It's been a while....

Where did this year go?!? I can't believe it will be 2011 on Saturday!!! It's been a busy, hectic, crazy last few months, so I'm definitly looking forward to the new year and everything it has in store for us. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and had a wonderful time with friends and/or family. We were able to spend several days in Arkansas with my family and will get to see Wyatt's family this weekend for New Year's. I know I say this on just about every post, but I am really hoping to blog more often and keep everyone a little better updated on what's going on in our lives. So for now, I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still here and we're doing great! I plan to make another, more detailed post about our Christmas (with pictures, since I think this is my first post without any...) over the weekend, so be sure to check back! Hope you have a Happy New Year!!!

* I'd also like to wish my favorite niece, Calloway, a very Happy 3rd Birthday!!! ~Unc & Bizby

Beenie's Wedding

I met Amanda, aka Beenie, my first semester of college at the U of A. We had every class together and eventually became roommates and best friends. I give her credit for making me be late everywhere I go! I was raised to always be early (anything later than 15 min early was considered late). She also helped me come out of my 'shell'. I have so many good and funny memories with her! She was one of my bridesmaids, so when I found out she was getting married, I knew I had to go!

The wedding was on the beach in Destin, FL. The plane tickets were ridiculously expensive so we decided to drive. We left Wednesday afternoon and stopped for the night in Memphis. I was hoping to meet up with one of my other best friends, Steph, but it was too late when we got there. We got up Thursday morning and drove the rest of the way to Destin. We arrived a little before 6 that evening. We checked into our hotel and just vegged out for a little while before going to eat dinner.

Friday morning we just took it easy and then went to the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base after lunch. It was really neat to see all the airplanes and ammunition they had on display. We decided it would be nice to cool off with a blizzard from Dairy Queen. So, I searched for the nearest one with my phone & we headed that direction. We wound up in a neighborhood not too far from a mall. So, I said that I bet it was in the mall and sure enough it was! We got our cold, sweet treat and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding.

The wedding was beautiful, but had to be cut a little short due to a storm moving in. Afterwards, everyone went to the condo Beenie's family was renting and had some really good cajun food. It was soooo nice to get to see her again and catch up. I really wish I got to see her more often.

We searched for the top attractions in Destin and the Big Kahunas water park was on the top of the list. We decided we would go Saturday. It was so much fun! They closed late afternoon due to another storm moving in, so we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up for dinner. One of the things we definitly wanted to do while there was eat some seafood. We wound up going to Fudpucker's. The wait was about 1 hour, but luckily they had Gator Beach to help pass the time. They have 100 real alligators and one albino one. It was really neat and the food was delicious!

Unfortunately, our mini vacation came to an end and we had to start the drive home Sunday. We arrived in Memphis early enough to have dinner with Steph, Josh, & Cadence. Even though our visit was only about 1 hour, it was so good to see them!

We finished up the trip Monday and are now back in the swing of things. It was nice to have a break from work, since it's been almost 2 years since my last vacation. Hopefully it won't be so long until the next one!

2 Months?!?

How has it already been 2 months since my last post??? It seems like time is just flying by faster and faster! Anyways, I had every intention of posting about our vacation to Florida for my friend's wedding this past week, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow. I've been really good at this whole procrastination thing lately... Other than that, our life has been pretty busy. The weather has finally been pretty good, so that means I've been able to work quite a bit. Wyatt finished up his spring semester at OSU Tulsa and is now trying to finish up his flying so he can start doing some instructing on the side. I've finally learned how to drive my 'new' car that I got last May. That's a whole post of it's own though. Maybe I'll get that done in the next few days too! Well, I just wanted to give a quick update and let you know I'm still here! Make sure to check back in the next few days (assuming I don't procrastinate any more...)!

Where Did March Go?

Let me start by just saying I can't believe it is already April!! I had every intention of posting more often, but as you can see...that hasn't really happened. I wanted to say thank you to those who helped with my jean dilemma. About 2 weeks ago, I decided it was time for attempt 3 or 4, or whatever number it was. I am happy to report that I was successful! Maybe a little too successful.... I came home with 4 pairs of jeans!!! I got a really good deal on 3 of them, but of course my favorite pair was the one that was most expensive. I was only going to keep 2, maybe 3, of them but couldn't really decide which pair to take back. I think I've decided to just keep all of them. My reasoning is that it was such a headache to find jeans that fit and I spent so much time trying to find them, not to mention that the other jeans averaged out to only $33 a pair! I'd say you can't beat that!

There's not much else going on with us.... I've been working quite a bit the last couple of weeks - I'm definitly not complaining after all the bad weather we've had recently. Last week was a really good week! I actually got 42 paid hours + 8 for Good Friday! For those of you who missed my post on how I get paid, that is really, really good! I don't know how to link to it, so I'll give a brief explanation: I am an hourly employee and I pretty much only get paid for the time I'm in the airplane, unless it is a ground lesson. So, each flight that I schedule is a 2 hour block but actual flight time is only 1-1.5 hours. So, I could be at work 10 hours, but only get paid for 5-7 hours. So like I said, last week was really good! I told my mom I should stop calling it the weekend (because I've been working 6 days a week) and just start saying my day off! Hahaha!

As for Easter, I don't have any cutesy pictures to post of our matching Easter outfits or Easter egg hunts.... I didn't have a chance to go buy a new Easter 'frock' (that's what my dad says) so I just wore an outfit I already had. We went to church and then I attempted to go shopping for a new pair of tennis shoes Sunday afternoon, but the malls were closed. I was shocked that they were actually closed, but impressed. That pretty much sums up our day.

I'm hoping to be better at posting more often. It is difficult when there's not a lot exciting happening... but I'm going to try! I hope everyone has a wonderful second half of the week!

Jean Dilemma

This was going to be a post about my amazingly wonderful weekend visit with my best friends and an update from the past month or so, but that was before my longer-than-it-should-have-been attempt at finding a new pair of jeans. I spent about 4 hours this afternoon trying on jeans and I could not find a single pair that fit properly!!! The search started at Old Navy because they had their jeans on sale for $19 this weekend. Their jeans used to not fit right, but then about a year or so ago I found a pair there that fit nicely. So, I was hoping I would be able to find some more. No such luck! I should have counted how many I tried on, but NONE of them fit!

I decided that I would try Aeropostale because one of my favorite pairs came from there. I got one of each style they had and in the size of the ones I have already to try on. I tried all of them on, but again NONE of them fit. They were all too tight and too short! So, I went back out and got the next size in the 2 styles I liked. They were better length wise, but the waist band bulged out in the back. They've apparantly changed their jeans since the last time I bought some.

The next stop was J C Penney. It had been a while since I'd gotten jeans from there, but a few months ago I got a pair of skinny jeans that I absolutely love. So, I thought I'd give it a try. I lost track of how many trips I made to the dressing room! Each time I would tell myself that was the last trip (I didn't listen very well!). Once again, they were tight in the thighs and too short. So, I'd try the next size and the waist band would bulge. On one trip to the dressing room, I passed by a rack of misses' jeans and thought maybe I should try those to see if they fit differently than the juniors. Well, they were exactly the style/cut I was looking for, except for one thing - they were mid-rise which made the crotch a little saggy. I really debated buying them and seeing if I could get them altered, but I wasn't sure how easy that would be.

So, I would love to hear some suggestions on where I should look for jeans. Where do you buy jeans? I really didn't want to pay a lot for them, but I think I may have to if I want to find some that fit really well. Please help!

Cube Cuteness

First off, is anyone else having a hard time believing we are half-way through January?!?!? Yes, HALF-WAY!!! I can't! Where has it gone? Anyways, I just wanted to point that out.... I guess 2010 isn't going to slow down any.
So, after having my cube decorated for Christmas, I decided that it was going to be pretty plain after I took down all the decorations. While we were in TX, my mother showed my sister and I how to deco-podge (I'm not sure that's a word, but I'm going with it!) When I learn something new, I kind of get addicted to it. So, I was dying to deco-podge something of my own. I came up with the idea of doing the word 'Fly' to hang in my cube - after ruling out my name or initials. I got all of the necessary supplies from Hobby Lobby and got started on my project. It turned out really cute, if I do say so myself! I hung them in my cube and here they are:

Basically all I did was buy some wooden letters, scrapbook paper, modge podge, and ribbon. The letters I bought were already white, but you can paint them whatever color you want. Next, cut out the paper in the shape of the letters. Then put a coat of modge podge on the letter and then smooth the paper onto it. Wait for about 10-15 minutes and then put a coat of modge podge over the top of the paper. The last thing is to attach the ribbon to the back of the letter. I just used hot glue. Wait for that to dry and they are ready to hang!

After I got them hung, I was looking around my cube and decided that it still needed something else. So, I got the idea to make something to hang my clipboards on. I have one for the current week's schedule and one for the next week's schedule. I took another trip to Hobby Lobby to see what I could come up with. By the way, they really should have some sort of warning about things disappearing once inside the store. I go in and before I know it, time (sometimes hours) disappears and almost always my money disappears! Anyways, I wound up going to Hobby Lobby every day last week except Friday!! Luckily, all but once I spent $10 or less, so not too bad. What was really bad was the fact that the weather wasn't very good last week so I wasn't able to work much, but I was going shopping everyday! Oh well, that's why I save, right?! Back to the story... I was supposed to work Saturday, but the weather wasn't good so it gave me all day to work on my project. With a little design help from my mother and sister, I got it finished!

For this project, I bought a piece of wood from Hobby Lobby and used the same process as above to put the zebra print paper on it. Then, I attached the feather trim around the edge on the back with hot glue. I cut pink circles out of scrapbook paper and used the modge podge to attach them. Once that was dry, I used scrapbook sticker letters and some embellishments to finish it off. I attached ribbon to hang it up with and the hooks are just the ones that you can screw into the wall for keys and such.

 

I also read online and taught myself how to make tissue paper flowers. They are really easy and fun! Beware though, they can be addictive!!! Here are the ones I made for my cube (well, I made more, but it was a little too much):

I was going to try to explain how to make these, but I don't have any pictures of the process. So, I will do a separate post on these - after I make some more!

Here are a couple pics of my whole cube:

It is definitly more enjoyable to go to work everyday now that my cube is decorated!!! Now I'm trying to think of where else I can put some more of my craft projects... Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, and hopefully it won't be so long next time!