Back in Arkansas

Well most of you know I went home for my sisters graduation. I had a wonderful time. I hadn't seen my family since Christmas so it was nice to be home for awhile. I also got to spend some more time with the Bidwells and Terrys. My flights went really well on the way to Indiana. Deric took me to the airport at about 5:15 a.m on last
Thursday. I was in Indy by 11:30. It was a lot nicer than driving 12 hours to go home!
My sister, Jennifer and my best friend Aimee picked me up at the airport. I was so surprised when I saw Aimee with Jen, they kept a good secret I guess! Well of course I was super excited and I am sure I made a scene at baggage claim when I about plowed them both over!:) It didn't take long for us to get my luggage but when we hit the parking garage, Jen and Aimee had forgotten where they had parked! So it was up and down the walkways and the elevators for Jen and I. Aimee is so scared of elevators so she had to take the stairs! After about 15 minutes of me dragging my luggage around the garage we finally found the car.
First stop on my trip was the mall! I forgotten how much I love shopping with my sister and Aimee. It was so nice to just hang with my girls for awhile. We met the rest of the family at Se Senior for dinner.I had to get my Mexican food in!!



On Friday my mom, Jen and I went to Jen's first dress fitting for the wedding. I can't post a picture..... it would ruin the surprise! We also helped mom pick out her dress.... by the way I am super jealous of it.

On Saturday I went to Nikohl's soccer game... it was a bit windy out that morning. I enjoyed watching her play. She had grown into quite the soccer player.I remember her first season of soccer and it makes me so proud to still be there to watch her play and grow.

As of the rest of the weekend I just hung around home with the family. Saturday night was a lot of fun my brother and his wife and kids came over to visit they have four now. It was the first time I got to meet my new niece she is now 3 months old.



Later that night Aimee and Jaxson ( her son) came over to play. They boys found that they loved the game Jegna and mom's autamon! As you can see they all had to get in it.


Sunday was the best day of them all it was when my big sister,Jen, was now a college graduate! She has been waiting for 5 years to get there and she did it! Not only did she make it to graduation but she did it with honors! She has always been one smart chick (inside joke)! She graduated with 2 majors; a Secondary English Education and Theater Arts degree. I took a lot of pictures of that day but I only posted a few! I am a very proud little sister! I always knew she could do it!


I'll let you in on little secret. When I was about 12 years old I went to Bethel College with a lady I babysat for. Right then and there is when I said I wanted to go to school there because of it's American Sign Language program. Well the years past and Jen made her decision to go there.... I am so bummed even though I was working for my cosmetologist license at the time. I was so upset that she was going to go there because it was MY dream. But I got over it and I was so glad it was my sister's dream also to go to school there. If I had to share a dream with someone there is no one better person than my sister to share it with! ( Mom, stop crying!!!! I mean it!)


At least I got to stand in the front of Bethel College with my Big Sister on a very important day! Love you!!

Spring Is Here!

It started warming up around here weeks ago, but we always have a few days where it gets really cold again. Well, I think all that crazyness is finally over and it is going to stay warm. We have had three weekends in a row of great weather. Last year it warmed up a lot in March, and it was our first spring in the house so we were all excited to get our landscaping done. We planted lots of flowers and bushes, only to have a few cold nights in April wipe everything out. This year we were a little bit smarter and waited until later in the spring to do our landscaping.
Two weeks ago we bought a bunch of bushes and a red Japanese maple for our front flower bed. After digging about 10 holes we had everything planted or transplanted where we wanted it. The picture above is the final result, but we still haven't planted many flowers. In the next couple weeks we will put in a lot more flowers to add some color.You can also see our tree has some leaves on it. It is really starting to look nice. Last year it was okay, but looked kinda funny. This year it looks much nicer.


This next picture is our Crape Myrtle. We bought it last spring and it just sat in our flower bed all year looking like a dead stick. Well this year it was looking quite dead again. After everything else had started blooming and turning green the crape mytle was brown and lifeless. Then, all of the sudden just a few days ago green leaves just started bursting out of the sticks. It looks like it is actually going to do something this year... Exciting!!



This weekend Amanda flew back to Indiana to go to her sister's graduations, so I was living the bachelor life this weekend. I still had the dogs, so I was like a bachelor with two small shi tzu's. It was just me and the dogs this weekend and we had all kinds of fun. Divot usually acts like he hates me most of the time, but I really think we bonded this weekend. He didn't have Amanda to follow around all the time so he actually had to acknowledge me. No blog entry would be complete without a couple pictures of the dogs. Here is Divot having a good time playing with his basketball in the back yard today. Birdie hates getting her picture taken, but I found out that if I stand far enough away and use my zoom lens I can actually get a decent picture of her. She loves being outside on the deck. Most of the time she just stands on the deck and watches Divot run around, and barks at him when he passes.





Well, I will close this blog entry by putting up a couple pictures of out new entertainment center. We got our new TV last fall and our old Wal-Mart furniture wouldn't cut it anymore. We were going to buy one, but most of them are too long and we want to put it in a corner. My boss agreed to build me one, so I drew up some plans and he built it for us. It is really nice because he used solid oak and you usually have to spend a lot of money to get furniture made out of real wood. He finished it a couple weeks ago, so I had the
task of sanding and staining it. It took me about 7 coats of stain to get it that dark, but we thought it turned out pretty well. It definitely makes our living room look a lot better. It is really nice to know somebody who is good and making stuff. He did a great job. Well that is all I have for today.