Weekend in Tulsa: a few pictures!

After so much fun this weekend celebrating Katie and Barry's wedding - I'm about ready to fall asleep standing up...but I couldn't end the weekend without posting some of these WONDERFUL pictures and a few of my favorites from their wedding day and pictures of the beautiful bride!!!

Sisters at the hair salon - looking SO good!

we finally made it to the wedding venue and were ready to get going.  This was my attempt at using self portrait on my nice camera....I love these before and after views...now you see three....

...and hello...hahaha for some reason these pictures were so funny to us!

WOW - look at her.  So beautiful and happy!!

Here we go - ready to walk down the aisle and tie the knot!

Katie and her wonderful parents!

And finally the bride and groom at their first dance as husband and wife!  

Best friends :)

Ok - that's all I have for now - I uploaded TONS more pictures from the weekend but am going to try and play catch up from the last few weekends - bachelorette party, lake trip and then a better wedding recap!!!

Happy birthday Dad!!!

Yesterday was my dad's fifty eighth birthday!  For those of you who like numbers better than words....that's 58 :)  But boy oh boy, he acts like he's still 40 and you have got to love him!  I really don't know that I have met one person that knows my dad that doesn't like him.  Honestly, he is the nicest, most kind-hearted and hard-working person I have ever met in my life.  He has been such a constant source of positive energy and fun for my sister and I growing up and now is rubbing off on Jimmy too.  

And check out this guy :)  How can you not like him?? He's pretty happy because after our dinner my mom bought him a Dairy Queen ice cream cake.  And if you know my dad, he LOVES ice cream.  He even worked part time at DQ one summer.  

Other things he loves?  My sister's dog, Lani!  She is like his little baby.  And I had to get a picture of the cool star graffiti cake!!!

We all met at Texas Roadhouse on Tuesday night to celebrate my dad's 58th year of life with some delicious rolls with cinnamon butter and some delicious food.  So fun to hang out with my family and ring in another wonderful year of life for my dad!!!

Ok - so a story about my dad.  First off, my sister, mom and dad traveled to Austin, TX last week (which was why Jimmy and I stayed at their house when we were getting our floors refinished and watched all 6 dogs).  My sister was happy to share a few stories about my dad.  One was early in the morning in their hotel room.  My mom was up early to go to a meeting for the conference she was there for.  My sister had told my dad she wanted to get up early and be at the pool.  Well, there is mistake #1 because the definition of "early" to my sister and dad is VERY different.  My dad was probably up at his usual 5AM and had already eaten a few bowls of cereal downstairs.  So my sister woke up groggily to my dad walking around the hotel room.  She asks him what he was doing and he says, "How do you get this microwave to work?".  And she said "Dad, that's a safe".  Oops - apparently my dad is not too up to speed with his technology :)

Another classic that Vanessa mentioned on her comment last year on my dad's birthday post is that when my dad was growing up, he was messing around with his cousins and brothers shooting bee-bee guns and one of the bullets ricocheted off of the back of the shed and came back and hit my dad in the two front teeth and knocked them out!  He was so scared to go tell my grandpa about what happened!!  And to this day, he still has 2 fake front teeth!!

And honestly the stories can go on and on and on.....

Not only is he a great person, but he's a great and completely dedicated teacher.  He teaches middle school, which I am not sure if I would EVER have the patience and dedication to do, but he's done it for 20+ years, so it's pretty amazing.  And it's funny because lots of this teacher friends are my age!!!  But he has worked so hard over the years for the kids and for our family, including finishing his masters at KU right around the time when my sister was born.  So picture this....1988, a new baby, a three year old, you work full time as a teacher, then drive 40 minutes to attend grad school class some nights of the week and coach to make extra income other nights of the week, come home to your wife and two little kids and have school work, home work, house work, etc.  I think about my dad doing that EVERY time I think I'm too "busy" with work, grad school and everything else.  At least I don't have 2 babies at home!!  There was no Internet to take classes online and turn assignments in online - nope he had to drive there (Believe it or not)!   But regardless of that - my mom must have been going crazy too!!!  Ah - the crazy and wonderful sacrifices our parents do to make sure our lives are great.  You have to love them!!!

Dad - I hope you had a great birthday, I love you and can't wait to spend the weekend with you!!!

Come and go, here and there

After a week and a half, two suitcases and three states later, I'm back at my house - and boy does it feel so good :)  I departed my house on Friday, July 15 for work and headed to Oklahoma for the weekend right after work to celebrate Katie's bachelorette weekend - which was amazing!  Then back to KC and stayed at my parents house from Monday - Thursday house sitting for them when they were out of town and watching the 6 dogs.  Yep, 6 dogs.  It did work out nice because we weren't able to live in our house beacuase we were getting our hardwood floors refinished. 

Then that next Thursday, Jimmy and I dropped Toby off at the vet, worked a half day and then headed to Branson for the annual Carter family vacation.  It was a great weekend full of fun, family and lots of sun/heat!!  We got back on Monday mid-day and had to put all the bits and pieces of our house back together and stare at our expensive wonderful new finished hardwood floors!

In the mean time, I had a test for grad school on Wednesday and then my final group project marketing plan was due tonight at 6PM.  SO NOW - it's time to celebrate.  My summer class is over and now I have a month off before fall semester starts, only 3 days of work this week - including a fun Pi Phi dinner, time with Vanessa and my dad's birthday celebration mixed in - and then off to Tulsa to see Katie GET MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

However, the whole point of this post was to let you know the following:

a) the fact that I am so so so excited that I get to sleep in my own bed tonight with Jimmy - and the mattress is not on the floor.
b) where the heck I have been and with photo cords stuck at my house, I wasn't able to update any blogs with pictures!!
c) show you a sneak peak of the newest edition of our house - hardwood floors that now cover over 1/2 of our house (and our sweet dog Willy)

d) show to you how ridiculous my husband is with his weird tank top shirts

e) say hi and I have LOTS of pictures so share, so good thing I have time to post them here in the next few weeks!  WAHOO!

You know it's a good day when....

...you get to work and realize not only are you wearing the same pants you wore yesterday, but you're pretty sure that the little spot mid thigh of dried something is probably dried dog poop.  And you don't really care. You're happy that you put on pants and deodorant before you ran out the door.  Especially deodorant.  It's hot outside and smelly girls = bad.

It has been one of those weeks :)  Lots to blog about, zero time, looking forward to some time at the lake with the Carter family this weekend!!!

One down, about 10 to go!

All right Erica, this post is for you.  It's a little disappointing update on my building of a sectional, as I talked about in this post.  But needless to say, with everything that is going on with work, life and school - I like to think it's one step in the right direction :)  You know, trying to keep up with that "glass half full" mentality.  Trying.  Haha.

On fourth of July weekend, Jimmy and I started laying out what we think we want our lower patio to look like.  It looks like this right now...

Here is the plan that I am using from Ana White's website (which for the 14th time, check it out because the website is amazing even if you don't want to build anything at all, just super cool to look at all the plans and brag posts)....starting with the armless section.  I even bought a Kreg Jig that I was SUPER excited about and it was really fun to use.  However, I drilled the pocket holes in the family room.  Big home improvement fail - as their was wood shavings everywhere.  Oops.  That's what vacuums are for, right? :)

So while I was hard at work cutting the wood, putting it all together and learning how to use the Kreg Jig...Jimmy just sat on the couch watching me a laughing.  Real cool Jim.  

Here is the final product.  Just one little armless wonder.  And it's pretty crooked - but the first one is a good learning experience.  But just as an FYI - this one will go in the most inconspicuous place.

So here is the photo from her website on what the end product can look like.  See the armless sections?  Yep, that's what mine is supposed to look like.  Eventually I will have more of them.  Eventually.

Here is a "brag post"/picture from her website from someone who actually made it.  Pretty sweet, huh??

I have been busy finishing up my summer class and getting ready for Katie's big day...so the progress hasn't progressed from a few weekends ago, but that's ok :)  I have plenty of time to work on it!!

Oh and Vanessa, here is a plan for this planter - wouldn't it look great on your new patio???!!  I think I found you a new fun project!

Happy building :)  Next time I will document my process a little more!!!!  And give you a shot of me in my awesome glasses that I wear when I cut wood!

Visit from Iowa family!!

So I have blogged a few times about our trips to Iowa in the past few years to visit my dad's family, including my grandparents, 2 aunts, 2 uncles, and 4 cousins, check them out here and here...or lack there of a trip here.  But it's a rare occasion when we are so lucky to have them come visit Kansas City!  

A few weekends ago, my mom mentioned to me that my grandparents were feeling good and going to make a trip down to Kansas City to stay at my parents house.  My uncle and aunt, Denny and Sandy, were so wonderful to drive them down here - as it's about a 6 hour drive!!  They came in on Tuesday and stayed Tuesday and Wednesday night before heading back home on Thursday.  Well my week nights are pretty limited this summer with class on Monday and Wednesdays for 2.5 hours, so I was happy when my mom asked if they could all come over to our house for dinner on Tuesday night to see all the changes that my dad, Jimmy and I have been hard at work on.  Of course, I had a meeting that night from 5-5:30 at work that I had to be at, but they were still flexible and came over right at 6 and they met me at the door when I pulled in :)

It was so great to get to see them and walk them through our house!  My grandpa has been pretty sick, which was why they couldn't make it to our wedding, so it was AMAZING to see him up and moving around and feeling pretty good.  Here is just one of the pictures that my Grandma had us all pose for :)  True to form, they had the pictures developed before they left and my dad brought them over the next day!  My scanner is packed up right now (with pretty much the rest of our upstairs and main level) so I couldn't scan in the other cute pictures, which were some good ones - including one of my Aunt Sandy and Uncle Denny!!!

These were just ones I got off of my camera and were the only 2 I had them take (don't you love the balloons in the background from Katie's wedding shower that Saturday before?)  What a cute family and dogs - I love them!

Love my grandparents so very much and it was nice to have them in Kansas City.  I'm so thankful for all the times we have gotten to spend with them and the wonderful memories we made at their house and farm in Iowa over the years with my cousins and aunts and uncles!  We had some good times.  What's really funny is that all the fun I had at their house with my cousins (playing restaurant and other stuff) is what I see when I play with my nieces and nephews at my in-laws house.  My nieces and nephews recent thing is that we play "hair salon" and they get out a bunch on clips and bows and headbands...oh and don't forget the de-tangling spray...and do my hair.  Not sure why they always ask me, but I am probably the only sucker that is willing to go sit up there.  But it's fun to watch them interact together and play together and I figured out that's why I like hanging out with them....it reminds me of me and my cousins when I was younger and takes me back - to oh-simpler-times :)  Anyone else have those fun things you played that were pretty much imaginary (fake restaurants, hair salons, Barbies - duh, video tape fake TV shows - wait was that just Molly and I?!) with cousins, siblings, neighbors, etc??  So FUN!

And - let's get back to the point of this blog post.  It was SOOOO great to have my grandma, grandpa, Uncle and Aunt here and I hope they had a great time too!  I'm sure we'll be headed back up to Iowa soon to visit again.  In the mean time - I'll leave you with an "after" picture of one of my visits to the Carter hair salon (this was back in the winter)....

College Bed

Fourth of July weekend was great, however on Sunday...we spent the majority of the day ripping up carpet in our bedroom. On our anniversary, we ripped up the hallway to see what the hardwood floors looked like before we committed to paying a large sum of money to get them refinished and stained. So the date is scheduled - July 18 they start....and that meant we had to rip up the carpet in all the bedrooms. We were prepared to rip all of them up ourselves, but lucky for us, my wonderful father said it was too hot to do any work outside during the afternoons leading up to the weekend, so he ripped up all the carpet in the office and guest room. We just had to do one room....but the big obstacle was our furniture. It's huge, heavy and hard to move (the 3 deadly H's). Jimmy and I were able to get a good start on it - but when it came to the bed, we needed reinforcements aka a man because my muscles just aren't that big. We are having movers come to move all the furniture out on Saturday, but moving the bed once to get the carpet up was enough, so we decided to just keep the bed downstairs in the basement and just move it once. Therefore, we now have a mattress on the floor that is our bed. And nope, not a box spring and mattress - just a mattress because our bed has drawers underneath it that act as the "box spring" I guess.

So for the last week this is what we have been sleeping on. It's funny and super low, but still a comfy bed. The dogs are super confused because it's so close to the ground. I also hope none of them have been lifting their leg on the comforter that is sitting on the floor...... but I call it our college bed :) Mainly because it's about exactly what Jimmy had in his apartment when I met him - about 6 years ago!!! However, it wasn't a king and it was a little higher up due to the box spring. But still - we know how to live it up in the Carter house and have been enjoying our new found "college" life. Next week - back to the "adult bed" - boo.

Me vs. him

On the morning of fourth of July, my mother-in-law and one of my sister in law's (Hillary) went shopping early to Independence to Old Time Pottery (in love with) and my first time to Cargo Largo.  I was waiting for Sue to come pick me up and was enjoying a cup of coffee on our front porch when I saw him.  I caught him out of the corner of my eye.  He was running and he immediately stopped.  He looked up at me.  It was intense eye contact.  I was trying to telepathically tell him how much he annoyed me.  And my dogs in particular, which then of course annoyed me.

Who was "him"?

Well, it was Chippy the chipmunk.  Our ultimate yard nemesis.  He runs back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in front of the windows in the front yard.  And then he disappears.  And then he pops up again.  He's super sneaky.

(photo source, as I didn't have my camera outside....)

What he also does is DIG HOLES in my flower beds and around all my plants.  While I do think this guy is cute, he causes too much trouble for me to love him - cute or not.

So when we were in a deep stare....our conversations went like this.

Me: "Chippy, you stay away from my flower beds.  I have spent too much money on these plants and flowers for them to keep dying. "

Chippy: "Oh get over it.  You get real entertainment; my entertainment consists of digging holes in your garden that make a tunnel system that I can slide around in.  So fun when it rains.  Oh and my entertainment is harassing your dogs."

Me: "Speaking of harassing my dogs - can you just leave them alone for goodness sake??  They are stuck in the house and cannot get to you.  So stop making them bark.  It's annoying for everyone"

Chippy: "hehehehe" (a chipmunk's version of chuckling)


We start a staring contest.  I am horrible at these, but I'm also realizing at this point I'm sitting on my front porch staring down a baby chipmunk and imagining ridiculous conversations in my head.  Yep, I've lost it.  But seriously, this stupid thing forces me to keep my blinds shut and front door closed!  No light is let into my house because wherever it is, my dogs hunt him down with their eyes and bark and bark and bark.  I'm thinking my hallucinations might be due to a vitamin D deficiency.....

Then I turn my head for a brief second to get a drink of coffee and next thing I know I turn around....he's gone.  Disappeared.  Back into the tunnel system.  That damn chipmunk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    I will get him someday!!!

Anyone else have these crazy yard animals that torture your dogs and kill your plants!??  Or am I the only crazy one?!?!  We have a nutty possum too, but at least he only comes out in the dark!!!  I know my mom has her own Chippy as well....but then again we are related...and I am pretty sure crazy runs in the family...

katie's wedding shower

This is a long over due post.  But Katie's wedding activities are in FULL swing and we are getting so excited for July 30 to be here.  She's under the one month mark and it's so exciting!!!  Keri, Lauren and I hosted a shower at my house a few Saturday's ago and it was so fun!!!  It was fun to see Katie's family, friends and watch her open all of the fun kitchen presents!!  Here are some fun pictures of the shower!

We had a nice spread of brunch dishes - including 2 new fun recipes that I got to try!  Lauren also made some delicious punch with some champagne to mix in :)

It was quite the party with college friends, her mom and grandma and lots of present!!

We started off with playing a game called "how well do you know Katie's kitchen?"  It was funny to hear her answers - like how she hates leftovers oh and that she's a mustard girl.  Guess that is who she roots for at the Royal's game races!!  (PS - love Lang's face in this picture!)

College friends!  Megan, Katie and Krista

Bridesmaids with the bride!!

Me, Keri, Katie and Lauren

Best friends!!

Megan brought her sweet baby Grace as well!  In Krista's post (please read this for HILARIOUS pictures of Katie - so funny!!), she mentions that Grace was the floor cleaner because she was scooting all over the floors and boy was I glad I made Jimmy clean the hard woods because I would have been mortified to have that sweet baby come up with lots of dust on here :)  She was so adorable!  Even Lauren got to help feed her!!  Look how good Studer looks with that little girl - think that is a sign? :)

Katie with her mom, sister and grandma :)  Love those ladies!!

What I call next is....the wonderful montage of Katie's facial expressions!  Haha.  She is hilarious and was so excited to get all the wonderful presents for the kitchen and grill!!  So fun to use some of these as well when we got to her bachelorette party at her house in Oklahoma in a week or so!!!

We had so much fun, as you can tell from the pictures with all the laughter, and cannot WAIT for the bachelorette party!!!!!  WAHOO!!