Wedding Bells Were 'Ringler'ing!

Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Brad Ringler.  One more wedding down...and what a beautiful wedding it was: this is bound to be a mostly picture post...but let's face it, that's what you want anyways.

Brad and Nikki tied the knot at beautiful Mount Sequoyah in Fayetteville.  After weeks of praying for no rain, the day (though it started with some drizzlies) was perfect.  The rain made everything so green and fresh.  You couldn't have asked for a prettier day.

Here's the bride and her maids at the rehearsal.

And here's the whole gang...minus Shawn, he was busy kicking butt for the Great Lakes Loons.

The morning of the wedding was full of buying (gorgeous) flowers, filling vases, setting up tables, and lots and lots of praying for no rain.  This is a picture of all of the girls at the bridal lunch.  Tea sandwiches, salad, champagne lemonade (and tea) and some very addicting brownies.  

After the lunch it was time to head to the ceremony spot and start getting ready.  After all the pictures were taken, all that was left to do was walk down the aisle.  Then, Nikki's dad came into the room we were waiting in and said the worst thing a bride wants to hear ten minutes before walking down the aisle: "Nikki, we've got a serious problem."  Trying to keep Nikki as calm as possible, her dad lifted his leg and showed us his shoes...one of them with a barely hanging on sole.  Thankfully, Mr. Thomas and Tyler wear the same size shoes, so after a quick call, Mr. Thomas was in brown shoes and Tyler was in Mr. Thomas's black shoes.

With everyone ready to go...we headed down the aisle for one of the most beautiful ceremonies I've been to.  Then, it was off to the reception to PAR-TAY.

 

Everything was perfect...the food, the decorations, the music, and especially the cake.

 

Lots of dancing, and some extremely sore feet later...we said goodbye to the newlyweds and congratulated each other for another wedding well done.  Here's Tyler and Kathy dancing the "Mother/Son" dance and for the first time, Zac and I dancing the "Father/Daughter" dance.

These other pictures are from the James Taylor concert earlier that week.  Tyler, Jeremy, Kathy, Zac and I met up at Fair Park on Wednesday night for some JT.  Can't wait for him to be close again...he's the best.

Such a wonderful week/weekend.  Can't wait to meet at Mount Sequoyah again in October for Lindsey and Lee's wedding.  So happy for you, Nikki and Brad, you two deserve each other.  Tyler and I will be waiting for our invitation to come see you this summer.  YAY.

Happy Spring Break/April/Easter

So...wow, it's been more than a month and I've been AWOL!  So sorry (cough...Kayla) that I've let you down.  Life has definitely been busy around here, so it's not like there's been nothing to blog about, but that's no excuse...so here I go:

Spring Break:
It was great!  Tyler and I have decided that we are ready to go back to school.  We have started attempted to start the process of applying to schools and have been studying for the GRE this semester.  Our plan is to apply this summer with the hopes of being accepted in the Winter/Spring and attending our new school Fall 2012.  So...we actually used part of our Spring Break to visit Baylor University and talk to some folks about grad school. 

Tyler and I are both looking at different programs, but we were able to meet with people from both programs.  We had such a great time, and are really looking forward to our future in grad school.  Baylor seems like such a great fit for us, but we aren't putting all of our eggs in one basket.  There are other schools that we are considering, and the process itself makes us very excited about being in the classroom a little over a year from now.  

Baylor was also a great visit for us because we got to spend lots of time with the younger sis (and her boo)!  That means, SPICE, Target, white cherry icee, fake house hunting (thanks for your cooperation Tyler), and Congress Clothing!  We had so much fun, and everybody was just about ready to rumble!!! (Thought you'd enjoy that one KacBoo).  

Not only did we get to visit Aaron and Kayla, we also were very lucky to get to stay the night with the Webbs!  We are so thankful for their hospitality and company, and it was so good to catch up with them!  Hopefully we'll be seeing more of them in the future!

And that about sums up our Spring Break...at least everything worth mentioning...we also spent lots of time with our families...which is always much needed and much appreciated!

April:
It feels like this month completely flew by!  I know it's not exactly over yet, but it's almost over...which brings me to the next portion of this blog post which I will dedicate to BFF Nikki!

At the beginning of April we got to celebrate with Nikki and Brad at their Allen shower.  They are getting married April 30th...which is 5 days away! 

Opening presents at the shower

 Beautiful seesters at the shower

After the shower, all the ladies headed to M.O.H. Lynley's to start the Bachelorette Party!  We had such a great time playing games, eating some of the most delicious snacks, and of course, ending the night at Pete's!

 

 The Bachelorette and big besties

 Most of the party girls around the food table

 

 We LOVE Pete's

Can't wait for this weekend when we finally get to see Ms. Nikki become Mrs. Ringler!!!

Easter:

This was our second Easter away from our families, and while we missed spending the holiday with them, we were so blessed to get to celebrate with our Ouachita community!  This year we put together a little pretty big lunch called our "EASTER FEASTer!"  We had somewhere between 25 and 30 friends come together for an Easter potluck lunch.  Believe it or not, but we actually got everyone around one three tables (pushed together so it was basically one).  Our menu consisted of:

Baked Ham

Mashed Potatoes

Sweet Potato Fries

Vegetable Casserole

Corn Casserole

Green Bean Casserole

Carrot Salad

Deviled Eggs

Two Salads

Rolls

Two Cakes

TONS of Cookies

Punch

Juice

Coffee

There was a TON of food!  I'm pretty sure everyone who brought food ended up taking lots home.  It was so delicious and so great to spend Easter with all of those friends.  

And here are our first and second annual family Easter photos:

  

2010

2011 

Happy Easter Everyone!  Hopefully I'll post again before a month passes by...Nikki's wedding next!

Birthday Weekend

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but Tyler and I play in the handbell choir at our church here in Arkadelphia.  We've been playing with the...Joy Ringers...for a little over a year.  When we were asked by our music minister's wife to join the handbell choir, we kind of shrugged our shoulders and said we would come one night and see how things went.  After we left our first practice, Tyler was hooked!  He had so much fun, and kept telling me how he couldn't wait until practice the next week.  If his anticipation for the next practice wasn't enough, he took his music home and I caught him practicing with some wooden spoons.  It cracks me up how excited he gets about handbells, he has literally said it is the higlight of his week sometimes...I don't really know what that says about our day to day lives...I hope we aren't that boring.

Anyways, this past weekend (Tyler's birthday weekend) we played in the State Handbell Festival in Hot Springs.  There were about 20 handbell choirs from all over the state of Arkansas, and we were all rehearsing and playing together (the same music...don't worry).  In between rehearsal, different choirs would perform a song for adjudication.  Basically, your choir plays, and is recorded while other directors critique your performance. 

WE

                     ROCKED

                                                       THE

                                                                               HOUSE!!!

We were probably the most popular handbell choir there, because we used a new handbell technique that a lot of the choirs had never seen before.  Everyone was pretty impressed! 

After the festival, we went home and I started working on Tyler's "Birthday Dinner at Home" meal.  The menu:

1) Pork Osso Bucco

2) Mashed Potatoes3) Sautéed Green Beans
      and for dessert...
4) Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (Tyler's favorite)

I actually have never made oatmeal raisin cookies for him before because I don't like raisins, but I've been eating these cookies, and I think I can swing making them more often. 

It was a great night, we had our friends Ian and Cara over for dinner and afterwards we played Settlers of Catan (Birthday Boy won!).  Sunday isn't worth mentioning...Tyler had to work all day long to prepare for this week, but tonight we're having his birthday party!

Can't wait to celebrate with friends tonight, and eat yummy desserts!  I'll let you all know how it goes. 

Only 6 days until we're on our way to Allen for Spring Break!  Can't wait to see family and friends!

Hey Car Cake!

We celebrated our friend Cara's birthday, and in my attempt to make a great birthday cake (decorations and all)...I created this:

I had this awesome idea to spell out "Happy Birthday Cara" until I made the "H" and realized that the peanut butter M&Ms are a lot bigger than the regular M&Ms.  I knew I wouldn't have room to write "Happy," so I decided to write "Hey."  Then, I decided..."I'll just write 'Hey Cara' kind of like 'hey cara...it's your birthday!'...Halfway through "Cara," I ran out of room again...and so, "Happy Birthday Cara" turned into "Hey Car!"  I'm taking orders for obscurely worded cakes if anyone would like to order one!

My Gift Exchange Promise

Okay...so it's been a while...I know...updates on life to come, but first, I promised someone that I would post pictures of my beautiful new gift exchange soup crock!  Love it so much, we had potato soup with all the fixin's during one of our snow days!

Thanks for the great gift!  More from Family Shmamily to come!

Stylish?...Okay!

Apparently people do read my blog because I was nominated a “Stylish Blogger Award" from the lovely Poe Family.  And out of the MANY blogs that she follows, I can't believe I was picked...thanks!  I'm so glad that blog post consistancy was not part of the award...I would have been at the bottom of that award list.  So what now?
Here are the rules for this award:

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Award to 10 3 great bloggers (let's face it...I don't have a huge following...or follow any huge number)
4. Contact those bloggers and tell them about the award

Now, I'm usually very skeptical about these types of things, because they remind me horribly of middle school chain letters.  You know what I'm talking about:

"If you don't forward this on to 25 of your friends, you will never find your true love."

"If you ignore this email and don't forward it on, then you don't love Jesus."

"If you reply to this in the next minute, you will get three wishes...if you reply in 5 minutes, you will get two wishes...if you reply in 10 minutes, you will only get one wish...etc"

"If you forward this to 10 of your closest friends in the next hour your crush will ask you out!"

But, I figured that it wouldn't hurt, and there actually was never a threat to my love life, or spirituality, so I figure it's safe to continue...

So...7 things about me...here they go:

1. I am currently reading through C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia...and I'm LOVING it!

2. My favorite pen in the world is the Pilot G-2 07.  I actually got a pack of them in my stocking this Christmas...thanks Tyler, you know me all too well.  Don't even try to argue with me...I'm always willing to try new pens (people think they can persuade me to convert to another pen) but I have yet to find a better one.

3. I love glasses and cups!  If we had more room Tyler would let me, I would always be buying new drinking glasses and cups.  I find ones that I like all the time, but we have a cabinet full of them already...boo!

4. My favorite movie of all time is Father of the Bride...My dad is totally George Banks.

5. I'm afraid of the toilet flushing at night...let me explain.  Our bathroom is all the way across our apartment (about 10 steps) and in the middle of the night when I have to go to the bathroom, I am afraid of flushing the toilet because it is so loud.  When I turn to go back to our bedroom, our empty guestroom is to my back, and the volume of the flush makes it so that I couldn't hear it if someone was attacking me from the guestroom as I walk back to the bedroom...so yeah...I run back to bed.

6. I always take my shoes off in the car on long trips, but I don't like to go barefoot in the car.  I have to have a pair of socks to wear.

7. I used to hate eggs...during my first year of marriage, Tyler helped me change that...now I love them!  Next on my list of foods to learn to like...raisins...we'll see!


And now...the three lucky people I am passing the Stylish Blogger Award on to:

1. Baylor Barretts

2. Kolby and Emily

3. Let's Hear It For The Boys

No threats here...have fun with it if you want!

SNOW DAYS

Hooray for snow days!!!

A few weeks ago, Arkadelphia got the craziest weather...snow...and lots of it!  In fact, we got a total of 9 inches...take a look:

Right after church on Sunday, the snow started and it didn't stop until Monday morning!  We knew the roads would be crazy, so Tyler made a quick trip to the grocery store for the neccessities...which included a tube of cinnamon rolls (Tyler was anticipating school being cancelled).  We played for a while on Sunday afternoon, but the snow was so dry that any plans to make a snowman or pack a good snowball were out of the question.  We did however manage to sneak into Chick-Fil-A (except we didn't really sneak...it was open) and "borrowed" some trays to sled on.  Since the snow was dry, it wasn't the most successful sledding, but we made it work.  After Tyler got the "Hey, hey, hey, let's have a snow day" phone call from his Assisstant Principal, we set cancelled the alarm for the morning, and after our cinnamon rolls the next morning, we put on all of the ski gear we could find: hats, gloves, bibs, jackets, neck warmers...etc.  When we walked outside, this is what we saw:

The snow was PERFECT!  No one had touched it...thanks to students not being back on campus yet.  And we had the entire campus to ourselves...and our other dorm friends.  Here is Tyler with our snow man friend we made.  This snowman made it in the Ouachita paper this week...famous!

Then, after a LONG afternoon of sledding, we made these guys with the help of our friends:

This picture was an attempt to get everyone in the air...we were all very excited, but we didn't exactly time it right!

Too bad those guys were no match for this guy...thanks OBU basketball players:

School was cancelled the following two days...Tyler was very excited about his three extra days in the week to be a kid again.  In other news, just before the snow hit, our good friends Jeff and Bailey got married!  They live in Anthony Dorm on campus...welcome to ResLife officially Bailey!  Congrats you two!