I had such an awesome 4th of July weekend. It was crazy busy, but lots of fun. The fun really started Thursday night when I hung out with my adoptive family from church. Their cousins from Japan were in for a visit, and some other church friends came out for fireworks. Because of work on Friday, I ended up having to leave before the fireworks :( . I was such a bad blogger that night because I took ZERO PICTURES!

Saturday morning I headed home to southeast Oklahoma. I ran into HORRIBLE weather and had to pull over three times because it was so bad! I made it home early enough to make part of my sweet little N’s birthday party.

Once again, I didn’t take any pictures. I know, terrible.

After the party, I went with the family out to my grandparents house for dinner. My uncle, aunt, and cousin came in for the evening.

I left before fireworks, but shortly after they got started, there was a huge downpour! They were down around the garden, so they had to run back up to the house!

While my family was getting soaked, Jessica and I took K to see Eclipse!

Jessica had already seen it, but it was my first time. It was soooo much better than the other two. K insisted on sitting between us, and Jess and I can’t see a movie together without talking about it, so we had to text through the movie. We were both VERY happy with the Taylor Lautner scenes! :)

Sunday, I went to morning church, lunch with the family, then evening church, followed by an ice cream dinner at church. There was lots of homemade ice cream and other desserts. I had chocolate and peach ice cream! So, so good! Again, no pics…

After ice cream at church, I went to Jessica’s parents house for their annual 4th of July party. There, I had more ice cream, and this time, it was shredded wheat ice cream! I know, it doesn’t sound good, and it took me YEARS before finally trying it, but it is A-MAZING! While I was with Jessica and family, my parents, the bro, and his best friend Marcel went to my grandparents house to shoot the rest of the fireworks that got interrupted the night before.

A few pics…

K and N with their sparklers

Me and my bestie!

My precious K!
My eyes freaked out and wouldn’t let me put contacts in, so I had to wear glasses. Forgot to take them off for the picture. I just can’t pull off glasses.

Ok, now, let’s talk about the food for a minute. I seem to always notice a change in my clothes when I come back from a trip home. Now, I definitely know why. Aside from all the ice cream, this is what the rest of the weekend looked like.

Saturday evening

Sunday noon

Sneaking chips before dinner when I thought no one was looking! Definitely no skinnies for me if I keep this up! :)

I had Monday off work, so after sleeping in a bit, I just laid around the house until time to make the drive back to OKC. I always look forward to the 4th of July holiday because it means lots of fun and time with my family and friends. I hope all of you had great holiday weekends too!

Two of my awesome blogger buddies gave me blog awards this week! Lindsay and Stephanie are so sweet, and I have really enjoyed reading their blogs. I’m working on a post about that, and I will hopefully have that up sometime tomorrow!

Today’s Favorite Friday and Friday Five are both about 4th of July activities, so I decided to combine them into one post!

I have 4th of July traditions that I have done every year for…ever! My holiday weekend plans are brought to you by the letter ‘F’!

Family

Friends

Last year’s 4th of July picture
Jessica’s church has a big firework
display, and we go together every
year!

Food

Jessica’s mom and Gran make homemade ice cream!

Fireworks

At my grandparents house

Jessica’s church

And this year’s addition…

Fangs

We will also be celebrating this little cutie’s birthday this weekend!

What are your 4th of July plans? Head on over to Jen and Beth’s blogs for more!

I took Friday off of work, and went to spend the weekend with my parents. Friday evening, I got a much-needed hair makeover. Here are before and after shots for ya!

Before

After

I have been wanting to go dark again for awhile, and I was finally able to fit it in! I love it!

Saturday afternoon, my Mom-mom and Grandaddy came over to eat and celebrate Father’s Day a little early.

Colby, Daddy, Me

Me and Colby with our Grandaddy

Marcel, our next-door neighbor/Colby’s best friend jumped into the picture. He’s pretty much family too!

After our grandparents left, we played some Wii bowling and guitar hero!

I have no idea why my foot looks so weird…

My wrist surgery has left me unable to play as well as I used to. I used to be able to beat the boys!

I guess standing up helps.

Saturday night, Jessica and I took her boys to see Toy Story 3! It was such a good movie, and Jess and I cried like babies!

Love her so much!

My sweet K…I just adore him!

Jess and N…he’s so stinkin’ cute!

Sunday morning, we went to church and then out to eat at our Mexican restaurant. Then, we had the traditional front yard holiday pictures! :)

Me and my Daddy. I am so lucky to have the best daddy in the whole world!

My adorable parents!

It was such a great weekend, and so nice to get away from work for awhile. Hope you ladies have had a great weekend so far!

Her new blog is called The Fabulous Life of Mommy, and I just know it’s going to be great! I would love love love it if you girlies would go check out her blog and become a follower!

I hope all of you are having a great week! I have had a super busy week, and I’ve barely had any blogger time. I feel like I’m so behind on reading blogs. I’m going to try to catch up this weekend, and I can’t wait to see what all of you have been up to this week!

Friday night dinner at Pops

Me and Colby at Pops

the parents

After dinner, we went to my grandparents’ house. My Daddy and Colby went through my great-uncle’s collection of knives, so we had a little fun with them!

Pretty scary, huh?

Momma and I worked around my apartment on Saturday while the boys went to look at a new truck for Colby. He’s been looking for a new truck for about a year, and finally found one! Here he is with it!

Saturday night we went to Outback Steakhouse with our grandparents and adoptive parents from church, then hung out at the grandparents’ house for awhile.

The birthday boy! Grammy made a
strawberry cake-his favorite!

Colby with Wade and Joyce-our awesome adoptive parents

The family

Me and Colby with our grandparents…and Sadie

Brothers…always trying to mess up the pictures

My cute parents!

Also, to celebrate Colby’s birthday, I got…

an iPhone!

After reading everyone’s comments and playing around with a few more friends’ phones, I finally decided on an iPhone. With the money my Momma found in my dresser, I was able to get one, and I love love love it! I seriously think it is the most amazing thing ever invented!

Momma and Daddy had to go home after Sunday morning church and lunch, so after evening church, we hung out with our adoptive family and some friends and watched this awesome movie!

I had Monday off, so I spent the majority of the day laying in my bed watching Glee. I should’ve done something productive, but after these last couple of crazy work weeks, I needed a day to just do nothing. It was amazing!

Monday night, I went to my adoptive family’s house and watched Princess and the Frog with Joyce and Whitley. Great, great movie! I love Disney movies anyway, and this one was really great! If you haven’t seen it, you must!

Colby went out with some of his friends Tuesday night for a birthday dinner, and it got me thinking about my 21st birthday. After cheesecake with the family, I went to dinner with Jessica. Her birthday is three days after mine. Now, we don’t drink anyway, but it is kinda funny telling people that for your 21st birthday, you had dinner with your bestie (who was about 4 1/2 months pregnant) and her two year old son, and you had virgin strawberry daiquiris!

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend. I’ll leave you with a little flashback to 2007 and my 21st birthday (back when I was really blonde)!

Last weekend, my agency had our first annual Tot Trot! It was a 5K run and 1 mile walk fundraiser for our agency. It was a huge success, and I can’t wait until next year. I haven’t been able to get the office camera for the pictures, so I’ll try to post them later this week.

Saturday I went to H-town to spend Mother’s Day with my family. Saturday afternoon, I “helped” Jessica with a photo shoot (mainly just stood around and oohed and aahed) of a sweet little family with newborn twins! She’s an awesome photographer. You should go check out her stuff at her blog J Allred Photography!

I also brought her copy of Angie Smith’s new book I Will Carry You. If you don’t have this book, you should get it! Also, you should read her blog Bring The Rain! It is very inspirational!

Sunday, after church, we all went out to eat at Molina’s, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, to celebrate Mother’s Day. Here are a few pictures!

We got Momma the new Awkward Family Photos book, so we decided to recreate one of the poses! You can see how thrilled Daddy was!

Last night was my cousin Emily and my adoptive brother Brandon’s graduation. I’m so proud of their accomplishments!

Me and Emily

She starts college in the fall as a musical theater major! Look for her on Broadway in a few years!

Sweet Erin at A Tiger’s Tale tagged me in a picture game! She is such a sweet girl, and if you don’t follow her blog, you should really go check it out! It’s so cute!

The rules for the game are:

1. Go to your photos files and select the 8th photo folder.
2. Select the 8th photo in that folder.
3. Post the story behind that picture.
4. Challenge 8 blogging friends to do the same!

Here is my picture!

Jessica and I went to see Taylor Swift back in September! She is definitely one of our favorites, and the concert was AMAZING! In this picture, she was opening the show with “You Belong With Me”. Loved it!

Now, I’d love to see pictures from the following girlies!

Erin-my newest follower
Jessica
Jen
Katie
Lindsey
My Momma
Susan
Tara

Can’t wait to see all of your pictures! Hope you all have a great upcoming week! Also, Miss Oklahoma was 1st runner-up! She did great!

Ok, now for Friday Five! This week’s topic is favorite pictures. When I first saw this topic, I panicked! How do I choose only five? I couldn’t do it, so here are my Friday 15!

First, a few family and friend pictures…

Me & Jess-my favorite picture of us!

Me & the parents at my college graduation

Me & my adoptive family from church
B was 13 and the twins were 9!
Now, the twins are 13 and B is 17 and graduating Saturday! I feel so old!

My Grandaddy and cousin-Sweet, sweet picture

Jessica’s wedding-Love this pic!

Me and a few buddies getting ready for the OKC Bombing Memorial Marathon two years ago.
We did the 5K, and it was raining and freezing!

Now, gotta do a few funny pictures!

Me, April, & EA at Thanksgiving this year

Another Thanksgiving picture from a few years ago. Don’t ask…no idea what I was thinking.

Again, got no idea what I was thinking

Cousins

My kitty Jack doesn’t like when my attention isn’t on him. In this picture, I was working on my display board for senior symposium. He’s laying in my trash pile.

Christmas two years ago, part of the family couldn’t come to visit while I was home for break, so they had the big family Christmas later in the week. Since I couldn’t be there, they inserted my picture in the family picture between Momma and Colby!

Momma and Me

Me and Colby with our grandparents. As this picture was being taken, my Mom-mom pinched my Grandaddy on the bottom! She is laughing and he is giving her the death stare! Love it!

Momma inserting herself into one of the cousin family pictures at Thanksgiving. Love the expression on her face and love the look Jack is giving her, like “What is she doing?”

Check out Beth’s blog for more pictures! Link up and play along!

Today’s Top 2 Tuesday is favorite things about summer! I am super excited that summer is almost here. It is my favorite time of year! Here’s why I love it!

1. Spending time with family and friends!

Jessica & Me-Summer 2008

Grand Ole Opry with Mom & Mom-mom
Summer 2009

I really enjoy taking some time off in the summer to go back to my hometown to spend time with all of my southeast Oklahoma folks! My Momma, my Mom-mom, and I took a trip to Memphis and Nashville last summer, so we are hoping to maybe take another girls trip this summer. Any suggestions for a fun place to visit would be greatly appreciated! Must be within decent driving distance from Oklahoma!

2. Cute summer clothes!

Old Navy has the cutest summer dresses! I also love their goofy mannequin commercials!

I love wearing cute summer shoes too!

What do you love about summer? Head over to The Undomestic Momma and play along!

She took this one on a business trip to Alaska. Love it!

Please go check out her pictures and become a follower. She’s awesome!