My really random TN weekend {yes, I went there again!}

It's been awhile! It was a pretty busy week, and lately school work has been consuming my weekdays and therefore I have had nothing overly exciting to write about. But after tomorrow I am basically done minus my 2 finals which I'm not too terribly concerned about. They should both be relatively easy! :)

This weekend was fun, though! I went to TN again and was really busy almost the whole time but only came home with about 10 pictures to show for it. This is totally unlike us, but next weekend at Formal we will probably take about 5,000 so don't worry! :)

I went down to Tennessee with one goal: to help Brandon pick out a suit for Formal, and to get me jewelry... and for it all to match! {okay, I guess that's 3 goals}

We had originally planned on going shopping on Saturday. So Friday when I got to Jackson, I was going to meet up with all the girls for dinner. I called Kristen to let her know I was on campus... but she wasn't there, they had all gone out to eat without me! So I was a little bit stranded and a little bit starved, but then Brandon called and said he was on his way to Jackson and we were going to go out to eat! So I was no longer stranded or starved thanks to Brandon!:)

So we went to Olive Garden.... and after that we decided to go shopping to see what we could find...

The starting point was these shoes:

It's kind of hard to see them, but this is the only picture I have of them. They're red peep-toe heels {that I was practicing walking around campus in, paired with my work out pants...} so, I have a black dress and red heels and Brandon needed a coordinating suit, shirt, and tie.

Brandon trying on suits was pretty funny since he had no clue what size he was in anything and this little old lady was helping us... I am sure she thought we were pretty comical :) But we ended up finding everything in one place! Except for the dress shirt, which Brandon bought and wouldn't try on in the store, but tried it on in the parking lot and it was too big so he had to return it.

So our impromptu late Friday night shopping trip was for the most part a success!

Saturday was pretty busy. In the morning KD had a softball game {their last one - Kristen played!} so we went to that. KD won, but had to forfeit because Zetas are sore losers.. but whatever :)

After that Kristen and I went on another shopping spree in search of jewelry! I had a necklace, but needed earrings and maybe a bracelet and ring, and Kristen needed everything. Long story short, after a trip to Target and about 23,746 stores in the mall, I came out with my earrings {score!}, some workout pants and 2 workout tops {that I wasn't shopping for}, and poor Kristen got nothing.

Shopping trip = only mildly successful.

Hmmm...I forgot what we did after that, but I am pretty sure that's about when I went to Goley's apartment to scour her jewelry box in search of a ring and/or bracelet {but didn't even end up doing it}. I ate a yummy hot dog though!

Then Brandon came back in town... and we checked, his tie definitely matches my shoes & jewelry and we are going to look AWESOME! Just sayin'. Then Brandon hooked up the guitar hero and rocked out for us on easy & expert mode... I am pretty sure nothing in between.

And thennnn.... the girls went out for karaoke!

Which is ironic because none of us usually do karaoke... so we basically just sat there and watched everyone else. It was fun though!

And then of course this morning I had to get up early and leave :(

But next weekend is sure to be awesome!!!! I can't wait!!!!!!

Happy Earth Day! :)

School would be so much cooler if it didn't have homework.

1. I feel it must be noted that today is my one day off in about forever and I got up before my alarm clock!

2. I feel it must also be noted that I just got back from the gym and now the rest of my day will most likely be spent doing homework and studying. LAME.

3. BUT the good news is that I only have to fine-tune my paper {which hopefully shouldn't take too long} and make the works cited page {which will probably take longer} study for a quiz I have tomorrow, write a 1 page summary of an article {that I've yet to find, but whatever}, and then I only have 2 finals {one next week and one the next week} and a take home test until I'm DONE!!!!! I think that's it. WOOHOO! Not so bad, right?

4. The other good news is that later I'm going to Shelly's to get ideas for how to do my hair at Formal. This is going to be way more fun than all my homework.

5. And most importantly, I LOVE MAKING VIDEO BLOGS! Seriously.. if you are friends with me you'll probably end up in one of them soon. I think it's my new obsession.

Here's the latest video blog... it's what we did at Thunder on Saturday. I finished this one much quicker than last time. I guess because it was only one day of footage compared to an entire week. It may or may not be funny to anyone who wasn't there... some of the stuff is inside jokes and whatnot... sorry about that. But here it is for those of you that were there... enjoy!

THUNDER!!!

I must say... I am totally loving this whole seeing my friends every couple weeks thing. We have so much fun together and I always just feel so much better after seeing them!!!

This weekend was nice because they came here for a change.. which saved me from driving 10 hours roundtrip! :) I'm doing it the next 2 weekends though..

Anyway... they were here for Thunder, which has now become a yearly tradition. We have seriously been planning it since last year and are already planning next year! For those that don't know, Thunder is when all the crazies come out! You will see and hear anything at Thunder! There's fair food, games, and just hanging out until 9:30pm when the fireworks start! It's the biggest fireworks show in North America... and it is the kick off to the Kentucky Derby festivities!

We used to go to Kristen's house because it was one street over from the river & was a perfect Thunder house.. but her mom has since moved and we no longer have a good Thunder house. This was the first year we haven't had someone's house to hang out at, so we weren't really sure what we were going to do. I had a tentative plan - going to Kye's court yard which included food, drinks, clean restrooms, live music, and an apparently good spot to see the fireworks - but as we were driving there we ran into some old friends, ended up parking at their house for free and then just walking! We ended up at another place which also offered food, drinks, restrooms porta-potties, live music, and I am pretty sure an even better spot to watch the fireworks.... for cheaper! So it worked out great!

Rindi, me, Goley, Kelley, and Katy

Goley, me, and Britt

The Sketchy girls!

our branch of our KD family... the Lucky family!

the Lucky family... Goley, me, Rindi, Carrie, MJ, and Kristen

CHEERS!!

we took pictures in front of the bridge while waiting for the fireworks to start... and while we were down there a creepy paparazzi-like old man kept taking pictures of us too... creepy!

WOO HOO THUNDER!!!!!!!

Can't wait til next year! :)

Black dress and... accessories?

So, while I was on spring break, I bought a black dress. I'm pretty sure it's the one in the above picture...if not, it's really similar. It's from White House Black Market. I didn't want to do it but my friends convinced me. It was on sale - over $100 off - and my friend Katy told me it would be a good investment. A girl can always use a black dress... which is true. {and it's much fancier than the previous black dress I bought}.

Anyway, so I bought it. And the first event it is going to make an appearance at is Kappa Delta Formal on May 1st {unless of course I change my mind and buy another dress which I could totally see myself doing!!! ohh no...} This is great and all, but it's been so long since I've really dressed up that I'm not sure what to wear with it! We all know how I am at making decisions. So I asked the ultra-stylish Mrs. Newlywed for some advice! {seriously, she always has the cutest stuff!!} At first I was thinking red heels & accessories... but after Mrs. Newlywed's awesome finds I might be leaning towards pink! Brandon did already say he loved pink.. haha! But I don't know if I really want to put him through wearing pink, although he suggested wearing a pink shirt and a white tie....

Check out her post and let me know what you think!! Is red too "wintery"? I don't know the proper etiquette on this type of stuff anymore...

Pink or red accessories? Or a different dress altogether?!? I almost want one that's more "flowy"...

I seriously need a stylist!

Oopsie, a daisy!

Happy Easter!!!!

Hope everyone has had a great Easter! :) I've been so busy lately with traveling and school, so this weekend it's been nice to relax and spend time with my family before it all gets going again. It was also nice not to spend Easter in the emergency room like we did last year. just saying.

I love Easter! And I love spring. I can't wait until we can plant some flowers! We did plant these daisies though...

I bought this Daisy Grow Kit from the $1 section at Target. It's a tiny pot and just came with some seeds. I bought it mostly as a joke for my mom for Valentine's Day. I knew she loved flowers, but I kind of doubted if it would actually grow since it was only a dollar.. but she planted it and it did!

Anyway.. I have a quiz tomorrow and I better get to studying! I'll write more later..

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! - 1 Peter 1:3

Hope everyone has an awesome Easter, and knows it's more than a holiday filled with bunnies, baskets, and candy :)

Spring break in 7 and a half minutes.

So, I have a YouTube channel. It has 2 videos on it... one of Tobey playing in the snow from like December that I don't think I even ever posted or did anything with, and this here little "video blog" that I just made about spring break.

I've discovered that I really like making video blogs. I wish my life was interesting enough to make them all the time.

I originally started making the spring break video like a chronological story of the videos we took every day, but that quickly got boring & hard to do, so I quit. For everyone that went, I will probably end up doing that at some point for you guys but since it will probably only really be interesting to us that way, here is this little video set to music....

I loved spring break.

Spring Break in a Really Large Nutshell

Sorry this is kind of long, but it does include a week's worth of information and pictures. If you don't really care about what I did on spring break, feel free to skip over it, considering the pictures are already up on facebook :) But I wanted to write it down for myself so I could remember it anyway.

Also, we took 91 videos - seriously, I counted them - and I'm working on combining them into one long video...so one day if I ever get it done I'll post it and that will give a little bit better perspective of spring break as well...

Alright...here it goes..

Day 1 {Saturday}

• We left bright & early at about 7...got up at 6 {please notice the sunrise in the background}
  
• 8 hour car ride...12 people...3 vehicles. Our's was the coolest...6 girls rockin' the mini-van. We had a good time & entertained ourselves with dancing, girl talk, and of course, taking videos.

• we stopped in a small town in Mississippi for lunch. Of course with 12 people it's hard to agree on one place, but we only had two options: Subway and Hardees. The plan was for the drivers to order first and eat while the rest of us ordered and then we could eat on the way. Four people wanted Hardees (fast food!) and the other 8 wanted Subway... apparently Hardees had to kill some cows because the 8 of us who got Subway not only ordered, but also ATE our subs before the other 4 got back.

But anyway, the car ride was good.... didn't seem like so long with so many other people.

• We finally made it Saturday afternoon around 4 o'clock. All 12 of us stayed in a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo... but it was surprisingly not as cramped as you'd think.

• It probably helped that Kristen and I had our own room though! ha
  
• I don't really remember what all we did that night... a group went to the grocery, and they were gone for like 4 hours. I'm not even exaggerating. I guess grocery shopping for 12 people takes awhile. I also remember that pretty much everyone was passed out asleep by 10:30... we stayed up progressively later each night.... by the end we were staying up til around 5AM.

Day 2 {Sunday}

• It was a bit chilly but that wasn't going to stop us from hitting the beach! It was also super windy! But we got in some good tanning time {after we warmed up enough to take off our bathing suit covers} and some of us even got sunburned! I didn't...which was surprising because I was actually one of the ones that fell asleep on the beach.

• Later that night after dinner a few us {Laura, Kristen, Brandon, & me} were sitting around and we decided we wanted to go out for ice cream. So we did. But we didn't tell anyone where we were going... we just kind of got up and left. When they asked where we were going, Brandon said, "The rubbish chute!" After we got back, we still didn't tell anyone where we had been {and Brandon made up some story about getting stuck in the elevator on the way to the rubbish chute which some people actually believed! haha}. No one could understand why we were being so "sketchy" about where we had gone.... and so THE SKETCHY GROUP was born! We ended up doing something sketchy together every night! People only resented us for this a little bit.

• once the Sketchies returned, we decided to go swimming in the indoor pool/hot tub. Brandon said that the hot tub would help the sunburn.... Byrdie wasn't so sure.

The Sketchies in the hot tub... the first official picture of our sketchy group!

{Byrd on top, L-R: Kristen, Brandon, and me}

Day 3 {Monday}

• On the 3rd day we were brave and actually got in the water!


• It was cold, and there was a red flag...which I am pretty sure means you're not really supposed to get in the water... but we did. And it was AWESOME! {don't worry... we have awesome videos from this which will follow soon!}

• Brandon did a little skim boarding.

• and we took some underwater pictures in the pool.
  

Monday night we had a group photo shoot on the beach. I'm pretty sure we looked like the mafia...all 12 of us traipsing down to the beach in our black.

I posted the one of all 12 of us before, so I won't again.

Of course we took the obligatory shots...

all 9 of the KD girls


and the 3 guys... Brandon, A.K., and Levi. Think they enjoyed the trip with a 3 to 1 girl to guy ratio?

Brandon found a jellyfish during our photo shoot

There were so many good pictures, but I won't post them all!

• That night the Sketchies went out again! We originally went out to get ice cream again, but since we went out later this time they ended up being closed by the time we got there. {just FYI, everything in Gulf Shores/Orange Beach closes really early!!! It was only like 10:00!}


• So we were driving around looking for something to do, when all of a sudden an inflatable innertube blew out into the middle of the road, so Brandon jumped out of the truck a took it. So yes, by night #2, the sketchy group was actually being sketchy by stealing an innertube off the street!
  

Day 4 {Tuesday}

The Sketchies with our tube!!!!

Of course, we had to try it out in the waves! It was another red flag day but it was AWESOME! Seriously, these waves were like nothing I have ever seen at any beach before. Usually every time I've gone to the beach, even with the intent of body-boarding or something, the waves are hit and miss. These were awesome ALL THE TIME.

this one was taken before we really got into the water... that's my "this is pretty dang cold!" face.

• That night we went out for dinner for the first time {we cooked most nights} at LuLu's....

• After dinner Kristen & I met up with another group from Union who were staying about 10 minutes away in Gulf Shores. It was Taylor Brooke's {middle} birthday, so we went out with them for a little while....:

me, Angela, Taylor Brooke, Kristen, and Lanette

• Thennn... it was MONUMENTOUS! The Sketchy group went out together and stopped back by the other group's condo. Our group called and wanted us to make a run to the store for a few things we were running out of, but Brandon was busy playing cards and didn't want to leave. So... HE LET US DRIVE HIS TRUCK! Brandon had just gotten his truck a few weeks before, and he hadn't let anyone else drive it. He wouldn't even let his sister drive it on the way to Orange Beach even though he hadn't slept at all the night before. That was the moment that we knew the Sketchy group had officially bonded. haha

• While we were out driving Brandon's truck without him, we decided it needed a name. It's such a big, manly truck that we wanted to name it something big and manly. We were thinking Big Daddy, or as Laura suggested, Mitus. She jokingly said, "We can't name it something prissy like Trina..." but when we told Brandon the story, he ended up liking Trina! So, Brandon's truck is now named Trina.


• On the way back to our condo, with Laura still driving, Brandon decided to climb through the back window into the bed of the truck.... and then he wanted me to join him. It was fun!

• we took this picture in the elevator... and then realized after about 5 minutes that we hadn't gone anywhere because none of us had pushed the button. We are so cool.
  

Day 5 {Wednesday}

• By Wednesday it was starting to be cloudy and pretty chilly, so we didn't go down to the beach. It was Levi's last day because he had to go home early for a pharmacy school interview, so we all went out for lunch at Indigo Joe's before he left.

• After lunch we walked around the little outlet area and some people got ice cream at Coldstone.

The Sketchies at Coldstone

• On the way back from lunch, the Sketchies somehow ended up riding together... imagine that!


• Lunch & ice cream ended up taking awhile, and then I think we made another trip to the store after that {I swear I think we went to the store every day!}, so by the time we were back it was probably late afternoon.

• That evening before dinner we went down to the beach to play football.

Stephanie and I realized that we hug a lot! {above}

• We also noticed that there were jellyfish EVERYWHERE!!! We had found the one a couple nights before during our beach photo shoot, but this night they were seriously everywhere. We realized it was probably a good thing we hadn't gone to the beach or tried to get in the water that day.
  

Day 6 {Thursday}

• Thursday was a pretty relaxed day. We didn't have any plans, and it was rainy, so some of us went down to the pool for another underwater photo session. It was fun, but they must have just put a ton of chlorine in the pool because afterwards I couldn't see straight! It was so weird!

• Later that night, Karyne wanted to go out to a club, so we did. She was pretty much the only one who really wanted to go, but we found one that let you in for free as long as you were over 21. So, we decided that free entertainment was cool with us and went. There was pretty much no one there {maybe 20-30 other people? I'm bad at estimating}, but we still made it a good time!!

me & Kristen before we left


me, Kristen, Laura & Naomi {in the back} at the club

• afterwards we went to Waffle House. We got home around 2:30 or 3, and then Kristen, Brandon, and I stayed up til 5:00... it was a late night... but so much fun! haha

Day 7 {Friday}

• Friday was our designated shopping day! Which was perfect since it was rainy. First we all went out for lunch for fresh seafood, then a group of us went shopping. We went to the gift shops and the outlet mall. I bought a really cute dress, which I'll write about later!

• That night, the Sketchies of course had to go out for one last night of sketchiness, but we invited everyone to come with us. We went to Shake's first, since it was our original hang out, but they were closed, so we ended up at TCBY. Not the same, but still delicious!

• At TCBY, I fixed Brandon's hair for him. Isn't it lovely? The videos that go along with this night {and the whole trip} are so much funnier! I'll try to post them soon. Brandon also had a little photo shoot, but I'll spare you those pictures too. Check facebook if you're interested. hahaa

• When we got back from ice cream, it was time to pack up since we had to leave in the morning :( Kristen and I went to take a roommate picture in our room, but Brandon insisted on being in it. He never actually slept in our room {although he thought about it lol} but he did wake us up every morning and tell us goodnight every night. haha. So he was an honorary roomie.

Day 8 {Saturday}

• on the way home Byrd and I accidently matched outfits and we didn't even mean to!

• ....and we had the 8 hour journey home..... :(

It was such a great trip!! The weather was good for the most part {better where we were than in Panama City or Destin!} and I had so much more fun than I thought I would! I mean, I knew I would have fun, but I was a little hesitant about being in a 3 bedroom condo with that many people for a whole week. But it was relaxing, it was refreshing, it was relatively drama-free for being around 12 people for 8 days. I've never done a big spring break trip with a bunch of my friends before. And I hadn't had a spring break with Kristen since our junior year of high school {even when we were at the same college, I went on a trip to Turkey for spring break}.

It was really refreshing & encouraging for me, too, because it's just always nice to have a week away with some girl friends who are basically at the same point as you in life and totally understand what you're going through and all of your fears about the future and random insecurities. Plus it was super fun for me since it was a big group of my friends from TN that I hardly ever get to see, and it was just like I never left! I love them so much!! I have already informed them that we must make this an annual event for the rest of our lives!

Hope everyone had/has a great spring break & rest of the week!!! Happy Hump Day! ;-)