The Bachelorette

I know I'm a day late, but I didn't get around to watching The Bachelorette until last night.

The first couple episodes, I was completely bored with Emily. I must say after this episode, I have a little more hope for her. I like that she actually sees Ryan for what he is. However, why does she keep him around? I also loved the preview for next week talking about ripping a guys arms off and beating him with them. Maybe she is somewhat of a badass! 

My top 3 before this week were: Doug, Sean and Arie. After this week, I still really like Arie and Sean, but I'm not so sure about Doug. He seems to have absolutely no faults when he's talking to her, but something in his eyes tells me he's hiding something. And his talking in third person is a complete turnoff! Sean seems like a total sweetheart and they make a pretty cute couple. However, I think she will end up choosing Arie. They are just too stinking cute together!!! And I think the racing life is something that obviously appeals to her.

Some of my favorite quotes from this week were: 

Ryan - "I'm athletic and a charming guy and, you know, all of those things. God really blessed me." 

Seriously, could he be a bigger douche?!? I think I called him a douchebag every time he opened his mouth.

Emily - "I don't work out"

I must admit, I kinda wanted to slap her for this comment. I would LOVE to know how she keeps an amazing body like that without working out! If that's true, she's one of the luckiest girls on the planet. I wish I could look half as good as her.

Jef - "When I think about you, I like you"

When he doesn't think about her, does he not like her? They just seem so awkward when they're around each other. And seriously dude, you aren't in a John Hughes 80's movie, cut the hair! 

And my favorite quote of the week:

 Arie - "Doug is like The Hulk. Doug angry. Doug smash. Doug Sad"

I laughed for a good 5 minutes over this.

I absolutely loved this Pamella Roland jumpsuit Emily wore for the rose ceremony. I would also love to have a $350,000 budget for wardrobe and a personal stylist. 

Are y'all watching this season? If so, who are your picks? What have been some of your favorite things about this season so far? 

I'm a bad blogger...

Well hello there, it's been awhile! I have been avoiding the computer for almost two weeks now, but I'm back! I've missed the blog world and all my fabulous blogger friends. I've got a lot of catching up to do. 

This past weekend was a good one! Friday, our friends Dan and Katrina and their two adorable kids Kaiden and McKenna came over for a bbq and some rock band. If you've never seen an 18 month old and a 3 year old play rock band, you're missing out. 

I got this little gem in the mail from the lovely Morgan at Momma to Binks & Bubble. Thanks Morgan, it was the perfect little bit of sunshine to brighten my day! I absolutely love it!

Soaking some fruit for some yummy Sangria

Kenna

  Kaiden putting out the vibe

Saturday, I went shopping and went to lunch with my MIL. Then, I met Lacey for coffee. We have a bad habit of sitting at the coffee shop so long that we end up getting two coffees. Lacey went up to order our  second iced coffees and the cashier told her they ran out of coffee. Seriously, a coffee shop ran out of coffee?!?  Saturday night, Jorge and Lacey came over for drinks, desserts and a movie. We watched The Devil Inside, it was ridiculously stupid! 

We also watched this video about 5 times. Gotta love Jenna Marbles. "Sir Mix A Lot taught me that I can only be 36-24-36 if I'm 5'3"

Sunday, we went to the beach with Jorge and Lacey. It was a GORGEOUS day! 

It was a perfect summer weekend. I hope this summer is full of bbq's, beach days, water parks, dog walks, floating the river and so much more! I LOVE summer!!!

Blast from the Past

One of my lifelong friends posted a couple of OLD embarrassing pictures on facebook today, so I figured I might as well embarrass myself even more and share them with the wonderful land of blog. And since I'm already embarrassing myself, I figured I would throw in a few extra pictures. 

My cousin Adam and me at my grandparents house. I have no idea what we were doing, but it doesn't look like we were happy about our picture being taken. 

Me beating up on Adam. Adam and I are 8 months apart and grew up very close to each other. I used to beat up on him until he got bigger than me and my uncle told him to hit me back if I hit him. Then he would get in trouble, because I would cry because he hit me. Yep, I was a little brat! 

  Yes, this is MY dad giving me champagne on New Years Eve. 

Mom, dad and me

  My cousins and me with our grandparents

My cousins and me helping my dad blow out his candles

And here are the two lovely pictures my friend, Adrienne, posted on my facebook wall. 

  I'm in the front row, 3rd from the left. This was our Daisy Kindergarten picture. We had a local Daisy skating party where all the surrounding towns Daisy troops got together. I was skating along and somehow fell down (I was only 5 or 6, my skating skills weren't that good) and a fat kid used my arm as a speed bump. Apparently, I screamed bloody murder!! A trip to the ER, found that my arm was broken. 

I'm on the far right in the front row. Check out that rockin hair! I guess if I ever want my hair to have body, I just need a short cut with an awesome perm. 

Don't you just love looking at old pictures? I might just spend my day going through old photo albums! 

Happy Thursday!

Oh, How Pinteresting

It's Wednesday and I'm lacking inspiration, so I decided I would link up with Michelle at The Vintage Apple and show some of my pinspiration this week. 

I am in LOVE with dresses lately, so it seems like at least half of my pins have been dresses. I think I'm going to start hoarding dresses so that I have a different dress for every day of summer. 

FASHION & HAIR

Navy La Sallee Colorblock Dress found here

Collared Yellow Dress found here

Blocked Peplum Dress found here

 

Lace Jimmy Choos found here

Love this gorgeous bun

FOR THE HOME

Love these mint colored chairs

  Chevron coffee mugs

 Adorable owls

JUST FOR FUN

Yep, pretty much

  This just made me giggle. I like things that make me giggle.

 Yup! 

I love Karen. Will & Grace reruns are the best!

  Thanks for checking out my pins! Now head on over and link up! 

 

*Also, you may have noticed my blog face lift. I wish I could say that I did it all by myself, but unfortunately that's not the case. I promised I wouldn't say who made my blog so beautiful, but I still had to give her a little shout out and let her know how much she ROCKS!!! Thanks again!*

Happy Hump Day!  

One year ago today...

May 22, 2011 is a day that anyone from southwest Missouri will never forget. It doesn't matter if you still live in the area or have moved away like me, it is a day that forever changed your life. On that day, a devastating EF-5 tornado swept through Joplin, Missouri leaving over 2,000 buildings and 7,000 homes destroyed, and taking 161 lives. 

On this date last year, I logged onto facebook and saw my cousin's status "A tornado just hit our house". I immediately tried calling him, texting him, messaging him and waited and waited for a response. I called my mom (who lives about 15 miles from Joplin) and she said they were fine. I text my old roommate and she said they were fine, but Rangeline (one of the main streets) was gone. My cousin finally responded saying that he was fine and that the house barely got hit, but that Staci's (his sister) whole neighborhood was gone and that they couldn't get a hold of her. I sat here feeling helpless wondering if my cousin and her boys were ok, I finally got a call from one of my cousins saying that Staci and her boys had been found walking down the road and they were all unharmed. I found out that my old apartment was gone, a couple of my close friends houses were gone and a fellow classmate lost his life saving his wife. For the next week, our tv was on either The Weather Channel or CNN or I was on facebook watching as much footage as I could. It got so bad that Jeremy finally had to tell me that I couldn't watch either of those channels anymore. I felt so helpless. I wanted to be able to help, but didn't know what to do. I was devastated and I was 1800 miles away, I couldn't imagine how the people right in the middle of the destruction were feeling. It was all so surreal. Growing up, the tornado sirens always went off, but nothing ever happened. Now Joplin residents live in fear.

I finally got to go home for a visit end of September 2011 and couldn't believe my eyes when I actually saw all the destruction. Driving down main street and Rangeline, everything seems fine and looks perfectly normal and then all of a sudden everything is GONE! It looked like a ghost town with rubble everywhere, trees completely stripped and buildings left half standing. Much of the town was already cleaned up at this time and many businesses had already started rebuilding. My old roommate and I rode bikes through the path of the tornado and I just couldn't believe how much was gone. Half the time, you couldn't even tell where you were. Street signs were gone, stop signs and stop lights were gone, landmarks were gone. Tresh and I could barely even tell where the road was to our old apartment. All that was left of our apartment complex was the pool. My mom said that for the first time ever, she was was glad I no longer lived in that apartment. 

 Jolie, Tresh and Me at our apartment pool in 2008

 Picture Tresh took of our apartment complex a few days after the tornado

 The pool and where our apartment used to be October 2011

Rebuilding the Docks apartments May 2012

Over the last year, I have become so proud of Joplin and proud to be from the area. The community has come together like I never would have thought possible. It has forever changed the way we all feel about JoMo! My heart is filled with joy, love and hope for the future of Joplin. I have no doubts that Joplin will overcome this horrible devastation to become an even better, more beautiful place.  

This is a song written and sang by one of my classmates after the tornado. I wonder if I will ever be able to watch this video without crying. 

I love you JoMo!!! 

 

Introducing "No Name"

My in-laws got a new puppy this weekend, or I should say that my MIL got a puppy this weekend. They already have 3 miniature dachshunds, but she's been wanting another one since they had to put Rocky down in December. It's been an ongoing fight between my MIL and FIL. He didn't doesn't want 4 dogs, but she does. For the longest time, she was obsessed with finding another puppy. I mean completely obsessed! She would find one she wanted and he would say no and then she would mope around for days. For the last month, it kinda seemed like she had given up. Saturday, we went to the American Graffiti car show here and tons of people brought their dogs/puppies. Apparently, this brought back her puppy fever. A couple hours after we got back from the car show, FIL called saying that MIL was going to look at a puppy. I text her and she said that she was bringing a puppy home. We went over to see the puppy when she got home and FIL did not say one word. We walked out the door and I said to Jeremy, "Dude, he is PISSED!!!". It's been two days and he is still NOT happy about the puppy. The little guy is so stinking cute though, I don't know how someone wouldn't fall in love with his little puppy face. They haven't came up with a name yet, so I have been referring to him as Lil Buddy. 

Meet Lil Buddy

Isn't that just the sweetest face ever?! I'm already so in love with him! He has a brother that I REALLY want, but Jeremy seems to think 2 dogs and 2 cats are enough for now. Boo him!

C is for cookie, and cookie is for me

Last night around 8 PM, I told Jeremy that I wanted some cookies. He pointed out that we have about 4 different types of store bought cookies in the pantry. But... that would be the easy way to satisfy a cookie craving right? Of course I did not want to take the easy route and instead decided I should find a good chocolate chip cookie recipe and start baking. I mixed the butter, sugar and brown sugar together and went to grab the next ingredients. I looked at the recipe and thought, "Sh*t, we don't have any eggs. Why the heck would I start mixing things together before checking to make sure I had all the ingredients?!?" Lucky enough, there were 2 eggs in the fridge (the exact amount I needed). Phew, crisis averted!!! I finished mixing everything together and then put those bad boys in the oven, hoping that they tasted as yummy as the dough did. Ya... ya... ya... I know that uncooked cookie dough is not good for you, but it's just sooooo good! And I kind of figure that if I get food poisoning from eating raw cookie dough, I will just lose all the weight I put on from eating the cookies. Just kidding.... maybe. I'm not one to toot my own horn, but these cookies turned out FREAKING delicious!

Ingredients: 

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp small-medium coarse sea salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used 1 1/4 chocolate chips and one cup peanut butter chips)

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 360. Cream butter, sugar and brown sugar until it is fluffy. Add both eggs and vanilla and beat for an additional 2 minutes. Add baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour and mix until blended well. Add chocolate chips until well distributed. The cookie batter should be somewhat thick.  Drop about 2 Tbsp of cookie dough on greased cookie sheet approximately 1-2 inches apart. Bake for 12-14 minutes until the edges are golden brown. Remove from oven and leave the cookies on the cookie sheet for about two minutes. After a couple minutes, transfer cookies to a cooling rack. Allow the cookies to cool on the rack for at least 3 minutes. 

Enjoy!!! 

 

Happy Friday!!!