Stressed!

That word sums up my feelings! We have a booth for the "Sweet Tater" festival this coming weekend in Crane Hill. I made a to-do list of everything I want to get done before Sunday. I might have sat down on my couch and thrown myself a slight pity party. Almost every night last week, I woke up thinking about what all I need to get done, worrying that we weren't going to have enough stuff, or that we are making all of this stuff and no one is going to buy anything. I really think that we will do well, I just can't help but wonder what is going to happen. Especially since this is our first one to do. AAAAHHHHH!!!!
I need prayers for patient and calm nerves. I really want this to do well!

Best Pictures

Kent asked me the other day if I had ever seen the movie Platoon. I had not, and he just couldn't believe that I had not even heard of it. It won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1986. We watched it the other night, and since that night, I have decided that I want to watch every movie that has ever won best picture. I made a list last night, and frankly, I was surprised to see how many I have already seen. I've seen every one since 1996, and 11 others scattered throughout the years. I just added some to my que on Netflix, and a lot of them are ones that I can even watch on my computer. How exciting! I'm giving myself a deadline of 1 year from today. Hopefully it won't take me that long, but I know some of them are going to be ones that I will not enjoy. Such as Ghandi, The Last Emperor, The Deer Hunter, Ben-Hur. Those might take a little encouragement! So, as if I didn't have enough movies on my list, I have about 50 more that I'm going to add.

On another note, Loni and I are going to participate in and arts and crafts show on Labor Day weekend in Crane Hill. So next week, I will be parked at my sewing machine. I have my list of items that we are focusing on having, so I need to stay on target. I have 2 weeks to make up a BUNCH of stuff! Wish me luck! And if you haven't seen our website or our etsy store, check them out and let me know what you think! We have so many more items that are going to be introduced to our websites within the next month, so keep checking it out!

Baby Shower

Sunday was my BFF's baby shower. Baby Addison will be arriving somewhere around Oct 8th. I've already told her she can't be a late first baby because "Aunt Mary" is leaving for Mexico on the 17th. Heather might have a conniption though if Addison was that late. :) It was a great shower and she got soooooo many clothes! I was one of the 17 hostesses, so I made sugar cookies. They definitely aren't professional, but I thought that they turned out really cute:

Baby carriages, bottles and flowers with Addison's initials. Yes, she's having a girl, but the nursery is a "Tiffany blue" so I tried to match. Addison even joined in on the gift giving and sent her daddy a gift.

Here's the cute sign in table. You can see a couple of super cute maternity pics that Heather's mom took at the beach last month.

Of course, before I left, I had to take our pic since I am a professional at taking my own picture:

Happy 90th Birthday!!!

Two weeks ago was my grandmother's 90th birthday. Yes-90!!!! We threw a party for her at her home church in Cullman and had such a great time! She has 7 brothers and sisters so there were plenty of cousins, extended family and friends who made the trip to see her.

I've never been really close to many of my extended family, but it was so nice to catch up with some of them. There were a few moments that left me a little speechless, but that's what happens when you are around so many people. Like my cousin who asked me where my baby was, and then argued with me about the fact that I don't have one. Or the time when Kent thought that we had hired a professional photographer. It was really just a cousin taking a very uncomfortable amount of pictures of everything. Hmmmm, wonder if he has a blog? Oh well.

We of course had family picture time. Kent and my brother in law were extremely interested in having so many people take so many pictures of us. My dad only has one brother, and he and his wife have one son. Therefore, I only have one first cousin. (My uncle on my mom's side is a lifetime bachelor, with no children-that he knows of. HAHA!!) So here we all are:

My cousin is on the left, 23 and single. Anyone interested? Here is mamaw with her 4 grandchildren. Aubrey was definitely NOT interested in having her picture taken at this point. She was waaaaay to busy playing with the other kids. Ashley divided us up with the married ones on the right, singles on the left.

Here's just Mamaw Ezma:Isn't she just too cute! She's had strokes in the past and there was a period last year that she had to move in with my parents and my uncle, but she is back to living by herself and doing for herself. She's not as independent as she would like, but in her words, "That's what happens when you get old as dirt."

Last pic is of me and my mom. I don't have enough of these...

Movies!

As I have blogged about numerous times before, I love movies! If you are from the Birmingham area, on Tuesday nights at the Carmike at the Summit, it's stimulus Tuesdays. The movie tickets are the same price, but you can get a small coke and popcorn for $1 each. That's a great deal! I love to go to see a chick flick with my girlfriends from church so last Tues we went to see: Julie & Julia

I love Meryl Streep! I thought that she did a great job of portraying Julia Child. The movie was a little longer than I thought that it should've been, but overall, I really liked it.

Last month we also went to see

I chose not to read the book prior to seeing the movie since I've been disappointed in the last couple of movies I've done that with. I have since read the book, and I'm happy with that decision since the ending is totally different. One of my friends had warned me that I would probably cry, so I took some tissue with me. I was made fun of since I couldn't find my small package of tissues and my purse was huge, therefore, I just stuck a box in my purse. By the end of the movie all of us were crying and Monique retracted her statement. :) Great movie, but much better book!

Anyone want to participate in stimulus Tuesdays, let me know. I love a good movie! Some I am looking forward too:

I LOVE Rachel McAdams!

Because Bradley Cooper is HOT!!!

Kherington from So You Think You Can Dance is one of the main characters and I love to watch people dance!

Madea is HILARIOUS!!!

I have always been on Team Jennifer!

Booked and ready to go!

For our anniversary this year, we had talked about just going to Gulf Shores for the week. Then I did a little research and found that I could redeem my Delta Skymiles and fly to Cancun for FREE!!! Therefore all we have to pay for is our hotel. We love the all inclusive since your food and drinks are included in your upfront price. I booked the flight 2 weeks ago and on Sunday night, I finally decided which hotel I wanted to stay at and we are booked and ready to go! We stayed in a Riu All Inclusive hotel for our honeymoon in Cabo and our 1st anniversary in Jamaica, so we stuck with that hotel chain. I picked Playa Del Carmen since it's right outside of Cancun but is a little more laid back. We are staying 6 nights, so hopefully one day we will venture out to Xcaret-an eco theme park that looks amazing! I want to see and do some of this:

I love that we can take these trips! I just feel so incredibly blessed to have married a man that has my same travel bug and loves the beach as much-if not more than I do.

So, on Oct 17th we are heading to Playa del Carmen to stay here:

And hopefully my view will look like this:

And I will be spending a lot of time lying around in one of these chairs:

I am so incredibly excited and I've already started the countdown. Less than 2 months away!

Oxford Trip

I've been a little absent due to the passing of my precious Gus. It's been harder than expected, but slowly I am getting better. Now, we can catch up on all of the weekend shenanigans...

As you know last weekend, Kent was in a wedding in Oxford. We left bright and early on Friday morning since Kent was playing golf with the groomsmen at 9am. I dropped Kent off, and had the day to myself. Thanks to Suzanne I knew to head to the Bottletree Bakery for breakfast. I had a mocha and a cup of granola in this quaint little bakery and read for about an hour. Then I headed to the square to check out some of the shops. I loved the bookstore and a little store called Peridot. Most of the other stores were a little too rich for my wallet, but it was nice to just browse for a while. I headed over to the hotel to see if I could possibly check in early, but since everybody from the wedding was checking in and none of the rooms were ready 2pm was the earliest. I found an antique store that I spent about 1.5 hours in just looking around. I wanted to buy so many things, but since I drive a compact car, nothing I wanted would've fit. I left empty handed. I spent the rest of the day just riding around looking at some wonderful architecture and giving myself a tour of the Ole Miss campus.

By the time I could check in, Kent was at the hotel. We had a late lunch at Boure of some really good cheese dip. It had andouille sausage and green chilies...YUM!!! Then it was time to get ready for the rehearsal. They got married at a gorgeous older church with a huge stained glass. The rehearsal dinner was at the Rib Cage with grilled chicken, new potatoes, green beans and lemon ice box pie.
Then we were off to Old Venice Pizza's Burgundy Room for a "Party on the Eve." I met one of the groom's cousin's and we quickly became "best friends."

We hung out the rest of the night and then again at the reception. Too bad Katie lives all the way in D.C. We got back to the hotel around 1.

Kent with the groom:

Saturday, I was awakened by the phone call about Gus, so I stayed in the bed the rest of the morning. Kent had a groomsman's breakfast at 10 and when he got back, we slept the day away. It was exactly what I needed. Kent had to be at the church for pics at 3:30, so I dropped him off and went back to the hotel to get ready.
The wedding was beautiful and the party left on a double decker bus.

The only time I've ever seen Kent in a tux. (he says the last too):

The reception was sooooo much fun! They had a live band, plenty of great food, and the cake was fabulous! Oh, by the way: LOVED my dress. Very comfortable and fit great!

Every single time I tried to get a picture of Kent and I, he would either look away or not smile. His philosophy is that you only smile 10% of your life, so why would you want a bunch of pics looking different than any other time. On my nerves!!!

I Miss Him!!!

This past weekend, we were in Oxford for a wedding that Kent was in. I took the dogs to the vet to be boarded on Thurs afternoon since we were leaving at 5 on Friday morning. On Saturday, at 8am, I received a phone call from the vet that Gus had passed away sometime during the night. No explanation, no one has any idea what happened. They were there at midnight, and everything was fine. The first person got there at 7am and found him. I am just incredibly heartbroken! I didn't have anything to do all day on Saturday after I got the call, so I just laid in the bed. I am just in shock!!! He wasn't sick, he was acting like his spunky hyper self when I dropped him off on Thursday. It's just such a hard pill to swallow that I will never see him again. Our other dog-Frankie, is pitiful. As soon as we got home yesterday, she went straight to his cage, sniffed it and jumped up on the back of the chair. She just really doesn't know what to do. They were always playing tug of war with the rope or fighting each other for one of our affections.

It just sucks and I am soooooo sad!!!! It feels a smidge better to type some of this out too. So thanks for listening to my grief...