Early Birthday Surprise

This is weekend was the perfect blend of fun and relaxation. It was the exact combo I needed after a week of ups and downs with my physical health. In and out of bed almost everyday, exhaustion, head aches, body aches....yuck! 

Andrew surprised me a while back with tickets to one of my favorite artists, Ingrid Michaelson. He even made arrangements for one of my best friends to travel all the way from Nashville to see it with me! 

The picture doesn't do justice for how close we were. We were only 6 rows back from the stage! Needless to say, my husband did a great job surprising me with this gift for my birthday. 

And a grateful "thank you" to Brittany for venturing over to Knoxville for less than 24 hours to encourage me! God has given me the best of friends. 

Monthly Update?

Graduation is right around the corner!! Andrew and I are beyond excited. He already ran around the house in his cap and gown. Is that bad luck like it is for weddings!? Anyways, both of our families will be in town for the occasion. The in-laws are even staying with us in our small apartment! Dog and all. I hope Shammy and Kyzer get along.

what a happy boy at the park with his BFFs

Kyzer is growing!!! He's almost 50 pounds now and only 5 months. We are still working on obedience and training with him. All I have to say is Cesar Millan knows what he's talking about! Because of him, we are going to have a well mannered doggy.

just look at the size difference from the top picture
(the first couple weeks of having him) to the
bottom one (last week).

Andrew was the birthday this last weekend! We had a very relaxing weekend enjoying good food and the company of friends. 

what a cutie

we've always wanted to try this place. and we finally made it

our friends hosted a cookout for him. cake and keg included

my birthday boy!

Our plans for life after graduation are still in the works :( but we will be sure to keep you updated. I'm not going to lie, I was hoping to know by now. AND I'm partially surprised at how calm I am at the fact of not knowing. Very excited to see what God has planned for us.

October Ups and Downs

October is a long month. 31 days if you hadn't been keeping track. That leaves a lot of room for things to happen. And oh did "things" happen to us this month. You may have noticed that I haven't updated the blog since earlier in the month. My mind and self have been lost in so many things this. I'm not going to bore you with the stories of the bad things because God has taken care of them and there is no need to complain. 

In short, my car = dead transmission. Andrew and I = car-less for over a week, super stressed, and trying to figure out where money will come from. However, God is a faithful father and didn't let us down. 

We have wonderful friends and parents that support and love us. We thank so much our friends that let us borrow their cars or gave us rides places. And we are SO grateful for our parents making phone calls, knowing people that can help us, for generously donating money, and for letting us use their car temporarily. We have the best people in our lives. Even though it was hard, we were never not taken care of through this tough month. 

We thought losing Andrew's car taught us about faith and gratitude. HAH! We had no idea what God had in store for us. But He definitely took care of us.

Now lets forget about the bad and talk about the good things that happened in this month.

1. It's without a doubt Fall outside! My favorite season of the year. I went out for a walk and picked some colorful leaves to frame. These are just a few of the gorgeous finds I made outside our condo.

2. We've been absolutely loving our CSA produce baskets we get every week! I never want to go back to grocery store produce. Farm fresh is the way to go! These are just a few items from the basket we picked up today. 

The trend has been eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, radishes, and all sorts of greens. This week we got a GIANT sweet potato (not pictured here), fresh garlic, lettuce, and chard (that's what's in the bag). I've found that I LOVE radishes. Simply sauteed with their leaf greens. So simple and yummy. And of course the tomatoes are to die for.

3. I got a letter from my dear friend Lisa. She moved to London back in August and I miss her terribly. It was so nice to hear from her and it was a great encouragement in the midst of all the discouragement.

4. I had an awesome thrift store find to go in our home. I am never able to get out of the house except for school and church with Andrew needing the car every day for work, but one morning I had "car freedom" for 2 hours. 2 HOURS! I can not tell you how excited I was. So with my two hours I went.....thrifting!

$5 dollars. This shelf made my 2 hours of the month worth it. 

(That's our guest book on the wall and one of these days I'll get it framed.) Along with gaining a new shelf to set up in our house...I was able to unpack 4 boxes that same day.

Still got this much to go....

5. My birthday! I'm a mere 23 years old now. My birthday was the 27th but since it feel on the first day of Fall break for school. I decided to "celebrate" my birth this extended weekend. :) Since Andrew and I are on this  spoiled "we only eat farm fresh foods" kick, we went to dinner at Farm 255. DELICIOUS!

And I got some fun gifts that I've been wanting for a long time. 

[And a rain jacket :)]

These running shoes have the Nike + feature so it will record my distances and help me train for any future races. So legit.

So in summary of this long month and this long post, the month of October has shown us how blessed we are.  Blessed more than we will ever know. 

Sorry for such a long post! Had to make up for not posting anything all month. Love you all.