But first lemme take a selfie

Any one else out there terrified of this new trend? I send selfies through snapchat to hubs and some friends but I don't post them every where.

I have a friend who posts at least one every day. EVERY. DAY. It's to the point where people block him on social media. I just giggle when I see them because they are so ridiculous.

I say this to say I thought they were absolutely ridiculous until I saw the joy they brought to someone in my life. Yes, joy.

Let me introduce you to my Aunt Susie, the self proclaimed #queenofselifes. Yes, hashtag and all.

Right smack dab in the middle. Even has her friends doing them with her.

Maybe you'll see her do one while getting pumped up for a race...

Then you'll see her do one during a race...

Getting Brooke into the selfie spirit!

The kiddos from her job love her for doing them all the time...

She's even got my 86 year old grandmother doing them...

I'm leaving this in it's proper snapchat orientation. Yes, she does snapchat too.

Maybe, just maybe she gets the family to do one when you see her...

But maybe she's on to something. At least when it comes to selfies with my grandmother. Those are kind of fun...

And she never fails to make me laugh. I have grown to love that every single time I see my Aunt Susie the first words out of her mouth are, "We need to take a selfie!" Oh Susan, don't you ever change. Keep being young at heart. It's one of the things I admire about you most.

It was one of those nights

This past Saturday Pat and I made the trek back up to Greenville, SC. We had stopped there on our way back from Asheville due to a situation with my grandmother's Parkinsons last week. After rallying as much of my family as I could most decided they would come this weekend to visit our Nana and try to up her spirits. I couldn't put in all that hard work to get everyone there and not see them myself!

So Saturday we packed up our bags and hit the road. I'll have to admit getting to the hospital and seeing the shock on my grandmother's face made the trip worth it.

She was checking out her hair :)

 Pat and I got to spend a couple hours with just my grandmother. We made sure to bring her caffeine free Diet Coke, her favorite. The hospital had been serving her Pepsi and she was just not having it! So the arrival of her favorite was like a beacon of hope for my sweet Nana. I haven't seen her that excited about a food or drink in years.

Would not let go of that Diet Coke.

We spent a lot of our time talking to her about the things that make her happy. Parkinson's disease is a terrible disease. With it comes severe depression and a lot of people start to have Dementia over time. We are at the Dementia stage at this point. So talking about the things that make her happy are so important. Saturday, that topic was her great-grandkids and the pictures they had drawn for her. She lit up so much when she saw them that I just knew we needed to put them somewhere she could always see them. Pat and I got to working and came up with this-

As wonderful as it was to surprise Nana by showing up again nothing will beat the look on her face when she saw her baby sister walk in the room. My Aunt Jane's trip was a surprise for her and there wasn't a dry eye in the house when she walked into the room.

That night my whole family (the half that had been able to make it in to town) went to dinner as my grandmother rested. It was one of those nights where I just looked around the table and felt so much joy and peace. I come from a big family and I relish in the times that some of us (if not all!) can get together. It wasn't the best circumstances that caused everyone to get together, but I sure am grateful that my grandmother is loved so much that everyone came to Greenville. 

Half of our wonderfully loud fam damily :)

Now I'm starting off the week with a full heart.

It really was just one those nights that was just oh so good for the soul.

A (very) Pretty Place

Memorial Day Weekend is always one of my favorites every year. I mean, who doesn't love patriotic holidays?!

This year we spent our MDW in Asheville, NC and in Greenville, SC. Our trip to Asheville was a graduation and anniversary present to us from my parents. The trip to Greenville was more of a last minute decision due to a family situation but it was so good for the soul.

You want to know when you're really enjoying your time out of town with your hubs? When you take two pictures in one of your most favorite places and one of those pictures is from your favorite brewery/soccer bar there. But seriously y'all, Asheville is a hidden gem that I think everyone should discover once in their lives.

Green Man Brewery

Marriage is about compromise and doing things that will make your spouse happy. My hubs is happy discovering a new town, when he's in the mountains, discovering new beers and enjoying good food. Asheville is the perfect place for him.

Asian food puts him in one of his happy places

Pat and I are both huge fans of being in the mountains. The mountains always include boiled peanuts which makes them heaven on earth for this girl. Seriously drooling even just thinking about boiled peanuts now. Excuse me while I drive back to North Georgia for a quick trip...

Caesar's Head, SC

My cousin Brooke was such a wonderful tour guide and even put up with my husband's antics. Like that one time he decided to show us an off course drop-off where we both slid down half of the mountains. Hashtag fun times.

Oh, we're going to need a giant stick to climb back up the mountain?! Sounds fun...

I will be forever grateful that she took me to one place that I have always wanted to see. I mean that place is named "Pretty Place." Who wouldn't want to see a place named that?!

I lift my eyes to the hills... Psalm 121:1

Pretty Place, SC

Pretty Place, SC

If a view like that can't get you to visit the south then I'll just have to bribe you with my momma's fried chicken. I am always in awe of the Lord's creation every single time I go to the mountains or whenever I travel around the south. Seriously, come visit. We have the mountains, lakes, swamps, oceans, wonderful food and amazing people. What's there to not like? Maybe you'll even get to visit a (very) Pretty Place...

Weekend Shenanigans: Graduation, 1st Anniversary and Mother's Day ... oh my!

What up weekend with so many life events at the exact same time! We got to start off the weekend by watching my baby sister graduate from high school.

And then I left there extremely jealous of all the fun times that she is about to embark on. I loved college and everything it had to offer. I even loved going to the library (nerd alert!). She has decided she wants to go through Rush and I'm even jealous of that (I can say that now that I'm 4 years removed from Rush). I really just miss living in the same place as all of my friends. Oh, and naps. I really really miss naps.

Saturday night Pat and I ate where we had our Rehearsal Dinner for our nice anniversary dinner. I might still be full. It was that good. You don't like French food? This picture will change your mind-

That right there is my biggest weakness. Mousse au chocolat ... I meeeean, I could kiss the person who came up with that recipe so long ago. 

Sunday was spent celebrating one year and our mommas. I love that we got to attend church where we got married exactly one year before and got to enjoy a wonderful lunch with both of our moms and the rest of my family.

One year later and back at the church. And I need to cut my hair. Moving right along...

Pat and his mom

Three generations: Moi, my mom and my grandmother

And then the moment we had all been waiting for. A whole years worth of waiting for the most magnificent cake in all of the land...

Bam! Look at how beautiful she looked even a whole year later!

And to continue on with this picture dump of a post here are a bunch of pictures of us with the cake. You get to look at all of these because they are approximately 1000x better than the cake cutting pictures of us on our actual wedding day.

Pat isn't even looking and this picture is STILL better than the ones on our wedding day

Awkward squatting and it is still better than our wedding day pictures.

Freakish face and ... well, you get it. Basically my mom should have been our wedding photographer.

Was it still good, you ask? Well, I believe this picture says it all...

Yes, it was still fantastic!

And just so I can prove that I did indeed get my own piece this year...

Noms.

What did you do to celebrate your 1st anniversary? 

I hope you all had amazing weekends! For all the mommas out there, I hope you enjoyed a wonderful Mother's Day and got pampered like you deserved!

Who do you think you are?

Source

Is anyone else intrigued by that show on TV or is it just me and my husband?

I have always loved learning about my family history and where my ancestors are from. Luckily for me, I married a man who is just as interested in this as I am. I am fortunate and already know a lot about my family history due to other family members researching in the past. I guess you could say I have always had a pretty good idea about where my roots lie.

A few weeks ago Pat, his mom and I all did DNA tests through Ancestry.com. Through these DNA tests they can break everything down and find out exactly where your ancestors lived. They break it down by region and give you a percentage of how much your DNA matches those regions. 

Nothing shocking about my results

My results came back a lot faster than Pat's and his mom's. I guess their family history is a little more complicated then mine. Pat thought it was hysterical that I possibly have some sort of Asian background since I am not a huge Asian food fan.

On the other hand, I found it hysterical that I am considered "more British" than a person who is actually British.

I didn't learn anything too earth shattering from this test, but I love that I can now be scientifically linked to the information that my family found years ago. Makes it seem more official, I guess. 

Would you take a DNA test? Or do you think we're just insanely boring for doing this? ;)