Wish me luck

I meant to get in better shape before this trip but here we are and I'm NOT in shape. We are leaving in 10 minutes for Boone, North Carolina with Ben's family. That means I should be doing the last minute packing instead of being online. Oops. The plan is to hike Grandfather Mountain and go white water rafting. We are so so excited!! Let's just hope I don't pass out on the way up the mountain. Maybe this will be the kick in the pants I needs to get my running shoes on and go!

Oh yes, the picture...I think we are going to walk across that. At least, that is what my handsome husband tells me. Hope I don't develop a severe fear of heights in the next 48 hours!

3 minutes left. I miiiight be running late. Uh oh.

Our 4th

Our 4th of July was pretty packed. Ben and I managed to make it to both sides of the family in one day. Never easy, but always worth it. Ben, Joe and I left for Holly Pond to spend most of the day with the Calverts and most of the extended family. I walked in the door and immediately sat down to a game of cards. Typical. I lost. Not so typical. Haha...but seriously.

We had a huge lunch consisting of all things cookout. Wonderful. I ate way too many ribs. After lunch we sat around on the porch in rocking chairs just talking and being lazy. I could have sat out there for days. We really enjoyed the time we spent with the fam. I love how much a part of the family I feel with the Calverts.

Ben, Joe and I left for Huntsville to meet up with Jen as she was getting off work. We had dinner at my parent's house, along with Mr Alan and Mrs Terry. As soon as I found out the Wares would be there I knew what that meant...butterfinger ice cream!!! THAT is the taste of my childhood at the Ware house. We were running late to get to our parking spot (in a field) for the Star's game fireworks so we took our ice cream to go.

Here we are in the back of Jen's car waiting for the fireworks show. I think Ben had 3 cups of ice cream by then. Seriously. Can't forget the parents! So glad to spend time with Mr Alan and Mrs Terry!! The picture is not so great, but I just wanted proof of the moms and dads.

For anyone who saw the firework show...did something go wrong or was the loud noises with small lights supposed to be finale? We left kinda bummed.

Right after the fireworks, the 4 "kids" came back to our apartment for The Office trivia game.

Perfect end to the day. Well, at least for me and Jen since we have the make the boys play it with us. They love us anyways!

Kitchen helper

Excuse the blurry picture, I was hiding behind the counter to take this so he wouldn't notice. We were making dinner the other night and I asked him to brown the meat. While he was in the middle of it he became concerned about it getting splattered on his workout clothes so he asked me to get him something. The only apron I have was a bridesmaids gift from Cile. She picked it especially for me since it had blue, green and yellow on it (favorite colors) and I love it. But the sight of Ben wearing an apron was HILARIOUS! I had to capture it on camera. I think he's good looking enough to pull it off...and I was very grateful for the help!

Beach trip

We spent a few days in Orange Beach last week.  My family had been looking forward to this trip for a LONG time! The weather was perfect and it was a much needed break for all of us.   I love being with my whole family, and it was great to see how Ben fits in so well.  A family with all girls got a taste of what it's like to have a big brother.  

Our first stop was lunch at Sea n Suds.  Dad had been looking forward to these oysters for months.  Jen, Jamie and I decided to try a raw oyster. 

Here Jen and Jamie are about to take the bite.  Jen looks nervous and Jamie looks like we are crazy for letting her do this.
And here Jen spit it out.  Right by my face.  Lovely.
After lunch we headed straight for the beach.  Ben and Jamie took advantage of the floats in the condo.  Something about the beach makes Ben act like a 5 year old.  Trust me, SO fun to watch.  He gets a big goofy grin on his face and actually giggles.  
He was entertainment for all of us....
The Martin (now Martin/Calvert) family crabbing tradition.  We mean business.  

We start out with nets, but then get frustrated and use our hands.
Jen and Jamie look so hardcore right here.  Ben was our designated flashlight holder and he did awesome.  
We only caught a few, and we were getting frustrated.  Then a 7 year old kid runs up to us to show his bucket of crabs.  He had at least 30 in there!  It was a little embarrassing that one kid caught all of those crabs when there were 6 of us.  Oh well.
We rented a kayak one day and it was lots of fun.  It was a 1 person kayak so we took turns going out there.  Jen and I tried to fit both of us but we were sinking.  My favorite person to watch out there was mom.  She wanted a good workout for the day so she was going pretty fast!
All the girls...
My 2 favorite men!
Jen and I both got crab legs on our last night of the trip.  They were HUGE!  
It was such a fun trip, and I am thankful for the time we got to spend with our family.

We're back

Goodbye beautiful, sunny beach. Back to the real world. As soon as I can get the pictures on my computer I will do a full update on our trip. For now I just wanted to say congrats to everyone from church who had their beautiful babies while we were gone! Three babies!! We have been praying for all of you! Apparently there is something about having me and Ben on the gulf coast that makes people go into labor. That being said, in the future if anyone is ready to have their baby and wants to pay for us to go back to the beach to get things started we are more than willing. Just let us know.

Nursing School

I am going to make this short and sweet...I got into UAH's nursing program!! I got the call today at work! I would say more but I am soooo tired right now. Just wanted to let people know!

Our new "pets"

I want a dog. I've always wanted a dog. My friends know that I tortured myself by visiting Auburn's Humane Society on a regular basis. Every time I found "the one". I always named them too. Unfortunately I have already used up most of my ideal pet names like Manning, Riley, Maddux, Turner and Toby. The dog I wanted to name Toby just looked like if he could talk, he would talk like Toby from The Office. I loved him. We could have been lazy together. Anyways, I think that since those dogs never actually belonged to me I can still use those names. Now only if I can convince Ben to like them...but we will approach that battle when it's time.

For now we have adopted these baby birds to be our pets. We watched as the mother made her nest in the stairwell of our apartment building, we saw the eggs, and now we have the babies. I am almost positive there are 4 of them. Ben thinks there are 5 but I have yet to see the 5th one. They are the perfect pets. We get to see them every day and talk about them but we don't have to take care of them. Seriously, our entire drive to church today was talking about our birds. Think we are strange? We do too, it's ok. It's fun watching Ben park the car, walk halfway up the stairs, stop and smile at our birds.

I've decided to name them Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and Avery. If it turns out that Ben is right about the 5th bird we can name him Javy Lopez. I love them, and I love not having to pay a $500 pet deposit.