twenty-five.

 

 

My 25th birthday was one to remember for sure.

The beginning of the day was not exactly what I had planned or hoped for. We were going to drive up to the mountains early on that day and hike with the dogs before dropping them off at my parent's cabin before heading to Josh's parents. Insert all night/morning monsoon in the mountains. I also woke up covered in hives (I had had a few patches of hives since Wednesday, but they were ragin' all over on my birthday morning), with my eyes and lips a tad swollen. We had a late start to our morning and finally got out of the house around 10. We stopped by Target and Joshua got me a birthday Starbucks drink inside, which helped boost my mood. On the way up we hit traffic twice (accident and construction) and it poured rain most of the way there, but I was trying to not let that ruin my day. When we finally arrived to the mountains to drop the dogs off, the rain had subsided and my mom gave me some stronger prescription medicine for my hives. 

The rest of the day was a blast!

The skys cleared up and I got to hang out with my awesome family. I had some yummy beverages, a delicious dinner, my favorite pie, and I opened some awesome presents. We played some games and did some dancing late into the night. I am really glad my terrible day turned around and I really enjoyed my birthday. I also got lots of messages from my amazing friends. I am truly lucky!

The next day, Josh's parents took us hiking before we headed home.

Pepper pops squats at the most appropriate times.

She loves the water. Chili does not.

Of course we had to end the hike with an awkward family photo ;)

I have decided to make 25 one of my best years - emotionally, physically, and everything in between. I have been on this Earth for a quarter of a century after all! It is time to make some adventures and memories with more fun and more pictures, of course.

Josh and I made a list of all 50 states when we got home last night. We obviously cannot visit them all before I turn 26 but we are starting now. Josh also said we can't count the state if we've already been together to it, he wants to start fresh. The only state we can cross off is North Carolina! And I'm okay with that.

He also talked all about Europe and where he wants to take me when we go in the (hopefully) near future.

We have some plans to knock out a few states before my next birthday:

+ Florida, for visiting Josh's parents and our friends. I'd love to go back to Disney!

+ Rhode Island - Josh's cousin is getting married there, and I am gonna try to swing a day off; it is literally on the last weekend before school is over!

+ Illinois - his other cousin is getting married there ironically on my birthday next year.

+ New Jersey and New York - My brother lives in New Jersey and Josh and I are planning a trip to see them over New Years hopefully, and my bro and his wife want to take us out into the city. Beyond excited for this possibility.

+ Vermont - this is a maybe, thanks to Vanessa and Dave :)

Who knows if we will by chance visit some other states along the way, but I love making all these plans. I am going to stop waiting around and start making things happen! Birthday Resolutions are a thing, right?

I took charge of one thing already: my hives. I am going to an allergist next Thursday. Fingers crossed they can find out what is wrong with me! I also have to go into work Wednesday and Thursday to do a screening test for some of our rising Kindergartners. Guess it is time to stop pretending I am never going to have to go back to work.

Here's to a "new year"!

wanderlust.

beach trip:

 

 

 

between my camera and phone, I took over 200 pictures, this was just a recap!

It was such a fun week. I loved spending time with my brother and his kids whom I never see and there was little to no family drama! Everyone had a good time and I want to go back so very badly.

wanderlust:

a strong desire or impulse to travel.

I titled my post this because it has been ALL that has been on my mind the past few days. I think it could have stemmed from going to the beach (finally breaking free of the cabin fever in my house for so long), but I have been dreaming of traveling for a few days. I have looked at pictures, read blogs of people living in different countries, looked up other states I could live and teach in. It has been bad. 

Part of it also could have come from a talk Josh and I had coming back from the beach. Beach Week is an awesome tradition in my family, but next summer we are thinking about maybe going for just a weekend while everyone is there so we can save some money to travel other places; more specifically, overseas. Josh has had the opportunity to go to places in Europe but I want to go before my life gets too settled. Beach Week will always be there, but I won't have my whole life to travel.

other updates:

+ my dad retired!

+ my birthday is Friday. I will be 25. (noooo!) spending it in the mountains!

+ I am running the Electric Run 5k on Friday, pretty excited!

+ our cabinets still aren't hung. but I am not going to the mountains until they are.

+ I finished Mockingjay (last book of Hunger Games series) and loved it; Josh and I rewatched the Hunger Games Sunday night and I can't wait for Catching Fire to come out in November!

+ I am in denial that school is starting so soon.

home owning story:

It rained in Charlotte for about 2.5 weeks straight before we went to the beach. Every time we wanted to cut the grass, it rained. Then the day before the beach I told Josh we HAD to get the grass cut before we left for a week. Of course, the lawn mower wouldn't start. Got home, our grass is probably a foot tall and embarrassing. Tried to cut the grass last night after putting octane in the gasoline and it still wouldn't start. Josh went to Lowes with the lawnmower and they gave him a brand new one because it was still under the 90 day warranty. He assembled it, I filled it up with gas this morning, and began to mow. I got about 5 minutes in on the small grasslands patch beside our driveway and it stalled. No big deal, it has done that before. Well, it wouldn't start back up. I let it sit for 10 minutes, still wouldn't start. Another 20 minutes, still wouldn't start. I gave up in frustration. Josh has been researching and thinks our gas is bad. When he gets home, we're going to siphon out the gas, get new gas, and try to mow it this evening. Crossing my fingers that this is the problem. I can't take another day of our yard looking like this!

off to do laundry, do cabinets, hang with the Chilster, and dream of being back at the beach

time flies when you're having fun.

I hate that this saying is so true sometimes. Why is it already July? I mean, July is a great month. It has 4th of July, Laura's birthday, my birthday, the only month where I have zero days of work, and this year it includes our beach trip! However, the summer is going WAY too fast. Can I rewind back to June?

I have been a slacker on blogging, as a lot has been going on again and there are no real big updates with the house because we have either been busy or lazy ;)

So far this summer, I have purchased a few new things.

 New rug for the living room, super cheap at Target. Not as big as we had wanted, but it was a great deal and it will do for now since we are poor.

A few new things for the mantle (that Glade automatic spray air freshener is the best thing ever invented) and Laura helped me set it up. Fun fact, the black and white framed picture is one that Josh found in his old things that he took for his art class in High School. Haven't fully decided how I feel about the mirror there, which is why the cardboard is still on.

And new shoes! They were $30 thanks to a sale and Josh needing new running shoes, so I couldn't pass them up. They are my favorite color and super light weight (they also retailed for $100!). I am very happy with this purchase :)

These are some things I have been doing a lot of this summer:

Taking Chili out and about. This is from when I went to the park with my friend and Chili's new friend Bella. Sweet pups!

Sleeping. I have been sleeping more than ever. For example, after Josh went to work today, I went back to sleep until noon. During school I couldn't even sleep in on the weekends past 8 and I have never been one to really sleep in late. It is weird!

Going to the mountains. Which is my favorite part. Josh and I did another run through the trail we did a few weeks ago and stumbled across this look out rock. So beautiful! I just love the mountains and the more I visit, the more I want to move there. 

When we went a few weekends ago, we went to visit Josh's parents and my family came up to our mountain cabin to celebrate my dad's retirement.

On Sunday morning before we left, we did a 5 mile hike with Josh's parents at a trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway. 

I just love that there are so many ways to explore the outdoors and get exercise in the mountains. I always feel like I can start my day off the right way there, whether it be a hike or simply having coffee on the deck with beautiful views.

Then this past week, we celebrated.

Happy Birthday America!

We started off the day bright and early to go uptown and run the Spectacular 4 Miler, the 4th run in our race series. We worked on our awesome outfits over the weekend at the mountains.

Of course we forgot to take a nickname picture before we ran, but they are in order: Dranklin D. Roysevelt, Jenjamin Dranklin, Boozin B. Anthony, Abroham Drinkin. All nicknames courtesy of Joshua.

I ran the 4 miles in 38:07, which I was pretty proud of. Josh ran it in 27:16 (yes, over 10 minutes faster than I did) and placed FIRST in his age group!

After we ran our race, Jennifer and I ran a 1k with Sky and Ky.

After the run, we all went over to our place, set up 3 pools in the backyard and grilled out the rest of the day to celebrate the holiday.

As far as the house goes, Laura helped us do a bunch of cleaning this week and I finished painting the interior of the cabinets, plus all of the drawers. Josh finished priming the doors with his paint sprayer and we plan to put a coat of the white paint and spray paint the hardware tonight. Hopefully we can have knobs on the drawers this evening!

 I will try to post more this week so I won't have posts that take hours to write and are way long and boring. Hopefully I will have some down time at the beach to do so because I know there will be a lot of fun there :)

XOXO from Chili!