> Utah -> Texas), in one day.

Halloween!

So we didn't have much time to put together a Halloween costume. We looked up couples costumes online, went through our attic and the costume bins, etc. I finally went in and told my dad (the very non-Halloween celebrating type) our dilemma. He simply said, "why don't you just be Texans?" I wish I had thought of that a lot sooner! My dad got a nice cowboy hat from Dave's dad at our reception, I got my dad a Texas tie when I came back from Houston, Thomas had some Wranglers and boots, and I got my dad a nice Texas apron as a souvenir when they last came into town. It turned out great, the ward loved it and anyone we saw that had ever lived in Texas came up and told us they loved our costumes and missed Texas.

We got to take my little neices out Trunk-or-Treating at the ward Halloween Party. We really thought people might offer us candy because we got dressed up and all, but that wasn't the case. Afterwards, we played a game where Tia's friends had to try to throw their candy in Dave's cowboy hat. We won us a lot of candy that way, I came home with an apron full :)

Thomas Family Photos

Dave took his first train ride, from his conference in LA up to Fresno, to spend the weekend with us. I was soooo happy to see him after 5 days! My mom took advantage of us being in town and invited a family friend over to take a family picture in our back yard.

One of the hardest parts of family pictures in my family is finding a color scheme that everyone can agree with. We usually end up borrowing each others clothes and hiding behind eachother to hide any unmatching article of clothing. But here we all are!

University of Farmers

Dropping off Dave at the airport
(Don't let the big smile fool you, it was sad moment having to say goodbye)

So Dave started working as an Insurance Agent here in San Antonio for Farmers Insurance. He's been doing great. All agents start out as Reserve Agents. Once they sell a total of 40 P & C policies and 4 life policies they become Career Agents. This brings a lot of great benefits including subsidies, group insurance, bragging rights, and much more. As an incentive they offered to buy Dave and I a nice bed and breakfast in a nice little town outside of San Antonio and Dave surpassed their expectations and did it in 2 months. (Fredericksburg here we come!) Also, he got shipped out to Los Angeles to the University of Farmers for his first official business trip.

Dave had a great experience there. He spent his days learning successful marketing strategies and how to be a great agent instead of a salesman, and all about opening up his own Farmers Branch and what is involved. He spent his evenings chatting on the phone with me. It really got him pumped about opening up his own business and applying everything that he learned. I'm so proud of him!

While he was there I flew out to Fresno to visit home. It was fun just being a part of the family again. I got to go to Tia's water polo game, Emily's cross country meet and soccer game, I hung out with my brothers and also my sister and her cute little family, and of course my parents and I got to play the ukulele with my Grandpa all week. What a great week!

Parents Visit

My dad was able to attend a work conference right here in San Antonio. My mom decided to come out also and they spent the weekend with us. It was so fun to have them in our little home and show them around our town.

The men made us a nice salmon dinner and only set the fire alarm off twice. It was delicious!!

We took them mini golfing and although it's hard to admit, my mom and dad beat us at mini golf.

We got to show my parents the beautiful San Antonio temple. They were blown away by the beautiful stained glass windows and nice landscaping.

To keep the hot afternoon sun from baking our apartment in the afternoons, we put up my beach towel. It's been working great (until mom comes into town). The minute my mother walked into our apartment she said, "Oh Lisa, what is that towel doing up there? You need some curtains!" So we went shopping and the guys had a Friday night activity. Shopping for home decor just isn't that fun when you have to go alone, so I had such a fun time with my mom and our apartment's looking great!

At the famous Alamo. My dad was fascinated by all the history there.
Our first stop was the movie theater to actually learn the history, then we went exploring.

One of our favorite activities was visiting the River Walk. The weather was absolutely perfect! (Last time Dave and I went we went at 9 or 10 in the evening and it was ridiculously hot!) We decided to take one of the River Boats to get the full experience.
As you can see, my dad was really enjoying the ride. We had to squish on a tiny little boat but it was such a fun ride and we got to see the whole River Walk.

One thing we love about San Antonio is that there is always something going on. This weekend there was a free Accordian Festival right on the river. We got to ride right through the middle of it and the music was amazing. Down on the other end by the mall there were some Peruvian bands playing. It was such a fun night and weekend!

Kettle Mania!!!

We really do love San Antonio and being in Texas, but our one complaint is that they don't sell KettleMania popcorn. I got hooked on this Kettle Corn and got Dave hooked real quick. We tried having movie night with the other brands and they just weren't the same. After requesting special orders from local grocery stories and having no success, we took matters in our own hands. Naturally, we had to stock up and thanks to Amazon for their free shipping :)

Garner State Park

We decided to go on an adventure this weekend so we packed up the back of Dave's truck with some camping gear. The whole time we were gathering stuff, we caught ourselves saying, "Oh man, I wish we had ____" or "Dang, if only we had a ____". Luckily, we at least had a tent and two sleeping bags, which is all you really needed for camping, right?

We drove about an hour west of San Antonio to a little town called Concan, TX. We called ahead and Dave reserved a campsite with a river-front view. We got there after dark so we set up our tent by the headlights of the truck and the mini flashlights we had. (We really could've used a lantern). In our tent, we enjoyed some spaghettios and chicken salad for dinner. Our biggest worry were the little skunks our wandering around, but we were fine.

It was a hot and humid night by the river. We both woke up sweating and didn't even use the sleeping bags that we had brought. We ate some breakfast and then went exploring . One thing I learned this camping trip is that I married the world's best rock skipper! Dave was amazing!

Since we drove in at night we were pleasantly surprised in the morning to see mountains in our midst! Mountains? in Texas? We had no idea! We set out to hike the tallest one. After our hike we spent the afternoon at the river swimming in the crystal clear water, skipping rocks and playing on rope swings. We're definitely gonna have to make another trip out there and Dave says "Y'all are all invited!"

(Thank you to the nice boy scout leader lady who let us put our memory card into her camera and took a picture of us to prove that we climbed a mountain in Texas)

Hamilton Pools

Hamilton Pools is a natural swimming hole just outside of Austin. We went with Dave's brother and his family and had a blast playing with our little niece and nephew.

There are so many things to do and see around here, we're loving it!