Beach Life

The week before school I had the chance to have one last chance at fun before having to hit the books. Tim and I had the opportunity to go to Gulf Shores with 8 of our friends. All we had to pay for was gas and food! We went from Sunday to Saturday, just in time to miss the nasty storm that is taking place. We spent the whole week being nothing but beach bums and enjoying the company of our friends. We would lay out to catch up on our tan, then hit the water to catch a break from the hot sun. The waves were so strong! We saw lots of dolphins swimming close to shore. While on the beach we played some beach volleyball, the boys had a few games of football, attempted to build sandcastles, and made me a mermaid. One night Tim, Drew, Jenny, and I went sand crab hunting....it is so fun to try and catch those little critters. I got the chance to hit the outlet mall twice while I was there and grabbed me some pretty good deals :) We went out for crab legs one night at the Oyster House, I love crab legs. We went to the pier and say someone catch a sting ray. Tim and I also had Kirbi take some pictures of us on the beach. Here are a few pics from our week of fun. 

 Us playing a mean game of beach volleyball

 Mermaid Brittiany

 Our Sand Crabs

 All 10 of us at the Oyster House

 I think this is my favorite!

 We have to show our goofy side : )

 Love these colors on us

 The sting ray someone caught on the pier

 Us on the pier

I think this fella was looking for some food

Home away from home

This past week I was able to move in to my apartment at school right before I got to go on vacay to the beach(I will post about that later).  My dear friend Kirbi helped get me moved in and came along to entertain me for what seems to be the most boring drive EVER! Heather and Brandon helped with the last few items today! I love decorating and since this is my last year at school I decided there was no point in wasting money on something I would only use at school, so I picked out things that would work for when Tim and I get married :). I got great deals on everything, and if you know me well then that doesn't come at any surprise. My duvet cover was possible the best deal. I snagged that baby at Potterybarn outlet for only 27 bucks! I was shopping with Amanda when I came across it and was like man this is a steal, she could not believe it either. Not to mention you can still buy it at regular price online for over 100 bucks. All of my throw pillows came from Ross for under 20 bucks. I also found my bath accessories at Ross, love that store! My beautiful shower curtain is from a very addicting store....Target. I found all of the towels at the new Home Goods store, maybe one of my favorite boredom stores. 

 My walls need some pictures hanged on them.

 I still need to find some shams, but this will do for now.

I need to hang this cross, but missing a hammer and nails right now. That soap dispenser and toothbrush holder was a whole $3 :)

The beauty of Gods work

Beach time

All packed and ready!

Today has been a great Saturday and it's not even over yet. I got all packed up for the beach, sandcastle buckets included. Just one last stop by Walmart to get some sunscreen and we will be good to go. I can't wait to spend a week with friends before school starts back, it's like the grand finale of the summer for me. Today I also sewed on my new patches for school. I had to take off the new ones first and then all it took was a little magic from my trusty sewing machine. In 17 hrs I will be breach bound, can you tell I'm excited!!! To finish the Saturday off Tim is grilling out ribeyes for my family and I....yummy! How has your weekend been going?

Taco Thursday

Tim took me out for lunch today and it was so yummy! No we did not have tacos, but close to it. We had something better than tacos, He had fajitas and I had fajita nachos :). We both got steak and chicken mix. His fajitas came out smoking and sizzling! We were both so stuffed afterwards.

Tasty Tuesday

Tonight was a night where I wanted no mess, but wanted something sweet. What's better than break and bake cookies when it comes to easy desserts?! Nothing. So me and Tim went to Kroger and grabbed some break and bake white chocolate macadamia cookies...Yummy. So easy to have a quick treat within 15mins. Just preheat the oven, put the cookies on a baking sheet, bake, and walah all ready to be enjoyed! What do you do for quick yummy treats?

God's creations

Here lately I have been taking all kinds of pictures with my new camera. I love that thing! Right now the sunflowers are in full bloom, moons are full, and the animals are feeding in the evenings. These are a few of the pictures I have taken lately. Enjoy :)

 So pretty

 2 does eating

 A buck

 I love the reflection in the water

 2 bucks feeding together

 That bird was flying fast

 A baby turtle

Full moon

My camera strap

Here is the camera strap I made for myself. Now my camera is in style :)

Thursday B's way

This morning I woke to the sun shining and the birds chirping, not a bad way to start the day. I went to go babysit my favorite kiddos until around 3. I played trains, school, and ponies...oh to be a kid again. When I got home I decided my camera deserved a pretty camera strap too, so out came the sewing machine. Pics coming later of it :) I also folded my clean laundry and packed my bag to go see my Chelsey in Nashville. This evening I had an interview with a family for an occasional sitter, it went great! For dinner we were running a little behind so we grabbed some oh so yummy chickfila. Now as I'm typing this I'm doing my Thursday ritual and watching Tim play softball while the Mosquitos eat me for dinner, ouch!

Tasteless Tuesday

I know I know I'm breaking my weekly routine by not posting something yummy on here. I had every intention on making something tonight, but my sweet momma already had dinner all whipped up when I came home from work. She made homemade enchiladas and they surely were not tasteless, they were finger licking good! Maybe I shall make this week tasty Thursday? It's good to break routines every once in a while, no one likes being in the habit of things for too long.

Gas prices

Today was the first time I had to fill
Betsy up, and it was also the first time that I missed Sally(my old car). Sally was a 2009 Honda civic hybrid, she got excellent gas mileage. I could fill that baby up for under 25 bucks and go about 400miles. Today was the first time that I have ever spent 50 bucks on gas. It was a sad day. Betsy gets about 350 miles to the fill up, which is good compared to how much Tim pays to fill up his truck, but bad compared to what I was use to. Although I wasn't happy at the pump I love my new car,just needed to rant about gas prices. Okay I'm done. Check back later for my Tasty Tuesday post :)

Ruffled camera strap cover

This post is a little late, but I was keeping it a secret because it was a gift for a very good friend. Today I finally got to give Kirbi her happy :) On Friday after work I had some extra time to kill since Tim was working, so what else better to do than craft. I just got a new camera and decided I wanted a cute camera strap. Kirbi has been so helpful through my engagement and is always giving. She took my engagement pics and let me borrow her camera to take Heather's senior pics, so i decided why not make her a cute camera strap cover. I went through my fabric to see if I had any scraps that would fit Kirbi's personality, and sure enough I did. I went and got my sewing maching out with my scissors, and my measuring tape. 

 I still had Kirbi's camera from borrowing it so I measured her camera strap to determine how long and wide I need to cut the fabric. It was almost 27 inches long so I cut 27 1/2 and a little over 1 1/2 inches wide.

 After cutting the pieces I sewed the ends of my base fabric to keep them from fraying.

 All done with that step

 After I sewed the ends I got out my iron to smooth out the fabric that I had folded in half.

 This is the ruffle I made, my first ever ruffle I made :) I did it by setting by tension to the highest setting and my thread length to the longest setting and just sewed right down the middle, but before I did that I hemmed the ends and both sides.

 Now that the ruffle was done I could attach it to my base fabric. I centered on one side and sewed right down the middle. This is why the fabric needed to be iron.

 After applying the ruffle its time to sew this cover inside out to make a nice clean edge.Make sure all the ruffle pieces are out of the way.

 Then flip it inside out.

  And wallah!  My first camera strap cover :)