Throw-back Thursday Link-Up: High School Graduation {1999}

With all the graduations going on right now, I thought I'd share a graduation picture of myself!

I graduated from Edwardsville High School in 1999. Fourteen whole years ago! Crazy!

Our graduation ceremony was on a Saturday morning at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, which is where I ended up going to college for a year and a half right after high school. I graduated in the middle of my class, which was right around 500 students. I was an average student. I was definitely not in any honors programs, but I did alright. I was shy in high school and never got into any trouble. I had a nice little group of friends that I hung out with and didn't venture far from that. There was nothing amazing about high school for me. I just basically did what I needed to do and got decent grades. I didn't do many activities and wasn't really in any clubs. I did take 2 years of choir and that was about the extent of my extracurricular activities. ☺

The graduation ceremony was long, but I think I was so excited that it didn't really bother me. My parents, sister, grandparents and a few aunts and uncles were there to watch me walk across the stage and get my diploma.

Its crazy to think back to that day and think about how I had no idea what was ahead of me, yet I was excited about the future and what lied ahead. I was excited about finally being an adult. I didn't realize then that being an adult is not always all its cracked up to be. Ha! I was 18 and had the whole world ahead of me!

Its been quite a ride from then til now. Lots of things have happened that I didn't expect, but I'm so happy to be where I am today and have my wonderful family and great friends by my side!

Now go link up below and tell us a "throw-back" story of your own!

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Our Walk on Sunset Trail

We live very close to a walking trail that runs from downtown Florissant, to Sunset Park. Sunset Park is just down the street from our house. You can catch Sunset Trail just a couple streets over from our house. The trail runs all throughout Sunset Park and all along the Missouri River. Its a beautiful walking trail.

I happened to be off work last Monday, and wanted to get out in the nice weather with Jackson. So we set out for a nice long walk on the trail. About 2 miles! Of course, I took my camera along and got a few cute pictures of Jackson. ☺

Smelling Flowers.

The pretty Missouri River.

On the way back up the trail, Jackson started getting a little restless in the stroller, so I decided to let him walk for a little while. He did great and stayed right by me on the path. At one point he wanted to push the stroller. ☺

Picking some wild flowers.

I really love this photo. He's getting so big!

Getting so sleepy on the walk back home.

The next day, my legs were burning. I used muscles I hadn't used in a while. I hope to get out on the trail more this Spring and Summer and get some exercise in. ☺

I'm linking up here:

and here:

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Don't forget, tomorrow is Throw-back Thursday here on my blog!! With all the graduations right now, I hope to scan some of my graduation pictures for tomorrow! I look forward to reading your posts!

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Project Life 2013 - Weeks 17 and 18

Week 18

For this page, I used the "Whale of a Tale" Tiny Kit Freebie from Creashens.

Week 17

For this page, I used the "That's Life Tiny Kit Freebie" From Erica Zane.

We Had a Great Weekend!

I hope you all did too!

It was pretty low key, which is what was so great about it! Most of our weekends are pretty busy, which is okay, but sometimes its nice to have a weekend with no plans and nothing much going on. 

Friday night we did have plans, but they were fun! Jake and I recently became the planning coordinators for our church youth group. We have a whole summer schedule planned out with fundraisers and activities! Friday night was our first activity... a movie night at church. We ordered pizza, popped popcorn and watched the Life of Pi in our church dining hall. It was a fun night. If you've seen The Life of Pi, then I don't have to tell you how good the movie was and how much of a tear-jerker it was. It had me so stressed out!! It was really good though and had some funny parts too!

Saturday, we had no plans whatsoever! Which is really unheard of for us. We stayed in our pajamas a majority of the day. We watched the last three episodes of "House of Cards", while Jackson played so good! We took a nice afternoon nap and then that evening we finally got out of the house and went for a walk to the little snow cone stand up the street! 

That night, just like every night, we watched an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse before bed. Jackson normally stays awake through the whole show and when its over we say goodnight and lay him in his crib, where he will then go to sleep, all on his own. This night, he fell asleep watching his show, so I snapped a quick picture with my phone. There's nothing sweeter than a sleeping toddler. ☺

Sunday, we went to church. After church, Jake, my dad and my brother-in-law went and played golf while us girls and little boys went to lunch, did a little shopping and then went back to my parents' house so the boys could play with their new water table. My parents got them this Little Tikes water table the day before and the boys had so much fun with it. We also got their little kiddie pool out. They had a blast playing in the water. It was a 90 degree day, a perfect day for the water.

Landon wanted me to take a picture of him jumping into the pool! ☺

We had gotten them some ring pops at the store earlier that day. Needless to say, they loved them. Jackson had never had one before. When he first got it, he was walking around with it saying mm mm, mm mm. Ha! Too cute.

As you can see, he really enjoyed his ring pop!

Mason kept his until it was completely gone. He sucked on it like it was his binkie, all the way til there was none left.

After playing for a long time outside. We went in, gave the boys a bath and then the little boys took a nap. Once the guys came home from playing golf, we had dinner and then went home. 

Its back to work today, after a nice, fun and relaxing weekend.

A Day at the Park

This past Saturday, I wanted to go do something fun as a family. Just the three of us. We talked about going to the Zoo and the Missouri Botanical Gardens, but we thought they would just be too crowded. It was the first nice Saturday we had had in a long time and it was the day before Mother's Day, so we thought we better choose something that would be a little less crowded. 

Jake thought it would be fun to find a nice park and just let Jackson run around, since that seems to be Jackson's favorite thing to do in the world right now. I immediately thought of Faust Park. I had never been there, but had heard it was really nice and that they had a carousel.

So we pulled up directions on our phone navigation and headed out.

It was a beautiful, sunny day! Perfect for a day at the park. 

The playground at this park was very nice. It had a rubber padding as the floor, which was nice! The carousel was closed that day, which we were bummed about, but we had plenty of fun on the playground and just walking around the park. We will have to go back sometime and try out the carousel and the butterfly house that they also have.

Here are a few pictures I took that day. ☺

Jackson did NOT want to stop for a picture. Can you tell? Ha!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

I'm linking up here:

Throw-back Thursday - Cruise 2007

Thanks so much to all who linked up for Throw-back Thursday last week! I loved reading your posts!

Welcome back to the second week of the Throw-back Thursday Link-Up. 

This week I thought I'd share a cruise Jake and I took back in August of 2007.

We had just gotten married in July of 2007 and had actually just gone to Hawaii for our honeymoon. But we had planned this trip around a friends birthday, so even though the timing wasn't perfect, we were excited to go nonetheless.

We flew to Miami and boarded the Carnival ship "Imagination". It was a smaller ship as this was just a 4 day cruise.

Sailing out to sea.

The Pool that we never once got into. (It was always quite crowded.)

A portion of our cabin.

Beautiful sunset.

The lobby of the ship all lit up.

Jake and I at dinner.

My yummy dessert that night.

Our whole group at dinner.

Our bed the first night.

Our first stop was in Key West! We rented mopeds that day and toured the island. It was so fun... probably the highlight of our trip for me.

Our bed the second night.

Our second stop was in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. We spent a majority of our time in Mexico at the beach. We even ate at a little bar/restaurant right on the beach. We also did a little bit of shopping there as well.

This is where we ate. I had a yummy Pina Colada as well. ☺

Our bed the third night.

Our last day and night were spent on the ship headed back.

 Here Jake and I are after dinner, the last night on the ship.

Another beautiful sunset.

Our bed the last night. 

We had a lot of fun on this cruise. I will say, that my favorite parts though, were when we were stopped in Key West and Mexico. Being on the ship wasn't as much fun for me. It got a little boring after a while. Part of the problem may have been that we were on such a small ship, something I would pay attention to if I ever went on another cruise.

I can't wait to read your posts.