Miscellany Monday

Happy Monday everyone! Linking up with Carissa today at lowercase letters for some fun miscellany monday :) Here is what's going on this monday:



1. I wore sandals to work today and my feet are looking pretty white. I actually had a decent tan going on this summer, and it's starting to fade, which is sad :( I know that having a tan has no eternal value, but it makes me happy.

2. Our air conditioning is broken. Again. And of course the temperatures have decided to rebound back into the 90's to celebrate the fact that our a/c does not work.

3. We participated in the world's largest water balloon fight again this year. You can read about last year's adventures here. Basically the Christian Student Fellowship at Kentucky puts on a massive water balloon fight every year at the beginning of the semester to try and break the world record. This year we again broke the record and had lots of fun doing it. We brouth lots of LCA students with us and ran around like crazy people. You can watch the video of it below:


The water balloon fight started a little after midnight on Friday night. I had a 4 hour engineering class at 8 am the next morning. It was a little rough.

4. Speaking of weekend fun, one of my friends from high school just moved to Lexington with his wife. His name is Hunter and he also happens to know Derek because they volunteered at a yougn life camp for a month together in college. Since they are new to town and don't know many folks, we went out to dinner together Saturday night. They wanted to go to a restaurant that they could only get in Kentucky, so we took them to Hall's on the River. A fun little restaurant that is about 10 miles south of town, and overlooks the Kentucky River. As we were checking out the menu and discussing what we would order, either Hunter or his wife Mary Beth asked what lamb fries were. It was on the menu but none of us knew what it was. We were thinking it was probably fried lamb. So the waitress came and took our order and I went ahead and ordered the lamb fries. She asked what sides I wanted. I hadn't thought that far ahead so I took a minute to see what my options were. While I was doing this, Hunter asked her what exactly lamb fries are. She says in a very matter of fact way, "it's lamb testicles." WHAT?!?!?!?  I just ordered lamb testicles! We all busted out laughing. The waitress asked if  Iwanted to change my order. I said yes.

You all. I was about to eat lamb balls. If Hunter hadn't asked her what they were, I totally would have ordered it. Mary Beth could not believe the waitress didn't double check to make sure I knew what I ordered. Hunter said I sounded so confident in my ordering he wouldn't have either. I'm so glad he did not share my confidence in ordering things that you are not sure of what they actually are. Now that I look back on it, thye were described as a "rare delicacy". That should have been my first clue. We laughed the rest of the night about the lamb balls.

I feel like there are more things I could write about, but we'll just end it on that high note. Hop on over to lowercase letters and join in the miscellany monday fun!

Harbour Town - The Last Hilton Head Post

It's been a month since we were in Hilton Head. And I still have pictures to share. I need to work on my timeliness. Oh well. Here are some pictures from our little excursion to Harbour Town.

We went to Harbour Town the last night of vacation. It was a cute little place, with a lighthouse that we were able to walk up and take lots of pretty pictures from. It was a great vacation with lots of quality time with family.

In Honor of Sarah

Today's post is in honor of one of my best friends, Sarah. Sarah moved away. To Chicago. Today. Have I mentioned that I don't want to talk about it? But I must. Because Sarah deserves a post in her honor.

This is my friend Sarah:

Sarah and I became friends when she was a freshman in college and I was a senior. In February Sarah joined our team of young life leaders at Lafayette High School. That spring break a bunch of our friends went on a cruise together. And Sarah and I were in a room together. We definitely bonded that week. The following school year we were roomates. I also got engaged. And Sarah was there for that. Which was kind of funny. But that is another story for another time. Sarah was a bridesmaid in my wedding. She also lived with Derek and I last summer and this summer. She comes and hangs out with me just about whenever I want, and we snuggle on the couch together because Derek likes our house to be freezing.

Sarah is the best friend anyone could ask for. She is super encouraging, and she loves the Lord alot, and encourages others to do the same. She is very sweet, but she is also honest. I appreciate that about her. I know she will speak truth to me, but she always does it in a loving way. Sarah is one of the few people who really knows my heart and what's going on with me. She can tell what I'm thinking and feeling just by looking at me. I can pretty much tell her anything and know that she will understand.

It's hard when a friend like that moves away. Because it isn't something that you can easily replicate or create with just anyone.

Sarah and I probably won't ever live in the same city again. Which is a fact that I don't think I have quite wrapped my mind around yet. The good thing is I know we will be life long friends. Today while we were eating lunch before she left we made all sorts of plans of fun things we can do together. So right now I am thinking about those things.

Sarah is going to be missed so much by all of us here in Lexington. I am so thankful for her friendship and that God put her in my life to be such a great friend to me for the past 6 years.

So Sarah - this post is dedicated to you and all your wonderfulness. Thank you for being such a great friend. I know this is not the end, but I'm seriously going to miss not being able to just drop by each other's places whenever we want to sit on the couch and chat. I know that God is going to do great things in this new phase in your life. So I truly am excited for you. And I know we will always be besties. But for now, I'm gonna go cry a little more. Just kidding. But seriously.

Miscellany Monday

Sooooo it's been a while. Sorry about that. Life is crazy and its not showing any signs of letting up soon. It's a good crazy though and my heart feels full, so I can't complain. I'll give you a little update via Miscellany Monday and try to get my act together enough for some more posts this week.

1. One of my best friends is moving away tomorrow. I don't want to talk about it. She lived with Derek and I last summer and some this summer too. I will probably have a post later this week dedicated to her. Because she is wonderful. And she deserves her very own post.

2. Derek and I went to a Lexington Legends game on Friday with our friends Keith and Kennon. It was kind of like a double date, except they are not gay (in fact Kennon is engaged to be married). We still had lots of fun though and there were even fireworks at the end. The Legends have great fireworks. We kept thinking it would be over and it just kept going.

3. I LOVE our fellow LCA young life leaders. We all spent the whole weekend together. We planned out our young life activities for the semester, played golf together, went hiking, had a sleepover and had lots of fun in general together. They are such a blessing to me and it is so cool to see how God is using them in this ministry and how He is growing them at the same time.

4. I LOVE our LCA students. They are such a fun group of kids. I'm super excited to see the ways that God is going to grow them this semester. I know when people talk about their children they talk about how they love them in a way that makes their hearts hurt, to the point they couldn't imagine loving them more. That's kind of how I feel about these LCA-ers. I don't know what will happen to my heart when I have my own kids, because seriously, I'm not sure I could handle it.

5. I had my first review class for the PE exam this past weekend. I left feeling encouraged. The instructor was great and did a good job explaining what we would and wouldn't need to know, as well as going over how to solve problems. I am a little overwhelmed at the amount of studying I need to do in the next couple of months, but overall I feel less overwhelmed because I feel like this class is helping me focus, and I feel more confident that I will be studying the right things.

Ok, so as usual, the miscellany monday was not so miscellany today, but I like Carissa and I like to make lists, so I went for it. Hope everyone is having a wonderful Monday :)

Birthday Weekend

It's official. I am now 27. It happened on Saturday.

Luckily for me my parents came down to visit and we had a lovely time, making it a fantastic birthday celebration.

The weekend started out with a dinner date with my husband. It's been a while since we have done that. Dinner was followed by renting a movie and snuggling on the couch. It's been a while since we have done that too. Sad I know, but it's true. So it was really lovely to just get to spend some quality time with my husband Friday night.

Saturday morning I had breakfast with my friend Kaelyn. She is a senior at LCA and the sweetest thing you have ever meet. We are reading through the book of Matthew together. So we had breakfast and talked about the Bible. It was wonderful. She is so funny because she kept saying "are you sure you want to wake up and meet on your birthday?" like there is something better I would rather be doing. I can't think of anything I would rather do on my birthday.

My parents showed up around lunch time. We went to lunch at a pizza place called Caruso's. It's the best pizza in town, in my opinion. Next to Caruso's is Sweet Magnolia bakery. My parents took me there and let me pick out a birthday cake. I couldn't decided they all looked so good. So what did I do? I went with the sampler. That's right, a cake made of 12 slices of 6 different kinds of cake: chocolate with chocolate icing, strawberry with strawberry icing, italian creme cake, red velvet cake, carrot cake, and a slice of white cake with white icing and chocolate cake with white icing. We all had so much fun trying all the different kinds. My favorite was the chocolate on chocolate. The cake was probably the highlight of my birthday. It was that good.

We spent the day together enjoying one another's company and went to Saul Good for dinner. Another delicious restaurant in town. I also opened up some gifts. Here is what I got:

A pair of toms

A coach wristlet (from Sarah)

A North Face Jacket

A necklace and earrings (from Derek, made by my friend Rachel)

(Please ignore the ridiculousness that is our refrigerator behind me. Unfortunately it always looks like that.)

And I also got a new outfit, another pair of earrings, a best buy gift card and some other fun little gifts.

Saturday night my friend Kari was in town and all of our friends got together for a cookout. I joined in after dinner with my parents and got to spend the evening with lots of friends. We went to church and lunch on Sunday and spent some more quality time with my parents until they left Sunday afternoon. 

It was such a wonderful weekend. I had a very happy birthday and feel so blessed to have wonderful family and friends to have spent it with.

Seafood Dinner

One night while we are on vacation we decided to buy some fresh seafood to make a delicious crab and shrimp seafood dinner. Derek, Rob, Corrie and Bob (brother-, sister-, father-in-law, in case you aren't familiar with the Warnick clan) went to Barnacle Bill's (seriously) to buy some fresh seafood. They came back with several pounds of crab and shrimp, as well as some delicious spices to cook them in. We boiled the seafood, and sat down to the feast you see below:

This looks like the kind of meal my mom would make my dad put a menu around when he eats because it would gross her out.

Small problem though - we had no utensils to use to crack the crab legs. Depending on who you talk to, this was either Derek or Rob's fault, however it was never settled, and honestly, even if we knew, it wouldn't have helped. So there we were, trying our hardest to break them open. Imagining the delicious crab meat inside just waiting to be eaten. But it eluded us, because we could not crack the crab legs.

Now, if you know my husband, you know that there is not much more frustrating to him than not being able to eat his food. (I can't give him food that is really hot because he will burn his mouth. He can't stand just looking at food.)  Derek was not going to give up and let the crab legs win. They were on his plate and he was determined to eat them. So he went hunting around the kitchen and found himself a cutting board. He moved his plate to the side, and proceeded to grab a crab leg, and with his hand smash it on the cutting board.

Shell flew everywhere and the table shook, but Derek was victorious. So he ate the crab meat, grabbed another and did it again.

And it worked! It looked something like this:

So naturally we all sent our crab legs his way, and he smashed them all to pieces. And we ate and it was good. By the end his hand was nearly bleeding....

And we had eaten a significant amount of seafood.

It was definitely one of the more entertaining dinners of the week. And Henry played with the little crab pinchers after we got the meat out of them.

The End.

My Adorable Nephews

One of the highlights of the Hilton Head trip was getting to spend time with my two super cute nephews. I spent hours playing in the pool with Henry, and Oliver and I even took a little nap together one afternoon. Here are some of my favorite pics of the boys:

I'll be back soon with more highlights and photos from the trip!

Miscellany Monday

Happy Monday everyone! Today I'm joing up with Carissa over at lowercase letters! Here are my random thoughts for you today:

{one} Children love my dog. Last week I took him on a couple walks and pretty much every child that was outside got really excited when we walked by either saying to whoever was with them, "Look at that pretty dog!" or "Look at that big black dog!" or yelling to me as I walked by, "I like your dog!"  Back in the spring I took Moose to the Arboretum (non-dog park) and as I was reading on a blanket these three little kids just came up to me, a complete stranger, said, "I like your dog" and started petting him and playing with him. He loved them, they loved him, and even though he is 80 pounds of large black dog, these three little ones were not at all scared. They just pet him and let him lick their faces. Kids are so funny :)

{two} Just last week I finally got the punniness of laffy taffy. I thought it was just called laffy taffy because it was a cute name. I knew there were jokes on the wrapper, but the fact that that was the reason its called laffy taffy, totally eluded me up until now.  I finally get it.

{three}I still need to finish posting pictures of our Hilton Head trip. Hopefully tonight. Hopefully.

{four} Does anyone ever wake up and not still feel tired? Last night I went to bed at 9:30. A good hour and a half to 2 hours earlier than usual. And this morning, I still felt exhuasted when I woke up. Maybe it's because I have not gotten enough sleep the 4 or 5 nights prior and one good nights sleep is not enough to make up for that? Or will I always feel tired when the alarm goes of at 6:15 regardless of whether I am well rested or not?

{five} Remember this picture I posted last week?

Well, if you look at the windows, you will see that I have a problem. There are no window treatments. And with such a funky corner window set up, I have no idea as to how to go about covering them. Anyone have any ideas?

{six} God is really really good, all the time.

The Song in my Head

I've had this song stuck in my head all morning. I found it at Amber's blog and she wrote such a sweet post where she changed the words to apply to her life. I think I would like to do that too but I need a little more time to think it over so for now I'll just leave you with the video.

Warm

Warm is an adjective I would use to describe our family room. It's painted a warm chocolate brown color that makes it feel real cozy.  Another reason I would describe it as warm is because it is. Litteraly. I came home from work yesterday and our house was 80 degrees. Apparently our air conditioning decided it had worked hard enough on the hottest day of the year and it was done.

Also, last night, Derek was planning on having some LCA guys over to spend the night. How convenient. The house was up to 84 degrees with everyone piled in the family room to watch a movie. I took a picture because it was kind of humorous to me. I don't know why. I guess cause it was just a fun memory. We were all so hot, but everyone is still sitting close together. It was a fun night.

Eventually the guys decided to change locations for their sleepover. I don't blame them. I'm amazed they lasted as long in our house as they did.

I think this picture proves 2 things:

1. People are very relational. So much so that they will sit in a really warm room and be uncomfortable as long as they are with the people they love.

2. Sometimes when things aren't comfortable or don't go as planned it makes for a more memorable experience. There is something about being in uncomfortable circumstances together that draws us closer to one another.

That being said, I am very thankful for our friend Micah, who is coming out to our house tomorrow to check it out for us. It is great to have friends who have skills that you do not and are willing to share them with you, especially when those save you a bunch of money. And Micah never acts like it is inconvenient for him even though this is his busiest time of year at work and we live across town. We are so grateful for good friends. Micah is my friend Angie's husband, and she does posts on her blog about all the reasons she loves Micah. She should do a post on this, because he really is a blessing to us and so many of our friends.

Day Trip to Savannah

While we were on vacation last week, we made time to take the short 45 minute trip from Hilton Head down to Savannah, Georgia. My friend Katie posted about how she would love to go to Savannah, and after reading it, I really wanted to go myself. I was so excited when we had the opportunity this past week. We took a little day trip, ate lunch at the Pirate House, which is an actual place where pirates used to hang out a couple hundred years ago, we walked down River Street and drove around and looked at all the beautiful houses and scenery.

So, I thought I would share some pretty pictures from our little trip with you. Most of these pictures Derek took from the car, while I drove, and his dad navigated. We decided to drive around and see most of Savannah by car because we had two little babes with us who were already hot and tired from walking the whole length of River Street. I am sure we were a sight to see driving slowly around town with a camera hanging out the window. But I am pleased with how the pictures turned out. It really is a beautiful city.

At the Pirate House

River Street

This picture would be really cool if there was no car antenna in the middle. Oh well, I guess that's what you get when you take pictures in the car. Pretend it's not there :)