Foldies forever

Last weekend was one of the most fun weekends I can remember having in my whole life. It involved three nights away in Breckenridge with three of my bosom friends. We laughed, we cried, we nearly keeled over from the altitude...it was perfect!

Do you have friends that are spread across the country/world and you can go years without seeing and still be on the same page?  I am incredibly blessed to have more than a handful of these types of friendships, and I am so thankful to have people quite literally all over the world that are cheering me on in this thing we call life. 

Chelsea, Amy, Hannah, and I all worked together at Shepherd's Fold Ranch as camp counselors in the summer of 2005. I was twenty years old!  For Chelsea's thirtieth birthday we put this scheme together to have ourselves a little reunion and it was worth every penny!  

We spent a summer together pouring into the lives of teenage girls and showing them their value. Nearly ten years later we spent a weekend together doing the same thing for each other. Ahh. My very soul is refreshed. 

Girls, I am so thankful for you, and so glad we followed through and made this happen!  I'm so proud of the women we have become!  

Thanksgiving Recap:

Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday!  You have food, family, and fellowship without the pressure of gift giving: perfection!

Seven years ago, our "sister/daughter/friend" came to visit us in Nashville for Thanksgiving and our holiday traditions began!  Kirsten moved to San Francisco and was unable to come to Thanksgiving last year, and we were all committed to making sure she could be here for this years' festivities.

I love to do the cooking, I learned the art of Thanksgiving cooking at the right hand of my older sister.  So, although we don't spend the holiday with my family, we eat roughly the same foods!  In recent years, we have moved to a gluten free diet so this year was the first year without "cheating" I made everything gluten free!

Our menu this year: (and I should mention that this was for 3 adults, you just can't scrimp when it comes to Thanksgiving!)
Butter/herb roasted turkey breast & gravy
Lemon/thyme mashed potatoes
Maple/thyme roasted acorn squash
GF cornbread Italian sausage dressing
Sweet potato spoon bread
Lemon pepper green beans
Cranberry salad
GF rolls
GF pumpkin pie

My favorite thing that we do, besides eat, is watching all of the Thanksgiving "Friends" episodes.  We usually start them out while we are cooking in the morning and then continue watching them after the meal.  Every year, we forget just how hilarious they all are...best show ever.

Everything was so so yummy, and we are so thankful that we got to spend the holiday with one of our most favorite friends.  Especially with the events that were about to occur...

Party Recap!

We had a small (tiny actually) party for Liam on Saturday and I thought I would share some highlights for our families! I didn't really do an awesome job of taking pictures, but I have a few for ya!

First of all, here is the invite that we used. My talented sister, Stacey, made them for me from a mix of an invitation I found on etsy.com and a shutterfly invitation. I absolutely love how they turned out and love that we were able to send these to our families who all live far away and couldn't make it, at least they have all of these pictures!

In keeping with the owl theme, I made these cute little felt owls from instructions I found on pinterest. I thought they turned out really cute, and I can use them in Liam's room!

I also got it into my head that we needed to make tissue paper pom poms. After my first attempt, I threw in the towel. But my sweet husby encouraged me to try again and helped me with the tedious folding and it worked! We were really pleased with the outcome and will be hanging these in Liam's room as well, yay for decorations that match the nursery! Ryan actually made the two white poms on his own, he's so crafty and cute!

My sweet, and incredibly talented sister-friend, Miriam, made Liam his birthday onesie! I am in love with it! I think he looked so sweet! And yes, he is teething like crazy right now, poor little guy!

For food, I busted out my handy dandy chocolate fountain! It's always a hit! We had strawberries, rice krispy treat balls, pretzels, GF oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and marshmallows for dipping. I also made savory monkey bread, which I am addicted to. It's a good thing that Ryan is GF and I usually follow the diet with him so I have no excuse to make this again for a long time! We had lemon-mint water and iced coffee floats to drink (again, no pictures...sorry).

There was, of course, birthday cake! It turned out very cute, but had to be sent back to the bakery for some alterations!

Liam definitely enjoyed his first taste of cake! I think he would have eaten the whole piece if we would have let him! We did get a "smash cake" for free with the purchase of his larger cake, but we decided to freeze it for later since we had a lot of cake and not a lot of people!

Liam cracked us up opening presents! He kept grabbing tissue paper and waving it around, I think he really enjoyed the sound!

We had such a fun day with this sweet baby and were so blessed by those that were able to join us in celebrating the last year!

It all started with a splash!

Today is my 27th birthday, but it also marks the 9 year anniversary of the day that I met my sweet husby!

It was Sunday, August 24, 2002, and I was 18 years old. I had just finished a week long freshman orientation at John Brown University and to kick off the school year they threw a pool party at the Aquatic Center for all new and returning students. It had been a rainy day and was fairly cool for late August, so I had no intention of getting my purple paisley tankini* wet, or my long blonde braids for that matter.

There were students milling around as far as the eye could see, and everyone shared my opinion of swimming that evening--the pool was empty! I saw a really cute boy with long, curly, black hair across the way wearing red swim trunks. I asked a few friends if they knew him, but nobody knew who he was. I stood around chatting with some friends and singing to the Train cd that was playing. When out of nowhere two boys I went to high school with ran up and pushed me into a chair. They picked me up, in the chair, and carried me above their shoulders singing "Happy Birthday" for all to hear. I was mortified, and angry, as I realized they were going to dump me into the cold, empty pool in front of the whole school!

I started pleading with them to put me down, not in the water! As I turned to my right to threaten to tell Hendy's mother, I realized that there was a third boy holding the back of the chair. It was "red trunks" guy! I had no time to threaten his life before I was in over my head and being repeatedly dunked by the boys who had jumped in after throwing my chair in the pool!

I finally managed to shout at him and ask why he had thrown me in when he didn't even know me!? His reply? "I'm Ryan Hawk, we're going to be great friends."

And the rest, is history.

(oldest pic I could find of us that was scanned, 2005ish)

*May that tankini rest in peace. It was my favorite suit to wear when we would break into the hot tubs after hours at a hotel in Springdale, AR. Since we would go after hours, they had usually just shocked the pools and the swim suit literally fell apart from so much chlorine exposure. Sad.

Whirlwind Vacation

We got home late last night from a super quick, super fun vacation!




(best hometown in all the land)
We left Friday afternoon to head to NW Arkansas for a dear friend's wedding that was on Saturday. Ryan's old band, Jackson Waters, played at the reception which made the whole event even more fun for us! It was such a fun reunion of both friends and music. I danced and sang myself silly, and loved every minute!



(love these folks, a lot)
Sunday morning we started the long trek to Dauphin Island, Alabama, where we met up with my older sister's family and some of their friends. We had a blast crashing the beach with them for a few days. Liam got to dip his little toes in the sand and ocean for the first time (pictures to come!) and he loved it!




We got home late last night and have been resting and working on laundry all day.



(sweet baby during a driving break)
The numbers...
Days gone: 5
States visited/driven through: 6
Hours in the car: 28
Jackson Waters memories relived: hundreds
Meltdowns Liam had in the car: 0
Pairs of sunglasses sacrificed to the waves: 1
Snow cone stops: 2
Loads of laundry done today: 5



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Baby Love & Temporary Insanity

One of my dearest friends, Miriam, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl last night in my hometown.

Her sister, Kirsten, informed me Tuesday afternoon that Mir was going to be induced early Wednesday morning. We both immediately began taking steps to get Wednesday off of work, I fortunately already had today off. Once that was figured out, I did a load of laundry, packed for me and Liam, took a shower, gave Liam a bath, and the three of us were out the door and bound for North West Arkansas. At 7pm.

As you can imagine, we were flying high on baby-anticipation-adrenaline and talked 90 miles an hour the whole 9 hour drive (Liam slept the entire way without a peep). We pulled into the Pohle's house at 3am and by the time I got Liam fed and back to sleep I had been awake for 24 hours! So, then of course I was wide awake at 7am having just gotten 2 hours of sleep. We were too excited about surprising Miriam and waiting on the baby to sleep anymore.

We had a blast surprising Miriam and eating at our favorite local eateries. We were in and out of the hospital all day and had the pleasure of seeing both of my parents as well as some old friends.

Little Elloise Nicole graced us with her lovely presence at 9pm weighing in at 7 pounds 4 ounces and 19.5 inches long!




Isn't she a doll?! I am so excited that I have a close friend to share these early years of motherhood with now! And even more excited that, hopefully, Liam and Ellie will be lifelong friends!

Miriam handled her labor and delivery with such grace, it was so special to be able to see her throughout the process. We got to see them both once more this morning at 4am before we departed for Nashville. Definitely worth 18 hours of driving, and 6 total hours of sleep to get to love on my friend right afterwards!

Now, I'm counting down the days until we get to see them again in May and have the first of many E+L play dates!

I have definitely realized that I'm no longer physically able to function on zero sleep, but there was no way I could pass up the opportunity to be there. I felt like we were back to our spontaneous selves from college with the exception of the little boy tagging along with me! Liam was a prince the whole time, I'm so thankful that he is willing to roll with the punches so easily. He even stuck to his normal routine.


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staycationing...

this summer is the summer of the staycation. we are imploring all friends and relatives to come to nashville and stay at the
...bird's nest b & b...
however, it's a little more bed and booze than bed and breakfast, be forewarned. what can i say, i'd rather go out for brunch at fido or the pancake pantry than make it myself...

over memorial day weekend we hosted ryan's lovely parents and i actually managed to take two days off in a row. we had a blast playing mexican train every night, picnicing at arrington vineyards, taking a drive on the natchez trace parkway, playing with gus, and cooking risotto.







then two of my bffs from my awesome summers working at shepherd's fold came to visit! we also had a blast picnicing at arrington vineyards, watching a sounds baseball game, shopping, laughing, talking, cooking, and consuming wine and popsicles. i love these girls!

perfection.

yesterday was an absolutely wonderful day.

we slept until we woke up. at 9am (this is way early for the girl who used to sleep til 1 on weekends, i am getting old).

i made baked french toast for breakfast and we watched some show about average people trying to survive for 45 days in alaska.

then we cleaned out our walk-in closet. while i absolutely despise cleaning (especially on my day off), it really didn't take that long and now our entire house is spotless and organized. that's a good feeling.

lunch was sonic everyday value menu. love it!

we hung out with my friend wil at his starbucks and caught up on life and were inspired to live outside the box.

as it started to sprinkle we went for a hike at radnor lake. it was gorgeous. not too hot, not too wet. we smelled honeysuckle just starting to bloom (my fav), and toyed with the idea of moving to the mountains and being granola again.

we brought an exhausted dog home and got ready to meet up with my friend jaime who was in town for a nursing convention. we ate at jack's bbq and walked around down town dodging cigarette smoke and catching bits and pieces of classic country wafting from the honky tonks.

lovely.