Acklin Wedding

We drove to Warrensburg, Missouri on Friday for the Acklin-Hubbard wedding. After rehearsal and dinner, we headed to a lounge near the hotel for drinks.

Jody, Me, and Megan; Saturday Meg and I went and got pedicures. It was great!

The girls at the lounge. The bride is in the vertical stripes. and yes, Megan is really that tall.

Greg and Josh waiting for the couple to come out of the church. The tan tuxes looked sharp!

They put the truck on blocks. Adam had to put it in 4x4 to get it off. The best part is he thought his clutch had went out, until they told him.

The Northwest Missouri tradition is to decorate underwear and hang it on the vehicle.

Greg and I outside the church

Greg with Josh and H. Max and Lula at the reception. Greg knows them from when he worked in Northwest Missouri.

The groom's sister and former sorority sister of mine, Melanie.

The Meier's and Mr. and Mrs. Adam and April Acklin

We had a great weekend!

Haircut and Weekend

So, I got my hair cut today. This is the new do. I'm not real crazy about the "bangs" but it will grow out. They keep getting into my eye balls. I'm dooomed to have short hair the rest of my life!



It's officially the weekend for me! Greg and I are leaving in the morning to head to Warrensburg for the Acklin-Hubbard wedding festivities. I'm really excited about it. I think I just want to get out of Oklahoma! So have a great weekend and hopefully I'll have some great stories to tell next week!

How I miss fair season!

I am feeling pretty homesick right now and I really hate to admit it. For some reason this year I am having withdrawls from the county fairs. The fairs in Oklahoma just aren't the same as back in the Show Me state. I miss the truck and tractor pulls, car and combine demo derby's, funnel cakes, lemonade, seeing old friends, rides, etc. The list could go on and on. Do I sound redneck or what?

I also miss showing cattle, maybe because I've been removed from it for so long now, I forgot about all the work and money that went into it. I do miss the weight loss from all that hard work! :) I think I miss all the brushing and rinsing, but once again, has my memory just erased the frustrations?

B & J Enchantress, my last show heifer in 2002.

My senior picture, like the red pants?

Each county fair we went to was special in its own way and I have special memories for each. Monroe County usually involved some wild calf running loose on the ball field, Shelby County was the first county fair of the year, Montgomery County always had good entertainment, including the year a bunch of us girls did the greased pig contest. Adams County (IL) always a catch up with friends and dancing. The National White Park show was also here. We showed at the Lewis County, Vandalia, and the NEMO district fair occasionally. I have a scar above my eye from the NEMO fair and a pickup truck mirror! There was always the good old Marion County fair. Oh the stories I could tell about this fair. The water fights and Pioneer water jugs are a few that come to mind.

Besides county fairs, there were the jackpots shows in the spring. The most fun was had when Amy, Brock, Mark, Andy, and I would travel together. We were a well oiled machine when it came to unloading, loading, feeding, fitting, etc. We'll never let Amy live down the Teddy Grahams and "eat me, eat me" story! (I love you Amy!) There was drama, crushes, fights, laughter, sweat, tears, and blood, but through it all we had a great time together and were a family. It is these memories I cherish. I'm missing my family, especially my brothers right now. It wasn't always easy being the only girl especially when it was just Mark, Ryan, Timmy, and Andy (before Amy and Brock). You never know what crazy thing Mark and Ryan were going to do together! (Cruising campus with calves on back, ring a bell?)

My last Marion County Fair, with Andy. I use to be skinny, what happened to me?

The Marion County fair starts Saturday. I really want to be home for it, but I can't. So I'll just live vicariously through others' stories about their fair experiences. On the bright side, we are going to the State Fair, the granddaddy of them all. I can hardly wait for the next 2.5 weeks to pass. The only two state fairs I have missed have been 2006 and 2007, both because I was in Oklahoma. Mom even went when she was pregnant with me. Needless to say, withdrawl has set in.

Anyway, enough about the past, I'm looking forward to making memories this year. So if you are at the fair the first weekend, give me a hollar, I'd love to meet up at the wine tent, Good Time Charlies, the Bud tent, or the barns and catch up. (I think I'm WAY too old for tieout parties). Which reminds me of watermelons..........

Mondays,

Who actually likes Mondays? I literally had to drag myself out of bed this morning. I was exhausted after the weekend work. Saturday I mowed and raked the yard and Sunday I weedeated some monsterous Johnson grass. The job isn't finished, but it looks better. Greg is going to Round up it again before I weed eat it down. My muscles are sore!

My tomatos are coming right along. I am getting lots of cherry tomatos, but no big ones yet. I can't wait for a BLT. We rigged up a system this weekend so I wouldn't have to carry the buckets of water back to the tomato plants. I know have a sprinkler. I think Greg was getting tired of helping me!

Friday night we went to the Oklahoma Redhawks game with 4-H.

Our friends Kellie and Jordan, who are leaving Oklahoma in a couple of weeks. Kellie and I went to grad school together and worked in the 4-H office. They are headed back to Oregon (where they are from) so Jordan can go to grad school. Saturday a bunch of grad students went to dinner together to say goodbye them and Amanda.

This is a random picture Greg took in Target a couple of weekends ago. It was the mullet family. If the picture is zoomed in real close, they all have the same haircut. Greg took it under his arm while pretending to shop. I was not happy.

Friday we had a party at work to say goodbye to Kellie. I made her this book for everyone to sign. The idea came from my aunt Cara who made me one for a wedding shower last year. I'm going to teach a class on how to make it for the office. It is has been strongly requested!

Front Cover:

Folded out:

This is what I brought to the work party: a Blueberry coffee cake compliments of Lane's cooking blog and cereal rice crispies. It was a breakfast themed party so the food was breakfasty. We have a lot of cereal leftover from different trainings, hence the cereal bars. They were ok, next time I'm going to leave out the fruit loops. The blueberry coffee cake was awesome!

4th post of the day - Pictures

Ok, so this is my 4th post of the day. I quickly downloaded a few pictures to share.


What an armadillo does to your yard. Can you see the difference and the little holes they dig?



Pretty flowers I planted.


Me, just in case you forgot what I look like!


My new boots, compliments of the best husband in the entire world! They are square toe too, exactly what I wanted!


My first red tomato!


My mass of tomato plants. Yes, I know they are planted WAY too close to each other. I didn't think they would all live.


After I picked my first tomato!

Catch up post....

So now that I've written about our trip, time to catch up on everything else that has happened. The week back to work for me was crazy as we had Geospatial Institute starting on Tuesday and the state specialist I work with and I were both gone the week before.

We celebrated the 4th and had a great time. I had my camera, but didn't take any pictures, go figure. We finally went to the drive in movie in Guthrie and saw What happens in Vegas. It was awesome, the weather was perfect, and the movie was great.

The next Monday I taught a GPS workshop in OKC and then worked on Science Camp for Saturday. Kara returned from Missouri, so we also walked every night. Saturday was Science Camp. This week hasn't been too bad, except I'm trying to get job applications turned in.

Greg has also been super busy at work, so we both fall into bed at night absolutely exhausted.

Tomorrow night we are going to the Redhawks baseball game with 4-H. I'm really excited about it because I haven't been to a Redhawks game since 1998 when we judged in the National Soils Contest. Saturday night we are having a goodbye dinner for Kellie and Amanda who are both leaving Stillwater soon. Next weekend we are heading to Warrensburg, MO for a wedding. Greg is an usher, so we are heading up on Friday. I'm excited to relax and hang out at the pool with Megan and dance up a storm! Two weeks later we are headed to the MISSOURI STATE FAIR! I'm so pumped to see everyone! I haven't been in two years. I LOVE YOU LANE!

The armadillo has returned, so we are hunting it sometime this weekend, if we can find it.

I have some pictures to post of various things, but I have to download them first. If I get it done tonight, I'll try to get them posted.

San Antonio Part 2

From San Antonio, we headed to College Station and spent the night. We checked out A&M's campus, who knows, maybe my PhD will come from there! :)

The next morning we headed to Centerville and Overton, TX. TransOva Tx is in Centerville, so Greg wanted to stop and say hello and check out their facilities. While there we saw the biggest cow EVER! She weighed 2300 lbs and was probably pushing 7 feet tall at her hump. We drove along a road where we saw many large ranches.

Our friend Andrea lives in Overton right now while she works on her master's in animal repro. She took us riding to gather some cows. I wanted to stay at the barn, but they made me ride. We spent the night and then headed north.

Andrea, Greg, Me, and Don

Once home on Friday, we unpacked and repacked. Saturday morning we headed north to Maryville, MO for a bachelor party, well Greg did. We stayed with our friends Josh and Megan. The boys had their night out and Megan and I had our night out. Sunday morning we got up and headed back south. Needless to say, I drove the first half because someone had a little too much fun the night before. However, when it was my turn to ride, this is what happened:


Finally we arrived home 2,101.8 miles later. All in all, our week away was worth it. It was really hard to come back to work! Thanks Ann and Bruce!