Thursday, May 31, 2012

Moving!

I finally accepted that I am just so much more comfortable with wordpress than I am with blogger. So all future posts can be found here ::::


http://springyourlove.wordpress.com/ 

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Our Story

I've always loved love. When I was a kid, even though I was a tom boy to extremes, I was always boy crazy. I dreamed about what it would be like to be a grown up and have a husband and 15 kids. As a teenager and during the beginning of college, I kinda felt like my life wasn't going right if I didn't have a boyfriend at all times.

I, like MANY girls, created a list of attributes/characteristics I hoped my husband would attain. And as I grew older and experienced different joys and trauma's in life -- those dreams changed and were edited, but they always remained.

I've been told by literally dozens [maybe a hundred] of people that Luke and I have one of the most precious love stories they've ever heard. I think so too. People have told us, "They should make a movie about your life." I think so too. Mandy Moore would play me. Russell Crowe would play Luke. We dream big.

People have asked to hear our story and I always ask them if they want the long or short version. And whichever one they choose, they almost always tell us that we need to write it down. That's how good it is.

Maybe I have a big head and I think too highly of us and what we've been through. Or maybe I'm in awe of the beautiful life of grace my Lord has given us, even when we were most undeserving.

Consider yourself warned. This is preface of a series of posts about mine and Luke's love story.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite movie quotes. It comes from Madea's Family Reunion. When I first watched that movie, I bawled my eyes out hearing these words spoken at a wedding. Because never had I heard someone else describe Luke and myself so clearly. This is a picture of those words that I gave to Luke. They sit on our shelf.




Are you excited? I'm ready. :)


Cheers, ka

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Friday, May 18, 2012

Instagram Faves

Today I feel like sharing some of my favorite phone/instagram photo's of mine.

Hope you enjoy! Now, I know it's a lot but having gone through several hundred, you have to believe me when I say I really did narrow it down!!



Here are some lovely tomatoes from our garden last year, held by Hubby.




A few of my favorites pictures of Luke and I.






After a fight, Luke reminded me of his love via q-tips and hair tye's.







Ponte Vedra Beach.






In flight on our way home from a friends wedding in Pennsylvania.







I LOVE ladybugs, I always have. And they still seem to find their way to me.








So, this is a pretty fantastic story that's incredible hard to keep short. Mi madre and I were driving one day when we saw two large dogs chasing an otter across the road! We rolled down the windows and were yelling at the dogs to leave the poor thing alone. The dogs run off and the otter runs under our car. For about 5 minutes we discuss our options. We dont want to drive off and risk running it over. But we also dont want to get out of the car and risk getting attacked by an otter. Because believe me :: as adorable as I think they are, I know they can be vicious. Mom barely cracks the door to see if it's still under the car and we can hear it squeaking. She gently whispered, "Are you okay little buddy?" I guess the otter saw this as an invitation because within half a second the otter is IN THE CAR... on top off my mother and then crawling up my chest and around my neck!! We're screaming and literally crying from 50% fear and 50% laughter. I'm frantically trying to get this otter off of my neck as I try desperately to get out of the car. But in my panic I cant seem to remember to unlock the door first. 

When we finally do escape, it follows us OUT of the car. After this... a while passes and the otter (with lightning speed) will not leave us alone and is exceedingly cuddly!!! Every time mom moves, it follows. Every time I move, it follows. We're all three back in the car. This continues for about 15 minutes. Finally we decided to take him to a creek up the road and he follows us down and he swims and plays as otters do but as soon as we walk away it follows us. This also continued for a while until we tore ourselves away.

I miss my otter friend.




The biggest "dust devil" I've ever seen in person in the field across from our home!





Playing our favorite game, Ticket to Ride, with friends.







Our sweet pup, Bullock.







In October I went to spend a few days with a close friend in dark times. She and the roommates brought all the beds into the living room so we could all be together and cry and pray and eat chocolate. It's what girls do.




Coolest fungi ever!






The most beautiful dragonfly I've ever seen!!! It looked fake but I assure you it wasn't!





Pecans from our tree in the backyard.








Hubby in Birmingham on our road trip to Memphis in November. What a blast!






Me and my best, Sarah Becca.





Our Hubby and Wife pumpkins from the Fall.







Visiting friends for dinner.







Sweet text from my ribcage.







I was extremely proud of my gift wrapping skills this year. You needed a knife or scissors to open everything, but that's beside the point.








Sarah Becca at our annual New Years Eve camping trip.







A reallllly cool spider web in the morning dew.









A few months ago, Hubby and I flew to Indianapolis to pick up a wicked nice RV to drive back down to FL. It was the fanciest 5 days of our lives.





This is my favorite picture of Luke EVER. I am not exaggerating. EVER! The reason being that this is the way that he looks at me when we're being us. And I've never been able to capture that on film before. 

I. Love. This. Man.




Beautiful thread at my friends house. She's somewhat of a collector.







My dearest, Amie, napping in our front yard. I love her and I love this shot.






For our anniversary, we went and painted pottery! This was my bowl, pre-kiln. 







Our sweet little kitchen.







Some of our favorite photo booth pictures with each other and with friends. This sits right by our front door.








A major storm hit RIGHT after we finished planting our garden.








A favorite picture of Hubs and I.







My mama-in-law's camera from back in the day. Love it!










A fun edit I did on the bed and breakfast we stayed in for Luke's birthday.







A beautiful barn near our home.









Hubby in a pub in Savannah, GA for my birthday weekend with our best friends.










Our carrots! Who knew the amount of self control needed to grow carrots. I am daily restraining myself from looking to see how they're doing.









A NASTY storm earlier this week.








One of my three sets of owl salt n' pepper shakers.








Little Mr. Frog hanging out on our door handle.










Our beloved Fort here in Saint Augustine.









I love where we live! This is the view from the side of our yard.









And I leave you with Bullock's nose. Cutie.














cheers, ka

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Thursday, May 17, 2012

Eggplant Potato Pancake Casserole Meal of Food


Snazzy title, right? Well, that's what it is.

Our favorite comedian is Brian Regan, we can't get enough of him. In Epitome of Hyperbole he talks about cooking shows and how unrealistic they are. He says if they wanted to be more realistic they'd say things like, "Come back after the commercial to see me realize I don't have any eggs."

One of those it's-funny-'cause-it's-true things. ;)

Well, I had an extra eggplant that needed to be used before it died and became unusable. I decided to make an eggplant potato pancake and maybe throw some ground beef in there for good measure. It didn't turn out as planned, which is usually how it goes when I try meals for the first time.

Start off heating some oil and/or butter in a large skillet. Brown 1 lb of ground beef [or turkey, whatever you like].





While that business is going on, cut up your eggplant. I had one medium sized eggplant. Do what you want. [Man, I am SO good at teaching recipes!!!]





Now, be annoyed that you've tried uploading this image 5 times and it looks weird in a different way every time. Then give up.





Admire your cute little, yummy little eggplant. Then admire your precious Clementine kitchen aid mixer in the background and decide to get this same shot with Clemmy in focus.




Then shudder when you realize you need to talk a clorox wipe to the outside of Clemmy's bowl. Yikes!!!!!! I guess that's what happens when Clementine sits right next to your sink.


Now, drain the gross grease from your ground beef and set it aside. Throw some minced garlic in the skillet and cook up them eggplant cubes!!




While the eggplant is cooking, become extremely annoyed by trying to figure out which way would be best to cut up your peeled potatoes. I tried grating them first. That didn't work. Then I tried shredding them, I think. That DEFINITELY didn't work. So, then I just chopped them up because by that time the eggplant was cooked enough.





At this point, I took out the eggplant threw in the potato slices and chunks, then the ground beef, then the eggplant again and topped it off with some Parmesan.

Now, you need to panic because the propane ran out. These are problems you have when you live in a camper. But luckily we had a little left in the other tank. Whew!!





Replace propane tank and move forward. :)





Enjoy finished product. It was pretty good but I'll definitely make some adjustments next time. :)




Cheers, ka

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