Cheer Camp

Monday was our niece's final evaluation and awards ceremony at her cheerleading camp in Tuscaloosa. I left as soon as I got off of work Monday morning and met my mother in law so that we could make it on time. There were so many squads competing and I later found out that one of the squads was a former national champion. Well, Hueytown got 1st in the xtreme dance, 1st in the home pom routine and 2nd in the cheer. They did so great and I am so incredibly proud! Watching them always brings back so many memories of when I cheered. I went to a very small school, so we had a much smaller squad that Lindsey's squad of 28. My first year we had 16, but every other year it was between 8-12. Cheering has evolved sooooo much over the- ahem- 9 years since I was a cheerleader. It's so funny to sit and think about the different motions, spirit hands, dances, etc. that we would've never done back then. And the uniforms!?! Much different now! I remember when I was on our JV squad, our socks were up to our knees. Could you imagine that now!?! That would be a riot! When I was in high school, we did evolve in the socks that couldn't be seen above the shoes though-thank goodness!
I loved cheer camp! It was always so much fun meeting and competing against other teams. Our squad went to camp at UNA every year except for 2. Once we went to South AL and got ran off early because a hurricane Erin was coming. The other year, we went to Montevallo and were outside in the scorching mid summer heat all week long, so UNA it was the rest of the time. We got to decorate our doors and rooms, hang signs in the gym. Such great memories! We won camp champs three times and performed at the pregame of the Citrus Bowl twice. I made all star my senior year and was offered an opportunity to go to Australia over New Years. Unfortunately, it was waaaaay too expensive and I didn't get to go, but I will remember those days forever!
I wish that I had a scanner so that I could post some old pics of us at my cheer camp, but I guess that will just have to wait...
It's really hard to believe that it will be 10 years next year that I graduated from high school! I had lunch yesterday with a dear friend that I have known since kindergarten, so we were talking about what we need to do for our 10 yr reunion. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am part of the party planning committee since I was a senior class officer. :) I just don't even know where to start! It's a good thing that we have facebook and that almost all of our 70 fellow classmates are on it so that will make getting in touch with everyone a little bit easier!

Road Construction

I realize that I live in Shelby County. With that comes along the traffic. Horrendous!!! I don't understand why it has to take the AL dept of transportation 15 forevers to finish something. They have been in the process of adding a 3rd lane to I-65 and now it is affecting my life. Tonight, on my way to work, 65 North was closed to a one lane. I sat at a dead stop for a full 7 minutes while people tried to figure out how to merge into one lane. No wrecks, thank God, but really people! Come on! Let's all learn to not just slam on the breaks when we see blue lights in front of us half a mile down the road when you are already driving 40 mph! Get a grip! I know that I am not the best driver in the state, but seriously! You are going to cause a major traffic accident if you are not paying attention! Put down your phones, quit texting and pay attention to the big fat barrels in the middle of the road!

The Beach!!

We just got back from the beach at 7pm and now I am at work. UGH!!! What a bummer! Since it was Memorial Day, Kent had today off. We normally go to North Carolina for the race, but Kent decided this year that he would rather go to the beach. Good thing too! The race was rained out yesterday, so we would've missed it anyway! We left on Thursday morning and got down to Gulf Shores in time for lunch. We met up with Kent's mom and step dad since they were down there celebrating their 3rd anniversary. We ate at Bahama Bob's-YUMMO!!! Then we went and checked into our condo. We got our place from http://www.vrbo.com/. You rent directly from the owner and we have found that it is A LOT cheaper than going through the rental companies since you don't have to pay all of their fees. I love staying in a condo since you have the full kitchen and washer/dryer! We love to cook and since we bought Lulu's cookbook in January, we have plenty of great seafood recipes! I love fresh seafood! It's the best! Anyway, we filled our stomachs all weekend long! We also went to dinner with Donna & Kenny. We thought that we were going to Bayside Grill. Kent and I had never been there, so we had no clue where we were going. We plugged it into the TomTom and Kenny had also told us how to get there. We drove back and forth, back and forth. The TomTom said, "You have reached your destination." Nothing no road or restaurant anywhere. Kenny was also turning around since he didn't see it. Kenny figured out where we were going but apparently, Bayside Grill closed in November and a new restaurant opened there: Fatback's. I must say that I really wasn't that impressed. It had a great view and our appetizer was good, but my entree left much to be desired especially for the price. Don't think that I will be going back there again. Here is the lovely couple on their anniversary:

Then we decided to have the waitor take our pic:

Really good of me-right!?! 2nd attempt:

Guess the waitor didn't know that he had his finger over the lens. Kent was shockingly enough not paying attention.

That night, one of Kent's friends joined us to stay the night. They were checking in the next day at their place so they drove down and slept on our couch bed. Then we woke up and ate breakfast at Big O's. If you've never been, you've got to have one of their homemade cinnamon rolls! Delish! Since it was raining on and off all day long, we ventured out with Kenny and Donna down Fort Morgan Rd. Kent had read about some Civil War Ship being uncovered by one of the last storms, so we had to go and see it for ourselves. We had to stop at a store and ask someone where it was though. They told us what road, but also said that it was being vandalized so the city had covered it back up. We did find it and all we could see were the edges and what looked like pipes sticking up out of the sand. Then of course, we made a stop at the house we got married at to reminise just for a moment. After that, we were off for a late lunch at Lulu's. Since it was still raining, we went to WalMart and rented a DVD at the Redbox kiosk-Role Models. Funny. Saturday, it was supposed to rain, but I snuck in a couple of hours of beach and pool time. Kent chose to take an extended nap, so I read a Nicolas Sparks book out by the pool. We had dinner at Bahama Bob's with the Sazera's and rented another movie-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button-fell asleep about 20 minutes in. OOPS! Sunday and Monday during the day were nothing but beach! I read another Nicolas Sparks book and started reading the Red Glove Series by Karen Kingsbury. It's a series of 4 short stories. Since then, I've finished the first 2. Sunday night, we went a little out of our comfort zone and tried a new restaurant-Wolf Bay. We had heard great things about it, so we decided to try it. We loved it! We sat out on the deck and watched fishing boats come in and unload their catch. Then today, we had to check out by 11am but we decided to go down by the bridge and hang out on the beach all day. We now look like lobsters, but we had a great time! We ate a the Shrimp Basket on the way out and were home around 6:30. All of our laundry was already done so we just had to unload it to it's righful place. Nice!
*ETA: We did cook breakfast every day except one. Plus, the one night that we didn't eat out, we cooked blackened mahi sandwiches with Lulu's WOW sauce-scrumptious!

High School Reunion-Kind of...

It may suprise some people to know that I still get together with quite a few of my high school friends. We always have a Christmas get together to eat and play some board games. I graduated from a very small high school with about 70 people in my class. In our home town, everyone knew everything about each other. Anyway, I had a group of about 5 girlfriends that did everything together. Of course we had our group of guy friends too, but there was always something special about our "girlfriends." Last year, Ashley decided that she was going to move to South Korea to teach English. When she called to tell me, my response was: "You realize that is not in the United States, right!?!" I was shocked! Anyway, the opportunity presented itself, and she signed a contract to do it for a year, with the option to sign on again. Well, this month, her year is up. She loves it and has decided to go on another year. Last year when she left we had a going away party for her, so when she got to come home two weeks ago, Amanda had everyone over. Of course not everyone could make it, but we did have 13 people + 3 little new additions to the group. It was so great to see everyone and get to hang out with Ashley and hear stories of her adventures! She really loves living there and teaching. She talked it up so well, I might just need to travel over there on one of my off weeks to see what all of the fuss is about!

End of the season

So, I am very upset that all of my shows are now at their season finale's. It always irritates me that most shows start the next season in the last 3 seconds of the current finale. I mean, did you see Grey's Anatomy, CSI: NY, Private Practice? Every show is acting like they are killing off all of their main characters. It's just a little aggravating when you have to wait all summer long and have CRAP for television all summer. I must admit that I am looking forward to some mindless reality shows. One of which starts tonight:

Jillian as The Bachelorette. Although, I must admit that I am not sure if I am going to be able to watch all season if she continues to say, a-GAYN. She has quite the Canadian accent and to be honest, it gets on my nerves! But I will be giving her a chance and I'm sure I will probably get hooked no matter what happens. Oh well! That's what happens when you don't have any thing else to watch until fall...

I am also looking forward to the return of the summer show, So You Think You Can Dance! Looking forward to what Mia Michaels is going to come up with this season!

I really haven't seen anything else about to come on that I am overly impressed with. I do think that I am going to be taking advantage of my Netflix and start watching Damages. I caught one episode several weeks back and it looked awesome! I am also thinking about getting Lost. I've never seen an episode, but I have heard that it's great. Anyone out there watch? Let me know, I've heard that you have to watch from the beginning.

Relay For Life

This past weekend was Relay for Life in Cullman. If you have read my blog or know me, you know that my grandmother passed away in January of breast cancer & pneumonia. She was a very active member in her home church and loved being involved in the youth's lives. She was always like a grandmother to more than just my sisters and me. Two in particular: Kallie & Brooke:

They loved Mamaw Faye as if she was their own. After mamaw passed, they felt that they just needed to do something. Two 15 yr old girls decided they were going to start a team and raise money for Relay for Life. How awesome is that!?! They named the team in memory of Mamaw Faye and in honor of Kelly-another lady in their church going through chemo. They organized the team, designed and sold shirts, held a fundraiser, and did a service to dedicate the team. I could not be more proud to know these girls and have them a part of my life! So this past Friday, all of their work came together. We had such a great time! They had a survivor's walk to start off the walk. They had a banner made with the same design as the shirts. Kelly held one side and another survivor from the church held the other. It was truly an emotional experience, watching so many survivors walking with their families. Then at 9pm, there was a luminary service. I got to that section a little late, and as I walked up someone was singing "I Will Remember You." Boy did the tears start flooding down the cheeks! Then seeing all of the luminaries in memory and in honor of. It was very touching!

It just brought to life how many people are affected by cancer. It may be someone in your family or someone that feels like family. It was a great night spent remembering and honoring all of these men and women! And of course, my niece looked absolutely adorable!

Hot-lanta!

Wednesday, Heather and I decided to have a day trip to Atlanta! She starts working not with me in clinic next week so this was her last 7 off. (That's a whole different post though.) I had never been to the World of Coca-Cola, and she had never been to the Georgia Aquarium, so we spent the day at Pemberton Place. The only negative I can say, is that there were A LOT of field trips going on. I am glad that I never thought about teaching! It was really loud!! Being able to see all of those ocean/sea creatures was really amazing! It just proves how amazing God's creation is! Some of my favorites included:

The Sea Turtle:
The jellyfish-look at those tentacles!



Of course the beluga whales-shipped to the US via UPS-"What can brown do for you?"

Couldn't you just imagine sitting at the dinner table eating some crab legs?:

Starfish are a little bit weird looking underneath all sucked up on the glass:

Of course I had to take a pic of the elephant nosed fish:

We had a great time sitting and enjoying the view of the tropical tank. There were so many different colors of fish. It was gorgeous, but of course non of my pics are worth posting since they are a blurry mess!

After the aquarium, we headed over to the World of Coca Cola. That was pretty neat to see all of the memorabilia and learn how much it is worth. It also shows the progression throughout the years. More brands being introduced, etc. Coke is definitely my favorite and to think that it all started in a pharmacy. Hmmmm...

After we walked around there for a while, I got a text message from Kent telling me that bad weather was coming. He scared me half to death. By the way he talked, I thought we were going to be trying to find the ruby slippers in order to get home. I know he was just concerned, but it was definitely a little bit of exaggeration! We didn't eat at Hard Rock, we settled for Johnny Rockets since it was right beside the parking deck. Then we were headed home, after saying a prayer for safety. The Lord provided! It only rained on us for about 15 minutes.

All of that was fun, but the best thing about it was spending some great time with my BFF. I will definitely miss Heather on the dark side (night shift), but I am so excited for her to start working no weekends or holidays, especially with a wee one on the way! Thank you Heather for always being there for me! Words could never truly express how much your friendship means to me! And don't worry! That was NOT our last day trip!!!!!!!!