total ECLIPSE of the heart

Today is the day.... ECLIPSE opens in theaters!

I AM SO EXCITED I CAN NOT WAIT!!!!!!!!

Kaitlin loves Aunt Rachel

Kaitlin LOVES Aunt Rachel! Here are a few pictures to show how much she loves Aunt Rachel.

These next three pictures all happen within 5 seconds of each other.
Kaitlin LOVES Aunt Rachel.... see
Right after the picture above.... the picture below happens.
And here is another example from another day.... Kaitlin is running away from Aunt Rachel
But she is still a cutie and I love her so much. And she loves me... even though she doesn't know it yet!

Week in Review

I LOVE VACATION! And I love the beach. And I love my family. So, last week for me was pretty wonderful.

We had a lot to be thankful for on our trip. We celebrated Fathers Days, birthdays, and celebrated all of us being together!! Santa Rosa Beach had GREAT weather, and not a lot of oil yet! We were so thankful.

Red Bar is one of my favorites. I wanted to take a picture of my food, but I started eating it too fast. Yes, I am that girl who takes pictures of good food :)
This was the only picture that I got of all of us!!
I want to go back!! I love vacations and my family so much!

Fathers Day

It was so fun to be with my dad at the beach on Fathers Day!!

We had such a great time celebrating. I am so glad we all got to be together!

Dad, I love you so much and am so thankful for you!! Thanks for teaching me how to make decisions (just pick something) and for helping me not believe everything I hear. :)

I am so thankful for you!

I'm a fan of birthdays

As long as I can remember, I have always LOVED birthdays. I love picking out the perfect gift for someone or surprising someone by sharing in their birthday. I love birthday cards (my sister and brother in law are the best at this) and I have a major weakness for birthday cake. I love birthday traditions (Big Eds) and I love party hats. I love getting to see individual personalities come out in someone else's birthday celebration, and inviting others into your own.

Perhaps I am thinking about this too much.... but I have always loved birthdays. This year, however, I was a little bit anxious about the 10 year anniversary of my sweet 16. It was better than I could have ever expected.

I have the sweetest friends in the world. My birth"day" turned into a birthday WEEK! It started when I was home in Knoxville for a wedding shower. They planned a birthday dinner and then a night out on the town. The whole day was just so much fun from the shower to shopping to celebrating. I felt so loved.

I am not sure why, but we pretended it was my 21st birthday. I don't think we fooled anyone!

The birthday week continued when I got back to Nashville. I was wanting a "low-key" night; dinner and drinks at whiskey kitchen (my FAV). I was so shocked that so many friends came to help me celebrate. Especially my sweet roommate who made the day extra fun! She even baked a cake for us to take to Whiskey Kitchen. It was amazing and so delicious.

I have been wondering why I care so much about birthdays. And I can't really explain it. It is the feeling of excitement I had on Saturday night. It is the feeling of surprise I felt on Tuesday. It is as simple as a text message or a facebook message. I just feel so loved and I am so thankful.

Piloga

I tired a new class at the Y today called Piloga. It is a combination of Pilates and Yoga. I am so sore from that class that I can barely type this blog post. HA! Piloga is really hard! Unlike the last time I did yoga, I was much better prepared for today's class. At least I LOOKED the part with my yoga pants and matching cute shirt.

If anyone who reads my blog ever watched The OC, I dedicate this post to you. Can you say "Yogalates" Sandy and Kirsten would be proud!

Vocal Adrenaline

Today was another very relaxing day. I am trying to enjoy these days as much as I can because I know I don't have a lot of these days left. I went to the grocery store at 10:00 this morning. I don't think I have ever been to the grocery store at 10am on a Tuesday. But it was worth it for a (semi) celebrity sighting!

When I walked into the bakery section, I saw lots of people and 4 tv cameras. All the other people in the store (moms) in the store were not phased by the people and cameras, but I was star struck. I HAD to know what was going on. So I stalked around the area and still was clueless. I asked the deli lady who came out from behind the counter and she explained that all the local news stations were having a cake decorating contest. It was a fund-raiser for Second Harvest Food Bank. The deli lady and I started talking and she told me that one of our own Nashville news reporter was also the host for HGTV show Designed to Sell. I told her I was a big fan of HGTV and she decided that I needed to meet the host. I was SUPER embarrassed, but she took hold of my arm and pushed through all the people and all the cameras to meet Shane Tallant. He was SO NICE and thanked me for watching. My response was "I am so embarrassed." Seriously Rachel? Not "nice to meet you" or "I love your show." It just happened so fast.
Today was also a very big day because it was the season finale of GLEE! Glee is my FAVORITE show and I am so sad it is over for the summer. Tonight we watched Vocal Adrenaline and New Directions go head to head in the Regional competition. It is a great show. I highly recommend you watch it.

Rachel says Relax

Warning: I regret this blog post will not have any pictures. Nor will it be exciting due to the lame content of this post.

Having lots of time on my hands is not something I am used to. I have found recently that I don't really enjoy it either. I am used to being super busy all the time. With school, work, and young life, my schedule is usually pretty full. Right now, all I am doing is work. So what have I been doing with all this extra time? Well....

• Over Memorial Day weekend, my parents and I went to visit my sister in Arkansas. It is a LONG drive, but we had so much fun in Northwest Arkansas. I love their new home!
• Reading. I will probably make another super exciting post about all the books I have been reading over my summer. I think I am up to 16 so far.
• Watching One Tree Hill episodes. Great tv show. My roommate owns all the seasons on DVD so I am having a lot of fun watching them.
• Catching up on sleep. It is amazing how little sleep I can live on during the semester. It is equally amazing how much I am still trying to catch up on.
• Working out (Self explanatory)

Well... that's about it. A little insight into my relaxing summer.