Way-Back-Wednesday...College Style!

Caitlin's 18th bday...she's just a baby!

Love these girls so much!

My 21st birthday!haha

crazy girls

Snow day with Court. The day Miss Pucker came to life :)

LOVE

:)

Miss yall!

Hanging out in Chouteau Bend!

First trip back after graduating. Fun times!

Caitlin's infamous dancing tongue face.

One of my most favorite pics.

Halloween Freshman year, hahaha.

oh, we look so young.

Our first snow day. We didn't have proper sledding equipment so we made due with chemistry goggles and a plastic container. Didn't workout as planned.

Dinner at Dick's in San Antonio. On our way to Padre Island. Spring Break of Freshman year.

Trip to my hometown

Grandma/Grandpa theme party. So hilarious!

Embarassing face, but college would not have been the same without late night trips to Benson's Grill and the GOTCHAA!!!

Love you Gill!

YO MOMMA FACE!

:))

Volleyball girls

Trip to Fayetteville for Gill's 21st!

pretty girls!

This was the result of a girl's night in. We decided to play dress up and make a music video to the song "Disturbia"....wow, good times!

Halloween Junior Year. Ginger Spice and Jessica Simpson

New Year's trip to Norman

Pom Squad before performing Risky Business dance.

i miss pom, but i don't miss dancing at the baseball games.

love you guys!

Love you Allie!

bahahaha, who knows

roommates

miss being crazy with Court!

Pom Squad haunted house...we made a few kids cry

:)

Halloween Senior Year, Ninja Turtles, favorite costume!

"JIMMYY SHUUU"

New Orleans for Mardi Gras

miss spending ridiculous amounts of time getting ready and taking stupid pictures...although i don't miss the mess of our house looking like a sorority house.

Pom Squad 09-10

<3

Lake trip to Tahlequah, so much fun!

I have done a wonderful job at abandoning my way-back-Wednesday posts. After looking through old pictures from college and reminiscing on all the wonderful times we had, I decided this post would be fitting. I cannot explain to you how much I miss my college friends. I think about them all the time! Since I graduated and left Arkansas, I've been back to visit 3 times. I remember when I moved, I promised them that I'd come back once a month. Oops..I totally failed. Even though it's only a 3 hour drive, it's really hard for me to find the time to make the trip since I don't have the weekends off. I promise girls that I'm going to come visit soon. A few of the girls have made the trip or two to see me since I've moved. Even three of the girls drove 3 hours just to come get their hair done by me and then they turned around and drove right back home. I was so excited they came all that way. It always makes my week when people come visit!! I have so many fun memories of college and the relationships that I built while in Arkansas. I cherish each and every one of those friendships so much. I know that we may not talk very often and we may not see each other very much, but I always know that no matter how far apart we are, we will always reunite and pick right back up where we left off the next time we see each other. Just FYI girls, next summer we are due for a super fun girls weekend getaway to somewhere awesome. All of you in these pictures are included and you better be there!

"True friendship is a sacred, important thing, and it happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broken, fragile parts of ourselves. We have to give something up in order to get friendship like that. We have to give up our need to be perceived as perfect. We have to give up our ability to control what people think of us. We have to overcome the fear that when they see the depths of who we are, they'll leave. But what we give up is nothing in comparison to what this kind of friendship gives to us. Friendship is about risk. Love is about risk. If we can control it and manage it and manufacture it, then it's something else, but if it's really love, really friendship, it's a little scary around the edges."

I absolutely love this quote. It's from one of my favorite books, "Cold Tangerines." I immediately highlighted it when I first read it because it is SO true. Building lasting friendships and relationships is so important to me!

New Cake/Cupcake Stands!

Here are a few pictures of the newest cake/cupcake stands that I've made. I bought the polka dot plate on clearance at Pier 1 Imports and the other two plates are from Target (they are actually plastic), but I couldn't resist buying them because the patterns were so cute. I've enjoyed using my other cake stands so much that I thought I'd make a few more. They come in handy to use at parties and showers. I've actually never used them for a cake before, just snacks and finger foods. If you're interested in buying one, I'd love to make you one. I have quite a few cute plates and candlesticks on hand at my house right now. I usually buy them when I see them on sale.....kind of a bad habit :/

Change Is Good!

This past Thursday I decided that I'd had enough with my long hair. It was driving me CRAZY! Since it's over 100 degrees outside everyday, there was really no point in ever styling it and wearing it down because it would be all nasty by the time I got to where I was going. I was constantly pulling it up in ponytails and I felt like it was really weighing my face down. I had a picture of the cut that I wanted in my station at work and I looked at it almost everyday wishing that I had the nerve to cut my hair. The only thing that was really holding me back was the fact that I have to be in two weddings in a few months and I was planning on wearing my hair up. I finally decided to be spontaneous and adventurous and do it. I made my decision on my way to work and by the middle of the day it was short. I absolutely LOVE it. Lora, my friend from work cut it. She is fabulous and did an awesome job. It feels SOOO much better. I haven't had my hair short since my sophomore year in college. Luckily, I was able to gather all the hair that we cut and secure it in a ponytail. I believe it will be long enough to donate to Locks of Love. That was my original intention of growing my hair out. I've donated it once before and I kind of like to cut it short and wear it that way for a while and then grow it out to donate again. So far, everyone I've talked to really likes my hair. It is so much easier to fix and it feels so much cooler! Thanks Lora, you're the best! My long hair before


The look I was going for My new short hair! Sorry this is a bad picture and it's kind of hard to see, but it's the only one I have with short hair so far.

And just in case you were wondering, yes...it is supposed to be asymmetrical (uneven on the sides). People keep asking me that so I just wanted to clarify!

Back on the Workout Bandwagon

It's been two months and two weeks since the marathon and I've yet to run more than one mile at a time since then = depressing. I will admit that part of it is me being lazy, but it's mainly because my knee won't allow me to run further than a mile at a time. I'm proud to say that yesterday I was able to go 3 miles without my knee killing me. However, I could only run 3 miles by doing it in intervals. I ran for 4 minutes and walked for 1 minute. I'm going to do the triathlon in September again so I started my training yesterday. I've gained all but 3 pounds back from the 10 pounds that I lost while training for the marathon...BOO :( I'm going to be in two upcoming weddings...one in September and one in November so I need to start working really hard so that I'll fit in the dresses. Wish me luck!

Fourth of July...a tad bit late!

I'm a little late on posting about my Fourth of July weekend, but at least I'm posting about it right? I've been a bad blogger lately because I've been so busy, but I'm going to try and post more often. I'm not making any promises though. Fourth of July weekend was a lot of fun. It was spent with some super cool people. My boyfriend came into town Friday-Tuesday which was wonderful and we pretty much spent the whole weekend with my best friend, Alli and her boyfriend. Sunday night we went to the Randy Rogers/Wade Bowen acoustic tour at the Riverwind Casino. Following the concert was a firework show. I really enjoyed the show. Randy and Wade sang and played their guitars without their bands....it was different, but I liked it a lot. It seemed like a more personal concert because they got to explain more about the songs and why they wrote them, etc. I'm IN LOVE with Wade Bowen. He is 10x better live than he is in the studio. Quite possibly one of the best male voices I've heard live. I've seen Randy 3 times in concert and Wade once and Aaron has seen both of them numerous times. There's a song that Wade sings called "Who I Am" that Aaron and I really love and we've never heard him play it live. Well guess what? He played it live at this concert. I was SOOO excited. It's the sweetest song ever and apparently a lot of people play it at their wedding/reception. Here's the song if you would like to listen to it. I promise you'll love it.


On Monday, the four of us took a trip to the OKC Zoo. It's been forever since I've been to the zoo. I really just wanted to go so I could see the new elephant exhibit and see the new baby elephant. I've heard all about how cute she is, but unfortunately, they weren't outside so we didn't get to see her...BUMMER! It was SOOO hot that day, but we still managed to have fun. Check out the sweet tie-dye shirts Alli and Ryan made for the festivities. Yeah, I know it's cheesy that we matched all day, but we were just trying to be patriotic. Aaron and I had a great time hanging out with Alli and Ryan all weekend. It was a wonderful double date extravaganza!

Monday night we went to a cookout with all of our friends. There was lots of great food and great friends. We got up on the roof to watch the firework show, but realized after it was too late that the trees were right in our view of the fireworks. A few of us jumped down and walked down the street to get a better view. All in all, it was a great Fourth of July!

Introducing Mr. & Mrs. Cornelsen!

I'm so excited to share with you a few pictures from my cousin's wedding in Negril, Jamaica. Everything about it was absolutely perfect! I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to go to the wedding and do their photography. When Brad first asked me to do it, I was THRILLED! I couldn't believe they really wanted me to take their wedding pictures......after all, I've never done a wedding before and I've never taken pictures on the beach. To be honest, I didn't really know what I was doing at all. I decided that this was something I could handle and I accepted! I did some research and asked some wonderful photographers a lot of questions. Their help and advice was exactly what I needed. I was extremely nervous about it and lots of prayers were said....and they were answered! My biggest fear was the lighting. I wasn't sure how bright the sun would be and I was afraid there would be lots of shadowing. Thank you Jesus for giving us the perfect picture weather the morning of the wedding. It was a HUGE blessing! Brad and Jaimi truly are an amazing couple. I know photographers say it all the time that they couldn't have had better subjects to shoot, but now I know why they say that. It makes a huge difference when you're working with awesome people. I couldn't believe how laid back Brad and Jaimi were. They really took away all my nervousness and let me know that they trusted me and knew it would all work out. There really wasn't one moment during the whole wedding that I felt stressed. That's saying a whole lot because weddings are uber stressful and so is wedding photography....especially when you've never done it before. All of this to say, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Brad and Jaimi for allowing me to take your wedding pictures and to celebrate your marriage with you in Jamaica. I'm so glad I did it and I would totally do it again!! My new dream job is to become a destination wedding photographer.....I could handle vacations to beautiful places and get paid to do it. Jaimi, you were an absolutely beautiful bride and a delight to work with. You were glowing/beaming the entire trip and I can tell how much love you have for Brad. Brad is a lucky man and you are a lucky woman. So glad to add a new cousin to the family. Brad, thanks for being such a cooperative groom....you're a natural at those GQ poses. I know you're going to be an amazing husband to Jaimi! Congrats to you both!