Happy 50th, Aunt Karen!

My Aunt Karen turned 50 years old on June 5th. I was so tired after the wedding festivities from the weekend, but couldn't pass up throwing her a party while we had the whole family in town together. So I put together a little surprise party at our FAVORITE restaurant, La Hacienda.


The whole family (my mom's side) showed up at 6:00. Aunt Karen, Uncle Chris, Austin, and Karen's sweet mom and dad showed up around 6:30 and this is what they saw…


As she got out of the car, we all sang "Happy Birthday" from the balcony. She was truly surprised!



Sweet little Aunt Karen surprised us and took a birthday shot of tequila that my dad ordered. What a champ!




We all headed back to our house afterwards for cake and presents.



So glad we got to celebrate her 50th birthday together! Love her!

Work on the Farm

My dad is the hardest working man I know. He can work a 12-15 hour day and still come home and do work on the farm- which is his favorite thing. He LOVES working in the garden, and on little projects around here. Recently though, there has been a pretty big project going on. Introducing…

The new patio:
I have some pretty great uncles, too :)

They've each been over here helping dad when they can. Here are some pictures of the outside kitchen building that dad has been sweating over :)






Dylan showed up late, so he was in charge of grilling on our little old grill. Silly kid.



And it's almost finished! Dad works on the kitchen every day when he comes home from work. It looks so good! Can't wait to put it to good use!
Pictures of the finished product will come soon!

A Wedding Surprise!

Remember when my best friend got married on June 4th? I'm disappointed in myself for not writing about it more since then, but I was too busy on the wedding day to stop and snap pictures… and what good is a wedding post without pictures?!

Well, Sasha wanted to do something drastic on her wedding day, and that she did! After spending the night with me the night before the wedding, we woke up early and got ready for her FIRST hair appointment of the day.



See how long and beautiful her hair is?? It's always been that way. She hasn't had short hair since the forth grade when she was too embarrassed to walk into the class room on the first day of school, so I coached her in :) Can you imagine how much hair product she's gone through since then?!
Well not anymore!




She chopped ALL of her hair off on her wedding day! And on top of that, she donated her pony tail to locks of love :) So sweet!
Funny story- we'll never want to forget it- Sasha made that hair appointment with my hair lady, Ruth. Now, Ruth has been cutting my hair since I was a little girl, and I always go through these phases where I think I want my hair CHOPPED.OFF. Just because it is SO thick and heavy, and hard to manage most times. Ruth will NEVER let me cut my hair short. She'll usually just reply with a "nope, sorry," and it is that simple. The only time she came close was around this time last year when I donated my hair to Locks of Love. And that wasn't even "short" (ok, for me it was!)
So I knew when we showed up that day that we could NOT mention that Sasha was later getting married, or Ruth wouldn't have chopped her hair off. So the other bridesmaid, Amy and I just sat supportively and watched her chop away. At one point all three of us got a little giggly and Ruth became suspicious. She looked at us and said, "what is going on?" This was after all the chopping was done, she had already washed Sasha's hair, and now she was just shaping it up. I told Sasha it was probably safe to tell her then, but Sasha was too giggly to get the words out. So I spilled the beans and said, "She's getting married today :)"
RUTH LOST ALL THE COLOR IN HER FACE!
All she could do for the next ten minutes was walk around the salon and tell EVERYONE, "She's getting married TODAY and I just cut 12+ inches off of her hair!!"
Ruth was so nice, she didn't even charge Sasha. She said "It's on me today, happy wedding day!"
It was so funny- a memory I hope we never forget.
To see wedding pictures of her finished new do, click here. :)

Jillian Michaels

I went to my first job interview on Friday. It isn't for a job that I want, but I thought it would be good experience for the interview process (it was) But that isn't the topic of this post, obviously.

The night before, the interview, I came home and dug through my closet to find something to wear. I tried on 3 pairs of dress pants that are at least two sizes bigger than I thought I was. So I gave up.

The next morning, I tried on a dress in my closet and went downstairs to ask my mom how it looked. She very nicely (she would never hurt my feelings, and she didn't here either-I'm just telling ya the truth of how it all went down) pointed out that my stomach is sticking out more than usual. I agreed. It does. I can't even suck the dang thing in.

enter, Jillian.

I immediately went back upstairs, and found some of her junk mail in my inbox, did some clicking around, ended up at her website, entered my credit/debit card information, and BAM- I'm on a diet.

This is my second full day of it and I really like it. I'll be honest, I don't know how long it will last- but this is as serious as I've ever been about losing weight, so I hope it lasts long enough for me to learn some life style changes.

I like Jillian's dieting plans because its so simple- burn more calories than you consume. Now, of course I'm still learning all of the ins and outs, but I like it. It's fun so far. I know it'll be important for me to find time to exercise for almost an hour a day, 5 days a week… even if I don't feel like it. For the past two days, I've been doing her "30 day shred" dvd (level 1) for 20 minutes, and then going on a twenty minute bike ride in the 90 degree weather. It feels like its enough for now.

I went to the store yesterday and found some healthy snacks, fruits, cottage cheese, whole grain english muffins, etc. I've been living off of those, and that doesn't feel so bad either. The only thing I haven't liked so far was a recipe on her website, "egg white omelet" << yuck. I'd rather have a regular one egg omelet, which I think I'll stick with from now on.

I am a girl who LOVES food. I'll admit, one of mine and Dylan's favorite things is to eat out. He's opened my eyes to lots of different foods, and they aren't bad- we just eat out too much :) So of course, I'll need to cut back on that when possible. I'm also drinking a LOT of water. All day. With lemon. BUT- I cannot give up Sonic diet cokes, etc. I figure as long as I drink enough water each day, I can reward myself with Sonic drink every now and then :) They're diet after all.

I like Jillian's website because I can enter everything I eat durning the day in a food log, so I know how many calories I consumed (and it is EASY to do which I didn't expect) And then, I can enter everything I did durning the day, my bike ride, her 30 day shred level one, all the way down to how much I think I walked, into my exercise log and figure out how many calories I burned. I could get used to this. It's only 4 dollars a day, and I'm on a trial period for two weeks so I have time to figure out if I like it or not, then start paying the big bucks (52 dollars up front for 13 days)

So here I am- starting a new little journey. If I do really well, I might post before and after pictures… but that is ONLY if I feel brave enough :) I'm off to exercise! Have a happy Sunday!

SUYL Friday!

I love me some Kelly's Korner. This week, for her "Show Us Your Life Friday" post, (which I normally never participate in because I'm boring as all get out) we are introducing people in our lives who are single. I'm so excited to share TWO people in my life who are so important to me. My cousin, Austin and my cousin, Kristin.
((I was looking through my photo albums on my computer specifically for pictures of them of course, and laughed when I found a handful of them together in pictures! We're such a close family and I'm SO thankful for that!))

Austin is 25 years old (26 in August) He is a graduate of the University of Arkansas with a Bachelor's degree in Marketing Management. He lives in Fayetteville, in his own home, with his two boxers, Sadie and Lola. He is a very successful electrician, and works in his dad's company. On top of being very dedicated to his family, he is also dedicated to his faith and his friends. He's trustworthy, adventurous, and fun! I'm so proud to call him my cousin, any lady would be lucky to have him! (I stole this picture from his facebook page, so I don't really know why he is holding this… gun(?) I guess now would be a good time to mention he's a hunter! :)


I've introduced Kristin before, but I'd like to again. She is 25 years old and also a graduate of the University of Arkansas with a Bachelor's degree in Communications. Kristin is so fun, and super trendy. You wouldn't be able to tell that behind the high heels and frilly dresses, she is so down to earth- she loves to go camping, fishing, etc. She is 110% committed to her faith, family, and friends. I love this girl with all my heart, and would love to see her in a loving relationship. Any guy would be a fool to pass her up!

A Tiny Bit of High Anxiety

Keepin' it real here.

I'm worried. But if you ask my mom, dad, sister, Dylan, or any aunt/uncle/cousin/grandparent or friend, they'd tell you this is normal for me.

I HATE that this is considered normal for me. And mostly when I express my worrisome thoughts, people will say "Just don't worry about it." And I HATE when people tell me not to worry. I even told Dylan tonight, "when you tell me not to worry I worry about why you told me not to worry." Its such a vicious cycle with me.

We had a small talk tonight, that involved tears on my part. See, I graduated college a month ago. And since then, I've done ABSOLUTELY.NOTHING. And while I thought I'd feel relaxed and great about that, I was wrong. In fact, I only felt relaxed and great about it until about 3pm on the first day that I sat at home, alone, and did nothing. I COULDN'T EVEN MAKE IT PAST 3PM ON THE FIRST DAY!

Dylan and my family have been teasing me- and I've been making a little fun out of it too-about being jobless and having "too much time on my hands." And when Dylan and I sat down to talk tonight, I started off with "You know how we've all been joking about me not having a job…" and he finished with, "it really hurts, doesn't it?" Read.my.mind.

He was right. He knows exactly how I feel. He knew exactly what I was going to say. It does hurt- no, my family isn't hurting my feelings- it hurts to not have a plan. It hurts to sit at home and only get excited over if Kathy Lee and Hoda like the daily cocktail. I can recite every commercial, word for word, surrounding the Today Show. On a positive note, my room is always clean:)

I'm just lost still. I need to find out what to do with the rest of my life, but every time I think about it I have crazy anxiety. I can't afford to make another bad decision.

I'm a Graduate!

On May 14th, 2011, I graduated with my Bachelor's of Science in Communication Disorders from the University of Arkansas! Can you believe that?! I'm so glad it's done.
To be honest, I wasn't really all that excited about graduating. These past two years at the U of A have been really hard on me. I didn't feel like I belonged there, and the work was really hard, so I struggled to keep my grades up. Also, I didn't make it into graduate school for speech path, so these past couple of months have been especially hard- I was graduating, but I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a job, and I didn't have school. So I've just been lost lately.
I graduated at 4 pm and then drove back home with mom, dad, and Kate, and my whole family was there waiting on me to celebrate. I had the best time! But I won't lie, I was holding back the tears all night. People kept asking, "so what is your plan now?" And for the first time in my whole life, I couldn't give them an answer. I felt awful. I mostly answered with, "I'm lost right now." Finally, at the end of the night, most people had gone but my uncle Kenny was still there with his family. He sat down with me and told me I have so many options and I just need to figure out what I want to do… then the tears started flowing. And it felt good since I had been holding them back all night! I've been blessed with such strong male role models in my life. I have the best dad, but I also have a LOT of uncles who love me and care about me. That brings tears to my eyes.
ANYWAY- On with the happy stuff! Here are some pictures from the big day!















Mom and Dad did so much to make this day special for me! I am such a lucky girl to be surrounded by my family on special occasions… and all the time, really :)