Random (Friday) Ramblings..

This is a very random post, but I am sitting here with the alarm guy and have nothing better to do. We are upgrading our alarm. We have had several issues over the past few months and since it is their fault they are paying for our new upgraded alarm system (well we are having to pay a small fee, but it's totally worth the upgrade). Long story short, we have had several mishaps they haven't been able to tell us what is wrong because when they installed it back in August they said we didn't need a new keypad. Well every time something happens they say they can't tell us any info on it because we don't have their keypad. It's been a mess and since we are out of town a lot and well, since we live in Jackson (ha) we didn't think twice when they offered to upgrade for us.

This week has been pretty low key. Mitch has been trying to get in a  routine for his classes this semester. He has some tough classes, Basics of Anesthesia, Pharmacology and Pathophysiology just to name a few. Sometimes I don't know how he does it. Regardless how hard it is, he is loving everything about this his classes and this university in general. 

I have been just getting things done around the house and hanging with Bella. We have had a few really pretty days, and then some just awful cold days where we don't like to leave the house. So when it is pretty out, we take advantage and get outside to do something. We have a full frisbee golf course on campus and Mitch has really gotten into it. So on nice days, he goes and plays and I walk along with Bella!

I have also been keeping up with my half marathon training and its going well. I am one week down and would really like some warmer weather to get here and stay! I have also started investing in some new Nike running clothes. I am that person that goes to Dicks and sees so many things for running but will not buy them because of the price. But since I had some Christmas money I decided to get some new running tights and dry fit tops and tanks. Let me tell you, it has made the world of difference! I think part is mental because its always fun to workout in new fun clothes, but also these running tights are so nice and the dry fit tops and tanks are SO much better than working out in t-shirts. They may be expensive, but I have decided they are worth it. With as much as I run/workout they def last longer and feel better on my body. I also have discovered the SPI belt. I was in need of somewhere to keep my phone when I run since I got the new iPhone Plus. It's too big to have on my arm and I like to run with my phone in case of an emergency. So I saw these at a booth at the Tulsa run and meant to go back and get one and forgot, but to my luck they sell them at Dicks, or you can order form their website. I will admit, I was skeptical at first, but when I used it I was impressed. I thought it would be bulky and move around when I ran. Let me tell you it is perfect. I can't even tell I have it on and it also allows me to keep my key/ID/money with me when I run. 

This is the size/color I have and I got the Plus size belt just because I wasn't sure if my phone would fit in the "original size" belt (you can see all the sizes on the website). But honestly I can't tell a difference. I was afraid when it was called 'Plus Size" because I didn't want it to be bulky and big. I think any of them would work, but the plus size works perfect for me for what I need. I would recommend this size if you have an iPhone Plus. And it doesn't feel "plus size". It's actually very small, and I can't tell the difference in the plus vs original, the only thing I can think of is maybe it stretches a little more? Even if I didn't have the iPhone Plus I would have one of these. People wear them all different ways, but I just strap mine around my waist and let me shirt hang over it so you can't see it. Check them out here. They have all sorts of colors and styles... and they are very reasonably priced. 

This is a totally different subject, but my sweet little second grader, Hadley, that I continue to keep up with decided she wants to start a veggie garden this spring. I know y'all don't know her, but she is like 7 going on 25 and when she says she is going to start a veggie garden... she will. She is super smart and very mature for her age. So when I had ice cream with her before I felt Tulsa, she told me all about it. Well the next day I was at Restoration Hardware and saw the cutest little "junior gardner" set. I just had to get it. So I mailed it to her the other day and this was the picture I got...

It comes will all the stuff needed to start a garden and she was so excited, it made my day! 

Again on a different note (I told you this post would be random), I thought I would share my new obsession. Rust Cuff. If you have not heard of this go check it out here. They have a showroom in Tulsa that has all their jewelry but they also ship anywhere. They do have limited pieces in little boutiques around the US, so if you go to their website, it will tell you if their is a store near you that carries some. I have never been a huge jewelry person- I am your typical simple necklace and pearl earrings girl, but I LOVE RUSTIC CUFF! I have never bene a bracelet wearer, but now I do not leave the house without one of these on. They are not to crazy and just make your outfit so cute without being over the top. The stuff varies in prices. Some is super expensive and some is very reasonably priced. But if you watch the website and go into the Tulsa store as much as I when I'm in town you see they everything will go on sale at some point. Thats when I usually tend to buy my stuff. I had a friend give me a piece last year and every since I have bene hooked. I have a collection started and I don't see it stopping anytime soon. I may have a list a mile long of new RC pieces I want for my birthday :)  Check it out- you will thank me! Oh and they also make the perfect gifts! 

Also, speaking of my birthday, I am trying to come up with something I need and I really need a new straightener. I have had several CHI's and they just done seem to last. I feel like every year I have to buy a new one, so I am done with CHI's. I have been researching and have it narrowed down between two- A Babyliss or a Usmooth. I was set on asking for a Babyliss because I have heard great things about them and I have the Babyliss blowdryer and its incredible. No complaints at all and I have had the blowdryer for about 2 years now. They are a little pricey, but with the amount of thick wavy hair I have its worth the investment. Well last time I got my hair cut my hair stylist introduced me to the Usmooth, I had never heard of it before. She had a special on them for Christmas and just the few hours I was in the salon her clients kept coming in to buy them before she ran out. She said they are the new thing and are so wonderful. She said you can't go wrong with either, but the research I have done on the Usmooth is pretty impressive. I was leaning toward Babyliss, but now I think I may want to try the Usmooth. The OCD in my wants the Babyliss so it matches my blowdryer (pathetic, I know), but the curious side of me really wants to try the Usmooth. So my reason for this rant, if any if y'all have a straighter you like, or have used one of these two and have pros or cons about them let me know! 

Thats about all we have going on around here. Saturday we are making a trip to Memphis before Mitch's schedule gets too crazy and he is taking me to Bahama Breeze for dinner!! I LOVE Bahama Breeze. It was one of the first places he took me when we started dating and always seemed to end up there when we went out to eat, and then the one in OKC went out of business, so we make a point to go when we are in the south. Well when we moved here, we found out we have one in Memphis and we are super excited! Then Sunday will be dedicated to church and the Grammys. I love watching award shows, especially music!

Hope y'all have a great weekend! 

We're back!!

It's been awhile and I feel like I have a lot to cover. I don't really know where to start, so I'll just begin.

Well we are back in TN and to be honest it feels so good to be back. We have been back a week and it is just so nice to be back around our stuff and be on our own schedule. I LOVED LOVED LOVED our time back home and I think it was really good for me. I thought I wasn't going to be this happy to be back here, but I think after getting back and settled, it hit me that we are not on someone else schedule anymore and Mitch and I can do what we want to do. We are both very happy and ready to get back into OUR routine and not someone else's.

Over our break we were able to spend a lot of time back and forth between Tulsa and Arkansas. We spend lots of time Tulsa, but thats because thats where all our friends are. We were out doing something with friends almost every day/night and it was so nice to catch up with everyone.

I don't think I could tell you about our whole break- 2 months is a lot to post about, or just remember in general. So i'll tell you about some of our highlights.

New Years Eve we went out with a group from our Sunday school class to Villa Reveena and it was so fun. I always laugh because I keep calling them our "Sunday school" friends and I guess because thats where we all met, but they are so much more than that. These people have become our core group of friends back in Tulsa and couldn't imagine going through life without them. I have said this before, but when we joined that class I couldn't imagine this would've come out of it. I love these couples and I need to stop calling them SS friends, because they are so much more.

Another highlight would be Garth Brooks!!And Trisha! If you know me at all I equally like Trisha Yearwood! Mitch makes fun of me, but I have always loved her. My favorite part of every concert is when they sing In Another's Eye. Its my favorite song ever and I could watch them perform it over and over again. This was my 4th time and Mitch's 3rd time(and wont be our last) and it was just as wonderful as ever. You will never be disappointed at a Garth show. I saw him back in his prime when I was younger and he still puts on the same show, maybe even better. We were kind of disappointed with our seats when we first bought them, but we had to buy so many together we knew we would probably not get great seats. I wasn't that concerned because 1. no matter where you sit in a garth show (esp in the BOK Center) every seat is good. 2. We have seen him front row before and yes as much as I wanted that again, we had been there before. But when we got there, to much of our surprise, we actually had great seats. We were on the front row in the 300's section on the side and we were amazed by how great our seats were. I would get those seats again for another show! My parents, brother, good friends of the family, Will and Michelle and Caleb and Shannon were all were there and it was a blast! We keep waiting for more announcements of his shows, because we will be def going to more.

Love doing life with this guy

The girls at Garth and Trisha

We also made our annual trip to Dallas. I say annual- we actually go quite a few times a year, especially when Mitch's brother and SIL lived there. But I say annual because every January we always go stay with my good friend Elizabeth and her husband. They are wonderful hosts and always take us to do the neatest things in downtown Dallas. We had a blast and always look forward to our time with them. The only downfall to that trip was the Green Bay game. I am not even going to go into it, but we were a little depressed that evening.

Dinner at Amberjacks Fish Market

We got a new gun for Christmas and had to try it out

Food trucks in the park- this was pre-game, we were happy ready to cheer on our Packers!

And the last highlight of our trip was we celebrated Mitch's brother, Will's 30th birthday. His wife, Michelle and I have been putting this together for over a month and it was so fun! She did majority of the work, but it was a blast to help her with the little details that she couldn't hide well from Will.  Mitch and I came into town a day early and ran all the errands, got the cake and decorations and decorated the house. I think we had over 20 people there and he was so surprised. 

So that was our break in highlights. Like I said earlier, we are back in Jackson and ready to start the next journey here. Mitch started back classes today and only has one class on Tuesday mornings. It's an early one.. and a long one, but it's an anesthesia class and he already loves it! He is spending this week trying to get in a routine and get organized with all his new classes. I am subbing a lot. I actually got a call the day we got back here and I subbed for 1st grade and just love being back in the classroom. I miss it so much. 

We have been trying church's like crazy to find a place where we belong. We went to one this past Sunday and loved the small group. The main service is okay, but we are really concerned on finding a small community group to get connected. We went to their super bowl party Sunday night and it was a lot easier to get to know people in that setting, rather than Sunday school. So we are pretty excited about that. 

My parents were suppose to come spend the weekend and part of next week here with us, but my dad has jury duty now. So they are trying to find a different weekend. I think it actually worked out good, because I feel like we just left and I will want them to come when we have been here while and are ready to see some familiar faces! 

Have a great week and i'm jealous of you if you are getting lots of warm weather this week (my Tulsa friends). We are not warming up much here but I am so ready for those warm spring days!! 

Highlights of 2014

First off-- Happy New Year!! I planned to do this post a while back, but between Christmas and everything we have had going on, it kept getting put off. We have been having a wonderful time back home and it has been so nice to see so many of our friends. I will do a post when I have some time about what we've been up to this long break.

So when I started thinking about the highlights of our year, I got very overwhelmed. This has been maybe our biggest year of changes since we've been married. BUT looking back, we have had other years that have been almost equally full of changes. I remember 2 year ago when we moved from AR to OK and that year was crazy stressful. That was a quick random move where we both left our jobs and prayed for something to open in Tulsa. Sometimes I look back and think, people must have thought we were crazy. But we both new God was calling us and he opened doors like I have never seen before. It took a lot of faith, but it was the best decision we made.  This move wasn't as random, we knew it was coming and had a little more time to prepare, but the move itself was bigger and definitely harder. Instead of moving closer to friends and family, we were moving FAR away to a place where we know no one! As I started writing these highlights I started laughing because our year has changed so much. To see what we were doing and planning for in January and then to see where we are now is just crazy! So with all that said- here are our highlights of 2014!

January- Mitch interviewed in Kansas for a CRNA program we both were pulling for-It was mostly based in Tulsa, we wouldn't of had to move, I would've accepted the kindergarten job at JWE and all would be well. NOT- I guess that would've been too easy and as hard as it is to understand why, God has great plans for us in TN!! We also made our annual trip to Dallas to visit my best friend, Elizabeth and her husband.

February- Mitch surprised me with a Valentines getaway trip to OKC. He took me to The Ranch for dinner with some of my good friends and we stayed at the Skirvin downtown. It was perfect!

March- this was the month everything changed. First we started out with a Ski Trip to Breckenridge with some friends that was the highlight of my year. So. Fun. We made another trip to TN for Mitch's interview. And on my birthday, he got the call that he had been accepted into Union University's Anesthesia Program. 

April- we got busy getting our house ready to sell and put it on the market. For those of you who have done this, you know what i'm talking about- selling a house is a awful process! Hate. It. We have only been married 4 years and have done it twice- no fun! Lucky for us, both times our house sold lightning fast. I couldn't imagine keeping up with that for a long period of time. And I can't forget, Mitch turned 26!

May- sold our house, moved out and move in with my parents for the remainder of the summer. I had to say goodbye to Jenks (hopefully not forever) and we went to our annual Thunder Playoff game!

*You just thought our year was crazy busy and stressful already (and yes it was), but now it gets even busier and crazier! On top of all this house selling and trying to prepare to move and find a house--here comes our summer.

June- We spent two weeks in Destin, FL for one of my friends weddings and then when we got back I was busy with another one of my friends wedding. I was so honored to be in these two weddings, but talk about a crazy time. I had about 121,583,694,836 things on my mind this month but managed to make it. We also took a trip to TN with my mom to look for a place to live. We found the cutest little house and love it. 

July- I think if I could pick a month out of the year to skip- yep, it would've defiantly been July. This was not my month. It started out great-- we always have a celebration for my brothers birthday and the 4th of July since their so close, saw Wicked for the 3rd time, found out I passed my last test to become a teacher and took a nice long relaxing vacation to Mexico. Sounds nice right? Well I have to talk a little about Mexcio. Mitch surprised me with this trip since he got into school and he knew we were not going to have any breaks or time to go on any trips for the next three years. It was perfect and so much fun. We were at a nice resort and took an excursion that I'll remember for the rest of my life. I saw and did so many things I may never get to do again. I loved every minute of it and soaked up my time with just Mitch before his crazy school started. Well here comes the bad part- on about the 4th or 5th day of our trip I stared to not feel great. Nothing to bad or nothing that hindered me from still having fun while we were their, thankfully. But a few days after that when we were headed home I stared getting really sick and long story short, was put in the hospital for 3 days with bacterial colitis. Let me say I can't tell you how awful this was. I still have nightmares about it. I couldn't keep anything down and didn't eat for 10 days. So when I got home from the hospital, since I couldn't eat I was super weak and had to have help walking. Well the one time i tired to get up to put a new shirt on, I put the shirt on felt stinging along my side/back. I started screaming and threw it off and their was a SCORPION in my shirt that had stung me all down my side. Getting stung by a scorpion in itself is awful and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but being stung the day you got home from the hospital and still felt awful made it so much worse! We have never seen scorpions around here so Mitch thinks he got in my suitcase from Mexico. Ahh... still makes me cringe! And to top it all off this all happened the week we were moving to TN. So needless to say that move was not fun for me.

August- Mitch officially started the CRNA program, we traveled back to OK for our good friend Peter's wedding and just spent the month trying to get settled and figure out a new town.

September- this was a fairly slow month for us, which we were thankful for since we had had such a crazy past few months. Nothing too exciting happened, just settling in to our new house and new town.

October- But the slowness didn't last for long, never seems to...right? But this month was full of lots of fun activities. Started out with a trip to Nashville with my best friend, Elizabeth. We had the best time and I am loving that we are going to Nashville so much. Then we went to Arkansas for fall break and went to our annual Razorback game and it happened to be against Alabama, which we almost won! We also took one more trip back to OK for OSU homecoming and I ran in the Tulsa Run.

November- We had our first house guests- thank you Katie and Tommy for coming all the way to TN to see us! We enjoyed our thanksgiving break back in OK and even though I technically finished this summer, I finally received my teaching license in the mail!

December- We went on another Nashville getaway- And Nashville at Christmas time might me my favorite place ever! Mitch finished his first semester and with a  4.0 at that! We get to spend almost 2 months back home and it has been so wonderful! I am loving being with family and friends and I am not ready to go back!

So thats our year! This year has already started out great! We are loving our time home, we will be going to Dallas in just a week to visit Elizabeth and Kevin, and we are going to see Garth in just a few short days!!!!!! Mitch and I were talking and we love how all the sudden everyone loves Garth ha! People thought we were crazy when we drove from Arkansas to Nashville JUST to see Garth in concert and not to mention all the other crazy things we would do/have done to see Garth. But I finally feel like people get it- He is just awesome! We have some friends in our SS class here in Tulsa and they are not big country music fans but someone gave them tickets so they went. We saw them the day after the concert and they were speechless, they said "would it be too much if I said it was life changing?" They are currently trying to find tickets to another show in Tulsa. Ha!

Hope y'all had a great 2014 and an even better 2015!! This year will be crazy with Mitch starting his residency at the hospital, but we are excited for this new journey in Tennessee to continue!