we are running away!

In one week (the 29th) Zach and I are heading here...

To the Blue Ridge Mountains!

To visit Brenda and Jimmy...

(Hi Brenda and Jimmy!)

And we are taking My Nanny with us...

Isn't she precious?

We are so excited to spend some time away from home!  And who better to spend that time with than family?  The only thing that could make this trip even more perfect would be SNOW!  Can someone please let the weather man know that I would like some snow in the Blue Ridge Mountains next weekend? Thanks!

News Flash: I realized tonight that I didn't post a lot of pictures from our time in Augusta, Georgia at Fort Gordon.  I will post those soon because Augusta is a BEAUTIFUL city y'all!

Christmas with my Family

We celebrated Christmas with my family last night!  We had such a great time as we always do...  Here are just a few pictures...

We sent my dad on a little scavenger hunt to find his present this year!  We got him a guitar because that is what he wanted, he thought that after Christmas they were going to save and buy him one, little did he know that we had all pitched in and got it for him.

We got my mom some new cookware and we sent her on a little scavenger hunt too...  she only thought we were sending my dad on a wild goose chase!

Ava had a blast opening presents this year, she was so excited and couldn't wait until it was her turn.

My mom and dad got Ava a harmonica as one of her little gifts, here she is playing it with my dad playing his.

Ava was probably most excited about her digital camera that Nanny got her and she took pictures of everyone all night!

Below are just some random pictures that I took!

These pictures aren't from last night but I wanted to share them...  First are my Christmas decorations and our tree...

We also had a private photo session with Santa since Ava's first pictures didn't turn out good.  The photographer that took them did a horrible job so we placed a call to the North Pole and Santa came back down to visit Ava for another picture.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

My Girls

Karmen, Alline, and Me

(not the best picture of us, we had been bowling on the Wii and couldn't quit laughing)

These two girls are my best friends!  They are always there for me no matter what!  Not only are they my friends but they are my family and that makes our bond even more special!

I am so thankful to have both of them in my lives!  Love you girls!

My weekend, a summary of it at least

Saturday I spent the day with Karmen and Ava. Zach was at drill and Matt was at the lake for a guys weekend so we went to lunch and I ended up spending the night with her.

Sunday was family day at Zach's unit. I started my day off with a car that wouldn't crank at first... it finally cranked and I made it to Anniston on time. Luckily for me it cranked when I left too...

Family day was fun! Zach's unit (the 490th) played another unit that is in Anniston (the 310th). Unfortunately the 490th lost by two points and that meant 20 push ups from them... They had a lot of fun playing though! There was also a tug of war match against each other, several of them actually and both units won a few times...

I got to meet a lot of really nice people, people who may one day be my support system if Zach gets deployed. I volunteered to be a part of the Family Readiness Group and we have training for that on August 29th and 30th. I figured that this would be a good way for me to get to know the other family members in the unit and make some friends along the way!

After we got home from Anniston we met Zach's family at Chili's for dinner! It was SO yummy and SO much fun to hang out with everyone! We both have really great families so anytime with any of them is great!!!

That is my weekend in a nutshell... What did you do this weekend?

i ♥ weekends

I love spending lots of quality time with my husband on the weekends. I love spending time with friends and family on the weekends too but nothing beats spending time with Zach!

One day I look forward to us spending weekends with our children. I think about all of the fun things we can do, like go to the zoo, go to the park, go to the Botanical Gardens to take pictures, go swimming, go on a picnic... the list goes on and on!

I love watching Zach with Ava and Gavin and it is so nice to see him interact with them... He will make a great daddy one day!

Anyways, back to weekends... I love to sleep late and stay up late and sometimes I love to do absolutely nothing! Then some weekends I love to fit in as many activities as we can...

This weekend was a kind of busy one. We had a wedding shower on Saturday and then dinner at Karmen and Matt's and then lunch with my family after church, a birthday party Sunday afternoon and then dinner with Zach's family! It was fun to see everyone and hang out!

We really do have the best families in the world!

***P.S. please keep Ava in your prayers, she is under the weather and has an appointment at 2:30 to see the doctor!***

you guys are going to hate me

When we finally get internet service at home because I will have so many pictures to post!!! I can't post pictures from work because we can't put personal pictures on our work computers... Ugh, I miss posting pictures!!!

Life is going great right now though. I love being in my house again! We had some friends over last weekend for a cook out! It was so much fun!!!

I just realized that my birthday is in less than a month! I will be 24, I think... Just kidding! I will definitely be 24!!! It is funny looking back I always thought that I would be married with kids by now... I have completed the married part just not the kids part. Some days I think I am ready to start a family and then I think about the cost of the doctor's visits and fees when I have the baby and I start to have a panic attack and then I have to tell myself to stop thinking about it... Then there are some days when I long to hold my baby and feed my baby and snuggle my baby and then I have to tell myself one day I will be able to do all of those things...

Then I really get myself worked up, what if we can't have children??? What will we do then, I have always wanted to be a mommy... adoption is so expensive and so are fertility treatments. And it is then that I tell myself to quit worrying that everything will work out the way God has planned.

To be continued... it is almost time to go home!

what a wonderful weekend

Zach and I had a wonderful weekend together and with his parents.

We stayed at a different hotel that just opened and we were quite impressed with it. We are staying there again this weekend. It is just as nice as the Best Western but a whole lot cheaper... like $50 a weekend cheaper... so we will be staying at the Howard Johnson for the rest of our time at Fort Gordon.

Zach is off 4 days at Memorial Day and so am I. Unfortunately, Zach will more than likely not be able to come all the way to Birmingham for the weekend... So I have arranged with my cousins in Georgia (Hi Brenda and Jimmy!) to go stay at their house with them for the weekend! I am so excited to go visit them! Zach has not been to their new house yet and he can't wait to see it! He is so excited to go fishing also...

I got my earrings that I won in the mail on Friday... but I didn't get to see them in person until last night. They are so super cute! I will take a picture of them for you!!! They are fab!

I took some pictures this weekend for the first time in a while so I will post those tonight after I get home since I don't have my camera with me.

My name is at the very bottom of Jennisa's list! As if you can't tell, I am so ready for my blog makeover and I can't wait to see what she comes up with!

Not much else to update on so I am going to get back to work... Have a wonderful Monday!

My Best Friend

We all have a person in our lives (outside of family members) that we can tell everything to. We call this person our best friend. I have never actually introduced you to my best friend, Winks... no that isn't her real name but that is what I call her, long story but all you need to know is that is her nick name just like mine is Chickie. Her real name is Lindsey and I love Lindsey like she is my sister!

I met Lindsey when I started working for the credit union that I am still working for. I was hired in as the part time receptionist in August of 2004 and she was the first person to make me feel comfortable here. We have a lot of the same qualities in our personalities and I think that is why we hit it off so well! She eventually left the credit union for another job but we still stay in touch and email quite often even though we don't get to see each other that much anymore (we still need to get together for Christmas, Winks!).

Anywho, Winks is the best friend any girl could ask for!

She does have a LiveJournal but it is private so I can't share the link with all of you but just know that she is an amazing photographer, cool aunt, beautiful, blue-eyed, computer guru (my personal guru), book-loving, movie-loving person and I am so blessed to have her in my life!

Thanks for being such a great friend Lindsey! Can you believe that in August we have known each other for five years??? It seems like we have known each other forever!!!

This is Winks... (I stole this picture from her Twitter page)

Introduction...

Hi, I am Kristen...

My Huggy Hubby is Zach...

I am the twin sister to Karmen... who is married to Matt... and their daughter (my fabulous niece) is Ava!

I am the daughter to Jerry and Marie... and the daughter-in-law to Kathy and Larry...

I am the sister-in-law to Erika who is married to Lee and they have my fabulous nephew, Gavin... I am also the sister-in-law to Patrick who is engaged to Heather.

Why all the real names you ask??? Well the reason I started using nicknames was because my sister, Karmen used nicknames for her family and I didn't want to use their real names here and people go back to her blog where she tried to keep their real names secret! Well, she is coming back from a blogging hiatus and she has decided to start using real names and I am so glad because it was so hard for me to try to come up with nicknames for everyone (I mainly just used initials) and I had to triple check my posts to make sure no real names were used!

Thank you Karmen for switching back to real names, you just made my life a whole lot easier!!!

Pictures from the last week..

Chickie and Grover

My in-laws and Grover

Peanut dying Easter eggs.

Peanut getting cleaned up from dying Easter eggs.

E, L, and Grover

Watching and Waiting

Last night my mom called me and said that one of our dogs, Emma (yes that is her real name) was under their utility building and would not come out. It was getting ready to storm so mom was concerned about her staying out there. So I headed over and HH called me on my way and I told him what was going on... He was my secret weapon because I knew if she wouldn't come out for me I could call HH and put him on speaker phone and he could call her and she would come out... She loves him more than me, I'm ok with that though because I know Max (our other pomeranian, and yes that is his real name too) loves me more! Anyways, I get to Mom and Dad's and I go out there and call her and she runs right out to me... So I didn't have to get HH involved but he did call and I put him on speaker phone and he started talking and she got so excited! They both really miss him!

Anyways, Mom thinks Emma may be pregnant, but we can't really tell yet so we are watching and waiting... Anyone want a puppy if she is???

An addition to the family...

No, HH and I are not having a baby... My brother-in-law (BIL) Pooch is engaged! He proposed tonight in front of our family and H's family! We really like H, and we are so excited for her to join our family!!




Congrats you guys!!!

More things to come... *updated*

I uploaded the pictures from Saturday evening's boat tour but I haven't had the chance to edit them yet, as soon as they are edited I will post them! It may not be tonight or tomorrow, there are some big things happening tonight and possibly E will have the baby tomorrow (more on this in a minute).

The big things happening tonight I can't really elaborate on right now but please pray about tonight and I promise I will tell you about it this evening when it is over.

E goes to the doctor today and if she hasn't progressed they will "get things rolling" so hopefully they will tell her to be at the hospital early tomorrow morning to induce her!!! I can't wait to meet Baby G! I love holding babies, the only bad thing is that holding a baby makes me want a baby... but no baby for us anytime soon!

My MIL started her new job today, I hope everything is going well for her! I will call her later and see how it is going.

HH and I had a great time this weekend with K and J. We didn't eat at the German restaurant because it wasn't in the best part of town so we went to a Mexican restaurant instead! It was fabulous! After we left the Mexican restaurant we went to Wal-Mart to buy swim suits because K and J's hotel had a hot tub and we all decided to use it! It was nice but it was extremely hot.

So anyways, I made it home yesterday around 6:30. When this is over with I will hate driving even more than I already do! I have already told HH when he graduates he is driving home!

I only have to work 4 days this week and I have not made our reservations in Athens for this weekend yet, but as soon as I get word from HH I will!

Okie dokie, another post coming tonight, I promise!!! Until then, have a great day!

*I just talked to E and she has to be at the hospital at 5:00am on Wednesday so baby G will be here in time for Easter!*