Friday Catch Up

A few things up for discussion today:

1. Thanks for all of you who linked your favorite rooms!!! It has been so fun touring your homes!!! Please feel free to continue to add your rooms if you haven't and want to - I think everyone has enjoyed looking for ideas!

2. Who watches LOST??????

I just have three words to describe last night's finale: WHAT? SAD! and WHAT???????? ha! What did you think?
3. When I got in my car after choir the other night I had my radio on a local Christian station and I heard the BEST sermon maybe ever by one of the BEST preachers ever - Adrian Rogers. As my pastor says often "he was the best preacher to ever mount a pulpit". He was preaching on Unanswered Prayers. I'm providing a link because I know there are so many of you out there who are waiting on something and maybe you feel like God just isn't hearing you or wonder why He isn't answering you. Please go and listen to this.
He talks about how sometimes God denies prayers, delays His answer, or answers differently.
Of course - delayed answers got my attention and I love this verse he shares:
Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you; And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; Blessed are all those who wait for Him. Isaiah 30:18
He said that God will wait to answer our prayers until the moment where HE and only HE can get the glory. I love this!!!!!

I hope you all have a great weekend!!!! This is one of those great weekends without a lot on the agenda for us so I plan to just relax!

Favorite Rooms

Shannon wrote about her kitchen today on her blog. I loved seeing pictures of it. And I thought I would share mine with you. It's my favorite room in our house. Probably because I love to eat. But also because as soon as I saw the kitchen - I knew this was the house for us!

This is my kitchen. You may notice one of our cabinet doors are hanging crooked. One of our hinges broke and that kind of hinge is discontinued - so we have to figure out how to fix it. ha!

Looking into the kitchen from the family room. Can you spot Dawson? (this is his favorite room too!)

Our breakfast nook. Where we NEVER eat.

I got this canister set as a wedding gift and I LOVE it!

You have to have Southern Living cookbooks!

The great Lamp I got from Oops and some neat jars my mom got me

I love my apothecary jars and fruit!

I almost showed you the inside of my fridge and the pantry - but I'm too proud to show you how messy both are. ha!

So I thought it would be fun if you would all do posts on your favorite room in your house. It could be your laundry room, your office, your sewing room, your garage, your back porch, your front porch, your baby's nursery, etc. And then you can sign up on the linky thing so we can all go to your posts and see all the favorite rooms!!!

Make sure and just link to that certain post and not just your blog so if someone looks later on - they will just be taken to that post! I'll leave this up for a couple of days so you can get your posts up and linked! I can't wait to see your favorite rooms!!!!

This one's for the girls

Today has been one of those great girlfriends days.

I went and had lunch with these three today. This is my friend Rachel and her little boys Judd and Brody. She had me over to her house and fixed me probably the best lunch I have had in years. The BEST chicken salad on a croissant and DIRT CAKE! Can I say yum? And the best part - they are leaving town tomorrow so she sent me home with containers of the chicken salad and the dirt cake. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
We just sat and visited and her little Judd really latched on to me which I LOVED. He kept saying "Kelly - come here" and he would hold my hand and take me places or just sit in my lap. So fun!

If you don't know about dirt cake - here is the recipe!!! You can make it and then serve it in a pot like this above. It's fun to add gummy worms to it also.
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
2 (3.5 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
3 1/2 cups milk
1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
32 ounces chocolate sandwich cookies with creme filling
DIRECTIONS
Chop cookies very fine in food processor. The white cream will disappear.
Mix butter, cream cheese, and sugar in bowl.
In a large bowl mix milk, pudding and whipped topping together.
Combine pudding mixture and cream mixture together.
Layer in flower pot, starting with cookies then cream mixture. Repeat layers.
Chill until ready to serve.
Add artificial flower and trowel. Enjoy!

And tonight was my friend Hillary's birthday (want to give her a shout out!) so I went and ate dinner with her and Holly, Ashley, Katie and Shannon at Granite City Grill. So fun!

I know I say this all the time but I just love girlfriends. I have the best husband but there is just something about girlfriends that you can't replace.

What is your favorite thing about your girlfriends and what is your favorite thing to do with them?

Super Sunday

Today was such a great day at church. It was Senior Sunday - which I LOVE! I cried like a baby. I just barely know any of the seniors but they showed a neat slideshow of each one and had baby pictures and senior pictures and their parents had put in little videos of when they were little kids. I don't even have children yet and I was thinking "They are going to grow up so fast and we will be the ones putting together a slideshow of our kids before they leave us". ha! I'm sure you moms know what I'm talking about.
Our choir sang the song in the video above. (This obviously isn't our church). I LOVE this song. I'm so old school Southern Baptist but when we sang this song - I just want to jump around in a circle and dance and raise my hands. (Listen to it and tell me you don't want to just jump around and dance and praise God!) This song is just pretty much what I think Heaven will be like - just constant singing of songs like this. Only millions and millions of us and we won't look like we do now! Can't wait!
After church we ate lunch with Laurie and Steve - Las Fajitas for some cheap mexican food and laughter.

Most of our laughing was about this little monkey above!

I ran to Wal-Mart after lunch and ran into them again and Emily was riding the horse in the lobby! She was having a ball!
This afternoon and tonight we had our church picnic. It's always a lot of fun. I'm always helping with it so I don't get to visit as much as I would like to. Right before the picnic was supposed to start - we were under tornado watch and the sky was VERY dark. But it cleared up and turned sunny and we ended up with a great turnout.

Pottery

I'm sure you all read Angie Smith's blog.

Her post today is possibly one of the best things I've ever read.

Go read here.

Three Day Weekend

SO WHAT ARE YA'LL DOING THIS THREE DAY WEEKEND????????

I have yet to unpack my suitcase. I am normally that girl who unpacks as soon as we get home but I have just been worn out. I have unpacked 2 out of 3 of our suitcases and I've done most of that laundry. But I'm hoping to rest this weekend and unpack and finish laundry and CLEAN my house!!! Nothing exciting but we are having nice weather right now so it should be a good weekend.

I know I just got back from vacation - but I'm excited to have a three day weekend ahead! Four day work weeks would be ideal - don't you think?

Tragedy

One of my favorite people in all the earth has always been Stephen Curtis Chapman. I have loved his music as long as I can remember and I just think he is one of most Godly men. And he has such a beautiful family. When I was a teenager - I remember wanting to name my children Emily and Will Franklin (his children's names) after him. (His son was named after Billy Graham's son).
Then when he and his wife adopted three little girls and began actively working with Chinese adoptions - I just admired him even more. We even had a SCC song sung at our wedding (and it wasn't"I will be here". ha!)
My mom e-mailed me this morning to tell me that his youngest daughter was killed last night. One of his teenage sons accidentally ran over her in their driveway. My heart breaks for them. I'm sad for the loss of their daughter and I'm especially sad for their son - he will struggle with this for the rest of his life.
I found SCC's wife's blog a while back and had forgotten about it but I looked it up again. You could leave a comment to offer them your prayers and thoughts.

Which David are you voting for???????

I think you all probably know that I voted for COOK more times than I could keep track of. Yes, little Archuletta is cute and he has a wonderful voice. BUT I would NEVER buy his CD. I just think he's boring.

You could make a CD of all the song's Cook has sang this season and I would run to buy it. I mean "Billie Jean", "Hello", "Eleanor Rigby", "Always be your baby" and the two from last night. I love U2 more than anything - they are my beatles. And I loved his version. I also loved the Collective Soul song. I thought he did awesome last night.

But teenage girls love D.A. so he will win.

And that's okay.

Before we went on vacation - I read on a lot of blogs how much people loved Reef flip flops. I have always just gotten the cheap, plastic Old navy flip flops. Well - I went and got a pair of Reefs and they ROCK! So comfortable. I am in love. I wish I could wear them to work!

What are your favorite shoes/sandals/flip flops/tennis shoes????????

Another list of useless information

1. Did you watch the Bachelorette?

I actually like DeAnna. I think she is very pretty and well - she's from Georgia. But if I were her - I would be very disappointed. I'm not too excited about any of those guys. My favorite is probably the tall, nerdy Science teacher. I have a soft spot for good looking nerds. :-) If you haven't ever checked this out - you should go here and read her Bachelor recaps. So funny.

2. PTL - my phone has been healed!

Laurie told me about this place here in town that can save broke cell phones for $25. They did the magic and it is working! YEAY!

3. But now our DVR is broke.

Luckily Scott and I watched a lot of important shows in Hawaii because I believe we have lost all of our shows from the last two weeks. IN THE MIDDLE OF SEASON FINALES NO LESS. I spent most of my lunch on the phone with the cable company. Looks like I'll be swapping it for a new one tomorrow. Two things I can't live without - my phone and DVR. (oh and the internet. ) (and Sonic). ha!

4. Dawson was OVERJOYED to be reunited with us.

Bless his heart - he cried and licked me the whole way home yesterday and then ran circles around our house. We gave him a bath and his new little stuffed turtle we got him and spent the night rubbing his belly. He's a happy dog.

Just a little list of nothing.................

1. I had my first sonic drink in 12 days this morning. It was just as wonderful as I had been imagining. Oh that wonderful sytrofoam cup with the great chopped ice and the sweet strong fountain goodness.......................................

2. We had a mess getting home yesterday. We were supossed to get home around 3. We got home after 9. All of our flights were delayed. That wasn't the bad part. We got to Tulsa around 5 and it's an hour and a half drive. I drove and I had had about 2 hours of sleep. I took the wrong turnpike and we decided after driving over an hour to get off and take some little roads to get home. It was horrible. It was like we were on our own version of "Lost". We were in these little towns in OK and none of them were marked. NO ROAD SIGNS ANYWHERE. So we would drive 30 miles and then realize we were totally off and then back track and get on the wrong road again. We were so tired and just wanted to be home and it was like were in a horrible maze and couldn't find our way out. We finally got home and can I just say how happy I was to be home??? It's great to stay in fancy hotels with the ocean crashing outside and maids that come and make up your bed and clean your room every day ......... but there is just something about sleeping in your own bed. SO GREAT!

3. A lot of ya'll asked me where I got my cover ups. A few I had already - the rest either came from Wal-Mart or Forever 21 on the bargain section. Nothing cost more than $12/$15. Because I like cheap.

4. My phone bit the dust in Hawaii. I'm very sad. Somehow it got a little wet in my beach bag. I have to go today and see if they can do something about it or (gasp) buy a new phone. I'm praying for healing. So I have felt crippled for the last few days.

5. I tried to read some of your blogs last week but I also tried to stay off the computer except to make a post each day. So I'm glad to be back and to check in with you!

There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home!

Last Full Day in Kauai

Today will be my last post for a few days. It was our last full day in Kauai. We don't leave until tomorrow night but we have to check out in the afternoon so there won't be time for posting tomorrow. All of Hawaii has been under a "Vog" today. That's a fog that covers all the islands that comes from a volcano. It's been kind of a miserable day - dark, cloudy and foggy. But we have had such great weather the rest of the time that we can't complain.

There are birds EVERYWHERE here in Kauai. Roosters roam around all over the place and little birds just flock all over. Every morning when we eat breakfast - these birds all wait nearby and as soon as someone leaves their table - they swarm it. (Laurie - this is for you) (She would FREAK OUT here - she's so scared of birds).
We went back down to Hideaway beach today and took a picnic lunch. This is me coming back up the trail.
They have all this lava rock down here which makes a great place to put your shoes, clothes, bags, etc. It also offers a lot of shade. (and a background for pictures!)
We have seen a lot of weddings this time and last time - but it normally consists of around 10 people including the bride and groom. There is a HUGE wedding (for Hawaii) going on tomorrow. There have to be 50-60 people here who are all here for the wedding. They are from CA (we have been eavesdropping at the pool - it's hard to miss them all). The bride has to have around 10 bridesmaids (can you imagine being asked to be in this wedding? Take out a loan). They were putting up this huge tent today on the beach. We thought it was for the wedding - until I heard them talking and found out this was just for the rehearsal dinner BBQ. They have had a band down there playing tonight in the tent. I'm a little sad we will be leaving before I get to see this wedding. ha!
Tonight - Scott and I drove to the south part of the island for our last dinner. I've been wanting to eat at Tidepools. We heard it was so nice and we were not let down. It's at the Hyatt in Poipu and it's this really neat restaurant made up of thatched roof huts. Very romantic and the food was really good. The Hyatt was beautiful. We walked around after dinner. We were so impressed with how friendly EVERYONE was there. Up until tonight - pretty much everyone we met who worked in Kauai have been EXTREMELY rude. We almost felt like we had southern hospitality tonight.
Scott got Sea bass and I got some kind of Hawaiian fish. They were very very good!!!!
I think we have had chocolate lava cake at every restaurant - it seems to be the dessert of choice! SOOOOOO good!
We have had a wonderful trip but we are kind of ready to go home. We miss our dog so much! WE made some videos of him before we left and we have been watching them. Isn't that pitiful? I don't think we will ever be able to leave our children and go on vacation. ha!

Kauai Day Seven

I'm afraid if you have clicked over here for excitement - you have come to the wrong place. Today we did pretty much nothing and it was wonderful. (But it doesn't make for a great blog post).
We have spent the day at our hotel today.

We started off with the breakfast buffet - Scott's favorite thing on earth!

We took a few pictures around the beach this morning - I sat in some trees. ha!

Just a few more pics. One of our favorite things to do every afternoon is to hit up Lappert's Ice cream. This is ice cream made in Hawaii and it is SO delicious. All the flavors have a hint of the tropics. My favorite is Kauai Pie - with fudge, macadamia nuts and coconut - YUM!
We are kind of tired and lazy tonight and have decided just to order in and hang out in our pj's instead of getting dressed up and just lay around and watch two of our favorite shows - "Gray's Anatomy" and "Lost". Sorry - no pics of this! :-)

I have decided I could definitely live here. There are just a few things I would miss if I did:
1. Sonic drinks - I have been DYING for a big route 44 diet coke. I mostly have drank water since I've been here. If you order cokes - you get a small little glass and free drink refills apparently don't exist in Hawaii. UGH!
2. Chili's chips and salsa - I could go for some right now.
3. Money - because we would be on welfare if we stayed here much longer. Everything is unbelievably expensive here. We have started to just laugh about it because we can't go over how crazy expensive everything is.
4. My friends and family - I would miss everyone too much
5. Our church - there are a few churches here - but none that look like ones we would want to join - mostly strange denominations. I don't see many Sunday School fellowships or church picnics or choir specials in our future if we stayed here.
6. Razorback football games. I would REALLY miss this. And I doubt we could see them much on TV. But on the other hand - if we could see them on TV and I could see the beach at the same time - I would live. ha!
7. Fall - I love fall. Leaves don't change here and sometimes I just want to wear sweaters and boots as much as I hate cold weather.
8. I seem to be allergic to Kauai. I have sneezed my head off since I got here and one of my eyes is almost completely swollen shut. It has been so red and itchy for days - another reason to stay in tonight. I'm in my glasses with a bottle of visine right next to me. :-)

Maybe we'll just come visit A LOT!

Kauai Day Six

We hopped in our jeep this morning and we were off!

First stop was Java Kai for breakfast. The food was great - I had the best pineapple muffin and a fruit smoothie and Scott had waffles - but the people working there were the rudest I have ever seen in my life. The lady taking my order practically yelled at me.
But we are in Kauai -- so we headed off to some beautiful spots. It was SUCH a beautiful day!!!


We hit our favorite beach (until we discovered an even better one later in the day!)
We had pizza for lunch. Seriously - I'm so scared to see the scales when we get back!
Right by our hotel - there is kind of a "secret" beach called Hideaways. You have to take a very steep trail to get to it. We didn't go last time and we decided we would try it this time. You have to hang on to a rope to go down the cliff ..........

This is looking down at the beach from about halfway down

The beach was GORGEOUS! We loved it so much. We plan to go again - even the hike back nearly killed us.
Tonight we ate at Saffron. It was VERY good. Scott had beef tenderloin and I had paella.
We came back and watched American Idol results. Go David Cook!!!! That's all I'm saying!!!!

P.S. I got my yellow dress at Forever 21. I was really trying to branch out on color - I'm normally a black dress girl. But yellow is the "in" color this summer so I thought I would try it! ha!