Road Trip Sounds

We visited los Zambranos last weekend for my sister's 23rd birthday.  Whilst there...

We ate lunch with the Welches and "desserted" our eyes on clever candy bars at Denton's Atomic Candy... I was also a fan of the Freud bar and the lemon sour "pee sample" juice :)

We gave the Earth a hug and rode the A-Train down from Denton to the 'ville.

And spent wonderful amounts of times with la familia including latin dancing, stuffing our bocas at Texas de Brazil, healthy grocery shopping at Sprouts and rescuing our Michele Norris from the early onset of a urinary tract infection.  Poor little cotton ball doggie (she's healed now--PRAISE.)

Applying for tons and tons of jobs, prayers accepted :)

With love,

Mals-i-poo

The Eyes of Texas

Lawry's going to be a "Lawhorn" this fall! He's showing off his swaggg for you :)


Lawry, so proud of you.  So excited to start this next part of our life.

Besos,

Malsi

"Three years agoooooo, we were young"

Oh, we're still young, but as much as that song annoys me, it seemed fitting for this post.

A&M reopened the Student Center this year after a complete renovation and it is AWESOME!

Good alumni* that we are we went and saw the renovations on opening weekend. It is awesome!  They have personal flat screen TVs, fro-yo, a bar, and apparently Texas A&M is now a St. Arnold's campus, kind of like Baylor is a Dr Pepper campus.  St. Arnold's is beer, and I'm not a student anymore, but I hearts beer and I will wholeheartedly take that!  Plus I really want a St. Arnold's/Texas A&M mug.

The quick visit to college memory lane gave us needed impetus to plan to go to a baseball game again soon.  Yay for A&M!

Planning my post where I reveal to the world our lawyering school decision,

MJ

P.S. I sent off like 6 applications for jobs today, prayers appreciated :)

*we're actually terribly alumni, we live in the same town and hardly ever get to campus

Nashvegas!

Among all of the wonderful things we did and saw in Nashville, we want to share this with you:  there are SEVERAL bookstores in Nashville, megastores, re-sale stores, tiny little shops, little mom and pop stores that sell brand new books, and I bet Hugh Grant even owns a fledgling travel bookstore somewhere in an edgy part of town.  We also saw THE supposed only bookstore in Nashville, but did not go in... here's a picture of Lawrence enjoying Nashville's literary scene...

Two things:

One - what a wise man I married, excellent book choice

Two - this was outside the Bookman store just south of Vanderbilt's campus, it was right next door to Bookwoman (TWO bookstores, one street, someone explain to me how people thought there were no bookstores in Nashville, please?)

Okay, Lawrence and I just wanted answers, but we're now ready to just show you pictures of our adventuras

Antique Archaeology - Nashvillle, sadly Mike Wolfe was not present

Jack White's (of Le White Stripes, and of Lawrence's personal music hero dream dinner) recording studio.  Sadly, Jack was not the man at the counter selling us vinyl records of excellent bluegrass and blues music.  Also, love the Lego Seven Nation Army replica.

Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence St. Claire enjoying breakfast.  We adopted more genteel Southern names for this visit.  Lawry insisted on Lawrence, I chose Mary Ellen and St. Claire was just awesome.  We also decided that to be truly traditional I couldn't hyphenate St. Claire.

Also, I put cheesy Instagram filters on these, I hold myself in judgement.  But you know, malsizwelch on Instagram, live time following of the me.

99% settled on a decision, but still job hunting in both cities,

Mals

Drawesome!

I've been gone too long.  MANY things for updating (law school visits, etc. etc.), but I'm drowning in paperwork, so for now... some of my favorite DrawSomething drawings.  Despite that this is my self-indulgent blog, these are only my pictures because DrawSomething doesn't leave you enough time to take pictures of others' drawesomeness.

A drawing of our youth for mi hermana...

And my crown jewel (so far), a drawing of the best year of college for a old roomie...

Okay, soon to come: AUSTIN! NASHVILLE (complete with SEVERAL bookstores)! GARDENS!  And more!

Hugs,
Mals

Camping!

Spring has sprung in Texas and Michele Norris is a huge fan! Yippie for bluebonnets!  And for camping with good friends :)

Enjoying playing Draw Something with the hubbo (we know the other has "sent" the drawing because we hear laughter, giggles or chuckles coming from the other room),

The Zambrano portion of the Wambrano Duo.

Seasons

I miss the Church calendar--I sometimes wonder why some people are hesitant, or averse to it.  Lawry says he thinks it's because some people hear the words "Lent, Advent, Pentecost" and they think Catholicism which is not Protestant and maybe not Christian.  Well, without setting off debate I summarize my thoughts on that as follows:

pish-posh.

I think seasons are good for the soul and I think the discipline it takes to follow them and practice them help open our hearts to God.  This is really something I re-learned after reading Lauren Winner's books (holler scholar) and enjoying the seasons in Indiana--rebirth, death, life, these are good for thinking.

Lent-ing,
Mals

P.S. this is a good Lenten devo (we're currently on week three), and all of L. Winner's books are fantastic (I've not read all of them, but the ones I have are grood--great and good)