rolla costa.

i'm less than two weeks away from a move across the country. i'm leaving everything. my home, my job, my family, my friends... every single thing i have ever known. and you know what? i'm not scared. i'm just excited and anxious.

a little sad. i only get sad when i thinking about all the "missing." i'm going to miss things. like my mom picking me up from a bar when i get too drunk. watching my favorite boy-twins and their sister grow up. being my granmother's personal beautician. and the list could go on...

but like robert frost said, life goes on. time to be a grown-up.

i have an amazing man to spend the rest of my life with and some incredible friendships in california!

this is just the beginning.

sarah's bachelorette weekend 2011

i have some kick-ass "she cousins." one of them is extra special to me becuase i used to live with her and she's so teeny tiny. i like to pick her up when i hug her and she's marrying this goon in october...

his name is ryan and he likes bagels, fishing and sarah. i went on their second date with them. i still can't figure out why they thought that was a "good idea."

this past weekend, i drove to north carolina (come on a raise up! take your shirt off!) for her "beach-lorette" party. i'd love to share some stories from the weekend but all 20+ of us were so inebriated for most of the festivities that we either A) don't remember what happened. or B) did something so embarassing that "the circle of trust" was sworn to silence forever. amen. to make up for it, i'll show you a few g-rated pictures.

we went to the beach a lot and then went to a lot of bars...

we didn't go anywhere without our penis straws.

or our penis suckers... i am.

i can't even count the number of penises... peni?... in this picture.

we ended the weekend with a bridal shower at sarah's future in-laws' home. we were all really hungover and quiet. i think we may have eaten everything in their house.



sarah got some fabo panties to wear on her wedding night!

to say i'm excited for this wedding is an understatement. i'm going to be a tearful, blubbering mess during the ceremony...  and a drunken, dancing fool during the reception. cheers!

a heavy heart.

i have heard loved ones tell me countless times that they have lost their faith in God because he let's bad things happen to good people.

sunday morning i learned that a "sister" from my Washington Redskins Cheerleading days had lost her Navy SEAL husband and father of her two babies when insurgents took down their helicopter in Afghanistan. i was on a long drive by myself and was immeadiately shaken to core. why? is the only thing i could think through my tears. i began to pray for her family and caught myself asking God "how could you let this happen?" and then it dawned on me...

god does not "let" these things happen. he is not the cause of human tragedies but he mourns these events with us when they occur. he wants to help his children pick up the pieces when we feel so broken. someone once told me that faith is not an insurance policy but an assurance policy. he is here for you. he loves you beyond comprehension. "bad things" happen in the freedom that comes with the gift of life and your faith will help you through them.

my thoughts and prayers are with Aaron's family and the other 31 familes, who lost a loved one during Saturday's tragedy, in their time of mourning.

weekend at the lake.

taylor and i spent last weekend at lake anna in virginia with family and friends. lake anna is a weird, weird lake. and by weird, i mean hot! it recieves warm water discharge from a nearby nuclear power plant. sounds safe, huh? taylor spent the most time in the water and came home with a few new appendages. i kid, i kid but like i said, lake anna is hot (just like us)... the water temperature couldn't have been less than 95degrees during our stay. there were clams basically cooking themselves in the water, openining up, dying and making the whole place a bit too stinky. taylor had a blast throwing them at me...

we had so much fun laying out in the sun, jumping off the boat-house into the giant hot tub lake, teaching minors to play my favorite drinking games, watching terrible movies, eating too much, drinking too much and "enjoying each other's company" (cough).

big tree fall hard.

we are models.

i'm off to north carolina this weekend to celebrate my cousin's bachelorette party! i'll miss taylor but there will be a big grey goose down there for me to snuggle with.