Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday to Heather Holcomb!!

It is Brian's sister, Heather's, birthday today and I want to wish her a wonderful birthday :) I definitely see similarities in Heather and Brian, I'm sure they would disagree, but it's true. They are both very stubborn, which is pretty funny to watch when we are all together, Sara and I sit back and sip our lemon drops, LOL :) But, seriously, Heather is an extremely caring person and will do anything and everything for her loved ones. She is always on top of things and you can definitely count on her. Happy Birthday big sis :)

Well, only 1 week left at Allied, although it's month end next week so I'm leaving right after the most stressful part of the month. I didn't plan that well, I should be leaving right before it :) Oh well. I am definitely having a hard time staying motivated, the days are crawling and I don't think I accomplish as much during the day as I use to, in fact I know I don't!

It is suppose to be nice this weekend, finally! It rained yesterday and it's raining today, but the forecast said it shouldn't this weekend, they better be right! It just doesn't feel like summer when the sky is gray and we are getting dumped on by rain :(
Tonight we are going out to dinner with Tiff and Eric to celebrate my birthday (I love when my birthday lasts a week, lol!), I'm excited to see them because we haven't hung out with them in a couple weeks. Tomorrow we'll run some errands and hopefully get outside and do some yardwork, I should probably do some chores inside as well. Tomorrow night we are going to a pizza place to celebrate our friend, Jessica's 30th birthday. That will be a lot of fun.

That's all for now, TGIF!!

Pictures and Blessings

I wanted to post some pictures from my birthday dinner on Saturday night at the Melting Pot, they are somewhat in order (I wish blogger had a better way of uploading pictures!).

Brian and I outside of Bauer and Amy's apartment before we headed up to Portland, Travis took the picture and apparently said something pretty funny, at least Brian thought it was!:

Here are the girls at dinner, Amy, me, and Sarah
Here are the boys, Travis, Brian, and Bauer
I was pretty excited about the fondue as you can tell!
This is the infamous Yin and Yang chocolate fondue, sooooo good!!!

This is what was on the table at the restaurant that Brian got for me, so cute :)
Now back to dinner (out of order, sorry) this is what came with the chocolate fondue, yum.
Travis and Brian excited to dip into the chocolate:

Now onto the blessing part of the post, as the title stated. After we found out I got the job working for the State we were so happy and felt confident that it was meant to be and it was His will. I was nervous about the pay cut I was taking, but knew that we could get through it, we would just have to tighten the budget more. However, He was not done with the many blessings he has given our little family. I need to give a little background before I elaborate.

Brian has worked at UPS for 3 years. He started while he was still finishing up at OSU, being a preloader (the people that load the brown trucks) and working 3 AM to 8 AM. During Christmas he would work 12 AM to 8 AM and would never complain, I was so impressed! About a year after he started he was promoted to preload supervisor, still a part-time position and still the early shift, but it was a good step in his career. He spent almost a year in this position and then became a driver last May. Since drivers are seniority based he was a cut driver, meaning he would fill in for people when they were sick or on vacation, so he didn't have his own route. So, every morning he has to call in to see if he's on the list to drive, this got scary after we bought our house and there were some weeks he would only work 3 days. But as the summer approached and people had scheduled vacations it got better, he has been working 5 days a week for awhile which has been great. Brian is grateful for being able to move up within UPS as it is a great company, but he's always looking to better himself and is incredibly motivated. Thus, he has been striving to get into Management. UPS is huge on starting from the bottom and working your way up, which Brian has done. We have been told he would go into management for the last 6 months, and we would get excited at least once a month thinking that would be the day, but it never was.

Tuesday Brian called me at work and said, "I'm going into management tomorrow." And this time, it happened. Him and his boss drove up to Portland for Brian to meet everyone and do HR stuff to make it official. Brian and I could not be more thankful, we have been so blessed and feel so good about how everything is working out. I could not wipe the smile off my face all day at work, I am so happy and so proud of my husband, he truly deserves this and I know he will be such a good supervisor. His position is called an On Road Supervisor, he will be supervising the drivers, so it's a Monday-Friday day shift which is great. It's not necessarily 8-5 as they put in long hours, but close enough.

Here is my handsome husband in his suit:

I am so proud of you Brian, you are intelligent and motivated and I know you will continue to succeed in your career. I love you.
Love, your proud wife

Finally

Well, obviously I have been very unhappy in my current job and complain about it A LOT! However, I was doing something about it, I just didn't think it would be appropriate to blog about how I was looking for another job, just in case! So, I am excited to finally say that I got another job!! I can finally give my notice and get the heck outta here :)
My new job is an accountant 2 position working for the State, specifically Parks and Rec. The manager there is wonderful, she is a darn good accountant but she would love to be a teacher, so she said she enjoys teaching her staff and helping them develop their skills, which is exactly what I have been looking for.
I have only worked at Allied Waste for 10 months and never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be the type to get a new job so quickly. I would rather be loyal to a company and be the one who stays 25 years, but apparently Allied Waste was not the company. I prayed a lot about this new job, not that I wanted it so badly, but that whatever was meant to happen would happen, whatever was best for our little family. As the author Karen Kingsbury states often in her books, not my will be Yours be done.
My first day will be July 9th. The job is in Salem, which is about 1/2 hour north of Albany, so I have a little drive but it's half the drive Woodburn is so it is more than doable. I am nervous to start on this new adventure, but excited and confident that this is where I am suppose to go.

Well, 24 years ago today I joined the Armstrong family and things haven't been the same since ;-) I cannot believe I am 24 already, I remember when I was younger thinking that 24 was a mom age, yet I feel like I'm still a kid myself.
On Saturday we went to the Melting Pot in Portland with Nate & Amy and Sarah and Travis to celebrate my birthday. We had a great time, it is a 3 hour experience and the atomsphere is great. I have picures that I'll post a little later. When we got to our table there were balloons tied to a cute little bear, compliments of my cute husband, thanks babe! We all ordered the big night out, which is a four course meal. 1. Cheese fondue with bread and vegetables-this was delicious, but you can't go wrong with cheese! 2. Salad-could have done without it just because it took up room in my tummy! 3. Entree-Steak, salmon, chicken, and ahi tuna-the steak was my favorite by far! 4. Dessert-we got 2 kinds of chocolate, smores and yin and yang (white and dark chocolate), then they brought out a plate of strawberries, bananas, pineapple, cheesecake, graham crackers, and marshmellows-HOLY COW. I have never eaten that much dessert after a meal, it was soooo good! Both chocolates were amazing I could not get enough, YUMMY!
Afterwards we went back to Nate and Amy's for a little while and then headed home as it was already midnight and we were exhausted and stuffed! We had a great time and thank you to my friends for celebrating my birthday with me!
We are doing a family dinner tomorrow night which will be fun, we are having lasagna, salad, and bread, my classic favorite!

Brian and I were pretty productive this weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday I spent cleaning and doing laundry. Saturday Brian mowed the lawn and straightened up the garage, while I cleaned the bathrooms, did some laundry and cleaned the kitchen sink. Sunday I did more laundry and straightened things up in the kitchen and living room. The only thing I didn't get to was vaccuuming the upstairs, so sometime this week I need to do that, exciting stuff I know.

I hope everyone has a great Monday!

SHASTA!!!


Shasta was awesome! We got there in a little under 5 hours and made 0 stops on the way there, not even a bathroom stop, we were determined to get there! For those who don't know, Shasta is in Northern California, it's beautiful!

So, we are pulling up to the campground entrance which is on the left, it is of course dark out and I see something a little ways in front of us that looks like an animal, then as we get closer I say, "Honey, is that a bear??" Half joking because I thought, nah, couldn't be. Sure enough it is a bear right in front of us!!!!! I start fumbling around for the camera but as we get about 5-10 feet away from him he runs into the woods to the left, right into the campground!! I am of course freaking out and Brian is bummed we didn't get a picture. This has been the first bear in years to come to the campground. He ended up searching through the garbage and bugging some of the RV's, but apparently he was a pretty jumpy so he didn't get violent with anyone. But the animal control people were going to come and check out the situation. What a way to start the trip, very eventful!
We unloaded our stuff Friday night and went to bed so we would be ready to go for Saturday. Sleeping in a tent is interesting to say the least. Luckily we had a nice foam pad to sleep on which made it nice, but I am very sensitive to noise and light which comes with sleeping in a tent. I had to put my pillow over my head in order to get to sleep, which put a crink in my neck. I woke up at 5:50 am from the sun, put the covers over my head and slept until 7 am, tried to get back to sleep and was successful until 8 am when I decided it was finally time to get up. So we got up, made some coffee, put our swimsuits on and got the boat ready!

Saturday
It felt sooo good to get out on the boat. We road around for awhile and let the sun heat us up a little before we got in the water and decided to go knee boarding. Brian got up on his first try (he's a natural) and had a blast, he was doing 360's and attempting to jump the wake. I decided I should get out and try it as it looked pretty fun. For those who have not been knee boarding, to start out you hold onto the rope and lay on your stomach on the board, once the boat gets going you have to manuever yourself up on the knee board without making too much movement, and then strap your knees in. My first attempt I failed, I tried to move in one quick motion to get my knees into place, bad idea. So my second try I slowly climbed up the board and strapped my knees in, I was up, yay! I had a great time and the water was nice and smooth, perfect. Brian and Zack went on the tubes and Randy (stepdad) gave them a pretty rough ride. Randy wanted Lance to learn how to drive the boat so they got an extra long ride when Lance got behind the wheel. He did great and gave them a good mixture of speed, bumps, and turns. Brian and Zack were both exhausted by the time we headed in. Mission accomplished. That night my mom's friends joined us at our campsite and we all sat around and talked. I think we made smore's that night which were delicious, then headed to bed.

Sunday
We woke up at 8 am again and headed on the boat, we don't mess around! We were all pretty tired and worn out from Saturday so we spent most the day in the boat lounging around. Some of the boating friends joined us in one of the arms of Shasta and we tied all our boats together, listened to music, drank, and swam. There were a lot of kids so it was fun to watch them play, they had a lot of fun! That night the them was drink night so everyone went to the Koeche's campsite and brought a drink for everyone to share. Brian and I brought Yucca juice which is Tequila, sliced lemons, sugar, and ice. You shake it in a 2 gallon container for an hour, or until the ice is completely gone. It ends up tasting like country time lemonade, it was a little sweet so if we do it again we'll add less sugar for sure! It was a fun night, everyone was dancing and having a great time.

Monday
Our internal alarms went off at the usual 8 am and we headed off to the lake. It was the hottest day by far, so we all lathered up with sunscreen, which we would continute to apply every hour and still get a little burned! We spent the first part of the day tied with a bunch of boats in another arm of Shasta having a great time. It took about 45 minute to get out to the arm so I layed on the back of the boat and took a little nap :) Once we were all tied up with the other boats we jumped in the water which felt so good. We stayed there for a couple hours and socialized, swam, sunscreen, repeat. We decided to head back around 5 pm, I wanted to knee board again and the water was perfect for it, smooth as glass. I went for awhile and fell trying to get over the wake, I gave it another shot and was able to go back and forth over the wakes. We came up to some pretty good waves and I was hanging on pretty good but I caught a big one and did a nose dive, all that lake water rushing up my nose, ahh. No harm done though. Brian went for another run and then my mom and I got on the tubes and had a nice ride.
Finally Lance couldn't take it anymore, he put his walking cast on and him and Zack got on the tubes. He has been begging my mom and Randy to put a tower on the boat for the last 7 years, they finally did and he can't even enjoy because of his ankle! He had a blast out there. It's fun to watch him because he's such a natural, his ankle was a little sore afterwards but he said it was more than worth it.
We headed in for the night to attend 80's night at the Delgado's. My mom and I wore black stretchy capris with shirts that hung over our shoulder and headbands. Lance and Zack were all decked out in short shorts, long socks, and headbands, they looked hilarious. They played 80's music all night and we BBQ'd burgers and hot dogs, delicious! I was exhausted so we headed to bed pretty early, but not before making some smores! Yummy!

Tuesday
We woke up at 8 am, packed up our stuff and headed home. Originally we wanted to go out on the boat for a little bit but we had to pick up MJ and do some grocery shopping so we thought we would get a head start. It was good to see MJ and she was very excited to see us! We went home, made some dinner, and got in bed at 7:15! We didn't quite go to bed though, Brian read the newspaper to catch up and I read my book. I didn't go to bed until about 10 pm, that is how good my book is! It's the first book in the Firstborn series by Karen Kingsbury.

Now we are back at work and trying to adjust, always difficult.
I will leave you with tons of pictures from our wonderful and memorable trip to Lake Shasta!! Thanks Mom and Randy for a great trip :)

Brian knee boarding, look at those buff arms!

Here I am knee boarding for the first time!
Lance and Brian being goofy:
Brian and Zack having wars on the tubes:
It was hard to keep their balance, but hilarious to watch!
Brian and I soaking in the sun :) Like the pink shades? LOL!
We had 7 boats tied up, it was so fun!
From left: my mom, Patty, Mauna, and Robyn. The crownies :)

Here is Brian shaking the Yucca juice:

Brian and I having fun:
Lance and Zack enjoying their pop!
Here is MarciAnn (my moms friend) and her cousin Maria, all the girls had a great time dancing!
You can see Mt. Shasta behind us!

My mom and I on 80's night, we are so spirited!

Lance and Zack were hilarious!
Us 4 posing:

Well that about covers it for pictures, Brian and I are going to go for a walk, it's gorgeous out! Have a great night everyone!

We're Back :(

It's not sad, since obviously we made it back safely, but now we are back to reality. The trip was wonderful and just what the Dr. ordered! I was exhausted yesterday when we got back so I will upload pictures tonight when I get home from work.

First I want to say Happy Father's Day to my Dad. I was very sad I couldn't be with him on Sunday but Lance and I called him to tell him we loved him.
I have to say thank you to my Dad, thank you for being such a role model for me. My Dad is one of the most caring people I know, he is incredibly selfless and will give and give to make his kids and loved ones happy. The only thing he ever wants for his birthday, Christmas, and father's day is time with his family. He is the happiest when all the family is gathered, you can see the glow in his face when we are all sitting around talking and laughing with each other. My Dad has such a pure heart, he never judges people and is very unassuming, which I love. He sees the glass as half full and constantly sees the good in people, that is an amazing quality to have and I love that so much about him.
I love you Dad, thank you for being the best father and loving me unconditionally.

I want to leave this post about my wonderful Dad, so I will post about Shasta in a later post along with pictures.

It's almost time!!!

Well, it is finally here. We are headed to Shasta today and I am just thrilled!!! It is about a 5 1/2 hour drive and hopefully traffic won't be too bad.

We took MJ to Grandma's last night and then she took us out to dinner at a really good pizza place, it was so nice of her! Especially since she is the one helping us out :) Then we did the last minute grocery shopping and headed home to pack up the car. When we walked in the door I totally expected MJ to jump off the couch like she always does and come running to give me kisses, but alas no MJ. I almost cried, can you believe that?!?! I'm such a dork, but I couldn't help it, she's my baby and it feels so weird to not have her at home. But it definitely is reassuring to know she is happy with Grandma :)

My mom and Randy headed down on Tuesday and she said it is absolutely wonderful, she even said to bring a fan for the tent because it will get so warm! It doesn't get below 60 at night, that's my kind of camping!

I will be sure to take lots of pictures, we brought extra batteries and have a large memory card so we should be set. Now that I think about it we should take our video camera too, I always forget to use that!

BTW: Thanks so much for the comments, I love reading them, they always put a smile on my face :) I am addicted to so many blogs so it will tough not to have them to read every morning with my coffee!

Have a great weekend and pray that we have a safe trip there!

Pictures!!!

So I uploaded these backwards and I don't feel like redoing it, so here are a bunch of pictures out of order :)

This is Zack, and yes that is my brother, Lance, at their graduation party. Lance wanted to shave his head and decided to have a mohawk for a few hours, he has since shaved it off.

Brian and I have a hard time taking a serious picture apparently:

First try:
Second try:
I give up!
I went to dinner with Sarah and Travis to celebrate Sarah's 25th birthday! Brian was suppose to come but had to work late :(
Please excuse the awkward pose below, I thought she was just getting our heads :)
Apparently I thought it would be attractive to stick my stomach out, nice.

(Here is where it gets out of order) The following are from Lance and Zack's graduation party. This is Jaidyn, she loves to pet MJ and MJ loves it!

Graudation Night: Lance and Zack

Lance with his 3 older sisters:
Lance and a proud father
Lance a proud mother, talking to each other
They gave all the graduates a flower but Lance had both his hands full, hence the flower in his mouth
Okay that's all, just wanted to post those!

Countdown...

3 days and definitely counting until Shasta. This week started off a little rough in regards to work and I think a break will really help.

Brian and I had a "good" conversation yesterday, I say that because it started off as a disagreement but led to some good insights, very constuctive. My misery at work has really affected our home life and we both are at our wits end. Brian has been amazing and trying everything he can think of to console me: He tries to solve the problem (it's a guy thing), he tries to bring out the positive side, he just listens, he tries so hard. I love him so much for that and felt really bad yesterday when he explained that he was at a loss of what to do, he hates seeing me so unhappy and wants to fix it. I do to, but it's taking longer than we both thought.
The commute is killing me and it's about to get worse. My co-worker, carpool buddy, and most importantly my friend, Sarah, gave her 2 weeks and her last day is this Friday. I am so happy for her because she found a job she will really enjoy, an Office Manager, and it is in Albany. So, I am driving an hour to work and an hour home all by myself, 5 days a week.
Anyway, back to the conversation last night. Some days are easier than others and on those days I am really positive because I feel like I can breathe again, like I have been under water and someone just pulled me up for a breath of air. Other days it is not so good and I get really discouraged, feeling like I am sinking to the bottom of the ocean and I am swimming up to catch a breathe but have no idea where the water ends. So, I am up and down as you can tell, which is frustrating because I am usually a goofy dork who loves to be happy and laugh, but this job is sucking the life out of me.
We ended the night well, he just hugged me while I thought about how lucky I was. I have a job and I should be grateful for that.

So back to Shasta, we have a lot to do and not much time to do it. Packing will take awhile because we have to get all our camping gear in order and make sure we don't forget anything. Then we need to go grocery shopping for food and drinks. Our plan on Thursday is to take MJ to Brian's mom's house since we will be leaving directly after work on Friday, then go grocery shopping, and come back and load up the car completely so we can head out on the road. It is a good 5 to 6 hours away, so we are hoping to get off early so we don't get there too late. I am so thankful Brian's mom is so willing to watch MJ, it helps us out so much!! Thank you Mom!

I am going to try and post pictures before I leave since it's been awhile and I don't like posting just boring blurbs without some visual aids :) But no promises, I'm going to be busy getting ready for Shasta, yesssss!

Monday Morning...

Well, the weekend is over and work has started again, can you sense my excitement? Yeah, me neither.
The only thing keeping me sane is the fact that this next weekend will be a 4 day weekend for Brian and I and we will be enjoying the sunshine in Shasta, ahhh, that sounds like heaven! Of course, there is one reason I will be sad, I can't spend Father's Day with my dad :( But don't worry Dad, I will make it up to you I promise!

Brian's mom is so gracious and willing to watch MJ for us while we are away, MJ LOVES it there so we know she'll be having fun while we are gone. It's funny how much I miss her when we are gone, I can't imagine how I will be with kids!

I keep forgetting to upload pictures while I am at home, doh! I will have to post the pictures from Lance's graduation, they turned out pretty good. Lance didn't want to use his crutches for graduation so he borrowed a cane from a friend and did it in style. Except he was pretty tired and worn out considering the cane didn't help take weight off his injured ankle. My mom went early to the graduation (3 hours!) and saved front row seats for all of us. Jenny made a special trip up for Buddy's graduation, all the way from Bend! We are a pretty loud group (minus Jaime she's the cute quiet one) so when they called Lance's name we all stood up and cheered as loud as we could, as it started to quiet down Brian, being the shy guy he is shouted, "WE KNEW YOU COULD DO IT!" All of his classmates turned around and were laughing, it was pretty funny, that's my husband!
Anyway, we took pictures afterwards with Lance and then he headed off to the Senior all-night party and the rest of us went out to dinner. It was a fun night :) I am so proud of my little brother, he has turned into such an amazing young man with a good head on his shoulders. When my parents got divorced my 2 sisters lived with my Dad and Lance and I lived with my Mom. I was devestated that I didn't get to get all the benefits of having older sisters, but I will forever be thankful I spent those years with Lance, developing such a close relationship with him. Don't get me wrong, we had our sibling rivalry moments, but for the most part we had fun together. We definitely have the same sense of humor, when we get together we quote our favorite movies (Liar Liar, and Tommy Boy) like you wouldn't believe, we laugh at the same stupid stuff too :) Love you Buddy!

This last weekend was pretty boring and unproductive, I finished my book, the last one in the Redemption series by Karen Kingsbury and Gary Smalley. Sooooo good, I can't wait to get started on her next series, Firstborn. We did some errands at Costco, had to stock up the milk supply for the week, would you believe we go through at least 4 gallons of milk a week? We do!! We are both huge milk drinkers, if our kids are half the milk drinkers we are, we'll have to get another fridge just for milk! We went bowling on Saturday night with some friends and that was a lot of fun. Sunday was Lance's graduation party so we did that most the day.

Anyway, I better get back to work. Have a great Monday :)

Happy Birthday Abby!

My little sister, Abby, is turning 7 today and I cannot believe it! I remember when my stepmom, Anna, and my Dad told us they were pregnant; I was THRILLED! I had been begging my mom or dad to have another baby because Lance was getting old and I wanted a little one around :) My mom laughed, she had her 4 kids and she was done, understandable.
So when we found out little Abby Lynn was coming I was ecstatic to say the least. I remember getting the page from my dad (that's right, I had a pager at the time) sometime in the middle of the night and I was utterly confused so I went back to bed. When I woke up around 6 am for school it finally dawned on me that he paged the code I told him to when Anna went into labor!! I could not get to the hospital fast enough, and the 15 minute drive seemed like an hour. I finally got there and got to hold my first baby sister, she was precious.
She had such a distinct personality from the beginning, so spunky. She loves to have dance parties with us, as long as she is center stage. Now I see her getting so big, I mean playing soccer? Isn't she still a baby?? And this girl has some long skinny legs, she is tall for her age, can you believe it?!?! An Armstrong (my maiden name) girl who is tall, those are two words that historically have not been in the same sentence. My eldest sister, Jaime stands at 5 feet, Jenny and I are roughly 5 feet 2 inches, we all have sexy short legs (enter sarcasm here). Needless to say, Abby will represent us well in the modeling world with her long legs and stunning confidence. Love you Abbelina, Happy Birthday!

Today is also my friend, Sarah's birthday, she is turning 25, Happy Birthday!

On Thursday Lance graduates from High School and I am so excited to go and watch him walk across the stage, well hobble across the stage on his crutches. By the way, he is doing very well since his surgery, although very restless! I am excited to see him attend college and succeed there as I know he will :) Sunday him and his friend Zach are having a graduation party at my mom's which should be a lot of fun, hopefully the weather improves as it has been pretty dreary the past few days.

Brian is enjoying work and looking forward to starting classes for his masters at Marylhurst ( a college up near Portland). He will mostly take online classes but may take some weekend ones depending on what is required. He could potentially be starting this month, but it all depends on how smooth and fast the enrollment process goes, it has been moving forward so far, but sometimes it takes awhile. I know he enjoys being a UPS driver, UPS is a great company to work for. Management is always in the back of his mind and hopefully UPS keeps him in mind as well!

That is all for now, have a great Tuesday :)

I was going strong...

with blogging that is. I was doing well with blogging more often and now I just sort of faded away, we aren't overly busy so it's just me being lazy. :)

I would really like to complain about my job right now, but let's face it, that is boring to listen to and I don't want to do that since I still need the paycheck. I am hoping soon I will be more positive on the job side of things, but right now the negative aspects are winning.

We are finalizing the details for our Shasta trip coming up! My mom and Randy have been going every year for the past 8 years! They have a ski boat and a really nice motor home so they do it in style, they spend almost 2 weeks there. We are taking 2 much needed days off work to join them for a few days. We of course don't have a motor home, per say, so we'll have to rough it in the tent, but it is more than worth it because the lake is enormous and warm, the weather is gorgeous and the company is always fun. Their "Crownie" (They all have Crownline boats and so refer to each other as their Crownie friends) friends also go down so it is a lot of fun. I have only been able to go one other year due to school and work, Brian has never gone so it will be so much fun, I cannot wait! I have only taken 1 or 2 days off work since I started last August so I am looking forward to the time off work almost as much as the trip to Shasta! We are planning on heading down Friday the 15th after work, it's a good 5 ½ to 6 hour drive so we'll be there late, but that way we get the whole day on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, then we'll head out Tuesday.

Jenny found some cute tops and the color she liked for all of us to wear for the wedding. She found them on victoriassecret.com and she liked the Paradise Pink and then said whatever floats your boat in terms of the style of top is totally fine with her, I really liked that idea. I am at work and that site is restricted, so I will post the exact top a little later! We are wearing white skirts and silver flip flops. It is pretty casual, but it perfectly matches the theme of a Hawaii wedding and is going to look so pretty on the beaches of Maui, so romantic! We found out that all of us, when I say all of us I mean my entire family, Kyle's entire family (her fiancé), and the friends that are going, are on the same flight to Maui!! That is going to be so much fun, Maui 2007 baby!
Running has been going really well and I hope I continue to go strong. It helps so much that I can run at work on my lunch because I am so tired when I get home that the last thing I want to do is go for a run. I go about 3 miles in 30 minutes and then give myself some time to rinse off in the shower and freshen up for the rest of the day. I'm obviously not speed running but it still gives me some good cardio.

Nothing really new with the house to report. We spent time outside this weekend doing some yardwork. A sprinkler pipe in the front was busted, we think it is from the For Sale sign, they just stuck it right in the pipe and busted it. So when we turned on our lawn sprinkler's in the front the water started coming up from under the ground and created a huge puddle. My dad was so gracious to come over and help Brian repair it, they both said it was an easy fix and the longest part was going to Home Depot to get the supplies. But it's fixed now, thanks Dad! We took out a few bushes that were in the backyard, the original owners had beautiful landscaping but a little crowded for our taste. There are still plenty trees and bushes to fill up the space, don't worry! Because I knew you were, LOL!

Holy cow, this got really long and really boring, so if I somehow kept you interested until now you are awesome!
Okay well, I will try to blog more often and stay positive, I have so many things to be grateful for that I need to just suck it up and do my job! I will post pictures later too :)