Vacation 2012 - Fort Walton/Okaloosa Island

Last week we were in Fort Walton/Okaloosa Island with Anthony's side of the fam for a little R&R.  

Who says save the best for last? Well besides Vanessa Williams... hardy har har 

Ima tell ya bout my favorites from vacay.

P A R A S A I L I N G 

  up we go 

  and up 

    and UP

Whoa, waaaaay up! 

They said we'd go up 450 or 500 feet. 
Once you get up that high, it's so peaceful. The view is amazing and it's so quiet. It's like you're up there with God. 


They dip ya so down we came
   * splish splash * 

We just chatted and enjoyed ourselves up there. 
I think we could have sailed for hours.  

Oh and Anthony's sister Christy went up with Bryson & McKenzie. Can't leave them out!

We booked our fun with Harbor Watersports in Destin.  Click here to see the info & book your fun. It was $40 each for adults. Since we don't have any kiddy poops I don't know how much they cost. The pics were $20 and so worth it!
   
D O L P H I N  C R U I S E 
We decided to join a few of our closest friends (wink, wink) for a journey on the sea to find some dolphins.

The water was very choppy that day so we couldn't go out as far, but we still saw some of Flipper's cousins.

The captain let the kiddos take turns steering the ship unassisted. 
Bryson was all business at the helm, do you hear me?

Dawson was hammin' for the camera. 

McKenzie was all smiles on the ocean waters

Even the babe enjoyed himself. 4 months old and such a good baby...

And yeah, us older folk had a good good time, too. 

Anthony livened up a bit when a Dave Matthews Band song came on. Singin along and such. Even thanked the boat guys on the way off the boat. :o) 

I have to explain these huge grins - I was tryin to take their pic and stumbled a bit a lot, so they got tickled at me. I'm such a clutz! 

We booked our dolphin cruise with the Seablaster folks in Destin. If you wanna give em a try sometime, here's their info. It was $20 each for adults and $10 for kids 5 to 15. Those 4 & under are F R E E ! Sawyer fell into that category. 

So anyway these two things were my faves from the trip...  
  'sides being lazy on the beach and spending time with this handsome guy...

More to come ~
   be sure to check back, ya hear? 

a HAIR revealing

Well I'm sure you've all been dying to hear what my HAIR NEWS surprise is...

I got brave.

Off to the salon we go!

This is my natural hair color - I call it boring brown. Buh bye boring brown, buh bye.

Back in 98 or 99 I had some highlights, right around the time Anthony and I got married. I kept em up for a little while. But I got tired of em and my stylist at the time did the pull through the cap thing so I just kept getting blonder and blonder. Not cool.

I told Brittany I wanted it to be subtle, to look kinda like the sun did it. Nothing too obv.

Don't I look brave sittin in the chair?! 

Trust me, it's all an act.

I was a nervous nelly.

But I did it anyway!

And this here's 

the HIGHLIGHTED VERSION THAT IS ME TODAY. . . .

with two and a half weeks' growth, gosh time flies...

and here's the top, complete with crooked part and bird's eye view of my two crowns

a few side bars - 
  #1 I stink at takin my own pic. I see younger people doin it all the time. It LOOKS so easy. Yet it's not. These pics are ten kinds of terrible, but just pay attention to the hair and not the face, k?
  #2 If you have two crowns, you feel my pain, right? I mean seriously. Some days I feel like Alfalfa. 
  #3 I suppose I accomplished SUBTLE. Anthony didn't notice til Sunday (had it done on Friday) and that was only because Bridgett said somethin. He said I thought it looked like you had had it cut. Um no. *sigh*

So there ya have it folks. 

Nothing major, but it's the first time color has touched these locks since like the millennium. Y2K yo!

Summer jam was pretty jammin'

There's a foundation at work that helps out employees in need all across the country. So to raise a little moolah and to let us employees have a lil fun, a couple Fridays ago they had us a mini carnival kinda thang. 

It was f - u - n ~ 
my only critique is that it was at 3pm and my hub couldn't come.

When our CFO took his shirt off to hop in the dunk tank, I giggled.

No shame in his game. 

On the third ball, this guy dunked him. CFO didn't stay dry for long. he he he

They had great food, corn hole and a Bingo tent for the old folk. 

And lotsa stuff for the little ones. . .  

like inflatables, ice cream, sno cones, the bungee thing, paddle boats, and even pony rides - - 

This little guy is my new boss's youngest son. 

So presh! Cute as he can be.

And brave up on that buckin bronco lil pony.

 My friend Kelly's 5 year old Gavin had his face all in the cotton candy. He's a cool kid.

He was doin flips in the bungee thing. Little daredevil.

This is the gal who inspired me to do that half marathon earlier this year. 

She's a cool chic... and has great taste in friends obv

We decided to do the zip line togethuh...  it was pretty cool ~  

 Anessia and her hub <3

someday they'll probably make some super cute babes - look at those smiles :o)

There were a couple live music acts, but I can't remember their names... 

they sounded good though. 

The event raised over $6,000 for the foundation. Pretty awesome. 

The money mostly came from a silent auction, with a dab comin from the live auction and of course the good ole dunk tank. Everything else was F R E E ....

I ain't gonna lie - I paid a few bucks to try to dunk a lady who used to be in the office by mine. She's one of those always happy folk who is happy to do anything for a cause. Of course I'm a terrible shot so I just ran up after missing three times and punched the thing to drop her. And she thanked me by splashing me. A.lot.  

CMA Fest 2012 -

Anthony is in the Zac Brown Band fan club. Every year they do a fan club party before CMA Fest for a couple hundred of their luckiest fans. Anthony was able to get us tickets this year. (we weren't able to get em last year) So off we went!

The fellas always play a few tunes and mingle a bit with everybody. We chatted with him for a spell. 
Chef Rusty, Zac's  good buddy always cooks up a messasumthin and it was really good, as usual. My favorite thing was this thing - - 

they called it chocolate peanut butter biscuit pudding. YUMMMM 

On to the BIG SHOW...  

it was P E R F E C T weather... for sittin outside enjoyin some country tunes 

I'll hit the highlights for ya... 

Miranda Lambert rocked out. 

I have to admit...I wasn't so much a fan of hers before this, but she really sounded good and she totally jams with that guitar slung around her neck

As usual, the place went nuts when Jason Aldean took the stage. He played last year on the night we went. He's cool, just not my fave.

Umm... Lady Antebellum came out and sung their heads off, do ya hear me?

And of course these fellas were why we went - Zac Brown Band yeeeeeaaaaaaah

 They played - -  
Keep Me In Mind one of my faves
The Devil Went Down to Georgia I always think that guitar is gonna go to smokin when Zac plays it the way he does on this song
The Wind a new one from their CD that comes out next month
Ain't In No Hurry another one of my faves
Uncaged from their new CD 
America the Beautiful into Chicken Fried can't go wrong with this pairing either! 

Brad Paisley closed the show. I'm not a fan of his. He seems like a cool dude. I just don't dig his music that much, although he's great on guitar.

On the way home, we just had to swing through for some Castle sliders. These and Krystals are a late night thing...you gotta get em.

Thanks for the memories Nashville ~

National what's it day

It's National Running Day.

Didja know? 

I didn't. Never heard of it. But it made me feel like I had to go running. So I did. Ran 2 miles.  


I would need to purchase said shirt on the left. Not because it's a gal wearin it & it's my favorite color, but because when you run you do get to eat more. he he he 

And speaking of e a t i n g... 
Last Friday was National Donut Day. 
I guilted my coworker pal Brandi into running out to Donut Time a new little donut shop in town for us some donuts. But because it was NDD they were out of apple fritters. No good Mr. Donut Maker! Ya bettuh stop lettin me down man.

So who comes up with these national day thingies? I'm gonna need a National Get a Gift for Your Favorite Blogger Day or somethin. (ahem) Somebody get on that. 

Not so newsworthy

We've been kinda busy around these parts, but nuthin really blogworthy I don't s'pose. 

Here's some random pics from a couple things we've been doin.

bbq chicken = messy!

 just chillin

which is hard to do when it's a million degrees like it has been a lot lately

 pretty sure these two are in love teehee

somebody's missing some teef 

classic Bryson - he was growling as I shot this

 was sick, not no mo! woo hoo

 handsome times 2

Tinsley thinks Anthony needs help restringing his guitar... like always

In other news...

~ Anthony considered buying a used SUV yesterday but decided not to. 

~ I got an iPhone yesterday. Hooty hoo! Pumped fer that. 

~ Over the weekend Christy painted our utility room. I <3 it but can't show ya til it's fully & supremely cutely decorated. Pinterest is gonna hep me widat. 

~ I got a bit of hair news but I don't wanna spoil it for ya. Check back. 

~ WE'RE GOING TO CMA FEST yippeeee and the Zac Brown Band fan club party