Year In Review...

Well... after starting this year in review journey, I realized that I didn't have large amounts of pictures of anything besides the ice storm... so here are some small snippets...

In early spring, Drew told me that he was going to do a triathlon because he needed to get into shape. Obviously, I was skeptical. I wasn't skeptical because I didn't think he could do it, I was skeptical because I wasn't sure that he would want to put all the effort into it that it would require. I was wrong. He did his first triathlon in early June and then did another in September. Both of these triathlons were sprint distance but he has signed up for an Olympic distance triathlon in Nashville next summer. I should also add that his goal to get in shape resulted in losing 25 pounds, so apparently it worked!

I also learned this summer that I could garden... At least a little bit. We grew 3 regular tomato plants and 1 cherry tomato plant, as well as cucumbers and a bell pepper plant. It was so fun to eat food that we had grown, plus they tasted amazing! My tomatoes took for ever to actually ripen because of the weird weather that we had but we were lucky enough to have lots to eat and lots to give away. I also planted lots of flowers around the house.

My birthday is in July, so we of course had friends over and hung out by the pool. Miraculously, it didn't rain that day... I think it poured that night but we didn't have rain on my birthday. We are lucky to have great friends.

Well, that is all for now... We are heading over to some friends for NYE, but tomorrow I'll try to get a post put together about the biggest event of our summer, our trip to Florida!

I hope that you all have a great NYE and I'll talk to you tomorrow!

Saved from ourselves...

Well, I'm writing this message to you thinking that we might have just experienced some Divine Intervention. Our realtor (who happens to be Drew's cousin and the other half of "Treasuring the Little Things") just called and said that we can't go look at the house this afternoon because it has been leased. Now, I am sad... but I'm also relieved. Buying that house would definitely postponed things that we have planned for the next year or so (think babies...).

Anyway, half day for me today so more to come after lunch :)

I think we're visiting the funny farm...

Well, here we go again... It seems like every time we have things figured out we decide its a good time to do something crazy.

Before we got married, we decided that we needed to buy a house. Not just any house, we thought we needed a house that we could try and make some money on, so we looked for a house that needed some improvements. We found our house and thought it was perfect. Our house was 30 years old and everything inside was pretty much original. One of these days, I'll have to post pictures. You just can't imagine. I'm talking orange shag carpet, wood paneling, horrible wall paper, horrible linoleum floor, everything. I mean, it was bad. We took a month and gutted it. All of October, we worked on that house and Drew moved in on Halloween. Its been a work in progress ever since but we are close to the end of the tunnel and its great! I really don't want to know how much money we have in our house. I'd just rather not know.

Anyway, now for the present. Drew e-mailed me a house listing yesterday and said "check this out". It is a 2800 square foot house sitting on acreage (not much, but enough) with a small horse barn. It is not outrageously priced and is in a great area of the county. It is the kind of house that we could stay in for a while. It does need a little updating (from what I can see in pictures) but looks extremely livable. So anyway, we are going to look at it on Thursday.

I'm NOT getting my hopes up and truthfully it makes me nervous. We are very comfortable now and that's a lot to bite off. On the other hand, I know that we would survive. It wouldn't be fun until we sold our house but we've talked about it before and think that's very doable. Our house is in the official "starter home" category and those are always in demand here in BG. It is also very much move in ready (thanks to all our work).

So that's our deal. Stay tuned. Oh and thanks for letting me spill my guts, I really just needed to write all that down.

Christmas Eve :)

Hello Blogger Friends!

I hope that you are having a fun and festive Christmas Eve. Here in WKY, the wind is blowing and its getting colder but we're having a great day. I had to take Scooter to the vet this morning and get her a rabies shot and a distemper shot so she's not having a great day but I think its getting better for her!

I am procrastinating taking a shower for as long as possible even though Drew just called and said that he's on his way. I'll be glad to see him because its been almost a week! We don't have to be anywhere until 3 so I figure that I'm safe. At 3 we will be heading to my grandparents house for dinner with my dad's siblings and all my cousins. There are 5 of the original children and 7 grand kids (plus the addition of a few spouses/fiance's). It is always fun. The kids always eat out on the porch and the parents eat inside :)

After that we will be headed to Drew's hometown for Christmas with his family. Then we will come back to my mom & dad's house for the night. Tomorrow morning we will get up and do everything all over again. It makes for a busy time, but its fun.

I just wanted to add in here that this Christmas I feel so blessed to live the life that I live. I know that it is not always perfect but I am very fortunate for everything that I have. I hope that all of you, my blogger friends, have a fantastic Christmas and that you feel as blessed as I do!

Merry Christmas!

2009 Year in Review - February Ice Storm

2009 Year In Review:

Ok... so if you live anywhere close to where I live you probably hated the month of February. February is usually a good month (my mom's birthday, my wedding anniversary, Valentine's day, The Farm Machinery Show - my brother would include that, etc) but this year it really sucked. This year Western Kentucky got ice (BG didn't really, but WKY definitely did). That morning (not sure what day, maybe Tuesday??) I woke up and Mom called... Did we have power? YES. DID SHE? Nope... I ASKED HER WHEN SHE THOUGHT THEY'D GET IT BACK... Her response: Not for a long time... She saw the glow of transformers blowing out her bedroom window. AWESOME.

So I went to work and went on with my happy business until I discovered that my cell phone wasn't working and none of the land lines in WKY were working. We were out of contact until Thursday. (I need to add... Drew's parents live about 25 miles from mine in the next county over and we couldn't contact them either.) We were freaking out. We had decided that if we didn't hear from them by Friday we would go home and make sure that they were all ok.

We finally heard from them and Drew decided he needed to go home and take care of his mom. His dad works for Texas Gas and due to the power outage he was working crazy shifts to try and keep everything running leaving his mom to take care of herself. They were also without power and couldn't get out of their drive way (which is 1/4 mile long) and vehicles could not get down their road.

My parents decided to come to BG along with my grandmother, an aunt, uncle, and a cousin because they couldn't take showers and needed to wash clothes. They also needed to buy supplies since everything in Mad-Vegas was closed (Wal Mart, Lowes, gas stations... everything). They came on Friday and I ended up going back with them to help clean up the mess.

This is the mess in pictures...

Hanson Hill... Check out the power lines coated in ice.

If you look close, that brick house in my Mamaw & Papaw's....

More at Mamaw & Papaw's... Check out the trees that have all the branches snapped in half. All the trees STILL look like this.

Making the best of it :) Me & my brother having a huge time. We are lucky to have had four wheelers, two tractors, and a back hoe to help clean up. My papaw also has a multitude of chain saws that were used. By the end of this day, we had to stop working outside because everything started to melt and CHUNKS of ice were hitting us in the head. NOT COOL!

My pasture (the barn is on the top left). More broken trees.

This big cedar tree is right beside my house. As you can see, the ice basically ripped it to shreds. Mom always wanted to call our place "Three Cedar Farm" because there were three enormous (taller than the house) cedar trees that lined up beside it. Two of them looked like this and Dad cut them down about a month ago. It was sad.

You know its bad when FEMA comes to visit.

Well guys, that's the ice storm. Well not really, but those are some pictures. Mine and Drew's parents ended up not having power for 2 weeks. It was crazy. We have been working on refencing our whole property because of all the damage that was done by the ice. Luckily, we didn't have any real damage to our homes. There were several houses that burned down during this because of propane heaters. It was a very sad time but it was also nice because it showed what a great community we lived in. Everybody definitely had to take care of their neighbors.

Oh, one more thing: Good Morning America actually broadcasted from Madisonville during the ice storm... I told Mom and she was so sad that she couldn't see it!!!!

WOW!!!! Blog Award #2!

WOW! I'm so excited :) I have officially received blog award #2! Thank you so much to Erin at Kentucky Newlyweds for finding my blog "Glamorous"! That is very exciting. I actually think that Erin is very glamorous... She has a beautiful house and always looks very pretty and put together. Her aunt lives across the street from my parents house and I know that her whole family is very excited about Baby Tyson who should make his debut after the first of the year!

I would like to pass this Glamorous Blog Award to...

1. Life is Bananas
2. Jenna's Jargon
3. A Beautiful Mess
4. Treasuring the Little Things
5. The Life of Me
   

I hope that you all have a great night... I'm going to try and do a "Year In Review" series of posts in the next week. I think that I will start on it tonight and see if it actually makes sense!!! HAHA! Have a great evening and an awesome Tuesday!

Christmas Decorations...

Good Evening Blogger Friends,

I am writing this message to night from Western Kentucky because I'm here spending the week of Christmas with my parents. I'm very excited to say that I hoarded enough vacation days to take off this week even though I'm sad becausee my Drewby volunteered to work. I am hoping to have a restful week and do a little shopping. I am excited about shopping because I don't have to buy any gifts, I get to buy lots of stuff for me! My work wardrobe is looking a little shabby and not fitting me quite as well as it was when I bought it. I'm proud to say that my clothes are actually too big which is always positive.

My restful week doesn't get to start until after tomorrow. Tomorrow morning (barring icy roads, which I would say is possible) we are leaving at 6 to take my grandmother back to Atlanta. It is a 6 hour drive one way so we'll be spending the whole day in the car. NOT FUN. I do have some trusty reading material (Quarter Horse Journal & Dear John by Nicholas Sparks) though and I'm hoping to spend a good chunk of the morning asleep in the back seat!

Anyway, I haven't posted any pictures of my Christmas decorations so I thought that I'd do that tonight...

This is our little tree... I have a silly thing about having a Christmas tree that can be seen from the road and since our big one can't, we have this little one...

Our big Christmas tree... I say big, but we only have 8 foot ceilings so its definitely not that big :) I like it though!

Our mantle...

Our house is pretty simple. We didn't even put up any Christmas lights outside this year. We have really just been too busy. Anyway, I guess I'd better get to bed seeing as I will be car-riding in about 7 hours. YIKES.

Good night!

Happy 101

Wow! Keeping Up With The Davidsons has given me my first blogger award! I am so excited :)

Here is the scoop:

The Rules:

1. 10 things that make me happy
2. 5 bloggers that Brighten your day!

10 Things That Make Me Happy:

1. My hubby
2. My family
3. My friends
4. Scooter... I can't lie, she is my constant source of happiness!
5. The fact that the sun is shining today!
6. Food - I l-o-v-e food...
7. Ponies - really these should be at the top of the list!
8. Music - I love having the radio on. Its always on when I'm at work because the silence would make me crazy
9. Crashing on the couch infront of the fire with a blanket and DVR'ed tv.
10. Travelling

5 Bloggers That Brighten My Day:

1. http://awfulbeautifulmess.blogspot.com/ - my future sister-in-law
2. http://blakeandbritt.blogspot.com/
3. http://kentuckynewlyweds.blogspot.com/
4. http://bisforbrown.blogspot.com/
5. http://lifeonthecircletranch.blogspot.com/

Have a great day!

The last couple weeks in pictures...

Hey Guys,

The temptation to plug my camera up into my work computer has become too much to handle so I thought I'd give it a try. I believe that it will work :) We are having our work Christmas party this afternoon so I thought I'd go ahead and post them... Anyway, here's a short post of mostly pictures...

Mom's Christmas Tree

Scooter trying to behave herself while I put Mom's tree up (for the 2nd time...)

The picture that we sent out in our Christmas cards... Max, Me, Drewby, & Scoot

Our truck, before it was actually ours...

Sweeties from the bank Christmas party...

Anyway, I guess I'd better head down stairs... I hope you all have a great night!

withdrawal...

Well guys,

This no computer nonsense is getting really old. I mean, I think I'm going through withdrawal. Like I have said a million times, I have so many pictures on my camera that are just dying to be posted, but I can't do it because my stinking computer is DEAD. I am waiting for a back up disk to get here from Gateway and then maybe it can be revived. We'll hope at least!

Funny thing though, I am about to play staff photographer for a bunch of kindergartners who are coming to the bank. Every year we host the a Christmas party for a low income school here in BG. These kids are so cute. We have a staff member who plays Santa and these children are all given snacks and a small gift. Usually there are only about 45 but this year the class has doubled to almost 90. Needless to say we had to break the party up into two days. It is very fun and yet another thing that makes me very proud of where I work...

Oh well, they'll be here in just a few minutes... Hopefully, my pictures won't suck and I'll be able to post a few on the page when my computer decides to work again...

Have a great day!

Baby, Its Cold In Here...

Well guys, we have it a heat wave today... I think that the high is right around 40. What a mess! It was 14 degrees when I woke up this morning... YUCK, YUCK, YUCK!

Today is Kellen's birthday so we are having a food day at work. We all decided that we can tell we haven't had a food day lately because of all the food that got brought in. I made a hash-brown and sausage breakfast casserole this morning and there is all kinds of other stuff here too. There are multiple types of cupcakes & brownies, several dips, meatballs, and veggie/meat & cheese platters. Needless to say, none of us are hungry! It was handy though, because I was able to use my lunch break to run some errands.

Drew and I are going to have another busy weekend. I'm really starting to feel like that is the norm for us. Tonight we have his work Christmas party, tomorrow we are going to a horse sale, and then Sunday our parents are coming up to have a "pre-Christmas" dinner with us. I guess that I am moderately excited about the sale tomorrow. There is a huge breeding farm that is a couple of hours away and they are having a complete dispersal sale. The sale includes a 171 acre facility with approximately 100 stalls, lots of barn equipment, and around 100 horses.

I had thought that I might be able to buy a pony this Saturday but with the new addition of a truck payment, I believe it'll have to be pushed back a little longer. Unfortunately, there are several really nice young horses (coming 2's) that I would love to have and if they go cheap, which I'm assuming that they will, it'll be really sad for me. So, needless to say, I hope they sell high and I'll do my best to wait. I don't wait well though, so we'll see what happens.

Anyway, I'm here at work so I'd better cut this short. Hopefully I'll get my computer back soon and will be able to post some pictures and give a full account of what we've been up to lately.

Have a great day!

Ramblings...

Good Afternoon Y'all,

I still don't have a computer... Its pretty devestating. I really feel completely out of touch. I am trying to save the battery on my Ipod and that means that I can't surf the internet on it but I haven't had access to facebook or my WKU e-mail account in about 10 days! Its driving me crazy. Also, what's driving me crazy is that I have all these pictures that I would love to post but can't. :( BOO...

On a positive note, we did get Drew's truck on Saturday and we absolutely love it. It had 9 miles on it when we got it and we've now driven it everywhere! Drew is like a kid in a candy store :)
I also think that we might have his car sold which is even more fantastic, it'll be nice to have that money for the truck!

I found this picture on line and think that it is the same color as the one that we bought. It is called "Candy Red Metallic" or something like that. Drew's truck is a Lariat so it has different wheels and also has chrome on the grill, but other than that it looks pretty similar to the truck in the picture.

By the way: It got crazy cold here today and I was not very smart about it. I actually went to work with out a coat. Since I have been here the temperature has dropped about 25 degrees and the wind is blowing like crazy. I had planned to go home at lunch and pick up a jacket but ended up going to Panera with Kellen instead, so now I am coatless. Bummer.

Well, I'd better make this short because I'm still at work, but I hope that y'all have a great day! Maybe someday I'll get my computer back and be able to show you Drew's actual truck and our Christmas decorations. I'm getting a little lost without it!

Roses & Thorns

Well, I thought that I would follow in K-Law's foot-steps today and do another Roses & Thorns post...

• Roses to Drew's new truck. We are picking it up tomorrow and we are so excited. I haven't really mentioned it because I was pretty afraid that it would fall through, but its official so here we go. Drew is getting a 2010 Ford F-150 Crewcab Lariat. It is a gorgeous red color (not like fire engine, its a little deeper) and we love it. We were driving around the car lots last Saturday and found it and both fell in love. Tomorrow, it will be ours!
• Roses to Fridays. Seriously, I'm ready for the weekend.
• Roses to winning my huge bank bid. Thank you very much because I'm pretty glad we're keeping thoses millions.
• Roses to having my Christmas trees up and most of my shopping done. Now, I just need to get everything wrapped.
• Roses to my sweet hubby. Even though he drove me insane about this truck, I know it was only because he wanted what was best for us. His financial planner mind just works a little differently than mine sometimes!

• Thorns to my laptop being completely non-functional. I don't know why my hard drive decided to crash, but that is really upsetting. I'm sad that its in the hospital because I really have some pictures that I would love to post!
• Thorns to cold weather. It was 23 degrees when I got out of bed this morning. Man that is cold.

Oh wow, I just realized I don't have a lot of thorns today. I guess that is good. I guess that means that life is good :) So since life is good, I guess that I will end this now. I'm at work and need to get to lunch. I hope y'all have a great day!

broken computer...

Well, I am sad. My computer is completely messed up... In fact, it is currently at the Computer Hospital hoping for a cure for its illness... Therefore, I am computer-less (except at work, where I really shouldn't be blogging, even though I am right now!)...

Maybe, I'll be able to fill you all in on our Christmas card pictures, Thanksgiving meal, Christmas trees, and Drew's possible new truck soon but until then we'll just use that as a teaser. As you can tell, we've had a busy week!

Hope that your day is great and that I can post all my pictures soon!