A little backtracking....

I had so many birthday tweets, Facebook posts and emails come in this past week. Thanks so much :) I was a spoiled girl this week! So before I go any further, I have got to share the cutest gift ever. My twin cousin texts me that she ordered a birthday gift and it would be sent UPS and arrive on x date, so I'd know to look for it. I open the box as it arrives and see the back of this:

(Which I'm too lazy to take a pic of right now, but it says Wildcats!) I literally shout "SHUT THE HELL UP!" as I rip it out of the box. Seriously, how cute is this?! I mean, Mickey Mouse is perfect considering we made total BFF's with Mickey at Disney last year, and decked out in UK?! Shut up. AND it came with a matching fleece blanket, which is now sitting on my couch. Cutest ever, thanks to my kick ass twin cousin : )

I said I'd be backtracking my next blog..since I haven't had a chance to blog about the other week. This is what happens when I don't update in a week, right?

A few Saturdays ago I had the pleasure of seeing Emmylou Harris --- I know most of you know this, but seriously, love, love her, and we go see her all the time. I know our Nashville folks know about this, but for non-local folks that may not know, she is crazy passionate about dogs and runs her own dog rescue. I've never met another person who loves dogs as much as Emmylou does - she has the biggest heart. So anyway, she has a winter benefit every year to try to help raise money for Bonaparte's, and to raise awareness for the dog adoptions, but this year they decided to try something in the summer.  I am so stoked they did - it was at The Fontanel Mansion, so it was a crazy awesome location, and Emmy had some amazing musicians come out --- (I  mean, really, does anyone play like Sam Bush? ) and donate their time to play. Topped off with Emmylou playing for over an hour herself, they couldn't have done a better job on this.  Plus, again, Fontanel Mansion - the Café has a faaaabulous bartender that made a pretty fabulous Margaritas!

Love her!!

And since she did my all time fave song of hers, I was a happy camper too :)

I went from Margaritas to Chuck E Cheese Sunday - my life is pretty awesome, right? We went for a birthday party for our friends 9 year old little girl, but I'm pretty sure my sister and I had more fun than the kids. We sat down to do pics in the little Chuck E Cheese sketch print thing, once with my sister and my niece & I, then just Samantha & I.. while two little girls who looked around 6,7 stood off to the side waiting..Probably wondering when the old people were going to be done so they could play!

It's token time! 

K-Man with Lizzy!

We did see Emmylou again - twice in a week is pretty awesome - for the Notorious Cherry Bombs benefit at 3rd and Lindsley! Chris (I'm aware this is confusing for my non-local folks, I k now too many Chris's!) B took me for my birthday. They sounded great, and the place was packed. It was such a treat to see Emmylou and Albert Lee together. Of course, I know I'm a little biased..it would have sounded better with the ORIGINAL Cherry Bombs bass player! :P Nonetheless, it was great - Rodney still has a great strong voice, and Emmylou sounded fabulous. Vince sounded great but looked like an utter and complete bum. Go figure.

Holiday weekend coming up - which means Family Cookout at my sisters Monday! And it's been a pretty nice week, so that will equal a little more pool time. I don't think we'll have too many folks there, just a nice small cook out.....a large portion of the time, it's just us (occasionally the bro in law's family comes and joins us), although this year my sisters dad moved to Nashville so he'll be joining us this time!

However, the really important part of the weekend of course......KENTUCKY VS. LOUISVILLE GAME SUNDAY!!

Yes, that deserved to be in majorly emphasized. We are so stoked I can't stand it. Hopefully we won't be screaming so loud this time that the neighbors come over and ask if we're okay like last time. (In our defense, we really were winning the championships, it was simply IMPOSSIBLE to be quiet!)

Don't forget tomorrow is wear your college colors day! (No one really has to ask what I'm wearing tomorrow, right?!) GO BIG BLUE!

Girls just wanna have fun....

I have so many other things to catch up on blogging,  (which means my next blog will be kind of backtracking...) but oh well!

Since my birthday is tomorrow, I spent the entire weekend celebrating. Friday my hot date was with my sweet K-man and my sister -- I took the day off and hung out at Sam's, picked little man up from school, and went to see ParaNorman. (Which was super cute, by the way).

Saturday we all went up to Kentucky to head to our beloved  Dolphie's to celebrate! We planned it far in advance, so my sister was able to come with us, and the bestie drove up from GA.

So first and foremost: seriously, what guys think of decorating? We left Denny's and walked over to Dolphie's and discovered all these decorations all over our tables, and my cake sitting out for us - Chris M got there before us, got us checked in the hotel, got the place decorated, and was waiting on our arrival. 99% of you know my ridiculous love for Kentucky, but seriously, every day I'm reminded how awesome all my KY friends are. At one point during the night, George and Chris M both bought me roses and almost every single drink was bought for me.

The bestie & I always color coordinate.....LET'S GO WILDCATS! 

What's that? My sister even wore the blue beads!  No lie, she even bought a UK shirt before we came home!! I am so proud. 

Since it's my birthday, Scotty let me kick off karaoke - there is nothing I love more than our karaoke nights at this place.  Dolphus told Chris M today that "every time those girls come up, everyone has a great time!!" --- we know how to make this place even more awesome than it is. Anyway, I kicked it off with "Harper Valley PTA" .....

Annnnnd since we plan our "set lists" way in advance, Rita and I totally had it planned to do some of our songs back to back --- IE; immediately following my rendition of "Sleeping Single in a Double Bed", she did "Crackers" since they go a little hand in hand. Have I said how much I love karaoke-ing at this place!?! This place is so country, but we still always shock people -- I love when I belt out Kitty Wells. (Especially this time, the guy next to us said "IS SHE SINGING KITTY WELLS?!" and my sister said 'Yes. That is my little sister...I don't even know this song!' and he said "Your LITTLE sister is singing Kitty Wells?!' ) Hahahaha I love my music (even though it annoys the hell out of me when people just automatically assume I don't l know my old school country because I'm younger than them.)

My insanely awesome Golden Girls birthday cake!

Seriously, how amazing!!!!

Because I have amazing friends, before we left for Kentucky, I was given my birthday cake, which Cait and Calvin had an amazing baker do for me ---- featuring my beloved Golden Girls! It's no secret how much my sister and I love our Golden Girls, so this was so perfect - and I totally never expected it! They didn't want to tell me what was on it -- I was so thinking it was going to have a UK on it.

With Chris M....aka Kentucky! 

I played the "I'M THE BIRTHDAY GIRL!" card all night, so I made Rita sing this one for me. If there was ever a song that describes my best friend, it is this one.  I made Chris M sing "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma" with me. Turns out if you walk around with a crown on your head, people listen to you. 

There were some newbies in the club that came up to me halfway through the night and said "Oh my god, we love when you sing, would you sing something we want to hear??" Thankfully, when I said "Maybe, what song?", they responded with a couple Pam Tillis songs that I knew, so I picked one and ran with it. Before the night was over, Phil had signed Rita up to do "Fist City" -- again, I'm just going to repeat how much I love this place. I know I tell everyone about it all the time, but it really is the best.

"Georgia" & "Kentucky" - love love love these two.

A little blurry (we'll blame it on Chris, he took it!), but my two fave girls! 

We closed the place down again and headed back to Denny's with our group before calling it a night - twice in a day. (We're Denny's deprived in Middle Tennessee, folks.) I think it was 4 when we crawled into bed....I was not happy when the alarm went off Sunday morning :(

And yes, I turn 29 years old tomorrow. Yes, 29 for real, and no I'm not all "Oh noes, I'm almost 30". I always see so many posts about people whining about aging, lying about their age, cracking jokes about being old. I'm the oddball -- I don't care. I get more awesome with age, just sayin...

Wordless Wednesday

(Okay, I guess not completely wordless--- this was on the way to Hurricane Mills one trip. This person meant business! Welcome to Tennessee....)

Heroes & Friends

It's no secret I have a ridiculous love for Country Music....99.99999% of the people that visit my blog are aware of this. Thanks to my mom and Granny, I appreciate old school stuff and was always at concerts. When we moved to Nashville, I swear it was almost every other day that I was doing my homework in line for a concert.

My mother saw Alabama when she was pregnant with me, and she swears that's why I fell in love with Country so much. I went to sooooo many concerts as a child, but one of my very first concert memories was Randy Travis, when I was just a couple years old. To this day, I remember going with my mom, Granny and sister and have very vivid memories of him on stage in a white suit, and I gave him a rose. When we had the chance to meet him after moving here, he was by far one of the nicest, most polite artists I'd ever met. I still remember being off to the side for a show another night in the rain for PL and having Randy stop and say "I have to know who you're in the rain for!" and we told him P, and him saying "That is wonderful, have a great time with her and I hope she appreciates your dedication." He's just a nice guy.

As everyone and their brother has seen all over the news this week, Randy was drunk, wrecked his vehicle and was found in the road naked. His arrest has been crazily covered by the media. I noticed today people are making parodies of his music....

It makes me sad people think it's funny. I guess I just don't understand. I enjoy going out with my girls and having some drinks, don't get me wrong - but I know not to get behind the wheel afterwards. It is just mind boggling to me to how an instance that could have killed him or killed someone else, and people think it's so funny and are posting funny lyrics on Facebook and Youtube.


My favorite Randy song....I have always been crazy about this song, and I remember watching this version live on the CMA's when it aired. It brings me to tears now, since Tammy and Vern are gone. I sure miss them and genuine country music....I hope Randy is able to find the help he needs and move past this, and return to his music, since he is one of the few trying to keep Country Music alive.

Thinspiration Thursday!

I've missed the past couple Thinspiration Thursdays! And funny to say, I really have no new updates in that department! I've been so big on "I'm not on a diet", and just wanting to work out more, cut out some crap, and I've done exactly what I said I was going to do. (Yes, yes, the end goal WILL be to lose a little weight, and tone up) I DID however, finally get to the 7.00 mile marker on running! I might have felt like I was going to DIE afterwards, but nonetheless - I did it!

Plain running is starting to bore me, so I've been mixing it up a little bit - including a little hula hooping, and I'm going to admit: I am a BAD ASS hula hooper. (Should I really be bragging about that??) I started doing it on the Wii and then quickly went out and bought one. It probably helps my knee a bit too.... (yes, in my accident prone ways, last year I hurt my knee. Thankfully my doctor rocks and I required no surgery, and I have been good to go until last week when I was running -- and that knee popped. Uh oh.)

I've started singing out loud I've noticed when I'm running --- I think my neighbors might think I've seriously lost my mind, especially when one day I ran by a house singing along to "Baby Got Back", and the following day when I ran by I was singing along to "Gonna Make You Sweat". (Thanks Songza, for the 90's Workout playlist!)

In other news, I booked the hotel and put in in the request for Derby tickets this week! I am beyond stoked! I haven't been to a race at Churchill Downs since 2005 - for shame, I know! This is an entire new ball game though -- and it's insane expensive. (Which I expected) Pretty sure everyone thought I was joking when I said the normal place we stay at in Louisville was $600 for the night, but sold out.

Now that that's all taken care of, it's time to get to the seriously important part: the clothes. The BFF and I want to be in UK blue, but we also want to go opposite, so since I fell in love with the blue dress, I'm aiming for blue dress, white hat, while Rita does the opposite.

I found a dress that's KINDA similar to the Michelle Pfeiffer dress I am madly in love with. 

So now I totally have to find a hat I think will look good. Or I guess I should go ahead and BUY the dress. I'm totally torn on buying it right now and kind of want to wait -- and maybe if I can find something that's even more similar. Sigh, decisions, decisions. I can't make up my mind. But I do know it's time to go hula hoop. 

Best Aunt Ever....

I'm not going to lie, sometimes I fully believe that if you look up "best aunt ever", there is a pretty awesome picture of me. I lived up to my title this weekend and kept Kadin for the weekend.

Saturday was Baby B's 1st birthday, and Tresa held his birthday party at my sisters house, so we started the weekend off with some serious cuteness:

Could he be any sweeter? And is there ever a birthday party that is any cuter than the 1st one? Little B sure had no clue what was going on, but he knew there was tons of tissue paper to play with in these gift bags! And cake...how could I forget?

We started off with this for a smash cake:

Which looks like complete crap. Seriously. We did B's "official" pictures last weekend and the Smash cake they gave us was SO adorable -- so to get THIS was so disappointing! And that is a massive mound of icing. For a one year old. I scraped around the sides and took so much off before we gave it to him -- and we STILL had to take more off the top for him to get to any of the actual cake. But it wasn't long before he tore it up, and this was all we had left:

A great start to Saturday -- and so fun to get to see little B two weeks in a row! We don't see them as often as we totally should, but that's going to change. 

After his party, I took Kadin and he spent the night at my place. And being spoiled, we went to dinner, did a little shopping, and went to the movies. Since we were by my house, we went to Opry Mills (which, by the way, was an absolutely AWFUL idea for tax free weekend. What was I thinking!? It was almost as bad as re-opening weekend, with traffic lined up for miles down Briley and McGavock!). This is huge for Kadin, because well....my nephew is OBSESSED with the IMAX theater. He claims he wants to live there --- or Opry Mills in general, because his Lego store is there too. So the closer we got, the more I heard Kadin go "I am so homesick, and that is all about to go away because you're taking me home. I'm so happy to go home. I wonder if the IMAX is thinking of me." I told you - he's obsessed.

We started at Bob Evans - where Kadin has never gone before. He continuously noted "how neat" this place was (this kid is so easy to please), and scarfed down his french toast in literally 3 minutes. This child acts like my sister does not feed him! 

Sigh, dessert soon followed obviously. Because I rarely say no to this kid. He wanted to order cookies, and I encouraged him to get something worthwhile and an ice cream sundae is what he came up with. 

But his food for the night doesn't end there, because what did we wind up with at the movies?!

I even said "No" when we got there, and then changed my mind because he is so flipping cute I cannot stand it. And damn it, my K-man has manners, and thanks me, and uses the magic word please. You know I'm big on kids with manners  - who wants to say no to a kid when they are crazy polite?! ;)

We saw the new Wimpy Kid movies, so those of you whose kids love the Wimpy Kid books and movies, I'm sure they'll love it, Kadin thought it was fabulous (and I thought it was pretty cute). I am digging his movie love now - he's turning into Aunt Nicole! We took him to Men in Black III today, and he loved it! (And so did I -- has anyone else seen this?! Totally the best MIB they've made so far!)

And another week kicks off.....with a crazy busy weekend ahead. Inching closer to my birthday weekend, when the best friend drives up for us all to go to Kentucky and party. I need this to hurry up....

Burnout....

Who would've thought there would be a day I DIDN'T want to pick up the camera? Well, it came.  I think I truly got so busy doing sessions for clients, I had no time to go out and take photos that meant something to ME. I didn't take the time to go out and take photos just for fun...

P not touring I'm sure had something to do with it ;)  No, really. My favorite thing to shoot is one of her shows ---every aspect of it, capturing the mood, the emotion. I really can't get EXACTLY what I get at her show at anyone else's show.

I decided in July to cut back a little bit - and possibly re-evaluate my business, where I wanted to go with it, and what I wanted to focus on. Just taking the month to work on my business plan for 2013 did wonders! And now, even with sessions coming up, I've booked some spaced apart - and blocked off certain time frames from booking anything. I'm going to get behind the lens and take some pictures for me a lot more often....starting this weekend!

Short stuff is spending the night with Aunt Nicole tomorrow-dinner, movies, and who knows what else this kid will end up with. I am such a freaking sucker, he gets away with everything!

Wordless Wednesday: Sisters