General Conference Weekend

The Friday before General Conference, a friend in the ward called me and invited us out to their friends summer home in the Texas Hill Country to stay for the weekend. We were already planning to be out there Saturday morning for Oktoberfest, so we decided to join them!

We tried to head out early Saturday morning to get to Oktoberfest as early as possible. We arrived about 45 minutes after it opened, and luckily it wasn't too busy yet. It was right along main street Fredericksburg, a little German town out in the Hill Country. We've been out to visit it before, and love it, so cute and quaint!

We used to love going to Oktoberfest in Utah at Snowbird, but this one was much bigger. As opposed to just one stage for music and dancing, they had four! We got yummy polish dogs, and walked around the shops.

We made the short drive to the address our friend gave us. The house was quite unassuming on the outside, appearing to have been built in the 70s, maybe the 60s, but the inside was entirely remodeled and so cute! Pictures don't quite do it justice.

They also had a pool and hot tub, as well as a little dock as the back yard met the Guadalupe River.

On top of being an uplifting weekend thanks to General Conference, it was such a fun weekend with friends!

We swam and kayaked (for my first time!), and the boys shot bb-guns.

We roasted hot dogs and smores over the campfire.

Played with their cute little boy.

And ate lots more yummy food!

Thanks to our friends for inviting us! It was such a treat!

I failed to get a picture of my beautiful friend, but we did some maternity pictures recently, so here is just one from our session. So adorable! Love them! And they just welcomed the sweetest baby girl! Good thing we did the maternity session when we did, she decided to come early!

And I've talked about it so many times, but I always use the Google Photos app to backup all my stuff. Well they often times compile these little videos from outings, since the photos are geo-tagged, it will be like "A weekend in DC" or wherever we were that weekend. I usually don't really like the videos, and in the past, I haven't been able to edit it at all, but the video it compiled for this fun weekend was pretty good and I noticed they now allowed me to edit it! So I added some photos and videos, and here we go! So easy to throw it all together, I love how it turned out.

To wrap things up, here are a few of my favorite conference quotes. In case you missed it, you can always watch or listen online! So good! One thing from it that stood out to me was
JOY! 

How great is that? That's what this Gospel is all about; true and lasting JOY. I am strengthened through God who I know loves me, as He does all His children. While there are many who do believe there is no proof of his existence, I personally see the proof of His aide and His love clearly in my life. I have spent much of my life void of His aide and the difference has been night and day. I hope that one day, all people can experience the literal change that is only possible through His Love and grace. The happiness, peace, love, and JOY He can give is unmatched by anything this world can give, and unmatched by anything that men can achieve on their own. 

Source: TeePee Girl

Source: Alexa Zurcher

Birthday Weekend

This past Sunday, the 31st was my birthday! It's a little crazy to think I am 40% of the way through my twenties. Often times I still think I am in my teens! At times I can't help but wonder, what have I done in that 40%? But I have had lots of fun, been on many adventures with my Bear, and am very blessed. And I know that there are plenty more fun times that lay ahead! I am excited to see what the remaining 60% of my twenties hold. Well, and beyond that, of course, haha.

Poor Dave has a new work schedule that has him working lots of grave shifts and has been pretty rough. So sadly I didn't get too see all that much of him this weekend. Boo. We will be going out for my birthday this week once he finally has some time off. Yay!

But I did have lots of fun time with my family. On Saturday we did some shopping and had lunch at Cafe Rio. I tried their coconut shrimp tacos for the first time. Pretty yummy! Too bad they aren't always on their menu. That evening I spent as much time with Bear as I could before he had to leave for work.

Sunday I went to church just for a bit, and then came back home to spend just a few hours with Dave before he had to head off to work again. I am so blessed to have him! He works so hard for us. At least we got to enjoy breakfast together!

The rest of the day my mom and I slaved away in the kitchen! It's been awhile since I spent some serious baking time in the kitchen, so it was lots of fun for me. My mom made a strawberry pie and helped me make my first ever coconut cream pie. All entirely from scratch! Thanks to my mom for all her help! 

When we were in Florida Dave and I have the yummiest coconut cream pie ever. We have hunted high and low in VA for a good replacement but we have had no luck! So I decided to just make one myself. I was little fearful about how it would turn out. But... You guys. Oh my word... It turned out Heavenly! I can't wait to share the recipe later this week!

We had some yummy shrimp tacos for dinner! The perfect summer dish!

Then for opening presents! My family gave me a Target gift card, a HUGE donut pool inflatable that I can't wait to use, some cute tops from Target, and a gift card to my favorite local bakery and cafe. Thanks family! 

Dave and I always give each other our gifts early, hahaha. But Dave ordered my a Gorilla pod (a flexible tripod) for my iPhone. I took it with us on our Florida trip and got this shot! Yay! 

He also got me a couple Funko Pops that I am OBSESSED with. Later this week we will trek our way to the mall that has Lush and I will get to spoil myself there! I'm a lucky girl! 

Oh and here is a crazy story from the other day! 

I was driving down a rather busy road where the speed limit is 45 mph (but of course everyone goes 50 or more) and I spot this cute little doggy making her way down the road. 

I shared the short version of the story on Instagram and Facebook but when I pulled over she was having a stare down with a big truck that had stopped for her that had been a ways behind me. A line of cars started growing as she zigzagged across the lanes, clearly not fearful of the cars at all. 

I was a little scared of being bit, but I finally managed to coax her into my arms and brought her into my car. Although she was little muddy and smelly, it had just been raining, she was very sweet and friendly and sat sweetly and calmly in my lap as I called the number on her tags. 

Her owner said he had come home for lunch and usually she just stays in the yard but she must have followed his car out to the road. He said she doesn't do it very often and is usually pretty good at staying in the yard. He told me were he lived, just at the end of a gravel road near where I found her and asked I just take her back to the yard. I took her home, but she kept jumping back into my care before I could close my door! Finally I got the door closed, but she ran behind my car, all the way out, straight into the road! 

I pulled over, called her name (which I learned from her tags) and she jumped right into the car. I took her back again to her and house and this time left her on the porch. But she wouldn't sit there long, playfully skipping and hopping after me back to my car. I drove down away again but couldn't see her following. I pulled out onto the main road and luckily didn't see her following out onto the road. But I wanted to be sure. So I pulled off a little ways down the road, and sure enough after a few minutes she came running out onto the road again! I collecting her into the car a third time and called the owner. He said he wasn't far from home now and just ended up meeting me at his house to take her! 

She was such a sweet little thing! I am so glad I was able to grab her before she got hurt. I really hope she doesn't have a habit of running out onto that busy road! I will probably drive by there more regularly just to be sure I don't see her again! I will certainly be worried about her for a while.

Anyways, thanks to all those you sent me birthday wishes! I am so grateful to have such wonderful family and friends in my life. xoxo

Florida May 2015 - Just the Vlogs

While I know they are not perfect, I am pretty pleased with how the daily vlogs turned out that I made while we were on vacation. So I am just putting them all in one post so I can easily come back to watch them all whenever I so feel like reliving it all! 

Day 1 

Day 2 & 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

I'll add a little slideshow of all the photos later too! Already wish we were back!

Maryland Ren Fest 2014

A couple weeks ago we got to go to the Maryland Renaissance Festival again. Looking back, I am kicking myself for not bringing my proper camera. We went before our Utah trip and I had so many photo shoots booked for that trip I was worried about something bad happening to my camera just before the trip. Ya, I worry about dumb stuff. LoL but it was still an awesome time.

We started with our favorite, turkey legs. Yum yum!

Oh and I got my face painted and bought some silver little horns. 

Can I wear fun face paint every day please? That'd be great.

Awesome "art"

"Fossilized" Dragon

Always so fun to see lots of people all decked out. Hopefully next year I will be on top of it and have awesome costumes for us as well!

And they had an act that I think was new, at least I don't remember seeing him last year. His act was so so awesome! I was hooked! I certainly hope he is there again next year. I wish I could do this sort of thing! I bet it's so much fun! 

A video posted by Adria Cavanaugh (@adriacavanaugh) on Oct 10, 2014 at 4:32pm PDT

I didn't take as many pictures this year as I did last year, but it was still so much fun and I can't wait to go again next year! Seriously, if you have the chance to come out, do it! I am sure there are lots of Ren Fest's around the country, but who cares, come to this one with me! 

Virginia Beach - Again!

Can I take a second to talk about how much we are loving living within reasonable driving distance to the beach. I have made the decision that I have to visit the beach at least once a year. At least. No matter where we live. I've decided that Utah would be the most perfect state if only it wasn't land locked. There are so many things we miss about Utah; we miss the food, the mountains, the hiking, the lack of disease ridden ticks, the dry heat, and of course all our awesome friends and family, but having the beach so close helps us cope with being so far away, we get to drown our sorrows at the beach! But really, Utah needs ocean access. 

So this week we decided to make a last minute trip to the beach. Neither of us were actually feeling great, but we went anyways. The first day we got there it was soooo foggy. You could hardly see the water. It was so eerie! But we swam any ways! And I realized I haven't ever really swam in the ocean. I swam in Mexico in a bay when I was kid with the family once, but the waves were pretty non-existent. But these waves seemed huge and kicked my butt. I am not even joking. Multiple times I was thrown back, head over heels rolling across the sand through the water forced back by the waves. But Dave had a good laugh and despite my sore, sand scrubbed skin it was still fun and won't keep me away! 

Like I said, you could hardly see the water! 

By the time we got checked in and got changed, ready to swim, the fog had faded.

Forever in love with the waves!

The next morning I did some newborn photos for my friends, to be shared soon! 

Got ourselves some oh so yummy breakfast

Then we spent a little more time at the beach. It was blue skies and nice and warm! I think we both actually got a bit of sun! Bring on the summer tans! 

Visited King Neptune,

 And fell in love with the adorable octopus sculptures 

Got some more of our favorite Cook Out (too good!)

And headed home, out before the traffic! We are getting pretty good at this overnight beach trip thing and plan to go two if not three times a month! 

Short and sweet!