The Tree Christmas

I cannot express how greatly the Lord blessed us when he guided us to our young adults/young families class about 5 years ago. We have grown more deeply with the Lord, with eachother in our marriage, and with an amazing group of people through this class. We have had some people come and go from the class, but each person has played a role and been a huge asset! We do life with these people - we learn, grow, are challenged, held accoutable, and enjoy get fellowship (and some great food!). Our annual Tree Christmas Party was once agian held at the Elliots (our faithful leaders)last weekend. I can't say enough about this family and the example that they set for us; we are blessed more than words can express by you as leaders! This night we had lots of good food, fellowship, and a friendly white elephant gift exchange. We ended up a little better this year with Sam grabbing a Starbucks giftcard. I unfortunitly gave away my gift of the night - a UT Nutcracker, no thank you!!!

Italian Christmas Feast

We had our third annual Christmas Dinner this past weekend. The Maenius' and Sam and I prepared an Italian Feast with all of the food we learned to cook in Italy. Various crostinis, prosciutto, cheese, and honey tray, bruschetta, caprese salad, lasagna, homemade arugula pesto pasta, cheesecake with whiskey sauce, and mini tiramisus. After dinner we had a gift exchange and then a fun night of karaoke!! What a blessing we have in each of these people!!

Thanksmas

This past weekend my family celebrated Thanksmas! A late Thanksgiving and early Christmas! We ate lots of yummy food, opened presents, rode the train to the North Pole, saw Santa, made Gingerbread houses (kind of), played some games, and spent lots of good quality time together! We are so blessed with amazing families on both sides and soak up every moment we are able to be together! We love you guys and had such a great weekend!

Attempt at family pics! Tripp had more fun looking at Pops than the camera!!

Meeting Santa on the train to the North Pole

Grancy (my mom) made Mia her very own set of customized dress up clothes. They are amazing...all the princesses, Dorothy, cheerleader, pirate, clown, cowgirl, wedding dress, etc. Sam then made the "closet" for it all to go in. I think Mia will spend hours enjoying all of it!!!

Decorating Gingerbread houses. It might not have lasted long, but was fun!

Presents!

Sweet boy Tripp...I just can't get enough of his sweet smiles. Such an easy-going, fun little guy!

Beach time!!!

For our final stops of the trip we headed to the southern coast of Italy to Sorrento. The first part of the trip was all about touring and walking from sun up until sun down; the second part was all about relaxing and taking in the amazing coastal sites! Sorrento is a gorgeous display of sea cliffs and a luxurious town known for their production of lemons. We had quite the crazy trip to get to Sorrento, but once we arrived we realized it was totally worth it!!! The B&B we stayed at was named Paradise, and it and fully lived up to its name! It was on top of a hill over looking the town of Sorrento, the Gulf of Naples, and the Isle of Capri and Mt. Vesuvius in the distance. The view from our balcony was the most amazing view I have ever experienced...the pictures just don't do it justice. The home was located so high up the hill that our host had to drive us up and down (I won't even try to describe the ride, but just know that each time it was like putting our lives at risk!!!) We spent our time enjoying the charming town, sipping lemon granitas, and taking in the beach!

We took a day trip by jet boat to Capri, the "Island of Dreams". Once we arrived, we hopped on another smaller boat to travel around the island, and then climbed into yet another even smaller boat (max capacity = 5 people) to venture into the Blue Grotto cave. Using a rope our rower pulled us into the cave as we layed in the boat, once in our rowman sang a little tune as he rowed us through the cave lit up with the most amazing blues!!! We spent the rest of the day at a public beach taking in the sun and the local Italians.

Picturesque Tuscany

Our next stop on our Italian Holiday was Tuscany. My only regret of the trip would be not staying here for another day!! I would not necessarily take away our time from any of the other places, but just take a longer trip! Two words - surreal and gorgeous! As far as the eye could see there were rolling hills with vineyards and olive tree groves. It was seriously out of a movie. The place we stayed at was by far my favorite B&B that we booked - Villa Dianella Fucini . It was located about 5 minutes outside of Vinci, Italy. Basically ~30 minutes from Florence and an hour from Siena. So picturesque - seriously in 24 hours we probably took a million pictures! Not only that, but they had an Italian wedding that night, which was so fun to experience! Let's just say they like to party ALL NIGHT! Every time we thought they were leaving they were actually just starting a new activity! Till the wee hours of the morning we would hear a bottle of champagne pop followed by - "Hip Hip" then the whole crowd would yell "Hooray"!! Too fun!
We decided to just stay in and enjoy the grounds that night. We ended up watching a movie on our ipad at a home build in the 1500!!! That just doesn't seem to equate!!! The next day we took a wine tour and enjoyed the rest of our time snacking on bruschetta, prosciutto, and cheese & honey!! At the end we packed our tiny suitcases with as many wine and olive oil bottles that we could to share with our friends and family! (that sure made traveling with the suitcase a little harder!!!)

Bon Apetite!!

Also while in Florence we took a day to become Italian chefs! We met our chef "Laura" (aka: Italian Martha Stewart) at a local market to shop for the ingredients and then walked back to her place to make a meal. The menu consisted of arugula pesto with le tagliatelle in parmesan bowls, fennel crusted pork tenderloin with fresh zucchini, custard tarts with fresh pears, and of course wine! We learned that making homemade pasta is relatively easy and very enjoyable! We found though that we don't have our dough making muscles built up very well!!

This was such a relaxing day being able to get out of the tourist areas and really experience how the locals live. We enjoyed being able to talk with Laura and learning all about Italy from a local's perspective. She asked us her burning questions about Americans and we asked her all that we could think of about Italians! She spoke English relatively well, but there were many laughs when we were having hard time communicating!!!

Florence

Well thus far I have not been very good at posting about our trip, but better late than never right??? So, our second stop was Florence. After an eventful experience of fighting our way through a city wide protest in Rome, which caused all of our possible transportation sources to shut down, we made it to Florence. I am SO glad this was one of our stops! Although I don't necessarily have an all out winner for favorite place that we visited, this was very close to the top! I loved the this city - loved the B&B we stay at, loved the food (pear ravioli please!), loved the shopping (although I sadly couldn't do much due to time and lack of luggage space - oh the Italian leather boots!) the structures were amazing, the city was so clean, and I felt so safe walking around any time of the day. The views were just spectacular and the experiences and sights we saw I will remember forever...Statue of David & the Accedemia, Piazzale Michelangelo, Boboli Gardens, Ponte Vecchio, the St. Maria del Fiore & the Duomo to name a few - A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!! Our book (trusty Rick Steve's) called Florence the Renaissance treadmill and that it was! I am not sure I have ever walked so much in my life!!! Here are a few pictures of our time there.

My Texas, My Rangers

It has been Ranger Fever around our house. After a long season of staying up late watching games and attending games in 100+ Texas heat, the post season finally arrived! The only negative is that post-season = low productivity in the Sessler household!!! It has been fun though and we are looking forward to seeing our Rangers take it all!! We are hoping tonight is all that we will need! From watch parties, to tailgates, to being at a few games, we have been trying to take it all in!

GO RANGERS!!!

ALCS Game #2 - Cruz walk-off homer!!!World Series watch party

Ranger Ballpark food

World Series

ROMA

A few weeks ago we departed on a European vacation with some of our closest friends, Brandon & Amber, to explore Italy - it was AMAZING!!! Since we traveled around a bit, I'll break up my posts to show each stop. First stop - Rome! After an "exciting" death defying taxi ride we made it to our Bed & Breakfast with a perfect view of the Colosseum just steps away. We spent the next three days exploring (what felt like every inch) of Rome. The history is so rich and we just couldn't believe that these things that we were witnessing existed thousands of years ago! To scratch the surface, we visited the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Spanish Steps, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Vatican City, and many beautiful churches. One of the most incredible and surreal experiences was at Vatican City. We took the Scavi Tour underneath St. Peter's Basilica and got to see Peter's tomb and HIS BONES. What an experience to get to be standing just inches away from one of Jesus's disciples, A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Here are a few pictures to give you a glimpse of the beautiful city of Roma!