Easter Weekend

I'm back this Monday for a little weekend recap. Last Monday, I was feeling really bad and nasty, so I took the day off work, and I also took the day off from blogging. Instead, I stayed home and read my book literally ALL day long. Didn't turn on the tv at all, and read for like seven hours straight. It was awesome. But this Monday, I'm feeling much better, and so I want to share some quick clips from the weekend. 

Friday night, Jeff was still on his way driving back home, so I went over to hang out with my parents. We went out for dinner, and then got some dessert on the way home. Then we just sat around for a few hours chatting and laughing and telling stories. It was fun, and a good time for me to spend with just the two of them. But I sure was excited when my husband finally got home around 9:30 that night!

Saturday was the laziest day, and it was so glorious. Jeff is now in love with Taco Bell's new breakfast, but I hadn't tried it yet, so we went out that morning in our pj's to grab some. They accidentally gave us an extra bag of food in the drive-thru line (we assume it was for the car behind us), but we didn't realize until we were back home, and then it was just too late to do anything. So instead we got to sample a couple extra items as well! And y'all, that breakfast crunch wrap was delish. Please no one tell me the calorie count on that thing though, because I do not want to know....

We then sat around watching some Netflix for a few hours, and then decided to go see a movie at the cheap theater. We saw "Monuments Men" and it was really good! I've always had a fascination with WWII and the Holocaust, but that was a whole new part of history that I had never known. It was really cool though. We then forced ourselves to make a quick grocery shopping trip, but then called it a day and that was about all! Except for dinner I made grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches on cheddar-jalapeno bread my parents brought back from a little local place on their vacation. And it was so delicious! 

And then Sunday of course was Easter! We went to church that morning at Engage Tallahassee, and then met Jeff's parents for lunch at one of our favorites - Marie Livingston's. I had a delicious steak with a baked potato, and loved every single bite of it. (And of course dripped some of the sauce on my dress with the very first bite....) Then we went to the in-laws house and hung out there for a bit. Jeff helped put together their new patio furniture, then we all had dessert out on the porch to enjoy the new stuff! 

For dinner we met my parents at Buffalo Wild Wings, and we just split one of those appetizer sampler's since neither of us was super hungry. But it was delish. Their garlic Parmesan flavor is the jam. I think I'd like to have that stuff on everything! We sat and chatted for a while after we finished eating, but eventually wrapped it up and we headed back home for some movie-rest time. We watched "12 Years A Slave" and man what an intense story/movie. Some parts were really hard to watch, but overall, it's a great movie.

I'm so thankful that the Lord died for us and ours sins, but even more importantly that he rose again on the third day! What an incredible miracle! I hope y'all had a good weekend, and fun time celebrating Easter. Happy Monday ladies :)

Prim's First Beach Trip

Another couple of days just happened that were just too good to make me want to go back to work on a Monday morning... also, I just realized how weird that sentence sounded once I typed it out, but I'm too lazy to reword it or even change to a whole new sentence, so let's just roll with it, mmmkay? :) And let's just hop right into the weekend recap, where my brain has to work as little as possible...

Friday night, Jeff's youngest brother and his wife were in town from Texas, so we went over to my in-laws house for some quick pizza, and then they treated us all to a night at the movies! We saw "Noah," and we actually really liked it. Now, please hear me say this - it is NOT 100% scriptural. There are parts of the movie that are just blatantly wrong, or not the way the story happens in the Bible, but that happens a lot when Hollywood spins their take on a Bible story. However, it was still a really good movie.

Saturday, Jeff helped one of his coworkers move into a new house. So I stayed home to do all the little wifey duties around the house - laundry, dishes, straightened up a couple rooms, went grocery shopping, played with Prim and her rope, and did a few other things. Then I got to watch a couple episodes of Parenthood on Netflix before he got home. For dinner we walked to Chili's for dinner (we live less than a block away from one), and then Jeff fell asleep on the couch around 8:30 :) I put him to bed around 9:30, and I continued watching more Parenthood!

Sunday we decided to take Primrose to the beach for the first time! We decided to try out a new beach, so we drove about two and a half hours over to Santa Rosa Beach, which is close to Destin. We did end up driving around Destin a bit, and had a late lunch there at The Shrimp Basket. Then we went back east a tiny bit to Santa Rosa Beach to enjoy the sand and sun for a while. The beach was gorgeous, but we decided we still like our usual spot at St. George Island best. It was good to explore a new place though!

The skies were blue and clear, and the water was absolutely gorgeous - but it's still freezing! I walked in the waves a tiny bit, but barely let it get up to my ankles. Mostly we just sat in our chairs enjoying the great outdoors, and laughing at Primrose. She was so funny, because she really just wanted to sit in our laps, even though we brought her little bed for her to sit on.

Well, it turns out, she HAD to sit in our laps anyways, because Walton County requires a permit to have your dog on the beach, or you get a $100 fine! Well, the Sheriff that came to talk to Jeff was feeling nice I guess, and told us that as long as we kept her in our laps, we wouldn't have to leave, or get fined. So she sat in our laps for the last hour, which she loved of course anyways :)

Everything was fine in the end, but I guess we'll have to check to make sure doggies are allowed on the beach next time we go somewhere. Oopsies! At least that Sheriff was feeling generous yesterday, right? It was kind of chilly with the wind blowing like crazy, so we finally packed up and got the car all loaded up again.

We stopped at Wendy's on the way home and fed Primrose some nuggets for dinner, since we forgot to bring some food or treats. And I'm sure she didn't mind, because she devoured those nuggets! But since we ate lunch so late, we just waited till we got back to Tally to grab some Chinese on the way home to share. And that was so yummy. We unpacked, gave Prim a bath, showered, and then crawled in bed pretty early after a long, fun day.

It was a great weekend, and I'm glad spring and summer are finally on their way here! It's not completely hot yet, and that's good for now, but I'll be so glad once it's full-blown summer and we can spend the whole day soaking up the sun and just enjoying life in Florida! I love it here :)

Sunny Love,
Halie

High Five for Friday: Week 3

It's Friday morning now, and I'm just clinging to the hope that work flies by today, because as usual, I'm ready for the weekend! (Not like there's ever a Friday that doesn't apply, but still...) This past Monday I didn't feel like writing a post, so I didn't recap my weekend. And since not too much happened this past week, today's High Five For Friday (with Lauren Elizabeth) post will be a mix of last weekend, and a little bit from this week as well...

1. Seriously you guys, my doggie is the cutest girl ever! Look at her squishy little face sleeping under the pillow :)

2. Last weekend, my Mama and I had a little day-date together, and it was such a nice day. We had lunch at one of our favorite local spots, Hopkins, and sat outside to enjoy the nice weather. Then we ran some errands, including a "grand tour" of the local Hobby Lobby. (That means we walked up and down pretty much every single aisle.) And somehow, I made it out of there spending under $20 bucks. Amazing right? I know, I know. 

3. I absolutely love making us really yummy Saturday morning breakfasts. This past weekend, I made "open-faced" ham, egg & cheese biscuits. Well, they only turned out to be open-faced because I had prepared too much eggs and ham to all fit inside the biscuit. But it was delicious!

4. Have you guys heard of The Little Free Library? I only just heard of it a couple of weeks ago, when I stumbled upon the hashtag on someone random persons Instagram. But they're so cool! It's just a little "take a book, return a book" kind of deal, but they put them in the cutest little baby book-houses! Last weekend, my Mama and I found the two here in town, and I got some great books. (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea {hardback, Reader's Digest copy!}, The Cricket in Times Square and Hansel & Gretel, A Little Golden Book.) Can't wait to see what other things I find the next time I go back! If you like books as much as I do, you should check out their national map and see if there's one in your town.

5. I watched "Frozen" twice this past week, and it was so stinking good. Once on Wednesday night at home with Jeff, and then on Thursday night with my whole family on family dinner night. When I watched it at home with Jeff, I was singing at the top of my lungs to every song, but I tried to refrain from such dramatics with the whole family, because some of them hadn't seen it yet, and I figured they might want to hear Idina and Kristen rather than me ;) It's just so stinking good!

So that wraps it up here for the past weekend/week and my high fives... This weekend we were going to go camping, but it turns out it's supposed to thunderstorm pretty much all weekend. So we're postponing the trip, and hopefully we'll go next weekend instead. If the weather isn't too nasty, I might do some garage sale rummaging in the morning with my dad. Otherwise, I'm sleeping in and being lazy on the couch all morning. And then we're crossing our fingers that it's sunny on Sunday afternoon, because we want to head down to the beach for a couple of hours! So here's hoping that happens. 

Hope y'all have had a good weekend, but that you have a great weekend! I'll be back on Monday to pick up right where we left. Peace out friends.

Sunny Love,

Halie

Partly Sunny Weekend Recap

So remember how I used to name every single blog post with a P? Well you might not, but I did...but then it got too difficult, and I re-named my blog anyways. And now that I can start it with whatever letter I want to, it still ends up starting with a P... Old habits die hard, right?

Anywho, it's nasty and rainy here today in "The Sunshine State," and rained pretty much all day yesterday as well, but I'm not going to let that affect my mood! I have already decided I'm going to have a good day anyways, despite the eleventy billion inches of rain it seems like we've gotten....This past weekend was a good one though, and in true blogger fashion, I'm gonna tell y'all all about it, of course :)

Friday after work, Jeff and I came home from work to wash up some dishes, and straighten up the house a little bit before our friends Robert and Dabney came over. Then once they got there, we all walked about a quarter of a mile down the road to check out the grand opening of the new Cascades Park, thats right by our house! It's going to be a pretty cool park, because they have an amphitheater and they're going to have concerts and stuff there pretty frequently. They also have some pretty little ponds, with big water fountains and waterfalls in them, and it's just a neat place!

The tall building in the background is the State Capitol building!

After we wandered around checking out the park for a while, we walked over to a restaurant close-by for some dinner. We had yummy food and lots of laughs and fun conversations, and just had a good time! Then we went back to our house, and had planned to play some games, but some of us (Robert & Dabs...) started falling asleep in the big comfy chair...

That's Gus, and he's her big doggie :)

Saturday morning we went over to my in-laws house to help them clean out the garage, and take stuff over to their newly rented storage unit. Well luckily for us, it's big enough that we were able to store a few of our things in it as well, since we don't have much room in our tiny little turquoise house! So that was nice of them to share some space with us :) After dropping off a huge donation load at Goodwill, we went home to gather up stuff, and then we headed down to the coast for a day at the beach!

The sun was nice and warm, but it was only about 70 degrees and very windy, so it was actually a bit chilly. We stayed for a couple of hours though, and then met up with Robert and Dabney, and a group of their friends, at a super yummy BBQ place for dinner (Hamaknocker's) on our way back to town. We then quickly went back home to change clothes and grab Primrose, and then the three of us went over to Dabney's house for some more hang out time. We attempted to all play spades, but we didn't all know what we were doing, so that didn't last too long....

Sunday morning we accidentally overslept and missed going to church (oopsies!), so instead we got busy on some chores around the house. I washed dishes, cleaned out leftovers from the fridge, started laundry and cleaned up the side deck/porch all while Jeff mowed the lawn. Together we got a lot done in just a short amount of time, and the outside of the house looks so much nicer now. Then we got cleaned up and headed out on some errands. I was craving a sandwich for lunch, so we stopped at Jimmy John's, and that proved to be a delicious choice.

The Italian Night Club, on whole grain bread, with hot peppers added. So yummy!

We went to Costco and Walmart, and then by that time it was absolutely flooding. So we decided to hold off on grocery shopping, and went home to enjoy some "movie rest" time. We watched "Big Fish", which we've both seen before, but it was a good movie for the kind of chill mood we were in, and we both enjoyed seeing it again. I then ran to the grocery store real quick, and came home to make turkey chili and cornbread for dinner. Yummy!

And then we finally got around to hanging up some pictures and stuff on our walls at home! We've been married for a little over five months, and Jeff lived in the house for a month before that, but somehow we just never got around to hanging much. Well finally I got the bug, and it was all I wanted to do! And it looks really good now :) We aren't done, and still have lots more to hang up and decorate, but what we've done so far looks great! I'll have to do a little home tour for the blog over the next few months as we get things more settled.

Today is St. Patrick's Day (like y'all needed to be told, right?), and so to impress my half-Irish hubby, I'm going to attempt to make us an Irish meal tonight for dinner! So I found this recipe for Bangers & Mash, and we're both pretty excited to see how it turns out. I also got a thing of Irish Soda Bread from Winn Dixie yesterday to go with it. So it won't be a healthy meal, and it's definitely not our usual Meatless Monday, but hopefully it will still be really yummy!

Hope y'all had a good weekend, and that you have a good St. Patrick's Day today!

Sunny Love,
Halie

P.S. - Anyone know of any weekend recap link-up's that still happen? I used to do quite a few, but now I don't know that they exist anymore. I want to link-up!

Popping In For an Update

I'm sure we're all grateful that today is Friday, right?! Yes. Just popping in real quick today for a little update on our lives and how things have been this week...

First of all, Jeff and I have both been sick all week long. Mine started last Saturday, and his started around Tuesday. And we can't seem to shake this! It's just a cold or a sinus infection (for him), but it's annoying and it's just time for it to scoot it's way out of our lives. Yet here we are, still both suffering from it's silly little symptoms. Here's to hoping this stuff moves on sooner rather than later.

Next, Jeff bought me a new phone!! My iPhone 4 was over two years old, and really start to slow down, biiiiiiig time. It was super slow and annoying, and it was always full. Like 1,000+ photos really take up that much space?! But anyways...he surprised me last week and bought me a brand new MotoX, that's all personalized and in pretty colors and stuff. It's awesome. And I'm loving it! And it does cool things like make AutoAwesome pictures in Google, like this one:

Such a a pretty, sparkly Christmas tree!!

Tomorrow morning we are going to go to the matinee priced showing of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, so tonight, we'll stay home and get cozy with a blanket and a bucket of popcorn to rewatch the first movie. And I for one and super stoked about that. (Both the Friday night at home, and the Saturday morning plans, that is...) I read "The Hobbit" over the summer, so everything is much cooler now that I know what's going on. Plus, I just always like reading a book before seeing the movie, and try to make sure that happens pretty much every time. So now I'm really looking forward to our little "double feature" movie dates tonight and tomorrow!

In case you don't follow me on Instagram (you totally should, because I post on there a lot more than on here lately, and it's usually really cute stuff...), then you don't know I've been attempting the #fmsphotoaday challenge this month. Today is Day 13, and I've missed about 3 or 4 days. But whatev's - at least I'm trying! And it's still fun anyways. Here are my top 4 favorites so far this month...

Top L: R is For.... // Top R: Green // Bottom L: Tiny // Bottom Right: Silver

And we finally got our wedding pictures back from our photographer! We looked at them last night, and there are some truly beautiful photographs. We also have a ton from a friend of Jeff's family who did a great job as well. So over the weekend, I'll spend some time sorting and organizing, and then I'll be sharing pictures all over the place! Yay!!

Oh, and in case you missed Wednesday's post, I'm in the process of renaming this here blog. Go check out that post, and leave me some feedback, mmmkay?

Well anyways, that seems like enough for the day. I have a long day of work ahead of me, and then a nice little relaxing weekend is definitely in store. And hopefully with some more rest, Jeff and I can both kick our colds in the bootay, and be better by Monday! Oh, and maybe we can get a little bit of Christmas shopping done too, because holy cow, it's in less than two weeks now. Sheesh time flies. Am I right, or am I right. Happy Friday to all of you lovelies! :)

Much Love,
Halie

Peppermint Tea & Christmas Movies

Good morning bloggy ladies :) Have a good weekend? I started getting a little bit sick half-way through my weekend, but that didn't stop me from enjoying a little bit of my two days away from work anyways...

FRIDAY
I know I made buffalo Bleu cheese turkey burgers for dinner, but other than that, I seem to have forgotten the rest of the evening. I assume it involved a Christmas movie and a bit more decorating of the house, but I'm just not too certain. My, what a short-term memory I seem to have...

SATURDAY
Woke up and made myself an egg sandwich for breakfast, and then waited on my Mama and sister to come pick me up. Then we went down the road to the fair grounds, for a big giant craft show, called Market Days. It's huge and awesome, and there are lots and lots of different vendors, from all over Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. My mom and sister both bought quite a few things. My mom got us both a cute little gingerbread house (that smells like cinnamon!), and Meg got lots of random things. I got a present for my family's Secret Santa exchange, and a Christmas ornament to celebrate mine and Jeff's first married Christmas together!

After we ate lunch there and walked around a little more, they dropped me back off at home with my bag full of goodies. Jeff and I then spent quite a few hours cleaning up around the house, and working on our second bedroom. That room has kind of been the "dump zone" as we moved both of us in over the last few months, and it was quite a disaster. However, the twins are coming here for 9 days, and that's "their" bedroom, so we need to get it cleaned up and ready for them! It's nowhere near done yet, but we got a lot done.

I had woken up feeling a little strep-throaty, so by 4 pm, I was exhausted and just needed to sit down and rest. Primrose came and cuddled up with me on the couch, and I ended up taking quite a nice little nap. While I was asleep though, Jeff ran out and picked up some Chinese food, so when I woke up it was dinner time, which was great and so yummy. We spent the rest of the night just laying on the couch, cuddling our doggie, and watching Christmas movies on Netflix. One of which, I would recommend if you're into Christmas music - "The Mistletones." It's an ABC Family movie, and it's really cute :)

Oh and then of course we watched my amazing Seminoles woop that Blue Devil bootay! National Champs here we come!!!!

SUNDAY
I woke up feeling even worse than the day before, and even though it was only 8 am, I couldn't go back to sleep. So instead I  watched another ABC Family Christmas movie :) This one was also cute, so check it out if you're into that kind of movie - "A Christmas Kiss." I got a little stir-crazy, so I did very minor cleaning around the house, and put away some clean dishes. I quickly ran to the grocery store for just a few items, and then spent the rest of the day back at home again. After a very late lunch, I threw together some soup really quickly, and let it simmer in the crock pot all afternoon for dinner. I was thankful for this super yummy recipe of mine, because it's so stinking easy to put together, it was even a cinch while not feeling so great.

This recipe actually debuted on my blog an entire year ago, so if you're interested in the recipe for Crock Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup (and you should be interested because it's delicious), then you can check out that post here.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and staying hydrated with lots of water, hot peppermint tea and some cran-apple juice. While Jeff blew off the leaves in our entire yard, I worked on some wedding recap posts and rounded up some pictures from our honeymoon in Cancun. (Those will all be coming soon, finally!) We watched "Robin Hood," Jeff fell asleep on the couch at 7:30, and then I watched the newest episode of "Once Upon A Time," while writing this very blog post. I went to sleep not much longer after that to try to get some rest and get better before beginning another work day.

So even though I was feeling kinda sick and yucky all weekend, there were still some bright spots that managed to peek their way through :) Now if I can just get rid of this icky-ness and get better, things will be all good! Happy Monday again ladies!

Much Love,
Halie

*Update* I was too sick to go to work today, so I'm at home still. I'll be going in to my doctor later, to make sure it isn't strep throat. Ugh, gross...

Pitaria Weekend Happenings

Good morning Monday, and blog, and bloggy friends. Have a good weekend? I did. Although, let's talk about how going from a four-day weekend, back to just a two-day weekend, is a little rough and I wasn't a huge fan of that. When can we work out another super long holiday weekend? Anyone with me on that?

Well anyways, despite it's seemingly short length, it was still pretty great, and it of course deserves the usual weekend recap, I mean am I right?! So let's back it up...

FRIDAY
Well, first of all (before it was officially the weekend), I spent the entire day in training with my new supervisor (who is extremely nice and I like her a lot), and started learning my new position. And it was a loooooot to learn, and we barely even scratched the surface. Still so much more to learn before I get it all down, but I'm on my way at least. I also got to spend just a few quick minutes in my new office, and I can't wait to set up and decorate in here! It's so bare right now and just begging for cutesy little things to brighten up the drab space.

Friday right after work, I went on a short 1.16-mile run for my second run of the day - go me! Then Friday night was the last night of leading games and rec at VBS for Jeff's church, so we took the kids outside and played water games. The kids loved getting soaked just as much as we loved spraying them with squirt guns and water hoses! :) Afterwards, we got cleaned up a bit and went to hang out with a couple friends for a while before finally calling it a night.

SATURDAY
Went with my parents to pick up some furniture that my mom's boss was giving away to her for free. We got a big comfy chair with an ottoman, and a huge coffee table. Mom wants to keep the chair (even though I tried to convince her to let me have it), but she said Jeff and I could have the coffee table. It's not exactly our style though, so we'll definitely want to try to DIY something for ourselves. Anyone know what we could do to get that marble out? We're thinking about maybe using some mosaic-type tile, or some Spanish-style stuff, but first, that marble stuff needs to go!

Then we had lunch and ran a few more errands around town, and eventually Jeff came and met us at Marshall's. I bought some cute new things for my office, some cards to use as shower/gift 'Thank-You's', and my Mama bought me a few office things too! Then Jeff and I just hung out at his house for a bit searching on Craigslist for random things, and found a nice comfy chair to buy, almost identical to the one my mom claimed earlier in the day, for only $30! Score. Then we went with his family to see "The Lone Ranger," and we all thought it was a pretty great movie. Definitely entertaining, and I enjoyed it.

SUNDAY
Went to church and Sunday school with my parents, and then a group of us did a pot-luck style lunch all together, and that was a great time. Mom and I then spent about an hour going over the guest list and doing a few wedding planning things, and then I went to meet Jeff for more wedding planning. We went and hung out at a local coffee shop down close to FSU's campus, Atomic Coffee, and we sat there for about two-ish hours with laptops and sketch pads and to-do list's, and I think we got a good couple of things accomplished, and at least got the ball rolling on some other things. Then we walked to the Greek restaurant that was right next door, Pitaria, and had a yummy gyro for dinner. It was probably the best one I've ever had. So yummy, and so huge and filling! I was real full from just the gyro, and brought the whole salad home for another day. Definitely going to visit there again.

After dinner, we drove around for a bit checking out a few places we found online to rent, but none of them ended up being good. They were either kinda crappy looking (not like their online picture of course), or one was in an extreeeeemeeeelyyy ghetto part of town. Like whoa. So they all got ruled out tonight. But then we went back to his house, and both pulled out our laptops to continue more wedding planning and research! And guess what, we have even more wedding planning stuff on the schedule for tomorrow, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and well...you get the picture.

So see? Pretty great weekend, if I do say so myself! Good food, time with lots of family and friends, and Jeff too of course, some shopping and lots of wedding planning. Sadly, the only thing I would have wished to add is some good ole' Florida sunshine! It only barely peeked it's head out for a couple minutes at a time, for a total of like 15 minutes the whole weekend, so it was still practically non-existent here in "The Sunshine State." Psh! Yeah right. Here's what I have to say to that though, "Rain, rain go away! We can't take another day!"

But ending on a happy-ish note - I'm back in training again today, and looking forward to learning more. And maybe I'll get a few minutes to start setting up the cute new things in my office! Tonight after work we're going to pick up that chair we found online, check out some potential groomsmen wear, and then get some save-the-dates sent out! Hooray! Hope y'all had a good weekend as well, and that of course your Monday is off to a good start also :)

Much Love,
Halie

Pleasant & Patriotic 4-Day Weekend

Well, I've been out of work and out of the blogging routine for the past four days, and it's been great. I mean seriously - super long holiday weekends are amazing, and definitely necessary for your sanity, and I enjoyed every single bit of it. What about y'all? And since I had such a long amazing weekend, there's a ton to catch up on, so today's post will once again be very picture heavy, and kinda light on the writing.

Let's back it up all the way to Thursday, for the 4th of July!

Actually first of all, let me just show off our dinner from Wednesday night that we made ourselves. Super yummy Turkey Santa Fe Stuffed Peppers. Sooo good. I'll be sharing the recipe tomorrow!

THURSDAY
I was house/dog-sitting all last week for my friend Lacey, and for some strange reason I woke up before 8 a.m. without an alarm. What is wrong with that picture? So I took the dog out and fed her, then I was quite productive for a few hours. I did some dishes, loaded and started the dishwasher, started a load of laundry, swept the house, uploaded and edited some pictures, bought new music on iTunes, made a new running playlist, and finally made my new playlist for the summer (another check from my summer bucket list!). And I did all that before 10 a.m. Impressive right?

Jeff came over around lunch time, and we made turkey taco lettuce wraps with the leftovers from our stuffed peppers the night before, then just lounged around for a bit watching National Treasure 2 on TV. We then went out and attempted to find cute matching shirts to wear, but no such luck. So we came back to the house and made our mac and cheese to take to family dinner.

My Granddaddy - the Birthday Boy!

My Mama made these super cute eagles as her surprise dessert treat!

My sister made these patriotic themed cupcakes, which were delicious.

We played a giant game of 12-person Farkle, and my Granddaddy-the-birthday-boy won!

And of course my sister and I had to take an unnecessary amount of goofy pictures, just like we always do...

The problem was however, that Florida couldn't get it's crap together to stop raining long enough to do any fireworks. Thanks a lot. So I didn't get to see any this year. What a sad 4th of July with no fireworks, right?! Oh well, Jeff and I already decided that next year, we're definitely heading back to St. George Island beach for July 4th festivities, and that will be awesome.

FRIDAY
I am honestly having a hard time remembering what we did on Friday...I know it was still raining, so I think we ran errands and stuff around town. Oh yeah - we went to Hobby Lobby and priced some silk floral stems for wedding purposes, bought a few cute glass jars, raided an awesome new thrift store of all their vintage books and a giant empty wooden picture frame, and a couple of other random things. And I got a wonderful little package in the mail from one of my friends from college. She lives in Tennessee now, and it's been a looong time since I've seen her. But she sent me the cutest little things! Later, we got Tropical Smoothie for dinner, and then went to Jeff's church to help decorate for Vacation Bible School, which is this week.

Set of fold-out, vintage Florida postcards, a wrap bracelet, hand-painted (by her!) cards, & a super sweet note.

SATURDAY
It was still raining (for about the billionth day in a row now...), so we did some more running around and found another cool new thrift store, where we scored this really cool wicker-basket-trunk-thing for only $15. The top of it is messed up, so we are going to try to figure out a way to redo it to make it look nice. We also shopped around town for what we want Jeff and his groomsmen to wear for the wedding.  The rest of the afternoon was low-key and boring, but then we went out for date night on a budget. We used coupons at Black Bean (local Cuban place Jeff hadn't ever been to before), then finally saw 'Fast 6' at the cheap theater here in town. And that movie was awesome!

We needed a pick-me-up after so much shopping. He got a Mocha, I got a Peach Green Tea Lemonade. Yum.

SUNDAY
Church and lunch with my parents, then Jeff and I spent the afternoon driving around town looking for 'For Rent' signs for our future place! We drove around for like three hours, took down about 30 addresses and numbers, and then started calling almost all of them last night. We're so excited about finding a place to live now, and hopefully the process won't be too obnoxious and difficult.

OK, so I think that about wraps everything up now, finally! Hopefully I didn't bore you all to death, and you're still interested in reading my blog again after all this... But even more than that, I hope each one of y'all had a great weekend too! I wish we could have had less rain and more sunshine, but hey, not every day can be perfect, so we just live with it and move on. And in the meantime, we just hope for sunny days and better weather in the future! The weekend was still good, despite the crazy amount of rainfall, and I had a great four days off of work.

Oooh, and one more thing - this morning I officially started using Hal Higdon's novice 5K training plan, to get ready to run my first 5K race this coming September! So follow along with me as I get ready for that! I'll be sharing my usual collages on Instagram, and logging it all with RunKeeper.

Happy Monday, y'all! And I almost forgot - here's the nails I did for my 4th of July festivities! (I did them like 2 days before I took the picture though, so that's why they're a little chipped already...)

Much love,

Halie

Perfume, Pictures & Plans (Currently I'm...)

Thursday. One more day before Friday, and then the weekend. Ahhh it's so close I can almost taste it. Right?! Anyways, I love doing these "currently" posts, and it's been quite a while since I've done one. So guess what? That's exactly what I'm going to do today. (Big surprise right? Not like that was actually hard to guess or anything.)

- Wishing: that I didn't have to work today. Jeff took today and tomorrow off to hang out with the boys, and I wish I could have done that too. But I'm OPS (hourly, not salary) so I don't get paid if I'm not working. And I need to get paid...

- Wearing: the pretty pearl necklace my sister gave me as part of my bridesmaid gift last month

- Listening: to Lady Antebellum's newest album 'Golden' on repeat allllll the time. It' so good!

- Missing: my friend, old roommate and bridesmaid, Bridget! She lives in Ohio, so it's not like I see her often, but we have a phone date scheduled for tonight, so I'm excited for that!

- Obsessing: over Gems with Friends on my iPhone. Seriously guys - I think I might actually be obsessed with this game. Get it, and then add me to play: Halez88.

- Craving: sushi again, and I just had it last night. (Not low-carb, I'm aware, but I don't care....) But that's what seems to happen with me though - once I eat it, I crave it again and again and again. Oh, but this was a new place we tried, and liked it a lot. Great prices too, especially for dinner-time sushi. Definitely will visit this place again.

- Planning: a wedding, duh! No but seriously, once the boys go home for 2 weeks, that's 2 weeks full of go-go-go wedding planning time.

- Ignoring: the huge stack of mail that I need to go through. I hate getting junk mail, and I hate having to go through it. I know there's some bills in there though too, so I guess I really do need to get on that.

- Anticipating: Going back to the pool on Saturday for some water and sunshine, and Wild Adventures on Sunday!

- Loving: that the new camera we ordered finally came in last night! We had talked about getting a new one for the honeymoon, and when we saw a great deal on Groupon, we snatched it up real fast. Can't wait to test it out later tonight!

- Reading: 'The Hobbit' and really liking it so far, although I'm only about 50 pages in. I've seen the movie a couple time already though and loved it, so I'm pretty sure I'll like the book too.

- Procrastinating: laundry. I always hate doing laundry. Hate it so much.

- Feeling: dumb because I locked my keys in my car last night, again. This is probably my worst habit - I get to where I'm going, but I'm not ready to get out quite yet. So I turn off the car, and pull the keys halfway out of the ignition. I sit for a minute or two or gather up all my stuff, and then exit the car, lock the doors, and leave the keys still hanging from the ignition. I've got to figure out a way to break that bad habit. (Luckily, I have the greatest fiance ever, and he drove over to my house with his spare before work this morning.)

- Smelling: same as last time I did this in January, my favorite perfume - Versace Bright Crystal

Well that was fun and easy, just like usual. And look at me go - I even had relevant pictures to accompany the post this time. (Granted, I took one of those at my desk this morning just for this post. I'll let you decide which one that was...But still, better than nothing.) We're taking the boys swimming again tonight, at one of their church-friends' houses, so I'm looking forward to that. All I have to do is make it through the rest of the work day first. Blah.

So what are you currently up to? Have any other fun 'ings' to add to my list? Happy Thursday friends :)