Saying goodbye to our neighbors

Last Thursday I spent the afternoon at Gattiland saying bye to our sweet neighbors who moved away. Jennifer and I became friends the moment we introduced ourselves two years ago. Our husbands work for the same company and were both doing quite a bit of traveling at the time, so I loved having someone right across the street to share those experiences with!

We spent the afternoon eating pizza and playing games, and with all of the tickets her boys won they chose to get a big bag of army men that they could play with together. They were seriously some of the sweetest, most polite kids I've ever met! I'm really going to miss all of them!

Random thoughts on a Monday

- I am finally feeling like myself again! I don't think I realized how much my work schedule was affecting me. I was in such a rut, and I'll go ahead and say it; I was depressed. I feel like I was going through the motions of life, but I wasn't actually experiencing it. Over the past few weeks I've found myself smiling more, laughing more, and actually enjoying things again. It feels good to be back!


- I've been on a green smoothie kick lately. I've tried a few different variations, and I've liked them all. The Ninja chops everything up pretty well, and I've learned these taste best poured over ice. This one has spinach, strawberries, blueberries, half a pear, a carrot, kiwi, coconut water, and a few mint leaves. I'm normally not a fan of mint, but it gives the smoothie such a refreshing taste! It's the perfect afternoon snack!

- Brandon had to work this weekend, but I drove to Yoakum for our friend, Kayla's, wedding. Michelle and I grew up with Kayla and her two sisters, and we have so many memories together. It was great to see all of them and celebrate this chapter in Kayla's life. Congrats, KK!!

A little fuzzy, I know, but the rest of the pics are on Michelle's camera.
This little cutie is our favorite two-year-old!
After we took this and sent it to B, she said, "I want Brandon." So sweet!

- I spent Father's Day with my mom, dad, and PaPaw. I don't see PaPaw as often as I did when we lived in Austin, so I'm always excited to visit with him. I've been wanting to video some of our conversations with him, so we can have something to look back on one day, and yesterday was the perfect opportunity! Dad turned on the video camera, and PaPaw had us laughing the entire time! He told stories that we'd never even heard before! It was perfect. For Father's Day I updated the pictures and frames that were in my dad's office. I went up to the office with him yesterday to find a place for everything, and I think it turned out great!

The Color Me Rad picture was his favorite!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I'll share more pictures from the wedding as soon as Shell emails them to me. Happy Monday, friends!!

Don't forget to follow on bloglovin'!

Blog Changes

Hi, friends! I hope you're all enjoying your Friday!

I finally changed my blogger URL to match the name of my blog. I wasn't sure how this would affect my readers, but since everyone is switching to Bloglovin' now I figured it was a good time to make the change. I'm hoping this doesn't cause anyone too much trouble! {I apologize to Brandon, Mom, Dad, and Michelle. I'll get on each of your phones and change it for you.}

I also "claimed" my blog on Bloglovin' and added the button to my sidebar. I've already been using the Bloglovin' app on my phone to read blogs, so I'm following all of you guys already :)

If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know! Have a great weekend, everyone!!

So this'll make you laugh...

I woke up in the middle of the night, and I SWEAR I saw chickens in my bed. There were two on my left and one on my right. Brandon was sleeping in the guest bedroom, because he was on call for work, so it was just me and the chickens. And Princess. 

I immediately started screaming, stood up in the middle of the bed, and threw all the covers onto the floor. I then leaped off the bed, ran into the bathroom and shut the doors.

I stood there, out of breath and screaming like a crazy person. Then all of a sudden I thought to myself, "Princess must be so scared!!" 

I opened the bathroom doors to save her, and she was just sitting on her little pile of blankets staring at me. 

That's when I realized there were really no chickens.

~~~

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you all had a more peaceful night than I did!

 

How we met {Princess and I, of course}

Here's the back story: My Ma-Maw, whom I was very close to, had just died in October. Her death was very quick and completely unexpected, and since then I had been feeling very sad. My fifteenth birthday had come and gone, and although my parents did everything they could to make it special it just wasn't the same without my Ma-Maw. After my birthday was over my mom asked, "Emily, what would make you happy? What can we do to make this better?" My answer: a puppy.

~~~ 

It was a Friday afternoon in late November. My mom picked us up from school and said we had to make a family trip to Weimar, because my dad had put up a new road sign that he wanted us to see.

"We all have to be really excited, because Dad is very proud of this sign," she told us.

My dad was a traffic engineer, and we spent many hours as kids riding around looking at bridges, traffic signals, and highway striping, so driving to Weimar to look at a road sign seemed perfectly normal. 

As soon as my dad got off work we all headed to Weimar, Brandon included. As we got closer I started to wonder which highway sign it was that my dad was so proud of, but my parents just kept saying, "We're almost there!"

After passing numerous signs that weren't "the sign" we turned onto a gravel road. Right then I knew my parents were up to something. 'No way there's a big important sign on this road,' I thought. We then turned into a driveway and parked in front of a house that I didn't recognize.

"What are we doing here?" I asked.

"Let's just get out and see," my mom told me.

As soon as we opened the car doors all I heard was barking coming from this family's backyard.

"We're getting a puppy!!!"

As the owner walked us through to her backyard my excitement began to build. There was a large, fenced in area where some of the puppies were playing. They were all brown and looked exactly like the dachshund I had when I was four years old. They were cute, but they were already several months old and looked more like grown-up dogs than puppies.

"Well, which one do you want?" my dad asked.

As I stood there looking through the fence I just couldn't decide. They all looked the same to me, and I didn't know how I was going to choose.

While we were watching the grown-up puppies play the owner went over to another part of the yard, and as she walked back I heard her say, "We also have some younger ones, if you are interested."

I turned around to find her holding the smallest, sweetest, most adorable little puppy I had ever seen. The owner put the puppy in my hands, and I immediately fell in love!

"This is the one I want!!"

It took a little bit of convincing, because this little tiny puppy cost quite a bit more than the grown-up puppies, but after several rounds of "but Daaad......" we were on our way home with Princess. {I'm sure if you asked my dad today he'd say she was definitely worth it!}

That's why Princess is so special to me; she helped me grieve the loss of my MaMaw.

Do you want to know what's really strange? Four years ago Princess ran away {her tiny little legs ran all the way across Yoakum!}, and we found her on October 11th, the anniversary of MaMaw's death.

In my family we call that "a God thing", but in this case I think it was "a MaMaw thing".