In all the busyness of the past few weeks, I forgot to post about Darby's parents' visit. After Darby's cousin's wedding, they started a long road trip, part of which involved coming up to see us. Darby's mom hadn't been here since right after we moved in, so it was nice that she got to see the house all set up. We ate a lot of good food, went to see UP (which is GREAT; I cried!), and rented paddleboats at the park. (Sidenote: Why are they called paddleboats and not pedalboats? I mean, you pedal them, so that makes more sense.)

I have never ridden a paddleboat before, and I've always wanted to. Darby and I were going to rent one at a park in Toronto on our honeymoon, but we got there too late. It's been a longstanding joke between us since then that our honeymoon was ruined because I didn't get to ride a paddleboat.

Well, my dream finally came true. It was a lot of fun, but I have to admit I liked canoeing better.

John and Debby

Darb and Me

I'm so glad Darby's parents were able to stay with us for a while. And tonight we got a fun surprise. John and Debby were on their way back from Wisconsin and were driving through Champaign, so they stopped and took us to dinner. (Yes, if you're counting they've been on the road over three weeks, and they won't be back home for another week. They take crazy road trips!) Seeing them three times in a month was a nice change from seeing them once every six months!

Two Years

I love this picture. It totally captures how happy I was on our wedding day. The day was perfect. I really can't think of a thing I would change about it. But, I wouldn't want to go back and experience it again. On that day, I knew my love for Darby would continue to grow, but I couldn't imagine how. Now I know.

Today, I love Darby more than I did that day. Today, we are more of a team than we were then; we understand each other better than we did then; we are better friends than we were then; we love each other more selflessly than we did then.

I have even more excitement about our future than I did that day. Because now I know how much a marriage can deepen in just a couple of years. And we have (God willing) dozens of years ahead of us! I cannot wait to see what those years bring.

Fabulous 4th

Darby and I went to Nashville this weekend to meet up with some friends from ACU. Dylan and Andrea live in Georgia now, so Nashville is a great meeting spot, plus, it's a fun city.

We had SO MUCH FUN! On Friday, we met at our hotel (the Millenium Maxwell House), ate great Mexican food, and walked around downtown for a while. Friday night, we ate at a Mafia-themed Italian restaurant. Then, we went on a "ghost tour." A guide dressed in 19th-century clothes led us to different spots in Nashville and told us stories about the ghosts associated with those places. It was pretty cheesy, but interesting. Afterwards, we were going to go to a blues club, but we looked in and it looked a little shady. So we got ice cream, and went back to the hotel to play Rummikub. Pretty crazy, huh?

Saturday, we went out to Cheekwood, which is a restored mansion and botanical gardens. It was beautiful.

Darby and Me

Dylan and Andrea

Then, we went to Opryland. We ate lunch at the Gaylord Opry, peeked in on an Irish-dancing competition (long story), went to the Opry museum, and shopped a little bit at Opry Mills mall. They had an Ann Taylor factory store, so I was in heaven. :)

We thought the fireworks were going to start at 9:30 or 10 (like in Texas). So, we went to dinner around 7 and were planning on driving downtown afterwards. It had been raining off and on, so we weren't even sure the fireworks were going to happen. We left the restaurant around 8:30 (after having the most amazing dessert--cookie dough eggrolls, oh yes!) As we were driving toward downtown, we saw the fireworks start. I'm not sure if they were supposed to start that early or if they were trying to avoid the rain. Traffic was almost at a standstill, so we had a perfect view from our car. It started pouring, but they were still shooting off the fireworks. I felt sorry for everyone standing outside getting soaked. I can't believe how well it worked out for us. We were nice and dry in the car, and we had a fantastic view. The fireworks were incredible! The finale was insane. I'm so glad they weren't canceled.

This morning we woke up, ate breakfast at Panera, went swimming, and checked out. It was a perfect weekend. I have always loved the 4th of July, and this was definitely one of my favorites. We all agreed that we will have to make an annual tradition of taking a trip together.

Happy Birthday, D!

This is Darby with his laser. He's a nerd, but I love him!

Today the love of my life turns 24. (Yes, I married a "younger man." Ha!) Interestingly enough, Darby was supposed to be older than me. I was born two weeks early, and he was born almost three weeks late.

I made him a key lime pie on Monday. (We're going out of town this weekend, so I wanted him to have time to eat all of it.) I think he chose key lime pie because it's one of the few desserts I don't like. He wanted it all to himself! Tonight, we're going out to eat at a burger place that's supposed to be really good.

I love you, Darby! I feel so blessed to be with you on your birthday and every day. You are definitely worth celebrating!

As I was driving to work this morning, I heard on the radio that, according to a study conducted by Clairol (maybe not the most reliable source), women are on average the happiest and most confident at age 28. Two things struck me about this:

1. Thank goodness I'm not supposed to be my happiest and most confident yet. I mean, I do feel pretty happy, but I think I have a long way to go in the confidence area.
2. 28? Really? That still seems so young. Is it all downhill from there? I think that there will hopefully be a lot more reasons to be happy and confident when I'm 50 or 60 than at age 28—children, grandchildren, a decades-long marriage, more career experience, a closer relationship with God.

If anyone's reading this who's over 28, what do you think? Were you most happy and confident in your 20s or later in life?

Kitchen Fail

There is this hilarious blog I discovered called Craft Fail, where, as the name implies, people post pictures and stories of their failed craft projects. It's always good for a laugh, and it usually makes me feel better about myself, as most all crafts I attempt are "fails."

I think there should be a kitchen fail blog. (Maybe there is one that I don't know about.) Until I find one, I'll just post my own story here. My mom once told me that she enjoys hearing about my kitchen mess-ups, since, according to her, I don't mess up enough (with my cooking...she didn't specify other areas). This one is not as bad as my sausage-ball incident, but it probably is the most number of mistakes I've ever made in one recipe. Feel free to add any of your own kitchen mishaps in the comments; it'll make me feel better.

In preparing for Darby's parents to come, I decided I should probably offer them something for breakfast besides dry cereal. I've been wanting to make this coffee cake from Smitten Kitchen for quite some time. It seemed simple enough, and I was super excited to use my new kitchen scale to precisely measure the flour.

I had already decided to substitute blueberries for rhubarb, and light brown sugar for dark brown sugar. Little did I know that those changes were just the tip of the iceberg.

I dole out 1 3/4 cup flour, mix the dry ingredients together, and get ready to mix the wet ingredients. Uh-oh. The recipe calls for one egg and one egg yolk. I only have one egg. After some Googling, I decide that I can substitute 1/4 c. applesauce for the egg yolk.

I mix the wet and dry ingredients together and notice that the mixture seems a little dry. So, I go back and re-read the direction. Uh-oh again. The 1 3/4 c. flour was for the crumb topping. The cake was only supposed to have 1 c. flour. So I add a little milk.

As I'm making the crumb topping, I realize that I put an extra 2 tbsp. of butter in the cake batter, which is why it only seemed a little dry, not super dry, I guess. Hmmm...now I have no idea how my ratio of wet/dry ingredients compares to the actual recipe. Uh-0h #3. I decide to just go with it.

I stir together the flour, sugar, and spices for the crumb topping. I'm about to pour in the melted butter, when I read that I was supposed to mix the sugar and butter together, then stir in the flour. Uh-oh #4. I go ahead and pour the butter in. The topping is supposed to come together like a solid dough, which you then break apart. It doesn't. At this point, I'm afraid to add more butter. Also, I'm lazy and just want to be done. So I just sprinkle the topping over the cake and put it in the oven.

Amazingly, after all of that, the cake was still edible, although a little dry. I feel like I have to make the cake again, though, since I pretty much have no idea what the actual recipe would taste like. I also feel like I should perhaps learn how to read recipes. :)

Adventures in Arkansas

Well, we are back from the land of slow drawls, big hair, and 100-degree heat. :)

It was a beautiful wedding and reception, and it was nice to get to see all of Darby's family.

I realized while we were there what an "Illinoisan" I'm becoming. I used to not notice Southern accents, but now it's all I can think about whenever I hear them. (People tell Darby and me all the time that we do not sound like Texans; I'm not sure how we managed to escape the telltale accent.)

I also realized that I definitely fit in more appearance-wise with midwesterners. Women up here prefer a more, shall we say, "natural" look. When I walked into the wedding reception, I realized that I couldn't remember the last time I had been in the presence of so much make-up, hairspray, and fake tan all in one room. I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb (a very pale thumb). If and when we do move back to Texas, that will be hard to get used to. Here, I usually feel like I look pretty good. There, I feel like a 12-year-old girl stuck in a room full of Miss America finalists.

We had a little adventure getting to Arkansas on Friday. We were driving down the Interstate, about to cross the border from Illinois into Missouri, and everything was going smoothly. Darby noticed the gas light come on. We had just passed a BP station, but we didn't want to have to turn around, so we decided we'd just stop at the next station we saw. Well, I think you can see where this is headed. We didn't see another gas station for about 30 miles, so we ran out of gas. Darby pulled off on the shoulder, got out, and flagged someone down. Thankfully, a man stopped right away and offered to drive Darby to the next gas station (about 7 miles down the road). He only had room in his car for one person, so I stayed with our car. I realized about 5 minutes too late that I probably should have written down the guy's license plate number. If Darby never came back, I'd have virtually no information to give to the police. Fortunately, he made it back about 30 minutes later.

The guy who picked him up had an interesting story. He had been in and out of jail already that day (for driving with a suspended license). Glad he didn't get pulled over again! But, it just goes to show that not everyone in jail is a bad person. This guy stopped for us when lots of other cars passed on by. (Kind of a modern-day Good Samaritan story). It's funny...I usually find an excuse not to stop when I see someone on the side of the road (even when Darby is with me), but when you're in that situation, you are just praying that someone will come along who is nicer than you and will stop. I'm going to try to be better about that from now on.

Here I am entertaining myself and trying not to think of all of the terrible things that could happen to Darby.

All in all, we only lost about an hour and then we were on our way. The funniest part is on the way back, we saw a gas station about 5 miles down the road from the BP station. Don't know how we missed it!!