Lately

Last Saturday was Laura & Hal's super fun wedding.  It was in Benton, and the reception was in Little Rock.  It actually worked out perfectly because we were able to watch the first quarter of the Hogs vs. Texas A&M game and then listen to the 2nd quarter on the radio while we drove to the wedding.  There even was a little fair or market or something across from the church that had cotton candy, but we thought it might be frowned upon to bring some cotton candy into the wedding.  Unfortunately they were gone by the time the wedding was over.  Sad day. Then the wedding happened during half time which was super and then we got to listen to most of the rest of the game driving to the reception.  We missed the very end because Andrea and I couldn't find how to get into the parking deck and so we parallel parked (yay me!) in front of the building and then ran inside because we were stupid.  Everyone was checking their phones for the rest of the time.  Rude, I know, but I don't think anyone really cared.  See:

This is Andrea, also known as Bandie Andie.  :)  She even caught the bouquet.  We had a little fight about it:

 Here is a picture of me and the bride:

After the wedding, some of us were invited back to the hotel with some of the groom's family, including his sister Desi.  This is me and Desi.  (And yes, I look crazy in all the pictures I took that night)

We stayed out way too late lol.  I had to get up the next morning and do the Sunday school lesson for my class, and man, I was dying. haha. 

In other and completely unrelated news, I got Lily's birthday present the other day, and I wapped it yesterday.  I decided to make a bow for it using the tutorial I found here.  I am pretty proud of how it turned out, considering that I made it. haha.

The only thing I would have done differently was use a paper that was not white on the back side, so that there was more color showing instead of the white.  Oh well, I think it is fine.  The only things that I did differently from the tutorial were that I used wrapping paper instead of a magazine page, and I didn't exactly measure the strips I cut- just sort of eyeballed it, and I used plain Elmer's glue instead of staples and glue dots.

I'm hoping to make some more of these for Christmas!

Sarah's giveaway

Sarah is having a giveaway on her blog.  Click here to visit her blog and see her cute daughter Ava!!  She is a Pampered Chef consultant and they have some awesome stuff, so go check it out!!  They even have polka dotted things, which you know gets me everytime.

And now I feel really old because I first met Sarah 7 years ago.  :)

Weekend

So, I had the most amazing weekend ever.  Unfortunately I forgot my camera cord today, so I will only tell you about what happened where I don't have pictures to document (or that I stole off Facebook).

Friday night we celebrated Ashley's birthday.  Here is a picture of me and the birthday girl:

We had a fun time.  The party was at 1620.  This was my first time to eat at 1620.  There were lots of friends there, so it was a good time.

Saturday I went to a wedding, which I will tell you about later when I have my camera cord.  Also the HOGS beat Texas A&M... woot!  We watched the first quarter and part of the second, then listened to the rest ofthe first half while we drove to the wedding.  Luckily the wedding took place during halftime, so we didn't miss anything.  :)  We got to listen to it while we drove to the reception, which was about 40 minutes away.  We didn't get to hear the very end, so everyone was looking it up on their phones during the reception... rude, I know, but necessary.  :)

And on Sunday, I was super tired because I stayed out WAY past my bedtime on Saturday, so I decided to hit up Starbucks before church.  Man, everyone else in town decided to do that too.  I was so frustrated because I had to wait 30 minutes, and also I had the Sunday School lesson for my class in my car.  I tried to call everyone I could think of to give them the lesson to start on, but of course nobody had their phone on.  If you know me, then you know the thing I hate most is being late.  I was pretty stressed out!  When I got up to the window, the lady said, "Your drink is free today!  The person in front of you paid for your drink!"  Woo-hoo!  That helped to make up for the fact that I spend 30 minutes in line.

I can't wait to tell you about Laura and Hal's wedding, but I will have to show you the pictures too!  Soon, I promise!

Busy Busy Bee

Ya'll- this weekend is so jam packed.  I can't wait to do a post afterwards to tell you all about it.  Right now I am trying to do some cleaning since Bandie Andie (haha) is coming to spend the night.  I still have to figure out what I am going to wear to Laura's wedding...... 

I just had to tell you how my test turned out:

Woot!  I was worried about how I did because I didn't think I talked enough about economics.  Our exam was very strange and was about school systems, but apparently the professor liked it.  Oh and my lack of studying scared me a little too!  :)

Check back in after the weekend to hear about all the happenings around here!

Kansas City

Last weekend, I went to Kansas City.  There were 6 of us in the car, one of whom is only 5 months old.  It went pretty well, all things considered.  We were going to visit my grandmother's aunt, Aunt Speedy. (and yes I have on a swimsuit in this picture (not naked, haha.) and no makeup and crazy waterpark hair.)

We drove up on Saturday, and spent the night in a hotel in Missouri. (The "Hamptonton Inn" if you ask my sister).  Nothing terribly exciting happened that day, except that I had to share a room with my dad and stepmom who I forgot snore like freight trains.  Never again, my friends, never again.  After getting 1 hour of sleep, and 2 football game endings, 3 episodes of Iron Chef, the Blind Side, and countless computer games, it was time to get up and complete our drive to Kansas City.  It really was only about 30-45 minutes away, but we couldn't get in our hotel there on Saturday night.  Sunday we checked into our hotel:

It was awesome and it even had a water park inside of our hotel.

See that big green bucket on the top?  Well it dumps out 1000 gallons of water every 5 minutes on unsuspecting guests who happen to walk by.  This is what it looks like:

I have a picture of me and my sister standing under the water, but unfortunately it is turned sideways and I still haven't figured that one out... ha.

We did eat some BBQ, not my favorite but whatever.  You do what you gotta do.  :)  We ate at Arthur Bryants, and they didn't have chicken, which is my preference, so I ended up with pork:

oh and this next picture cracks me up.  We were going back to our room when my dad said something about how bad my hair looked, so I had to take a picture to see it....  This is what you look like after having that bucket dump on your head 3 times:

Notice the "Thumbs- up" in the bottom. haha.  All for the blog, my friends.  Who else puts pictures of themself with no makeup and crazy hair?  Um me haha.  all for your laughing pleasure.

And this trip helped me check one thing off of my 30 before 30 list.  I have never been to Kansas before, so that checks off #26, visit a new state.

One down, 29 to go.

30 before 30

So I recently turned 25.  In honor of my birthday, I decided to make a list of 30 things to do before I turn 30.  Here they are in no particular order.  (and some are strange/dumb but really, you try to come up with 30 attainable things to do, and then we'll talk.)

1. Get Married
2. Finish all the cookie recipes in my first cookie cookbook (500+ recipes)
3. Get a job I actually enjoy
4. Get to my goal weight
5. Finish the cake decorating classes that I started
6. Get a new car
7. Get a master's degree
8. Get a pet
9. Become a regular volunteer at Stone Soup
10. Learn how to mow the yard
11. Read the whole Bible
12. Learn to sew
13. Remember to bring my reusable bags to the grocery store on a regular basis
14. Get into the habit of flossing my teeth everyday (maybe TMI?)
15. Run (not walk) a 5K
16. Get a pedicure
17. Get eyebrows threaded
18. Be a bridesmaid in someone's wedding
19. Go to some sort of "pick your own" farm
20. Learn to parallel park without looking like an idiot
21. Go deep sea fishing
22. Attend my high school reunion
23. Take a picture with someone famous
24. Be truly 100% surprised
25. Ride in a helicopter
26. Visit a new state
27. Visit a new country
28. Ride a horse
29. Make a good meringue
30. See Beth Moore in person

So that is my list.  If you want to help me do anything on this list, let me know!  And technically I have already done one of these last weekend when I was on vacation, so I will talk about that one in my next post.

Show us your life- My Dining Room

Today I am participating (for the first time ever!!) in Kelly's Show Us Your Life Tour.  Today's topic is dining rooms.  My dining room is not all that spectacular, but I'll show it to you anyway.  And please excuse any dirt on the floor... forgot to vacuum before taking the pictures.  Oh well, this is what it actually looks like.

This is the view from the kitchen.  My books and laptop are not normally on the table, but I just had finished taking an exam last night when I took these pictures.  Although I must say that I have probably sat at that table with my computer many more times than with a plate of food.  That is sad.  Maybe I will have to start eating at the table.  I am just simply not home a lot around meal times because I just have so much going on.  I was very lucky when I moved into my house to have so much hand-me-down furniture.  The only things in this room that I actually bought are that plate on the baker's rack (which we will talk about later) and the curtain rod and curtains.  Well and I guess technically my laptop and textbook, but those don't belong in the dining room.

This is the view from the living room:

My aunt and uncle gave me that table when their business closed.  My mom bought me that awesome light hanging above the table.  I wish I would have taken a picture of the awful chandelier that was hanging there before I moved in.  I actually gave it to my cousin Megan to hang in her room because apparently that is the cool thing to do, but it ended up getting broken before they could hang it up (something about wild little brothers, I think).  And I just now noticed the weird shadows on the floor from the chairs.  I promise my carpet doesn't have weird stripes in it. ha.

When I moved in to this house in April, it had some oh so lovely vertical blinds hanging over that door, which leads to the back yard that I think I have been in 3 times since I moved in.  I thought they were ugly, but it wasn't bothering me too much until the stick thing broke off, and when I tried to open the blinds using my hand, it cut my finger pretty bad.  So that was the end of the vertical blinds.  These curtains were on sale at Target.

This is probably my most prized possession in the dining room:

It is a plate that I got in Tlaquepaque, which I must say is my favorite town ever to say.  I went there in March on a trip with my International Business Class; and were in Guadalajara for 9 days.  It was a fun time!
Anyway I saw this plate and I was like oh I really like it but I don't know if it would make my suitcase over the weight limit plus it might break and blah blah blah trying to talk myself out of it.  Well, we ended up walking by it again and I just loved it, so I had to buy it.  And then one of my classmates wanted to buy it from me for even more than I paid to give to his fiance to complete her collection or something like that, but I was mean and didn't take the deal.  I even found this plate stand there in Guadalajara as well.  I just really stinking love this plate!!! (although the relection in this picture does look kind of weird.)  Oh and while we were shopping at another place I found a serving fork and serving spoon that are pewter that have this same pattern.  I haven't actually used them but they are good to look at!

Well that's my dining room!  I hope to one day put down hardwood floors on this level (entry way, living room, dining room, kitchen), but that will have to wait a little while.