It is May 8th, which means that in 6 days my main man graduates college! What better time than now to devote a post to my very best friend and partner for life?! That's right, this post is all about you babe! So I will be the first to say that I am the worst when it comes to receiving compliments. My typical responses to any kind of compliment are "stop", "be quiet", or "whatever". Words of affirmation are just not my thing, probably due to insecurities that I deal with on the daily, but we will save that discussion for a different day because this post is not about me. Let's get back to talking about the hubs. Now HIS love language is definitely words of affirmation and I am the worst at giving it to him as much as he deserves, so here goes nothing for the sweet love of my life. Just to get started, everyone should know that just this past week E and I entered into a very important agreement. Probably one of the most important (and my personal favorite) to date. Totally kidding, but ladies you just wait till you hear what my man so graciously agreed to do and I will let you be the judge. So I approached him with this question, "Hey, so what do you hate most. doing the dishes or doing the laundry?" To which he replied, "probably doing the dishes, I don't really mind the laundry." Then I did a happy dance and we agreed that from now on I never have to fold or put away another load of laundry and he never has to do another dish. I mean you guys..... this man really loves me I think. Now I obviously don't intend to literally make him do all the laundry forever because I mean babies will come, he will get busy, and this silly agreement will go out the window I'm sure someday, but so far he has held up to his side of the agreement and it makes this wifey heart happy. He is seriously the greatest husband I ever could have dreamed of + far exceeds any expectation I ever could have had. He truly longs to serve me in any way he possibly can and it does not go unnoticed in the slightest. I mean he wholeheartedly agreed to do + fold + put away the laundry for the rest of our days, what in the world?! I know, I am still in shock. That whole story just goes to show the heart of my sweet husband. Ethan Hardy, you are one of a kind. I don't tell you enough how much I appreciate everything you do to provide for our family. Being a full-time student, full-time employee, AND full-time husband/puppy dad isn't easy, but you do it so gracefully. I have watched how in the past (almost) nine months of marriage you have balanced your time in each of those areas in the best way possible to provide financially, physically, mentally, and spiritually for our marriage. Without a doubt, you have rocked it. As your undergrad career comes to an end, you will begin to balance different areas and obstacles and your schedule will look a lot different, but a few things will remain the same:
I am so proud of you babe! It has been an incredible blessing getting to watch you live out your dream since I met you six whole years ago. It is absolutely crazy to me that you are only 2 1/2 years away when it feels like you just added me on Facebook yesterday. We have come such a long way! Good luck on your finals + enjoy your last week of undergrad! I am so in love with you Ethan!
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I am far from professional, but I think I am getting better at this little photography thing. E bought me a DSLR camera for graduation to help make the quality of my blog pictures better and I have occasionally taken it out for a little shoot. My sister has the natural poses down, is just downright gorg, and she doesn't judge my work so while she was in town this past weekend we decided it would be a good opportunity to help me get some practice in! Here are a few of my favorite shots I got! Name: Samantha (Sammy) Cruzado Age: 18 Hobbies: Adventure + Stargazing + Music Jamming We were pulling out of my neighborhood and in front of us is a huge empty field. We parked the car, jumped out, and got these magical shots! Definitely some of my faves! She was facing right into the sun for the shots in front of the cacti, which makes the editing process a little more difficult. I think shooting at a different time of day here would have made the images not as bright to begin with and much easier to naturally edit, but they are still so Indy + beautiful to me. There is truly nothing this girl doesn't look good in. This is more of her natural element! She loves all things black + leather. We were just driving around downtown Abilene and found this wall and I think it ended up contrasting her second outfit choice perfectly. Stay true to yourself + keep setting trends sister, you are stunningly beautiful. OXE
It's monday, which means tomorrow we move into our new house!! I thought today would be the perfect time to do a tour of our first home. Many of our family members didn't get to see this place, and it will be nice to look back on this post when we need to explain to our children that we really did live in a box when we got married, hah! So here it goes, welcome to The Box Tour! I've shown a picture of the outside before on here, but here is a refresher and for those seeing it for the first time, it's a box see! Come on in! (I felt like I was on an episode of MTV cribs while typing that lol) This is the view from the front door! You can see just about everything! When we moved in we knew we wanted to create more of a barrier between the living room and bedroom so when people came in they wouldn't be looking straight into the bedroom. I think by doing this it also made the place look a little bigger because you don't necessarily see the whole house when you walk in. So I basically bought this cool American Flag tapestry on Amazon to create the barrier and it worked great! This will be going in Ethan's office at the new house and I think it's going to look great, it creates such a fun chill vibe! The kitchen! Nothing too special going on here. I am absolutely going to miss that little wood top island! I remember that being one of my favorite things about this little place when I first saw it. I however will not miss having to use a dish drying rack, our very small fridge/freezer, and our little food pantry closet that we bought to hide all our food haha. This little area is one of my favorites. Having a really small bathroom meant that E and I definitely could not both get ready in the mornings at the same time, so I thought this little desk/vanity area would be perfect for me to put my makeup on and do my hair while E hogs the bathroom. We inherited the chair from Ethan's nanny and I absolutely love it so much. I am excited to put it in my new office and color coordinate it better in that room. Not the most flattering closet pic, but we did the best we could with the space haha. Ethan hangs most of his clothes up and I fold most of mine so I claimed the drawers in our bedroom area and E got the plastic bins in the closet. Not flattering, but it worked for the time being. Our new house has A TON of closets and storage space so we are so excited about that! I'm noticing now how awful the lighting was when I took these pictures, my apologies. The top picture shows the other side of the book shelf that separates this space from the living room. My vision for this shelf was completely different than what you are seeing in that picture (sigh). I imagined it being filled with cute picture frames and decor, but because of lack of space and the fact that we (I) have a lot of shoes, it became our shoe rack and catch all area. It has great potential to be cute though, maybe the next owner can make it happen. Phew, I will not miss having an A/C unit (hallelujah for central heating/air), however I will kind of miss being able to have a complete conversation with Ethan while I laid in bed and he was on the couch playing his game. Those are the little moments/memories that I am going to remember the most and cherish for years! That basically wraps it all up! This little box has served us well the past year. It will always be our first home that E got to join me in when we got married. We had our fair share of issues with this place, but the memories and good times outweigh the messy times. E keeps saying he really isn't going to miss this place because where we are headed is so much better and a complete upgrade, but we will always remember the 529 sq. ft. that got us where we are going and prepared us so well for what is to come! This place currently looks like a tornado has gone through it with boxes and stuff e v e r y w h e r e but thank you Jesus for moms and grandparents! They will be in town today to help me clean/pack up this place and move into our new place tomorrow. The box life was good, but we are ready for you house life! All 1,365 square feet of you! Thanks for the mems 1519, you were good to The Easterlings!
It's Thursday, which means tomorrow is Friday and then its the weekend! whoop whoop! Life has been crazy + exciting over here so I thought now would be a great time to update y'all on what we have been up to, including some fun little tidbits and some exciting BIG news! Liv Update Well post-grad life has been so much fun with a side of blah. Do I love not having homework?! Absolutely! But omg I feel so old. I know I still look like a highschooler and still get carded by the mall security for not having a parent with me after 6pm, but something about graduating college made me officially feel like a grown up. Not even getting married gave me this feeling....... I don't know, it's a weird feeling to explain. Nonetheless I am looking into taking my certification tests next month (que heartbeat increasing). I'm not sure why I am so nervous about this and have put it off until now. Truth be told, I really suck at history and science so the Core Subjects Test is what is making me so nervous. It's that feeling of "If I fail, should I even really be a teacher?!" My whole life I have dreamed of being a teacher and every time I step foot in a classroom I know I am pursuing exactly what God is calling me to pursue, but a stupid test could potentially keep me from doing what I love, that's scary. In the meantime I have been subbing and loving it! So far it has been so much fun and has really reassured me of my love for teaching! Once I complete my certification test I will be ready to start the job hunt for next school year. So much adulting going on in my little life, but man it truly couldn't be better. So the fun: being in the classroom while subbing, the blah: preparing to take my certification tests. Could truly use all the prayers I can get! Now the small + fun deets: What are you watching? I have watched so much lately! Some 10/10 movies I have seen recently: Patriot's Day, La La Land, Hacksaw Ridge (all of these are SO good and I recommend 100%). I am watching The Bachelor this season! Gag, I know. I am loving/hating it this time around. I love a good handful of the girls, but to be honest the ones I like seem too good for Nick hah! We shall see what happens! Together E and I watch This is Us and Stranger Things (y'all, get on these shows! I can't even begin to describe how good these two shows are. Complete opposites, but both are too good to pass up.) What are you reading? hah! I am laughing because I have started like 4-5 books and just haven't finished them. I am a sucker for buying new books (something about it makes me feel so good), but then the book sits in my purse or shelf without getting read for a while. Eventually I'll finish them and then I'll have a nice little book review to give. What are you dreading? Well, our lease is up pretty soon which means we will be packing up our little box (our house is shaped like a box). Super excited, yet dreading the whole moving process. Also, the sink is full of dishes that I don't want to wash lol What are you loving? I am loving the idea of soon being in a place where Braxton will have a lot of space to run and be active! What are you looking forward to? Getting certified and moving out of the box! Yay! E Update E just started his last semester of his undergrad and ordered his class ring yesterday! Yay! I am so proud of him. His current schedule allows him to attend classes in the morning and work in the afternoons until around 6pm so we are really enjoying getting to have dinner together at nights and he is loving not having to wake up at 5am for work like in previous semesters. He works so hard for our little family, we are blessed. Last semester he started applying for PT School and ultimately made the decision to attend HSU! We are already familiar with the area and well established, so what is another 3 years in Abilene? He is so excited about being a part of their PT Program and I know they will absolutely love him! We both know the road ahead is challenging and the stress is about to be so real for him, but we will cherish the moments and the memories that come! Also, Abilene is getting a Canes AND Chipotle so I think we are set! (Although a Jack in the Box wouldn't be bad, 2/$1 tacos c'mon) Easterling Family Update So for the past year we have been living in a box........ no, really. Our house is shaped like a box..... I wasn't kidding yall! Now the outside looks super sketchy, but the inside is much nicer + cozy. I like to describe this as a studio home. There are no doors inside besides the bathroom door. There is a bookshelf that separates the bedroom from the living room and you can see every single inch of the house no matter where you stand. A whopping 529 sq ft. and it has done its job for us. Because we are for sure going to be here another 3 years we decided it was time to upgrade a little. When looking for a new place we had 3 things the next house needed:
Stay posted for more updates on this soon. That's about all I've got for life lately around here! There will be much more to come as we transition into our new home + soon hit the 6 month mark of our marriage! Have a great Thursday! Marrying Ethan meant that I was marrying a cinnamon roll lover. The man had cinnamon rolls instead of a cake at our wedding, he loves a good cinnamon roll! So that only meant one thing.... I had to perfect his mommas cinnamon roll recipe. I watched her one time, did some experimenting and on my second try he says I did it! This recipe is so easy and trust me when I say "you need these in your life". Here is a fast and easy recipe for some mini cinnamon rolls, gold star approved by a devoted cinnamon roll eater! Ingredients:
Three simple ingredients y'all! The steps are super easy and each dough sheet can makes 8 mini cinnamon rolls, so depending on how big your pan is, you may use more than one (my pan can fit 16 so I use 2 cans). First, you're going to roll out your dough sheet and sprinkle on your cinnamon and sugar. This is kind of up to you on how much. I just sprinkle and make sure the majority of the dough is covered with a layer of each. Next, you will roll it back up and cut your cinnamon rolls about 1-2 inches in width. The ends are always funny looking so I typically roll them back out and sprinkle more cinnamon and sugar then roll them back up before placing them in the pan. Last, you'll place them in the pan and repeat steps 1 and 2 if you are making more than just 8 cinnamon rolls. Once you have filled your pan, you melt some butter, sprinkle it on top and they are ready to go in the oven! Preheat oven to 425 degrees Cook for 12-14 minutes (until light brown on top) While those are cooking, it's time to make your icing! Ingredients:
The powdered sugar is the main ingredient to your icing and can be added as you see fit at the end, so to begin usually 1-1 1/2 cups is great. Then add in your milk (1/8 cup) and just a couple drops of vanilla extract. The first time I made this I added WAY too much vanilla extract that my icing was brown, so start very little with this ingredient. Mix. Taste. (Add more powdered sugar if needed) By the time you are finished your cinnamon rolls are looking a little like this and the timer is about to go off! When they are the perfect shade of brown for you, take them out, microwave your icing for 15 seconds and drizzle it on top! There you have it! Super easy and tasty "homemade" cinnamon rolls (Disclaimer: a lot more icing was added after these photos were taken hah.) I have only tried making them mini, but I am interested to see if I laid 2 dough sheets side by side and rolled how big the cinnamon rolls would be? That will be my next experiment! Now we have had our fair share of cinnamon rolls from the can and I can't say they are bad, but there is just something about the preparation that makes these so much more tasty and special. I feel so accomplished when I make these + the compliments from the hubs are a nice touch haha What is your favorite quick + easy + yummy recipe?
This girl is always looking for new things to cook that require as little ingredients and preparation as possible! Several weeks ago E and I got pictures taken to use for Christmas cards this year and it's a slight understatement to say that I am obsessed with the way these pictures turned out. Ashley McDonald is your girl if you need pictures done in Abilene! She is sweet, makes the session so much fun and keeps things natural and not awkward. E still talks about how much fun he had that day, and that's coming from a guy haha. I updated the blog with our new photos, but I also wanted to dedicate a post to share some more and provide a closer look! This morning I designed a few Christmas cards and after a while finally picked a winner! The picture above was from the beginning going to be our Christmas card picture because I LOVED the wood background and the way the colors just p o p. So I designed a card and thought it was perfect. Then I looked through some more designs and decided to try another with multiple pictures and fell in love even more with our photos. I decided to design one more just to see if I could do even better, but I kept going back to #2. I asked E for reassurance and bam..... #2 it was. So this sweet photo above won't be making a Christmas card appearance, but it's still one of my favorites and will be printed to display in our home! Y'all, these are just a handful of my favorites! Now you kind of understand my dilemma in having to only pick 4 out of almost 100 amazing photos, and believe it or not only 1 of the above photos made the cut. Yikes! It was tough and I still can't believe I did it. Phew!
2016 Christmas Cards: check Also while we got these pictures done I got a few taken with my graduation cap to put inside some grad announcements! I am planning on doing a post soon that will include several of those photos for you all to see as well. It is still so crazy to me how fast time has flown. Graduating high school still feels like yesterday, but here I am married and 3 days away from graduating college. Hold on to all the precious moments life has to offer, take lots of pictures, and don't blink because time will pass you by just like that! If you want to see some more photos that are not included in this post, you can take a look at the other tabs in my blog (About, Contact) to see a few more that I am using as headers. If you and your family do Christmas cards I would LOVE to exchange cards with you! I am looking into a creative way to display all the new Christmas cards we receive each year and am so excited to get our collection started. We have only sent one other Christmas card throughout our 6 year relationship back in 2012, but I am most definitely making it a priority each year now that we are married! If you are interested in exchanging cards you can find my email under contacts and we can exchange addresses or you can always just shoot me a text or comment! It's December 5th and the only Christmas decor lighting up the Easterling home is a 10-count of multi-colored light bulbs I got for 50% off, and well folks, that is as festive as we are planning to get this year. A few weeks ago I was pinning all kinds of cute Christmas decor: mantles, Christmas trees, door wreaths, etc. I was 100% going to turn our little home into a winter wonderland like any newly wedded wife dreams. Then reality started to settle in.......
That whole introduction story to say this: Who/what is your true reason for the season? When the devil was making me feel like I failed at being a wife because I wasn't making our home "festive enough", or I was going to fail at being a daughter/sibling because I wasn't going to be able to afford to buy everyone a gift, he was tricking me into believing that the reason for Christmas was all about having a Pinterest worthy Christmas mantle, a decked out Christmas tree, and a present for each family member perfectly wrapped and topped with a bow. I was allowing him to make me lose sight of who Christmas was all about and the true reason for the season: Jesus. It wasn't until this past Sunday during church that I actually made this realization. I grew up knowing that Christmas is the day we celebrate God becoming flesh and Jesus being born into the world. I never stopped believing this for a single minute during the whole decor/gift situation, but I was slowly letting things of the world become more important than the fact that Jesus entered a sin-filled world so that I could be made clean and have the opportunity to enter into eternity in Heaven. Luke 2:10-11 says, 'But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord." Unless we are really careful and purposeful, we can completely miss the "good news of great joy"that is Jesus. (Pastor David Mcqueen, Beltway Park) Your house may be a winter wonderland, your tree may be decked in ornaments and garland from top to bottom, and lots of perfectly wrapped gifts may be overflowing from underneath your tree, but don't get wrapped up (hah, pun intended) in all the Christmas things of this world that you completely miss the true meaning of Christmas. Remember Jesus. Remember He entered a sin-filled world for you. Remember He was nailed to the cross for your sins. Remember your sins are cleansed whiter than snow through forgiveness. Remember He did it all to make a way for you, a sinner, to enter into an eternity with Him. Make Jesus the ultimate reason for the season. I'm still scouting out the deals in hopes to give a few gifts this season, admiring the beautiful trees and mantles that fill my social media feeds, jamming out to J. Biebs Christmas album, and L O V E everything about Christmas lights lining the streets as I drive. Ugh, Christmas season is truly "the most wonderful time of the year"! But I'm doing it all with a heart of gratitude and love for the Christmas gift that never has and never will stop giving..... Jesus. Happy Holiday Season! We are officially married as of last Saturday and we could not be happier! This new season has been more amazing than either of us ever could have dreamed. We were already extra cheesy and puppy-lovish before getting married, and marriage just made all that even worse! So if you follow me on social media, this is my open apology for all the cheesy love post you will see, just keep scrollin' if it makes you sick to your stomach (hehe!). If you are a fan of all things cheesy and love then double tap and scroll on about your day, we appreciate you. Okay, that's enough apologizing for being so in love with my husband (that's still so weird to say)! But really, the other night at dinner I told E that I really can't imagine the part of marriage where the ""honeymoon phase" wears off that we have heard about from many other couples and he said, "It doesn't have to wear off if we don't let it." (ugh, my heart.) Yall, I married way up. Ethan has been the absolute dreamiest husband a girl could ask for. I figured a life lately post would be perfect to give everyone a glimpse into what we have been up to this first week of marriage (hint: UNPACKING galore!!!!) So I had to be back in Abilene on the 17th for student teaching and we got married on the 13th, so E planned a short honeymoon that he kept a secret until the minute we got in the car after the wedding and he plugged the address into his phone and siri screamed, "Starting route to............. THE GAYLORD TEXAN"! He didn't want me to know until we got there, but I was already completely impressed that he had kept it from me that long so it was okay that siri had a loud mouth and gave it away. We didn't get to the hotel until around midnight and immediately ordered snacks from the front desk that they sent to our room within 5 minutes. Chips and a Pepsi for me, and E got a coke and some skittles, yum hah. The next morning we woke up and immediately hit up the breakfast buffet. OMG, trust me when I say you have never seen a breakfast buffet until you have seen this one! The first day we had no idea there was a whole other side (with all the good stuff), so we didn't get too much, but once we discovered that other side, we never wanted to leave! Ethan's face basically describes our feelings over the food: AMAZING! After breakfast we went to do a little exploring of the place! The theme was Alice in Wonderland so there was lots of cool artwork set out and activities that you could do based on the theme! Super fun! At 2pm we had a couples massage that E had scheduled. This is definitely in the Top 3 of my favorite parts of the trip! The massages themselves were incredible and refreshing, but afterwards you are sent back to the locker room (girls and guys are separated), and there is a sauna, steam room, showers, and my favorite part......... the sleep room. Yes! This room is filled with individual lounging chairs with blankets, it's dark with the perfect sleep lighting, and water fall sounds play in the background. So perfect. When booking a session you have access to the locker room ALL day and can come and go as you please which is pretty cool! E and I spent about an hour enjoying the amenities and then we missed each other too much and decided to reunite haha #newlyweds (I have no pictures of this part, but just imagine dreamy dreamy dreamy! After our massages we headed back up to the room and got ready for dinner at a restaurant right outside our balcony called Zepole. They serve Coastal Italian food which I had never really heard of, but it was delicious and we may have eaten WAY more than our stomachs could handle. When we got back to the room, both of us had major stomach aches so we stayed in and watched the Olympics before we headed to try out the outdoor pool which was a lot of fun! Monday we repeated breakfast at the buffet, explored some more, then decided to go explore a little around downtown Grapevine! We found the cutest little wine tasting house called Homestead and we each got to taste 5 wines and ended up taking home a bottle of White Zinfandel, all for $10, SCORE! Such a fun experience with the hubs and so excited to go back again soon! For lunch we tried out a good Mexican food place around town then headed back to the hotel to rest and go for another last swim before we headed out the next morning! Here we are about to enjoy a swim at the hotel as husband and wife! Then I realized that we had both worn the same swim suits that we wore when we were on vacation a couple of years ago in Galveston! Hey, I guess that means we haven't gained too much weight in college! ;) When we got back from our swim the hotel sent up champagne and chocolate covered strawberries to congratulate us, and then we headed to dinner at Roadhouse! We enjoyed one last breakfast and then hit the road to pack up our cars and head back to Abilene! We didn't end up leaving town till around 7pm, but the view was incredible....... That completes the honeymoon portion of being newlyweds! I had the best time ever those few days after getting married and I think it was the perfect way to start off this season of life. It wasn't some tropical island with a jam packed schedule of things to do, it was a relaxing time with my husband that was the perfect transition into just doing life together every day! Since being back in Abilene, so much has already happened! Check it out! I started at my first student teaching placement in Ms. Velasquez 3rd grade class at Ward Elementary! & I am absolutely loving it so much! Our little house started out looking like this at the beginning of the week as we started organizing all our wonderful wedding gifts and unpacking all of Ethan's stuff! Craziness! Then while our house looked like a tornado had gone through it, we decided it was a great time to go to Target and spend all our gift cards so we bought a ton more stuff to add to the mix, but we were both so happy it was worth it! (Our parents might kill us when they find this out, eeeek! haha) E made dinner on Thursday night! We had my favorite..... Frito Pie! I made dinner Friday night and then we had leftovers Saturday night! I think we have really gotten the hang of this married life thing! Saturday night we went on our last date night before we had to get back into the crazy school schedule routine! Go Karts and bowling made for the perfect night out. Sunday started out with Church and lunch before E had to head up to the school to do some check-ins! It was so weird being home without him, but it gave me time to write this and get some cleaning done before our sweet friends Meg and Oscar came over for dinner!
It has been the BEST week of marriage! I can not imagine it being any better than it is right now, but I know it will only get better from here! Whew, that was a jam packed week! With school starting today I am sure the next week won't be as exciting and full! Have a great Monday! These Tuesday Talks are probably going to be some of my all time favorite post because guess who my guest blogger is...... none other than my partner for life......Ethan Hardy Easterling! Ethan loves it when I blog and constantly will say "just let me know when you need someone to guest star in one of your blogs, I am ready!" So what better way than a nice little Q&A series with O&E to make my man feel like a pro blogger (haha). So here goes nothing on our very first Tuesday Talk with the (soon-to-be) Easterlings. Circulating around Facebook right now is this "copy and paste" status where couples are randomly asking each other on the spot questions about their significant other. All the post that I have read are hysterical and mainly the girl asking the boy so I decided to do my own little on-the-spot question asking with E! I called him up (because I am currently stuck in Abilene working my life away while he is home for the summer taking classes) and this is what I got: What is something I always say to you? "oh gosh! You say a lot of things....... Homie! You always call me homie!" This is the truth y'all, I refer to him as homie a lot and it's actually my favorite. He is my homie haha. What makes me happy? "Food, no I'm just kidding! HGTV!" This cracked me up, I really love food what can I say! What makes me sad? "When Brax is at home by himself for a long time" (ugh, yes!! I know I am not the only puppy mom that hates leaving for work every morning because that means the puppy has to stay home alone. Hurts my heart!) What's my favorite thing to do? "I was going to say eat...... or play with Braxton" (Again, I love food and I really love my dog! E really knows me haha) What am I good at? "organizing, decorating, and artsy stuff" What am I not good at? "video games" (too true! I really do try, but I'm just not good at 2K and shooting games. Play me in a game of Mario Kart though, and you are going dooowwwwwnnnn) What makes you proud of me? "when you don't eat out or when workout on your own" (this was his first response hahaha I do have a major problem with eating out and I am NEVER in the mood to workout so this is pretty much an answer I am not surprised by. But he also later added "how hard you work", so he can be sweet too. hehe) What do we do together? "everything, life" (yes and yes. forever my friend!) Where is my favorite place to eat? "TaMolly's" (It is really embarrassing how many times I have gone to eat at this place alone with no shame, because I constantly crave chips and salsa with my enchilada dinner. Craving it now as we speak, ugh! If I could eat it for every meal I would, but E doesn't let me haha) If I could go anywhere, where would I go? "A beach, any beach. Or back to London" How do I annoy you? "when I know something is wrong and I ask and you say "nothing" (I'm terrible at sharing my problems and would rather bottle everything up. But then I start getting sassy and E has to put up with it. Definitely something I am praying about.) Do you think you could live with me forever? "YES!!! If I get some guys nights!" (hahahaha, of course! Hysterical y'all, I guess I really do get pretty sassy hahaha) What is your favorite thing about me? "Your creativity" What is one thing you wish you could change about me? "The number of brown wedges you have. You are obsessed." (I have a total of 9 wedges and about 7 of them are brown. This bothers E so much lol. I like my brown wedges and this also applies to sandals too!) If I become famous, what will it be for? "some incredible blog or something where you like make a bunch of stuff and sell it." (wow, #dreamlife) I really hope y'all enjoyed that as much as I did! If you have a significant other ask them these questions with NO PROMPTING and you are in for a good laugh. I wanted to follow-up the fun Q&A I gave E, with a sweet portion of Q&A's that both of us will answer. October 1st we will officially have been together for 6 years so we have A TON of memories behind us. So the questions being asked are more about reminiscing on our relationship thus far. 1. What is your favorite date that we have ever been on? O: So I can't really remember if this date was for a special occasion or if it was just out of nowhere since it was quite a few years ago, but all I remember was being blind folded and driven around town only to end up in the pasture behind E's house where he had packed his truck with a bunch of blankets, pillows, a laptop, and some movies. It was just so perfect and completely unexpected. The stars were shining bright, I had my man by my side and life was so good and felt like it couldn't get any better. I would choose stay-in and watch a movie dates over fancy any day! E: Its impossible to pick just one but one of the first one that comes to mind was years ago. Pretty sure it was for your 19th birthday and I told you I needed to steal you for a full day for stuff I had planned. We drove to DFW and went to the Dallas World Aquarium which was awesome. After making the always amazing pitstop at Chipotle we went to this outdoor mall that we walked around for a while and before leaving we stopped at the cupcake ATM. We then drove about for a while and went to dinner at this really cool sports bar and then went to a drive in movie at this really cool drive in theater in Fort Worth. That was one of the first times we were able to just able to spend all day together and feel like grown ups even at the ripe age of 18 and nineteen. 2. At what moment in our relationship did you had found the person you were going to spend the rest of your life with? O: This is so tough because honestly I can't really pin-point a single moment that I felt like "yep, he's the one". It almost feels like every single day of our relationship I have had the thought "I have to marry this guy! When can I marry him?!" E is just naturally hubby material with his sweet as can be personality, but how good he is with kids exceeds everything. Every girl wants a man that is good with kids and with a big family, E never disappointed when it came to entertaining the kids at all family get togethers haha. From day one, HE WAS THE ONE (my family would agree)! E: It was about 2 years ago now when I was a freshman and you were a sophomore. We were in Abilene and I had just dropped you off at your on campus apartment and i went back to my dorm after we had went on a date. I talked to my mom once I got back to the dorm and we just got to talking about you and how amazing and perfect you are. After that conversation I just laid in bed thinking about you and thought "Goodness, she is so far out of my league and honestly I cant imagine ever finding someone besides Olivia that I want to spend the rest of my life with. Holy crap, I'm going marry this girl!" 3. What is a memory or moment that you will never forget from the past 6 years? O: Our engagement is definitely something I will never ever forget! Now, I can't remember a word that E said while he was on one knee, probably because I was just in complete shock. But I remember so clearly every single detail of that night and heck even the days before that moment. E is begging me to do a post about our engagement from my perspective so stay tuned for that! E: Definitely the day I proposed. If I could go back and relive it I definitely would. I don't want to ruin any future blogs about it but the mixture I had of nervousness, excitement, and terrified something would go wrong made for such an amazing night that I will never forget. So much went into it and even with it seeming like weather was completely against us at times it ended up working out absolutely perfect. 4. If you could change something about the past 6 years what would it be? O: This is kind of funny, but if I could change one thing about our relationship in the past 6 years it would be what I wore the night I met E face-to-face to drop off his homecoming garter AND what I wore to the homecoming football game the next day. hahahaha. I forever remember these moments and think "What the heck were you wearing Olivia?" The night to meet my potential boyfriend (we weren't dating at this point) I'm pretty sure I wore track shorts, a tshirt, some Old Navy black flip-flops, and like z e r o makeup. Lol, definitely dressed to impress, am I right?! Then on homecoming day I wore bell bottom jeans, the same old navy flip flops, and a black/white graphic v-neck that was way too big for me, but it looked cute when my cousin wore it so I thought I looked equally as cute...... wrong. lol E: That I would have come to my senses and shaved my curly afro WAAAAYYY EARLIER!! Looking back at pictures of when we first started dating I keep thinking two things.... "Dang I look like a really ugly guy from the 70's" and "why the heck did she say yes when I asked her out?". This post was so much fun and I am so excited to do it again next week! Please feel free to leave a comment or share your on-the-spot Q&A with your significant other so I can get a good laugh in! I would also love to hear from you all about some fun topic ideas that you have for our Tuesday Talks. Since I had to work on Memorial Day, I have a day off today and guess where I'm headed........ Waco, Tx!!!!
I decided to go on a little day trip to Magnolia Market, then will finish it off with an early dinner with my sophomore roomie and bestie Anna. I'm planning on taking lots of pictures and will be back Wednesday to share. Have a great Tuesday friends! For those of you who are new and didn't follow me much on my last blog (no worries, I hardly really ever posted as much as I had hoped to) you started following at a perfect time because I am getting ready to open up a new door in this thing called life: MARRIED LIFE! I feel like this new chapter means I'm going to have a lot more to say and share with the world, but most importantly a lot of memories to document and look back on in the years to come, so I decided to make a new blog where all that can happen. So here we are! I wanted to use this first post to briefly share my vision for this blog and a sneak-peek of what you can be expecting if you want glimpses into Life with the (soon-to-be) Easterlings! The Vision I spend a lot of my time reading blogs of people that are complete strangers to me. Even though I have no idea who these people are, I read their blogs and feel like I have known them for years. They encourage me, teach me, stretch me, and sometimes they even convince me to buy an apple watch. (haha no joke, this really happened and I have zero regrets about it. Thanks Shay). But I say all this because in the past 4 years that I have followed bloggers and blogged a little bit myself, a part of me instantly has fallen in love with the blogging community. I have caught myself reading a blog and then reading 30+ comments just to see what people had to say or advice they had to give and encouragement they shared after someone spills their heart out on the internet for everyone to see, and to me it is so beautiful. How one person can share they thoughts......... their life......... and thousands of strangers can be spoken to and touched. So that is my vision, that you would read my thoughts as I share my heart and that you would be touched. That somehow people will be able to take away joy, peace, patience, love, and so much more from this life I get the pleasure of living with my very best friend. Before you go, I wanted to share our story for those who don't already know it. When we first got engaged I wrote a post on how we met on my previous blog. Click here to read all about it and see some super cute (total sarcasm) pictures of us from our (almost) six years of dating. I am super excited for what is to come of this blog! My dreams of marrying my best friend are coming true and now my dream of being a cool blogger wifey is up next on the list. Stay tuned for lots of wedding planning talk, faith talks, fun talks, and married life talks with the (soon-to-be) Easterlings! Eeeeeeek! |