{much needed weekend}

i have made a discovery i'm assumed has been made by many a grad student before me...

I LIVE FOR 4 DAY WEEKENDS!

for real.  who knew that extra sleep could do so much for a person?

this weekend has given me the extra umph i think i need to get through this last month of grad school (that and the fact i am no longer waking up at 5:45 am!  everybody reading this needs to give a cheer for that...)

it was so great to relax, to cook (ian and i baked!... homemade bread, homemade cupcakes)

we took my favorite munchkins swimming, and swimming with an almost 2 year old and a 3 and a half year old is just fun!  they have so much fun splashing and swimming and jumping in, ian and i laughed with them for 3 hours while we swam and played... hello joyful heart!

we woke up super early yesterday to go cheer on lots of friends at the bluegrass 10,000 (and made a commitment to run next year...), we relaxed and played lots of cards, made a campfire and roasted hotdogs, brats, and marshmallows, and got to hang out with wonderful friends while we watched the fireworks.

today, it's back to the grind, but honestly, i'm not dreading it.  without speech camp, life gets to slow down just a bit, to a slightly more manageable pace, and i only have 1 month left of sitting in a classroom.  1 month.  how crazy is that????

**side note... does anyone know of someone looking for a place to live?  or a job... i'm currently looking for both.  if you hear of either, my gratitude towards you will be immense :)

happy tuesday, everyone!

{the list}

first off.... CONGRATS TO MY ROOMMATE!  erica and john are officially engaged!  so happy for you guys :)  love you both very much!

ian and i have a list of things to do when we get bored... some things are easier to do (like go to the farmer's market), and other things are a little more special.

today was a special day!

we started things off with a trip to talon winery.  neither of us know very much at all about wine, and it was a nice day, so we packed a lunch and went out tates creek road.

the winery was great... we had the place to ourselves and walked around and learned all about the process of making wine.

after the winery, we decided we would mark another item off the list... taking a trip on the ferry across tates creek road!

waiting our turn

how fun!?!?

we have lived in lexington for far too long to never have done this!  we went and explored eku for a bit, then came home and marked a third item off our list... cupcakes from scratch!!

we made coconut cupcakes with chocolate ganache.  the ganache didn't really turn out all fluffy like it was supposed to, but they were really good

finishing the night off classy-style... water and iced tea ;)

what a day!  3 things marked off our list... guess we'll have to put some more items on there

{freedom!}

well, this isn't to celebrate freedom from oppression that we're celebrating on monday, BUT....

i'm free from speech camp!

the kids were fun and it was a good experience, but i can't wait to actually get more than 5-6 hours of sleep a night :)  it's the simple things in life...

today started out great with a little picnic breakfast in the arboretum with ian.  we found some shade and plopped down for about 2 hours which was glorious... i love being outside in the summer.  i practically lived outside when it got warm all growing up (we even ate outside a lot of nights... talk about heaven!), so when kids hate being outside, it's so foreign to me!  it was a great way to start the day, especially since he works super late on friday nights, so i don't get to see him much.

i went and killed some time around lexington before coffee with the lovely lauren preece :)  i had a gift card and got some reusable muffin cups and a french press coffee maker.  i love them both.... i hate buying muffin cups that i'm just going to throw away, and these are really fun AND can be put in the dishwasher.  i made some chocolate chip/coconut muffins and they're super good... (a boxed mix + coconut extract and topped with coconut... heavenly and easy)

the french press is interesting.... it will take some figuring out, but the coffee really tastes better!  and it feels adult for some reason.  is that lame?  it's ok if it is...

i have exciting news too, BUT you have to wait :)  it's exciting though, so check back soon.

{you can do it!}

last. day. of. speech. camp. TOMORROW.

i will miss my kids, i will not miss the 5:45 alarm clock.

friday, i am sleeping until i can't sleep anymore :)

cd girls, we are almost there!

{365}

short and sweet because i don't like to get too sappy (especially if this is considered pda...), but thank you to the most wonderful man for 1 year of dating :)  it has been a wonderful year full of laughter, talking, learning, growing and figuring out what it means to experience this life together.

thank you for being a Godly example of a man who is always trying to help me grow and change for the better, who serves me and others, and who reminds me constantly of what is important in life.

you're wonderful, and i am very blessed to be your girlfriend :)

{grad school}

let me preface this post with I LOVE SCHOOL.  i really do... i love the people i have class with, i love learning new things, i love my teachers... still, this whole 'grad school' thing is not for the faint of heart.

this may sound a bit over dramatic if you are just exceptionally brilliant, or you've never been to grad school.  i've been over there in that mindset (the never been to grad school one...)

that is, until now.

i always thought, 'hey, undergrad isn't too bad!  grad school is just like undergrad minus the unknown! (ie once you get into grad school, no more applying for things until it's a real big-girl job).

jokes.

i feel like life has been put on hold the past few weeks because of school.

here's my typical day:

5:45 the blasted alarm goes off on my phone.  6:50.  it goes off again.  7:00.  it goes off for a third time and i convince myself this is real and not a dream and i really have to get out of bed.  i put on professional clothes, gather my various books, make some coffee and head off to meijer in hamburg.  there i meet 3 lovely ladies and we car pool (how environmentally friendly of us!) off to the land of the colonels.

it's speech camp time.

yes, we call it camp.  it's our attempt to make those 8 year olds really love their life.  it's actually just group therapy, but i get 3 and 4 year olds, so they really do love us.  still, it's at 8:30 am.  (on a side bar, one of them told his mom speech camp is the greatest part of his life.  how adorable is that?  he makes waking up at 5:45 a little more bearable.)

camp runs til 11:45, so we have approximately an hour of free time (which has become the official hour of eating our feelings) before we have class.  classes run from 1-3:30, and then 3:35-5:55 on mondays and wednesdays, and thankfully, just til 3:30 on tuesdays and thursdays.  this means mondays and wednesdays, we kind of die a little bit inside.  like for real.  it makes for super long days (that's 13 hours of school if you count my commute!)

add to that that last week we had a test monday, a test tuesday, we have another test this monday and wednesday, and we have paperwork for clinic.  HOT DANG ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME GRAD SCHOOL!?

this is the reason i have no time for blogging.  or breathing.  or eating.  or sleeping.  or many other things that i once thought were required to sustain life.

oh well... one more week of speech camp!  then i will once again know what it feels like to be a normally functioning human being (well slightly....)

{ichthus 2011}

i love music.  it is just great, and if you have it live, it's 10 times better!  ichthus 2011 is officially over, and it was another great one :)  for the past 2 years, ian and i have worked the compassion international booth, so we split our time watching some awesome bands and telling people about an awesome organization.

the line-up this year wasn't bad!  we got to see anberlin again, which isn't really an ichthus favorite by the crowds, but hot dang they're good!  if you ever get the chance to see them, you really should.  i even broke my rule of not meeting celebrities and met them (the line was less than a minute to see them... i couldn't not say hi!)

another band if you ever get the chance to see that you should jump on the chance is family force 5.  they may appeal to the middle school/high school crowd, but they are HILARIOUS and so good in concert.  they get the crowd excited, they dance around like crazy people, and they just have a good time!  the encore?  oh... they came out with ballons of themselves and a hamster ball.  completely and totally ridiculous, but also amazing.

it was a great weekend!  i got to see some awesome music, tell people about compassion, i got a southern cooking lesson from ian's mom one day when we took a break, i got sun!, and i had a fabulous weekend with the boy!

and happy father's day to the most wonderful dad a girl could ask for!  my daddy can fix everything, he's always sending me encouraging texts, and he has been an amazing example of who my Heavenly Father is.  i love you, pops!  thanks for being such a great dad all these years!