Blessed

I know that some people have horrible in-laws… Horrible… I hear the stories all the time.. 2 of my sweet friends (who will not be named –to protect their identity) have awful in-laws, well maybe not as a whole they at least have issues with the MIL..oh the dreaded MIL.. but the thing is.. God has blessed me sooo much with the best in-laws!! I know that it sounds like I am trying to suck up.. but I am not.. they really are great!
It could have something to do with the fact that I have known them for 10 years, but they really do treat me jusy like I am one of their own flesh and blood child!
Which leads me to, my MIL is visiting for the next couple of days and I am soo excited about it! We went to lunch today & talked about THANKSGIVING!!! I am hosting this year! I am very excited about it.! MIL is so sweet she even asked me all the details, like what time, what do I want to make, how I want to do everything! I just thought that was really sweet.. I mean she is the mom., so she could have came in and just done what she wanted to do, which would have been fine! She didn’t though she asked me what I wanted to do… which of course, I didn’t care I was just happy to be asked!!

There are some things I am wondering about…
China- I have wedding china- still in the box complete with the peanuts for the warehouse of dillards- but I want to use my china, well it is white and blue, BUT my dinning room and all the décor is red and orange fall type colors.. am I crazy for letting this bother me? I mean if I use my red cookware for things… it will look weird with the blue.. so then I wonder should I just go with white serving stuff to be safe?
Chairs- we only have 6 chairs at the table.. but 8 fabulous people eating dinner.. where could I find some fabulous chars for a fabulous price?

I scream, you scream, we all scream for COLDSTONE!

IF you live in Rogers or Bentonville, come see kelly and I.. from 7-8 we will be there with a smile and a scooper ready to serve you!!

Cold Stone Creamery® will host the “World’s Largest Ice Cream Social,” a fundraising event to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of America and its chapters across the country.

On Sept. 24, 2009, Cold Stone Creamery stores in NWA and throughout the United States, Guam and Puerto Rico, invite ice cream lovers to experience the joy of ice cream at a nostalgic event that promises wholesome family entertainment, fun activities and lots of ice cream.

This year’s celebration includes a 3–ounce Creation developed by 5-year-old wish child and 2009 Junior Tastemaster™ Jack. He combined sweet cream ice cream with brownie, sprinkles and caramel to create his special treat.

From 5-8 p.m., customers will receive a 3-ounce serving of Jack’s Creation in exchange for a donation to this worthy cause. Donations that night and all month long will benefit the local chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization that grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy.

b aggressive..b b aggressive...

"The only failure which lacks dignity is the failure to try."
~ Malcolm F. MacNeil
Running. So I talked to Leonard and Shores about running this past wknd.. they both said they could do 10, but I had my doubts. Not about their running ability, but about staying up super late and eating wonderful food the night before. So I decided to go for my run on Friday morning prior to starting the festivities! So 10 miles and 1:36:50 later I was done and very thankful not to have that to worry about all weekend. That is pretty quick for me so I was happy! Anyway, at about 7 I get this sassy little text from my love: Little motivation for you girls…when you are deciding whether or not to run early tomorrow morning..i just knocked out 10 miles in 1:45:39. You girls better get to bed early…
Of COURSE… the caused me to stop what I was doing at that very minute and call my love up and ever so sweetly RUB IT IN HIS FACE that I beat him by almost 9 full minutes.. heck that is enough time for me to have ran a whole nother mile!! If you have not noticed by now, Kelly and I are a little competitive with each other! I love it though.. I love having someone to push me and motivate me when I am feeling less than stellar!
Then, just to top it off with a cherry. I got up Sunday and Leonard and I ran 3.1 miles of some HUGE HILLS!



Robert Carlson
bib number: 274
age: 27
gender: M
location: Bentonville, AR
overall place: 177 out of 261
division place: 39
gender place: 121
time: 2:18:06
pace: 10:33
Cortney Carlson
bib number: 273
age: 27
gender: F
location: Bentonville, AR
overall place: 161 out of 261
division place: 17
gender place: 49
time: 2:13:38
pace: 10:13

uggs

check out the logo on the left.. yall could win some uggs... and with as cool as it is outside, it will make you wish you had some!!

For shores...

So shores is gonna be a famous resturant owner.. and girl can cook too... well i ment to give her the recipe for the Pepparkakor or gingersnaps as normal people call them, but i guess i took it with me!
so..check it:
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2/3 cup light molasses
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamon
½ tsp ground cloves
12 TBSP butter cut up
2 eggs
5 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
• combine brown sugar and molasses and spices in a 1 ½ qt saucepan. Heat to boiling over med-high heat, stirring constantly. Boil 1 min, then remove from heat.
• Place butter in large mixing bowl, add hot sugar mixture and stir until butter melts. Blend in eggs.
• Stir 2 cups flour & baking soda together. Gradually mix into the butter mixture. Mix in enough additional flour to make the dough stiff. Shape into dough ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or over night.
• Cut dough into quarters. Shape into balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 min at 350, or until light brown.


*the cookies are in the shape of the big cedar tree from their logo...

in the words of Kenny Chesney..We went out last NIGHT

We went out last night
like we knew we shouldn't do.
There were girls from Argentina and ArkansasMaine, Alabama and Panama
All mixed together and having a ball
Yeah, we went went out last night
One thing started leading to another
Out last night
Getting to know everybody and their mother
There were two karaoke girls drunk on a dare
Singing “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher
Yeah, life was good everywhere
We went out last night...

Just a few pictures from kathryn ann's weekend...




I am not gonna lie... my abs have not been this sore in a long long time!
I knew that is was going to be a really good weekend when my friend stephen made me a 90's playlist..with songs like gettin jiggy with it.. and much much more!!
Then just 20 minutes in to the trip we saw the scariest looking methhead, dude was 100 lbs soaking wet, sporting some cutoff lee jeans and tennis shoes and thats about it. He was riding down a major high way on a bike.. weaving in and out of traffic with a look of complete and total content head up to the heavens.. I am not lying when the whole car (all 5 of us) just gasped at the sight.... then in unison we all said, "he has got to be on meth"
We got to big cedar by 6ish.. waited on shores, the last of our party to arrive.
Our girls weekend was comprised of:
kathryn ann-bff since preschool
stephanie rozell- maid of honor & kathryn's frined from college
leah hufford- hilarious.. just hilarious
andrea shores- i will refer to her as a GASTRONOMIST.. look it up
andrea leonard- a complete mess.. and one of my FAVORITE people!!
We went to dinner at the Buzzard Bar,listened to some live music, and headed back to our cabin at the early hour or 11 or so.. then me leonard, shores, and leah were up until about 2 laughing!!
Saturday we went to mazzio's.. so flippin good! Then a little outlet shopping, and finishing up our day with some steaks and razorback football!!
We did give Kathryn her gift and she loved it!!
We got togther with all of her friends and family and we put together a photo cooking album! Each person that submitted a recipe, submitted a photo! It turned out so good, now i just wish i had one for myself!
We got up sunday and it was so cool outside.. i decided to go for a run, leonard is training for her 1st half so she headed out with me, and let me tell you despite the HUGE hills.. we had fun.. leonard cussed me litterally the whole time cause i kept making us go up the BIG hills!

I plan to much..

random, but on the way home from work today i decide to call and schedule callaway's boarding..oh FOR CHRISTMAS! But, the thing is this place is AMAZING!!! i Mean they have video monitoring, and he gets a report card!! Last time he went he got 5 out of 5 tail wags! I just didn't want them to fill up and him be stuck at some kennel that won't let tem out of their cage all day! WHICH, if anyone goes, thell them that i referred you and I can get a free night for callaway!! LOL so i had to call my friend sarah and tell her, because sarah is amazed by my planning and way of doing things.. when i ask her what she is doing this weekend on friday morning she laughs at me like i have asked her what her plans are for next year!
I get excited very easily.. and i love love love to have things to look forward to. Well This weekend We have to run 14 miles.. not really looking forward to that, but we do have tickets to the LPGA, and i am looking forward to that! But, next week is when it really gets exciting!

Tuesday I have Make-a-Wish council, we are doing the ColdStone Creamery thing again this year.. A child got to create their own flavor for the store and we are giving the samples away on Thurs the 24th. SO everyone come and try it & make a donation!

Wednesday I am delivering food for one of the girls at our church who just had twins..


THURSDAY is where I am very excited.. Race for the cure 2010 kick off meeting!! It is really like a sponsorship party for everyonn that wants to dontate $$ or time to the race. My friend Casey is going to that and she is on Pink Trash Bash with me (which is nov. 6th if you want tickets)... and afterwards we are getting together to work on PTB & what we are wearing to the crazy event!

FRIIIIDDDAAAAYY is kethryn ann's bachlorette party at Big Cedar Lodge. There are 6 of us going and it is a great group of 6 fun loving, sarcastic, & down right trouble making girls! So we will be there all weekend and I can not Wait for that! I just hope i can convince them all to let me have a little outlet mall shoppin time!

dog days of summer

So my long weekend was great! Friday Kelly and i went on a bike ride up to the bentonville square for "first friday's" it is this fun little thing they do in bentonville every first friday of the month and kelly and i always try to go when we are in town. So we rode our bikes up there walked around and were in bed by about 10 so we coudld get up and run on saturday. we were supposed to run 14 miles, but at 6am when the alarm went off and it was raining.. the oger was in bed instead of sweet kelly, so needless to say we stayed in bed! He did however make up for it by making a yummy egg breakfast for us. He then turns to me and says would you like to go to garage sales? This throws me way off balance because if there is anything that kelly hates more that "old stuff" it would be OTHER PEOPLES OLD STUFF! I am intrigued by this and ask why in the world does he want to go? Then he launched in to this Precious story of how he wanted to sell our big screen tv for me to have my china hutch (the readers digest on this is.. i have 10 place settings and they are all still in the silver dillards box-complete with the packing peanuts in a closet, so last wknd i saw one at a thrift type store that i loved and told kelly about it) so he went to look at it and is was such a good price he was going to just sell it and then surprise me with the hutch.. but sadley as kelly went to look at it he said it wasn't in very good shape. so no go on the hutch but an A+ for the effort.
After garge sales, kurt brought bella his rotweiller over for us to dog sit. so i took some pitures of the two of them playing together.. so cute.


As nice as it was to have a friend for callaway to play with he was SOO obsessed with what she was doing he didn't sleep at all on Saturday night. He just sat by the cage where bella was sleeping a kind of watched her..and whined. I wanted to punch my dog in teh FACE! This stuff doesn't affect kelly so i got up and slept on the couch and left him with the whining dog!
So sunday am we decided to try it again.. alarm off at 550 and we were out the door by 6. So we decieded the best way to complete the run would be to run about 7 miles out and then turn around and head back. So we had to finish! well we leave our house and run all the way to the bark park to get to 7 miles.. i had no clue how small bentonville was! well kelly was running ahead of me and i see this ghetto caddy pull up next to me on the road.. i mean spinners on the wheels, cd from the rear view and loud rap at 7 am...awesome i am sure so many more people think that you are cooler having heard Tupac at 7am.. anyway i was in my own little world thinking that what if thuggish roguish grabbed me and peaced out. Would kelly hear me? What could he do? Would I be like the tent girl? Right about the time that i am really freaking myself out i hear this load panting and as i turn to make sure i am not about to be abducted i see this man and a dog, and before i know it i scream so loud that i think i literally scared the pee out of this dog! The man kept apologizing and all i could do was laugh and apologize right back. I really do fee bad for this poor dog.. i mean here he is minding his own business just trying to get a sniff of everything and i go and deafen him! well the rest of the run was uneventful, except the end when kelly and I both got home and layed out on the kitchen floor for a good 30 min. we then realized we had to be at church in 20 min..
Then sunday afternoon we went over to dave and katrhyn's house and grilled out, watched football, and played with the pups! Jacques is flipping cute.. he tried to eat my face! him and callaway played together for a while until he passed out on the kitchen floor from exhaustion!

football fanatic

prior to being married i didn't care about sports.. at all...
Now it is crazy how excited i am for football season!!!
I am not embarrassed to admit that the radio station has now been changed to ESPN and I have begun to read espn in the morning!
I really hate when people think i am dumb. I do not think that I am dumb, maybe I am and that is part of the problem. But I hate that people act surprised when i know things. Like football, we were out the other night and Pete Carroll was on the tv and my friend carrie asked where he was the coach for and i said usc out loud and I got this look from the males sitting next to me like WOAH.. how did you know that? I just kind of wonder do i command that look of surprise when i actually know things.

Sunday funday

I woke up at 430 this am to go to a "prayerathon" if you will. Our young pro's class at church organized it and they needed people to come in and do about 15 min time slots from 7am until 7pm.. kelly and i had a 13.1 mile run on sunday so we decided to do the 5am slot and then go run afterwards. But, some of the elders at our church made breakfast for us-bacon, eggs, biscuits, and gravy.. yumm so as kelly and i are leaving church he looks at me and is like not so much, maybe we could do 9.. and i said NOT SO MUCH.. so we ran our long run around bentonville and got home with about an hour to spare before Kelsey's shower.
Kate one of the girls from church called me about 2 weeks ago and said, he we should throw her a shower..and since kelsey just married my sweet friend from college, jimmy i would LOVE to help! since, i have not had people over since we moved in really i offered up our house! Kelly wasn't super excited, but i was cause it sure did light a fire under him to finish some honey do's!! And we i suggested that he and kurt take the dogs to the park he was more than willing to get out of the house!
So the pictures from above are from today! They flower arrangement... I made, sort of. they were at kathryn ann's and they were just going to throw them away so I took it, took all the flowers out and re did it for kelsey's colors. The cake came from Sam's I added the daisy. I didn't like any of the cheesey decorated ones they did so i had them go plain, and man sam's makes a pretty good cake!
Then at about 4 once the shower ended and i cleaned up.. i had to pack for st louis. i leave tomorrow for work.. i don't think i have ever been there unless i was like 5 and don't remember it! We get to got to a Cardinal's game and i am very excited!