Fun, Work, and Friends

Summertime and a new house means lots of fun and lots of work, and sometimes both! Summer is a great time to catch up with friends and family. 

It all started out with a "man's weekend" in Utah with some college buddies. We stayed in a camp trailer at a campground that had a pool, basketball court, and a pickleball court. If you have never tried playing pickleball, I would definitely recommend it, especially if you are trying to play it in 20 mph winds. Awesome weekend with some great friends. Below is a picture of Sam, me, Phil, Danny, and Rich after eating some great Mexican food. 

While I went to Utah, Natali took the opportunity to go to New York and visit her good friend Leanna. Here they are in Grand Central Station.

And here they are in front of a stained glass window at the MET.

And of course you can't visit New York without going to see a Broadway show. They decided to see Wicked. 

We were able to spend a lot of time with some Jeff and Renee, some good friends here in Dallas. We took a painting class together, went to the Greek festival, and had a water balloon fight at their house before taking advantage of their community pool.  It has been so great to make such fun friends.

And then I had to get to work. Having a new house means lots of projects around the house. I planted a garden.

I set up our home projector and surround sound in our media room.

I tore out some carpet and turned a room into a dance/karaoke room.

Of course, I had to try it out. Yep, still got it.

We got new furniture, so our bedroom had to be repainted. 

And with a new house comes lots of decorating. Natali convinced her mom to come out and help her with some of the decorating and picking out some furniture.

Here is one room after some decorating help from Launa.

Dan and Launa came and enjoyed some nice Dallas weather. Launa helped Natali pick out furniture and decorations and Dan got to fly to Dallas.

And Tracie and Natali really tested out the karaoke room.

Happy to be home owners!

Then in October, we traveled to St George for Tracie's farewell.

We are so proud of this girl for making the decision to serve the Lord. Putting off school, career, dating, and everything else is not an easy thing to do. She will be in Paris, France for 18 months!

Puerto Rico with the Wysons, our new home, and the 4th of July!

 In June 2015 we traveled with the whole Wyson clan to Puerto Rico for a family vacation. We had a whole little villa to ourselves right on the beach. The trip was filled with snorkeling, swimming, boogie boarding, site seeing, hiking in caves, and just hanging out.

The beach was just awesome.

 Everyone enjoyed site-seeing all around the island.

 

We all went down into the Rio Camuy Caves. The whole area was pretty amazing.

You can't go to a tropical island without going to see some waterfalls. We even did some swimming and a rope swing at the base of one waterfall. 

And here is a video of the highlights of the whole trip I put together.


Wyson Family Vacation 2015 - Puerto Rico from Reed Crosby on Vimeo.

The Monday after we got back from Puerto Rico, Natali was having some abdominal pains. She really didn't want to go into the hospital, but finally at 8:00 PM I convinced her to go. It was lucky we did, as her appendix was close to bursting. She was in surgery the next morning, and by about 8:00 AM the next day she was appendix-less.

Soon after we were scheduled to finally move into our new home. So we packed up the apartment (well mostly me as Natali was under strict orders from the Dr. not to lift anything) and said goodbye.

Natali was sad to say goodbye to her beautiful view of the city

But leaving the apartment meant a new beginning in a new home. Here is the first piece of furniture we put in the house.

One of our first purchases was a grill, and it just so happened that we moved into the house just in time for the 4th of July. Perfect timing to break in the new house with some grilling on the 4th of July.

And Natali had some fun (virgin) Margaritas too.

Here was the prep work before the grilling. In order to enjoy the outdoors, the mosquitos must be exterminated. Meet Reed, the mosquito exterminator, in the midst of the death fog.

It sure was nice being able to enjoy our very own backyard.

Then for the evening of the 4th of July we went to Lone Star Park and watched some horse races and fireworks.