Washington D.C Day 1

Happy Hump Day! I have great news, baby Sophia is recovering from open heart surgery as we speak! The surgery went great! Her little chest will be open for 24-48 hours during the initial healing process and after that she will spend 2-5 weeks recovering in the hospital. We are praising the Lord for protecting her during this time. Thanks all for the prayers too :)

I decided to break our Washington D.C. trip into 2 blog posts for each of days we spent exploring :) Here we are getting ready to head out on a 6 hour drive at 6 in the morning. We were so excited to get on the road and begin our adventure! The drive was pretty much a straight shot up the interstate so we were able to talk for hours and listen to some good music. We have certain artists and cds that are usually our "go-to" music for road trips--John Mayer, DMB, and Mumford and Sons. Something about those easy tunes makes the trip go by quicker. 

 We stopped right outside of Arlington to book our hotel and get our things settled in. After that we hoped on the Metro and road into downtown. Our train stop was right on the National Mall so when we got out we could pretty much see everything. Our first view was the Capitol and Greg said he started to tear up seeing it. He had never been to DC before and he loves everything about history and politics so it was a big moment for him to finally see it.

When you face the opposite way from the Capitol you can see the Washington Monument. Here is Greg all smiles with seeing everything. Because of an earthquake there last year, the monument had a crack and was in the process of being repaired. You can kinda see all the support braces around it. By the way, the weather was absolutely gorgeous while we were there. It was actually a little chilly which I was NOT prepared for at all.

After walking what seemed like a mile down the mall we came to the Lincoln Memorial. As you can see, it was packed this weekend in DC. There were tons of people everywhere! It was crazy because the majority of people were foreigners. We heard all kind of different languages and accents.

Here we are with the Washington Monument behind us. I was freezing! It was so much fun getting to experience so many new things with my husband. We really had a great time bonding over this trip and pushing each other to do and see more while we were there.

Oh, another thing. Apparently there is an annual bike rally on Memorial Day weekend with over 250,000 bikers. Needless to say, they were everywhere while we were there. Most of them were veterans and supporters of POW-MIA. It was awesome to see all the patriotism displayed.

Most of this day was spent seeing what all there was to do and looking at all the historical buildings. We also went in the National Museum of American History. We were amazed at all the real artifacts that were a big part of our history. 

Our first day was a blast and so tiring! We both fell asleep about 8 o'clock, but the rest of much needed for day 2. Tune in tomorrow to hear all about it :)

Be Blessed and Happy Blogging :)

Baby Sophia

Hey Y'all, well my plan today was to jump right in to telling you all about our amazing trip to Washington, DC and I will do that probably tomorrow but tonight I need to ask for some serious praying on behalf of baby Sophia.

Remember Friday I told you about my best friend who was having a baby this weekend? Well yesterday little Sophia was born at 11:08 AM weighing 7'11. An absolutely gorgeous baby!

She seemed like a very healthy baby at birth, but at 9:00 last night, x-rays showed that her lungs were not fully inflating and she was immediately moved to NICU and put on oxygen to help increase her oxygen level and lung capacity.

Today after many tests, it was determined that this precious newborn has a heart defect causing her aorta to pump blood only to her lungs thereby flooding those little lungs. After this discovery, she was transported to a local children's hospital and is now awaiting open heart surgery early in the morning.

I am asking, if you are reading this that you would call down angels to surround this precious gift. Please join me in believing for a miracle for Sophia and peace and comfort for her family during these trying times.

Tonight I am sitting at her house taking care of her 13 month old brother. He is fast asleep now. I am believing in faith that this little boy will be able to see his perfectly healthy little sister come home one day soon.

Be Blessed Y'all!

High Five For Friday!

Oh my goodness, what a day!! Today was seriously awesome, good things just kept coming my way! So here goes high five for friday! {Also I still SUCK at remembering to take pictures, it will get better I promise!}

1.  My dad's surgery went GREAT! It took about 40 minutes for the surgery, which is incredibly fast! He is still in a lot of pain from the surgery, but once that goes away his knee will be as good as new! Praise the Lord!

2. I got new hours at work to where I will be getting off at 4! This is so awesome, especially now that the warm weather is here and I can go to the pool :)

3. I got a call for a job interview at the beginning of June! I applied for this job back in April and it would be such a blessing if I get it. The office is right beside our apartment complex and I would be making a lot more than I make now. A win-win situation!

4.  One of my best friends is in labor today! Today is her due date and Sophia is hopefully going to make her big arrival today or tomorrow!

5. T-minus 8 hours until we start our road trip for Washington D.C. I am unbelievably excited about this. I packed just a few minutes ago and couldn't help but pack a few *red, white, and blue* outfits. Yay for our first road trip as married people!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Enjoy the weather and the extra day. See you Monday night!

Be Blessed and Happy Blogging!!

Thursday Brain Dump

Just a few different things that have been swirling in my head for the past couple days…

{1} I'm really not sure how my body still is congested, I feel like I have drained out everything through my nose and eyes! 

{2} I would love to spend all day with my dog. I can't believe how much I love this dog and miss her while I'm at work!

{3} My dad is having knee surgery tomorrow. I'm so happy he will finally have relief from some serious pain. Please say a little prayer for him.

{4} Greg and I are going on our first *married* road trip this weekend. We are headed to Washington, DC for this Memorial Day Weekend. (Expect lots of instagram pictures and awesome blog posts about this next week, yay!) Road Trips are our favorite things!!

YAY, for Tomorrow being Friday and a long weekend! Be Blessed and Happy Blogging!!

"These are a few of my favorite things"

Okay, I thought I would do a fun little "get to know me" post for today. I find that it is so much easier to relate with someone when you can find common ground! Most of the time it may relate back to a tv show that you are really into, a song artist that you both adore, or a hobby that you both enjoy! It is really interesting how much my interests have changed because of the people I've surrounded myself with. I've discovered so many new things that I would have never tried otherwise. Anyways, here goes my list of TOP 3's—


Top 3 Singers/Bands
 >Adele
 >John Mayer
 >Dave Matthews Band

Top 3 Foods
 >Chicken Alfredo
 >Outback's "Alice Springs Chicken"
 >Ice Cream

Top 3 Hobbies
 >Sitting on the back porch drinking coffee
 >Crafting
 >Blogging (duh!)

Top 3 Movies
 >Legally Blonde
 >P.S. I Love You
 >A Walk to Remember

Top 3 TV Shows (Of All Time)
 >How I Met Your Mother
 >Revenge
 >Gossip Girl

Top 3 TV Shows (Right Now)
 >Scandal
 >The Voice
 >The Big Bang Theory

Top 3 Beauty Products
 >BB Cream
 >Blush
 >Mascara

Top 3 Stores to Shop at
 >Target
 >Old Navy
 >TJ Maxx

Alright, that's a good start on a learning more about me, I might continue this more later. Who knows, maybe in a year from now I'll do this post again and see what has changed.

Time for the Weekend Recap

Hey Y'all! Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! I know I did, I didn't want it to end! It was definitely a busy and bumpy weekend, but still great.

{Thursday}I'm starting with Thursday because we celebrated 2 months of being married by going to dinner at one of our area's BEST Italian restaurants, Portofino's.  I had chicken parmigiana and Greg had lasagna. It was so delicious!! After that we went to the movies to see Star Trek: Into Darkness. I can't believe I'm saying this because I never thought I would, but I LOVED the movie. It was so good and now I want to go back and watch the show to see if its similar. The movie had suspense, romance, intrigue, and a great storyline. 

{Friday} We joined my family at my brother's baseball game once again. It was a very intense game and unfortunately my brother's team lost and was knocked out from the state tournament. We always have a great time at the games hanging out with family and friends that we've met at the game. It's also cool to see so many people of our town coming out to see the high school team and cheer them on.

{Saturday} Greg was working so I had the day to myself :) That morning I helped serve at the Youth Parent Breakfast at our church. Nothing like waking up at the crack of dawn to cut fruit and crack eggs!  After a busy morning at the breakfast, I met my parents for lunch at Qdoba (YUMM!). Once I got home I got to do one of my FAVORITE things, take a much needed nap. Oh man, I wish I could take a nap every day! Saturday night Greg went fishing and one of my friends came over to see our apartment and hang out. {side note: I have had a great week connecting with all my close friends and rekindling some old friendships, how exciting!}  Also Sunday while Greg was still fishing, I got HOOKED on Scandal!  I literally watched the entire first season in one night, it is sooo good. Seriously, watch it!

{Sunday} Greg was feeling sickly when he got home from fishing and when we woke up Sunday morning so he stayed home from work. We spent the whole day watching movies and spending every second together. I was seriously soaking every second up, dang I love my husband :) Here are the movies we watched and my opinion:

Prometheus: I guess Greg tried to trick me into watching this because I DO NOT watch scary movies. Anyways, I fell asleep about 10 minutes in and didn't have to deal with scary parts. Greg seemed to enjoy it though and said it was scary enough that he just didn't wake me up ;)

Ted: Just no. Some of the "bathroom humor" was funny but after 5 minutes of that and a crappy storyline, we ended up turning the movie off. Just not interesting if you aren't into potty mouths 

Silver Linings Playbook: We both LOVED this movie! It wasn't at all what I thought it would be, but I love movies with mental illness ties. I guess it's the psychology major in me. The movie was witty and awkwardly romantic. We had a blast watching this movie.

Okay enough of my movie reviews from this weekend. I'm looking forward to the rest of this week and what's in store. I actually made a blog schedule for this week so I can stay on track and blog more during the week. Keep an eye for a post about my favorite things, a new weekly update, and other exciting stories! 

Be Blessed and Happy Blogging!

Two Months Down, a Lifetime to Go

Yay! Today we are celebrating 2 months of wedded bliss! I can remember how I was feeling 2 months before the wedding and thinking that it was taking FOREVER to get here and now we have already been married for 2 months. I wanted to start doing a monthly update on the us and decided what better time then our "month-aversary" ;)

Challenges:

• It is much harder than you would expect going into it. Although we are having the time of our lives, it has definitely involved some adjusting and getting used to being a married couple 
• No matter how much advice married people give you, it will never prepare you for YOUR marriage! Every couple has to find what works best for them!
• Having high expectations for each other SUCKS! It will only bring disappointment and frustration.
• Although being with your husband all the time is awesome and well worth it, you have to make time for friends and activities outside of the home. 

Rewards:

• Being able to come home to the person that you love more than any other human being makes it SO much easier to get through the day.
• There is no greater feeling than making your husband smile and laugh, even if it involves cooking a big meal and cleaning it up after working 8 hours
• Training and raising a dog is so much fun! It is so awesome to feel like we have accomplished something together by teaching our dog new tricks and training her :)
• SNUGGLE TIME!!!
• Being able to talk about anything with each other and having each other to feed off of, it has helped us both grow intellectually and challenge each other
• Knowing that for the rest of my life I get to come home to the love of my life!
• Hearing your husband pray over you, your marriage, and your future together…There is NOTHING better!

Hope everyone is having a great Thursday! It's almost the weekend!!

Be Blessed and Happy Blogging!

True Friends

Oh my goodness I just realized I love to start my blog post with "so" and I was about to do it AGAIN for the umpteenth time and I caught myself. Okay back to what's been eating at me {all day}…and this is about to be real talk.

Friendship

You know in elementary school its who you play dress up with, in middle school its who you have sleepovers and discuss crushes with, and in high school its the people that you go everywhere with and spend all your major events with.

Well, after that you aren't forced to spend 8 hours a day in the same room with people and no one cares if you have plans every night of the week or if you are just going home to sit on the couch and watch tv until you fall asleep.

Somewhere between high school and this moment I have all but forgotten how to be a good friend. To be quite honest, I suck at it.

I have friends, people I socialize with at church or work, people I've grown up with and been childhood friends with. However, I am terrible at being the kind of friend that someone wants in their lives. I rarely go out of my way to make plans with friends, I hardly text them just to say hi, I don't even notice when life-altering stuff is happening in their lives. I mean, come on, how do you miss stuff like that and still call yourself someone's "close friend".

Anyways, this all spurred out of a discussion I happened to read on Facebook between two acquaintances that I used to go to church with. Older women that had obviously been hurt by so-called friends in their lives. They talked about how much they needed that communication from their friends and that when the going got tough it felt like everyone disappeared. I do NOT want my friends to ever be able to say that about me. Its like a lightbulb went off. There's a reason that I don't considered myself as having a tight-knit group of girlfriends. There's a reason some of my closest friends didn't come to me when things got hard. Why would you go to someone that hasn't even called lately? or asked How are you doing, and really meant it.


As Proverbs 27:17, "As iron sharpens iron, so one friend sharpens another."We need each other and its not fair to the ladies in my life for me to just be an "every now and then" friend. I have to reach out to them and encourage them that no matter what they've got a friend in me. Someone who will be a listening ear without judgment, slander, or a harsh word. A friend that will laugh and cry with you and help bring back the JOY that so many of us have seemed to misplaced.

Today after stewing on that conversation I read, I decided it was time for a change. That I was no longer going to wait for my friends to call or text, but that I am going to always make sure that there is an open line of communication all the time and be involved deeply in my friends lives. I hate that it has taken losing countless friendships for me to realize this. I pray that God gives me the strength and courage to mend those broken relationships.

Today I sent a quick message to all my close friends just saying hi and seeing about some lunch/dinner dates. I love my husband and I love spending time with him, but its time that I invest some of my time into building lasting and fruitful relationships with the women in my life.

I am challenging myself to do a few concrete things to help me jumpstart this new commitment.

• Have a meaningful conversation with each of my friends at least 2 times a week whether by phone, computer, or in person
• Don't go more than 2 weeks without spending some quality time with each of my friends. 
• Pray earnestly for each of my friends and also that God would help me become the friend that someone would want to have. 

I haven't really shared this blog with many people yet so I don't really know if anyone will ever read this, but if you are I hope that it challenges you to look inside yourself and see if you really are a true friend. 

Be Blessed and Happy Blogging :)

Weekend Recap

So I'm a little behind on this only because I have been soaking up every minute I can with my husband. Its so hard to spend the whole weekend together and then have to go back to work and be away from each other :( Cheesy, I know, but I MISS my husband while we are at work. Anyway here is what happened in the Anthony Household over this weekend :)

{Friday} We had a blast watching my brother's high school baseball team win their first game of the playoffs! Nothing like sitting in great weather, eating a hotdog, and spending time with family watching baseball :)

{Saturday} While Greg went to a Men's Breakfast with church, I enjoyed sleeping in and catching up on the entire season of How I Met Your Mother. In the afternoon, I spent some time with mom shopping and going to Chick-fil-a for lunch. Seriously we have the best time when we are together!! Saturday night Greg and I worked on house work and I babysat a little boy from work. What an eventful day!!

{Sunday} Of course was Mother's Day and there is not many things I love more than honoring my mom and seeing a smile on her face, she rocks!! We had my family, grandparents, and my aunt over for lunch. I cooked a yummy meal of chicken fettucine alfredo, caesar salad, and for dessert strawberry shortcake. YUM! We had a great time with family just hanging out and catching up! We decided to get my mom something that she has been wanting for the last few weeks, $$ for a haircut and color. She literally has NOT stopped talking about wanting more highlights so hopefully she will put that money to good use VERY soon ;)

This weekend was so eventful that by 5 on Sunday Greg and I were almost ready to crash for the night. Of course I had grocery shopping to do ;)

I think I will start doing a weekend recap every Monday and take the weekends off from blogging so I can focus all my time and energy on my husband, family, and friends. Also excuse the fact that I ALWAYS forget to take pictures of everything we do! I'm trying to get better about it, but as you can see from my instagram I am totally forgetful!

Have a great day and Be Blessed <3

Breakfast for Dinner

So I LOVE having breakfast for dinner! Call me crazy, but there's something exciting about coming home from work and frying up some eggs and bacon and for the first time ever tonight, FRENCH TOAST!

Yes, that's right. I made french toast for the first time ever! If you know me, I grew up eating french toast every time I went to my grandparents, it was like one of my favorite foods from my childhood. And I decided tonight that I was going to look up a recipe and make it. First of all, it is THE easiest thing in the world to make so I feel stupid for not making it sooner and thinking it was some crazy culinary experiment. Second, I must say , my french toast was pretty amazing and I will definitely be making it more often!

The recipe I used was off of a random google search and included 4 eggs, a dash of salt, a teaspoon of sugar, and a cup of milk. Mix all that together and soak slices of bread in it and let it cook on a griddle or frying pan on medium heat until the eggs are cooked through.

Seriously, the BEST thing since sliced bread!!

We were hanging out with some kids from church tonight and they LOVED it as well, ate it all up in literally 5 minutes!

On a totally different note…I'm so excited for this weekend!! My hubby is off all weekend AND its Mother's Day and I can't wait to celebrate it with my mom :) She is seriously my best friend!

Tomorrow's Friday…YAY!

As always, Be Blessed and Happy Blogging :)

Wedding Sneak Peak!!

Well...this is crazy but we JUST got our wedding pictures back from the photographer and I'm so excited to share some of our favorite with you :) We had a fantastic time at our wedding and its exciting to look back at the pictures and re-remember all the wonderful moments. So...here ya go ;)

There are many many more pictures to come, so beware :)