Meet My New Friend

Last week Kenny came down with some kind of sinus/cold issue. A few days later I started feeling crummy so this weekend we watched movies, ate chicken noodle soup and stayed in our pjs. Today the sun is shining and it feels amazing Fall-ish outside, but yours truly is still feeling under the weather. So, here I sit, catching up on my blog. 

When Kenny and I go back home, we make almost a daily trip to the Pantry for some fresh and delicious juice. (If you live in Birmingham and you have never been, make lunch date plans for tomorrow and visit The Pantry.) My mom has a juicer she has used once so she let us have it. And. We. Love. It. 

Sunday afternoon is our new juicing day. We go get a bunch of stuff from the store, make the largest mess my kitchen has ever seen, and spend all week sipping on some fresh squeezed juice. 

Here is Jack, he is the magic maker. 

He turns all of this...

Into this!

We are officially obsessed with juicing. We've made some great (and some not so great) combinations. If you are new to juicing try something super delicious like some fresh apple juice. I swear, you haven't had apple juice until you have had some freshly juiced apple juice. Umhmm. Hallelujah.

The New and Improved Blog

A few days ago I got a text message that sent me running down the stairs like it was Christmas morning. The text was from the one and only Cat Moore, web designer extraordinaire,  who said my blog was done. She spent all week making this custom, beautiful and incredibly awesome blog format for me!! How much do you love it?!?!? I am so obsessed. I have been waiting for a little free time to write to the blog world and show it off to you. I'm obsessed. Anywho, if you are now looking at your blog and thinking mine could use a little make over, Cat Moore is the girl to call. Her blog can be found here. And you can contact her through her blog and start the ball rolling on getting an awesome blog. Scroll through her blog and you will see all the blogs she has redone, she is so talented!! This will probably be the shortest post in the history of posts, but I'm so thrilled about my new blog I just had to tell the world!!

Family Beach Trip 2012

This past week was the much anticipated Annual Dorr/Byrd Family Beach Trip. Weeks before the trip, Kenny and I had packed, made our list of things we wanted to do and places we wanted to eat, and in our minds we were already in Florida driving down 30A. We drove down one afternoon and 12 hours, 4 stops, and 3 packs of Orbit gum later, we arrived in Birmingham. (Blowing bubble competitions can be thrilling and take up more time than you ever imagined.)We had about 24 hours in Birmingham before we headed to the beach. Kenny went to Ozark to see his parents and I stayed back in Birmingham to see 5 of my friends I hadn't seen in for-e-verrrr. It was good to see my sweet friends. It's hard though because it makes leaving that much harder. Anywhooo, the next morning we headed out for the beach! I don't even know how to describe how  the trip was. It would take a novel to tell you everything we did, so just trust me when I say it was awesome. My family has changed a lot in the last two years, two new family members (3 if you count Chaco:) ), we live in another state, Jake is moving to another state, Julia is one year away from graduating, and it has just been a huge time of transition. It has been weird for my family because we are really close; but this week was perfect for us to just focus on the 9 of us, together under one roof, and simply enjoy one another. And that is just what we did.

 

It took us all of two minutes to unload the cars, put on a swim suit and head to the pool. We spent hours taking underwater pictures, laughing and playing. We picked up right where we left off. Luke and Jake took over the role as family comedians and made us laugh all week long. Enjoy a video of them below. 

It wouldn't be a family beach trip if we didn't play hours of volleyball. So we set up the net wherever we could find a spot and pretended we were competing for the gold in London.

 One night we went into Panama City for a little karaoke. We googled a place that we could go as a family and we pulled up to this hole in the wall. All 15 people there were like family, calling the waitresses by name and singing with them. We were obviously the outsiders, but we were fine with it. Nothing breaks the ice and says, 'thank you for letting us sing too'  like some Chris Brown, so that is exactly what we did. I think it really brightened the mood considering everyone else was singing slow, sad country songs.

 

Two days were rainy so we decided to make a family music video. We had such a blast making it and if you haven't seen it, here it is below. And even if you have seen it, watch it again. This might be my only chance at getting Taylor Swift to notice me/see that we could be best friends.

Someone once told me my family is like a vortex. We get sucked into our own little world and I realized she was totally right. We do our own thing and have a blast doing it. We are too loud, we have no problem  acting like fools around others, we'd rather be together as a family than anything else and that's just how it has always been. We speak our own language, we are talking 24/7 on group chat and we are probably too involved in each others personal lives, but I wouldn't have it any other way!

All that to say, it was a wonderful, crazy, action packed, and yet somehow relaxing week. Kenny and I are suffering from post beach depression right now; our minds and our hearts are in Seaside, FL. Next summer's beach trip has never felt so far away! 

I hope everyone is having a great summer, who is excited that football season is 28 days away??

RTR

A Few Home Goodies

Ever since we learned we would be here two more years we have been making quite the effort to make this place home. It's been  process, and we still aren't done but we are loving the way everything is turning out. It really is starting to feel like home! Here are the things that we got a few weeks ago from the retail therapy session after my trip to Point Clear. 

First on the list are my succulents. I saw some on a blog and just loved them, the blog lady used fake ones because she said the real ones are so expensive. I just took her word for it and started looking at fakes. They were so expensive, I mean shockingly expensive which made me shudder at the thought of how much real ones would cost. Mission Aborted. I was set on finding something I liked just as much, for a lot less. Then one random night, Kenny and I went to Kroger for some brownie mix, we have those nights more often than I want to admit. Anyyywho, right when we walked in there was this set of three real succulents in the container for $30! I was looking at spending at least $70 for the fakes not including the moss and container, and I am so glad I didn't! I  love how weird and different they look. Plus, a nice pop of green in a white house never hurt anyone.

Next on the shopping list were some pillows for our bed. My mom has these pillows from Pottery Barn that we loved but they were $80 a sham. No thanks. Until Mr. Ebay himself, Kenny B found two for $50 brand spankin' new and ordered them right away. Then I decided I liked them on the sofa not the bed. What do you think?

This next purchase is my personal favorite. Kenny and I go out to eat Mexican + Pinkberry more than I like to admit (again) and it is becoming a little bit of a routine around here while we are munchin' on some Pinkberry to walk next door to this cute little home decor shop called The Nest Egg. I just love it in there. Every time we go in there we head straight to the smell goods and start smelling all the candles, lotions, diffusers, you name it. Our new found love is Antica Farmacista, specifically Champagne although now it is called Prosecco. It is insanely expensive but one day we decided to be adventurers and buy the smallest, cheapest one available. Best. Decision. Ever. I sit on the sofa just to smell this. Here is the link in case you are interested. Just try it! Go to a some home decor store and just take a whiff. I know it is expensive, but can you really put a price tag on the smell of Heaven?

Onto our bedroom! We have been on the search for bedding for a while now. Our Anthro bedding was a flop and instead of rushing our and buying something else we really did our research and exhausted all options. We decided on some always wonderful Pottery Barn. We still need some big white euro shams to go behind our pillows, but what do you think?? We got some curtains and  lamps and it is really coming together! (side note- I want to paint our side tables a different color. That is my next project. Too much matching blue going on for my liking.)

 

And lastly, this weird little print. In Florida, across the street from Red Bar is the Zoo Gallery. Whenever we go eat there the wait is always at least an hour long we go walk around the Zoo Gallery. They have the weirdest and coolest things but I spend the wait time looking at are these little prints by Story People. The pictures are so strange, but the sayings are sweet and funny and random. The other night I was looking at their website and entertaining myself for hours laughing them and reading them to Kenny. Then a couple days later we got one in the mail! I liked this one a lot and Kenny, little sneak, ordered it for me. Which brings me to my next decor thing. Our hallway walls upstairs are totally bare, and we decided we wanted to put things up that made us happy like good quotes, pictures of our favorite places, memories, that kind of thing. So, this is the first piece for the hall and hopefully when we go to the beach this month we can add to our Story People collection!

 

Sorry this post is a dad gum novel, but I could talk about home decor all day. I hope everyone had an awesome 4th!!

God Bless America! 

(And God Bless Beyonce!)

A Baby Shower for the Arballos

It started off like a pretty normal weekend. Hot and sunny summer day, trip to the grocery store, and grilling some steaks and redboxing 21 Jump Street. With about ten minutes left in the movie, the power flickers then goes out. Say whattt? Then we hear what sounds like jumbo jets surrounding the house. We open the front door and the wind is a blowing and dust is everywhere and our neighbors are outside trying to figure out what is going on (we would later learn that it was 80 mph winds). We light some candles and talk about how bummed we are that our movie ended too soon. Since our cellphones don't work in our neighborhood we had no way to find out the weather, what was going on, or how long the power would be out, but by this time it is way past our bedtime so we pull the guest bedroom mattress downstairs (because it was 1 million times cooler on the first floor) and call it a night. Talk about the worst night of sleep ever. Sirens going off, the house getting warmer every single minute. It was rough. So we woke up early and decided to go for a drive because our phones were dead and we needed to find out if the world was ending or not. We learn the 3 million were without power, the governor had declared a state of emergency for our county, even 911 systems were down. Didn't see that one coming! But we also learned our power should be back on by noon. Good thing, because we were supposed to be hosting a baby shower at our home at 2.

Being the OCD human being I am, I had already set up for the shower Friday night and the house was ready for guests. The storm hit, and this is what it looked like by Saturday morning.

So we put the 238472389 pound mattress back upstairs and started cleaning up. By 12 the power wasn't back on, but we were hopeful. And sweaty. People started rolling in around 2 and they started sweating with us. While the temperatures were raging, the house did look super cute and girly.

 I had those pink balls hanging from the ceiling but it was so hot they kept falling so I just tied them wherever I could find a place.

 Ah, yes. Nothing like some lovely peonies.

 And some wonderful hydrangeas.

 I didn't make a dish for the shower. Don't hate, cooking isn't my thing. But the girls who did, REALLY outdid themselves. Look at all this yummy desserts!

 

The shower was a huge success. It wasn't your traditional shower by any means, and I could have sworn the heat was going to send Holly into labor 2 months early but Holly and Jason got a lot of awesome gifts and despite the lack of AC we had a great time.  (That's right, we turned plates into fans, genius!)

 But after four hours of 20-ish people being in our hot home, the heat proved to be too much for some. Kenny went a little crazy...

And we lost Chaco to the 111 heat index,

 Not really, he just put on a show for some attention and loving.

The AC finally came back on Sunday night. We escaped the heat for a while and vegged at our friends Kris and Nicole's place throughout the weekend. It kept us sane. Most of the groceries we got Friday night were spoiled and our redbox was way late because we couldn't open the DVD player without power, and we had eaten our fair share of PB bread in the last three days, but come Sunday night we were just happy to not be sweating or sleeping on the floor.

July is here and we are counting down the days til the family beach trip!!! We are ready for that vacation!

Another trip back home

What a crazy week. I flew home on Thursday night. Friday was my baby sister's dance recital. She ROCKED it. It was almost 6 hours long and during dinner time=late night family meal at Dairy Queen. 

 Saturday morning my mom, Julia the dancing queen and I went to Tuscaloosa to pack up my grandmother for a five day trip to Point Clear and Gulf Shores. Sunday morning, we took off bright and early amidst the horrible rain and got to Point Clear in record time. All thanks to my mom's BMW, or the superior driving machine, as she likes to call it. 

We stayed at The Grand and had an awesome view of the bay. 

 Toured the property and drove around Point Clear then realized we were starving to death and ate the best meal at the Wash House. 

It rained all day but we made the best of it. Just like these little ducks. 

There were the coolest trees in Point Clear 

 Not to mention the shops that were so cute 

You can tell I am not using many words to describe this trip. I won't go into the life sucking details, but we didn't make it to Gulf Shores. It was a terrible idea to take a lady who hasn't been able to forgive things that happened forty-two years ago. It is always a blast to be around my mom, so I don't regret going. But in no way, shape, form or fashion was this a vacation. It turned out quite well because a) I took a crash course in learning the importance of forgiving b) there were still some good mother/daughter times where we could sneak away and put some fun into the dysfunction we were in, and most importantly c) the morning after we got back I woke up to a text from my husband saying he was in the hospital with terrible stomach pain and was about to get a CAT scan. In the next hour I had packed, got the quickest ticket out of Atlanta and was driving 90 down 459 to get to Kenny. My flight was delayed 2 hours, we had to change planes because of a technical issue and I was an emotional wreck. Come to find out, Kenny had drank some bad pool water and it was tearing up his stomach. So, all the worst case scenarios that had been playing out in my head were gone and I was so relieved. I have been home a few days and I feel like I am still recovering from all the emotional stress in the last couple of days. 

All that to say, this post is quite the debby downer but it's what has been happening and I hate when people only share the good things in there life. I have never been so aware of how truly good God is. My mom in all her awesomeness can truly only be because of the Lord's grace. I am so thankful for her godly example, friendship and love she has for my family and everyone around her. Life is too short to not love completely and whole heartedly and forgive like it is your dad gum job. 

(Also, I did some retail therapy to help recover and can't wait to show you all our new things! Coming soon in a much happier post!)