Kansas City

Well, I received a text from my friend Chelsea saying, "Write a blog. What are you doing with your life?"

Ha. So, here I am. Writing a blog. Telling all 26 of you what I'm doing with my life. :) I might even cue a few up, so I don't drop off the face of the earth again.

We just got back from Kansas City yesterday, after spending a few days there with only each other. We love hosting people and having friends over and people staying with us, so we do. A lot. Because of that, we have to be very intentional about finding time for us. We obviously need time where we can't be reached or talked into doing something. :) So, we peaced out! And it. was. awesome. We loooovvvveeeee just being with each other despite the amount of time we spend with other people. Granted, I could do nothing and just chill while Justin likes to plan something for every single minute. We find a happy medium.

I think the only pictures we took were at the zoo, but here are some highlights/what we did.

• Shopped at the Plaza. H&M, y'all. Love it. Of course, we went to Anthro and Urban Outfitters too, but I'm too cheap for those stores. 
• The Zoo!

 Otter. For Rachel.

 "Take a picture of me. I'm dying." 

 Only picture of us together from the trip. 

 Making the same face as the camel.

 We rode the ski left that went over the zoo. Yes, that's a thing. And yes, it's awesome. 

I. Love. Polar bears. 

• Ate BBQ (Gate's, which I was then told by my local friend, Erin, that Gate's is not the best compared to others. Bummer. Just another reason to go back!)
• Ate California Pizza Kitchen - where our waiter, Alan, told Justin they had sugar you could add to tea to make it sweet. He also got sassy and even pointed out that it's the same sugar in sweet tea.
  Excuse me, Alan, have you ever tried to mix a million sugar packets into cold tea? It doesn't dissolve. He was obviously not southern. We tried to be gracious. 
• Ate at Grinder's, which came highly recommended from the guy we stayed with. It was alright. We obviously love to eat. 
• We rented an apartment to stay in from a website called airbnb.com, and it was super. This freaks some people out. This is the 3rd place to stay I've found on a sight like this, and so far it's always worked out great. Maybe I'll blog about that later....Anyways, he loved Asian art, but had awesome brick walls and high, open wooden ceilings. Also, concrete floors. Not my fave (they were in the bedroom too, since it was a loft), but fine. 

• I got to see my friend, Erin, like I said earlier. I was giddy. She moved from Fayetteville to KC area with her fam a few months ago. I was thrilled to be in my Wed. morning scripture memory group with her for a time. And thrilled to babysit her sweet boys a few times. And, much sadder than I anticipated when she moved. Seeing her was so. wonderful. She's so wise. 

We're back now, and I go back to work tomorrow. Booooo. Not really, but I am way thankful for time off. Also, I cannot stop thinking about how incredible this video is. Grab a kleenex and watch it. 

Today

Today, y'all, I miss India. A lot. I miss the children (who are nearly 2 years older now! That means that this brand spankin' new baby  is probably walking now!) and the women and even the chaos a teency bit. I miss how dependent I was on the Lord during that summer. I dearly miss my Chelsea and Priyanka. Please note, it is not easy to live there, especially when you're from America. So, I'm certain I'm remembering the best only, and not the frustration, and not the missing Justin and my family, and not the inconvenience of every single thing in that country, but still I miss it.

Today though, I am also very thankful for my job. I am so blessed to have a job that I love, y'all. It changes a lot, and I. Love. Change.

Today I am sore because I went rock climbing for the first time ever. Y'all, it was fun, but it was hard. You have to be so strong to do it! Katie, my friend that was showing some us the ropes, could gracefully swoop across the wall as if it were no big thing. So impressive. I am very aware today of how un-strong I am.

Today, in like 5 minutes, I get to babysit some of my faves. Y'all, who knew you'd miss kids you babysit when you don't see them in a while? Well, ya do...or I do at least. #giddy

Also, for your entertainment:

Lovey love. Happy weekend.

Echinoderms, hot cocoa, and dental implants.

All 3 of those things are very random, but what I'm currently thinking about. Here's why:

Echinoderms: I thought both hippos and rhinos were those. I was wrong. I thought of it because my twitter background is cutie hippos and my brother's is rhinos. We love big animals apparently. Also, I love polar bears, but yes, I know they'll rip my face off. Thanks for shooting my dreams down to hug one.

Tell me that's not cute. You can't. 

Hot cocoa: I don't really like hot cocoa mix unless it's in milk. Also, I don't really use hot chocolate mix. I use sugar, cocoa, vanilla, salt, and, duh, milk. 

Dental implants: I've been researching them a lot for work. Random, but true. I lovey love my job, y'all. It's random, but so great. I'm so thankful. It's so neat how God provides. 

Family Christmas this weekend, Justin's birthday on Monday, and our work Christmas party on Monday! Woo! Speaking of work Christmas, here's something I do at work: http://www.nwahealthandwellness.com/office-parties-101 Random. 

Lovey love. 

Saturday Sweets

So I skipped a week. Already. Oops. Please forgive me. It's been a weirdo week.

Y'all. It was my birthday. If you know me, you know I l.o.v.e. love birthdays. I had a whole thing planned out this year how my birthday was going to be called "CElection Day" because my birthday was on election day! I mean, it's been on an election day before, but I think the presidential election day (let's be honest, the real one) only once (the day I was born - the first George W. I believe). Well, I'd been talking about it forever, since Sarah's birthday actually, but it wasn't until late October our friend Tim gently informed that my bday was not a presidential election day this year. Bumm-er. Seriously. I was so sad. I didn't know what I was going to do (because again, I lovey love birthdays), but I did know Justin was taking me on a surprise date. He does that a lot, so it wasn't super fishy, but y'all I had another surprise party! 3rd one in my life and the second year in a row! Wowie. My friends/fam/hursband are so good to me! Y'all. I was so blessed by it. Check out this video if you haven't yet.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=980898749087

Look how decorated our after-party apartment was!

And, here is my surprise party from last year. Awesome right?!

Pretty mail is another one of my faves this week.

 Technically, this wasn't mail. John brought it back from India for my birthday from Chelsea, but I count it as mail. They're already on the desk....that will hopefully have a top soon, so I can show you!

Mail from Chels and my grandma. I got 2 other mails from Sara and Sarah. They both also involved pink. One was a preshy/weird birthday card, and the other was the cutest little birth announcement I've ever seen.

Another super big fave this week is traveling not in the rain. Y'all. Justin and I drove to Cabot from here in a storm, from Cabot to Hot Spring in a storm, and from Hot Springs to Fayetteville in a storm. We're so thankful to drive in normal weather.

Another fun thing this week is that I got to deliver pies for work. Y'all, who doesn't want to be the bearer of a pie? Who's going to be unhappy about getting a pie? No one, that's who. I lovey love my job y'all. Praise the Lord. I almost took (well, did a second interview) with a degree-related, child-centered job, and every single day I am so thankful I didn't. I'm so glad God is bigger than me.

We had family Thanksgiving today, and that was super. I love Thanksgiving and Christmas food. I love the holidays.

Happy Satur-almost-Sunday! 

Saturday Sweets

Y'all.....all 26 of you.....sorry I'm a blog failure. Not that I think you're spending all your waking moments waiting on me to blog, I just feel like I should be better at it simply because the few dear ones to me that do read it do genuinely care about what's going on in my life. (And, I especially care about those that are dear to me, but not so near. I can't tell them *ahem-Chelsea* to blog more if I don't.) Anyways, I've been thinking a lot about why I blog. It seems sort of vain and prideful doesn't it? I mean I'm generally talking about me and my life and what I do, and really, it's not that exciting. But, while thinking about that, I also thought about my (Lord-willing) future children. Y'all. I would love love love love to be able to read what my parents did before they even knew I'd be their daughter. So maybe so sweet 22 year old girl (or boy, or hopefully girlS and boyS!) will love  at least get a laugh at reading these very sporadic, random ramblings one day.

So, I've decided I will write something at least once a week by posting a few fun/random/favorite things on Saturday. I shall call it Saturday Sweets...because I love alliteration...and sweets (and obviously ellipses). And also that I can also do it on Sunday and it still be alliterated. :)

Here ya go! Volume 1 Issue 1 of Saturday Sweets. (PS, this whole idea is sort of a mishmash idea that I stole from Sara's  instafriday posts and Lauren's (yes, we're on a first name basis) Friday Favorites posts.

1. I just found out Justin is off Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Christmas Eve. Woo-hoo. Y'all, he works at a hospital. That is not common.

2. I got to Skype with Chelsea, and that is always one of my favorites.

3. My birthday is this week! I LOVE love love love love birthdays. Not just mine. Everyone's. I still need to plan something, but I love an excuse for everyone to get together (and on my birthday that means not playing games I hate playing at other parties.)

4. Y'all this video makes me sad, but the last kids on it are SOOOOO funny. They make all the whiney kids before worth it. Let's be real, that's totally what I would've done.

5. This recipe I got off of Pinterest. Y'all. I luuuuurrrrrvvvvveeee Pinterest (like everyone else in the world) and this soup. (They call it chili). It's so easy and so tasty. I'm making it for our Community Group tomorrow.

 6. Halloween's over. Thank goodness. I'm not such a fan of that holiday, but I do love Thanksgiving and Christmas. Did I tell you our tree was up? It is. :)

Happy Saturday, lovies!

Grown up job

Wanna know what I did at work yesterday? A lot of stuff, but here's one thing my boss showed me. (please note the emphasis on boss, I'm not YouTubing things at work.)

Isn't this incredible?! This was actually filmed at these people's wedding. I. Love. It.

Yes, my job is so draining. Ha. Kidding. I love it!

Happy Saturday, y'all!

Sorry about the delay

I've been getting married, honeymooning, and being a wifey! Hard life, I know.

Y'all. I'M MARRIED! Eeeeeek!

I love love loved my wedding despite the location change. That actually made me love it more. It was beautiful and exactly what I wanted. It would not have been so without my incredibly awesome bridesmaids/wedding party/family. Seriously, I feel like I did nothing day of and they set everything up and took everything down for me. If there were bridesmaids wars, mine would dominate yours anyday. Promise. Ha. Sorry, that was a little intense, but seriously, they're super. Also, not a bridesmaid, but my dear friend SarahJo was a super wedding coordinator day of. I have such super friends!

Really, I don't even know where to begin, so this is simply an announcement that I am back, and for your enjoyment a video of a spider that I took. Chels, don't watch it, but just listen to the audio. I recorded it for Justin, but it's pretty entertaining, so I'll share with y'all.

This is my life

So, I without a doubt should be doing something else right now, but I'm gonna take a few minutes and finish a post I started a while ago. A girl can take a quick break from necessary things right?

Anyways....

Y'all, probably one of the most irritating things about myself is how much I don't want help, unless it's from my daddy or brother, doing anything that girls don't typically do. Ask Justin. It's dumb. I'm working on it. BUT, this week I did something I'm super proud of: Unclogging my gross sink drain. I don't know if you've ever tried this (with a drain I'm not allowed to use chemicals on AND the stopper doesn't come out), but it's hard. I bent and used a wire hanger to pull out ridiculous amounts of hair and some weird black substance. It was disgusting. I almost took a picture because I was proud of it, but I thought was gross to most people.
I'm so cool. I know.

Also on the cleaning note, wanna know how awesome my friends are? My sweet sweet friend, Rachel, sat with me on carpet and rubbed her hands around to help me make hair balls to throw away because the vacuums in this building are terrible and don't suck anything up. So, my carpet technically still needs to be vacuumed, but there's less hair. Thanks, Rach.

On Sunday the girls and I were coming back from a meeting, and it had been raining. The second we were getting out of the car to come in it started pouring. I love the rain, and it wasn't super cold, so I thought it was pretty enjoyable. However, I was holding books and stuff, so we all started running. Well, boys from the dorm next to our started yelling and cheering us on. (From what I heard they weren't being inappropriate which is a complete shock to me since living with a lot of boys. I appreciated that.) Kelsey yelled "I'm limping!" to us because her leg has been hurting for a while, and one of the boys yelled back, "Yea, you are wet!" What? Sir, that's not at all what she said. Ha. We couldn't stop laughing. This is way lamer typed out, but we could hardly breathe we were laughing so hard.

Wedding favors are dumb. The ones you buy are at least. Seriously, who cares if I have a sticker with our names on it on the bottom of a Reeses. Lame.

When I was doing a round the other night I saw a boy walking around the building in a very short dress being videotaped because he lost a bet. It was great. Welcome to dorm life.

And, for your entertainment...

There's a part 2 and an autotuned version also.

Lovelovelove

Does this count as an update?

Y'all. I think this is really funny. I don't have a mini van or a family (I mean I'm not a mom. I have a family.), but I still think it's hysterical.