I ♥ New York...

NYC was so much FUN!!!!! Here's what we did: Our "welcome" sign.....when we landed!! I was getting excited already!! First thing we did was SHOPPING!! Got a few purses......these are my cousins, they had never even flown before, let alone been on a fun shopping trip!! We also got some clothes, shoes and Jewelry!! We also had dinner the first night at this Italian place. It was the BEST food!! The next day we did "tourist-y" things like visiting Ground Zero and heading to the top of the Empire State building. Here's a picture of Times Square from the top of the Empire State building: Kind of hard to tell since it's so dark, but you get it!! Then we went to see a Broadway show: The costumes and props at The Lion King were AWESOME!! It was the best show!! They had little kids in it too, I was so impressed at how well they did!! After the show we took a little tour of Times Square:It was so bright down there, like Vegas in New York......seemed like it was the middle of the day with all of the lights!! Then, we finally had to go home :*( We'll go back soon though....how about a yearly trip.....that would be great!!

Yea, Yea, Yea...

So, I've been told recently by numerous, valid, trusted sources that I worry too much! New FLASH......I KNOW!!! So, I'm working on that and figured one of the ways to STOP worrying would be to keep some type of journal/writing collection of all of the good/funny/positive things happening to me on a daily basis and that might help me live more in the moment!! AND, since I promised to keep my blog updated I figured I should just use the blog as my "journal." OK, it will be a SORT OF journal.......I won't be sharing my DEEPEST thoughts ;) However I will be sharing some of them b/c I think it will be therapeutic. So, I don't have many photos to share on this topic, however I can't stand when I have a post with NO pictures so I'm sure I'll throw some in for fun!!
~~~~~~
At church this past Sunday, so HILARIOUS......we have "Children's Moment" every week before the sermon where all of the kids go up front, get a brief little lesson that we all can hear and then they head to their classrooms for Sunday School while we all stay in "Big" church!! Technical term there........Well, this past weekend was about Mothers (of course) and the speaker for that day was pulling all of these things out of a bag that represent what mothers do.......like a first aid kit b/c they take care of us and some Bounce Dryer sheets b/c they do the laundry, etc etc.....well then he pulled out a journal and said it's a mother's prayer journal b/c mommy's pray for us all the time and we need to thank them for taking care of us and also for praying for us.....there was one particularly talkative boy up there on Sunday and he kept talking about everything that was being pulled out of the bag, then when the journal was held up he goes "Well, why does it have a cat on it?" It was so funny!!! Totally missing that it's just a book with blank pages for writing in.....he just knew it was a prayer journal and that it seemed weird to have a cat on it!! We were all laughing at that!!! Kids are so funny!
~~~~~~
Did some shopping this weekend with mom. Got some new shoes, b/c you KNOW I can't survive without more shoes!!!
Got these new shoes!! Don't tell my dad b/c he HATES when my mom or I get new shoes. He thinks you only need like 3 pair in your whole lifetime!! He's so UN-INFORMED about things!!! New shoes always make me happy!! I'm a little TOO in love with shoes, but hey, we all collect things right?!
~~~~~~
Congrats to Darin and Darcy on their new little girl!! She's so cute! Now there will be a little girlie girl among all those little boys!! So excited for them!!

Mini Weekend...

Yep, this past weekend was the Mini-Marathon in Indy! Kicking off the month long celebrations leading up to the Indy 500 race on Memorial weekend. My brother brought some friends into town and they ran the ACTUAL 13 miles that is the Mini-Marathon......Me, Bobby and Courtney ran the 5K (only 3.1 miles). Bobby can do WAY better than a 5K, but he was running with me, the slow-poke, so he had to hold back his mad skills that day...THANKS B, You're the BEST!;) Here are some pics of our fun Saturday of RUNNING! Me and Courtney at the start of the race. Why do I think everything is so hilarious?! I'm so strange sometimes! I was def. not smiling like this at the end of the race! Here's the entire group who ran: 5K-ers and Minis!! My bro brought all of his friends from Iowa. They are freakin' athletic machines!! My goal is to run the 13 miles next year~however I'm sure every one of these folks will lap me ;) Here are the Iowa peeps after the race. See Jana on the far left~she is a MONSTER athlete and does all of these triathlons and stuff. She is the mack-mama!! She ran the mini in 1hr 28min!!!! She finished in the top 100 runners group!!! Nicole, My bro (Nate), Liz and Courtney (Nate's woman) make up the rest of this gorgeous group :) They are also FAB runners! OK, this is totally NOT in any chronological order, but it is MY blog and I know you wouldn't expect anything different from me than the post out of order!! This is me and Nathan at dinner the night before the race. "Carbing Up" as they say. I figured since I was only doing the 5K I didn't need to gorge on pasta and bread!! It was such a fun weekend and I'm so excited to do the mini next year!! We had perfect weather, not a drop of rain like they thought!!!

Right Now...

I'm reading this as soon as it arrives (can you tell I'm on the "Self-Help" section of the bookstore?? I've decided to make me a better me~or at least give it my best college effort:)):

I'm Listening to my "old school" Christian music, this one is Casting Crowns, but I'm also listening to a lot of Jeremy Camp and Mercy Me (to keep my attitude right at work ;)) (SIDE NOTE: I'm not sure why these first two pics are so blurry, ICK!!)
I'm OF COURSE taking photos of my little Kitty Cat Callie (her birthday was May 1 and she's 2 years old now..........she's growing up so FAST..SNIFFLE SNIFFLE :)) She even appears to be shedding a little tear about it! This is her mad face b/c she doesn't like having her photo taken....too bad, so sad!!
I'm saving up MASSIVE points on my airlines miles so I can go visit my long lost better half, Nikki, at her new pad in HAWAII!! Only 5,000 points away from a free round trip ticket!!! And only 2 months away from more PAID vacation days :) Here's some recent photos from her: This is the BEAUTIFUL Nikki with a new cute boy, Jared!! Here's some lovely Plumeria flowers........I'm sure she was thinking of my tattoo on my foot when she took this photo (YEAH RIGHT ;)) However this type of flower was my inspiration for my most recent PERMANENT INK!! It's the most common flower used to make the leis that Hawaii is so popular for. A little bit of trivia for you this morning!!

The Kitty, The Tavern and The Rainbow...

Had a fun weekend this past one..........My mom came from KY to visit and of course when she arrived and put her suitcase in "her room", the chief of the Welcoming Committee of the Apt. (Callie) did not disappoint and immediately checked out mom's bag!!: Callie is home security, as well as the Welcome Committee and she takes her duties very seriously!! She started to get mad that I kept taking her picture b/c the flash hurts her eyes I think.......so after like 5 photos she looked at me, MEOWED really loud and ran out of the room. I guess that means I was in trouble and she was done with her photo shoot for the day!
~~~~~~
Also went to dinner with mom and my grandparents on Saturday night. Red Lobster. Papaw told me to "pick somewhere exciting" and I wasn't really sure what that meant so I just started naming places so he could say YEAH or NAY......so my Mamaw decided on Red Lobster. Papaw only had one requirement of the restaurant, "Wherever we go can we make sure they have O'Doul's so I can have one? I promise I won't get too crazy!" He's so funny! He loves to have O'Douls once in a while. When he was drinking it he said "I don't know why they even have to put alcohol in beer, I like how it tastes without it!" I was cracking up! He has this "thing" about ppl going to "Taverns"........he doesn't call them "bars" or even "clubs" (however it would be pretty funny to hear Papaw say "Clubs"). Whenever he hears about someone who is down on their luck or getting in trouble with the law he says, "They must go to the Tavern alot"!! So, since he was in the "Tavern" at Red Lobster AND drinking a BeEr no less, I had to obtain the evidence: LOOK AT THAT, HE MUST GO TO TAVERNS!!!! He was deep in conversation with my mom and she turned the bottle around so I could see the label in the picture. We were cracking up!! Here's one of Mamaw and Papaw together in the TAVERN..........they are a couple of wild and CrAzY kids I tell ya!!! ~~~~~~
So to rewind for a moment, last week I was driving over to the next town by mine to get something from Bath and Body Works and it was so SUNNY outside, yet raining these HUGE, GIANT raindrops.......so I found this lovely:
Isn't it so pretty!! I'm sure the ppl driving behind me thought I was crazy taking pictures out of my car window, but as you can tell, I don't live in a HUGE, THRIVING Metropolis so I'm sure I endangered NO ONE by taking photos while driving down the road!! I've never seen a rainbow where I could see the whole thing, end to end! It was so cool and I thought how blessed I was at the moment to catch sight of something God made for us to enjoy!!!
~~~~~~
I'm running the 5K in the Mini-Marathon this coming weekend so I'm sure I'll have fun photos of that.......I'm just excited I can finish without stopping, time is not important to me ;)