life notes from february

Just some pictures from February!

I stopped to take a picture of the gorgeous sky on my way home from work,

 and also took a picture of the road(Don't worry Mom, it was a long flat stretch and I could see there wasn't anyone coming for a quarter mile behind me.=)

 Oh, and a view of the beautimus(That is a word, even though my spell check doesn't think so)

 sky through my sun roof. Have I ever told you how much I love my sun roof? It's pretty amazing!

 My craft project through February...a scrapbook of memories for my bestest bestie's 20th birthday!

It was so much fun to put together and I am soo excited about giving it to her tonight! Shhh don't tell her, but we're having a surprise birthday party at the last stop of our youth group's progressive supper! Oh, did I mention, my bestest bestie Susan is here staying with me this week? Normally, I would say she came to see me, but for the first time she's just coming to stay with me and coming to see my friend Cody, her boyfriend. Lol, yeah, I'm pretty happy about that too, thank you. It's pretty cool when your best friend that lives a thousand miles away suddenly has an extra motivation to come see you stay with you more often. =D

I don't have to worry about her reading this because she is with Cody in Hannibal today until our progressive supper tonight.

Just a thought...

I really really like smoothies! The above orange smoothie was a major flop because, um, I halved the recipe and um, forgot to halve the sugar. yeah. It was bad. the kids could hardly even drink it.

The pink milkshake however, was a smashing success. One Sunday afternoon, before going to hang out with our youth group I had an intense craving for a milkshake. Bring out the leftover homemade icecream(From the Valentine's Banquet!), Raspberries(Also leftover from the banquet), and doctor it up a bit, and me-oh-my!

 That big thing is the moon. Above it is Jupiter, below it is Venus. They were closer together that night than they have been or will be for several years. Yes, thank you, I was homeschooled, why do you ask?

 On Valentine's Day our family had a nice family supper(a tradition) and we all decided to dress up a bit(a new tradition?). This handsome fellow came to escort me. =)

 Oh, my Momma knows me.

 We've had some unusual weather this winter. It was fun to wear flipflops in the snow though!

 Again, I love smoothies. This Raspberry Oatmeal smoothie is my current favorite.

 My favorite place...

To do this..

 After a run!

 And finally, the second-best piece of running equipment I've ever bought! The best things are my running shoes. Lol, not the ones in these pictures...I haven't taken my running shoes out on the roads yet. It's just hard to get mud on something that expensive. =D

3rd Annual Valentine's Banquet

 Last month started out with a bang as we planned for the third annual Valentine's Banquet that our youth group gives to the married couples in our church. As a member of the planning committee, I was pretty busy, and that is mainly why I disappeared from here.

We held the banquet in our Pastor's basement, which is wonderful for our needs. Unfortunately, it is horrible for taking pictures, so bear with me.

We started out with this:

 

 And after several hours of decorating...

Ended with this...

 The banquet was country themed this year, so we used canning jars for cups, brown paper for table cloths, and roasted peanuts in paper bags for appetizers! It was more informal than other years, but it turned out very pretty!

 On the menu this year:

Country Style Ribs

Mashed Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes

Baked Corn

Rolls and Home-Made Jam

Apple Pie

Peach Cobbler

Homemade Icecream

 And, afterwards, the dish washing crew:

I was so proud of the boys for helping out with washing the dishes!

 Our gang:

Cody, Jenika, Jay, Melody, Carl, Elycia, Joshua, Tanya(Me!), and Chancy.

Like I said, picture taking was a little difficult.

I thought the motion captured in this one was pretty cool. =)

 The fellows:

Cody, Jay, Carl, Joshua, and Chancy.

 And the girls! I tried a little editing on this one, in an attempt to "rescue" it. =).

Melody, Jenika, Elycia, and I.

We had a great time planning and putting on this year's banquet, though I think we all breathed a sigh of relief when we were finished. Looking forward to next year.. perhaps a coffee shop themed dessert banquet! =)

Where I've been...

Hey everyone! If you actually noticed I've been gone, then I apologize for the unintended blog hiatus. If you haven't, that's okay. I hardly did too. =) I've been doing lots of living over the past month and been taking lots of pictures, but I've been hard pressed to find time to edit pictures and post them on here. So, I'm gonna try and catch up on here and fill you in on the goings on of the past month or so and then hopefully stay on track. I don't think I'm going to bother editing many of the pictures I've taken, so bear with me on that. I'm hoping to have more time for that art when I switch from working full-time to working part-time in a week or so. So to start it off, here's a picture of me goofing off and getting ready for a day out. I am loving the discovery that my wide angle lens takes great self-portraits!