365 Days as a Mrs.

What a wonderful year it has been! I always dreamed of being married and starting a family with the man of my dreams but I never imagined it would be this wonderful. I am so grateful that I found someone who quite literally completes me. I cook, he washes dishes; he sweeps, I mop; I eat the cake, he eats the icing; he snores, I kick him; I whine, he laughs; I make the budget calendar, he pays the bills; I tell him my gas tank is empty, he fills it up; he orders steak and shrimp, I eat the shrimp; I make cookies/brownies, he inhales them; I pack his lunch every day, he eats it; and in the very rare event that we argue...I gripe, and he ignores me. It works out perfectly!  

One year down and forever to go! 

Photos by Cassie Duffle Photography. 

Now we shall celebrate our anniversary with a week long vacation! 

Groundbreaking Stuff Over Here

Literally, we have officially broke ground on our house! They are doing the plumbing and electrical this week, so we will hopefully see a slab when we return from vacation:

Jacob was less than amused when I told him to stand in his garage
*cough man cave cough* for a photo. 

We also received our anniversary painting way before the anticipated delivery date and, of course, I couldn't wait to open it! I could seriously stare at it all day...

Please ignore the poor photo quality--who knew it was so hard to take a
picture of a painting behind glass?

We were afraid the tropical storms headed towards the coast would ruin our vacation, but as of now (keep your fingers crossed) it looks like we will just have to contend with a few rainstorms. Speaking of vacation, does anyone know of a good Mexican restaurant on the River Walk for when we stay overnight in San Antonio? 

Finally, my very talented SIL took anniversary photos for us last weekend and I am so excited to share them with you soon; in the meantime, please enjoy this gem of a photo. In case you ever wonder why we don't have many pictures together, please refer back to this photo:

Jacob absolutely despises being in front of the camera, but a few times a year
he will appease me and take pictures--he must really love me! 

Also, is it sad that my most glamorous look (that I spent like an hour to achieve) is how a lot of women look on the daily? 

Seriously though, ain't nobody got time to look like this by 6:30 every morning! 

Now if you'll excuse me, I must resume reciting my mantra for the week: "only 3 1/2 days until vacation...only 3 1/2 days until vacation..." 

Slippery Yoga Mats & Sunsets on the Beach

I might have lost my mind last week; I randomly decided on Friday that I wanted to do a workout class the next day (Saturday) to kick-start myself into working out on a more regular basis. I've never minded working out--in fact, I used to work out every morning before work back when I had a 9-5, but now I have a 7-4 and there is just no way that's going to happen! Then, by the time I get home from work, I'm just over the day and nothing sounds better than curling up on the couch with my Apple TV remote...so as you can guess, workouts don't happen often.

I have a drawer full of workout DVDs--mostly Jillian Michaels because she's amazing but I wanted more this time, so I started researching! I finally found something that intrigued me...(if you follow me on Instagram you already know what class I picked)...hot yoga. Aside from the few times I have used my Beginners Yoga DVD and the one time I used my Yoga Meltdown DVD, I had never done yoga before. I coerced (read: suckered) my SIL into joining me in the class and we signed up! The first class was free, so what did we have to lose (other than our pride, perhaps)? The fear didn't set in until around 10:00 on Friday night and I started wondering if I would survive. I woke up on Saturday morning and excitedly got ready for class:

I am proud to say not only did I survive that hot yoga class, I actually enjoyed it! I might possibly have been the least flexible person in the class, but it was fun! You read that right, the girl who hates to sweat actually enjoyed slipping around on her yoga mat drenched in sweat! It was such an accomplishment to see what my body could do/can do. I might possibly be in love with yoga now! So, yogis (sp?), what DVDs, websites, YouTube channels do you recommend I start using to practice yoga? 

After such a great weekend, it was an epic struggle to get out of bed for work on Monday but I'm so glad I did get up because otherwise I would have missed this beautiful sunrise...

So breathtaking! One perk of leaving for work at 6:25 in the morning! 

I have been obsessively checking the weather for our vacation next week (and counting down the work days: 7, in case you were curious)! Right now, it's looking like pretty good weather for most of the week; however, being from Oklahoma, I know that weather forecasters are about as accurate as my "guess how many marbles are in the jar" estimates (read: not at all). 

And last random thought of the day, Jacob and I have debated about what to do for gifts on our 1 year anniversary (August 29th) and finally made a decision! I kind of wanted to do the traditional anniversary gifts (paper this year) and he just wanted a present but had no earthly idea what he wanted (pickiest person ever). Since we are building a house, I didn't want to throw a lot of money at gifts for each other when there wasn't anything we really wanted, and since he vetoed homemade gifts (a suggestion I made in jest), we decided on a joint gift. 

via

I thought a painting would be nice (especially since we will have a new house soon) and when I found this one, I knew it was the one! If you recall, we got married in Folly Beach, so what better for our first anniversary than a PAPER print of a beach sunset named after the place we were married one year ago?! Now if only we had decided on this sooner so we could have actually had it by our anniversary...as it stands now, we won't get it until September 9th (sigh). You just can win at everything...

Only 2 1/2 more work days until the weekend! 

Awkward, Awesome and a Few Randoms...

Awkward: Some guy at work told me my outfit looked "sharp" yesterday. Thanks dude, just trying to be "groovy."

Awesome: In the past week, my mom has ran into three of our former foster kids and sent me pictures. That marks 8 (out of over 30) that we have seen since they left us. Some of these kids we took care of over a decade ago!! It's crazy to see how they have grown. One downside to fostering infants is they usually don't remember you, but knowing that you touched their lives and showed them love when they may have never had that before makes up for it! I recently found our very first infant we fostered on Facebook (she's now 15) and was able to reach out to her and send her photos we had from when she lived with us. It was so neat to see her all grown up! 

Awesome: Our friends from Arkansas stayed with us over the weekend and we had an absolute blast! We went shopping (multiple times), went to the zoo, played games for hours, and ate way too much junk food!

Awkward: The only photos I have to show of said amazing weekend are the following FOUR photos. Epic fail...

Please ignore my awkwardness--I'm convinced it's impossible for ponytails to look cute in photos.

Random: I may or may not have spent over $100 at Sephora; however, I did get the most awesome nail polish ever (for free, might I add)! This photo shows 4 day old, amazingly un-chipped, super strong nails. I am so impressed with this nail polish!

Random: I really want a new phone case that shows off my pretty iphone 6 that I paid an arm and a leg for but I can't seem to find one that is cute, clear, and durable. I found this one at the mall but didn't buy it because I'm not sure if it is durable enough to protect my phone. Anyone have any experience with this brand or any recommendations on good cases? I currently have a dual layer Incipio that is pretty durable and relatively thin, but not very cute.

Random: We are going to be staying overnight in San Antonio later this month on our way to South Padre Island and we are trying to find a good place to eat for our anniversary (can't believe we have almost been married for a year already) preferably on or near the Boardwalk. Any recommendations?

Awkward & Awesome

I used to LOVE doing these Awkward & Awesome posts each Thursday and I've seen a few bloggers trying to revive it, so I thought I would join in today!

Awkward: Trying to get in my car after work and my keyless entry not working (I thought maybe I finally ran the battery dead in my fob) only to realize that it wasn't working because it wasn't my car. In my defense, it looks identical to my car! I mean, can you tell the difference?

Awkward: Walking into a bathroom to see two people having a personal conversation and you're like "I'm just here to pee...I swear I don't care about what you're discussing...carry on while I use the umm bathroom." haha

Awkward: Walking into work after lunch to hear (or at least think you hear) someone say "You want a cookie?" What else can you do besides turn around to get a glance at this weirdo (for the record, I did not want his cookie...I mean MAYBE if it was a cupcake. Kidding.)? When I turned, I saw some random guy with his window rolled down and he said "Are you Nikki?" I said no and hurried into the building. A few issues here...1. I might have a hearing problem, or food on the mind all day everyday. 2. Who is Nikki? 3. Why is this random guy driving around asking for her when he has no idea what she looks like? Craigslist Missed Connections, perhaps? 

Awesome: They are very close to starting our house--we were told we should have a slab within a few weeks! 

Awesome: Special K Red Berries. I could eat it all day everyday (back to the food on the mind from above) and still feel somewhat good about myself. It has fruit in it so that makes it healthy, right? 

Awesome: Our friends from Arkansas are coming to stay with us for the weekend and I'm so excited to spend time with them! 

Hope you all have a great weekend!