Friday Letters [V. 9]

Dear Matt:

Happy Golden (31 on the 31st) Birthday! Brad and I both wish you a wonderful birthday today and we can't wait to celebrate with you this weekend!!

Dear Little Sister Jaimie and Brother AJ:

CONGRATULATIONS!!! I am so excited for you!! For everyone else, my little sister Jaimie and her husband AJ just bought their "First House" last night! They are building a house, so they actually bought a lot with the house plans;) buuut the house will be done by the end of September-beginning of October. 
So exciting!! We can't wait to see it guys!! Congrats!

Dear School Year and Last Day of School:

Today is the Last Day of School. This day is always a mix of emotions for me. I'm definitely excited for summer break and happy that another successful school year has gone by....*but* I tear up and get so emotional saying goodbye to all of my students! I get so attached to my little ones and every year they become a big part of my heart. Each and every one of them become "my kids". Each year I'm saying goodbye to the little people that I've spent every day with, "my kids" that I've watched grow into little people, and "my kids" that I have taught and helped them learn not only academically, but also helped them learn how to be good people and responsible citizens. I am so proud of each and every one of them. I will miss them so very much! Especially my 2 Russian students in Kindergarten...I will miss hearing "Meesus Beeshup!" every day and getting hugs and smiles from them! Bye my babies!! *tears*

Dear Weekend: 

I plan to fully enjoy you and rest up, since next week will start..TRAINING!

(see below)

Dear Self, Husband, Ryan, and Kate:

I hope we are all ready for this! Monday starts Week 1, Day 1 of Jamie Eason's LiveFit Trainer. I am SO excited!! I've been wanting to do this so bad and I have finally convinced my husband and recruited Kate and Ryan to join us! Jamie Eason is my role model when it comes to health, nutrition, and fitness. She. Is. Amazing. and so beautiful inside and out! 

 Basically, all 4 of us will be on a very strict/intense, clean eating diet and weight lifting/cardio schedule for 12 weeks. That will be June-August for us! There are 3 phases of the program and I am fully planning on being totally shredded by the end of the program! Challenge accepted. Extra hot body...here we come!

Dear Iowa:
Enough already...man! First it's a long winter, then there's snow in May...and now it's flooding because there is so much freaking rain!! Ugh! Where did we move to?!? Ok, so it's definitely annoying, but we *do* like living here. Our town is adorable and we love our house and the friends that we have made here! But seriously, it's June - tomorrow - so let's get on with summer...shall we? Please and Thank You.

Dear Hubby:
I love that 1) you are so handsome and mine all mine, but 2) that you are a grill-master! Now that we can actually be outside (because it's not negative degrees or when it's not raining), we can actually use the grill and enjoy our deck and new deck furniture every night! I love it!! Thank you for being you and knowing how to grill like a champ. Love you!!

 

TGIF y'all! Happy Friday!!

Nashville!!!

Nashville. How do I even start? Love it *understatement*!! I have been to Nashville 4 times now and Brad has been twice. We. Love. Nashville, Tennessee. We have even discussed retiring there...well, there or on the beach in Charleston! If there was a Deere facility in Tennessee, we would move there in a heart beat! It's just a good, country place to be. Being a southern girl, I would be very content to live in the south again ~ especially in the city that made country music famous!

After going to the Alan Jackson concert in February, a couple of us started scheming about making a visit to Nashville over Memorial Day weekend. It would be a long weekend after all. We got all of our plans finalized, so Brad and I along with Kate and Ryan headed out Thursday night to drive to St. Louis and then on to Nashville Friday morning. We arrived in the country music city Friday around 2 pm.

Our first stop was the restaurant, Rock Bottom. Love it. Brad and I went on our Mini-Moon when the restaurant was called Big River. Loved it then too. They have their own brewery! and an awesome roof-top bar. After eating dinner, we headed out for some live music, a few drinks, and some good ole country fun!

 
Saturday morning we bought tickets and went to tour the backstage of the Grand Ole Opry!! I had been wanting to go to the Grand Ole Opry for a while. One, this is where country music was born, two, it's a live radio show!, and three, the show Nashville is filmed there! Kate and I loooove Nashville so we were pretty excited to see it! We saw and learned about the history of the Grand Ole Opry, toured behind the scenes, saw the "stars walk" and Minnie's fountain, walked through the studio where they film Nashville, saw the Members list and the post office, the dressing rooms - even the dressing room that the show Nashville uses, and got to stand on the Stage...on the circle from the Ryman center. A-maz-ing.

After our tour, we walked out the door, across the street, and into the mall. This was actually partially the boys idea!! Well, we shopped, and we shopped, and we shopped. And then we shopped some more. We found lots of fabulous things and Kate even bought some new boots! After that, we got ready and then headed out for Night #2!! We ate at Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville, walked around Broadway street, then hunkered down in a bar and listened to fantastic live music the rest of the night.

Sunday morning, we packed up and headed out to walk around Broadway street...in the daylight! It's just so much fun! I need to live there for sure. After walking around, we went to the Bluebird (famous), and then found some other places to shop at - a mall and one of my favorite stores, Apricot Lane!

That afternoon we drove back to St. Louis, got some dinner and froyo (Ryan's new favorite thanks to us!), and spent the rest of the night in our hotels hot tub. Monday morning we drove the rest of the way home. Overall, awesome long weekend trip!! No worries Nashville, we will be back!!

InstaLately

May 20-27, 2013

 Top: new DIY project / baking hard boiled eggs

Middle: baby bunny in our yard / pups / red + chambray + leopard

Bottom: St. Louis arches / bffs /Love

MUD RUN!! #1

Obviously, I like to run/workout/do anything physically challenging. When I saw this Mud-Run, I was super excited! I've always wanted to do one and this one was in town and only $18! I called a few people to see if they wanted to join in and signed up!

Brad was not having any of it. Ha! He said, "Why would I want to run...and/or get muddy? Why would I do that?" Silly man. My friend Tami was willing to run with me, however, her hubs was also out. Wimps.

The race was at 9 am, Saturday morning. We bought cheap clothes so that we could throw them away if they got ruined. My theory...as little clothes as possible! We got dressed, grabbed towels, extra clothes, and a garbage bag for our muddy clothes and headed out! We signed in and waited for the race start. Apparently, as we heard during this time, last years mud run was...well..dry. We wondered what this year would be like!

The race started and we headed out over the trails. The race was at George Wyth State park, so we were literally running on tiny, curvy, zig zagged trails...through streams. It was awesome! The only bad part...there was BARELY any mud! I was expecting to get covered...nope! Just a few specks on the backs of our legs and very wet shoes. Oh well, it was still fun!

Next Mud Run will be in June with Sister Beth!!

Happy 9 Month Anniversary to Us!!

I can't believe time is flying by so quickly! We've enjoyed every minute of our 9 months of marriage. We are so blessed! God had been so good to us and we cannot thank him enough for bringing us together and letting us spend the rest of our lives together!

We did much better this month of taking pictures together :) Months 8-9 of marriage!!

I love you bear. Happy 9 months!

Prom! 2013

Brad and I have been taking Dance lessons since March. Some of our friends had taken the Fox Trot class and were planning on taking another class. We decided to join them along with another couple!

The first class we took was Swing. Brad already knew Swing, so this was more of a...Kristen needs to learn Swing. We had so much fun that we decided to take another class! The second class we took was Rock Sway. Rock Sway is a 4-step beat that can be danced to almost anything! How can I explain what it looks like...

Anyone ever see Dirty Dancing?? It is my favorite movie, so I know it all by heart. Ok, so think about the last big dance scene in the movie. Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) is proving his love for Baby (Jennifer Gray) and his worth as a dancer. In the ending dance, when the music picks up (start hearing "Now I...had...the time of my life...and I owe it all to you...." in your head) they start dancing Rock Sway. *insert swooning* I die every time. Love it! The best part?...during our dance lessons we actually danced to this song! I felt like I was in the movie. It was fabulous!

Anywho, our dance teacher, Faythe, holds dances at a ballroom in Waterloo every month for her students to practice and get out and dance. Faythe has been teaching for over 20 years and teaches a lot of dance classes, so she has and has had a ton of students. Most of them being 40 and above. We are by far her youngest students. We love it though!

In May, Faythe's dance is PROM!! Seriously, it's called Prom and people dress up and go to the dance! How cute is that!?! We got Prom dresses, the guys dressed up, and we all went to the dance. We danced, we drank, and we actually got to go home with our prom dates! Perfect night. :)

Faythe got some "action shots" of us dancing, so hopefully I can add those soon!!

Mother's Day 2013

This Mother's Day was a little hard for me. This was the first time that I have been away from my mom on Mother's Day. Luckily, we live close enough to Brad's parents that, at least, I was able to see one of my moms!

Sunday morning, Beth, Gene, Brad, and I ran in the Furry 5K. After that, we all got ready and drove down to meet Brad's parents in Cedar Rapids. We had lunch at Olive Garden and as always, enjoyed some family time. We gave Momma B her presents and took a few pictures. We were really glad that we got to spend some time with her!

Left : Mom with Beth and Brad                                                                Right: Mom with all her kids (minus Matt and Karen)

I got my mom's present to her early so that she could open it on Mother's Day. I was able to call her and talk to her on Mother's Day, but it just wasn't the same!

Happy Mother's Day to our 2 beautiful Mothers. We love you both so very much!!

AND Happy Mother's Day to the 3 new Mothers in our family!!

• Karen Bishop (with baby Jackson)
• Sarah Sides (with baby Brantley)
• Trish Copeland (with baby Kellen)

We hope you all enjoyed your first Mother's Day!!

Melissa & Joe's Wedding...in Hawaii!

Gorgeous. Congratulations Melissa and Joe! We love you very much!

Melissa and Joe's wedding took place in Lahaina, Maui on April 27, 2013.

Hawaii - Day 8: Lahaina, Maui

Sunday, April 28
We woke up pretty early and were on the move! Today, the whole group of friends and family + the bride and groom had planned an all morning snorkeling trip! I had been dying to see some sea turtles, so I was super excited for this trip! I mean, we had seen just about everything else!! We all met at the Whaler's Village in Lahaina, checked into our tour group, and then had some time to walk around and look into the shops. Melissa and I had been talking about hemp tattoos, and we actually found one here...so we did it!

We finally got on our boat at 10 am. It was awesome! Normally, whale season ends in March. This was April. Whale sightings are pretty rare this time of year. The cool thing about this area of Maui is that the whales come to this specific location, mate, have whale babies, feed, and then when the babies are strong enough they make the trip back to Alaska to eat all summer long. At a certain time in December (I think), the whales make the trip back to Maui to do the above mentioned again. It's a rotating cycle for the whales and the Maui community. How cool is that?? Well, while we were waiting for our boat on the beach...we saw some WHALES! They were quite a ways away, but we could see them blowing water from time to time!

As soon as we got on the boat, the captain gave us the safety speech and then informed us that we were going to go whale watching first! We actually "chased" down the whales. The captain and crew then explained to us what we were seeing. There were 8-10 whales in the group that we were watching. No one has ever witnessed actual whale mating. It's very private, apparently. So this group of whales we saw is called a competition group. There is one female, who swims in the front of the group, and could care less about what's going on behind her. Following the female, was a group of male whales competing for her. When I say competing, I mean beating each other up...for DAYS...until there is one dominant whale who "wins," There are 2 theories about this competition group: 1) the male has already mated with the female and he is "protecting his investment" and/or 2) the males are competing to mate with the female. How cool is that?!? And we actually got to see this!! It was so exciting. By law, we had to stay 100 ft. away from the whales. 100ft. So we were pretty close to them!

After our whale watching, we soaked up some sun and enjoyed the boat ride. Gorgeous! We even rode right by our villas! Once we got to the snorkeling spot, the captain threw over the anchor and away we went!
 
Just imagine this...swimming in the bright blue water, looking at all of the gorgeous coral and colorful fish, holding the hand of your spouse...it was like a movie moment! We swam right over the coral, saw all kinds of tropical fish, and even 2 sea turtles sitting on the coral below us!! While we were watching, one of the sea turtles started to swim upwards. He floated near the top of the water getting some air. We were about 5 feet away from it when it went a few feet under water, swam right towards us, and then dove below us. It was AWESOME! Seriously, one of the best parts of the trip! I was like a kid in a candy store. I love this stuff!

When we were done snorkeling (for about 2 hours), we got back on the boat, headed towards the landing area, and enjoyed some lunch and a few drinks! After we were back on land, it was time for the bride and groom to head out. We said our goodbyes and talked about our next visits! Happy Honeymoon Melissa and Joe!!! Brad and I had checked out of our villa, but had stored our stuff in Melissa's brothers villa. We stopped back there, cleaned up, and hung out with the 4 of them for a while. While we were sitting on the porch, we saw turtles down below us in the water!! We headed down to the trail to the water and watched about 5 sea turtles eating right below us. I got some pretty cool pictures!

These were our last pictures taken in Hawaii. After saying goodbye to Jeff, Lesleigh, Jason, and Jess we headed to the airport and started the trip home. We flew out of Maui at 10:30 pm, landed in La at 6 am, flew to Denver, then Cedar Rapids! Sister Beth picked us up and we drove back home. We walked in the door at about 5 pm on Monday. What. A. Trip.

We are so thankful that we got to go to Hawaii, have a perfect Honeymoon in paradise, and be a part of Melissa and Joe's wedding. We are blessed!

InstaLately

May 13-19, 2013

Top: chevron + neon / new monogram bag / cobalt blue + cowboy boots

Middle: mint + silver layering / mud run! 

Bottom: cuddling / paisley / handsome man