great weekend :)

This has been a bit of a whirlwind weekend.  Friday morning I spent two hours at Lowes getting some necessary things for my house and looking at items I will buy in the near future.  Then we headed to the condo to tape stuff in preparation for painting the next day.

Here's a tip for you about that: I like to try to do things as cheaply as possible when I can...and I love the Dollar Tree store...and they have painters tape. But don't do that. Buy the "real" stuff. You know, the Scotch brand painters tape.  Otherwise you will come back later that evening and find this:

Puddles of painters tape!!  Ack!! lol

Anyhoo. Saturday morning I stopped and grabbed some "real" tape and headed over to the condo once again to begin the painting process.  We got most of the downstairs done yesterday, thanks to my parents and several friends who came and helped! 

The color I chose for the main living space downstairs is called Hinoki yellow.  It is soft and warm and inviting and cheery and I love it.  However, it is actually somewhat close to the color that the walls were already painted - just with more yellow warmth to it - so you may not notice a huge difference in these pictures from the ones I put up earlier, but here's what it's looking like so far...

If you look closely (click on the picture to make it even larger), you can see the slight difference in the color the walls used to be and the yellow that we painted them.  And they got a little darker as they dried of course.  

It just so happened that Michael's nieces and family were in town this weekend so they spent the night with Lauren Friday night and came to help me paint for a couple hours on Saturday.  We definitely would not have gotten as far as we did without them there!!

This picture is funny because the yellow isn't quiiite this dark...and it looks like we hadn't painted that bump out in the wall...but we had! 

 Aaand this would be half of my kitchen in the dining room ha!  Anyone want to buy that stove? It's for sale.  Brand new.  Never been used.  Going on Craig's list soon.

This shows you in full light how the walls look.  Funny, these last three pictures were taken from the spot on the floor I had finally plopped myself after being on my feet all day long...just turning my head slightly for each one, the walls look different in all the pics! ha. Oh well.  You get the idea.

Man my feet were tired!

Here are a couple other details before I get to more painting:

One of the shower curtains I ordered came so I went ahead and put it up in my bathroom upstairs - already makes it look better!  :)

So this was the hideously ugly and extremely dirty ceiling fan in my living room, but it is no more, thanks to my mom for picking out a new gorgeous one and my dad for taking this one down and installing the new one! (And my brother who helped!) 

 Beautiful new fan!

Ok so back to the painting.  Those of you who know me well know that I have always wanted a RED kitchen.  Well my little kitchen here is a galley kitchen and my mom suggested I just paint the end wall red for fear that red on three walls would be too dark and overwhelming.  But just one red wall would not give me my red kitchen! :-p  Then Leah came over to see my new place and I asked her what she thought and she had the brilliant idea to just paint two walls red, which solved several problems and I think is going to turn out just perfect!  

 Mom nervously applying the first bit of red.

Yeah, definitely needs a second coat, but I love it!

When I said red, I meant it!

Show stopper red to be exact. :}

So after working all day, I went and grabbed Lauren and Reegan and made Reegan a cute little tiny purse while we waited for Michael's nieces to finish eating dinner with their family.

So cute! That is almost life-size! :)

Then we grabbed the girls and their uncle and tried out a new frozen yogurt place called Sweet Frog and their Frog stands for Fully Rely On God!  And their bowls have the reference John 3:16 on them! So go check them out at Turkey Creek, ok??

Lauren and Emily

the funny little sisters, Claire and Reegan  :}

and Abby, who just got her driver's license!

(and a photo bomb by the uncle. goofy boy.)

Then this morning we headed over to cheer for Melissa, Michael's sister-in-law, who was running in the relay marathon race downtown.  

Who says you can't have fun while running a marathon??

She had to have had more fun than the army guy we saw running in his fatigues with a complete pack on his back! Bleck! 

Waiting...

 Three of the four relay runners on Mel's team.  The fourth one had to leave immediately after her stretch of the marathon due to a child's soccer game or something like that. :)  Being a mom never stops - even when you do something as awesome as run a marathon relay lol.

Actually stepping on the finish line.  So I was so excited to get to use my telephoto lens on my camera to get better shots than I did two years ago when they did this same race, that I forgot to zoom out just a little bit so you could see the "finish" banner as they went under it! Ha. Next time...

Congratulations hug. :)

 Getting her well deserved medal.

Eve spotted us. :)

...and wanted to make sure we saw her...  :}  she's cute.

 HI!!

 Yup. Should have untwisted your medal, Mel.  :}  Oh well. I obviously didn't notice when I took the pic.

Just hangin' out in Neyland Stadium.

Cuteness.

Love this part of my "other family" to pieces.

Next week: more painting...I hope!!  :}

not always as planned

Ok, yes, I know, I have neglected my poor little blog for too long.  Yes, I know I'm still behind.  I am way overdue for an update on the boys for one thing!  I'll get there...eventually!  I take too many pictures with my iphone and then get weighed down trying to decide which ones to put on here...and it usually ends up being most of them...which takes a while... 

But anyhoo...

For now I wanted to be sure to put these pics up and write about this day...because it was most definitely a reminder that we may make all the plans we want...but really only God knows how things are going to turn out! Ha!

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I headed down to the convention center downtown where they hold the annual Festival of Trees where Lauren dances every year.  She was awesome, as always, but due to joining a new dance studio with a new teacher who is very good at encouraging her and building her up, she had a new confidence in her dancing that was exciting to watch.  :)

Afterwards my friend Rebekah and her family were driving through town on their way home from spending Thanksgiving with family and so I grabbed Lauren and we headed to Starbucks to visit for a few minutes.  The times I get to see Rebekah is never long enough and never often enough, but we take any little snippits of time we can and have actually gotten to see each other quite a few times this past year. Yay! :)

After Rebekah and family got back on the road to head home, Lauren and I realized we had the rest of the day to spend together - something we hadn't done in a very long time!  Neither of us had eaten lunch yet so we stopped by the new Chick Fil A (if you live here and haven't been to the new one in Bearden...you should check it out! it's pretty awesome!).  We decided that our plans for the day would be to run by my house so Lauren could take a quick shower, then either go to a movie or go shopping, followed by dinner at a place I had been wanting her to try.  

Well, we got to my house and just before heading up to take a shower we decided to grab a couple pics of Lauren in her dance costume, so we both set our cell phones on the kitchen table, and I grabbed my camera and we stepped out on the deck...me in flip flops, and Lauren in, well, exactly what she's wearing in the above pictures.  Oh, did I mention the high that day was somewhere around 43?? Yeah.

So pictures done, we walked back up on the deck and pulled the sliding glass door to go back in since we were both getting chilly - her more so than me since I at least had jeans and a long sleeved shirt on.  But the door wouldn't open.  Somehow it had locked itself as we came out!!  We ran around to the garage door that we had just entered when getting home...locked.  All the doors were locked!  And my parents had left just before we got there to go see a movie!  (Not something they do very often...but of course they did that day!)

So the doors were locked, Lauren has not much on to keep her warm - not even shoes!, our cell phones were mocking us from the kitchen table, and the cat was looking at us like we were dumb. lol  Not sure what else to do, we headed over to our neighbors across the street to ask to use the phone.  Lauren asked if I even knew our neighbors.  I said I knew them just a tiny bit...but was about to get to know them a lot better!

Sean was home with his five year old daughter, Callie, and graciously let us in, let me use his cell phone, and let Lauren borrow one of his sweatshirts.  I realized that I should call my brother...but didn't have his number memorized, so I called Michael who had it in his phone and gave to me.  However, it turns out he had Daniel's old cell phone number!!  Of course.  So we called Lauren's mom, who had the correct one.  Daniel was no help as he had no key to mom and dad's house and didn't know what else to do.  :-p  So I then called Leah, who was out shopping and came to our rescue!  We went with her to grocery shop while killing time for my parents to get out of the theater.  Then Leah dropped us off at Panera Bread (mom and dad's favorite place to eat...!) to wait for them.  Thirty five minutes later (the movie had gone longer than they thought it would) they showed up to find two very hungry girls who were glad to get a hot meal and finally go home and shower and change into warm clothes!!

Not the day we had planned.  Nor would we hope to repeat it again! However, I was thankful to get to spend that time with my little sister and not alone!  :}

We'll try again soon, Lauren, and this time maybe we'll make it to a movie instead of waiting for my parents to get out of one!  lol!  :)

girls' weekend!

This past weekend I escaped to Nashville with a few of my girlfriends.  We were missing two other girls who should have been there with us, but we did have a blast!

We left Friday afternoon, which just happened to be my birthday. :}  Shannon, Sybil, and I stopped at the outlet mall in Lebanon, TN for a few minutes before continuing on down to the Green Hills area to meet Rebekah and my college friend, Erin, for dinner at...

...the Cheesecake Factory!!  One of my most favorite restaurants ever! :)

After that, Erin headed home since she was off to a zip line with friends the next day and the four of us headed to our hotel to just hang out and chat for the evening. 

Leah helped make a surprise for each of us that came in very handy later in the weekend - personalized headbands and towels! 

Saturday morning we headed down to Franklin to explore it's super cute downtown area, eat lunch, and grab a cupcake at Ivy Cake - the same place from which Carrie Underwood ordered cupcakes for her wedding. :)

(sending Lauren a quick pic...)  :)

We found one shop in particular that Rebekah and I especially liked called Philanthropy.  (click to view their website and learn more about them)  They are a Christian company that donates 10% of every sale to 6 different charities. Their store is so cute and Rebekah and I talked for quite a few minutes to the girl greeting people as they walked in the door.  I mean...ask us one question on our favorite topic of orphans and adoption...and we might not stop!  :}  She and I each got a pair of adorable gloves (Rebekah! we should have gotten a picture of us in them....oh well!), and Sybil found a coat that she should have bought...!  ;)  

 Next we were off to the "dragon park" (not it's official name...but you can see why it's called that!)

It was built in the 80's and is just soo neat!

Check out some of the details below... :

Cool, huh? 

What's even cooler is the fact that behind the dragon is a completely handicap accessible playground!  So Rebekah's Isaac can come play here and do everything his siblings do. :)

I'm guessing Big Brother and Little Man may end up getting to come play here some in the next couple years possibly since Little Monkey may need some procedures done at the nearby hospital.

Shannon's husband and kids came and met us at the playground late that afternoon so they could see Catherine, Shannon's sister, who had joined us Saturday morning.

After the playground we headed over to Opry Mills mall to eat dinner at the Aquarium Restaurant.  We thought we were there to see the fish...turns out...

...we sat right next to Dave Ramsey and his wife!  Pretty cool!

Although, I did feel a little guilty that I wasn't paying with cash. lol

And no, I don't know if he paid with cash or not.....  :}

I did not feel guilty giving Rebekah my phone for a better view and using Jonathan as a decoy photo subject!  lol

Back to the hotel where Sybil tries on her outfit for the next day as we prepared to... 

Here we are all white and clean at the beginning...!

...run in The Color Run 5k!  Shannon and I had been talking about a girls weekend way back in the spring. A few days later, Shannon said she had found the perfect thing to do for our girls' weekend - run a 5k! To which I said...HA! that does not sound like my kind of girls' weekend!  Which is when she told me to go watch the video of something called The Color Run.

Yup.

If there was ever a 5k that would look fun enough to convince me to actually be excited about...she found it!

Everyone knows how much I love color. 

This 5k is referred to as the happiest 5k on the planet and was so fun and family friendly!  So the rule was...wear white! But other than a white tshirt, you could wear whatever you wanted.  And people did!  It was so fun to see all kinds of ideas for the next one...  :}  We had picked out fun animal hats to wear (in the above picture) and were very thankful for them as we walked up with goosebumps all over that morning!

See those white flags...waaaaay at the front (top left)?  That was the start line! There were thousands of people there - strollers, little kids, grownups...everything!

This was the view behind us.  Pretty Nashville skyline! :)

And then we were off!  (hahaha...ok...like 50 minutes from the time it started! They sent groups every 5 minutes and it took that long for us to move up that far in the line.)  I took my cell phone in a ziplock bag so I could a) listen to music (gotta have music!) and b) take pictures!  Here's what going through a color station looks like:

There was a color station every kilometer, plus a color festival at the end (video coming!).  Each station had a literal TON of color - so there were literally 5 tons of color for the run!  That was a lot of color!  The powder is made of food grade cornstarch so walking through the cloud of color, you did get it in your mouth but it was more like a sprinkle of flour in your mouth and you could tell it was edible.

So after all that color...this is what we looked like...!

Bahahaha!!!  I have no idea how Rebekah and I got the most color on our faces!  We look just lovely don't we??  

Here's a close up of a few of our faces...

Sybil with just a colorful sprinkle (again...HOW??!), Rebekah looking like a hobo with color from the nose down, ...and me looking like a total mess with color mostly from the nose up!  :-p

My hands, front and back.  I had worn bracelets on my left hand (in the right picture) during the race and this is what my wrist looked like when I took them off.

My car got covered in pink!

On my driver's window, Rebekah wrote "will run for color".  :)  It was a quote from a bumper sticker they were selling. :}

After we got back to our cars we headed straight to take a shower right over to Opry Mills again to eat lunch!  Ack!   First we had Catherine's boyfriend, Brian take a few more pictures.  He was the only one allowed to touch my "real" camera since he was the only one who was completely colorless! :)

Lol, Rebekah and I always complain that we never remember to take a picture together...now we have one...and we look like this!! HA!  Figures.  :}

Thankfully we had a 45 minute wait and while Dave and Catherine's boyfriend, Brian waited outside with the kiddos, the rest of us girls made a beeline for the nearest restroom in the mall armed with two packs of baby wipes and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed! 

That came from one part of my arm!!  We had color EVERYWHERE!!!!  It went through our shirts - my stomach was orange and blue! And that night I cleaned my ears with q-tips (you know...the same ears that I kept headphones in the entire time...)  and they were completely pink!  

Anyways, we ended up walking around the mall half colorful which was fine when we had our color run shirts and number bibs on...when I changed my shirt though, people just looked at me wondering if I ever take showers!

I was sad to leave everyone and head home although I couldn't WAIT to climb into a shower and melt the color away! :}  (The fun was totally worth it though, don't get me wrong!)  We had a fantastic weekend, and as long as the Color Run comes back to Nashville, I think we just found a new tradition! Except that next year we're bringing everyone we know to join us for the fun!  

Wanna come?? :)

Oh yeah.  One more thing happened that afternoon too...but I'll share that later.  :)