Now this is funny...

A couple months ago I was writing my "Developmental Autobiography" paper for my American College Student class. The paper asked us to use the theories we had been learning in class and apply them to our own development through college. To help me remember the things I was experiencing in college (yes, im old) I decided to look through my old journals. I have been writing in journals since I was in high school, but I rarely read back through them when I am done...boy was there an awesome surprise awaiting me when I did!

The best by far was my freshman year. I laughed at myself over and over for the ridiculous things I was concerned about...but the funniest things I found were my thoughts on Luke and our friendship. If you do not know our full story, you can find it here. But lets just say, Luke liked me for a long time and it took me awhile to realize that our friendship was meant for something more...

There were days that Luke would randomly show up at Elon because I had a bad day, send me flowers for Valentine's Day, take me on "friendship" dates, give me a"friendship" ring, etc...and I still had no idea he had feelings for me...but others tried to tell me otherwise. Here were some quotes I found in my freshman year journal:

"Luke is a great guy, I just love him. I definitely want to marry someone like him, but maybe not so weird." (Sept 3, 2003)

"I am not sure what is going on with Luke. Everyone thinks we are going to get married. I love Luke to death, but I have no feelings for him like that, I just love our friendship!" (Oct 14, 2003)

"I am frustrated right now with my dear friend Luke, well not with him exactly. Everyone thinks we are going to get married and everyone thinks I should like him. God, am I supposed to like him? Right now I am enjoying having fun with him. And also, he is so weird." (Oct 20 2003)

Luke and his "weird" roommates in college...

Apparently, I thought Luke was weird. But who didn't? And I don't know who I thought I was...I was probably more weird than anyone else around me...and still am!


Check out my other journal topics:

• analyzing EVERY guy that could possibly be my future husband. apparently that was all i thought my about my freshman year.
• writing ridiculous love notes to my future husband (i was going to post them on here but i got to embarrassed)
• i frequently wrote how much I loved Elon one day, and the next day stated how much I hated it. i guess i was confused?
• i also stated this, "i was thinking that maybe there is a guy out there saying 'i want to meet a girl who walks funny, talks southern, has big ribs , and a great sense of humor.' how great would that be?" Yes, in case you have not noticed I walk funny...and hopefully you have not noticed I also have big ribs.

Anyway, I am so glad I ended up with Luke. What a great guy!

All those weird things about him are some of the things I most love about him and our relationship. Like the fact that he does a crazy dance every time he comes home from work, frequently lays on the ground and falls asleep, likes to turn our room into a fort on numerous occasions, likes for me to come home with a fake fire on the TV, etc...all of which make life so much better and more exciting than I ever imagined. So I might have thought he was too weird back then, but now I think he is way to good for me. I count myself lucky and blessed to have him as my husband.

New Year, New You!

The plan was to show up to my hair appointment and just get some new layers to my long hair. Then I went to work the night before and 5 of the 20 year old girls I supervise convinced me to go big or go home. My trim turned into a completely new look! Yes, I have had short hair before...but this the shortest it has ever been!

And I LOVE IT.

First of all, it used to take me 40 minutes to get fully ready after getting out of the shower (make up, hair, dressed, etc). Now it only takes me 20. Yep. Literally 5 minutes to dry my hair and put some product in there...and then 15 mins for the rest. I am not even a mom yet and this is a dream come true. Will I regret having the mom look too soon? Maybe later, but for now I am embracing it!

Check out the new hair:

OK so not the best pic of me, but just focus on the hair! That pic was taken at Drystan's birthday party in DC when I went up there a few weekends ago. I am still not sure why that picture of Luke was on the wall, but it was nice to have Luke there in spirit (he was at Daniel's bachelor party!).

Speaking of his birthday, it was great! I spent 2 nights with Lisa and we had so much fun together! Friday night was party... Italian theme.

Me, Drystan and Alli

Alli is still as funny as ever...

I set them up on a friend date once!

Lisa and I spent Saturday in Leesburg with Macfie. We went to the coolest antique shops and found some treasures for her wedding in June! Can't wait :)

Side note: going to antique stores makes me want a house so bad...

Then we made some awesome chicken tortilla soup and saw "We Bought a Zoo" which was the cutest movie I have seen in a long time! It was funny, heart warming, sad and beautiful. Seriously go check it out.

Here is to new hair and fun adventures in 2012!

New Year at OIB

Happy 2012, a month late! I was blessed enough to spend the week after Christmas with Luke and my parents at Ocean Isle Beach. We ate lots of wonderful food, watched beautiful sunsets, played some competitive games, and went on a lot of walks!

The morning after my grandma's funeral we all got up and went on a walk on the beach. As soon as we stepped foot off the dock we saw a school of manatees! They literally followed us from one side of the island to another! They even did a few tricks, as if they had escaped from Sea World. I think it was a special gift from the Lord :)

Every night we watched the sunset together...


And I finally got to show off the Toms I had been wanting for so long!



After spending 3 days with my parents, we had some fun guests come and join us for the weekend! Everyone came in town late on Friday night and we had a lot to celebrate together: Nick and Lindsay's new job and move to Raleigh, Sarah and Houston finishing law school, Stacey moving to Portland, Luke and I finishing our first semester of teaching/graduate school, Charles' birthday, and Charlie being half way done with law school! Although 2011 was hard for a lot of people, it was great to all be together to start a new year!

Saturday was spent with a long walk on the island

The rest of our day we put our new cornhole sets to use! The biggest surprise of the night?! Lindsay and I dominated the boards...even we were surprised!

Then it was time for the last sunset of 2012...




The rest of the night we ate lasagna, played apples to apples, and went to Sharky's for a fun night of listening to music and dancing.

The whole group: Charlie, Houston, Sarah, Charles, Stacey, me, Luke, Linds, and Nick

The best part of the night...the OIB cougars were out on the prowl!! Houston (and his GF) were having to fight off the ladies left and right!

The lady on the left was trying to dance and bump hips with Houston all night...

And the night ended with...

THE SHARK DROP!!! It was awesome. What an amazing time with some people we love.

I Hunger for more Games...and more Dawsons

Yes, the Hunger Games. I FINALLY finished the last book even though I started the series this summer. I read the first book in 2 days, the 2nd in 2 weeks, and the third...well grad school started.

By the way, if you have not read this book, do not read the rest of this post.

I LOVED each and every second I spent getting to know these lovely characters. I loved the stories, the drama, the fighting, the love, and even the politics behind everything...I just loved it all. It was the best series I have read in a long time. The best part?


Katniss ends up with Peeta!!! Ahh...thank goodness! I was going to regret reading the entire thing if she ended up with Gale. There was just something about their sweet, genuine and sacrificial love that made me love them together so much! It made up for the fact that Joey did not end up with Dawson, yes I am still bitter. I think its funny that I was both a Peeta and Dawson fan considering they played opposite roles.

Hunger games is to Dawson's Creek as Katniss is to Joey, as Peeta is to Pacey as Gale is to Dawson. That probably made no sense to you. But, what I am trying to say is Gale and Dawson played similar roles--best friends forever, secret feelings for each other, etc. And Pacey is like Peeta who came into her life later, became friends, swept her off her feet, but always had to fight off the best friend. So, in Dawson's I pulled for the BFF, Dawson, but in the Hunger Games I pulled for Peeta. Interesting huh?!


And then there is Katniss and Joey...the girls who play mind games, can't decide what they want, and have all the guys running after them. Damn those girls.

Well, if you were expecting an intellectual review of this book you did no get it. But, I will leave you with two things:

1. I cannot wait for the Hunger Games to come the theater! A lot of fans in my cohort have already planned on the midnight showing!

2. Will a Dawson's Creek Reunion show please happen asap?! By the way if you did not know this about me, I have every season of Dawson's Creek and vowed to watch it in its entirety every other summer for the rest of my life. This summer is my on summer and I just got butterflies thinking about it (no joke).

Christmas in NC

Christmas in NC began a little late this year as we did not make it down to NC until Christmas Eve morning. We started out at Connie's house and had their traditional Christmas Eve celebration. This year it was even more special with the new logan addition, Amelia:

That was pretty much how Amelia and I sat all night...and it was wonderful. She is so snugly and sweet and I already adore her. Meanwhile, Lila was going crazy with Ci-Ci opening all kinds of fun presents for her and her lil' sis. Of course, all of this had to happen while wearing her Princess Bell dress!


Lila had a very Princess Christmas! She got princess dolls, dresses, shoes, make-up...anything princess you could possibly think of! She kept on looking at her dolls and sharing with everyone "I just like these so much!!!". It was fun to see her light up and enjoy Christmas so much this year!


After opening presents we headed in the studio to enjoy a lovely meal that Connie and Matt put together: crab cakes, spinach casserole, rice, and lots of wine and dessert!


The Logan family (especially Lila) loves to do a little post dinner dance...so we spent the rest of the evening dancing and having fun together.

Lila's favorite was Shout but she made it known that she did NOT like the YMCA. haha!


We also had a special reveal of the paintings that Connie gave us for Christmas. They were beautiful and a gift that we will cherish for the rest of our lives.

Connie painted this picture of Evan, Lila, and Amelia on the day that Amelia was born.

This was a painting of Luke and I on the night we got engaged.

Christmas morning we headed to Raleigh and spent the morning with the Yorks! Sadly, I only took one picture...but its a good one of D-Reg and his sweet dog, Jager.

Then it was off to Aunt Dee and Uncle Doug's for our Christmas lunch! It was great to all be together again. Brooke and Matt were not there last year, so we enjoyed getting to spend time with them-and have the chance to do some after Christmas shopping! Brooke and I have had that tradition since we were in middle school, and Luanne was a great addition this year!

Brian with the most popular Dirty Santa present, a 12 pack of micro brews!

Uncle Kent...wearing his wrapping!

mom, luanne and dereck

The next day we celebrated our family's Christmas back in Greensboro. Dad had some great wrapping this year:

One cool present we received was from Dereck. He wrapped us a box of pasta, and then shared that he had made us homemade meatballs and sauce that he had frozen for us to take home. Dereck has become quite the cook, and we had our meal last week...it was delicious! Luke also got an awesome sleeping bag and mat for camping, so I will be looking forward to some camping trips soon!

After presents we went to Fleming's during their happy hour for some great drinks and appetizers!


We are blessed that we got to see all of our family this year during Christmas! It was sad without Grandma Register, but were able to all be together and experience the peace that Christ brought when he entered into the world...and I am thankful for that.