May in Evansville

May in Evansville meant an average temperature of 70 degree weather, and a chance of rain occuring at least once a week. We were able to make weekly trips to the library and take our bike out for a ride almost weekly, but with so much rain that meant there were also plenty of puddles to jump in.

Some significant events that occurred this month were:
-We biked to the church and back (a 4.2 mile trip one way)!
-We celebrated Mother's day by starting a garden
-Genelle's and I performed in a small dance performance on the 18th
-We made a family trip out to St. Louis over Memorial Weekend (to see the zoo)
-We visited 3 new parks and 2 lakes (Audubon Park, Smothers Park in Owensboro, Boonville City Lake/Park, and Scales Lake Park)!

We are excited to see all that June has in store for us!

April in Evansville

I plan to share all the adventures that our family have experienced over the past couple of months here in the Midwest, but first here's a little sample of how the last 30 days went... Enjoy!

Baby Lullaby

I've been thinking lately of how I will put my baby to sleep when we're all the hours of the night.
With my love of Grooveshark I decided to put together a little playlist that would help calm her down.

Well, last night I stumbled across an album that is so beautiful that I had to share it.
It's called Baby Mine and it has the most beautiful songs...

My favorite of the moment is "My Darling" by Ryan Tanner, but they are all fabulous.

Stephanie Nielson from the Nie Nie Dialogues has a beautiful video of her and her youngest, Charlotte that uses "My Darling" in it. The love emanating from the video is so beautiful it makes me cry. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do...

Falling in Love...

I don't know about you, but I LOVE getting Free Music!
And Amazon MP3 has got to be one of my favorite places to get it from. Every now and then they will give you $2 credit to be purchased towards whatever songs you like (cool, huh!). Also they like to spotlight various upcoming and popular Artists by giving away one of their songs for free (I'm not talking some po-dunk song, but one of the band's most popular!).

So I thought I'd share the love and post the links to...

$2 credit to Amazon MP3

and Amazon MP3's Rising Stars of 2013.

You can thank me after you melt of happiness :)

P.S. I don't know about you but I think I'll spend my $2 on some more Black Prairie and Little Green Cars music. Their voices are AMAZING!! Don't believe me? Check out these videos:

Enjoy!

California Dreamin

This weekend, Mike and I are going to California for a baby blessing. Not only am I excited to view and hold the handsome nephew but I am excited to be traveling with the hubby.

I am reminded of this print...

and this music video...

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I hope it feels like home where ever you are :)

Songs boys will never understand.

When I was little, Thumbelina came out in VHS.

It was a groundbreaking film in my life.

Never before had I had a crush on an animated character, but the Fairy Prince changed all that.

His and Thumbelina's song, "Let me be your wings", was and still is the song that makes me swoon and think about my true love...

Of course, Mike, my husband, nor his brother or cousin, know or care to understand why this song stirs such emotion inside of me. And I don't really expect anyone else to understand either, but just in case any of you share a similar feeling when you think about this movie I thought I'd share this song with you.

Enjoy!

I Believe (In Love) and Date Night!

Everyone loves Date Night!

I know that for Mike and I it's a nice time to dedicate to doing/trying something new with each other. And for the most part we keep it fairly inexpensive, but every now and then it's fun to splurge and go out to dinner and a movie!

We don't usually go to the Theater unlless we KNOW the movie's going to be good, but Mike found a Red Robin's coupon and was surprised with movie tickets from work so we decided, why not!

So we saw Mirror Mirror, a Snow White tale, and it was.... interesting to say the least. One of my favorite parts, although not Mike's, was the following clip. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did :)

Enjoy!

This one's to you Mike, thank you for taking me out on the town!

Date Nights

So I haven't done a very good job of keeping you all up to date on Mike's and my weekly dates, so here's the lowdown:

Two weeks ago, for our date night we went to my cousin's swim meet. It was the final meet of the season and U of U was facing off BYU. As many of you from Utah know, U of U and BYU are rival schools, but that's not the only reason this meet was special. My cousin, when she was graduating high school got many scholarship offers to Universities all over the nation, including BYU and U of U. 

Well, she was flown out on separate occasions by both schools and shown the ropes and team, but after much deliberation (and a better scholarship offer) my cousin choose to go with U of U. Unfortunately there were some hard feelings when she didn't choose BYU, but hey money is money!

Anyhow, her first year on the swim team she had  two major shoulder surgeries so she didn't compete the majority of the time. However at the last meet of the year she swam against BYU and did horribly (because of her shoulder problems-duh) so this time around she was really looking to prove herself... and she did!

She swam in 3 divisions and was in 3rd-4th place every time. And as this was only her first real year swimming with the team she is only going to get better! So that was a lot of fun!

Last week for date night Mike and I went Lazer Tagging with our friends the Despains! We ganged up against some BYU Freshies and I wish I could say we creamed them but unfortunately we lost by 12... Oh, well it was still fun :) After the Lazer Assault we all went to Gloria's Little Italia for some gelato and other various deserts (Mike had a slice of chocolate cake and I had Teramisu)! 

This week, Mike and I went to the Temple and finished the night with El Azteca's Nachos and Taquitos (so delicious!) and watched Somewhere in Time DESPITE Mike's grumbling complaints. 

Hey, a girl's got to watch her Chick Flicks!

Arise and Shine Forth

I LOVE going to church on sundays!

There really is no other church like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!

I look forward to Sundays because of the Spirit that I feel while at church and for the rest of the day! I am always on the verge of tears all day long because of the amazing spirit of love, hope and joy that I feel both from those around me and from my Father in Heaven.

I have been blessed to serve in my neighborhood's Young Womens, a program that encourages all girls to strive to be the best that they can be and seek after knowledge and truth. I love working/teaching the Young Girls in my neighborhood about the gospel and how to live a happy life. 

I am also grateful for a Prophet, and incredible leaders who have been inspired in how the Youth Programs should run. 

This year, as every year, the Youth Program gets a new theme by which the Youth try to live their lives. This year's theme is to "Arise and Shine Forth".

A little while ago as I was reading in the Book of Mormon I came across the following verse,

Shortly after reading that verse I saw the following video

I know that this video and this year's theme, "Arise and Shine Forth" was inspired.
I love this gospel and the opportunity I have to Arise and Shine Forth!

Songs that pull at your heart strings

Everyone has one of two songs that are close to their heart, and may even be a tear-jerker.

 For me those to songs are:

Family Portrait by Pink

When my parents divorced I was 12. Whenever my dad came to pick us kids up to go over to his house we would always listen to Pink. This song was always requested by me and my sister. I remember that as it was played I would sit staring out the car window crying. 

I can only imagine what was going through my Dad's head as the song played on repeat.

I was not always as happy as I am now and this song is a reminder to me of how hard life can be as a kid.

and,
Storm by Lifehouse

I first heard this song while at a high school dance performance I was blown away both by the lyrics and the dance.

What are your heart-wrenching songs?

Degrees of Happiness

I believe that there are degrees of Happiness...

Some days I'm perpetually happy... On those days, it doesn't matter what happens! I'm in such a good, happy state of mind that nothing can get me down... I'm a very cheery person.

On other days I'm hyper happy. When these days occur, I tend to be really silly and get excited really easily. On these days I tend to be very dramatic.

A lot of the time however, I'm content happy.  When I'm content happy I'm a fairly mellow person with a happy undertone. I don't get ruffled easily.

Yesterday I was perpetually happy. Today I am a content happy.

A Challenge

If you live in Utah, you've either heard of, participated in, or cheered s friend on who competed in the Dirty Dash.

But how many of you know about the Lick the Pole Obstacle Course? 

Held in the same place, and probably with the same obstacles that are in the Dirty Dash, the Lick the Pole Obstacle Course in the winter version of the much loved Dirty Dash and yours truly is registering to participate!

I recently joined a company called Change Anything, a website based on the book called, "Change Anything", in which I work as a virtual coach helping individuals achieve various Change Goals. 

As an employee I've started my own plan, a Coach to 5k running plan. 

Check it out! 

I'm really excited to get started and I invite you to join me! It should be fun and hopefully at the end, we can get our tongues stuck on the pole together! 

Er... or maybe not.

Redneck Fashion Tips

So today's post is mostly a response to a friend's post labeled 

Spandex is a Privilege NOT a Right!

Now, 

one of my favorite Comedians is Jeff Foxworthy...

(for those of you that have heard him before already know what's coming)

and after many trips to Walmart over the years he's decided the majority of the 'WalMartians' are RedNecks.

So, after being thoroughly scarred he came up with a list of (pretty hilarious) 'Fashion Tips'

that EVERYONE should heed by!

And so I've decided to share them with you.

So with out further ado,

Give it up for

Jeff Foxworthy!

Make sure to watch Part 2 when the video ends!

The State Fair

What... a... BLAST!

This past weekend Mike and I went to the Ward Potato Bar Dinner, the Utah State Fair and watched the BYU vs. Utah Football game! It was a lot of fun, but Mike and I were definitely exhausted by the time it was all done.

In Case, ya'll missed the Utah State Fair I decided to take some pictures to share... It turned into a Girl's Night Out, so you won't be seeing any pictures of Mike today.

Jeanne taking a look at a Ferret

Aly and Brynne

Aly, Brynne, Jeanne, Me

The purse I bought

The cutest dancing couple whom I never could get a clean pic of

When we got home, everyone wanted to try on the Belly Dancing Costume that Aly bought... 

And then of course we took some video (Sorry Aly, I couldn't resist!)

Enjoy!

What did you do over the weekend?