Twenty-five

Today is my birthday!! I love birthdays. All birthdays. They are just fun. I like to celebrate.
I am now 25 years old. Kinda can't believe it. I remember when I thought 25 was officially OLD. But here I am and truth be told I think its going to be a really good year. Reasons being:
1- I know myself so much better than when I was, say, 18 (oh so dumb!)
2- I know what I want in life much better than when I was 22 (perfect age?)
3- each year I appreciate life and all the people in mine so much more.
4- I really do think life gets better every year. (for the most part)

So YAY for birthdays!!!!

Project Time

I completed a project!! (well half-way actually...still have the chairs to do). We got our kitchen table from Craigslist. And it was fine as is, but kinda boring looking I thought. So I decided to paint it. Spray paint style. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for me and I like to look at it now. I wish I had endless money to decorate however I'd like, but alas, I do not. I've accepted it's gonna be a few moves before my house looks the way I'd really like it to. But I still like the little home we have. It's fun.

ok so here is the table before:

I actually made all those patches on top. tried to hand sand. bad idea.
(oh, and beautiful lawn, no? Its sand and weeds)

and After...wa laaa!

I also ruined a perfectly good shower curtain in the process. But it was all I had. Anyways, I'm proud of myself for finally doing something "crafty" and "productive"

Tomorrow's my birthday and my plans are:

• read as many blogs and spend as much time on pinterest as I want and not feel bad
• workout
• make cupcakes
• make pumpkin goodness
• watch some tv shows perhaps
• mayyyyyyyybe go to the beach (if I haven't spent all day on the computer)
• drink as much diet coke as I want!
• have some friends over, eat yummy pizza, cupcakes, pumpkin goodness, play games. 

woot woot!!

A Little Laugh

Mormons

I've never said much about my religion on here. I don't want to offend anyone and because I've just always held it a little personal I suppose. However, I saw this video again today and I really enjoyed hearing it and thought that others would too. In the light of all this Mitt Romney political drama, there's all kinds of Mormon criticism, which isn't anything new. Mostly I've been hearing people of other faiths define what we believe/who we are. Here is a leader of the LDS/Mormon church explaining why Mormons are Christians from Oct 2007 General Conference.

Take some time and watch it, whether you're mormon or not. It's some great food for thought.

For full talk click HERE

For his explaination on his 2nd point see HERE

weekend in n'awlins

We had a little bit of fun this weekend. Duke had Columbus Day off, so we drove off to New Orleans for the weekend. Scored a nice little hotel in the city thanks to the Priceline Negotiator! Here's our trip in pictures...

Baton Rouge LDS Temple

Capital City Grill- Baton Rouge

La Boulangerie (our FAVORITE place)

La Boulangerie-Apple Tart--yum

St. Louis Cathedral

Looks like Disneyland

Inside St. Louis Cathedral

Beignets from Cafe Du Monde (overrated)

Best croissant of my life- La Boulangerie

Good pizza- better branding. I appreciate these kinds of things

we match. unintentional

One GIANT regret was our lack of cajun food. I mean, hello, isn't that WHY you go to new orleans?? We had found some good places to go to, but the first night we went to some dumb burger place that Duke's friend told him about. And it was mediocre. Then we left sunday at lunch time, and we weren't hungry. So we'll have to go back again. However, the trip was worth it thanks to La Boulangerie. SO SO SO good. Stacy- I kept thinking of you and your chocolate croissants. You would have loved it. 

But we did catch a good little jazz band at the visitor's center! So we got some culture. Don't worry. Now its back to "reality". My goal for this week is to prioritize my time. The whole Stephen Covey 4 quadrants thing. I've got a giant to-do list and a billion thank you notes to be pumping out!! But the world wide web is just so much more interesting!!!

Bridals

I realized I never posted any of my bridals anywhere. And since I really have nothing to blog about I thought i'd share some. Duke and I are headed to New Orleans for the weekend. Woot!

Weekend

I just want to begin by saying I love october. October 1 I went outside and the temperature had finally dropped to a nice mid-70's high. I bought little pumpkins and gourds and wore a sweater. It was great. Plus October is my birthday month. So you just can't go wrong in October.

I would also like to say that I have decided that life looks better through instagram. It just looks more fun. And so I've been taking a lot of instagram pictures lately so that my life can look like more fun.

This past weekend was fun. On Friday Duke and I went down to Destin to do some outlet shopping and get a bite to eat. I love the Destin outlet malls. They have everything you could ever want. I, however, limited myself to 2 stores..and then my shopping budget was gone :(. But we also made a stop by Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for some delicious caramel apples.

Saturday we went to our friends house for a delicious brunch and some General Conference. It was delightful.

I also got to try out my handy dandy stand mixer and made some really good chocolate chip cookies!

I also feel very lucky/blessed with this whole military thing. It's so hard moving somewhere new and trying to make new friends. I need friend interaction to keep myself sane and happy! There is a cool group of people in the area, who are in flight school right now and who go to our church. On Saturday night a bunch of the wives went to Panera and it was really great getting to know everyone better.

Sunday started off with a delicious brunch of pumpkin pancakes, bacon and eggs.

Sunday continued by lounging on the couches listening to General Conference. And then we went nextdoor to play with our neighbor's cute little weimaraner puppy, Jimmer.

So as you can see, I've been taking a lot of instagrams. I feel a little obsessed, but I'm glad i'm taking more pictures. I always regret not taking enough. Now I gotta find a way to take more video. Those are the real gems!