Thursday, March 31, 2011

My Birthday!

Was actually 2 weeks ago, but pictures are pictures, even if they are grainy cell phone pictures.  I love birthdays… I love my birthday, and it was a good day.

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Best part of birthdays are pedicures.  I get 3 pedicures a year… my birthday, my mom’s birthday and my SIL birthday.

After pedicures I drove home… and was grateful for the beautiful day.

 

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the sun was shining, it was warm…

That night we did dinner at Cheddars (I love Cheddars… better food than Applebee's, cheaper too…)

After that?  Girl time!  We went to old town… and was entirely unimpressed.  That being said, I love the girls I was with, so it was fun :)

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Karina and I.  I have the best sister in law ever…

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Corrie… Jolene… Elizabeth.  And a green beer bottle.  Necessary on St. Patrick’s day!

All in all… it was a pretty awesome day.  It is my plan to enjoy birthdays for life… because getting older? not a bad thing.

March rocked… Happy April!

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

the vibrance of my garden

I had grand plans for this week’s you capture.  Vibrant… there are all sorts of vibrant things growing in my yard right now. Then… life got cold and gray randomly, and the sun is refusing to shine.  This morning, however, I decided enough waiting on the sun and to just enjoy the colors I do have.  I therefore bring you my garden, courtesy of Billie the previous owner who apparently liked to garden as evidenced by the amount of stuff growing in my yard.  I have no clue what most of it is, and definitely no clue how to keep it growing, but it is beautiful all the same…

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some sort of ground cover?  I love purple…

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I just set up my picture wall in my dining room, and there are a couple of snow pictures.  I think they might be getting replaced shortly.  I believe these are hyacinths?  I want to plant a boatload more… beautiful and they smell good.

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I thought this bush was ugly yellow leaves until I looked at it and realized it was really pretty yellow flowers.  No leaves on the entire bush, but it is covered in these flowers.

fighting tulips

I think these tulips used to be best friends, being neighbors in the garden and all, but apparently they must have had a fight because they are now facing opposite directions the way my best friend and I used to do in sunday school when we weren’t getting along, you know, opposite directions but at an angle so they can see what the other is doing out of the corner of their eyes.

(what? You didn’t instantly come up with that story?)

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White tree… no clue what it is.  one would think it is a Bradford pear like the rest of Wichita is covered with, but it is huge and covering my house so I am thinking no.  Beautiful, however.  I quite love it.

Amazing thing is that even though I was running around in my packers pants taking pictures in the dreary cold I kind of love them.  Shows me… I need to take pictures more even when the conditions don’t seem perfect.

As far as I can tell I have some rose bushes that are turning green, some grape vines that still look dead, a possible apple tree, and a crazy amount of what looks like sticks pretty much everywhere.  It is going to be interesting to see what else appears in once spring actually arrives.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Youth

This is my cousin Jessy:

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She is definitely young.

This is me:

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I felt really old next to her. 

This is us on top of a really tall mountain.

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I did really nice, slow, wide turns all the way down the mountain.

Jessy pointed her skis downhill and went for it.

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This is her and Aunt Anne putting back up a fence after Jessy knocked if over and ran into a tree.

This is Aunt Anne:

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She likes my style of skiing better than Jessy’s.  

The view from the top of the mountain.  God does some amazing work, doesn’t he?

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The last day it snowed so hard I melted into the background:

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We drove to the bottom of the mountain and the world looked like this:

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It was a pretty awesome trip.  By the end she learned to stop and I learned to go a little faster.

Jessy is pretty much my favorite youth:

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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Ghosts of Birthdays past

Today is the best day of the year.

Really

23

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19

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Get your green on!!! 

The first birthday message posted on my wall:

"May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
...And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand."

My favorite birthday message of all time:

Corrie
let me tell you a story
you came here on St. Patricks Day
This poem is getting a little gay
We'll just stop now!!!
We Love you, Chelsie and Tiffany

 

I am very grateful to be alive, and although 23 wasn’t the awesome year I thought it would be, it was good.  Good things happened and I am excited to see what 24 holds.

Happy St. Patricks day!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Bodies

I am in love with the nose on my new dog. 

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(okay, she belongs to my new roommate, but I quite love her)

My friend Tiffany?  She has tiny feet.  really.  like size 5 or 6.  However, when I am lifting tiny feet into a tree, they don’t seem so tiny:

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I need to work on my body mechanics. 

Her knee didn’t much like being wedged in a tree much, either.

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These girls showed up on my front porch Friday night to surprise me with a birthday weekend.  It was one of the best surprises ever.  I love them.

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(And I hate how much time they spend talking about what is wrong with various body parts.  They are beautiful.  Their parts are beautiful.  I wish I knew how to talk the girls in my life into loving their bodies.)

That being said, the best pictures I took this weekend(with the assistance of the stone tower at the end of the driveway) was this set. I love the way we move over 10 seconds :)

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I seriously thought she was going to fall on her head.  Got to love the trouble we can get in.

Oh!  and the most important body parts of all:

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After years of me wishing and 2 years of her trying, my big sister is having a baby!  I am so very excited!!!

Life is good :)

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