Currently {birthday week}

Alright friends, I'm back this week. I am excited to take part in my favorite link-up, Currently, with Anne and Shea today!

Snacking on: hard boiled eggs. Random, I know, but I'm obsessed. I haven't taken the time to hard boil eggs in probably over a year. But way back then, I found THIS blog post on how to make the PERFECT hard boiled egg and seriously, it's amazing. My Grandma even swears by it now!

Anticipating: my birthday! It's officially a week from my 26th birthday and I'm getting excited! We won't do anything fancy on the actual day (it's a Wednesday) but apparently Caleb has some fun up his sleeve for next Friday! I'm looking forward to a fun, celebratory date night with my man!

Borrowing: the coffee mugs from work. They keep my (candy) coffee SO WARM!

Admiring: all my momma friends out there. You guys work SO HARD! I'm so exhausted after working 8-12 hours a day, your job is 24/7! Special shout out to my sister-in-love for putting on this fundraiser to help get new, educational books in the hands of some sweet kiddos in our area who are in foster care. If you have the means to donate, please consider, and if not, please just share that link!

Purchasing: not much, but we're thinking of getting a gym membership again at Planet Fitness. It's just so inexpensive, and although I can do a lot of workouts at home, there is something motivating about physically driving to the gym to put in a good workout! We'll see!

I hope everyone has a great Wednesday. We're half way through the work-week, friends!

The exhaustion is worth it!

So I've been totally MIA this week (and lets be honest, I've kinda sucked at blogging this year in general), but it's for good reason. If you read this post last week, you know we've just had a lot going on! Last weekend we photographed two out of town weddings back to back, and every night after work this week consists of our church's annual Sports Camp. Then tomorrow, we have a half day from work to go shoot our last wedding for a while (we actually get somewhat of a "summer break", woo!)!

I haven't hit the bed before 12:30 any night this week. I've had the same thing for dinner every night. I've consumed more coffee this week than probably all of last month. I've got weird tan lines, a ton of bug bites, and my eyes are hardly staying open.

But you know what? It's been totally worth it.

It's worth it because I see these kiddos learning who Jesus is, some for the first time. It's worth it because of the absolute JOY I see on each of their faces all night long. It's worth it because I get to witness 100+ volunteers work together to pull this event off. It's worth it when you hear some of the kids talk about what's going on in their lives, and we realized we can truly make a difference.

Another perk? Getting to see my adorable husband head coaching basketball. You guys, he has such a way with kids. He's always making them laugh, but he's also tough when he needs to be. It's very cool to watch!

Here are just a few of my favorite moments I've been able to capture this week!

I'm so thankful to be surrounded with people who want to serve others! It's such an encouragement.

I hope you have a great rest of your week friends. Maybe I'll get my act together with regular blogging again someday, or maybe not. For now? It's what works. Happy Thursday!

Vacation {Nags Head, NC}

Well friends, I'm back! Last week was honestly a whirlwind and this past weekend was even more so. I haven't been this tired in a long time, but I somehow peeled myself out from under the covers this morning and to work on time. This is about the time I wish coffee came in IV form! ;)

I decided to (mostly) unplug while we were on vacation to really unwind and it was seriously refreshing. Vacation blog posts are always difficult to write because I can't really break it down by day; every single day was a good mix of the beach, pool, sight seeing, swimming, laying out and eating LOTS of food! So I'll just recap the highlights for ya!

We arrived Saturday a bit before dinner and luckily everyone was more than okay with ordering pizza, so we did just that! But not before taking a quick dip in the ocean! I hadn't seen the beach in YEARS so I was more than ready!

Our first day was a solid day. Lots of sunshine, pool time, and good food. That night Caleb and I tried out a gourmet seafood buffet and OH MY WORD. The crab legs. So good!

 Most nights ended with a walk on the beach, good conversation in the hot tub, or night fishing off the shore.

Tuesday was pretty gloomy so we used that day to explore a little. Caleb and I parted ways for a little day-date and headed to a fun OBX restaurant! After that, I hiked down to the beach to watch the guys boogy board and totally get eaten by waves. It was awesome.

The rest of our evening was filled with dinner at home, more hot tub time, and some ladder ball!

Wednesday was another beautiful day at the beach! I finished "Love Does" on our trip and I HIGHLY recommend it! We got so fortunate that the beach was NEVER busy or crowded. We truly had it to ourselves most days!

One of my favorite nights of the trip is when a few of us went to Sooey's BBQ in Kill Devil Hills. Guys, BEST RIBS OF MY LIFE. The entire experience was so fun! I mean, we even took a picture with the whole staff!

We went for a quick trip to the sand dunes and they did not disappoint. So gorgeous!

Other highlights worth mentioning: spending so much time w/ my nephew and best friends...that we had the coolest pool floats in the city... DUCK DONUTS...finding a giant yellow beach "chair"...and getting a good base tan!

Also waking up for sunrise at Jennette's Pier!

One of our last evenings there we made it a point to take some family pictures! I'm so glad we did because I think this might be my new favorite picture of Caleb and I! Thanks for the capture, Erin!

We had a great vacation with Caleb's family! Thankful for the time we got to spend together!

Summer Bucket List {How I did}

Welcome to the first day of FALL, friends! Although its still sitting mid 80's in Ohio and the leaves seem anything but crisp, I'll take it because it being the 22nd means we've got to be one day closer to real Fall weather!

I wanted to take a look back at my original post where I made a long list of Summery items I wanted to tackle and see how I did. Summer 2016 was a fun one, at that!

Run 80 miles by my birthday. Well that came and went, and I won't even tell you how many miles I did (or didn't) run. #embarrassing

Make a s'more or three. I did this one! We were at a wedding and they had a massive s'more bar, and it was wonderful. You know I indulged in a couple.

Make a photo book. I did this one, too! Although it was for a gift, and not for me personally, it still counts. It took a lot of time, and I'm excited to start working on my own more once weddings slow down this Winter. Woo!

Go hiking/canoeing/something adventurous. Yes! We spent more time outdoors this summer than any married summer so far. We went canoeing, we hiked to a waterfall in TN, we took long walks, we played a lot of volleyball. I'd definitely call that a success!

Hit up the zoo/aquarium. This was a no-go sadly. The aquarium is EXPENSIVE, and we didn't go to the zoo. Bummer!

Play Frisbee Golf. Not only did we play, we played like 4 or 5 times! We have a course far back in our neighborhood, and we even bought 2 new discs to play with! I'm definitely no pro, but I'm a LOT better than I was the first time we played.

Go to a Red's game. Sadly we didn't make this one happen. In all fairness, they kinda sucked this year, BUT still tickets are pretty cheap we could probably make a game this Fall happen and then I could totally count this as a win, right?

Read a couple books. I read one book, and almost finished another...so while it wasn't a "couple", I'm counting it as a win.

Get some chairs for our patio. Caleb and I actually decided to delete this goal from the list because we realized our patio is kind of tiny, and it wouldn't be very appealing eating dinner right next to our outdoor trash cans. ;) we'll save this goal until we buy a house - hopefully next year!

Play corn-hole. We celebrated Father's Day outside all afternoon that day and played multiple rounds of corn-hole! I'm actually not half bad at it, I've found.

Try a new restaurant with Caleb. CHECK! We hit up a place called "The Original Pancake House" and I had the most amazing pecan french toast in the world. Caleb had some strange egg dish, but we both were so thrilled with the whole experience. We can't wait to go back!

I'd say I did pretty darn well on this Summer Bucket List! Accomplishing 8 out of 11 things is definitely a win! We really had such a great summer, and I feel like we spent a lot more time in the sunshine than in years past! I didn't maintain a good tan, but what else is new? I miss those summer vacations in high school where my only worry was perfecting my tan, ha!

Now, its time for a Fall Bucket List!

Memories from Summers Past!

I've been looking back at old photos a LOT lately, so I decided to bring a few old favorites back to life and reminisce on randomness from past summers.

-This is honestly one of my favorite photos of Caleb and I! He was a groomsmen in a childhood friends wedding and we drove down to Memphis for it! It was the summer right after we got married so my hair was still crazy long, and I curled it (which I never used to do). I have to say this is my new hair goal. I've loved it short, but I'm ready for a change!

-Last year for my birthday we took a trip to Indy with our best friends! It was a lot of fun. The state fair proved to be quite the attraction with so much to do, see and EAT!

-YEARS ago when our friends didn't live more than 10 minutes from us, we went to visit sweet little Nora. Many of our summer evenings were spent with them! Its hard for us to live over 30 minutes from them now. We miss you, Young family!! This photo always made me so happy. She was "hiding" from him!

-Last Summer our church shut its doors the Sunday of Labor Day weekend (which we're doing again this year!) and we went out in the community to "rise and build". Some folks needed their weeds pulled, others needed help painting, others just needed food. Its a great feeling to give back!

-Last summer we spent a LOT of time at our favorite donut shop. What's bad is since we moved last September, we could literally walk there now. Maybe I will convince Caleb we can get our steps in by walking to the donut shop? ;)

-Two years ago, when I turned 23, these cuties helped me ring it in the right way. Erin made me a personalized checklist for the evening, we made hilarious music videos and just hung out eating way too much cake and ice cream.

-The time Caleb got me Paramore tickets for my 19th birthday! I was so surprised! He still leaves me this smitten.

-Two Summers ago when I was cooking like a boss, trying new recipes. Where did that version of me go? I hope she comes back! ;) hopefully next week...I've actually meal planned my butt off! Woo!

-One wedding last summer when OSU's Brutus showed up! What the what?!

Summer will always be awesome for its warm weather but MAN I am ready for some fall breezes, bonfires and new booties!

Have a great day, friends!