We are baaaaaack. 2014 has come and gone! What a roller coaster year that was - in a totally good way. M&I celebrated our 3 year anniversary in California, M graduated from college, M&I moved to San Antonio to start a new life and for M, a new job, I cooked my first Thanksgiving, and I rang in the New Year with my best friends. God has been amazing in 2014.

M&I have a very jam packed 2015 ahead and we can't wait. However, before I begin posting goals, resolutions, and other New Year related activities - we better take a look into the last two weeks of the year 2014 AD.

SNAPSHOTS: 
1&2: New Years Eve was a blast! M spent the remaining hours driving 'round and 'round Homestead, Miami's speedway during a 24 Hour Endurance Speed race. M will have to do a post about his racing to give you the ins and outs of how that is even possible! I, however, took my little Mazda up to Orlando to ring in the New Year with my best friends in my favorite hometown.

4: (Yeah, I skipped 3) The Elf outfit! On Christmas, I danced around from house to house wearing my Elf pajamas and sparkly red shoes. The morning began with a co-family brunch at M's house. His mom decked out the event with quite the spread. After eating ourselves into a coma, Grammie and Grampie and little elf drove ourself to Plant City to visit my great Grandma, only to consume Prime Rib and other (un)healthy foods. Jesus, thank you for being born and allowing us to celebrate your birthday with tons of food!

3&5: Goodbyes are always hard. These photos were taken on my new DSLR (eek!!) right before we got in the car to drive from Florida to Texas. Luckily, I was able to hold off the tears until after the photos! :)

6: HOLY TOLEDO BATMAN! My best friend got engaged y'all. Im so excited to help plan the showers, parties, and the wedding with her. Maybe I'll even be able to squeeze in a post or two.

7: I chopped my hair off! Just like errybody else. However, I was able to try one last up-do. Guys, it was super easy and can even be done with shoulder length hair.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
An Easy Up-Do
Zebras, Giraffe, and Antelope! Oh my!
That one time I fell on my face.

GREAT FINDS:
She Reads Truth, y'all. A great study on John has started. Join us!
Easy to understand photo tips

That's this weeks wrap up. I'm so glad you are joining me to see what 2015 brings! (Like, London.)

I have recently discovered a new blog that I am a big fan of: Oak & Oats. Beth, the author, is a beautiful Christ-loving young woman and I've taken quite a liking to some of her post compositions - particularly her "Week's End" recaps. Tell me what you think!

Snapshots:
1. I call this shot, "The Gargoyles." There was a lovely series of photos where my Mom touted her absolute best America's Next Top Model faces. My Grams quickly caught on and decided to join in the fun. Needless to say, a lot of laughter ensued.

2. One of M&I's favorite weekend activities is perusing the Pearl Farmer's Market with our favorite cup of Local Coffee and this past weekend was no different. However, in conjunction with the Farmer's Market was the Annual Tamale Festival! The lines were crazy, but we did try a small bite of tamale that faired up to be delish.

3. This my good friends is an ostrich. I did not use zoom in this photo. Yes, I was that close to the most terrifying bird of all time. The Wild Adventures Drive-Thorugh Safari has been highly acclaimed since we moved here and couldn't pass up the opportunity with my Grams and momma are in town. It did not disappoint and a full post will follow shortly.

4. You can't visit San Antonio and pass up a chance to view the Alamo. On the last day of my Mom and Grams visit, we toured the grounds of my Great x10 Uncle Davy Crockett's death place.

You May Have Missed:
Fitness Fridays
How Much Can You Give This Season?
What Advent Means To Me

Great Finds:
This Print!
Personalized 2015 Planner
My Future Camera

My weekend did not go as planned at all, but never the less, I had a blast. M was in Orlando trying out for Team USA U-23 so it was up to me to figure out what to do.

Original plans: Celebraciõn in Austin, TX dressed as the Hamburglar. I had my costume ready and was totally excited, but weather had different plans. All week long we were looking at 100$ chance of rain on Saturday, so the tourney decided to halt play until Sunday...until it poured overnight and Sunday was no longer an option. :(

Well, this means Friday night had a better opportunity to go out and have a good time. Coincidentally, Parks (E-Claire's boothang) was also out of town. So, naturally, we decided to go out and have a good time. Eleanor and I share similar taste in music, so she found a show featuring The Lone Bellow, Foreign Fields, and Kristen Diable at Sam's Burger Joint in San An. We both had never heard of the bands, but decided to check it out. #BestChoiceEver

It's hard to say who was the favorite of the night, but the Lone Bellow was absolutely awesome.



The above song, "Green Eyes and a Heart of Gold" is one of my favorites. Luckily for y'all, Eleanor did the due diligence of creating a playlist of the three bands. Check it out if you like the folksy type.

 

Last but not least, I was quite a fan of my outfit that night. Bad news: I only took a selfie. So sorry, but I still wanted to share.

I checked out Salvation Army earlier that day for my costume but walked out with this awesome coat for $2.50. Yes, $2.50.

This post has extended long enough, so I hope you enjoy the bands above!

One of the major perks of working for IZEA is our annual company retreat. If our sales team and support staff hit our goal number, we are rewarded with an all expense paid company retreat. We killed it this year and landed ourselves on the Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas headed toward Nassau and Coco Cay.

While this trip consists of work meetings, it also includes a lot of FUN! Anna, Heather, Lex, Katie, and Katherine were my gals on this trip - not to mention 80 of my other closest friends! :)

The best way to recap our trip is by one big photo dump.

Katie & Anna 

Junkanoo Beach - Nassau

IZEA is the leading company connecting influencers (bloggers, youtubers, tweeters, instagrammers, celebs) to brands to create sponsored content! I absolutely <3 working with and for my company each and every day. I am incredibly blessed to wake up everyday excited to go to work.

You, too, could earn money and work with awesome brands like Adidas, LEGO, TruMoo, McCormick, Marc Jacobs, and others if you are an active social media user.

These next posts will be summarizing the past two weekends for M&I. Every weekend in October was accounted for, including a week of traveling for both of us. Needless to say, these past two weekends have been much needed.

Let the photo dump commence.

Last weekend: Bakery Lorraine, Pearl Farmer's Market, BCycle Bike Ride, and Stella Public House

Stella Public House: 4 out of 5 stars
After coming back from our business trips, we decided to head out for a nice reunion dinner. We weren't sure what to expect from Stella except that it has been on our hit list as top recommended places to eat. Stella Public House offers over 300 craft beers, apps and HOMEMADE PIZZA! This is exactly what we were hoping for.

Like many places in San An (and Texas as a whole), Stella offers locally sourced ingredients. They even listed all of the farms used on the menu. Pretty neat! As far as food choices, M&I would recommend the Southtown Pepperoni. This choice used Jalapeño Cheddar sausage, olives, and caramelized onions. Mmmmm!

Bakery Lorraine: 5 out of 5 stars
Bakery Lorraine opened a new location in the Pearl and we could not be happier. We have heard about Bakery Lorraine since the first week we arrived in San Antonio. Merely a month since our arrival, they have opened a new location only 10 minutes from us!

M chose the decadent lemon blueberry muffin which was absolutely delicious! It was the perfect size, perfectly cake-y, and not too sweet that it was like a cupcake. I went for the lorraine quiche that was BL's version of a classic quiche with eggs as the base stuffed full of bacon and cheese.

We also decided on a half dozen macaroons to take home - they were to die for! It was quite the Parisian treat to take home. We also were gifted a Maple eclair since we pointed out a mistake in the display! BL takes their appearance very seriously.

Bcycle:
San Antonio's Urban Development department takes an avid interest in the public health. The city started a bicycle share program a few years ago and even updated many of the city roads to add widened bike lanes. Thus, this makes the city pretty bike friendly for your weekend rides. Fall is upon us here in Texas and starting to drop in temperature; M&I took this as a sign to take a 3 mile ride up to the Farmer's Market. #howcute

Below are two of the best pictures to summarize our trip.

Amazing.

He's ready for U23 Tryouts....

Overall this weekend was a lot of fun! However, I started to get sick this weekend and it still hasn't gone away.... :(