1 month from today

I will be 27!!!!!!!

Okay... actually one month from last Saturday, which makes it a little worse.

And I can tell you for certain that I have not even attempted anything else on my list.

There just isn't enough time in the day!

In fact, I'm passing up getting enough sleep to put up some pictures from this weekend :) I miss the days when I blogged every day and had a life!
Well, this weekend was my college roommate's wedding!

Here are the 4 of us:

We actually lived in an AMAZING house! It was a duplex that the landlord let someone cut a gigantic walkway in the wall between the two houses, so it was essentially a 4 bedroom house w/ 2 kitchens, 2 bathrooms, 2 dens and 2 front doors, but we all still got to live together.

Someone actually caught Ben off guard enough to capture his smile AND his eye's open!
The bride & her amazing dress:

The groom and his uh..... hat:
Then, things started to get a little out of hand.

It was a great weekend! Friday night we visited with my grandmother who came in town for a few days from Florida, Saturday I worked and went to the wedding. Then Sunday, I even taught Sunday School all by myself! (Something a few years ago I was frightened of!)

Also, we had another SWEET pup find her loving home.
I took her to meet her new family Sunday!
(She wasn't exactly living WITH us, but more on our street,
it took about 2 weeks to find her a home).

Updates to come: my new internship placement & a few job openings?! Yep.

Welcome Spring

I'm home!!

The beach was VERY fun! It was a co-ed bachelor/bachelorette party for my college roommate Beth and her soon-to-be, Scott. 22 people slept in a house that normally held 16!!!! There were 7 people in my room alone. Tight squeeze!


We had the right side of this house and it was wonderful that the left side was tied up in a foreclosure, because I'm pretty sure they would NOT have been happy to have our group as neighbors. Thank goodness for ear-plugs!!!

It wasn't quite as warm as we hoped, but we played a lot of frisbee and botchiball.

and Jenga!
This picture is hilarious.... Look at Heather and Ashley's faces!


I ate crab claws and WAY too much junk food.
I think I came home w/ almost as much food as I took. Not a good sign.

Some people drank too much ^.


And then their wife may or may not have gotten his car stuck in the sand and left the window down over night with 30 mph winds and rain. That could have happened.

It was VERY windy Saturday and Sunday.

It was so much fun and sweet Beth and Scott are getting married this Saturday! I am very excited for them. They are one of those couples that when we found out they were dating a few years back, it was like, "Why haven't ya'll done this sooner?!" They are just perfect for each other in every way. They make sense.

But, now that life is back in full-swing: This is my first week interning full-time and it includes testing (where everyone and everything is chaotic) and hopefully 4 small counseling groups for K-2nd graders. I am not looking forward to driving back to class though this week. I am not working in downtown Birmingham anymore, so it means I'll be interning 20 minutes west of me and then driving an hour east to school twice a week.

Last week was so nice that I almost forgot that going back to internship meant going back to class too!!! I'm VERY ready for class to be over. 5 weeks left! I think I will really appreciate my first semester without class come August.

Let's just pray I'll be too occupied with a new job to notice ;)

Its removable.

At Amber's surprise party, my friend Beth and I were in the restroom washing our hands when Beth says, "Your hair looks fabulous tonight!" I was a little shocked.

I then proceeded to take my hair off and hand it to her. Her eyes started to water a little and her mouth dropped to the floor. Yes.... my hair was bought at a kiosk at the mall.


Here she is after making me take it off for our table. I bought this hair piece 3 years ago as a backup for Ben and I's wedding day. My hair stylist was not worth a fourth of what she charged and couldn't get my hair up to do anything. So I went to the oriental lady at the mall and bought a hair piece that matches my hair color perfectly! I actually don't wear it too often unless my hair is a disaster and needs to look decent in about .5 seconds.

Happy Birthday Amber!!!

My great friend Amber has been contemplating starting a blog for sometime and I hope she will comment to this post w/ her new blog site that I know we'd all love to read!!!

It is her birthday today so some of us from the counselor education program at UAB tried to plan a surprise dinner party for her (which was much harder to plan w/ adults). Well, Amber was the second person to show up, so as she and I walked to our 10-top and she asked if anyone else was coming, I said, "Maybe! Surprise!" HA! I didn't tell her exactly who was coming though, but I think she had a great night anyways.

Happy Birthday Amber, we're all waiting eagerly on your new blog.

PS - isn't this cake amazing?!
It is from a local bakery, Edgar's, it tasted just as good as it looked. Yum!

Peanuts and Parades

15. Go to the peanut festival. (one item crossed off the list!)


This weekend was a very long awaited trip to Dothan to see one of my best friends, Emily. Ben was sweet enough to drive me there and participate in most of the things I wanted, including watch the over 2 hour parade early Saturday morning. Below is a picture of everyone picking peanuts up off the street! (See #14a - eat peanuts off the street.)


Beautiful day at the peanut parade!
No one else thought this was as fun as I did....
Few things that were not on the list but are firsts and have been accomplished before turning 27 this weekend:
28. Try a fried snickers. (Yes, I know... the thought of it makes you want to throw up, me too, however it was pretty good!)
29. Try a fried oreo. (I'd skip this one if ever offered it again... yuck) I'm sure you are wondering how #7. 'Lose 10lbs' is going about now, huh? I'll update about that one shortly!

Trying to avoid all the carnies at the peanut festival.

Not only is this dog named Woodle, but his little half chihuahua-half boston terrier self is pretty much the cutest dog I've ever seen.




Cooking out for the Alabama game in our Auburn-wear.

We even got to see a demolition derby!

Now just waiting on Hurricane Ida to pass by so Ivy, John & Gramma can come up for the weekend! Do you have any suggestions for fun things to take my family to while they are in town???

There is a horse in the audience.

This weekend went by way too quickly.

Friday night we went to Paint and Party in 5 points for Painting with a Purpose, benefiting Cross My Heart. $10 from every ticket goes directly to Cross My Heart. However, sadly, only ONE person came. Great support. So we have two more events, this coming Friday which I will not be able to get to because I have class every other Friday night, but our finale Painting with a Purpose is August, 28 and will involve Cosmo's next door. Hopefully there will be more than zero people there. Here is Kathryn's Painting from this week, too cute:Saturday I went to Standifer's Animal Clinic to meet their dogs and take pictures because they have no way of advertising the dogs they have up for adoption. I met these two sweet girls that have been at the shelter for 6 YEARS!

Click their picture to learn more about their story. They are definitely up for adoption. I then had lunch w/ several of the CMH girls to talk about upcoming fundraisers. We have Boo at the Zoo in October and Pet-A-Palooza!

Saturday night was my friend Amber's husband's CD release party at Work Play. It was a lot of fun because a lot of our friends from school showed up.

However, things were a bit strange throughout the night. I'm not sure how well you can see this picture but there is a guy w/ a horse head on.... in the audience, who occasionally played thumb wars with the girl leading him around.

Also, on the side of the stage for the entire show, was a scientist wearing a gas mask stirring beakers. Yep... again, I'm at a loss.

So on that note, Happy Monday. School starts again this week and my NCE exam is getting closer and closer. I'll be so glad when November gets here, things should slow down quite a bit.