Candy coma.

This weekend? PERFECT...and filled with TERRIBLE food. 

Friday - celebrated my soulmates birthday with Mexican food and amazing laughs...oh and a couple super cute gifts we got her {isn't she straight ROCKING that summer scarf!?}

Saturday - Caleb and I cleaned our place, got lunch with family and then relaxed by the lake and hung out all day and evening.

Sunday - EASTER. & Erin's REAL birthday. Celebrated both, all day long! Warning...my family is kind of awesome and these pictures are so fun.

Typical bro-in-law stuff....

husband. broseph. 

my Nanny rocks.

our attempt at a normal picture. 3 generations :)

Then we headed to Caleb's parent's house. Did I mention they moved back from Arkansas yet? Well, they did! :)

I hope this little lady knows how much I love and appreciate her...every single day...but especially on her birthday. She's one of the best friends I could ask for, and I had so much fun celebrating HER this weekend! LOVE YOU, ERIN!

I hope you all had a great Easter weekend!!

5 happies to get me through.

I cannot thank you all enough for the love, support, prayers, and random emails/tweets/etc this week as I mourned the loss of my Grandpa. He's the first person in my family I've ever lost, so I didn't know how to deal with it...but with the help of my husband, family, best friends, and all of YOU... I somehow managed to pull through. So today? I'm choosing to focus on the happy things in my life...Grandpa would want that.

Happy #1. Flowers from all of my best friends. This particular bouquet is from my sweet Erin & Jared. I also got a gorgeous bouquet from two of my best friends, Lyndsie and Angie. Coming home to these sweet little surprises made my week a heck of a lot easier.

Happy #2. After the very emotional funeral, my Grandpa's wife gifted me all of my Grandpa's old vintage camera's. Turns out, he was quite the photographer, too. It's too bad I hadn't known that before he passed, or I would've dragged him among with me on some fun photo dates. But for real, these old camera's are insane, and I'm in love.

Happy #3. Seeing this picture for the first time ever. My Grandpa's wife told me he had this one, and also one of he and my brother, by his bedside. This absolutely made my day. It was so fun seeing old pictures of him in high school, he was such a handsome man!

Happy #4. Onion rings from Red Robin. My entire family got together for lunch after the funeral, and it was so fun just spending time together reliving memories from my Grandpa's life.

Happy #5. My sister-in-love has a birthday this weekend, and I'm so excited to spend time with her this weekend. I truly can't imagine my life without her daily emails, constant support, and our hilarious inside jokes. I hope everyone has a friend like her!

I'm glad my week got better, and I'm thankful for all of love and support from everyone. I hope you all have a good weekend ahead of you. Happy GOOD Friday.

Gone to soon.

My grandparent's at a younger age. 

Monday evening was supposed to be normal for me. Go home, eat dinner with Caleb, go for a nice, long run...and sleep. Monday was not supposed to be the night I went to the hospital to say goodbye to my grandpa. He was supposed to go home, and into hospice care...but the doctors wouldn't release him. He was going downhill, and fast.

Thankfully on Friday, my uncle got to go and spend a little time with him. They hadn't talked much anymore, so this was pretty awesome. They talked about the fun memories from when my uncle was just a boy. My Grandpa also found out that my mom would be flying in Tuesday evening to see him and take care of him at home (she's a nurse) for the week...my uncle said his face just lit up and he even gave a few fist pumps in the air. He was so excited to see his daughter. I hadn't planned to see him until Tuesday, and even then, I thought he'd have a few more days left.

In a matter of two days, his body began quickly deteriorating. His face sunk, and suddenly, he couldn't speak, or move. I thought I could hold it together...but when I saw him I just sat with him and cried for hours, holding his still hands.

Although he couldn't blink, he stared up at the ceiling, and I held in front of his eyes the bracelet he gifted me at my graduation. Engraved on it said "Love, Grandpa Phil". This is something I'll forever treasure, and I know he was smiling in his own way when he saw it.

Saying goodbye to him was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Caleb prayed over us and also gave me a few minutes to be alone with him, after the hours of being with every visitor in the room. I said a lot to him in those moments, and it broke my heart that he couldn't respond in any way...but I just know that he heard me.

3 hours after we left the hospital, I got a call that my Grandpa had taken his last breath. I sat in bed and just wept. I can't thank my husband enough for fighting through his tired eyes and just holding me through this. My mom, unfortunately, wasn't able to make it in time. But the fact that he knew she tried to make it home in time, is peace enough for my heart. The next few days will be spent in tears, and we'll be grieving the loss of my Grandpa Phil. I hope to see him again someday.

Please keep my grandpa's wife, Carolyn, in your prayers. She's got to be one of the strongest women I've met before.Your happy thoughts for all involved mean more than you'll know. Thank you so much!

{Punta Cana}

{Get ready for a picture filled, vacation extravaganza post}

Where do I even begin? Last week was incredible. If you read my surprise post last Friday, you know that Caleb and I snuck away with our best friends for a week in the Dominican Republic...Punta Cana to be exact. We scored an INCREDIBLE deal on a resort recently and honestly expected it to be a pretty basic resort. Boy were we surprised!

So I'll start from the beginning...We left last Saturday, and had a less than perfect experience with a delayed flight out of our airport in Cincy, but nothing could bring us down knowing we'd be near the beach by early evening. So, Erin and I took it upon ourselves to try out my floppy hats!

When we finally landed, we were able to get a quick bite to eat at the beach side pizzeria...#nobigdeal. The next day (and every day after this) we hit up the beach, did lunch, went to the pool, and then ended our sunny day in the hot tubs! 

 *Not so fun fact of the day - this was the day I got the worlds craziest arm burns...I straight up looked like a tiger. This was also the night that Caleb unknowingly (until the next morning) got terrible food poisoning. I was burnt, so between the two of us, we really needed a day out of the sun.

Best pictures of us, ever.

After some time relaxing, we hit up the fun little dance club they had there and danced our little hearts out for a solid 20 minutes! We just got too excited when they played our American jams.

Probably a new favorite of us :)

Honestly, each day was a little similar with our routine of breakfast, beach, laying out, pool, lunch, hot tub, dinner, etc. So I'll give you a ton of pictures to gawk at from our entire week. Enjoy!

This was on the beach!

This next shot is one I'm definitely going to print on canvas. It's just my favorite.

When people ask me how we liked the DR, I cannot say enough awesome things about their culture. This trip legitimately made me want to come home and learn to speak fluent Spanish.

This guy was part of the entertainment team...and actually spoke the best English of any employee their. He was also fluent in French, which was crazy impressive. Made me feel a little silly, but that didn't stop Erin and I from taking a picture with him! Earlier that week, he convinced us to play balloon darts (then make fun of us both for how horrible we were at it), and also to take the "stretching" class. It was great fun!

Caleb and I also, somehow, got roped into a dance competition one evening...and we actually WON! Caleb blew my socks off and I was so impressed. We won a fun DR painting, but weren't able to bring it home with us, so we struck a pose with it right before we left instead.

Last night.

I honestly couldn't have asked for two better people to go on vacation with. The four of us had been talking about doing this for years...and it was so surreal to finally make it happen. The Dominican Republic will always hold a special place in my heart! I can't wait to go back one day. The memories we made on this trip will not be ones I forget easily. So many hilarious things happened, and many more "inside jokes" were made. I love my people!

If this didn't give you a travel bug...I don't know what will :)

*congrats to anyone who made it this far.