Give it to Cyndi... Cyndi will Try it!

I find the older I get (the more MATURE I get) I become more interested in honing in on hobbies.  The challenge is finding time for said hobbies.
This year I am writing it down and holding myself to trying new things. I mean, if I write it down and profess it to all my closest friends and family.... ok, the 3 people that actually read this blog.. still, I will probably have a better chance of following through.

Here are my goals to work on in my 31st year:

- Get more comfortable with photography and editing. (EDITING IS REALLY THE GOAL HERE)
- Buy a sewing machine and start on little projects around the house
- refinish guest room furniture rather than buying new to fit into new shabby-chic-retro theme
- TRAIN DOGS (this should really be priority #1)
- Pick back up Guitar ( I very much have dreams of sitting at home and having a little kum-bay-ya session with kiddos... very amish of me, i know. And very uncool in a kids eyes too.. gonna have to prep them to my musical craziness from a young age. )

And as if those weren't enough to keep me busy... Trae has mentioned similar goal - oriented hobby desires. He is so sweet though.  While all mine are solo hobbies, he has desires to do hobbies WITH me! What a guy. He wants to :
- Take a cooking class (uhmm.... is he trying to tell me something?!)
- Take a country dance class together
- Work on starting to frame our photography around the house (see my goal #1)

So there you go, folks.  Some Schultz goals to make us more well-rounded future parents!  ... Or to at least make us busy.

                                                    (Because every blog deserves a picture)

1 Year Anniversary

July 3rd marked our 1 year wedding anniversary.  After celebrating with the obligatory bite of year old wedding cake (We had a LOT of cake left over so even Colbie got a bite), We saved up enough points with Southwest that we had 2 free flights and decided to use the long holiday weekend to go on a trip somewhere in the US neither of us had been before.

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Trae and I have both mentioned wanting to take a trip to the Portland Seattle area and thought this weekend would be the perfect time to get away to cooler weather and explore a little!

We flew into Portland and stayed at a cute little boutique hotel called Hotel Modera in the university district.  Immediately we were impressed with Portland and felt right at home.  To us, Portland seemed very similar to Austin in many ways... just cleaner, greener, and with WAY better public transportation.  We took full advantage of the city and all it had to offer: great food, great shopping and beautiful scenery.

 We took Trip Advisor's advice for our anniversary dinner at a place called Andina.  It is a Peruvian restaurant known for tapas and ceviche.. two items we don't ever pick when at home..but it proved to be a really fun dinner full of trying new things!

After several "tastings" of local Oregan beers, at the Widmer Bros brewery and some shopping at H&M and Niketown it was time to head to Seattle!  We had originally planned to rent a car and drive to Seattle, but after a quick chat with the rental car representative we realized taking the Amtrak was the way to go.

  The 3 hour beautiful ride through the Washington Mountains and Puget Sound while sharing a bottle of Oregan wine turned out to be the perfect travel option for us.  I'm so glad we didn't rent a car!When we got to Seattle, we didn't waste any time- we checked into the W Hotel and  walked to dinner.  Trae found a great restaurant overlooking Puget Sound and the mountains that had authentic Italian food for dinner and a comedic Burlesque show at night. The perfect date night!

We started the next day with  brunch in  the Seattle farmers market.  The menu was a little fancier than the standard Austin brunch and Trae thought he would follow suit with a fancy order of liver pate.  After 1 bite of liver pate... he learned that he would rather share my French toast than have any more fancy pate. A funny typical Trae story!   We loved Seattle and all it had to offer. We walked and ate our way  through all the markets.  We had to stop by the famous gum wall and add our piece of history.. as gross as it was. We got so wrapped up with the market that we even shipped home some King Crab to steam up here on Misty Brook! (Still trying to figure out how to do that in a normal persons size pan.)

On July 4th we took a sailing trip around Puget Sound then headed up to Lake Union to get a good view for fireworks.  We ended the evening watching fireworks under a blanket (it was cold!) overlooking Lake Union.  

A very happy anniversary trip we will always remember!                                                                    

Summer Flies no matter the age!

Remember when you were young and summer break seemed to fly by so fast it made your head spin?! I distinctly remember feeling the freedom of last day of school and feeling like we were shopping for back to school clothes WAY too soon thereafter. 

I thought as an adult that feeling would wash away in a whirlwind of responsibility and scheduled vacations throughout the year...but alas.... I was wrong. 

Our summer has seemed to FLY by this year!  Of course, we still have the blistering 100+ weather with us, but we are starting to pull out the calendar and plan the quickly approaching football schedule, Thanksgiving and ...CHRISTMAS!!!  

Planning is of the upmost importance to us... it's literally the only way we would make sure to see our friends and family remotely regularly and fit in other important traditions like ACL, SXSW or celebrations like weddings.

Having that said, I need to be much more diligent on posting updates to our blog. We stay extremely busy and have lots to share with those we can't see often.

For instance, this summer alone we have been to 3 destination weddings: Jamaica, South Padre and Florida, we've both celebrated our 31st birthdays, celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary with a trip to Portland/Seattle, made a trip to Glen Rose with friends and added a brother to Colbie in our family.

WHEW!!  

I will work on catching up on posts throughout the week on our summer escapades + pictures of our fun.

For now, I'll leave you with a picture of "Hip, Hip....JORGE!!!!"

(George)