Change

Some people love change. For the most part, I am not one of those people. I love knowing what to expect and I love the comfort of a routine. However, other times I love change. I just finished another school year today which means I am done with this whole set of kids. In that case...I LOVE change!

But the biggest change I've probably ever gone through is happening this week and that is my decision to leave my church of 26 years. Tonight was my last wednesday night. Sunday will be my last sunday.

I'm way too emotional right now to even try to put a thought together...but stay tuned.

Bahamas...here we come!

I am SO excited! In exactly 1 month, I will be on a ship off the coast of Florida getting ready to set sail to the Bahamas!! The best part is that I'm going with my best friends. It's kind of a treat to ourselves because we're all (minus Mandi) turning 30 this year. We are all so excited!! (Not about turning 30)

Race for the Cure

Well, I definitely completed a "first" for me. I ran (OK...I walked!) in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. My sisterchicks and our mothers all walked because we have all in some way been affected by breast cancer. I was walking in memory of my Aunt Sandy. It was a lot of fun and something we'll look forward to next year. Here's some pictures from the event.





Amanda and I taking a photo break!









My finish time!


Our "Sweaty-After-The-Race" picture.


The cancer survivor of our group: Kristen's mom, Glenda. 6 year survivor!!


We were really excited about the free T-shirt!!


Whew! We were wiped out and ready for lunch after the race.


Kristen's mom made us these cool bracelets.

I GRADUATED!!!!!

It's official!! I have a masters degree!! It officially came in the mail this week. I decided not to walk at the graduation ceremony. It just wasn't a big deal to me and I didn't think my family wanted to sit through it. So I was so happy when I came home this week and there was my diploma sitting at my front door. Real pomp & circumstance, huh?! My roommate wasn't home to celebrate with me, so I just pulled out my camera and celebrated myself :)

If I Were a Reality TV Star...

I'm copying this from Amanda because I thought it was so fun!

If I were on The Amazing Race, I would not speak in a pretend foreign language and I would always try to find an earlier flight.
If I were on American Idol, I would never hold up my number while they're rolling my phone number.
If I were on Big Brother, I wouldn't trust more than 1-2 people.
If I were on Dancing with the Stars, I would love to wear those cool outfits!
If I were on The Bachelor, I would...quit!

The Amazing Race

I was so excited for this night. The season finale of The Amazing Race!! I was rooting for Dustin & Kandace. I liked them for several reasons, but mainly because I thought they were real, genuine people. They were coming into the final leg in first place, so I was optimistic that they would be the first all female team to win the race.

So you can imagine my disappointment when Eric & Danielle (who, by they way, fought almost the entire season and treated each other like dog drool) crossed the finish line first! Ugh...it just made me nauseous to see them running onto that big red mat. They're probably already broken up!

It just motivates me even more to get on that show and become the first all female team to win! (Let's get going A!)

7

Alright...I've been tagged to write seven random facts about myself. Here goes:

1. I just finished grad school!!
2. When I was in middle school (or younger) I was babysitting some kids at church during a choir rehearsal and while I was changing one of their diapers, I turned my back for a second to grab a new diaper and she rolled off the counter onto the floor. I never told her mom to this day! (I have learned my lesson all you new mommies out there!)
3. I am SO upset that Eric & Danielle won TAR, but SO glad that Mirna & Shmirna didn't!
4. I have never in my life touched a cigarette.
5. I know practically every word to Old Yeller.
6. The thought of licking construction paper makes my hair stand on end.
7. I have had the same checking account for 16 years.

So...there you go. Unfortunately, I don't know any one else to tag.

How much can a haircut change you?

Evan got a new hair cut! He looks like a grown little boy!

Happy Easter?!

OK..I know it's practically summer and I'm just now writing about Easter. Go figure. I'm in the process of learning how to upload pictures to my new MAC. They're on here somewhere...I just can't find them. But these were some pictures sent to me from my mom and I was able to figure out how to save them to my photobucket account. Long story short...I'm finally updating my blog (even if it is a month old!)

So like I've said before one of my all time favorite things is being an aunt. The annual easter egg hunt has become a fun tradition for both me and the kids. Allright, so it's only the second year we've done it, but I can tell it's going to be a tradition!! However, one thing I didn't count on this year was the frigid arctic temperatures. Of course, the kids were running around so much I don't think they noticed.

Here's some pictures of all the fun:


Evan's eggs were a little easier to find...


...like practically right in the open.


Brooke & Blake looking for their eggs.


BRRRRRR....


Now opening their easter baskets!


Uncle Clint is having more fun than the kids.

Dove Awards

So I can check off something on my life to-do list: I went to the Dove Awards last week! The Dove Awards is kind of like the grammys of christian music. I've always wanted to go and so this year, I proposed to my best friend Amanda that we go for her 30th birthday. She did so much to help with my 30th shindig that I wanted to repay her with something fun. So back in January I presented her with the idea and so we were off!
We left on Wednesday morning. We had an unexpected visitor: Magellan. He was our GPS navigator. It was pretty amazing. We sat in Amanda's driveway and we entered the address of our hotel. Magellan got us there! It was pretty cool!!
Upon our arrival, we wanted to scope out the scene. So we headed over to the Grand Ole Opry House to pick up our tickets and scout out the "famous people". That was our goal...to meet some of our favorite christian artists!! So here's that journey:

We knew this woman was just had to be famous, but we didn't recognize her.


Sure enough, she was the opening act for the whole show!! (we still didn't know who she was)


So after we got settled in to our seats (it was quite a hike to get there) we started taking some pictures. Here we are modeling our Dove Award souvenirs!






After 3 hours of pre-show activity (all the really interesting awards like instrumental album of the year) the televised show began. The show started with none other than Tobymac!! It doesn't get any better than that. Unfortunately, neither do our pictures :(




Kirk Franklin and Mandisa (from American Idol) joined him on stage.


This picture is not going to be clear or mean much, but I thought it was pretty cool. It's a picture of Michael W. Smith sitting in the front row, a few seats down from Steven Curtis Chapman! Two of the biggest names in christian music...legends, if you will. They were just sitting there with their wives like it was no big deal. Like they were just out to dinner or something. Then they would just turn around and talk to the people sitting behind them like they were catching up with an old friend.


Famous people fascinate me!

The next performance was Mac Powell (from Third Day), Brian Litrell (former BackStreet Boy), Steven Curtis Chapman, & some other guy.





So, after that it was just a bunch of people that we didn't know. But after the show, we made our way down to the floor to see if we could get a glimpse of any famous people that we might get a picture of. No such luck. So we just took pictures of ourselves in front of the stage.



Well, a little disappointed, we decided it was time to leave and get something to eat. However, one thing we didn't count on was a monsoon as we were getting ready to leave! Of course, the car was on the other side of the world, so we literally had to walk sloshing through the rain to the car. Here I am...a drowned & disappointed river rat :(


Hungry and wet, we decided to hit the hotspots of Nashville...in hopes of maybe running into someone famous!! We pulled our handy-dandy friend, Magellan and plugged in the address of "The Acorn", a Nashville favorite.


Magellan told us it was about 10 miles away. Not too bad...so we thought. One hour later...we ended up back at the hotel with a bag of chips from the vending machine :(

So, day one was quite the adventure. On the morning of day two, we decided to start the day off with a great breakfast at the Pancake Pantry. Yummy!! We were so excited! But little did we know the treat that was awaiting us.

The Pancake Pantry is a Nashville favorite, so it was no surprise that when we got there it took us a while to find a parking spot and that the line was out the door. We didn't care, so we went ahead and got in line. Well, 2 spots ahead of us in line, guess who it was...Brian Litrell! He was one of the hosts at the Dove Awards. We couldn't believe it!! He was holding his little boy and in line and standing with his wife and in-laws. We felt weird going up to him while he was holding his little boy so we just stood in awe. He and his family were seated and a few minutes later we were too...a few feet away from him!! Well, we didn't want to go up to him while he was eating, so once again we just sat and ate our pancakes in awe. After we finished, we walked outside and hung around for a little bit in hopes that he would be right behind us. Sure enough...he was. But once again, we felt weird because he was with his family. So we followed him to the parking lot (which is also where we parked) and his car was parked just so that we had to pass it to leave. So on our way out, I rolled down the window and said, "Brian! You did a great job last night". He was very nice and said, "Thank you. I don't have my make up on today." Here's us after our "famous person" encounter.


Amanda was so excited she cried!!


That was the highlight of our trip!! So after that we headed back to GA where we encountered a traffic jam, where we got a little bored.




We had a great time!!