More Good Things

• GOOD THING #6

Baby Girls

Ann-Hamilton and Ryan are having a little girl!!!!!! Baby Lloyd is now the size of a Mango!! AAAHHHH I can't wait for them to start having showers and decorating the nursery.

• GOOD THING #7

Delta Weddings

The last two weekends Kendol and I have been in Greenwood for some gorgeous delta weddings and we have gotten to hang out with lots of old friends we don't get to see that often. With every wedding we attend, I wish more and more that I could be a wedding planner or a photographer so that I could be a part of their special day. (a girl can dream, right?) I love it when couples actually make the wedding's reflect their lives and personalities and not just have a big fancy wedding to outdo the last one and these two weddings did just that.

Last weekend, my good friend David and my cousin Ann got married. They had a gorgeous wedding and reception at North Greenwood. The flowers and her dress were to die for. I'm not sure what kind of flowers her bouquet was made out of but they almost looked like baby pink feathers and it was gorgeous. They had a reception in the fellowship hall complete with glass bottled soft drinks!! So cute. Later that night they had a casual send off party at the Leflore Country Club. Boy, was that a good time! All of the Itta Bena boys were in full effect and Meagan Rae came! Goodness I miss all of them. Colby arrived in true Colby style... Full tux from the waist up and khaki shorts and flip flops from the waist down. The funny thing is, nobody at the party even looked twice, bc it's so typical ha! If he cut the sleeves off and added some jorts, he would have been ready for Talladaga. Love him.

This past weekend Crystal Lee and Charlie got married!! I still can't believe my Cree Cree is married. Crystal-Lee Odom... has a nice ring to it, i'd say! The whole weekend was exactly what I would expect from these two. It was perfect. The weekend started with a delicious cook out at Charlie's grandparents house, complete with fried catfish, kegs and good live music. They had some local guys playing and lots of the groomsmen and friends took turns singing and playing with the band. At the wedding, the bridesmaids all had on different style dresses and the newly married couple walked out of the church to The Beatles "All You Need is Love!!"

In addition to the gorgeous wedding, there were some great (some not so great) surprises along the way. First off, Charlie's good friend Sea Biscuit was there for the festivities. Sea Biscuit is a plastic, gold horse (i assume he's a horse from one of those childrens springy things) that Charlie and his roommate found on the side of the road when they were in college. He instantly became their mascot and has been the life of the party ever since. Sea Biscuit goes everywhere and was every bit a part of the wedding. All of you who know me, know that I love ridiculous, funny stuff like this, so I was laughing hysterically. At the rehearsal dinner, Sea Biscuit was singing with band. At the wedding, he was with Anna and I greeting everyone at the front doors of the church (in a bow tie of course) and at the reception, he was Crystal Lee's chair for the removal of the garter. Not to mention, I'm pretty positive Charlie's grooms cake was the shape of Sea Biscuit, as well. I discovered the cake after it was already cut, but the remains looked to be a gold horse haha. Not only was Sea Biscuit there, but so was Elvis. Crystal Lee is the biggest Elvis fan on the face of the earth and her mother hired an Elvis impersonator to come sing at the reception, as a surprise. Needless to say, the very old, very skinny Elvis was a hit!! What was not so much of a hit was me falling UP the stairs at the Garden Club ha. Miraculously no one saw... not really sure how nobody saw this, bc I can assure you it was dramatic. Also, the delta mosquitos were out in full force and ready to carry me off. They just love me bc they know that their bites are like the size of a quarter on meand they think it's funny. With an outside rehearsal dinner and reception, I bet I used an entire bottle of bugspray.

Regardless of the mosquitos and the fall, delta weddings are the most fun and I can't wait for the next one!

Congratulations to Crystal Lee & Charlie and David & Ann!!!

• GOOD THING #8

God's Love

Thank you so much, Mrs. Pennye Makamson Hollister, for reminding me of this on facebook this morning.

"And I pray that you and all God's holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ's love -- how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is. Christ's love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with the fullness of God." Ephesians 2: 18-19

The Good Life

Ok... so I'm new at this whole blog thing and setting this thing up has been no easy task. The first question it asked me was "What do you want the name of your blog to be?" My response in my head.... "Ummmm I have no idea bc I had no idea my blog had to have a name!!" I'm immediately annoyed because I want it to be all set up perfectly for me... cute background... cute font... pictures everywhere... twitter reel... facebook link.... "How in the world do I figure all of this out... all I want is for mine to be cute like Rachel Dillard's and Meagan Rae's....UGH!!!"

So, back to question one... "What do you want the name of your blog to be?" I immediately thought of the bible verse that I remind myself of everyday. I will call it "The Good Life" after one of my favorite bible verses that I feel fits my life perfectly.

HE FILLS MY LIFE WITH GOOD THINGS. Psalm 103:5

I have got to start somewhere, so I am going to start this blog with all of the GOOD things God has filled my life with recently.

• GOOD THING #1
  

God is going to bless our family with a beautiful new baby!!!!

NOT US... Ann-Hamilton and Ryan are going to have baby in November. This has been the longest four months of my life. 8 days left until we find out what that little booger is and I can start buying everything in sight! CAN'T FREAKIN WAIT!! As of next Tuesday, I will spend my lunch breaks/weekends shopping and I will be broke before I know it, but I don't care. I am going to spoil that little baby rotten.

• GOOD THING #2
  

Days on the boat at "The Rez"

(yes I catch myself calling it "The Rez"... i guess living in "Skankin Rankin" has finally rubbed off on me) great friends, great drinks, beautiful sunshine, the water and getting a tan! Life doesn't get any better than that :)

• GOOD THING #3

Country Boys, The Mississippi Delta, Crawfish and Bar B Q (4 of my most favorite things in the world)

Kendol and I went to Clarksdale for a little unofficial Kappa Alpha reunion at "The Shack Up Inn." (gosh I love the Delta) Kendol Cooked crawfish for everyone and Cason smoked a whole hog. We sat around and drank beer and listened to all the boys play guitar and sing every Willie Nelson, Ragweed and Johnny Cash song there is!! On this outing, I also sang karaoke for the first time ever (with the help of a little bit of liquid courage)... I don't want to talk about it... and if you weren't there you missed a once in a lifetime opportunity. Of course, I was no where near the microphone, for fear of busting everyones eardrums, but I sang my little heart out! All in all, it was a great time and Kendol got to see lots of great friends he hasn't seen in a while. (insert major frustration bc it won't let me upload pictures.... maybe i'll figure it out)

• GOOD THING #4

Big Awesome Family

In the past year, we have had 6 weddings, added two new babies and have one baby and one wedding on the way! God bless my growing family.

• GOOD THING #5

Mini Vacation, Best Friends, Gas and Country Music

Mallory and I ventured up to Nashville to visit Meagan Rae, Elizabeth and Matthew. Needless to say, our trip up there was adventurous. I feel like I should share it.

We leave Wednesday after work and everything is going great. We make it to Southaven in about 2 1/2 hours. We decide to go ahead and get supper and take a little break from the car. We eat at Buffalo Wild Wings and then get back on the road. Little did we know, we were driving strait into a storm. We get about 45 minutes outside of Memphis and the bottom falls out. (for those of you who might not know...i'm not a good driver for long distances, at night or in the rain) So for about an hour we drive anywhere from 40-55 mph. UGH!!! Not to mention truck drivers between Memphis and Nashville DO NOT know how to drive. Then Mallory Decides she has to go to the restroom, so we're thinking we'll stop and maybe the rain will slack up a bit... WRONG... We get back on the road and it's raining harder and about 15 minutes later I realize I need gas (gas light is blinking and we have 45 miles til empty)... Well guess what... there's no exit in sight. Finally, we come to an exit and we take it thinking surely there will be a gas station, even if it's not right off the side of the interstate... WRONG. (Kendol calls at this time and realizes what's going on... now he's paniced as well) So we drive down the road on the exit for a couple of miles and in the meantime the "miles til empty" is getting less and less and I'm beginning to hypervenelate bc I've never gotten this low on gas in my new car and am not sure what it's going to do. On this scary 2 lane road, the only comic relief we have is a giant deer... I'm talking HUGE deer... I think it was taller than me. Whoever kills this Momma is going to have some good eating come deer season.This gets our mind off of the pickle we're in, but only for a second. Then the GPS loses signal and so do the phones. So, Mallory talks me into turning around and getting back to the interstate. I am in complete panic mode and am acting a fool. We are making our way back to the interstate and we see the deer again (enter comic relief for .5 seconds). Then we look down and the gas light is no longer giving mileage... IT HAS FLATLINED. Good news is we made it to an exit and got gas... next bad thing is we are now about an hour behind schedule. We FINALLY get to Nashville and the gps takes us strait to our destination... only it's not the right one. I had selected Elizabeth's address on accident, so then we have to drive thirty minutes back where we came from to Meagan Rae's. Estimated trip time: 6 hours... Actual trip time: 8 hours.

While we were in Nashville we did all kinds of stuff. We shopped around Franklin, ate a lot of good food, went downtown to the cma festivities and saw Doug Stone and Diamond Rio, met Cowboy Troy, saw Ty from the Bachelorette, went to the bar (I forgot how to dance... I caught myself snapping alot to the rap music), rode by Alan Jackson and Vince Gill's houses, took pictures with George Strait and Jason Aldean (ok..ok.. they were cardboard cutouts) and went to CMA Music Fest to see Julianne Hough, Josh Turner, Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban, Reba and Kid Rock. (Insert more frustration bc I would love to upload pictures.. maybe i'll figure it out soon)

We left Nashille on Saturday and drove back to Memphis to see Kate, Leslie and Jamie. It has been wayyyyyyyy too long. The last time I saw Kate she was single and in school... now she has a boyfriend (that I still haven't met...) and is a Doctor!! AHHHH Way to go Dr. Lassandrello!! 5 months without seeing these girls is not ok.. We all went to eat sushi and just caught up on the last couple of months. Good Times!