Meet.....

Ginny! 

Or Jenny, or Jennie. Whichever!

We're going to have a little naming contest. Think of a name for my donkey and I'll give you a hug! :)

I have a few names floating under the radar, but none have stuck yet. 

She arrived the day I left to go to spring break so I didn't even get to meet her until late last night! Josh came over and fed her for me and made sure she was ok. I moved her in with the horses today and they were not too pleased. She may end up being a pasture hopper. I don't mind her being up front with the cows, but I want her close to the house so I can play with her!! She's sooo cute! :)

On other news, I went up to the cow pasture to get her and my little Opie saw me and literally ran up to me and gave me a hug. he's such a precious boy. Then he followed me around like a puppy dog! Trying to poke his little horns in my butt. haha

He's such a precious doll!!

He doesn't really look as fat in person as he does in this picture. I think I caught him turning around to scratch!

I was greatly missed by my animals while I was gone. Flint heard my voice last night and let out a huge whinny! Lola was glad to see me and so was Coal Kitty! He wouldn't even sleep in his little bed last night. He had to be right up against me all night.

I'll be back soon to post a real blog on Boca Grande and my trip to my friend Rhiana's house! I love going to her house because we get to go to the thoroughbred farm and ride off the track thoroughbreds! :) so much fun!

Island life...

is paying 4.49 for 2 scoops of ice cream when you can go to the store and buy a gallon of Breyers Ice Cream at that same price.

is watching the manatees play (or mate) all day in your backyard.

is being a 4 minute walk from from town and a 10 minute walk from the beach.

is waving to everyone you pass... even if you have never seen them before, nor will you ever see them again.

is using a golf cart as your car... instead of your car. Or just walking.

is buying a t-shirt from every little store... even the grocery store! :)

is being really sad when you leave. Island towns just tug at your heart. (Well, my heart)

is wedging my computer into the upstairs woodwork on the porch to bum internet from a neighbor. Thank you "Motorola" neighbor!

Spring Break

This is where I am right now. Boca Grande, Florida. I came down here with my sister, Ashlee, and niece Blair! 

This is my grandpa's back yard. The same grandpa that took me on the cruise in Europe back in August. You can click on the "European River Cruise" link and read all the awesome posts that Josh wrote on that trip. He's such a good writer!

Back to the backyard... it's the coolest backyard ever. Water, Boats, and Manatee. 

I LOVE Manatee! I'm going to try to get them to come up to the dock so I can get good pictures of them. They are in the middle of their mating season... so they are only interested in one thing... and that is not the fresh, sweet water coming from the water hose! 

I'm looking at two manatees right now. They're so big! They just lay out in the middle of the water, soaking up all the sun.
 I got to swim with three manatees one year when I was here. I'm pretty sure one of the baby ones used my leg as a scratching post. Then I got on it's back and it swam away really fast, bucking me off like a little pony!

Hopefully they'll get interested in the sweet hose water over then next couple days!

We went to the beach this morning with Pop to look for shells. Blair loved running down the beach!

The water is gorgeous and freezing!

I'll be back another day to post an update! We'll be here until Tuesday and then I'm going to visit my college roommate in Tampa! We're going to the barn that she works at and and I'll get to ride some horses with her!! :)

OH!! I got a new pet!!! I know y'all are thinking 'this girl can't have enough animals!'  My other sister, Linsey, is definitely going to write on here how crazy I am. First it was Opie and now this new creature! I am still trying to think up a name for her... her name when she came to our farm was/is Jenny, but I want to change it. I think I'm going to wait to see what her personality is like. She came the day I left, so I still haven't gotten to meet her yet! I can't wait to meet her. And her original name is a slight clue of what kind of animal she is! :)

Inside my phone #2

I love taking pictures with my phone. Especially if I don't have my camera around.

Most of my pictures are from horse rides or when I'm trying to make Josh mad by taking his picture! :)

 If you would like to take a peek inside of my phone then please scroll down! I love seeing other people's pictures, so I figured you would maybe like to see mine! (again!)

The First Peek inside my phone.

Welcome to were I live!

Home of the peach trees.

I love when they're blooming. It's so gorgeous. This picture doesn't do them justice. I'll get my camera out and go take pictures of them tomorrow after clinical. They're so pretty.

This is Chauffeur. He showed up on our porch this morning. I don't know if he'll stick around for very long. Once he figures out that our girl kitty, Cookie, is missing her ovaries then I'm sure she'll move along! I'm pretty sure he came from the 'petting farm' across the street. Also, his name is subject to change. I think all our animals have at least 2 or 3 names!

This is a llama. AND 2 sheep!! Those little sheep were so cute!

This picture was taken yesterday while I was riding my horse entirely too late at night. This time change is awesome! Except that I'm soo tired in the mornings!

These are m&ms. We have a jar at my house full of m&ms. You know the 5lb bags you can buy? Well, this jar was fairly new. They had only been in there a day. I stuck my hand in there, pulled out a handful, ate one as I was walking around the bar to sit by Josh, put my m&ms on a napkin and saw this. All orange and blue. It must be a sign! :) Love my Auburn Tigers!

This is my Josh. :)

I took this picture on Saturday, on our riding date!

He has now developed a love for riding horses. Not as strong as mine... but he will actually ride with me now! He loves SoBe!!

Riding with Josh, this time it's my horse's ears and the pretty blooming cleveland pears down our driveway. 

The cow on the right is Opie and the cow on the left is his other mama. I think he thinks that she is his real mom because she has a white chin/neck. Poor Opie! They are always together in the pasture. I don't think she has a baby this year so she adopted Opie. (BTW, I have had Opie for a whole year!! My little baby is growing up! here is his 1 month old post)

The day I got to see a Beluga whale poop

In the previous post, I mentioned that Josh and I made a date out of our day in ATL. We really did have a great time. I love spending time with my Josh and everyone that knows me will tell you that. If we aren't together... we're probably on the way to see each other. We just never get tired of being around each other! Well, I won't speak for him... but I love being around Josh! :)

Well, after we left the first trip to the bookstore on our mission to get wristbands to see The Pioneer Woman...we went to The Big Easy Grill to grab some lunch.

As the name implies, The Big Easy Grill is a Cajun restaurant. It is a hole in the wall kind of place that is absolutely amazing. Most of you don't know much about Josh, but his dad was born and raised cajun in the heart of the louisiana swamps. We like to get our hands on some good cajun food if we can! The Big Easy Grill has shrimp, crawfish, scallops, and a lot of fish. We happened to come upon this place one day while in ATL when we were flipping through all the food choices on the GPS. We tried it out and loved it.

I always get a po' boy. Either shrimp or crawfish, but I like the shrimp best! Josh usually gets the same as me, but this time he got the shrimp/crawfish basket with Cajun Fries. Those fries are delicious; I'm not a big fry person either.

I wanted to take a picture of the inside of the place, but it was so crowded. We even shared a table with two other guys. The inside has all kinds of mardi gras stuff, lots of hats from all kinds of schools/colleges and sports teams (Even one hat from my high school!), and a lot of cool pictures. It's very small and everything is pretty much made out of wood. Really cool place. If you're ever in ATL and you like cajun food, I would definitely recommend it!

After Lunch... Josh and I went to the Georgia Aquarium!!

The World's Largest Aquarium (:

I had never been and it was SO neat! We were kinda bummed that it was 25 dollars a person, but being broke and in love we decided to go anyways! Good thing we did because once we got up to the window the people in front of us turned around and said "Here's two extra coupons that we didn't use, you guys can have them!" Guess what.... $15 a person. Saweet!

We got inside I turned on my camera to get ready to document the trip... low battery. Oh geez, I thought. I've got to some how take cool pictures of the aquarium and still have enough battery to take pictures of the gorgeous Pioneer Woman. I was so sad. Why didn't I check my battery!!? Big dummy.

I loved these guys. They are beautiful! They remind me of freshwater cichlids. Pretty bright colors!

Jellyfish are so cool.

Dory!! & Big lips back there

The funky dude. And I like that fish in the top left corner. Pretty sure he's like 'wise one' in Finding Nemo that lives in the dentist office tank.

Love this picture. :) Pretty whale shark

Scary shark. You think they all eat each other?! I mean like... the shark eat the other fish. It'd be so cool to be there during feeding time!

This picture isn't clear at all... but this ray had cheetah print all over! So pretty!!

He never came back by so I didn't get a good picture.

This guy was pretty awesome.

Whale shark!

Belugas!

This was taken right before this beluga decided to educate all the children on how they poop. It was a very interesting moment for all of us!

Love this picture. It's just so clear and I love the turtles expression.

All in all we had a fabulous trip to the aquarium. They are getting a dolphin exhibit on April 2nd, so I kinda want to go back this summer!

After the aquarium we went and met The Pioneer Woman, her husband, and her two boys. It was amazing.

After pioneer woman shook my hand and told me her son's horses name was Chuckie, not chunky, we meandered back to the parking lot. I was in awe and amazed that my life was in the same room as this amazing person's life and that it felt like 11 seconds.

We called Josh's cousin to see if he wanted to get dinner, but we couldn't get an answer. We just decided to go here

Yum.

We had one of these in Auburn and I use to go there all the time. It is delicious! 

They had one of those new coke machines! There are more than 100 flavors of drinks, crazy! Have y'all seen the commercials yet?! Our small town probably won't be getting one of these for another year or so... probably more! Too high tech for ol' Pear.

You get some ice...

Then you choose what drink you want. Josh chose Hi-C. Gross Josh! haha

Then... you choose your flavor!! You can also just choose regular in the middle.

Joshua chose strawberry. I asked him why he made such a bold choice and he said "Because I've never had it before!" :)

I'm so proud of him trying something new!

But then.... how can you mess up HiC?!

Then you press the big button that says 'Press' and it spits out your drink!

It was pretty nifty!

I drank Diet coke flavored with Raspberry. Why? Because I've never had it before! :)

Then before we left I got Diet Coke with Vanilla because I use to looove Vanilla Coke! Then when I switched over to Diet coke and aspartame poisoning... they didn't make it. Now they do!

We sat down to eat and it was good. 

After dinner, we made a trip to the Georgia Tech campus to visit my little bro! He's so precious and cute. He's not really little... he's actually pretty tall. I'm glad we got to visit with him. My other little bro (the other little bro's twin) is living in Australia until July. I wish he had been in the apartment too. It would have been nice to see him instead of his door closed with a stranger on the other side. July will be here soon enough I am sure!

We headed home and reminisced about our perfect day that was had. Minus the bookstore lady lying to us. I can't wait to do it again!

The Cherry Blossom Festival is coming up soon and we live driving distance from it... so maybe that can be our next date!

I heard they have frozen chocolate covered bananas.... mmmmmm. I ate a lot of themat this place

Thanks to all my new followers that came over from Pioneer Woman. I really do appreciate y'all following and reading my blog!! Almost to 50 followers!! 

Until next time, I'll be schooling, studying, and riding my horse! :)

Have a great week!

Meeting Ree... MEETING REE!!!!

EEEEE!!! It was SO exciting!!!!

I just love The Pioneer Woman!

I actually had a very interesting day... thanks to the bookstore lady that had no clue what she was doing, but I'll share that at the end as to not ruin the glory of meeting Ree!

Josh and I spent the day in Atlanta galavanting around until the moment arrived.

We arrived at the bookstore and went upstairs. Wait, let me rewind. We almost took 4 people out in the parking lot fighting for a parking spot. We had that awkward stare-down with a guy that appeared on the other side of a car that had just backed out.... it was like two bulls pawing  at the dirt.... wanting that spot. We chickened out and waved it off to him. It payed off though, we ended up getting a spot right up front! :)

Once inside, we rode the escalator upstairs and walked through the bookcases looking for any signs of people hovering around. We finally got to the back corner of the store and there were lots of people standing around. I saw the table and the backdrop, but no Ree.

It was about 6:00. I was fumbling around in my bag, freaking out about my low battery in my camera that I didn't even think about checking... then I heard "I'm here! Sorry I'm late!"

I was so excited to see her! She's so precious!! 

Since that old bookstore lady lied to me, I was in group E (which didn't end up being too bad) that was supposed to line up at 6:45. Ree had mentioned that she brought her husband and boys along, so I looked for that cowboy hat towering over the bookshelves, saw it, grabbed Josh's sleeve and pulled him toward that way! 

Great picture Marlboro Man and horrible picture of Me!

He signed my book and hugged me. Hehe.

If you ever read Pioneer woman, you know she loooves her Marlboro Man! She always takes pictures of his rear and shows them off for all women to see. Well, honestly I'm not a big butt admirer, except Josh's. :) But, All the other women there were butt admirers! There were two ladies standing behind me being super creepy trying to take a picture of his butt as we were standing in line waiting to meet Ree... I kept telling Josh that they just needed to go ask him and quit being scared about it! I'm sure he knows it goes on and I'm sure he wouldn't mind posing his rear for them. Plus, Ree told us to embarrass him in her little speech she gave! Then I thought, maybe Josh could just pose for them and they could pretend it's MM's rear. Haha!

So, unknowingly, I got a picture of MM's rear. How Ironic! AND I obviously wasn't worried about getting one, but Josh so graciously took this picture and included him in it!

Aren't their boys so cute! They were very shy, so I asked them what their horses names were and they told me, Paso and Snip. Of course I had to tell them that I had horses too! I told them that my horses name was Flint. Then Todd the younger of the two said "Well I have another horse and his name is Chuckie!" He was too cute!

And then the time finally came!! Group E was called (earlier than I expected!) and I waited my turn in line. We weaved in and out of bookshelves and talked to people around us (Found out the girl in front of me was an Auburn Grad!). I was about to sweat to death at one point. We were all grabbing books off the shelf using them as fans. 

Then it came. I got to meet Ree!!

Ree signing my book and me freaking out.

Ree smiling for my handsome boyfriend.

Oh and there's me right there next to The Pioneer woman!

Ree and me up close!

(You think I could have opened my eyes a little?!)

I'm pretty sure I made myself look like a fool when I talked to her! Josh was upset that I didn't tell her I was "Molly from View From a Saddle". I was just so nervous!! Do you think she really reads other peoples blogs anyways?! A girl can dream :)

This is how our conversation went:

Me: Hi!

Ree: Hi! How are you?!

Me: Hi!

Ree: Hi! 

(Ok Jk about the second Hi!)

Me: I'm doing great, it's so good to meet you, I don't even know what to say!

Ree: Oh you don't have to say anything!

Me: But it's so good to meet you!

Ree: You look so cute! I love your top.

Me: Oh Thank you! Thank you so much (Thinking: oh my gosh, she likes my top!)

Me: I already met your husband and boys. Those boys are so precious! I was asking them their horses names, Chunky and Paso, they're so cute!

Ree: Oh Thank you!

Me: Wait, was it Chunky? No... it wasn't Chunky (I die out laughing)

Ree: (Ree dies out laughing too) No, it's Chuckie! That's ok you can't really understand what they say most of the time!

Me: Oh yes! Chuckie! It was Chuckie, not chunky!

Ree: (Still laughing)

Me: (Thinking: yay I can make her laugh)

Then we said our goodbyes and I shook her hand and told her again that it was so great meeting her! Then we walked out of the bookstore and I felt like the last hour of my life lasted 11 seconds.

It really was so great meeting her! I loved it!!

Thank you sweet, precious, handsome Joshua for taking pictures!! I wanted you to be in one!!! You little devil! :) I love you more than words! 

Oh, the lady that didn't know what she was talking about. We arrived at the bookstore at 11:00 AM to find out about getting the wristbands for meeting Ree. I asked the lady what time was the earliest we could get our wristbands and she said "Oh you just need to be here around 5 and we'll get you a wristband then and you can get in line."

I thought, I'm sorry but that doesn't sound right from what I've heard. But, why question the lady that works at the bookstore?! So, we left a little disappointed. We ended up making our day in Atlanta a fun date that will be the next post!

I get a text from Josh's mom stating that her work friend got in the 5:30 group because said friend's dad went by there at 12 and got wrist bands.

WHAT?!?!

I was livid. Livid! I called the bookstore, "Oh yeah we started handing them out at 2". Well I told them that the little lady that actually works there told me to be back at 5 PM earlier when I was standing at the counter at 11 AM, after driving 2 hours, trying to figure out their schedule, so now I possibly had a chance of not even getting a wristband!

Luckily we got there around 3:45, they still had some. No worries there, but I let them know I wasn't happy about being told wrong. They didn't seem to care about my feelings at all. So, I hope their sales were down. 

Ha. Just kidding.

All was well, I got to see, meet, hug and shake hands with Ree and all was right in the world for 11 seconds. (Ok maybe a little more... like 3 minutes.)

P.S. Again, incase you skipped the small print, stay tuned for a post on my wonderful Date Day with my Joshua! :)

Bananas

Today it rained. It rained a lot.

I had an important date, too. I was so stinkin' excited about it! Then the rain ruined it.

It's been almost 2 weeks since I rode on the back of my beautiful steed.

Hopefully I will get to ride Saturday!

Also, It didn't help that today was one of the most stressful days that I have had since I left Auburn. I love nursing school, but this week has been a huge slap in the face. It's not as hard as Auburn Physics was... but it is pretty hard!

I've never been a huge test taker. That is a large problem for me. Ask me a question, tell me to teach you about the pathophysiology of Chronic Stable Angina and I can tell you anything you want to know... but do not put a paper in front of me and tell me to pick the 'best' answer out of all 4 answers that are right. It stinks.

Oh well. I guess I'll get it at some point!!

Until then, I'm trying to lower my blood pressure and looking forward to riding my horsey.

I'm also looking forward to meeting The Pioneer Woman. Like I had to put a link there.... you all know who she is, don'tcha!! ;)
I am so. stinkin'. excited!! (I like the word stinkin'.)

Josh and I are going up on Friday morning to pick up tickets at a bookstore that I have not yet identified. Then we are going to walk around Atlanta and pick up dimes and quarters off the street to buy us a hotdog or hamburger from the Varsity. I am broke y'all! But, I gotta go see Pioneer Woman. I just gotta!
I have to give credit to my sister Linsey for bringing this fabulous woman into my life. I started off reading Ree Drummond's 'horse' stories on her blog about the wild mustangs that they keep for the government. That was all I would read. I'll tell ya.... I thought this woman was crazy for letting her 2 and 3 year olds ride in rodeos! ha!  But I love her.

Thank ya linnie :)  Meet us up there?!?

Also, I made a new riding buddy friend the other day. She's been my neighbor for a while and even went to high school with Josh, but I never had met her! Well, her 3 horses decided they wanted to come visit my horses. They somehow got into my mares' pasture and were visiting! I was on the way home from Subway when my dad called me and said that the neighbors were out in our pasture trying to catch their horses. It was so nice meeting them. They are a nice family! I'm excited about riding with Lexi!  I'm so lucky to have people to ride with now. I use to always be looking and looking for people to ride with! Finally I don't have to search! Between Jacyln and Lexi, hopefully I'll always have someone to ride with. I'm just now starting to get Josh to ride a little more and that makes me excited too!

Enough talk for today. Hope everyone has a great rest of the week! I'll be working, pioneer womaning, and riding my horse.

PS. Giveaway that's precious!
At love stitched!

Going to the Town with wild Chickens in the Streets

I'm excited to see that girl and that boy this weekend!!!

I will be traveling south to this town. Some of my favorite family members live there and this is a heads up to them that I will be showing up on their doorsteps to say Hi at some point! :)

Y'all should go read up on my cousin's blog. He is an awesome writer and they live in a very interesting town. Hence my title. And He and his wife have precious children!

Back to the girl and boy, that girl happens to be one of my best friends! :)

I met Anna in my last year at Auburn. I wish I would have met her in my first year! We did everything together that last year and still keep in touch weekly. She lives in South Alabama and is in Vet Tech School.

She recently got engaged to that precious boy, Chris, and is getting married!!! Eeee!!!

They're coming to GA to see some of Chris's nieces/family that live there!

The picture above was the day that I first met Chris and also the first picture I ever took of Anna and Chris! It must have been fate because now I am going to do their engagement and wedding pictures! 

I am SO excited that I get to follow them around all day long on their day!

and very nervous! Anna has confidence in me though... so her wish is my command!

Josh and I can't wait to see y'all! And the Fam! :)

A New Kind of Adventure!

This past Saturday, Josh and I went on an adventure!

We had this planned for a couple weeks and I was so excited about it!

Yep, Josh and I trailered my horses out to ride at the sod farm that was recently bought by one of Josh's pig buddies! Well, Josh trailered the horses out there. I just sat in the passenger seat and assured him that Flint would not flip us over with all the pawing and kicking he was doing.

I decided to take Flint, my stallion for those of you who don't know, and he did great. He wasn't too excited about riding in the trailer. It seriously felt like the trailer was going to flip over on the way ther! We stopped about 2 miles down the road from my house and I walked to the back of the trailer to check on him and he neighed out to me like 'Mom! Help me!" but, I assured him he was fine! ;)

We finally got to the old sod farm, 8 more miles down the road. It is actually right next to Josh's house so we were also able to ride on Mr. Luke's land. He has lots of trails through the woods, so that was a lot of fun!

when I got Flint off the trailer, he was soaking wet. He had gotten so nervous in 10 minutes that he was sweating up a storm. I walked him around a little bit and let him cool down. Then we saddle up and rode off! He did awesome while we were riding. I expected no less! He's such a great horse.

SoBe, the precious angel, she's like the perfect horse! Likes riding in the trailer, is very quiet while doing so... and will let pretty much anyone ride her!

Old sod farm!

Those things are.... Ginormous

Josh and SoBe waiting on Mr Luke to finish working on his tractor!

Look at Josh doing such a good job training SoBe to be a little show horse :)

My pretty boy!

We had a lot of fun!!

This was kind of a test to see how well they would do going off. SoBe passed the test. Flint... he did not. I think I'm going to leave him at home next time! Until I get my own trailer... he is safer at home! I think Sassy or Rose will get to go next time!

We have plans to go up to north-ish GA sometime. We were told about a place that has a ton of horse trails, so we are going to go try that out one weekend! 

Hopefully we will get to go fairly soon!