Sari Sari Princess

Yesterday we were in Dominica. We were doing a river/ waterfall hike through Sari Sari Falls.


Then Today we are in Barbados! Today in Barbados we don't have anything planed so I am hoping for some sun time!!

I bought some 30 & 15 spf. One bottle of each. I hope that will be enough for the week..



My ultra thought provoking question of the day is:

Best Name. What is the best name you have ever heard? Boy, Girl, Dog, or Cat? What have you got for me?


Also today is the release of Eclipse! I am kind of excited about seeing this movie. I read all of them, but Eclipse was my favorite. This will be something for me to look forward to when I come home!




Which leads me to another question.. Do you have a favorite book? One that you could read over and over again? Or maybe one that you just loved when you read it.. you recommend it to anyone when they ask you a good book?

ME? Francine River Redeeming Love... Also, a big fan of PS I love you. The book not the piss poor excuse for a movie!

Riddle Me This?

Today is a stop at St Thomas. On the agenda for the day is a little hike, kayak, and some snorkeling. I am very excited to be in St Thomas.


Some of the fabulous attractions are Magen's Beach and Paradise Point.

Google it.


Next up.. Question of the day... I feel like being interactive and maybe when I come home from vaca not only will i have hundreds five comments to read, but maybe i will have enough followers to become a stay at home blogger? YES? Hey a girl has aspirations..

So you have 2 topics to choose from:



a.Family or b.Friends

a. Family- if you were forced to name your bebe (if you aren't a kid person, go with a dog, cat, fish, or even hamster) after just one person in your family. Who would it be and why?

my answer: I would pick my papa. you all read about him here. His name was Archie Forest. Then after Kelly's dad Robert Kurtis. So, we would have Robert Forest Carlson.

b. Friends-if you had to pick a friend that has influenced you the most in your life at one point of another who would it be and why?

                                     

my answer: I have been very blessed with some great friends. I would have to say Sara Michelle Gellar Parker. She was one of the first people I met when I transferred to Harding and I honestly think with her sweet, gentle, loving, Christ like spirit she helped me to be a strong Christian woman. My disclaimer is I have several friends who I love and treasure dearly, but the one who has influenced me and who I have become the most would be sara pp.

So.. what do yall have for me? If you read this, comment.. Come on you know you want to (have i shamelessly plugged that i want comments enough?)

You can pick one or do both, just keep me entertained with your stories!

San Juan Senorita

I figure since I won't be here to entertain you with my witty posts. I can at least give you the play by play of where I am!

Today we are in San Juan Puerto Rico!

We Spent last night at the Hilton Caribe

Today the boys are golfing while us ladies enjoy some sights and take in a little shopping!

Tonight we will board the ship at around 8pm. The really cool thing about this cruise is that we sail at night, so every morning when I wake up we are in a new place..

Commit your way

Trust in the Lord and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security. Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him.

Psalm 37:3-5
Yesterday we went to the Natural's Game. I swear it was so hot.


The seats at the game are a dark green color. They also have metal on them which makes them even hotter. I had to hold my arms in my lap so that I wouldn't burn them. I even tried to sit in the sun, I figured I am about to go on vaca and I want to have as much of a tan as possible. Well I would sit in the seat for about 30 minutes and then the amount of sweat that I was producing just got to much for me to take, so I would go back up to the shade, cool off for a bit then go back down.

My mind is already in San Juan. It is all I can think about I just keep trying to image what it is going to be like and I get excited all over again! Not to mention I was supposed to have my iphone yesterday according to the Fed Ex tracking system, but yesterday after I got back from the game.. nothing on the door step.

Then today I call to find out what is going on and she tells me that it will be here by 3.. So I call me dear sweet daddy and have him go put a note on the door for the Wonderful FedEx man or woman. Well I rush home and check the door step. NOTHING. I got nothing. So I was a little deflated when I came back to work empty handed. So much for the preorder.

We leave tomorrow for LR to meet Kaylee she is coming back from Zambia and I am excited to see her. Then we fly out Saturday. We have a very long flight from Dallas to San Juan and land in San Juan at 7.. pretty excited! Kelly told me that since he is playing so much golf he wants me to get a massage to equal the golf, but then i looked at the massages... 185 bucks for 70 minutes.. hummm not worth it to me, so I presented him with this argument.. why not let me get a massage or 2 when we get back.. that way the vaca isn't over right away and I don't feel absolutely sick from spending 3 bucks a minute on a massage on the ship. This way I will have plenty of time to relax and get sun on the boat.
Please keep us in your prayers while we travel.

I will have some posts stocked up to keep you all entertained!

Where is the glass slipper when you need it?

Don't forget to vote for Dan.. If you are not watching this show you should. (design star on HGTV)

This week has been so busy already and it is only Tuesday. I was a little behind to start off with and now I just can't catch up. We leave Friday and I have so much to do before we leave. Kelly has school and he has to post 5 out of the 7 days.. well we will be on a boat in the middle of the ocean next week, so research and homework may be a little hard to do. His plan is to do all the assignments before boarding the boat, mainly because he doesn't want to spend time doing homework when he could be zip lining in st lucia. The other reason is it is crazy how expensive it is to be on-line. 10 bucks just to sign on and then around 30 bucks for 30 minutes... Kelly's post last night took about 30 minutes (longest one has been about 3 hours), just to give you an idea of how much that would cost us.. 40 bucks a day for 5 days.. $200 on internet that is absolutely ridiculous! Which is why I have put on my Cinderella rags and tried to take care of everything.

So between doing the laundry, dishes, packing for the trip for myself and Kelly, taking the jeep to get the tires rotated and balanced, taking the dog to be groomed (he can't look like a mutt to go visit friends), & making sure all bills are paid if they are due next week, I have been trying not to stress Kelly out anymore that he already is. Well last night I came home and started making dinner. He then asked me if I would mind mowing the yard. Of course I don't want to mow the yard, but what are you going to do? So I chop up the veggies put them in the saute pan and go start mowing.


Well after I did the back I came in and the chicken was almost ready and I hadn't started the veggies. So I am rushing around like a crazy person to get them finished before the chicken gets done.

All the sudden I hear a loud pop and feel a BURNING sensation in my eye.

Automatically I FLIP out.

Cinderella down!

I got grease in my eye

I throw myself down to the tile and lay there unable to think clearly

I am no longer going to be able to see

OH MY it burns

I won't be able to do anything on the cruise

It stings

What happens with a grease burn to the face

I have an HSA.. will plastic surgery be covered, do they cover stupidity?
Ok maybe I am exaggerating a little bit, but it did burn like crazy and scare the crap out of me.

I finally pull myself off of the floor and Kelly begins to splash cold water in to my I, slowly come to the reality that I won't have to wear an eye patch for the rest of my life and I am able to breathe again.
I eat dinner... and go outside to finish the front yard.. wounded..
 
I am so geeked out on the iphone it is not even funny.I got an email this morning telling me that my order is expected to arrive on Wednesday the 23rd before 3pm.

On-line they posted pictures of the phone & the box and it just got me excited all over again!! New York Times did an article about the 10 best apps.

Couple of aps that I really want--

AT&T dvr app
With this App, you can:
- View list of currently recorded shows
- View list of currently scheduled recordings
- Set your DVR to record a show or series
- View programming information
- Search for shows in the guide


The Small Chair McSweeney's app

With this app you can:
Each week you’ll receive exclusive multimedia — stories, films, readings, interviews, art — plus new humor pieces from our website everyday.Your app purchase gets you six months of weekly Small Chair content. We’ll use Push Notifications to let you know each time a new piece is ready.

Locavore

With this app you can:
For truly local eating, the Locavore app detects where you are in the U.S., tells you what foods you can find locally grown and in season and plots local farmers' markets and other pertinent info in Google Maps. The app also connects you to extra info on Wikipedia and recipes using your green food product of choice.

Photoshop mobile

With this app you can:

Edit and Share from Anywhere.With the new Photoshop.com Mobile App for iPhone.

any other apps I need to know about??

Take time to smell the flowers

We had a wonderful weekend with the in-laws. Their visits always go to quick. Friday night we went to Acambaro for dinner. Speaking of I was watching the TV that was on at the restaurant and Miley Cyrus was having a concert. WOW. She is much more scandalous than I remember and she kept doing the same headbang move over and over. It really annoyed me. I wonder where Billy Ray is and why he hasn't demanded girl put some clothes on when she is dancing around the stage like a hussie.

After dinner we went for a walk around Crystal Bridges and then rented Shutter Island. I made it about an hour in and had to head to bed. I was so tired from the late nights of talking. Saturday morning I got up and ran. My shins didn't hurt me, but It was sooo hot and humid I only went about 2 miles and got annoyed and my lack of motivation from the heat. After that Julie, Kelly, & I headed to the farmers market on the square. Kelly took some really good pictures, but again he has to download them so I can blog them.. this may be months from now! Here are some of the ones I took.

I also got 2 more random chairs for my table!!The owner of table mesa has a bunch of random eclectic chairs and I called him a few weeks ago and he told me to come by and he would let me pick out 2. So I took Kelly & Julie and they each picked out one.

Saturday night we went to Table Mesa for dinner and as usually it was so good! I got the Chicken Curry Burrito and Kelly got the Korean BBQ tacos and they were amazing! After dinner we went to watch the A-team and if I am truly honest I would say that I have a very large celebrity crush on Bradley cooper. Oh my goodness. I like the characters he normally plays not to mention he is not to bad on the eyes!

Sunday we got up and went to early service. After church we went to Crabby's for Fathers Day brunch. PS --get reservations! Thankfully so one no showed and we were actually able to eat, but most with out reservations were turned away to starve!

Then Last night I finally sat down to catch up on all my shows! I have started recording the next food network star and then Design Star.I did this mainly to have something to watch in the summer while kelly is focused on school.
So, last night Kelly says to me.. "We are watching another episode of Food Network Star."


"No," I say, "I want to watch Design Star."

"Cortney, I had to listen to practically moan over Bradley Cooper in the movie theatre... WE ARE WATCHING MY ITALIAN PRINCESS."

--this is Giada-- for those of you who were unfamiliar with her nicknames.

"Fair enough, I can't argue that one at all. Nor am I embarrassed of the truth of the statement."

Who is your celebrity crush?

I have a tie.. Ryan Reynolds and BC.


So if you get a chance go here and vote for Dan from Design Star he is from Springdale! JWOW even went to school with him!

We cruise in 5 days!!!

Don't worry though I have posts scheduled for while I am gone!!

i heart randomness

Last night as I was leaving work i go out to my jeep and it won't turn over. no lights no chugga chugga noise.. nada. I take the key out and try again. It starts.Done. So, i went to pick up a pizza for dinner at aunt j's house. She won't take money so jwow and i decided to pay her in food and fabric. We got the new artisan pizza from mazzios. pretty good. They tired to keep up with the fancy new domino's crust and did a pretty good job of it. After I picked up the pizza I ran by target to pick up a card for sassy A's bday. I wanted to get her a little somehting becuase i assume people love their birthday as much as i love mine, but I was rushed., didn't know what to get her, so i settled on a cute little serving plate and made peanut butter cupcakes for her.

Head to aunt j's. We were finishing our aprons and I was soo excited about it. She is such a wonderful teacher and so patient with us special kids.

Aunt J & Jenni from the block..

Jennifer got a little frustrated

almost done!!!

Jlow, Jamia, me, and Jennifer

Aren;t the aprons SO flippin cute?

So after our lesson I get in the jeep to drive home and all the sudden I am pulling out of the neighborhood and all the lights and gauges go out. They kind of flicker and then go out. Then they all come back on. Weird.

Guess what happens when I go to start it today? DEAD. nothing. SO dead in fact that the automatic door won't unlock. So it looks like we are a one car family until this weekend when we can get it replaced. Then I was thinking.. how blessed we are to have two cars. I can not imagine only having one car all the time. Going back and forth between lowell and bentonville besides kelly having bankers hours and me NOT having them the car pool situation would be a nightmare.

So needless to say we will be making a trip to walmart first thing in the morning! We are also going to the Famers Market and For me and MY house to show my MIL our china hutch we are in love with. Then my favorite resturant Table Mesa is getting new chairs and the owner Carl told me that he would let me get some of his old random ones! Speaking of the chairs. When julie saw the rooster chair and the crackle paint chair it was pretty much priceless. Julie is not an ecletic person by any means and the thought of randomness is not her design. She kept brushing her hand over the rooster and saying, "what are you going to do with this?"


"Nothing, I recovered it and i am done."

She still looks confused and says, "But can't you refinish the rooster off of this one?"

"Nope!"

I love it. I love the mix. I love the randomness.

It also doesn't bother me in the slightest that some people don't like it cause I LOVE IT!

It is also very out of the norm for what I would normally pick, but here latley I have gravitated to more Anthropology look than that typical bed bath and beyond look.

a little obsessed with peanut butter

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Matthew 6:25-27

so cute you could just eat him up!!

**A big thanks to Whitney & Abby for standing up and confessing they like PLL's and some ABC family!**
Yesterday I was thinking about a couple of things and I realized I have several bdays this weekend. Alissa's bday is today (or so I thought) my sassy friend Amanda is tomorrow, my daddy is Saturday, and Stephen at work is tomorrow... So I figured what better of a time than to try out one of Joy the Baker's recipes. I really really wanted to make the chocolate avocado cake, but i figured that was a little out there for some people. So I went with the organic chocolate peanut butter cupcakes.


When I got home from work Kelly's parents were just getting in to town. We gave them the tour of the house showing them everything that has been updated since they last came to visit. I had a huge dose of vindication when B&J both raved about the spare bedroom that abbs and I painted a while ago. Kelly kept saying it was baby food green, but I loved it, so it was a sweet surprise when they mentioned how great the room looked with the new paint!


We went to whole hog, bobby is borderline obsessed with it (not that I can blame him it is so stinking good!) and then went to walmart for groceries for them.

B&J are very health conscience. I like to think Kelly and I are but they are next level in comparison. They buy all organic, free range food. I like to buy that stuff when it is possible, but when Kelly saw that a 1/2 gallon of milk is 4 bucks and we get a whole gallon for 2.50 he quickly says no. Every once in a while when he is not with me I will sneak in some free range eggs, but that is about the extent of my rebellion.

By the time we got home it was 9ish and I hadn't even started baking yet.

The boys (Kel, Bobby, & Kurt) retired to the living room to watch some show about shooting people. Julie stayed in the kitchen to keep me company.


The recipe wasn't hard and I love Joy the Baker's blog she it quite sassy and takes great pictures of her creations. While the recipe didn't take long to make they took about 25 minutes to bake a batch. Well I made 3 batches. I then had to wait for them to cool. I made the home-made peanut butter frosting JTB suggested too. Then I sprinked the reese's cups on top of that. They look supper yummy. Julie stayed with me the whole time and kept me company while I baked. I even taught her the cupcake trick.

(If you don't have enough batter to fill the entire tray fill the remaining cups with water. This allows the cupcakes to get an even cook) When I realized it was midnight I kind of wanted to cry. I am a very strict 8 hours of sleep a night girl. I finally left the last batch unfinished. There was no way I was going to be able to roll out of bed at 5:30 and be mary flippin sunshine.

So I am taking Alissa hers today (ps her bday is monday.. whoops) then everyone else their's tomorrow. I am a sleepy kid and borderline ogarish today. So much so that I have pondered taking a nap in my car. I have since nixed this idea realizing that the temp is supposed to hit a wopping 93 degree's today. Windows down or not that is hot and I may smell like battery acid when I came back from lunch, so no go on the nap.

Sewing is tonight and Jennibobenni and I may be in a timeout. we didn't do our homework! Hopefully we will finish our aprons though and I will have pictures for you on Friday!

Last and most importantly.. for all of my hundreds 20 of readers out there. Go to  Kupcakes on the square.
Kelly and I were in there over the weekend and they had these precious pictures of all these kids eating Kupcakes.. I did a double take when I saw this VERY happy blonde boy. It was Sassy A's son harry. I looked a little closer and saw a sweet little girl with a monogrammed bow and knew Georgia Kelly was one of the other ones. There are several pictures and you can vote on who the model child will be, so I am telling you all to click on the link and go vote, or call, or better yet go in an get a cupcake and vote.


Rumor is Sassy A will win free cupcakes for a year! So please go vote!

The iphone fiasco

phone fiasco

So by now you know that I am getting an Iphone. At first I was leery and drug my feet for a while, but I have now been looking forward to it since they announced that no one at AT&T can take vacation in the month of June. I read the conference notes the day the phone premiered and promptly set a calendar reminder for 7am on Tuesday the 15th. When I got in to work yesterday I immediately opened the apple website and was faced with a never moving hour glass. So I opened up the AT&T site and tried to go through there. I made it all the way to the check out and the site timed out. I call AT&T and wait for about 10 minutes on for the customer service girl to tell me she is sorry and to try refreshing. Profound I know. So I refresh and get all the way through the process this time!! By 7:35 I have the confirmation in my email and the hour glass is still turning on the apple site.

iphone failure

Everyone else in my group at work had been kicked out, timed out, or not even able to be let in. So I think that this is some fluke thing and go one about my day until 4pm ish when I see a news story about the insane pre-order issues.

Here are some highlights in case you don't want to read all of the articles.

People stood in line for hours due to the heavy flow of site traffic.

The increased volume actually crashed the site, causing the stores to go to handwritten tickets, imprinting credit cards witht he inked paper, and in some cases close the entire store.

Some people were charged the entire on-line amount of 700 bucks.

Now...
You can't even pre-order until it is fixed!!

I guess I was one of the lucky ones yesterday. I was one of the few that were actually able to get through. I am kind of excited now. Normally I am always the one on the other end of the story, the one person that was in line for 3 hours only to get to the counter for them to say, nope sorry all systems are down. I am supposed to get it shipped to my house on the 24th. We leave for the cruise on the 25th. I may have a break down if I don't get it before then. I am so excited to start playing with it!

Today my in-laws are in fabulous Razorback country and I am making a list for all the things they need to see and do.
They lived here for about 3 years back in 97ish so a lot has changed. Normally they are in for a holiday or something specific and our schedule is pretty jam-packed. This time though there is a little gold on the agenda, but that is about it.
Here is what I sent MIL.. yall have any other sugggestions?
1. Table Mesa... my other true love

2. The Farmers Market

3. Hammontrees-- the gourmet grill cheese place in fayetteville
4. The Green Bean--another organic place
5. The Botanical Gardens in fayetteville

 6. Crystal Bridges in bentonville

and the running trail

any other fun things we can do?

Also, last night I went to our MAW meeting, and when I came home kelly was cleaning out the garage and the cars. Well since I had done all my stuff I went in and started watching tv. Well I saw the previews of Pretty Little Liars the other day and kind of sort of found myself sitting in complete awe wondering what was going to happen next. Sort of desperate housewives only not as out there yet. Some else equated it to a I know what you did last summer type show. Well it was on and I was hooked. I flipped through the guide, saw it, and hit OK. 10 minutes later I realized I was still standing half in my kitchen half in my living room engrossed in this show.

Kelly came in and grabbed the remote for the basketball game. I, not wanting to admit to my new obsession, got up walked to the laptop, plugged in the headphones and began searching for web episodes like junkie that needed a fix.

Kelly- "what are you doing babe?"

Me- Being the closet 17 year old, "umm looking at facebook" You know it is bad when you lie about being on facebook to cover up your guilty pleasure.

Kelly- "Humm, what is going on in Facebook?"

Me- "Oh nothing"

Kelly- As he gets up and walks by the computer, "You are a dirty liar! Are you watching ABC family??? What are you 13?"

Me- "shut up it is really good" I then angle the computer so he can't see the screen.
Hello my name is cortney and I am addicted to a tween show and can't admit it to my husband..

Not to mention I love Lucy Hale..