10 Year Reunion

This weekend, Michael and I escaped house selling hell and traveled to Arkansas for my 10 year high school reunion. I feel so old saying that! I don't feel like it has been ten years since I graduated from high school. I still feel like I am in my early twenties!

I admit...I did NOT want to go to the reunion, and I didn't decide to go until just a few weeks before when my best high school friends Holly and Amber convinced me to go. High school was not the best chapter in my life. I have a lot of bad memories from those four years as I am sure most people do. Most of those memories have to do with being friends with the wrong girls and trying to fit in. It wasn't until my senior year after a lot of Mean Girls scenes had played out in my life that I realized who my friends truly were and who my friends truly weren't. My senior year was supposed to be the best year of my life, but it was a nightmare!

It is amazing how life has its ways of working out though, and now I am so grateful that the best years of my life were not in high school. The 10 years after I left Cabot, Arkansas have been amazing, and I don't know what I would do with myself if I would have been one of the girls who peaked in high school. How miserable!

I am glad I went back this weekend because it was amazing to reconnect with the girls who meant the most to me when I graduated. It was so great to pick right back up like we just saw each other last week. All of us moved away from Arkansas, so this was a great opportunity to see each other.

I love these girls! Andrea, Holly, and Amber were three of my best friends in high school, and we have some pretty great memories of going on two senior trips together. Andrea is a doctor in Shreveport, Louisiana, Amber lives outside of Dallas with her husband Michael and their beautiful boy Cohen, and my best friend Holly, who is dating the most awesome guy, has a great career in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Holly and I first became friends in junior high when we made cheerleading together. She was my maid of honor, and she is my dearest friend.

And of course the handsome love of my life was my date.

Our name tags were really cute! They had our senior class picture printed on them.

It was so great to see Paige (middle) and Alex (to her right). Paige is a photographer, and Alex, who was our Miss CHS, is working on her doctorate.

Me and Andrea with our junior prom date Michael Sowell. Yes, that's right, he took both of us to the prom! Michael just got back from a trip to Peru.

Me and Lindsey! Her and her husband Tommy pastor a church in West Little Rock, and she is one of the sweetest girls I have ever met! She is beautiful too!

On Sunday before we headed back to Birmingham, my mom's family had a mini-reunion cookout since Michael and I were in town. I always say I have a small family since I am an only child, but there were 18 of us altogether.

Me and my beautiful Mom, or "Gimme," as her granddaughter Scarlett likes to call her!

Our little family!

My beautiful, tall, and dark complected cousins Sydney and Kelsea. Our moms are sisters, and its easy to see that we get our looks from our dads' sides of the family because we look nothing alike!

God's Plan

So I told you the other day that a lot has been going on since we got back from Boston. We spent a week working on the outside of our house to do all that we can to get this thing sold. Michael also started his full time position as the Director of Ticketing at Samford University (I'm so proud!), and he has been working so much lately trying to dive right into the job Michael style! He has been in Orlando since Saturday for his first NACDA conference living it up at Disney World while I have been stuck here in Birmingham all alone. We have also shown the house quite a few times this month, which means lots and lots of cleaning. Last week, I vacuumed the house three times and mopped it twice! I know, I'm such a whiner, but it gets old cleaning this house all the time, especially when people cancel showings. When we move, I am not going to clean for an entire month...and I am not kidding.

Well, hopefully our work has paid off because we have gotten an offer. You would think I would feel so great about an offer, but I never imagined how stressful this could be. We are new to this house selling thing, and it is stomach churning sometimes. The back and forth negotiating, contigencies, terms, inspections, appraisals, and waiting, waiting, waiting which I suck at! We should have finality soon, and I can only hope and pray all goes in our favor!

This has been especially difficult because Michael has been out of town through most of this, and being alone and stressed out is not the best combo for me. But tonight, I sat on the back deck and had a great quiet time and finally released some stressed and asked God for his guidance and peace. After my prayer, I called Michael and we had a great talk and both decided that whatever happens it is all God's plan and God's timing. No matter what happens, it is in God's hands, and it will all work out pefectly according to what He knows is best. We have done all we can do with what we have been given, and I just have to feel peace about that and know that the best will happen.

I am very happy that we have an offer and will hopefully be selling this home and moving on, but this has been a difficult process for all involved. It is so easy for me to get caught up in the stress, inconveniences, and the unknown of this process. But I have to take a breath and realize it is all part of the plan.

Thanks for letting me vent and get it all out! I do feel better now.

Boston: The Last Day

So much! So much! So much has been going on lately! But no excuses! I should have blogged days ago about our last day in Boston, and hopefully I can soon blog about what has been going on in Birmingham lately.

Our last day in Boston was perfect! We spent the day walking around the city seeing as many sites as possible. I think we walked 10 miles, but the weather was perfect for exploring on foot. We walked the southern end of The Freedom Trail and sat by the Charles River watching the sailboats before ending a great week in the North End (Boston's Little Italy) with a nice Italian dinner.

Sailboats in the Charles River

Granary Burying Ground

Ever heard of the nursery rhyme "Mother Goose?" This is Mother Goose's grave!

Paul Revere's grave

The famous Park Street Church. It was so neat to see a wedding taking place and watch the bride and groom make their departure from this beautiful 200 year old church.
All of us tourists were sitting across the street cheering them on!

Boston's Public Garden with the famous swans

This was an amazing hotel on Commonwealth Avenue. I wish I could have taken hundreds of pictures of the homes on this street, home of the wealthiest men and women in Boston, including Gisele and Tom Brady (too bad I didn't see him!)

We had lunch at McGreevy's, which is America's First Sports Bar. This is not the original location of McGreevy's. It was first located closer to Fenway Park. Who knew the McGreevy name was so famous! They shouldn't have dropped the "e" though!

Copley Square

Trinity Church in Copley Square

5th Anniversary in Cape Cod

I have been so behind on blogging about our trip to Boston. We have been back for two weeks, and I'm still not finished with the 5 posts I planned to write! We've been extremely busy since we got back, and I don't know where time has gone. This weekend marked our 1 year anniversary in Birmingham, AL. I can't believe we have been here a year! Things are going really well, and I think we are finally going to stay in one place for a while. Michael was offered a full time job at Samford University, and he started back last week as the Director of Ticketing in the athletics department. I am so proud of him!

I am so happy to say I have been married to Michael for 5 years. It was an amazing opportunity to spend our fifth anniversary in Cape Cod this year. Our anniversary was our third day in Boston, and we took the ferry to Provincetown to spend the day on the cape and to go whale watching. This was the first sunny day of the trip, and the weather was really nice. Provincetown was beautiful and quite colorful in many many ways! I was forewarned about the culture shock I might experience, but we were there a week before the heavy crowds, so we didn't experience too much craziness.

We arrived in Provincetown around 10 am and walked around town before heading to lunch. After lunch, we boarded our boat to go whale watching.

The weather was so nice, but I'm very glad we took our coats on our whale watching trip. It was freezing on the ride out to see the whales. I came inside the boat, but Michael decided to ride it out. I took this picture of him from inside. He looks thrilled!


We spotted a couple of finback whales about 45 minutes into our trip. It was so neat to see them in their own environment, and they got so close to us a few times.


After our trip, we were ready to eat our anniversary dinner. The Lobster Pot restaurant was recommended, and we had a great table overlooking the water.

Michael ate lobster for the first time. He looked so cute in his bib!


After dinner, we took a walk through Provincetown. I love the Cape Cod style beach homes. This was a gorgeous town, and I would love to go back soon!








I love these pictures of the old fisherman's wives that you see as you come in and out of Provincetown.


This was a fabulous anniversary, and I couldn't have asked for a better day!