Arlington National Cemetery & Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers

Last June, Mom, Dad and I went to Arlington National Cemetery on our way to pick up Abby from Dulles when she got back from Spain.  Okay, I thought our cemeteries here were big, but, oh no, they're really not.  Arlington National Cemetery is HUGE.  It literally feels like you could look forever and not see anything by tombstones for as far as your eye can see.  It's a pretty neat experience.

One of my favorite parts about the cemetery were the neat "street" signs you walked past.  The names of the street signs included, Grant Avenue, Roosevelt Avenue, McClellan Avenue, and one directing you towards the President J.F. Kennedy Gravesite.

Things You Should Know About Me....

....if we're going to be BFFs.

I was searching random blogs last week and came across one who did a similar post to this. Because I'm scatter-brained sometimes and I quickly get distracted, somewhere in the process of doing more searches, I lost that original blog. Sad. But, that doesn't mean I'm not going to do my own post on the topic!

Basically, this is a list of random facts about me.  If you're around me on a daily basis, read my blog often, or we communicate regularly, you probably already know most of these, but I thought it would still be fun to share some fun facts!

Let's get started...

Early Photography

This post is almost embarrassing to write. Haha.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this several times before, but if you didn’t catch those post, here’s a quick overview (and if you’ve already read this, just bear with me for a minute!).  In Henrico County, where I went to school, all of the high schools have different specialty centers that you can apply to and hopefully get into the program which you love the most.  I attended the Center for Communications at Varina High School, also my home high school (but talking about that is for a whole other post!).  In the CFC, we completed many types of communications projects, including, but DEFINITELY not limited to Talk Shows, Live Broadcasting (Varina 411 Live!), our own TV show (Roll Tape!), writing/editing/photographing for the school newspaper – The Blue Devil’s Advocate – radio shows, Shakespeare plays with a twist (honestly, probably my most favorite project we did!!), and gosh, so many more things!

During senior year, we had Rotation.  Our senior class was broken up into three groups to go with the three different rotations, which were Photography, Video and Magazine (Thanks Malm for helping me remember!). While going through some old CDs on Friday, I found my CD of pictures from Photo Rotation, and oh gosh.  I was so excited to look

Somebody better Instagram this.

You might remember that Instagram is one of my favorite apps I have on my phone....and that I even had it before I had my iPhone (and before it was on the Droid, too).  Yep, my first 12 Instagrams pictures were taken on Matt's phone....THANKS MATT :)

Speaking of Matt, some of the music he listens to is Destorm, who has a song actually called "Instagram," so, there's doubt that 95% of the time when I post a picture to Instagram, I start singing a part of this song in my head! (Also, the title of this post is lyrics from the song.)

Today, I thought I would share with you some of my favorite Instagram pictures from the past couple of months. So, yes, if you follow me on Instagram, this is probably just a big repeat for you!

This picture on the right was one of the first Instagrams I took...it's down at the river just right after the walls were painted!

Just in case....

Just in case any of you needed something to smile at or laugh at, 

here you are.  

You're welcome.

Again, not a long post today.

But, tomorrow should bring lots of pictures.

Should.

But we'll see how that goes...

Hope you enjoy these and/or you can relate to some!! 

I know I can...

Songs I Love {at the moment}

Today, I will actually put effort into the blog post!

One of the many things that Matt and I have in common is that we both love music. We might both love different types of music - which is 100% true!! - but, regardless, we both love music. (Granted, there are some of our music preferences that overlap SOME, so we can tolerate listening to each others' music!)

{Honestly, you should really see/hear us when we're riding in the same car together....it's always interesting to see what type of music we end up listening to!}

Since Santa brought me some new CDs I wanted for Christmas, I've basically been listening to them all on repeat! I love them!  That gave me the idea to share some songs that I love in a blog.  Some songs will be from the CDs I got, others will just be fun songs I wanted to share!

Short & Sweet ... and a funny video!

I'll apologize now: today's original blog post is very non-existent.  I didn't pre-blog it, today was SUPER long, and I have no desire to write a [semi-] well thought out blog. haha.

So, today's is short and sweet.

Like me.

Just kidding.

Only, I'm not.

For today, I just want to share with you one of my all-time favorite Boy Meets World scenes/bloopers. I die laughing every time! And I mean every time.....whenever I see this episode is on, I make sure to watch it all the way through the end JUST for this part! haha. Enjoy!

An exercise plan I HATED!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Today, I wanted to tell everyone about something I've been doing for the past two weeks: an exercise routine.

I've come across this 2-week plan several times on Pinterest -- I mean, really, did you expect anything less from me?? As the near year came around, of course everyone has the same idea in mind: they want to be in shape this year. Well, of course not only do I want to be healthy and in shape, but I wanted to try something different. And, dare I say it, I hated doing this 2-week routine. Yep, I said it.

Normally, I go to the gym with an idea in mind of what I'm going to do, i.e. which cardio equipment I'll get on, which free weight exercises I might do, which machines I might use, etc. (Each day, I alternated between 2 different cardio plans, and 2 different resistance training plans.) That's one of the reasons I hated this plan--it told me exactly what to do for cardio and exactly which resistance exercises to do each week. Now, yes, I do know that that is what I got myself into.  I fully understood from the beginning that I was "being told" how to exercise each day.  I just came to realize that I hated that!!  Secondly, there were two rest days built into the routine: the Sunday of the first week, and the Thursday of the second week. The problem isn't that I didn't like having the rest days, because of course I did.  I just didn't like being told which days to rest.  There were even several occasions I know I told Matt & Mom, "I can't wait for Sunday so I don't have to stick to this plan anymore!!" haha

Style & Fashion : Kate Middleton

How many of you remember what you were doing on April 29, 2011?

I remember starting my day off by watching The Royal Wedding!

Yes, I was one of those people who woke up at 4:00 in the morning, or whatever outrageous early morning hour it was, just so I could watch this great big wedding! {Luckily, this was the year I didn't have a roommate, so I didn't have to worry about annoying anyone!} Anyway, while I may have regretted it later during class, I'm so glad I woke up to watch, because it was so cool to see! Plus, all of those hats sure did give me something to laugh it...that, or I was just really tired!

Ever since seeing The Royal Wedding, I've thought Kate Middleton is just so pretty. I mean, just look at this wedding picture of her.....beautiful!

Last weekend I started looking at pictures of Kate Middleton online because I liked seeing all of her different outfits and styles.  Matt actually came up behind me while I was doing this, and, acting like I was very strange, asked me, "What are you doing..?" Me: "Looking at pictures of Kate Middleton." Matt: "Whyyyy?" Me: "Because I can..." haha. I didn't tell him I was really doing "research" for a blog post. haha.

And on that note, here are some pictures I came across of some of my favorite looks from Kate Middleton. Enjoy!

Christmas Deals!

Well this is getting posted MUCH later than I anticipated! Earlier today, Matt and I headed out to Short Pump, for what was supposed to be just a quick trip (but I did promise I'd buy him lunch and coffee ;) but we ended up being out there longer than expected.  No big deal. Then, when we got back to his house, I headed to Food Lion to pick up a few things for mom, came home, changed, and a few minutes later I was out the door to go to volleyball! We normally don't have practice on Thursdays, but because of the weather, they canceled the Thursday evening games and just had an open gym...lots of fun!!

Anyway, let me get on to my blog post for today! By now, I hope you know I love Christmas. And, if you don't know, I never pass up a good sale!!.......especially after Christmas!! I can go crazy with after-Christmas sales, and this year was no exception.  Matt and I went to target with the intention to buy wrapping paper, tissue paper, etc. so that we wouldn't have to worry about that next year when we're wrapping our own gifts to everyone.  However, once we were in there, we made an even bigger purchase! We actually bought our first Christmas tree!! Whoo hoo!! I'm super excited about and it was a wonderful deal! I already can't wait to put it up next Thanksgiving Christmas. ;) 

So, here is pretty much everything I bought on sale after Christmas (gotta love Target!!)! And, the best part of it all is that I only paid $15!!!!  {And, sorry, no pic of the Christmas tree....just wait til later this year!!!}

{ignore the water bottle in the background....WHY on Earth I didn't move it, I'll never know...}

A Big Clean Out / Longwood Memories

Today, I crossed off something on my 2013 Goals/To-Do List {I liked this idea much better than New Years Resolutions....I wrote down a list of all the things I wanted to get done this year!}. I've actually been meaning to do it for a LONG time, just never took the time to do so.  So, what was this task, you might ask? Clean out my email! I know, exciting. 

The thing is, I'm bad about deleting emails because I think to myself, "well, what if I need to refer back to that at a later date?" Well, after graduation last May, I decided I no longer needed 4 years worth of Tim Pierson and Elsie Angus emails. Yep, that's right. I still had EVERY ONE of those emails since freshman year!! (Talk about a pack rat.)  I knew that my "Fall 2008, Spring 2009, etc." all the way to Spring 2012 folders were packed full of emails, but I never felt like taking the time to clear them out.

My most-used apps

Before getting an iPhone, I wondered if I would ever get used to it.   I had a Droid (I don't even remember what the model is or anything), but I didn't know if I'd like the complete touch screen.  Matt reminded me that I had already had a phone that was completely touch screen. Wait, I did? Oh, that's right.  I had the Dare before, which I loved a lot during the times when it worked! (I can remember my sophomore year, riding with Matt's parents from Ferrum to Longwood and my phone kept cutting off and I couldn't text Matt anymore. I started freaking out because it wasn't like the battery was dead or anything....my phone literally had just about had it!)

Anyway, back to where I was.  I loved my Droid, I really did. I liked having the option of the touch screen keyboard or having a slideout keyboard. I liked the different app options, and it's also the phone I got addicted to Angry Birds on. (Obviously, my current iPhone game addiction is Fun Run.)  Then, that sad, sad day last March, I remember getting ready in the early morning to help out with the SPED Ambassadors Spring Fling and I couldn't type one sentence in a text message before my phone froze up. Not "froze up" as in it took a few seconds for the phone to catch up with how fast I was texting. Oh no, everything just stopped, and the only way I could turn the phone off was to keep taking the battery out. That was very fun and convenient. Not.  Luckily, Matt and I had already planned on going home for the night that weekend, so as soon as I could, I texted Mom saying, "I need to go to Verizon. ASAP." iPhone, here I come!

Food Memories

Are there any foods or drinks that you automatically associate with a certain memory or something?

Whenever I randomly decide to buy a bottle of Yoohoo Chocolate Milk, I think about being over at Memaw and Papa's house as a child.

When I see a pack of Hershey's Chocolate Milk as I'm walking down the drinks aisle in the grocery store, I think about Halloween while I was growing up, because Aunt Dot and Uncle Lee will have usually just returned from their trip to Hershey, PA, and they always brought us back a pack of 3 cartons of chocolate milk to put in our trick-or-treat bags!

(Did I really just make 2 references to chocolate milk? You betcha.)

And when I have Coke and/or a Klondike bar, I remember all the great times my sister, cousin and I spent at Ganny and Papa's house having sleepovers.  Klondike bars always made the best dessert, and Coke only tastes good at their house! Don't ask why...it just does!

Well, on Friday, I found a pack of Banana Nut Muffin mix in the pantry and was so excited to make them.  Why? Because I love them, and I probably haven't had one in over a year.  Just smelling the batter brought back memories from the summer of 2011.  During those summer months, I made many batches of these muffins, because they made a quick and easy grab-and-go breakfast.

Monday-Friday that summer, I would wake up at 5:30am and have a bowl of Cheerios, while still laying in bed, watching TV.  Around 6:00, I'd finally decide to get up and get ready.  At 6:20, before heading out the door, I would pack my lunch box, put on my lab coat, grab a Banana Nut Muffin and head off to my internship! For some reason, I always waited until I got to the hospital for my internship to eat the muffin as I was walking in.  And I enjoyed every last bite of it! haha.

So, late Friday morning when I grabbed a muffin as I headed out the door to run a couple of errands, I immediately started thinking about my internship.  As I ate my muffin in the car, (I decided to not wait and eat it as I walked into Target later on..), I could distinctly remember everything about walking into the hospital, walking past the waiting area for Cardiac Rehab, seeing all the usual 7:00am patients and them all greeting me simultaneously, and walking over to the staff door to wait for the nurse to get there.  I haven't thought about my internship in the longest time, but it's funny how something as simple as a muffin can bring back so many memories!

Suggestions for Success

If you've read my blog in the past, you probably know that I love Pinterest.  Well, that might be an understatement. I could sit on Pinterest for hours on end. It's bad enough that I get on when I'm on the computer, but I also have it downloaded on my Kindle, and I have the app on my iPhone! So, I can literally take Pinterest with me everywhere, haha!

It's great to find craft ideas, recipes (sometimes...), decorating ideas, party ideas, outfit plans, pretty much anything!! It's so resourceful.  I remember starting out with just like the six standard boards, and I didn't even know you could create your own board at the time, ha.  Now, I have 46 boards!! Of course, I use some more than others, but I do regularly pin to all of them!

While going through different categories of pins one day, I decided to look at the Quotes section.  (Usually, I just like looking at the pictures, but I was up for a little reading, ha).  I came across this really great list: 21 Suggestions for Success.  So, I just thought I would share them with all of you....here they are!

A reflection on my freshman year

For my freshman year at Longwood, I did a random roommate selection, which I guess is basically self explanatory, but it meant that I would just get placed in a room with another student who had similar answers on the short questionnaire we took at Orientation.  The questionnaire asked questions like, "do you like to study late at night?" "do you prefer studying early in the morning?" "would you live with a smoker/nonsmoker?" etc, etc.  There weren't many questions, but those who the kinds of questions asked.

Luckily, not only was I placed in a room with someone who answered similarly to me, but I would later find out that I was rooming with someone SO MUCH like me!! Once we found out our roommates, Colleen emailed me to schedule a time for our families to go out to dinner and meet each other.  I happened to be in Florida on a mission trip when we got our assignments, so I still remember Mom texting me telling me my roommates name. Then I was anxious to get home so I could get in contact with her!

Christmas at The Jefferson

This past Saturday, Matt and I did one of my favorite things to do at Christmastime: go see all of the decorations at The Jefferson! Seriously, you can go see it every year, and each time be just as blown away by the beauty as you were the last time! 

While we were sitting down for a little bit right by the big tree, I told Matt that I could really just sit there all day looking at the decorations! Gorgeous!

And, it's always a plus to hear Christmas music! I still miss being able to switch over to Lite98 at any time and be able to hear Christmas songs (but, not to worry, I have plenty of Christmas CDs to get me through the rest of the year ;).

They even have someone playing the piano down in the lobby...so it's nice and relaxing!

Also, each year there is a huge gingerbread creation, made entirely of gingerbread and all kinds of sweet treats.  This year, it was a gingerbread train!! I had been hearing about throughout December, so finally getting to see it was awesome! Be sure to read everything that was included to make the whole thing!

Anyway, hope you enjoy some of the pics....and Thanks Abby for letting me borrow your camera!!

5 months til "I do"

Five.

That's how many months are left until the day.

When I get a HUSBAND.

And a new last name.

And more family.

As of January 1, 2013, I can finally say Matt & I are getting married THIS. YEAR. 

About time, right? haha. I remember January 1, 2012 telling mom we were getting married NEXT year...seems so long ago now!

So, you can betcha that on the eighth of every month, between now and June, I'll be reminding anyone who reads my blog that we're another month closer!!

Since today we are five months away from getting married, I'm going to share Five Facts about Matt & Me!

1. We went to five (hmm...5...coincidence?) high school dances together. Prom 2007, Homecoming 2007, Prom 2008, Homecoming 2008, and Prom 2009.

Prom 2007

Homecoming 2007

Prom 2008

Homecoming 2008

Prom 2009

2. We are both Greek. haha.  If you know Matt, you probably know he's in Phi Mu Delta, a social fraternity at Longwood.  Since freshman year, I've also been in a Greek organization - Phi Epsilon Kappa, the honors fraternity for my major.

Thank you, Lindsey, for this picture!! :)

3. We're both pretty competitive.  Yep, even me.  You just don't even know! I'm so glad that Jordan got this shot of us during Color Wars 2011, because it just goes to show we were definitely going to make sure that the other was wearing our class color by the time it was over..

4. We've apparently always loved the Ruffner stairs at Longwood...I don't hate it--it makes for great pictures ;)

thank you Lindsey for the pic on the left, and Jesse for the pic on the right.

 

5. We're on the same volleyball team for church, and we're now typically a lot more aware of where the other is during a game, unlike in this picture last Spring. haha.

thank you Lindsey Perotti for this pic! :)

Christmas Trees

dining room tree

You didn't really think I was done talking about Christmas, did you??

So, here's that post that you were supposed to get last Thursday, but we were interrupted by Fun Run. haha.  Matt continues giving me a hard time about how much I play ;) and also sent me my stats on how many games I've played, how many kills, how many suicides...haha.  (No, it's not really as violet as it sounds!)

I've been wanting to share some pictures of our Christmas trees, since we put up so many! (And one didn't even get put up this year....it usually makes an appearance like every other year.)

I could honestly probably take pictures allll day of Christmas trees and the ornaments & lights.  It's just so pretty! I especially loved colored lights :)

So, here ya go...pictures of our trees, in the following order:

Living Room

Den

Abby's Room

My room

Pin It Friday : New Years Quotes

Last February I started doing Pin It Friday every week, or as close to every week as I could.  Each Friday, I would pick five pins from 5 different boards on my Pinterest account and shared them on my blog.  I tried to vary which boards I chose from to keep everything different, but that didn't always happen. 

To not feel like I'm not keeping up with Pin It Friday this year, I still want to do it, but I'm going to change it up a little bit. 

Fun Run!

I'm interrupting my regularly scheduled blog post for today (which will now be posted on Monday), to share something that has "interrupted" my life. Boyyyy has it consumed too much of my time!

The only games apps I used to have on my phone were Words with Friends, Scramble with Friends, and Hanging with Friends, but I recently deleted almost all of those games to make room for other apps.  However, one day I was browsing the App Store and came across Fun Run.  It looked fun --well, I guess it better be since "fun" is in the title!!-- and the little characters looked cute, so I downloaded it. BIG mistake.

Cousin Pictures!

It is a RARE occurrence these days for "the cousins" to all be in the same place at the same time, let alone in the same city! Abby, Gabby, Alison and I grew up together and always had tons of sleepovers when we were little! We discovered how cool our names were, because there were the Abs (Abby and Gabby) and the Als (Alison and myself).  It was perfect! haha

We have so many fun memories and we try to make more when we can now that we're all going in four different directions! Abby's usually in Farmville at school, Gabby has moved out to Short Pump and stays busy working, Alison is finishing up her senior year, and then I'm....oh wait....haha...this just got awkward. I'm still job searching and getting wedding stuff done! (But not to fear, because I do have some work lined up starting in the next couple weeks, but nothing Full Time, yet.)

When we got together for Christmas last weekend, we made sure to get a few cousins pictures taken.  I hope you enjoy these!

(Well, first, hope you enjoy that Awkward Family Photo on the right....hahaha!)

*And, it might seem like we just line right up and take a good picture right off the bat. Negative.  There were about forty pictures of us taken, and these were basically the ONLY good ones that came out!! haha. We talk too much, laugh too much, everything...

Happy New Year!!!!

I hope everyone had a great night celebrating last night! Trust me, I didn't get too noisy or anything...far from it actually! haha.  Matt and I hung out at his house, watched some ABCFamily movies, played Topple, I put together a Pinocchio puzzle, we got in the hot tub, and that's about it.  Pretty exciting, huh? haha. No worries, though, because I had fun!
Did any of you make new years resolutions? I haven't (yet) and don't know if I will or not. Although I do have some things I'd like to do, especially from my blog, so look forward to that in the coming future (I hope!).

I'm really looking forward to this year because...yep...GETTING MARRIED!!!!! Can't believe it's just over five months away!! Crazy how time flies!!  It's also the year that both Matt & I will fly for the first time as we head off to our awesome honeymoon destination!! :)  We'll also start living together and I'll hopefully have finally secured a full-time job (of course I'm hoping this'll happen much sooner, rather than later!).  And, as I'm pretty sure I mentioned in my 25 Days of Christmas posts, Matt & I will finally go to allllllllllll family Christmas get-togethers together. haha. 

Since I'll be starting a new chapter of my life this year (well, many chapters, actually!), I hope you'll keep reading my blog to see all the pictures I share about everything I've/we've done!

Hope you've enjoyed this first day of 2013!  How have you spent it? I started off (by sleeping in), but really by going to lunch with Abby and our cousin, Brooke, at Mexico and to exchange Christmas presents.  Christmas Day is always so hectic so the past couple years we've met up for lunch or dinner to hang out and swap gifts.  Still just as fun!!  And tonight, volleyball practice!! So ready for that!