Dad's graduation

Dad graduated this week from his aviation maintenance school. I am so proud of him!!

Dad getting pinned by his instructor

Jesse, Grandma, Dad, me, and Jared

Dylan and Taylor in the plane

Me and Lee with Taylor and Dylan--I love these guys! I'm such a proud aunt!!

baby high heels!!

Kodi's baby shower was yesterday and she had such a great turnout! I bet that she got close to 100 gifts. (and not that many duplicate items, either.) Emma Kate is loved by so many and she's not even here yet!! I was very excited to give Kodi my gift. I always try so hard to put a lot of thought into every gift that I give and this was no exception. I got Emma Kate her first pair of high heels!!

They were so adorable and a big hit at the shower, too! They are just made of cloth so they are not a danger to the baby, they are just for show. She'll be totally rocking out in her adorable little outfits topped off by her high heels!

This is me and Kodi. I miss her so much!!! Fayetteville is too far away from Little Rock!

swine flu

I'm starting to get worried about this swine flu "pandemic". I've had the regular human flu and I have never been so miserably sick in my entire life. I'm talking body aches in every inch of my body for two days. Not to mention the sore throat, coughing, sneezing, vomiting, high fever, etc. It was HORRIBLE! I saw on the news this morning that the government has released 12 million Tamiflu prescriptions throughout the country. I've taken Tamiflu before when Lee had the flu and it did help because I didn't get the flu at that time. However, Tamiflu is expensive. It is not covered by most insurances and it costs about $100 per person. I'm definitely keeping a close eye on this. Hopefully we can get it under control globally and not lose anyone else to this disease.

Rob Thomas

I just heard Rob Thomas's new single "Her Diamonds" and it is AMAZING!!!! I love Rob Thomas and have been a fan for a very long time. His songs and albums are always incredible. His newest album "Cradlesong" comes out June 30th and you can bet that I will be first in line waiting to get it!!

Nickelback

I had a GREAT time last night at the Nickelback/Seether/Saving Abel concert!!! Cheryl and I totally surprised Kelsey--she had no idea that I was going with them. We met in Target where I just happened to be shopping when they got there. From there, we went to a nice dinner at Applebee's (one of my new faves), then on to the concert.

Saving Abel opened up the show and although I only knew a couple of their songs, they were really good. I was surprised at how full the arena was during Saving Abel because people usually don't show up until closer to the headliner plays. The crowd was amazing the whole night--the best crowd I have seen, and when the crowd is good it pumps up the entertainers who put on a better show.

Seether was next, and they were good too. There was no audience interaction, though, and that was a big negative for me.

Then Nickelback opened with a bang. Literally. Scared the crap out of me. Their show was very entertaining and did not disappoint. In fact, it was better than their previous tour. Chad Kroeger was really into the audience and that made it escalate from a good concert to a great concert. I loved all the fireworks and pyrotechnics, although I cannot imagine how hot it must have made it for those guys on stage because I could feel the heat from the audience. Another highlight for me was the 4 or 5 minute solo for the drummer Ryan. He is AMAZING. You can look up the clip of what I'm talking about on youtube. I guess the only downside for me was all the vulgar language. I know that they are rockstars and have a certain reputation to live up to, but it would have been better for me personally if they could have kept the expletitives to a minimum and left out the drug references all together. Just my personal opinion. =)

Good friends

Here are a few pics from lunch with my friends on Saturday. I wish we could all get together more often!

The first one is Amanda, Meredith, me, and Melody.



















The second picture is Natalie, me, and Melody.



















The third picture is all five of us--Natalie, Amanda, Meredith, me, and Melody.

friends, poker, good food, great times

I'm so glad Friday is here!!! I have a BIG weekend planned. I'm hanging out with some good friends tonight, having dinner and playing poker at my house. Then tomorrow I'm having lunch with "my girls"! Well, all but one, Raven couldn't make it in from Los Angeles, but Meredith is here from Chattanooga!!!!! So the other four of us college friends will be catching up and having a GREAT time! Then tomorrow night we are spending with Lee's family. I can't wait to see all of my friends, I'm such a lucky gal!! I'll try really hard to remember to take my camera!

Flipping Out

I thought that the new season of Flipping Out was starting soon, but whenever I looked it up today, the website said that the new season is currently being filmed and will air this summer. Sorry for the confusion!

tv

I am really enjoying tv lately. Seems like all my favorite reality shows are back! I LOVE the Real World/Road Rules challenges. Can't get enough of 'em!! The first episode last week did not disappoint--CT was sent home for fighting within the first 10 minutes. Big surprise there. LOL.

Flipping Out is coming back on in the next couple of weeks. If you have never seen this show, you must! This guy is such a character!! From the way he makes his assistants order his drink (look it up on youtube, it's totally worth it) to installing a nanny cam to catch his assistants using his computer without permission--this guy is a riot!

And of course Donna Martin came back to 90210 last night. So exciting for me!!! (90210 has been cracking me up with all of their blatantly obvious Dr. Pepper promotions)

I am totally hooked on the new CBS show Harper's Island. I love a good mystery! I just hope it doesn't get cancelled early like a lot of shows have been lately.

Lost is always good, so is Grey's Anatomy (minus that whole Denny/Izzie storyline that almost made me stop watching) and 24 is getting better--Kim is back! Now if Audrey would just return...

Lobster

Here's my story about the "lobster". It's a good thing I can laugh at myself. =)

Sunday morning Lee and I were getting ready for Church. I was drying my hair in our bathroom and Bentley came in and started pawing at my legs to get my attention. Usually whenever he does this, he wants to be held. So I turned off the dryer and reached down to pick him up, but he ran from me. So I figured he must want a treat. I proceeded to follow him into the bedroom and he immediately jumped on the bed with his tongue hanging out and laid down by this lobster on my bed. A real lobster, not a toy. ON MY BED! Of course it was dead, but I freaked out! Bentley was very proud of his catch and was trying to show it off, but I'm really freaking out because I don't want him to eat it plus it's on my BED!!

So I ran into the guest bathroom where Lee was taking a shower and starting yelling to him that there is a lobster on our bed and he was gonna have to deal with it because there was no way I was touching it. He didn't believe me! I know that it sounds so absurd that there was a lobster on our bed, but I promise that there was! It took a lot of convincing to get him out of that shower and he kept saying things like it was impossible for a lobster to be on our bed in the middle of Arkansas and I could still hear the doubt in his voice. He was saying that if this is some sort of trick and it is a stuffed animal lobster or something, that he will be mad and I could tell he was upset, but there was absolutely no way that I was touching that thing.

Anyway, somehow I convince him that he has to get out of the shower to come see this lobster and get it off our bed! So I'm half running back through the living room to make sure that the dogs haven't eaten the lobster yet when Lee says, "Are you talking about that crawfish in the floor?" I turned around to look and sure enough Bentley had brought his prize posession into the living room now and I had almost stepped on it. I started screaming and jumping, it really freaked me out!! Lee was laughing and telling me how this was a crawfish, not a lobster, but it looked like a lobster to me. I don't eat seafood and I don't deal with seafood so how was I supposed to know? If it was a crawfish, it must have been the daddy of all crawfish because that sucker was huge!


So Lee threw the so called crawfish away and has been laughing at my freak out ever since, but luckily I can laugh at myself, too. It is a funny story which must be why I'm posting it on my blog. =)

new pics!

I took some new pictures of the dogs this week. The first two are Giambi and the second two are Bentley. Enjoy!

fire

I received this on my email today from my Grandma. It is very true!!

When your hut's on fire

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.

Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost.

He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out, "God! How could you do this to me?"

Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him!

"How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers.

"We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

The Moral of This Story:
It's easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of our pain and suffering. Remember that the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal that summons the Grace of God.

what a wonderful family!!

I have to brag on my family for a little while. I have been so BLESSED! Thank you to both of my wonderful brothers as well as my father-in-law for helping us move all of our new furniture last week! We definitely could not have done it by ourselves. And then later in the week, it was so nice to have Jesse, Heather, Taylor, and Dylan over for a real dinner on our brand new dining table. We had such a great time!!!

Lee and I just returned from a visit to his family in New Mexico where we had such a WONDERFUL time! Myra was a fabulous hostess and I really appreciate her putting up with us while we were there and taking us in--it's always great to see her, we miss her a lot! We had such a fun time visiting with Nannie and hearing all of her stories about the family history. The whole trip was great in itself, but the highlight was definitely our dinner with Lee's Uncle Steve and Aunt Jana! They were so much fun!!!!! I really enjoyed our visit with them!! And I love their dog Xena, she is such a character!

Speaking of dogs, I'm sending a special shout-out to my Grandma and Aunt Mary for dogsitting my babies while we were gone. Thank you so much to the both of you, I would not have had any fun if I had to worry about my dogs the whole time I was gone. It was really great to be able to have a bit of a break from my everyday routine.

New Mexico was fun, but I will admit that I was very happy to see trees again. And hills. I never realized how much I love Arkansas, but I definitely will not take it for granted again. Here's a picture of the desert. I wish that I could have taken a picture of a tumbleweed, but I was so busy enjoying my trip that I didn't spend any time behind the camera, just got this one shot with my phone. It was very nice temperature wise while we were there (and I loved the low humidity) but the winds were outrageous--60 miles per hour constantly on Saturday, no joke. The combination of the wind and dryness was causing lots of wildfires. Luckily, there was no threat in the immediate area of our family.

Buh-bye Megan Joy!

I am so relieved that Megan Joy Corkrey got voted off last night!! She has been really getting on my nerves the last few weeks. She is a beautiful girl, but I'm not crazy about her voice and I really don't like her stage presence. Plus I never like it whenever somone is disrespected and I thought she acted very immature and disrespectful on last night's show.

My favorites are still Kris (of course), Adam, and Allison. Can't wait to see what they do next week!

funny item for the day

Got this on my email recently.

Twitter

A lot of you have asked, yes I do have Twitter. I only use it for celebrity purposes, though. It is my goal to get Rob Thomas to reply back to me! (I know it will happen.) I don't use it for personal posts, that's what this blog is for. LOL.