Post Office, Beach, Planning & Gifts

Today is harder for me to start off as positively as last Monday - and all because of a bad "commute" to work. What usually takes me ten minutes, took me 20 because of an accident and a million police cars. And then an idiot pulled out in front of me, making me slam on my brakes and my horn. Then he proceeds to drive about 15 in a 35. Sooo frustrating. I know I need to just brush it off an move on though, so here we go with attempting that! I did have another great weekend, and so I need to ignore the rough start to my morning, and just decide to make today a more positive Monday again, in spite of the craziness!

And I feel like writing my shenanigans in list form today to let you know that "This Weekend I......"

FRIDAY
Finally bought the new Justin Timberlake album, and listened to it allll weekend. What took me so long?!
Worked on my "Will you be my bridesmaid?" gifts right after work
Shared a giant roll of sushi with Jeff for a light dinner
Went back to AMC to re-watch "Jurassic Park" after the power had gone off halfway through on Thursday night
Completely finished up my "Will you be my bridesmaid?" gifts, and got two ready for mailing :)

Dragon Roll. May not look super appetizing, but believe me - this dragon was delicious!!

SATURDAY
Woke up, chatted with parents and sister, got dressed and packed a beach bag!
Did a quick errand at Kohl's for my sister's fancy "Will you be my Matron of Honor" gift (she got me a beautiful gold watch when she asked me to be her MOH. And I got her diamond earrings!)
Met at Jeff's house, and got all of our beach gear packed and ready to go!
Mailed two of my bridesmaid gifts at the post office
Ate a Whopper from BK for lunch (and felt so full I thought I might explode - need to stick with the Whopper JR.)
Drove to St. George Island with my fiance for the day!
Spent a nice four or so hours basking in the sun, walking in the surf, and collecting shells to use as wedding decor
Shared a couple appetizers at the Blue Parrot together, then headed back home to Tally

SUNDAY
Got my second coffee in a week, after not drinking it since the very beginning of January, and it was delish
3rd grade Sunday school, big church, then Mexican food for lunch with my fam, plus Aunt, Uncle & Cousin
Gave my sister her "Will you be my Matron of Honor" present, and she said yes, of course!
Went shopping with Megan looking for junior bridesmaid dresses for her wedding, and found none
Hung out out at Jeff's house, and did a bit of wedding planning! (We have a great idea on our cake now!)
Ran errands with Jeff to T-Mobile, Michael's, Old Navy & Publix and ate dinner at Jersey Mike's
Then we went back to his house, chatted with his mom, and did some more wedding planning
And then he made phone calls to officially asked his groomsmen to be in our wedding! (Couldn't get a hold of 1 though)

Iced coffee, with hazelnut, skim milk and Splenda. Yummy.

Officially my Matron of Honor now! (Well, she'll be a "Matron" in a little over a month!)

See? A good weekend. A great weekend really! I got to watch a movie, and go to the beach, and work on my tan, and hang with my fiance and my family, and talk about my wedding, and relax just a little bit! Hooray! But I just know this upcoming weekend is going to be even better, because we're finally getting our engagement pictures taken, for real this time! And we get to do them in St. Augustine!! :) Soo looking forward to being over there, and seeing all my friends there, and of course taking our pictures too! Can't. Stinking. Wait. (Biggest "dilemma" for the engagement pics now - how should I do my nails?! Should they be matchy-matchy navy with my navy dress? Or should I do something that will stand out, but still coordinate? I'm still thinking about turquoise jewelry, so maybe turquoise-ish nails too?! I don't know!) Anyways...I hope y'all had great weekends too!

Linking up with: Covered in Grace, Sami's Shenanigans & Synfully Delicious.

Popcorn, Friends, Shells & Sand - H54F

I, for one, am glad to see Friday arrive. This week has kind of been stressful at times, and I'm ready for a couple of days to hopefully relax. I'm hoping to go to the beach tomorrow, so I really would love for that to work out. And I want to work on a few wedding-related things as well this weekend. But other than that, we have no other plans, and that's good. Because last weekend was crazy busy! I need a bit of rest this time around... First though, let's talk about some of the great things from this past week, and link up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk for High Five for Friday!

1. My wonderful friend Nicole came and surprised me on Monday night! She actually lives 3 hours away from me, but was close to Tally for work, so her and Jeff worked out a surprise dinner! You can read all about it in my post I wrote from the other day, here.

2. The weather this week has been wonderful! (Well, except for last night when it started storming like crazy. And today's it's still pretty gray and icky...) But mostly, it's been so beautiful outside and so warm! I've loved it.

3. I wore a tank top to workout in for the first time (instead of a big, baggy t-shirt). At first I was self-conscious and felt kinda weird. But I got used to it, and it felt great! And then I wore it again the next day too 'cuz I loved it so much - don't judge me friends ;) Definitely want to get a couple more.

4. Movie theater popcorn is seriously always the yummiest. Don't even talk to me about the calorie count or how much butter or salt they put in there. I don't care. It's too delicious to care.

5. I finally got around to fixing this beach jar from our trip to Shell Point, back on March 16th! Jeff and I collect sand and shells from each new beach we go to together, and create a little memory jar like this one. (We write the beach name and date on the bottom of each one to remember.) Now this is our sixth one!

And now I'm going to reference back to point number four, for a quick story -- We went to see Jurassic Park in IMAX 3D last night, and it was going really good. Well, with about half an hour or more left, the power went out in the whole theater, and that entire end of the mall as well. They came in to tell us they didn't know when it would come back on, so they gave us all "re-admit" tickets to come back again. So tonight we're going to go back, and attempt to see the ending. But now we have to sit through almost the whole entire thing again. Which isn't too bad, it's just a long movie! But I definitely need to see the ending. I haven't watched it in yeeeeeears, so I don't remember much at all about it, but I was really into it last night! And now I absolutely need to finish it!

And now I'm off to attempt to make it through my work day. I've got a supply order to submit, and a ton of papers sitting on my desk, just waiting for me to deal with them! Ugh. No thank you to both... Hope y'all have a great Friday, and that you each enjoy your weekends!

Pinterest Tutorial - Written by Me!

Most of you've probably read by now, but my little sister is getting married in mid-May, and I'm her Maid of Honor. And as such, one of my goals was to throw her a beautiful wedding shower. And last Saturday that happened! I shared some about the shower and some pictures back on Monday, but today I want to talk about the centerpieces that my Mama and I made for it. And I am also linking up today with Stephanie at A Beautiful Mess for Saw it. Pinned it. Did it.

Megan's colors are yellow and gray, and I definitely knew I wanted to use yellow in the centerpieces somehow. I had seen a great pin on Pinterest with lemons lining a mason jar, and I loved it. We knew pretty much right away that's what we wanted to try . The problem however was there was no instructions or a tutorial anywhere on how to do it! The pin I found led to basically nowhere. And so we had to just wing it, and figure it out on our own! Well, it was a bit tricky, lemme yell ya. So I decided I was going to write my own little tutorial, and pin that to Pinterest for others!

Found HERE on Pinterest

So first of all, I want to say that I loved this idea because it's relatively inexpensive. I already had six mason jars just sitting around at home, so those were "free" for us to use for the shower. And the lemons really aren't too pricey either. We got three two-pound bags, which were about $3 a bag. Then we went to Publix to buy our fresh flowers, and got six bouquets, which were on sale, 3 for $12. (We then added one more $4 bouquet after they were all done.) So total, we spent only $37 to make six centerpieces. Obviously, if you don't need that many, it can be even way cheaper.

All you need is: mason jars, lemons, flowers and water. Easy. Oh, and a long-handled wooden spoon and some kitchen shears to trim your flower stems.

Start by slicing your lemons. I did kind of thicker-ish slices, because I figured if they were too thin and wilty-like, they wouldn't stand up as well against the jar. Also, don't slice too far to the end of it, as you want to leave the ends (or "butts" as I was calling them) to use as well. I was able to get about four slices per lemon, with leaving a good size butt from each end still.

Then begin by dropping in your first lemon slice down the inside of the jar, right up next to the glass. You can get about three of them down in there before they start falling over. Then, use one of the butts and place it flat side down on the bottom, between the standing slices. Then you can add in your fourth slice, which should form a little square and just about encircle the whole jar. Now comes the trickier part...

From here on out, you have to just kind of roll with it, and figure out the best way for you and your lemons... Begin wedging the butt pieces up against that center butt and the other slices, in order to keep the slices pressed up against the outside of the jar. I found that you could place the sliced side facing outwards, and the butt end facing the center, and it worked well and still looked nice. I used on long-handled spoon to push the lemons around and get them in place, and to help hold them steady. (It's hard to fit your hand way down in there!)

Once you think you have those bottom four firmly in place, you can begin adding the next "level" on top of them. Continue using more and more butt pieces to wedge in the center of the jar so that the jar is basically completely full of lemons. You can even leave some of the smaller lemons whole and put them in the center as well. (You will be cutting the flower stems super short, so don't worry about leaving space to fit the flowers down to the bottom of the jar.)

Once you reach the mouth of the jar, you should probably just go ahead and wedge in another butt piece, in order to keep everything good and pressed against the glass, just in case. Then you can pour in the water. Pour it almost completely up to the top of the jar! Then begin trimming your flowers. We wanted ours to be just poking out of the jar, with not much stem, so we cut them pretty short. Also, we kept the leaves and greenery to a bare minimum and ripped off some of the leaves too. Then just arrange your flowers how you like them in the jar! We used a mix of hydrangea, alstroemeria and dasies, all of which were white.

And now you should have one cute jar completely done! Continue on with however many more you want to do. You can do about two and half jars with about one bag of lemons, so keep that in mind. And the amount of flowers you need is really your preference, but we used seven small-ish bouquets from Publix for our six mason jars.

And just for convenience, here's a quicker run down of the instructions:
1. Gather jars, lemons, flowers, water, long-handled spoon, kitchen shears.
2. Slice lemons thickly, leaving ends or "butts" of lemons as well
3. Place lemons in bottom of jar, using long-handled spoon to push around and hold in place
4. Use butts of lemons to wedge between so that the slices stand up against the jar
5. Continue layering lemons up the jar, placing more butt pieces as often as needed to hold in place
6. Fill jar with water
7. Trim flower stems relatively short, and arrange in the jar
8. Enjoy your precious little centerpieces!

I hope that those instructions made sense to y'all! I tried my best at least to describe things, even without step-by-step photographs that would have probably been helpful! I had the idea to write this tutorial after I had already completed the project, so I didn't think about it in time to take additional pictures of each part of the process. Oh well. Hopefully this made sense anyways, and you guys can try this out on your own!

Another variation of this that I think would be super cute as well would be to use limes instead of lemons, and use blue and/or purple hydrangea's and whatever else, in order to mix up the color scheme! (And that matches my wedding color scheme, so maybe I'll use that idea for something for my own wedding sometime!!) My centerpieces didn't turn out absolutely perfect or anything, but they turned out great to me, and I loved them! And so did my sister, which was important! And so did all of the shower guests. :) So I'd say it was a successful Pinterest project! And now I get to move another thing to my "Already Accomplished via Pinterest" board! Yay me! 

Pulled Off the Surprise

(This was actually scheduled to post on Thursday, but then I remembered I wanted to share a tutorial about the centerpieces I made for my sister's wedding shower so that I could link up for "Saw it. Pinned it. Did it."  So tomorrow will be the tutorial for SPD. And so now I'm posting twice in one day :) Enjoy!)

Earlier this week, like way back on Monday, my fiance called me on my office phone at 4 p.m., and said he had a surprise for me for that night. Usually, we have family dinner every week on Monday nights with my whole fam (mom, dad, sister, future BIL, step-bro, me, Jeff), so he was asking if we could miss  it just this one week. Since he was being so cute and he was so excited about it, I decided that yes, we could miss it this week, and I was definitely up for a surprise!

I tried to get a hint or a clue from him, but all he would say is that "it's not going to be another ring!" :) He said that if he tried to tell me any clue, he would probably mess up and give away the surprise on accident. So I just had to wait it out! I eventually found out from him what might be an OK outfit for the night (not knowing what I was dressing for), and after I went home and changed, he came to pick me up from my house.

We ended up going to one of our favorite restaurant's, Harry's (also the restaurant from Valentine's Day/Engagement night!), and sat out on the patio because the weather was just sooo nice! It was feeling pretty perfect, and it looked gorgeous, and we had a nice little view of part of downtown. (That big white building is the Capitol building of Florida!)

Well neither of us could decided what we wanted to eat, and then he had to leave to go use the restroom, and then we still couldn't decide on our meals, and then he ordered an appetizer instead, and then I was just like, "OK dude - we need to make some food decisions." So we did, but our waitress wouldn't come over. So I'm just sitting there looking around, and this girl walks up, and I'm like, "That girl looks a little bit like Nicole. Wait. That girl looks a LOT bit like Nicole!!"

So of course I jump up and speed-walk over to her, and just hug her immediately. And now I'm going to copy her post about this, because I like the way she quoted us... :) Thanks Nicole!

Halie: "What are you doing here?!?! YOU'RE my surprise?!"
Nicole: "I wanted to come visit you!"
Halie: "This is so fun!!"

So she joins us at our lovely little table, and I ask a hundred questions trying to figure out how they worked this out. Nicole lives in Pensacola which is about 3 hours from me, but was working in a tiny town for a few days that's only about 45 minutes away from Tally. She got off work earlier than expected, and so she text Jeff early afternoon in order to work everything out. When he had "gone to the restroom" earlier, he was actually calling her to tell her what table we were at. He had also grabbed an extra silverware bundle and stuffed it in his pocket! Silly boy :) And all the stalling with the menu and all that was just to wait for her to get here, so we could all order at the same time. So clever of him. ;)

We finally all ordered, and we all had delicious meals. This is seriously one of our favorite places to eat in town (for a bit of a "fancier" meal out), and I'm glad we went there that night! We all tried each other's meals, and I of course liked Jeff's pasta the best. Duh. I'd had the pasta before and wanted to try something new, so I went with baked shrimp with crab meat on top, with the fried grit cake. It was definitely super yummy, but I think next time, I'm going with what I know best and get the pasta again! We ended up staying there for about two hours talking and eating and laughing and having so much fun, and we even watched the sunset over the balcony. As Nicole said, it was so romantic ;)

Then afterwards, Nicole "convinced" us that we needed to visit Starbucks, and so we did. (Although really it didn't take any convincing at all. We were so on board with that idea.) She had been craving some petite vanilla scones, so of course we had to try some out too! And they were delish little fellas. I drank coffee for the first time since my Daniel Fast in January, and it was sooo good. Of course I got decaf though, or else I would have been awake 'til about 3 a.m. Then we just sat around Starbucks for over an hour or so talking and laughing some more!

It was such a great time catching up with her, since I hadn't seen her since November, and we had so much fun together. It was definitely an awesome surprise to have her show up here in my town, at one of my favorite restaurants, and I'm so glad she did! She's definitely one of my bestest friends, and I'm so glad she was able to work it out with Jeff, and that they both Pulled Off the Surprise!!

Purchasing A New Gym Bag!!

Hello friends and readers and loves and family and weigh-in-linkers and whoever-else-might-have-stumbled-here-today peoples! It's Wednesday. How have y'all's weeks been going so far? Has the extra positivity from Monday helped shape a better week for you? I think it did for me! I will definitely be trying that out again next week, and greeting Monday with a positive outlook, in order to create a better day for myself. Anyways  since it's Wednesday, today of course I'll weigh-in with Alex & Erin, and talk all about my weight loss journey!

Initial Starting Weight = 227

January Starting Weight = 217

Last Week, April 3 = 192

Today, April 10 = 190

And that means two pounds gone in the last week! And of course I'm so grateful for that! Because as I reported last week, I was still big-time slacking in the workout department since last Wednesday. Jeff's twins were still here through Saturday, and I just didn't do anything the whole time they were here. And I was completely OK with that. I did try to still eat as good as possible, while still enjoying the fun things we were doing with them. (Popcorn at the movies, some extra chips at our weekly "Taco Tuesday", some Reese's eggs left over from Easter...) But for the most part, I ate pretty healthy, and managed to lose even with minimal exercise.

Monday I got back in my routine and walked 3 miles with my Aunt Suzanne during our lunch break (burned 420 calories), and it is definitely getting hot here in Florida people. Then last night, my regular routine definitely kicked back into gear with a 1-mile run and 60 minutes of Zumba (burned 857 total calories). Today at lunch I'm trying out something new with my aunt, and doing an ab class at the building across the street from our office. Should be interesting! And of course tonight after work I'll be doing something, I just haven't decided what yet. Should I run two miles? Or just run one and do the 30 Day Shred as well? Don't know yet...

A few things: these compression pants made my legs look awesome; couldn't find my hair tie yet; & this was last night.

And, that's about all I've got for you today, since I haven't really been up to too much, workout-wise. Hopefully next week I'll be back again with another loss, and back to my regular workout schedule/routine! Looking forward to jumping back on this bandwagon. The 180's are sooooo close, it's almost painful. And I'm soooo ready for that! I literally can't remember that last time I saw something like that on the scale, so I'm more than ready to get there again. 

Also, I had set a goal for myself, that once I reached 190, I would buy myself a proper gym bag instead of the reusable Publix grocery bag I've been rockin' for the past four months. Well now I'd say it's definitely time for Purchasing A New Gym Bag! Hopefully this weekend I can grab one. Hooray for reaching short-term goals!!

And then I think my next goal will be to buy myself two new workout tank tops once I reach 185. It's already in the 80's here daily, so before we know it, it'll be in the upper 90's consistently. And I need some cooler clothes to workout in. And my t-shirts are all getting so big and baggy now anyways. Maybe I'll do that fancy thing I've seen on Pinterest where you turn an old t-shirt into a tank top - y'all know what I'm talking about? Guess I need to actually go find that pin again so I can see how to do it! And then with another 5 pound loss, I'll buy myself some workout tank tops!

Pantene, Pandora & Pinterest - First Things First

Happy Tuesday lovies! Today is of course one of my favorite blogging days, because it's my weekly First Things First link-up! And today as usual we have some great new co-hosts for the week as well! Today's co-hosts are Rachel at Postcards from Rachel and Tasha at A Lott to Love. Rachel is one of my good blog-friends, and I feel like we bonded over our love for books and reading. (Hopefully she feels the same ;) Haha) And Tasha is a relatively new blogger, but she's really starting to get the hang of it, and she's a pretty cool chick too :)

And today's (slightly random) first topics are:

First Pinterest project or recipe you attempted (failure or success!)

First random song that pops up on your iTunes or Pandora

First product you use in the shower

First Pinterest project or recipe I attempted

Well, technically the first thing I accomplished via Pinterest was purchasing a ring on Etsy, that I first pinned and then loved enough to buy. It was perfect, and I wore it every day for about a year and a half until I recently replaced it with my beautiful engagement ring!! But the first thing I actually did from Pinterest was make some amazingly delicious Dulce de Leche filled Banana cupcakes with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting for my friend Sara's birthday! I let her look through my cupcake board (I love making completely homemade cupcakes!), and pick which ones sounded the best, and then I made them as part of her 25th birthday present! (Actually, since then I've done a lot of other stuff from Pinterest. In fact, I have a board dedicated to stuff that I've Already Accomplished via Pinterest, that pins get moved to once I've tried them!) Below is the process of making those cupcakes, for my first attempt from Pinterest!

The whole process of the fancy cupcakes! Maybe I should make a recipe post sometime soon!?!

First random song that pops up on my iTunes

"To Whom it May Concern" by the Civil Wars. This was the song that was playing on my iTunes, when I first opened it up just now! And that's not surprising to me, because I absolutely love them, and listen to them quite often. And it makes me so sad they they're kind of broken up right now. (No one will really say what's going on...) They were even supposed to come here to do a concert here in Tally, and I even wrote a post about it I was so excited! But then they cancelled, and that stunk big time. I hope they can get themselves put back together, because I want more music from them!!

First product I use in the shower

That would be my Pantene Pro-V shampoo, for curly hair! My hair isn't technically "curly," it's probably considered more "wavey," but this shampoo gives it a little extra pizzazz in the curl department! And of course it smells delicious and takes great care of my locks. :) And not that this was a part of the question, but I'm going to share my routine, because I'm a bit OCD about it, and it basically never varies. Put shampoo in, wash my face, rinse my face off, rinse shampoo out. Put conditioner in, wash my body, rinse my body, rinse the conditioner out. Shaving my legs is always last, but definitely not an everyday occurrence. In the summer, it might be every other day, but in the winter, it's more like once or twice a week... I just hate doing it guys. Don't judge me.

If you'd like to join in on this fun link up, check out the super simple 'rules' below, and get to writing! Can't wait to see all the new link ups this week, meet new friends, and read y'all's posts!

1. Write your own post about this week's topics

2. Please follow me, as well as this week's co-hosts, Rachel & Tasha.

3. Put the new button on your post or somewhere on your blog

4. Link up with us! (Link will appear on all three blogs.)

5. Visit some of the other links, and share the love with them on their posts!

6. Spread the word on Twitter and/or Facebook

Tweet

And if you'd like to prepare and get ready for next week's First Things First link up, start by checking out next week's awesome co-hosts, Emily at Be Blessed, Y'all and Breanna at Counting Blessings.
1. First movie you went to see without your parents
2. First sport you played (either little league style or otherwise)
3. First major injury

Positivity on a Monday

Good morning and Happy Monday my loves! One of my friends on Facebook today posed an interesting theory, and I'm going to try it out. She said, what if we were as excited about Monday as we are Friday, would we have a better day today? If we have a positive attitude, maybe the whole day will be more positive! So I'm going to give that a try and we'll see how it goes! :) I mean, I did after all have a pretty great weekend, so I should at least be thankful for that, right?!

Friday I was off at noon, and I spent a couple of hours hanging out with Jeff and the boys at Target, and then his house, before they had to leave to head back home. They were so sweet and loving with me before they left, and it was definitely sad to see them go. But we had a great week together, and had lots of fun, and we'll definitely be looking forward to their longer visits during the summer! After they left, I did some much-needed bra shopping, and lucked out with three new ones, after trying on what seemed like a billion.

After that, I picked up my Mama and we did a bit of shopping, then we met my fam for dinner at Beef O'Brady's. Then we all went to my mom's office, to use their big conference room and table for a giant invitation-stuffing-party for my sister's wedding invitations. It was a loooong night, but we did end up getting it almost completely finished. She just has about 20-30 more to do, once she gets their correct addresses. But at least we had fun all together!

Saturday morning my Mama and I started our day early, and ran around town doing all sorts of errands. Once we were finally done, we came home, and started making the centerpieces for my sister's wedding shower! We had seen them on Pinterest, and we wanted to recreate them, but there was no tutorial or instructions or anything, anywhere, so it was kind of tricky trying to figure it out. But eventually we got it, and I think they turned out great! Not perfect of course, but I still loved them. (And later this week I'll be writing my own tutorial for my blog, and pinning that!) We all got dressed and ready, and headed down to the Florida State campus, because her shower was at the University Center Club. (Which is the fancy part of the FSU football stadium.)

We did our little bit of set-up real quick, and then before we knew it, guests were arriving! We ended up with a great turnout of people, and the shower itself was beautiful. She also got a ton of really awesome gifts, of course! (I can't wait for my turn for showers!!) I was very pleased with everything, and was soo glad I chose to do it there, and have them make the food, rather than deal with the stress and headache of that myself! And I know my sister loved getting to have the shower at "her school," as she always refers to it! (She's graduating from FSU just two weeks before her wedding!)

My beautiful "little" sister, the Bride, and myself, the Maid of Honor!

The hostesses (myself and my Grandmother) with the Bride

L to R: Megan, me, Meagan & Lauren. Friends of both of ours from high school & cheerleading days!

Amanda (long-time family friend), Megan, me.

The ladies in our family. L to R: Me, Grandmother, Megan, Mama, Aunt Suzanne.

Three generations. L to R: Grandmother, Megan, Mama, me.

After the shower, we again loaded everything up, and took it directly to their new house to unpack everything directly where it belongs. After hanging out a bit there, Mama and I left to grab some Chick-fil-A for us and my dad, then we headed home. I later went over to Jeff's house, and we watched the new "Red Dawn" remake, which was really good!

Sunday morning I went to church with my parents, then my mom, sister and I went to Moe's for lunch. And then we went wedding dress shopping for the first time for me!! I tried on about seven or eight or so, but don't think I found "The One." I did actually find a really great option, but I think I can find something better somewhere. So I'll continue to search around and go to a couple other stores, and see what I can find out there! But I am still keeping that one in mind from yesterday. (And even though I do have pictures from yesterday, I can't share them because Jeff reads my blog all the time!) It was just so much fun finally getting to try on that very first wedding dress!! And now I'm so excited to do some real planning and making some more decisions. Bring on the wedding planning!

After a bit more shopping with them, I headed to Jeff's house. We eventually went over to our friend Lacey's house for a cookout and some hangout time! We had a great time sitting in the back yard, watching some of the kids play around and just all chatting with each other. By the time we got back to his house though, I was completely exhausted from the weekend! We put on an old episode of 'How I Met Your Mother,' and I barely made it through it before I finally went home for some much-needed sleep! Oh, and I also spent about six hours texting back and forth with my wedding twin, Kayla, and continue to find out that we have soooo much in common, it's kind of scary. So glad to have found each other in this giant blog-world, and to have made a great new friend!

It was another great weekend spent with family, friends and my fiance. The weather here in Florida should be staying warm from here on out, and hopefully we're done with these stupid cold snaps that keep creeping back in. I really do hope so - because I'm ready for sunshine and summertime! Hopefully we'll make it to the beach this coming weekend, because I could really go for some sand and salty air :)

How were y'all's weekends? Hopefully you enjoyed yours as much as I enjoyed mine! And remember - let's try to have a more positive outlook about Monday, and see if it helps us have a better day today! Happy Monday ladies!

Linking up today with Covered in Grace, Sami's Shenanigans and Synfully Delicious.