Popping In For an Update

I'm sure we're all grateful that today is Friday, right?! Yes. Just popping in real quick today for a little update on our lives and how things have been this week...

First of all, Jeff and I have both been sick all week long. Mine started last Saturday, and his started around Tuesday. And we can't seem to shake this! It's just a cold or a sinus infection (for him), but it's annoying and it's just time for it to scoot it's way out of our lives. Yet here we are, still both suffering from it's silly little symptoms. Here's to hoping this stuff moves on sooner rather than later.

Next, Jeff bought me a new phone!! My iPhone 4 was over two years old, and really start to slow down, biiiiiiig time. It was super slow and annoying, and it was always full. Like 1,000+ photos really take up that much space?! But anyways...he surprised me last week and bought me a brand new MotoX, that's all personalized and in pretty colors and stuff. It's awesome. And I'm loving it! And it does cool things like make AutoAwesome pictures in Google, like this one:

Such a a pretty, sparkly Christmas tree!!

Tomorrow morning we are going to go to the matinee priced showing of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, so tonight, we'll stay home and get cozy with a blanket and a bucket of popcorn to rewatch the first movie. And I for one and super stoked about that. (Both the Friday night at home, and the Saturday morning plans, that is...) I read "The Hobbit" over the summer, so everything is much cooler now that I know what's going on. Plus, I just always like reading a book before seeing the movie, and try to make sure that happens pretty much every time. So now I'm really looking forward to our little "double feature" movie dates tonight and tomorrow!

In case you don't follow me on Instagram (you totally should, because I post on there a lot more than on here lately, and it's usually really cute stuff...), then you don't know I've been attempting the #fmsphotoaday challenge this month. Today is Day 13, and I've missed about 3 or 4 days. But whatev's - at least I'm trying! And it's still fun anyways. Here are my top 4 favorites so far this month...

Top L: R is For.... // Top R: Green // Bottom L: Tiny // Bottom Right: Silver

And we finally got our wedding pictures back from our photographer! We looked at them last night, and there are some truly beautiful photographs. We also have a ton from a friend of Jeff's family who did a great job as well. So over the weekend, I'll spend some time sorting and organizing, and then I'll be sharing pictures all over the place! Yay!!

Oh, and in case you missed Wednesday's post, I'm in the process of renaming this here blog. Go check out that post, and leave me some feedback, mmmkay?

Well anyways, that seems like enough for the day. I have a long day of work ahead of me, and then a nice little relaxing weekend is definitely in store. And hopefully with some more rest, Jeff and I can both kick our colds in the bootay, and be better by Monday! Oh, and maybe we can get a little bit of Christmas shopping done too, because holy cow, it's in less than two weeks now. Sheesh time flies. Am I right, or am I right. Happy Friday to all of you lovelies! :)

Much Love,
Halie

Peppermint Tea & Christmas Movies

Good morning bloggy ladies :) Have a good weekend? I started getting a little bit sick half-way through my weekend, but that didn't stop me from enjoying a little bit of my two days away from work anyways...

FRIDAY
I know I made buffalo Bleu cheese turkey burgers for dinner, but other than that, I seem to have forgotten the rest of the evening. I assume it involved a Christmas movie and a bit more decorating of the house, but I'm just not too certain. My, what a short-term memory I seem to have...

SATURDAY
Woke up and made myself an egg sandwich for breakfast, and then waited on my Mama and sister to come pick me up. Then we went down the road to the fair grounds, for a big giant craft show, called Market Days. It's huge and awesome, and there are lots and lots of different vendors, from all over Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. My mom and sister both bought quite a few things. My mom got us both a cute little gingerbread house (that smells like cinnamon!), and Meg got lots of random things. I got a present for my family's Secret Santa exchange, and a Christmas ornament to celebrate mine and Jeff's first married Christmas together!

After we ate lunch there and walked around a little more, they dropped me back off at home with my bag full of goodies. Jeff and I then spent quite a few hours cleaning up around the house, and working on our second bedroom. That room has kind of been the "dump zone" as we moved both of us in over the last few months, and it was quite a disaster. However, the twins are coming here for 9 days, and that's "their" bedroom, so we need to get it cleaned up and ready for them! It's nowhere near done yet, but we got a lot done.

I had woken up feeling a little strep-throaty, so by 4 pm, I was exhausted and just needed to sit down and rest. Primrose came and cuddled up with me on the couch, and I ended up taking quite a nice little nap. While I was asleep though, Jeff ran out and picked up some Chinese food, so when I woke up it was dinner time, which was great and so yummy. We spent the rest of the night just laying on the couch, cuddling our doggie, and watching Christmas movies on Netflix. One of which, I would recommend if you're into Christmas music - "The Mistletones." It's an ABC Family movie, and it's really cute :)

Oh and then of course we watched my amazing Seminoles woop that Blue Devil bootay! National Champs here we come!!!!

SUNDAY
I woke up feeling even worse than the day before, and even though it was only 8 am, I couldn't go back to sleep. So instead I  watched another ABC Family Christmas movie :) This one was also cute, so check it out if you're into that kind of movie - "A Christmas Kiss." I got a little stir-crazy, so I did very minor cleaning around the house, and put away some clean dishes. I quickly ran to the grocery store for just a few items, and then spent the rest of the day back at home again. After a very late lunch, I threw together some soup really quickly, and let it simmer in the crock pot all afternoon for dinner. I was thankful for this super yummy recipe of mine, because it's so stinking easy to put together, it was even a cinch while not feeling so great.

This recipe actually debuted on my blog an entire year ago, so if you're interested in the recipe for Crock Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup (and you should be interested because it's delicious), then you can check out that post here.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and staying hydrated with lots of water, hot peppermint tea and some cran-apple juice. While Jeff blew off the leaves in our entire yard, I worked on some wedding recap posts and rounded up some pictures from our honeymoon in Cancun. (Those will all be coming soon, finally!) We watched "Robin Hood," Jeff fell asleep on the couch at 7:30, and then I watched the newest episode of "Once Upon A Time," while writing this very blog post. I went to sleep not much longer after that to try to get some rest and get better before beginning another work day.

So even though I was feeling kinda sick and yucky all weekend, there were still some bright spots that managed to peek their way through :) Now if I can just get rid of this icky-ness and get better, things will be all good! Happy Monday again ladies!

Much Love,
Halie

*Update* I was too sick to go to work today, so I'm at home still. I'll be going in to my doctor later, to make sure it isn't strep throat. Ugh, gross...

Pilgrims, Paula Deen Rolls & Potatoes

Good morning ladies, and Happy Monday. Are y'all back at work now after a four-day weekend like me too? It's kind of rough, but instead I'll just focus on being thankful for the time off that I did have, rather than whining about being back today. And so today, I'd of course like to recap my special Thanksgiving holiday with my family!

This year we went to my Aunt Suzanne and Uncle Keith's house, and it was the first year that I brought my very own contribution. The last couple of years we've hosted at my parents house, and so of course I've helped out with all of that. But this year I chose and made my own dish to bring over, and it was a hit! I made this Loaded Mashed Potato Bake, and it was delicious.

The rest of my family all made amazingly yummy things, and we had probably one of our best Thanksgiving meals ever. Seriously - it was sooo good. We had all the usual's - turkey (two ways: roasted and deep fried) dressing, sweet potato casserole, green beans, broccoli casserole, the yummiest Paula Deen's Cloverleaf rolls, and a couple other sides too. And as a special southern treat, my uncle made up some venison as well, which was also yummy.

Sliced and deep-fried turkey. Definitely one of my favorites of the day!

My sister was unfortunately not with us, because she was with her husband and in-laws in Alabama. We definitely missed them, and it was so weird not having them around for the holiday. However, this was actually the first year that Jeff and I have celebrated Thanksgiving together (actually with each other - we've he's gone out of town the last couple of years to see family), so it was so great to have him there with my whole family as well!

I have so much to be thankful for, and special meal with my family was of course a great way to celebrate that. We had so much fun eating all together, and then going through all of the Black Friday ads as well. We told lots of stories, and had lots of laughs, and we just generally enjoyed being with each other on this special day. I'm thankful for a lot of things, but my amazing family is definitely up at the top of that list!!

My cousin and I got to do the wishbone - sadly he won.

Parents :)

Me and my pretty Mama

There were of course lots of other happenings from the last four days, but it's entirely too much for just one post. So the rest of the weekend recap will follow tomorrow (or the next day, depending on my blog-motivation), and then later I'll share some pictures of our first Christmas and tree together, in our own little house! Hope y'all had a great weekend as well. Looking forward to reading y'all's Thanksgiving recaps as well!

Much Love,
Halie

P.S. - Happy 23rd Birthday to my "baby" sister! Doesn't quite seem possible for you to be this "old" yet, but apparently you are! Hope you have the bestest day, Little! I love you!!

Practicing Gratefulness

I truly do have so much to be thankful for. More than I'm even aware of really - things like life and breath and family are sometimes taken for granted, although those are sometimes the things that deserve the most thanks! God has blessed each and every one of us in so many beautiful and unique ways. And the sad thing is, we often don't even realize it. God loves us enough to place amazing things and people and opportunities in our lives, so is it really too much to ask that we remember to thank him for those things? Of course not. So I want to take a just a bit to highlight just some of the blessing I'm thankful for this year...

I am thankful for:
My husband, and our new marriage.
Adorable step-sons.
My loving and supportive parents.
Siblings who I not only get along with, but genuinely like/love being around.
Our new doggie, Primrose.
Promotions (over the summer) and more new responsibilities (again!) at work.
Sweet family members.
Caring and thoughtful in-laws.
Being able to run or ride a bike, pretty much whenever I want to.
Our cute little rental house.
A forgiving Savior.

I love making lists like these. It makes me truly take a moment to stop and think about all the wonderful blessings in my life, and appreciate each one of them. This list in reality is a lot longer than just these eleven things. In reality, I have hundreds of things I'm thankful for - but these are some of the ones that mean the most to me. I definitely encourage y'all to think about all the wonderful things in your life that you have to be thankful for! And it doesn't have to happen just on Thanksgiving every year! You can thank God at any time, any day of the year. Just show the guy some appreciation for all He's given us!

I wish each and every one of you a Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you have a great holiday with family and friends! I for one am very much looking forward to a few days off work, sleeping in a little bit, spending time with family, and of course lots of yummy food!

Much Love,
Halie

P.S. - I just randomly found this quote, and I loved it too much to not include it....

“. . . my obsession with gratefulness. I can't stop. Just now, I press the elevator button and am thankful that it arrives quickly. I get onto the elevator and am thankful that the elevator cable didn't snap and plummet me to the basement. I go to the fifth floor and am thankful that I didn't have to stop on the second or third or fourth floor. I get out and am thankful that Julie left the door unlocked so I don't have to rummage for my King Kong key ring. I walk in, and am thankful that Jasper is home and healthy and stuffing his face with pineapple wedges. And on and on. I'm actually muttering to myself, 'Thank you. . .thank you. . . thank you.' It's an odd way to live. But also kind of great and powerful. I've never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.” 
― A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

Pleasant & Patriotic 4-Day Weekend

Well, I've been out of work and out of the blogging routine for the past four days, and it's been great. I mean seriously - super long holiday weekends are amazing, and definitely necessary for your sanity, and I enjoyed every single bit of it. What about y'all? And since I had such a long amazing weekend, there's a ton to catch up on, so today's post will once again be very picture heavy, and kinda light on the writing.

Let's back it up all the way to Thursday, for the 4th of July!

Actually first of all, let me just show off our dinner from Wednesday night that we made ourselves. Super yummy Turkey Santa Fe Stuffed Peppers. Sooo good. I'll be sharing the recipe tomorrow!

THURSDAY
I was house/dog-sitting all last week for my friend Lacey, and for some strange reason I woke up before 8 a.m. without an alarm. What is wrong with that picture? So I took the dog out and fed her, then I was quite productive for a few hours. I did some dishes, loaded and started the dishwasher, started a load of laundry, swept the house, uploaded and edited some pictures, bought new music on iTunes, made a new running playlist, and finally made my new playlist for the summer (another check from my summer bucket list!). And I did all that before 10 a.m. Impressive right?

Jeff came over around lunch time, and we made turkey taco lettuce wraps with the leftovers from our stuffed peppers the night before, then just lounged around for a bit watching National Treasure 2 on TV. We then went out and attempted to find cute matching shirts to wear, but no such luck. So we came back to the house and made our mac and cheese to take to family dinner.

My Granddaddy - the Birthday Boy!

My Mama made these super cute eagles as her surprise dessert treat!

My sister made these patriotic themed cupcakes, which were delicious.

We played a giant game of 12-person Farkle, and my Granddaddy-the-birthday-boy won!

And of course my sister and I had to take an unnecessary amount of goofy pictures, just like we always do...

The problem was however, that Florida couldn't get it's crap together to stop raining long enough to do any fireworks. Thanks a lot. So I didn't get to see any this year. What a sad 4th of July with no fireworks, right?! Oh well, Jeff and I already decided that next year, we're definitely heading back to St. George Island beach for July 4th festivities, and that will be awesome.

FRIDAY
I am honestly having a hard time remembering what we did on Friday...I know it was still raining, so I think we ran errands and stuff around town. Oh yeah - we went to Hobby Lobby and priced some silk floral stems for wedding purposes, bought a few cute glass jars, raided an awesome new thrift store of all their vintage books and a giant empty wooden picture frame, and a couple of other random things. And I got a wonderful little package in the mail from one of my friends from college. She lives in Tennessee now, and it's been a looong time since I've seen her. But she sent me the cutest little things! Later, we got Tropical Smoothie for dinner, and then went to Jeff's church to help decorate for Vacation Bible School, which is this week.

Set of fold-out, vintage Florida postcards, a wrap bracelet, hand-painted (by her!) cards, & a super sweet note.

SATURDAY
It was still raining (for about the billionth day in a row now...), so we did some more running around and found another cool new thrift store, where we scored this really cool wicker-basket-trunk-thing for only $15. The top of it is messed up, so we are going to try to figure out a way to redo it to make it look nice. We also shopped around town for what we want Jeff and his groomsmen to wear for the wedding.  The rest of the afternoon was low-key and boring, but then we went out for date night on a budget. We used coupons at Black Bean (local Cuban place Jeff hadn't ever been to before), then finally saw 'Fast 6' at the cheap theater here in town. And that movie was awesome!

We needed a pick-me-up after so much shopping. He got a Mocha, I got a Peach Green Tea Lemonade. Yum.

SUNDAY
Church and lunch with my parents, then Jeff and I spent the afternoon driving around town looking for 'For Rent' signs for our future place! We drove around for like three hours, took down about 30 addresses and numbers, and then started calling almost all of them last night. We're so excited about finding a place to live now, and hopefully the process won't be too obnoxious and difficult.

OK, so I think that about wraps everything up now, finally! Hopefully I didn't bore you all to death, and you're still interested in reading my blog again after all this... But even more than that, I hope each one of y'all had a great weekend too! I wish we could have had less rain and more sunshine, but hey, not every day can be perfect, so we just live with it and move on. And in the meantime, we just hope for sunny days and better weather in the future! The weekend was still good, despite the crazy amount of rainfall, and I had a great four days off of work.

Oooh, and one more thing - this morning I officially started using Hal Higdon's novice 5K training plan, to get ready to run my first 5K race this coming September! So follow along with me as I get ready for that! I'll be sharing my usual collages on Instagram, and logging it all with RunKeeper.

Happy Monday, y'all! And I almost forgot - here's the nails I did for my 4th of July festivities! (I did them like 2 days before I took the picture though, so that's why they're a little chipped already...)

Much love,

Halie

Patriotic Festivities

"It's Independence Dayyyyyy!" (Pleas sing to the tune of the classic Martina McBride song from 1994. That's such a great song, and don't you even try to deny that.) You know what else, it's also my super sweet Granddaddy's birthday today as well. Yes, he shares his birthday every year with our country's birthday as well. And so every year, we get to celebrate a national holiday, and a family birthday as well, so of course it's always lots of fun! 

I for one am super excited about today, and so I wanted to share some about what my day will look like!

First of all, I'm totally splurging on this healthy eating kick, and eating a super delicious meal for dinner tonight, including ribs, baked beans, potato salad, mac and cheese, and some dessert thrown in there as well. And I'm not going to let even one ounce of that deliciousness make me feel guilty.

Found via Google image search

Oh, and that mac and cheese I mentioned earlier, Jeff and I are in charge of bringing that, so I've scoured my "Pasta is my Favorite" board on Pinterest for the past week, in search of the yummiest recipe. And I think I've found the winner folks. We're going to be using cheddar, jack and mozzarella cheeses, and adding fresh crumbled bacon on top. Hello?! Who wouldn't eat that yummy, cheesy goodness?!

From the recipe post on White on Rice Couple blog

Moving on from food now, I will be rocking as much red, white and blue from head to toe as I can possibly manage - as long as that doesn't include my blue and white umbrella in all this nasty, thunderstormy weather. Come on Florida, get it together. I have some ideas in my head of outfits I can wear, but those are my backups. But first, Jeff and I are gonna hit up Old Navy to see if we can find something matchy-matchy to wear, and just be that sickeningly cute couple :) Now, I don't think it'll be quite like the picture below, but who knows? If we find it on sale, maybe...

Found via Google image search

In addition to my sporty red, white and blue outfit I'm sure I'll be wearing, y'all know I'm also gonna be rockin' some festive and patriotic nails as well. I actually already painted them two nights ago, but I don't have a picture right now, so I'll just wait for Mani Monday to share them with y'all. In the meantime though, here's a picture of some awesome nails, I only wish I had the talent to paint free-hand!

Photo found on the Pams & Kin Facebook page

Now what I'd like to be doing tomorrow afternoon before dinner is laying on the sand, with the sun shining bright in the beautiful blue sky, getting my tan on. But noooo, the weather in Florida has to be rainy and crappy all week long, so the chances of my preferred scenario happening are pretty slim right now. However, if I had it my way, this looks like the perfect spot to hang out on the 4th of July...All I would need is a bottle of sunscreen, a cooler of snacks and drinks, and a book to keep me company. And I guess my fiance would be a good addition too ;)

Photo found via Google image search

Oh sorry, I gotta jump back to food for a bit. Since my whole family (of 12) is eating together, we're doing it potluck style and each contributing, thus why we're in charge of the mac and cheese. So my mom is bringing some dessert for us, but she's keeping it a surprise and won't tell us what it is. We know it's festive in some way, but that's about it. Oh, and she said she's sure it'll end up tasting good, but she's not sure how it will end up looking, so who knows what she has up her sleeve. I'd love to see her attempt something as pretty and Pinteresty as this, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see...!

Photo found via Google image search

And of course at the end of the night, after gorging ourselves on some yummy food, and maybe playing a game, and definitely sitting around having weird, random, hilarious conversations, eventually there will be fireworks. Now, I don't actually know if we're doing them ourselves, or if we're going somewhere to watch them, but either way, they'll definitely be happening. And if they can look even a little bit like the ones below, I'll be a happy girl.

Photo found via Google image search

I'm so grateful and thankful for this country I was blessed to live in. I hope you guys know how lucky we truly are here in America! I hope y'all have a great 4th of July celebration today (and throughout the weekend too probably), and that you enjoy your time with family and friends! Happy Independence Day, and Happy Birthday America, and another Happy Birthday to my Granddaddy!

"Pesach" is Hebrew for Passover, which is Easter!

Let me begin by explaining my post title, because I just want to drop some knowledge for y'all, to help educate ourselves a tiny bit. "Pesach" is Hebrew for what is known in English as "Passover," which commemorates the story of Exodus. Today, most English-speaking nations call this "Easter," but pretty much everywhere else in the world, this holiday is known as "Pasha," or something derived from it. And I thought that was pretty interesting :)

April is here! And it sure seems to have come fast, am I right?! As fast as the last three months have gone by, I'm sure these next two will fly, because of all the craziness and business that's already scheduled! But let's not get ahead of ourselves, let's first of course recap this past weekend! But since today I'm feeling more like getting out my post a bit quicker, I'm going with a bulleted-style recap, rather than full sentences and storytime...

FRIDAY
Left work early for an interview, that I think went pretty well! Could take up to 2 weeks to hear back though
Jeff and I hit the road to middle-Georgia and ate Burger King for dinner (don't judge, at least I got a Whopper Jr.)
Got to his bro's house, and I chatted with cute little 5-year-old Libby (my niece-to-be!)
And then I fell asleep while Jeff & Brad watched "Red Dawn"

SATURDAY
Woke up kind of early-ish, and hung out with my to-be-SIL, Libby and the baby
Hit the road around 9:30, and met to pick up Jeff's boys at 11:30!
Ate lunch & popsicles with the boys (which dyed their tongues), then hit the road back to Jeff's brother's house
Let the boys play with their cousins for a bit, then we came on back to Tally!
Dyed some Easter eggs at 9:45 at night with their Nana :)

 

SUNDAY
Went to Sunday school and big church on a beautiful Easter Sunday!
Ate lunch with Jeff's family (7 people)
Did some Easter egg hunts with the boys around the house/porch
I provided a craft time for us, which was good and they made cute little "stained-glass" crosses!
Movie-rest time for half an hour, just to recharge a bit
All four of us loaded up and had Easter dinner with my whole family! (14 people)
Did another Easter egg hunt for the boys
Finally took the boys home - let them play for a bit, then finally had more movie-rest time before they fell asleep!

It was a crazy busy weekend, but it was the good kind of busy. And of course we're so glad to have the boys here for their spring break this week! They haven't been down here since right after Christmas, so Jeff was really missing them, and obviously so super excited to get to see them again! This week will be super busy the whole time, but we just want to make the most of the time they have down here with us!

And here's my "Easter mani" I've been sportin' since last Thursday. It's not really too Easter-y, but at least it's kind of Easter colors. And I'm looooving it. So much.

How was y'all's Easter weekend? Did you hunt eggs? Or hide them for some little ones? Did the Easter bunny still visit your house? He came to mine! (Now I have to resist eating every scrap of chocolate and candy he left me all in one day...) Happy Monday and Happy April!

Linking up today with Covered In Grace, Glitter & Gloss, Sami's Shenanigans and Synfully Delicious.

Proposal on Valentine's Day!

So earlier today, I couldn't hardly wait to share some big news with y'all, and so without much detail or specifics, I made the announcement that I am now engaged!!! But now I've finally gotten all my stuff together, and am going to write out all the fun details from last night :) Prepare yourselves though, because I'm warning you now - there will be lots of pictures (I did at least put most of them into collages), and there will be lots of words!! But I don't want to leave anything out, or run the risk of forgetting anything later, so I'm including as much as possible here!!

So sometime in January, we had mentioned Valentine's Day and talked briefly about needing to make some plans. But we moved on pretty quickly and forgot. Then last Monday night (Feb 4), he texted me to say he wanted to plan it all himself, and I didn't need to worry about anything. I was like, "That's great babe! I love when you make all the fun plans and surprise me!" So he got busy working on stuff  and plans for the last two weeks, and I had no idea what was going on.

The first thing that happened yesterday, was a quick text from him in the morning that said, "Let me know when you got a UPS package." So I freak out and say, "What?! Here at work?!" And he says YEAH! So I'm still freaking out of course, until an hour or so later, and then the most beautiful tulips ever arrive at my office! Seriously, they're amazing. It's a mix of red, pink and white, and I'm in love with them. They're so perfect and gorgeous, and so special. And I liked that they weren't just any 'typical' Valentine's flowers, because these just felt so much more special to me :)

This photo is from yesterday, but since then, they've already started opening up beautifully!!

Then after work, I knew I was going to meet him at his house, and we would be going to dinner, but I didn't know any of the rest of the plan. Well, except that he had worked penguins, pasta and polka dots all into the date night in some way ;) So I get to his house and I give him all of his gifts first. (Which included: a "Big Bang Theory" t-shirt and set of trivia cards, lots of his favorite candies, a stuffed dachshund because he loves those, a little "Why I Love You" notebook, and a banner I made for him.) Then I change into my new dress and put on makeup and some perfume, and we headed to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Harry's. (I had been looking to buy a new dress, and wanted something, red or pink or festive. Somehow though, I ended up with bright green! Who knows how that happened rather than Valentine's festive, but I loved it, and so did Jeff!)

So at the restaurant, he tells me that he's ordering for me, and I'm not even allowed to look at the menu! So he gets us some sort of shrimp appetizer thing (don't remember the name?), and then orders our meals. And of course, he got me pasta! It was amazing. It was a special for the Mardi Gras season, so I think it was just called Pasta Mardi Gras. It was linguine with shrimp and lobster and mushrooms, with some sort of creamy sauce. Sooo good :) And Jeff got Blackened Red Fish with crab on top! And of course his was delicious too. But soo much food, so we both ended up taking home a box with at least half our our meals.

But while we were waiting on our food to arrive, I got to open my present! First though, let me tell you about the card, because he worked hard on it. Ladies - he hand-made the entire thing! And  it was amazing. It's one of the cutest things I've probably ever seen, and definitely the best card I've ever been given. I told him I would have loved it enough already had he ordered it from Etsy or something, but considering that he made the whole stinking thing himself?! Blew me out of the water!! He hand drew a little penguin, and gave it some of his own characteristics like glasses and red hair! SO cute :) He also constructed this super cute little owl on the back with some crafting string of some sort. On the inside was the polka dot paper, and he had cut out hearts on a piece of tissue paper, and laid it over the polka dot paper. Precious :) And of course he had written some extremely sweet words. In fact, they made me all teary-eyed as I read them. It was for real the best and most awesomest and the sweetest card I've ever gotten. I told him that now I'm going to be expecting one of these hand-made cards for every occasion! 

There was more in the bag though than just an extremely awesome and elaborate hand-made card, like a big bag of Hershey's kisses, and a box. So I pulled out a little box with penguins on it, and it was filled with Valentine's candies and sitting on top of the candy, was a little hand-drawn banana, with a message on the back - "Deliver to the monkey." So I had to figure out what that meant... So while we ate, we talked about it a little more, and after he gave me a few more clues, I figured out it meant my friend Lacey's house! (Her house has been nick-named 'Coconuts' so that's where the monkey was.)

So while we were driving from dinner to her house, I'm expecting there to be another clue waiting for me, so I asked how long we were going to stay at her house before moving on. And he was like, "Oh, I don't know, we'll just see how it's going over there..."  So we walk in, and chat with Lacey and Josh for a few minutes, and while I'm talking to them, he disappears, but apparently I didn't even notice it somehow. Then when he comes back, he hands me this cute little pink monkey, with a card around his neck. The front of it says, "Will You Be My Valentine?" and then it says "flip" at the very bottom corner...and the back says "Forever..." 

And I'm thinking "Oh well of course forever, dear!" But then when I look away from the card, I realize he's gotten down on one knee and is holding a tiny box with something very sparkly inside. And I gasp a little bit, of course, and then he says, "Halie, will you marry me?" And so I immediately do a little happy dance and stomp my feet a little bit and squeal a tiny squeal and cover my mouth and I'm just so excited!! So of course I say YES! and he puts the most gorgeous ring on my finger :) Then he stands up and I hug him so tight and am still squealing, and then of course I give him a big ole' smooch. And our friends were taking pictures the whole time with their iPhone luckily, so we have a few shots of the actual moment!!

That biggest, middle picture is when I'm doing my little happy dance :)

After a little bit more hugging and kissing, we made some phone calls to family members, and then of course put it on Facebook and Instagram :) We stayed there a little longer, and then the rest of the 'stops' he had planned were to go visit each of our parents afterwards! His parents' house was on the way to mine, so we stopped there first to visit for a little bit and show off the ring, and then we made our way to my parents after that. Finally, we headed out, and our final stop was at Walmart to pick up some celebratory cupcakes :) We went back to his house to enjoy our dessert, and just couldn't stop talking about it and staring at the ring, and then talking about it all some more. And then of course I made us take some more pictures, just to make sure we had enough, and to make sure that we would never forget this night :)

Side note about the ring: We had gone months ago (maybe in September or October or something?) and looked at about four jewelry stores for rings. I tried on a ton, and liked a lot of them, but we never actually settled on just one specific one. Then he went back on his own to a different store, and picked this one out all on his own. And it's exactly what I wanted. I love the vintage style, with the square, "Princess" cut, and I love all the tiny little diamonds on the sides as well. It's perfect, and he did an excellent job picking just the right one!

It was an incredible night, and he did an amazing job planning everything out! He did so good not to tell me the secrets or give anything away, and I love that I was so surprised! It's still surprising to me actually, and sometimes it still feels a little unreal. I guess it'll take some time to sink and and get used to it, but for now I seem to be on Cloud 9! (As cliche as that sounds...) I just keep staring at the ring (especially while I type!), and remembering that I now have a fiance instead of just a boyfriend. So crazy, and so exciting!!

I know this engagement period will be crazy and fast and probably stressful, but I'm so looking forward to it. More importantly though, I'm looking forward to calling this man my Husband! God has blessed us both so much, by bringing us together. I feel so lucky to be with him, and to now have a sparkly ring on my left hand!! I can't wait to see what our future holds, and all the things that come with it. I love you so so so much baby!!