Locks of Love

I love to grow my hair long, chop it off, donate to Locks of Love, and rinse and repeat. I'm sure most people or familiar with Lock of Love, a non-profit that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children with a medical condition that has caused hair loss.  I recently did this again and donated my hair to this worthy organization for my third time.  My hair grows relatively fast, and I never get nervous about dramatic haircuts.  This probably wasn't my longest donation.  It has to be at least 10 inches to donate, and this cut was exactly 10 inches.

 

Please ignore my bed head, unstyled look for the "before" picture my mom took for me on the way out the door.  

Tara worked her magic as always, and here is what it looks like now.  I love how easy it is to dry now and style.

While I don't get attached to my long hair, I can't imagine how difficult it is to lose your hair completely especially as a child.  It is so simple to donate, and you can donate even if your hair is highlighted (as long as it's not overbleached).  And even layered hair is accepted if the longest layer is 10 inches.  Check out their website for more information on how to donate.

A Little Late

Good thing I don't get graded for my blogging.  I would have to plead with the teacher that the dog ate my blog posts and probably get held back a grade.  I know it's been so long since I've posted anything.  I have pictures piling up on my camera with no blogging to go along with them.  The longer I put off posting anything, the harder it was to get back.  But I am back!

I have pictures I'm rediscovering from two months ago.  We met up with some of our lifelong friends and spouses at a cabin in Gatlinburg.  It was a good meeting place for us as we traveled from Kentucky, Nashville, and Alabama.  It was a really fun weekend, and two of the four couples went to the Tennessee game.  Oh to be back two months ago when we had a coach and a team that was hopeful of the good things to come this season.

Jenny and Jakob, our other half, joined us at the game. 

It was pouring down rain when we were walking to the stadium.  So Jenny and I ran to the bookstore to buy our way overpriced $10 ponchos.  Here's hoping that the money the university makes off those ponchos will buy us a new coach!
 

Fortunately we scored seats under the overhang of the second level, and it stopped raining about the time off kick off.

  

Jenny and I had fun taking pictures of our men during the game.

After the game, we headed back to meet up with Jennifer, Erica, David, and Ryan to eat dinner.  Afterwards, we spent a late night talking on the porch of the cabin and soaking in the hot tub.  The only issue was the  cabins in this resort were a little too close for comfort, and our vacationing neighbor was not too pleased with our late night chats.  I think we got about 8 hours of sleep the entire weekend, but we had to make the most of our little time together.

 

David and Weston

Thank you for such an awesome time friends!  Next time lets get a cabin without neighbors!!

Labor Day Lake Weekend

For Labor day weekend, my "original" family all met up at a cabin at Center Hill Lake in Tennessee.  We usually are only able to all get together as a family once or twice a year.  We're always together at my parents for Christmas.  A tradition we all love.  But we decided to get together over Labor Day to celebrate.

There was plenty to celebrate.  We had three birthdays.  My dad is turning the big 6-0 next month, and my niece turned 17 a couple days ago!  And of course I mentioned in the last blog post that my hubby just turned 29.  We had a wonderful time celebrating life, and my sister in law's life was celebrated as well.  She is finished with her battle with cancer and is now cancer free!!!  We got the news of the cancer last year while we were home for Christmas, and they cut their trip home short to head back to Texas to meet with the doctors and start fighting back.  And she has been incredibly strong throughout this battle and faithful in the mercy of God.  We're so thankful she is healthy again and able to be the wonderful wife and mother of three that she is.  And after losing her hair to chemo, it's started growing back, and she looks stunning.  I hope she keeps it short, because she can rock the pixie cut with that thick head of hair.  Am I right?

And here were the fall birthday folks.

On the first day, some of us went canoeing on the Caney Fork River.  The canoe crew included my dad, my brothers-Bryan and Joe, my sister in law-Lindsey, Weston, and my nephew-Matthew.  We had an even number for canoeing, but I may or may not have a very good history with canoeing which made it difficult for me to find a partner.  By default, Weston had to be paired with me since we're married.  I think we agreed to that in our wedding vows.  So you may be curious how someone could be undesirable as a canoe partner?  Well, I have been known to jump ship a couple times.  When we were younger, I was canoeing with my oldest brother, Bryan, and we got wedged between some logs through some small rapids.  There happened to be the largest spider ever known to man right next to me.  I ran to the back of the canoe.  Did you know you can't run in a canoe??  Yeah, we tipped.

The second "incident" was with my husband, and we were enjoying a beautiful, spring day in upper east Tennessee.  We happened to run our kayak into a cliff rock, and I heard this loud hissing.  My first thought was snake.  I look up, and it's a mama goose hissing on her nest.  Like spiders, I'm not a big fan of large birds, particularly angry birds.  It took me 0.7 seconds to throw my paddle and jump in the freezing, cold water.  But I am happy to report that this weekend was a success with no tipped canoes!

My niece, Katie, loves the book "Dick and Jane" and pointing out everyone on the pages.  Her favorite is spotting the school bus which she just found when this picture was snapped.

Matthew is Uncle Weston's little buddy.  They have a special relationship.  It's really sweet.  Weston taught him how to eat sunflower seeds for the first time and spit the shells off the back deck.

My mom was a natural behind the wheel of the pontoon boat we rented for the afternoon.  I think they may need to get one considering she looked so good as captain.

Katie's first time in the lake.  We were so surprised that she wanted to get in the water!  She liked to splash in the water and was so good on the boat even without a nap that day.  And these next few pictures was Weston's attempt to get our adorably sweet but very shy niece to warm up to him.

 

Too shy to look at him.

We've made successful eye contact!

Bingo!

I hope everyone had a very fun and safe Labor Day!  We sure did!

Happy Birthday Weston!

Today is my sweet husband's birthday!  It's his last year in his 20's.  I really can't believe it.  I swear we just turned 21.  

I thought as any good and loving wife should do to post pictures of his adorableness as a child.  In searching for pictures, I've come across a picture of us with a group of friends circa 1997 headed to the 8th grade dance.  That picture deserves it's own post though.  These are copies of scanned pictures so please excuse the poor quality. 

Such a dapper fella'.

And here's a final picture of the Tennessee cornhole set for his birthday.  He loves it!  I think it turned out pretty good, and we have it loaded in the car now to take with us to the game this weekend.  Let's Go Vols!  And Happy Birthday Honey!

Happy Fall Y'all

With the cool air in the morning these days, I know that fall is just around the corner.  It makes me excited for cool days to go on jogs, watch football, and go camping.  So with all this inspiration, I hit the craft stores to update my new etsy shop with new fall wreaths.  I left the stores with a ton of ideas and supplies, and these are just the first few I've added to the shop.

Even though we are majorly outnumbered with Alabama and Auburn neighbors, you better believe this Tennessee Vols wreath will be hung on our door this fall.

And here's my spooky, Halloween mesh wreath

And this fall mesh wreath turned out to be my favorite:

Happy fall y'all!  Now I better go clean up my craftermath.

Power tools, cornhole, and the Vols

When I went home for my reunion, I stayed with my parents, and I recruited my Dad and his large collection of power tools to help me build a birthday present that Weston has asked for years to have.  Oh yeah, that's right.  A Tennessee cornhole set was constructed that weekend.  I'll wait for the final pictures after we give it to him in a few weeks.

A big thank you to my dad for helping me make the boards.  I love having a dad who is great at fixing and building things.  When he's with his tools or working with his hands, he's in his element.  And the engineer in me enjoyed working with power tools too!  Hargh, hargh, hargh, hargh.

 Ahem, excuse me.  Anyways, this is my unfinished board after sanding.

 

And a big thank you to my Mom for helping as well!  She helped search for the right paint colors, and it was a search let me tell you.  I mean, we had to get the right Tennessee Orange.  It would be an absolute disaster if it turned out a Texas or Auburn Orange. wink. wink.  And she's making the other important part to the boards: our cornhole bags!  Mom is amazing at sewing, quilting, cross-stitching, etc.  So I have no doubt the bags will turn out great.

Well, like I said, the finished product will be revealed in a couple weeks just in time for the start of football season.  Go Big Orange!

10 Year Reunion!

Well I'm very sorry for the lack of posts to the blog.  I've had plenty of happenings to blog.  So I'll get back on track today and share with you some pictures from my 10 year high school reunion.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'm old enough to have a high school reunion.  High school held many fond memories for me...awkward middle school years, not so much.  But high school was awesome, and I was happy to reunite with some of the people that made those years so awesome.  

The reunion took place in Nashville at the Crow's Nest.  There were appetizers, drinks, and a photo booth with all sorts of fun props.

Here I am with Dana, Jenny P, Jenny B, and Carey.  Yes, I know I look like I'm towering over these girls.  But I rarely wear heels since Weston and I are both 5' 8", and when I knew he wouldn't be able to come with me, I hit the shoe racks.  Mama needed a new pair of shoes!

And these girls are the ladies of apartment 1622!  We were roommates in college at Tennessee, and we had so many good times.  I've missed these girls.  Katie just moved back to the states this month after living in Italy for 3 years.  Ashley and Andrea moved back home after college, but I still don't see them as often as I'd like either.  I see a girl's beach trip in our future.

Hard to believe 10 years have passed.  We are the Centennial Cougars, class of 2002!