First off I just want to say that I am currently watching "Sister Wives" I think this idea is crazy, but just like Jersey Shore- its stupid but sooo addicting!


As promised, here are some of my favorite moments from Halloween:

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Getting "oiled" up

The paint was extremely cold- the reason for the ugly face I'm making

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Getting Cam all Gaga'd up

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Classy

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Oil Spill Mermaid and BP employee

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Group Shot: Fireman, Lady Gaga, oil spill mermaid, BP employee

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My scales... these babies hurt coming off- OUCH

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Lauren hunt out a bit before we all left

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RAAAAR!!!

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Hey there :)

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You would think this was my boyfriend... but no haha

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Someone's been drinking

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Probably one of my top five favorites... did you notice he's wearing my fin

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His outfit was way more comfortable than mine

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So cute!

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A good close up shot and you can see the BP logo in this one

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I don't even know?

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Man down, MAN DOWN!

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somewhere there is a fireman with no pants on!

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and of course my awesome pumpkin

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Awesome pumpkin all lit up

Well kids, I hope you liked the pics! Look for more pictures on the book... probably not until tomorrow though because its running a little slow tonight.
 
I was just reading back on a recent letter that I sent to a certain someone... :) I like what I wrote, and it applies to alot of things in my life, so maybe you can relate?


"It’s funny. When I sit here, staring at the computer screen anxious to get everything off my chest, I can’t seem to find the words to say. I think to myself “I had so much to say” but now that I’m here I realize its not important. There is nothing that I can say that will change what happened. ‘Everything happens for a reason’ - I’ve become a firm believer in that over the last few years, and even more so now. I’m still trying to figure out what all the reasons are but slowly and surely I find them.

All of this hype and anticipation boils down to two words. Good bye.

Good bye to regret, good bye to uncertainty, and good bye to something that now, when looking back, I realize wasn’t as important as I thought."

Look for Halloween Pics later tonight, I'll be revealing my costume!
 
"The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving. I didn't want to destroy anything or anybody. I just wanted to slip quietly out the back door, without causing any fuss or consequences, and then not stop running until I reached Greenland."
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)

That pretty much sums my life up. Thanks Liz...

Wow, talk about an intro, huh? Well, it's Thursday! YAAY (say it with me) YAAAAAY! I can't be more excited that its almost Friday. I want to put my costume on right now and get all jazzed up- I'm just so excited cause its gonna be AWESOME!

Well I mailed my SECOND pen pal letter yesterday! I'm already excited to be getting a reply :) And in case you have been paying attention to my last blogs I am finally posting all the cool stuff that I learned about 2 of the 50 states. I started alphabetically because knowing me, I would some how forget one if I didn't. (I just decided that I would add a separate page for the 50 states in case you miss a blog you can check out the states in order) See that last tab- yea- up there, on your right. You see it? Click that. :) Enjoy!

Happy Early Birthday to Val Fredrickson, Happy Birthday to my nephew Jack, and happy Early Halloween!

#24

10/27/2010

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#24: Take a leap of Faith- a BIG one

"There's a reason we refer to "leaps of faith" - because the decision to consent to any notion of divinity is a mighty jump from the rational over to the unknowable, and I don't care how diligently scholars of every religion will try to sit you down with their stacks of books and prove to you through scripture that their faith is indeed rational; it isn't. If faith were rational, it wouldn't be - by definition - faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be... a prudent insurance policy."
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
 
I have the whole house to myself- I never knew how amazing that would be until I lived with three boys. Three boys, and their video games :)

Crap... garage door just opened- my time alone is over. O well. The good thing is that this means that my strawberry shortcake yogurt has arrived! (I previously mentioned how amazing this yogurt was in my POD section, but I've one up'd it.. I added graham crackers! double yum...)

It's Tuesday- you know what that means? GLEE night! Does anyone else LOVE this show? I can't even imagine how awesome it would be to practice for shooting. (edit: Matt Morrison just took his shirt off- another reason why this show is amazing)

Costume is going Fan-Frickin-tastic! I'm so excited for Friday so that you can all see what the final product looks like! Don't forget to check out today's POD for your next hint :)

I'm constantly reminded of how blessed I am. Blessed with life, air to breath, a roof over my head, a beautiful family, and amazing friends. Today I received a package from my great friend Kyle. Last week he texted me saying "whats your address, I'm going to send you something to help with your list" I thought all week on what he could possibly be sending me that would help. I checked the mail with high hopes today and TA-DA look what the post master dropped off:

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A star gazing book! YAY!



The front page read this: "...Hopefully you can always gaze at the stars and never feel lonely knowing another loved one is doing the same! Enjoy!"









Amazing? Right? Made my day! I feel so loved to have such a great support system! A million thank you's to Kyle, and to all the other people that bless me every day!
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I"ll leave you with this photo for the day, I thought it was pretty funny- ENJOY!

 
Halloween is awesome- only because you get FREE candy AND you get to get dressed up as ANYTHING you want! How cool is that?

I'm so excited about my costume! Every day this week I plan on posting different pictures of my costume, I'm gonna see who can guess what it is.. If I've already told you what it is then don't cheat! lol

Anyways, I started working on it yesterday. Originally I was going to just buy one but once I saw that it was going to be around $50.00 and I would have to ruin it (part of the costume) I didn't think it would be worth it. So I turned to making it myself, and I am SOOOO pleased with it and to top it off it only cost me $5.00! YAY...

Go check out the P.O.D.'s for my "hint" pictures!

It rained today which at first made me really excited! I was all ready to go play in the rain and what happens? It STOPS raining... REALLY? I was that close to checking off another item for my list... o well, next time!
 
I love my yellow shoes... if I could find them in stores again I would go buy three more pairs... I wanna be known as, "The girl with the yellow shoes" (hehehe).

Today has been an amazing day :) My diligence has paid off

Here are some progress photos for you:

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I found this book at Borders- I spent a little while researching Alabama & Alaska- I've learned some cool stuff so far... soon to be posted!

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Spent some alone time at Starbucks today. Wondering what I was doing? Just writing my second letter to my pen pal :) Got my first response in the mail today!

I feel very grateful to have amazing friends and family who have been so supportive of me and this life adventure that I am taking. I have received so many emails, texts, comments, and RECIPES (yay!) from so many people. I can not thank you enough! I'm working on a scrapbook (outside of the website) as a keepsake of my journey. If you have been inspired or have started a list of your own please send it to me! I want to add testimonials to my scrapbook pages. Even if you haven't started a list but it has some how inspired you to do something- send it my way! You can email me at [email protected]

I want to individualy thank people who inspire me daily. I was going to start with my mom but I wanted to share with you this really awesome gift that I received.

First I am going to start with my bestest (besides my Mom) she is one of the most important women in my life.
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Before I moved to North Carolina, Courtney, compiled all of these cards for me. Each one labeled with when to open each card- "open when you leave the driveway, open when you cross MN border, open when you arrive at your new home", etc. Each card was different and was so creatively put together. It was probably one of the greatest things that I have ever received. It felt good to be loved by someone so much.

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This is my bestest, and I love her :)

Thanks Court for being yourself, you are truly one of a kind!

More thank you's coming soon!
 
So, my heart has been a work in progress (changing daily) learning how to forgive, forget, and move on. Learning the true meaning of putting others before myself and truly loving people- the way Jesus did. He loved without restraint. I'm far from that but I hope one day I can learn how to love others like that. This is my song for the day:

"Lead me to the Cross" -Hillsong United

Savior I come
Quiet my soul remember
Redemption's hill
Where Your blood was spilled
For my ransom
Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost

Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Lead me, lead me to the cross

You were as I
Tempted and trialed
You are
Te word became flesh
Bore my sin and death
Now you're risen

To your heart
To your heart
Lead me to your heart
Lead me to your heart


I hope this post finds you all well and gives you a little encouragement today :)

 
Happy Thursday everyone!

I have so much to write, and plenty of time to do it- However, I just can't find the right words to say. Most days I wish that I had a little secretary in my head, writing down all my thoughts :) As Matt has found out in just the last few days I have a quit a few thoughts in my head at one time. For example:

The other day Matt and I were having a conversation regarding the temperature and how it is so much hotter in our room (upstairs) compared to the lower lever. Obviously its because heat rises but that wasn't the point. So anyway we are discussing maybe opening the windows to our bedroom to let cool air in at night -then begins my random thinking... so I ask him "Well how does having the window's open help" or something like that. Instead of listening for a response I unknowingly ignore whatever he said and begin to think to myself "Well, if we open the windows during the night then I will wake up in the morning to our extremely loud neighbors, but that doesn't matter anyway because I already wake up every time someone opens the garage door (its really loud, and right under the bedroom)" I continue thinking to myself "well, what if the boys would leave and enter through the front door, that would be cool. Then I could add a bench in the living room for them to sit on and install hooks on the wall for their coats and jackets..." As my remodel continues in my head, my thoughts get interrupted by Matt asking me, "Do you get it?" I ask "Get what?" Clearly not remembering that I had asked the question in the first place... {SIGH}... I just have too many thoughts at one time. For the record, I quickly apologized and confessed to him my ignorance :)


Here is another fun story for the day.. I wanted to post this on Tuesday but ran out of time...

so I'm sure I'm not the only one that has had this problem- I like to call it the GROCERY STORE TRAP:

I went to the Grocery store on Tuesday to get three things: Dirty/Mexican Rice, Enchilada Sauce, and diced green chili's- that's it. Well, the rice that I just so happen to need was 5/$5 (sweet!) so I grab two different types of rice, and a pasta thingy that was also a 5/$5 item... so I have three items, super excited that I'm going to find 2 more things. I gleefully walk through the aisles trying to find the coveted 5/5 items... 20 minutes later- still nothing, NOTHING! This all could have been avoided if I had just grabbed the $1.59 package of rice and not even worried about that dang special. And I can't leave out that with my 20 minute tour around the store I added a bunch of other crap to my cart that I didn't need. Instead of leaving with my rice, enchilada sauce, and green chilis I left with: cilantro, egg nog creamer, bananas, ice cream sandwiches (hehehe, oops), graham crackers, romaine lettuce, and of course the 5/5 items (I went back and just grabbed 3 extra boxes of pasta)... so my efforts in "sticking it to the man", FAILED.


I noticed that the majority of my posts revolve around food, so here's another food thing for you: I make dinner for the boys every night (pretty fun for me when they let me decide what to make) so Tuesday I make Enchiladas- they loved them! Last night we made mini pizzas and they REALLY Loved it. I took pictures because it was so fun and really good. I thought that if you had little kids you might like to do this at home. What I did was cut up all the ingredients that they would want to put on a pizza- marinara, pepperoni, green peppers, onions, cilantro, tomatoes, cheese, italian seasoning, and mushrooms. For the crust we used whole wheat english muffins (you can use white, of course). I put all the toppings in the center of the table and let them build their perfect pizza. After creating the pizzas we put them in the oven at 400 for 8-10 minutes. While we waited for the entree we ate a salad, It was so fun!

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I tried to get creative and use olive oil, cilantro, tomatoes, and cheese (Mozz) for one of mine- it was SUPER YUMMY!

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All of our mini's before going in to the oven. RJ doesn't eat veggies- can you tell which pizza is his?

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The boys- they were impressed :)

So back to my list... I have made some baby steps toward participating in a political event. When I got my DL I registered to vote and they sent me the voter info.. now I just need to get to reading so that I can vote on Nov. 2nd (for the record, the voting isn't going to count toward the item- I'm looking for a debate or something similar)
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Voters information!

I almost forgot to mention that I'm half way through my second book- "Total Money Makeover". This wasn't the original book that I was going to read but Matt suggested it, and I LOVE it. I've learned so much already and I just started it on Sunday!

I also hit my goal for making two new things for the month of October- Chicken Enchiladas & Mushroom Marsala. I've also sent out my care package.. I just need to get started on researching every state :) Wish me luck!
 
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Yesterday was Jessie's Birthday- Happy Birthday!


Happy Birthday to an amazing, beautiful, talented, and kind hearted person, taken too young but has left an impact on this world that most could not.

I miss you sweet girl!


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