Mid-Week Thoughts

So the summer is beginning to wind down. I can feel the days ticking by and the beginning of school getting closer. I am trying to get a head start on school year life before August hits so that I am not stressed down to the last second. However, my internal clock has decided to wait until this week to kick off, making it extremely hard to get up and around to be productive. Hopefully that won't last long :)

I've had all kinds of random thoughts/suggestions/needs running through my head this week, so I thought I would compile them in a catch-all post.

1. My brother is getting married in exactly 15 days! I cannot believe that it is already here. I am so excited that I get to not only be a sister on his special day, but also a bridesmaid! The wedding is in Dallas (where Jessica is from), so this is leaving me with a small predicament. I cannot do hair. I have no abilities to style my hair or anyone else's. This is why my hair always looks the same :) Being in Dallas, I don't know of any particular stylist to use for the big day, so I have been searching online for simple ways to do simple up-do's. Any hair pros out there have any suggestions?

Aren't they precious??? (Ivy Photography)

2. My mornings are always so rushed during the school year. I tend to sleep until the very last second, leaving little time for extra activities. When I started running back in the spring my morning got even more busy. At the same time, I HAVE to eat breakfast. I will literally fall out if I don't eat. I was so excited back in the spring to find this recipe for Oatmeal muffins that can be made in bulk and frozen for easy breakfasts! I know your first thought may be, "Oatmeal? Gross!" Trust me, these muffins are so good (my husband even likes the ones with chocolate chips!) , filling, and easy to warm up in the microwave for a breakfast on the go! They are very simple to make and are very nutritious. You can find the recipe over at Brenda's blog. I spent the evening making another batch of these last night in preparation for school starting soon!

3. My FAVORITE time of the year begins in exactly in a little over 24 hours! The Olympics!! I am a sold out fan to team USA and absolutely love to watch every event I can. In 2008 I was about to begin my sophomore year in college--seems like yesterday! I went all out for the Beijing Olympics: flags everywhere (even on the dog and in my hair), cookies from Ed's bakery with olympic rings on them, red white and blue on everything! This year will be even better! We visited London on our Europe trip last spring break, so it is so fun seeing landmarks on the olympic coverage that we've been to. I've also already started digging out my American decorations and DVR is being installed on Friday just for these amazing next two weeks! I am so impressed with NBC and their coverage of the games even before they have begun. For all you fellow Olympic fanatics, you can check out amazing videos, blogs, and photos of all of the London happenings at NBC. They're also tweeting lots of good updates from @NBColympics.

4. Is anyone into Geocaching? We spontaneously took some of the students last week after getting fro yo and I was amazed at the places these things were hidden! Who knew there was a little treasure in a light post behind Walgreens and a tree in the middle of the bike trail? It was quite fun hunting them down and I'm thinking we may need to try finding more in the future! (This may come off as a nerdy thought!)

5. Speaking of students, our new Junior high student pastor and his wife will be making their way to Conway this weekend! Stephen and Ashley Castleberry are awesome, awesome people who love the Lord and students. They are some of the most genuine people I've ever met and I am SO excited that they will be joining us at Antioch!

6. The youngest member of our family is going through her "terrible two's" right now. Our sweet, not so little dog, Piper, is stepping out a little and showing her personality these days. I never thought a dog could have a personality, but my goodness she sure knows how to talk back when we tell her to do something that she is not fond of! She's also starting to enjoy chewing, hiding under beds, refusing to go outside in the heat, and running us around like crazy! We love her to death, but my goodness, she knows which buttons to push!

Notice the stuffing of the dead toy all over the place???

7. Speaking of dogs, I was reminded recently of a very funny dog encounter I had with Jordan one time. My mom used to have a little white Maltese named Zoie. Zoie now lives with (and torments) our pastor and his family, but at one time she was one of Jordan's biggest enemies. Zoie was and still is a yappy dog who has more energy than any other living creature. We were dog sitting one night for my parents while they were out of town and Jordan decided she wanted to have a little fun with crazy little Zoie. So, we colored her hair hot pink. Now, common sense tells you that a dog with white hair is not going to take so well to pink hair dye. But we didn't really think about that. Long story short, we dyed Zoie pink, she hated it, the dye got in her eyes resulting in swollen shut eyes and a $100 vet bill for me and Jordan to pay. It took a while for the pink tint on her skin to go away and we felt pretty bad for putting her through such pain, but the pink fur was pretty funny for a few minutes!

We weren't real sure how to tell my mom...

8. Speaking of Jordan, her and her husband Marty will be celebrating their 2nd wedding anniversary on Tuesday, July 31st! I cannot believe that it has already been two years since we celebrated their wedding day! They were the first in our group of friends to tie the knot and now they have little Miss Morgan (who will also be 1 next month! So crazy!). I'm so thankful for their friendship and excited that they will be celebrating their second anniversary with so much joy!

I'm not sure why all of us white girls thought we could do the Thriller at the reception--I think we provided lots of laughs :)

And those are the random thoughts in my mind this week! :)