New York City

Well I finally did something...I WON A CONTEST! Yes, people really do win those "be the 7th caller" or "You will put in a drawing for the grand prize". The first thing I yelled on the radio when I won was "I have never won anything like this in my life!" But I did!

On my way to work a couple of weeks ago, a radio station in Nashville asked to texted in your name for a chance to win a New York City Getaway. I was seriously sitting at a red light and thought "Why not!". That afternoon I got a call as I was eating dinner with Kerry and Kaylor and it was the main DJ from the radio station. I immediately knew it was him when he asked to talk to me and right away I thought "no way!! I won!" He told me I won and I started screaming up and down in my house out my back door, and to my back yard. As I was doing this, Kerry was standing on our porch with his hands up like "what in the world are you doing" and Kaylor was yelling "mommy are you ok!?" The house next door to us is being built right now and the workers walked out of the house to stare at me act like a crazy person. Kerry had no idea I even entered a contest so he was really confused when I answered my cell phone at the dinner table and started running through the house and in the yard yelling. So I won 2 round trip tickets to New York, 2 nights in a hotel in Times Square and wait for it... Jay-Z and Eminem concert tickets at Yankee Stadium!! :) We kept laughing at the thought of us at this concert in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium at 1:00 a.m. I was just really excited about the trip and really nervous about the concert. We almost ended up selling the tickets right beforehand and then thought "it's free lets just go" I will honestly say it was a very entertaining concert. Many other singers showed up to perform with them and lets just say the stadium was rocking! Just to name a few Coldplay, 50 Cent, Dr.Dre, Kanye West and Beyonce were some of the guest appearances. I have never seen so many people in my life at a concert. We rode on the subway squished by Jay-Z and Eminen fans up and back and it was (surprisingly) one of the most fun nights we have ever had. So we did not regret going to the concert.
Some other things we did on our short visit was Today Show, Central Park, Ground Zero, Wall, Street, Canal Street, Greenwich Village, Trump Tower, and Grand Central Station. We had a BLAST in NYC and I am so glad we had this opportunity to go.

Here are a few pictures from our trip:
Times Square:Radio City:At the TODAY Show early in the morning. We got on TV!! Seeing Donald Trump at the Today Show:In front of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street:Ground Zero:This is the FRIENDS building (my all time favorite show!) This is a picture of their apartment. Had to get a picture of this:And a picture from the concert:

County Fair

We went to the Wilson County fair a few weeks back in Lebanon. I LOVE going to this fair because it is so clean, fun, and big! I love getting fresh squeezed lemonade and funnel cakes. Kaylor loves seeing the animals and riding the carousel. One of my favorite activities they have is the Banana Derby, which are trained monkeys on dogs that ride around a little track like a jockey would do on a horse. It really is funny because the monkeys do the jockey stance and act like they are whipping the dogs to run faster when they are racing around the little track.

We really had a good time! I'm so glad they still have fairs around that are like this.

Monkey riding the Dog:

Watching the Pig Races:
Riding the carousel:Feeding the Goats:

We Have Moved

Wow, we have been so busy with this move. I didn't know how hard it actually would be moving with a child, but it was. I feel like the boxes are never ending and I still feel so unorganized. I wish we could have closed on the house when Kerry and I were both off in July, but that's how it worked out :( We just have to work around our schedules.

We absolutely love it though!! We added a lot of things that we have always wanted in a house and as of now I have no regrets on our choices. The building process was actually so much fun for us and we loved every minute of it. I honestly can say we did not argue one time with making choices. I think we both have the same personality and we both have the same taste in what we want so that made the decisions easy to make.

Here are some pictures of our new home:

Here is a view from our back yard. The builder is putting sod on it next week and we're going to do a fence in the near future:

Our Master Bedroom:

Master Shower:

Master Tub: This is the living room opening up from the kitchen:

Eating area and NEW kitchen table (this is the only new thing I have bought for the house):

Kitchen:

Living Room again from standing at the turn of the stairs:Kaylor's Room:Guest Bathroom (one of my favorite rooms) because I did the black cabinets with a granite I like. I was too nervous to try this combo in the kitchen. I now have to find a good shower curtain for this bathroom:

We can't wait to start making memories in our new home.

To The Beach...

After this crazy and exhausting summer, my parents decided last minute on a trip to the beach! Kerry and I had already decided that since we were building a new house we were not gonna go to the beach this summer. However, my parents were nice enough to ask us to come along with them and boy did we have a fun time!
To back up a little bit, if you read my last post you know my grandmother unexpectedly passed away on June 22nd. That was really hard on our family because we were all very close to her. It was so hard going to her apartment and moving out everything, smelling her, and just wondering why she passed away. About a week and a half after she passed away, Kaylor came down with a HIGH fever. I just thought it was one of those 24 hour fevers and that she would be fine. Well her fever would not go down! The next morning it was around 103.5 and not coming down on medicine. She was lifeless on the couch (and we all know a 2 year old acting lifeless on the couch shows that they are really sick.) Then that night it was around 104 and still not coming down with the medicine. The next morning Kaylor was up to around 104.7 so we decided to take her to Vanderbilt ER (the nurse told us to do this because it was a holiday and she was not responding to medicine). As we walked through the front door of the ER Kaylor threw up all over Kerry and all over the lobby. Kerry did not bring another shirt so he had to wear scrubs all morning. The ER experience was awful! They wanted an x-ray, which we all had to hold her down to get and they had to put a catheter in her, which we all had to hold her down again. AWFUL! They couldn't really tell us what it was, so basically we did all of that to not get an answer. She kept a fever of around 104-104.5 for the next 4 days! We took her to the doctor three different times and they finally thought she might have pneumonia without showing in x-rays or hearing it in her lungs (because that can happen apparently). So my child went 4 days with a high fever and no anti-biotics for pneumonia. She finally started feeling better in time to leave for our trip to the beach.

With all of that to say, we were ready for a vacation! We headed to Panama City, Florida. It was SO FUN! They have made it very family friendly there. About five years ago they built a huge outdoor mall called Pier Park that has restaurants like The Backporch and Margaritaville. Kaylor did great at the beach. She played in the sand, got in the ocean with us, went swimming in the pool, and acted great the whole time. When she started to get tired she would tell us she was ready to go back to the room for a nap. It was so much better then I expected.

Here are some pictures from our trip: (Sorry I put so many)

Looking at the beach when we got there:

This is what she loved doing, having us pick her up over the waves. It was tiring:

Building sand castles.

Swimming by herself with her floaties.Swimming to Daddy:

My parents and brother:

Kaylor washing her feet off after walking to Pineapple Willy's:We rented a pontoon boat for a day to take to Shell Island. It was so fun! We saw dolphins and hung out on the Island that was so pretty:Kaylor on Shell Island:Kaylor saying cheese at The Backporch:Eating at The BackporchThere were some children rides at Pier Park. Kaylor wanted to ride all of them. So we did the carousel and this ride below that was a balloon ride. Kerry said they actually went really high and fast and couldn't believe she didn't get scared. Kaylor loved it and even raised her hands while they were riding:This was the entire family at The Shrimp Boat:

We had a great time!!

I will miss my Buddie

Yes, it is the longest I have ever gone without blogging, but this summer has been the busiest and craziest summer ever.  On June 22nd, we unexpectedly lost my grandmother Buddie.  It has been very hard on our family because we were all so close.  She went in for OUTPATIENT back surgery to fix a disc in her back around June 17th and a couple of days after surgery we think she went in to cardiac arrest sitting in her bed at the hospital.  Buddie is my grandmother's REAL name and that is what we called her.  When my mom ask Buddie what she wanted her grandchildren to call her she said "Buddie" because she didn't want to have a grandma name.  Buddie was very unique.  She never acted her age, loved gaudy jewelry and cute clothes up until the day she died, and was in the know about everything.  Everytime I went by to visit her and I was wearing shoes that had some kind of jewels on them or a purse she liked, she wanted me to go find some that looked just like it for her.  Just about 3 weeks ago she had me go to a local boutique and buy her those cute stackable bracelets because she saw them on me and my mom and loved them.  She still went and got pedicures, and she had to pick out some crazy bright color for her toe nails everytime.  Her latest color was electric blue and the nurses at the hospital thought it was so funny that she had that color on her toes to be her age and my mom and I would just say "Oh this is so Buddie."  

I played basketball and softball my entire life.  Buddie might of been my number#1 fan.  When I played on a travel softball team growing up we would travel around the country and her and my grandfather would not miss a tournament.  They would travel with me everywhere. (my grandfather passed away in '98).  In college she could rarely make it out to any of my basketball games because her back hurt her so bad to sit in hard chairs, so she bought her a radio to sit next to her couch and she did not miss one second of any of my games.  

   She was such a beautiful person, in fact at the funeral my mom had three men come up to her as we were standing at the burial and tell her how "good looking" Buddie was and that she could "walk the walk" as they said.  (These guys went to high school with Buddie).  I laughed so hard when my mom told me that because I could picture Buddie walking around like she was hot stuff :)  

  I already miss her so much and when I hear the phone ring at my parents house I still think it's Buddie calling to see what we are doing.  I will miss my cell phone ringing and her on the other line asking me to come over and fix her surround sound/tv so that she can hear a ball game that is coming on t.v., I will miss her cute jewelry and outfits, and her love for sonic milkshakes. 

  Buddie we all love you and miss you so much.  Thank you for all the great memories!

Buddie with Kaylor when she was born

Summer Time...

I absolutely LOVE summer! There are so many fun things to do and so much time to do them in the summer time. We try to do something fun (and free) a lot to keep a 2 year old busy. Swimming, going to the fountains, play dates, free activities at the park, story time at the library, and going to our farm in the country are just some of the things we have already been doing. Kerry has been very busy with basketball camps and practices, so he has not been around a whole lot while we do these activities. Hopefully we will all get to spend more time together in July.

With Miley at the swimming pool:

Walking with Daddy to go fishing up at the pond in the country:

Dad teaching her to reel in a fish:

With Mother Goose at the library:

We went with our friends Aubrey and Blair to Build-A-Bear. Here they are rubbing their red hearts on their face before they stuff it inside their bears:

We went to go buy some more sunglasses for the girls. They love sunglasses:

At the fountains:

I Love this picture! Jaxon and Kaylor put their arms around each other to snap a picture: