Here Come the Cummings: Our Weekend Getaway

This past weekend, Justin and I had the opportunity to go on a much needed overnight getaway. Something that was stressed to us in our premarital counseling was to dialogue daily, date weekly, and depart monthly. The dialogue daily and date weekly comes pretty easy for us since we don't have kids yet, and are big quality time and quality conversation people. But the departing monthly can be very difficult, especially when you are on a tight budget and are very busy. We haven't really gone anywhere since our honeymoon and knew it was time to getaway even if it was just one night. At first we talked about just going to San Antonio for a night to relax, but then Justin started talking about a desire to do something outside and more adventurous. Something else I learned through premarital counseling was a man's need for adventure. And boy, is that my husband! He loves doing something active, outside and adventurous. So Justin came up with the idea to go horse back riding together in the hill country. We have talked about our desire to go horse back riding before, so we decided it was the perfect weekend to do it! So last Friday we both had the day off so we left early in the morning and drove to Bandera to go horse back riding. The weather was perfect and the drive and scenery was absolutely beautiful. We arrived at a dude ranch and was able to relax in the peaceful outdoors before we went riding.

Relaxing on the porch

After we spent some time walking around and enjoying the outdoors, it was time to get on the horse. Justin's horse was named Diablo a.k.a the "Devil", which we thought was hilarious and there was a reason for that name. He was quite the feisty and stubborn horse! Diablo made his intentions known he was not happy about leaving the ranch by making a beeline for the stable. Justin has experience with horses so he handled it all very well. I on the other hand was a little more nervous when we started trotting and even galloping! Though I hadn't been on a horse since I was very young, I thought it would be no biggie...I mean the horse does all the work anyway. But after we started going faster, it was a little more nerve racking than I thought it would be. At the beginning, I was holding on for dear life and trying not to fall off! During our "training" time, our wrangler basically gave us a few instructions and then said "okay, now it's your turn to trot and Gallup around all 3 of these barrels. Say what?!?! It looked exactly like it does at the rodeo when the women ride around the 3 barrels. It actually looks easy at the rodeo, but when I tried it alone, I was close to freaking out. The horse doesn't do all the work as I thought, and it was hard getting the horse to go where I was wanting him to go. All that to say, I was more comfortable with just walking and lightly trotting than going super fast. So off we go on our 2 hour trail ride and it was absolutely beautiful. We went all throughout the mountains, and through the woods. It really was great being outdoors and just enjoying God's creation. Here are some pics from our ride:

Can you tell I'm double jointed?

After our amazing horse back riding experience, we drove to San Antonio to check into our hotel and have a romantic dinner at the Towers of America. Little did we know, that there was Fiesta going on in San Antonio that weekend, which apparently we were the only ones who never even heard of it. It a big festival that goes on for 10 days in San Antonio every year, and let me tell you, it was crazy! It took us almost an hour to drive 5 miles to the restaurant and then find parking. But despite the craziness, we had the most romantic dinner together overlooking the city.

The tower where we ate

The next morning, we spontaneously decided to drive to Fredricksburg since San Antonio was so crazy. It was a really fun trip since neither one of have been there before. It was also a beautiful drive with perfect weather!

After exploring the city and having a nice lunch at a unique tea house, we did some shopping (though didn't buy one thing). It was fun going into all the antique shops to look around. I know you may be thinking "poor Justin, having to go into antique shops" but please don't feel sorry for him! Though I wouldn't say Justin is a big "shopper", as he rarely shops for himself, but he loves taking his time looking through museums, art or anything similar to that. I on the other hand, am very fast when it comes to shopping or "looking around" at shops and especially museums. After looking around at some stores, I was ready to move on and decided to wait for Justin outside the store because of the crowds. After doing this a few times, I started to notice a pattern. As I looked around me, trying to be patient waiting for my sweet husband, I noticed all these men around me, trying to be patient waiting for their sweet wives. One by one, I would see their wife come out and the husband would be ready for the next store. I found it quite humorous.