Online Baby Shower

When I found out my best friend in the entire world was pregnant, I was over the moon. Ecstatic. Excited. Every word that could possibly describe how happy I was, I was feeling it. I wish that we would have recorded my reaction when they told me over Skype. I screamed. Really loudly. 

Now for most of you that know me and have been around this blog for a while, you know that my best friend no longer lives here in CO with me. Her and her Hubby are now in Hawaii where her Husband is stationed. So as you can imagine, throwing her a proper baby shower, seemed almost impossible. 

So I did what most people do in instances like these, I turned to Google to do some research on how we could throw her a baby shower all the way from Colorado. I stumbled upon a blog that talked about throwing an online or a virtual baby shower. So I kept doing more and more research and found that this is apparently pretty common.

Source

So of course I contacted one of her Sisters and one of our other best friends who is her step sister and asked them what they thought. They were completely on board. We wanted to surprise her, but that ended up not working out. We even had her Husband in on it. But unfortunately, it just didn't work out that way. Which is completely okay, it just would have been cool to surprise her. 

We have scoured the internet high and low for all kinds of information on how to go about this. We have taken bits and pieces from everything we have read and come up with what we think will be the best way to go about this and I can not wait to see how it turns out.

One of the great things is that since most of her family and friends are grouped together in states, we are going to hold "viewing" or "watch" parties. For example, people in CO can come to my place, and her family in friends in NM can go to her sisters place and so on and so on. We will all be on Google hangouts and that way we can all see and hear each other. 

 We have also picked a theme! And I am so excited about it that I can't quit looking for things to buy for decor and invites. Obviously decor is going to be a little hard, but I do plan on sending a box of decorations to her before hand so that they can decorate and really feel like they are at a baby shower. And of course each of us holding a viewing party can decorate at our place as well. 

What do you guys think? Do you think we will be able to pull it off? Have you ever held an online baby shower? How did it go? Do you have any suggestions?

Weekend Recap, Memorial Day Weekend Edition

Happy Tuesday! I love that I can say that and not feel bad about it, haha! 

Our Memorial Day Weekend was pretty jam packed.

On Friday we went to Sushi with Aran's family. And as usual, the Sushi was delicious! I even tried a raw piece and it was actually not bad! After Sushi we went to the Sky Sox baseball game. It was a beautiful night for a baseball game. And they won! And then after the game we stayed for Friday Night Fireworks!

Aran, His Brother, and His Brother In Law all signing their receipts with pretty flowers!

On Saturday I got up early and went out to a few  yard sales. I got some great things and only spent $23!!! I love a good bargain! After the yard sales we did a few things around the house and then headed up to Aran's parents house. 

The awesome night stand I got for $10

We hung out with his family for a while and then headed to church where his parents renewed their wedding vows for their 40th anniversary. It was very sweet! After the vow renewal we went back to his parents house and had some yummy food, played some games and then headed home for the evening.

Vow Renewal & the middle pic is our Nephew during the Vow Renewal

All the boys playing a game that our oldest Nephew came up with

Sunday morning we woke up and got ready to head up to Aran's parents again. We headed up around 11:30 and just hung out for a good part of the day. Around 6 pm we all headed out for an amazing dinner at The Wine Experience to celebrate Aran's parents 40 years of marriage. The food was delicious!!! And the wine was amazing too!

Louie and I in the car on the way up

The delicious food

On Monday we got up and got ready and then headed out to meet my family to go to Territory Days. Territory Days is a big street festival that takes place every Memorial Day Weekend. There are vendors with jewelry, house decor, clothes, you name it, it is there. There is also lots of yummy food! So we walked around the street fair with my family for a few hours and then headed home. 

Aran and our Niece, Rylei

After we got home I watched a little bit of TV and then headed to the grocery store to do our shopping for the week. Then we had dinner and ended the night watching Season 2 of Duck Dynasty!

Some snuggling kitties relaxing with us

It was a great weekend filled with spending lots of time with our families! And I wouldn't trade that for anything! 

I hope you guys all had a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Friday's Letters

Dear Friday,

Glad you are here, but I know that we are busy this weekend, so it is kind of bittersweet. I just want to get some sleep.

Dear Weather Yesterday,

Seriously?! The one day we plan an outdoor BBQ for the employees and you decided to be freaking cold and rainy all day. Get your shiz together!

Dear Company,

You have no idea how proud I am to work for you. The fact that you took my suggestion to donate all of our old merchandise to the victims of the OK tornadoes is amazing! Even more amazing that everyone helped pitch in yesterday to the load the trailer up! I am so proud to work for a company that is willing to reach out to those in need. 

Dear OK Tornado Victims,

You guys are all in my thoughts and prayers. I can't imagine what you are going through right now, but please know that millions are thinking of all of you. 

Dear MaKenzi(my oldest Niece),

Congrats on Graduating from Kindergarten! I am so proud of you baby girl! You are growing up so fast and becoming such an amazing little girl! I love you so much sweetie and I am so sorry that I couldn't be there. 

Dear Kelsi(the middle Niece),

I can't believe you are going to be in Kindergarten next year. And I know that you say that you aren't excited about going to school(you really are your Father's child) I know that you will love it! I can't believe how big you are getting. I am so proud of you too and I know that you will love school! I love you so much big girl. 

Dear Rylei(the youngest Niece),

Little girl you are getting so big already. You are already walking at 8 1/2 months. You said your first word the other day. I just can't believe how much you have already grown. I can't wait to see what else you have in store for all of us!

Dear In-laws,

Congrats on your 40th Wedding Anniversary!!!

Dear Service Men and Women,

Thank you so much for everything you do for our country. I appreciate everything you do and all the sacrifices you make for us! 

Okay, that's all I have today. I hope you guys all have a great Memorial Day Weekend! 

Bringing Sexy Back Week 9 Link Up

Good morning everyone! It is time for this weeks edition of Bringing Sexy Back! A fitness link up hosted by K from Down at Fraggle Rock and yours truly. So grab the button, link up and tell us how you brought sexy back this week.

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This week has had some good and bad. Let's start with the good. 

I am still doing really well with logging my food and watching what I am eating. I did use last Saturday as my cheat day. Something good that came out of that though was that I actually thought the food I was eating tasted absolutely disgusting. And I previously loved this food, so I guess that is a good thing. 

I am also down another 2.2 lbs. Yay!! That is 18.6 lbs total and I can not wait to get to that 20 lb mark. However, I didn't meet my goal of being down to 210 by this weekend. I was 4 lbs off from that, but I am still closer than I was so I am counting that as a positive thing. 

And for the last good thing, I bought this dress to wear on our Honeymoon last October. Well, I ended up not wearing it because I didn't like the way I looked in it. And now, I finally like how I look in it!

Okay, now for the bad this week.

I didn't work out nearly as much as I should have. I seriously need to get my butt in gear and get back into the gym. Things have just been so crazy, but I need to not use that as an excuse. I just need to go. Also, this weekend is going to be really hard on my calories I have a feeling. My in laws are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary(Congrats to my In-Laws!) by renewing their vows. So lots of food will be consumed. I am just hoping that I can control my portions and make good decisions.

And now for my new goals. I want to be down to 200 lbs by the time I go to Country Jam at the end of June. So that's 14 lbs in 4 weeks, so essentially I need to lose 3.5 lbs every week. I know I can do it. I just need to get my butt in the gym and I need to start lifting weights! As much as I hate lifting and also don't know what I am doing, I just need to do it.

I also want to continue tracking my food on a daily basis and consume a ton more water than I have been. I am going to try and get in my 10,000 steps every day. And last but not least, I want to make good decisions this weekend with my food. It may be difficult, but I know that if I focus and really think about it, I can do it.

So how did you guys do this week? We want to hear all about it, because we are here to support each other! Also don't forget to head on over to K's and see how she did this week!

Softball & Soreness

Apparently when you haven't played Softball in three years and then you play two games back to back, you get this thing called soreness. And let me tell ya, it's a bitch!

Yesterday afternoon I got an email from a co-worker asking me if I would be interested in playing Softball that night. They were short a few girls(coed team) and they had to have enough girls to play so that they didn't have to sit guys. So I said sure.

I got to the park around 7:30. It was freezing cold and it was raining. Awesome!  Another co-worker and I started warming up. Finally it was time to play. 

The first game I played 2nd base which isn't normal for me. I am usually put in the outfield or catching. I actually did pretty well at it. It was interesting that is for sure. And the one time I did bat, I had a nice single to the short stop area. I couldn't believe I even hit the ball, but even more I couldn't believe that I hit it as far as I did. This isn't the norm for me. We ended up only playing 3 innings of that game because of the 20 run rule. Yeah, we lost horribly, haha!

The second game they put me at 1st base. Again, not a position I am used to. I actually did pretty good with it too. I was pretty impressed with myself. And this game I got to bat three times and got on base two of three times. But I hit the ball every single time. I just wasn't quick enough to get on 1st for one of them, haha! We lost this game too, but not as badly. Only by five runs. 

It was actually a lot of fun to get out there and play again. Hopefully I can do it again sometime. And hopefully next time I won't be so damn sore the next morning. OMFG I can barely walk today. My legs hurt so bad. No pain no gain though, right?!

Weekend Recap

Good morning everyone! I hope you guys had a great weekend! 

Friday night was probably the best part of my weekend. Every now and then my work hosts these concerts along with the local radio station for up and coming country artists. And even though these concerts are free to the public as long as you have a ticket from the radio station, we get to go as well. I have met some pretty amazing artists that are now pretty big deals(Joe Nichols, Chuck Wicks, Justin Moore) at these things so I always try to go. The three people performing at this particular one were Austin Webb, Dakota Bradley and Jaida Dreyer.

I showed up about an hour early to see if our staff needed help setting anything up. While we were hanging out waiting for the show to start, I got to meet one of the radio DJ's from a country station in town. I absolutely love this lady so I was excited. And she is even more awesome in person!

While I was hanging out with her and the other morning show DJ, Dakota Bradley came up and just started talking to us. He was super nice and was really fun to talk to. He also told me that I rocked because I went and got him and the other two artists some bottled water. I thought that was pretty cool. Just saying. And when I handed Austin Webb his water, he looked at me and asked if we had met before. He said I looked really familiar. When I told him no(I am pretty sure I would remember if I had met this hottie before), he asked me my name and shook my hand. 

The show finally got started and they each sang 4 or 5 songs. They were all amazing! I think out of the three I liked Austin's style the best. They were all extremely talented, but I definitely think Austin was the most talented out of the three. And the most gorgeous!

Left-Austin Webb Right-Austin Webb, Dakota Bradley & Jaida Dreyer

After the show I got to hang out a little bit more with the two radio DJ's and then I got to do a meet and greet with each artist. I got a picture with each of them and a signed picture. So when they are all famous and stuff, I can pull those suckers out and be like "Yeah, I've met them. No big deal!" Haha!

Saturday I was up early to go help a friend of mine move into the new house that her and her Husband just bought. So there was lot's of heavy lifting. Well from her Husband her Brother and her Brother's friend. I mean we helped, but we definitely left the heavier stuff to the guys. 

Saturday night I headed over to another friend's house so that we could go downtown to watch the Rapids game. I ended up winning an awesome Rapids shirt! I was a little nervous though because it was a women's large and I wasn't sure if it would fit, but when I got home I tried it on and it fit perfectly!! Whoop whoop! 

Unfortunately the Rapids game ended in a tie, which was complete BS! They should have won that game. The refs were absolutely horrible. They weren't calling anything on the other team who were practically tackling the Rapids any chance they got, but if the Rapids even barely touched the other team they were calling all kinds of fouls! And one of those fouls(that shouldn't have been called) led to the other team scoring  the tying goal. Complete crap I tell ya!

Sunday was pretty uneventful. I woke up around 10. Had breakfast. Went to the grocery store. Came home and did massive amounts of laundry and had dinner. That was pretty much the extent of my day. Pretty crazy stuff, huh?!

I hope that you guys all had a great weekend too! I know that I am looking forward to next weekend and with a short and busy work week, hopefully it gets here quickly! Have a great day everyone!

Friday's Letters

 Dear Laura,

Congrats on winning the $25 gift card of your choosing!!! I sent you an email this morning, so please let me know where  you would like your gift card to! 

Dear Weather,

Thank you for finally being nice! Spring has actually arrived. I appreciate that you finally made up your mind.

Dear Friday,

Please go by quickly today. I have something fun to do after work, so I would appreciate it if you wouldn't take your sweet time today. K? Thanks!

Dear Grass That We Are Trying To Grow,

Please please please come in. I am tired of that spot in the yard being bare while everything else looks super nice. Please start growing soon. I  have been watering you as much as I can and I would appreciate it if you would cooperate with us!

Dear Duck Dynasty,

I don't know how I ever lived my life without you. I am obsessed and proud of it. I know that I am always in for a good laugh when I watch this show and I love that. 

Dear Hubby,

I know that the budget we set up for ourselves to follow for the next year is strict, but I know we can do this and the reward for our super saving will be amazing!!! I have all the confidence in the world that we can do this! 

Dear Budget,

Prepare to be adhered to! We are going to kick some serious butt and pay off so much stuff AND finally have a down payment for a car!!! Aaaagghhh! I can't wait to see all of our hard work pay off!

Dear New Car,

I promise we are coming for you within the next 6 months! I can't wait to be able to pick you out and drive you home! 

Source

Dear Self,

Way to go with keeping up with your healthy life decisions! You are kicking ass! Keep up all of the hard work! It will definitely be worth it in the end. 

Dear Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando,

Oh we are coming for you! Not til 2015 because we are waiting until after the new expansion to Harry Potter World is open, but we are coming. We have already set a budget and are starting to save for this trip!! I CAN NOT WAIT!!!!!!

Okay lovelies, that's all I have for today. I hope you guys all have a great weekend!