omg, dad.

My dad is crazy.  Good crazy.  But still, crazy.

I think I've talked before about how he has twitter...he likes to post recipes, farming advice, and in general, make weird comments.  He says he does it to get a reaction from people.

A post that he put up last night is getting reactions from people:

Seriously? Nice erection? 

Here's the picture; I'm not flipping it around because this is how he posted it to Facebook:

I now get emails and Facebook messages from friends saying things like this:

Or this:

Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on who you ask), these comments and this blog will only encourage him to post similar things.  Oh, dad....

small town, usa

So, if you didn't already know this about me, I grew up in a very small town in KS.  My graduating class had 21 people in it.  Two. One.  That's it.

I went to college and moved to Kansas City, thinking that I'd be there for quite some time.  I love KC.  Most of my friends live there.  My sister, brother in law, and nephew live there, and it's only an hour and a half from my parents and most of the rest of my family.
All of that changed, however, when I met my hubby, Lincoln. 

He grew up in a small town also--only slightly bigger than the town that I grew up in, but both are in the same vicinity.

Once we'd been dating for awhile, we both knew that marriage was in our future.  We also knew that one of us would have to move.

For me, there really wasn't much thought put into it; I knew that moving back to where he lived and where I grew up was probably the best choice for us.  Not only were both of our parents close by, but there's something about growing up in a smaller community that draws you back in. 

Don't get me wrong, I didn't think that I'd be moving back here quite so soon, or ever for that matter, but once I had the chance to, I knew that's what would be best for us.  I also knew that I'd moving away from a lot of conveniences that I'd grown accustomed to in Kansas City. 

The town that we live in now doesn't exactly have a great variety of restaurants or a nail salon on every corner!

My life in KC was great, busy, but great. But when I come back home, life slows down a little. People care more about your well-being. And family is just a short drive (or walk) away.

Besides not having a plethora of restaurants to choose from or the best shopping centers to go to, nothing is really that different.  I mean I still have a gym to go to, we still eat out, there are plenty of community events to go to and/or join, AND, get this, I just got my first set of golf clubs so that I can play in women's league at the Country Club.  I don't golf.  At all.  But the rules said that I could throw or kick the ball if I needed to!

A friend of mine called the other night and while I'm sure she thought what she said was funny and didn't realize what she said was offensive...it was a little offensive to me.  Here's the conversation:

Friend: Hey pal!
Kristin: Hey! What's up?!
F: Not much, what are you up to?
K: Not a lot, just talking to Lincoln.
F: Aww, that's cute, so small town of you!
K: Huh?
F: That's so cute, and so small town!
K: Talking to my husband is small town??? I don't get it.
F: Ha!

Maybe I'm out of it...but I thought most people talked to their husband/boyfriend/fiance/roommate once they got home from work?

There's a chance I'm being too sensitive, but living in a small town isn't such a bad thing....maybe it's because we've been married a month (TODAY!), but we make time to talk to one another, eat dinner together, and hang out together when we're at home.  To me, that's just what couples do--not just us small town folk.

oh, hello.

I should really get back to writing on this blog of mine, huh?
Things have been a little crazy, to say the least.
In the past month, I have:

• Quit my job
• Moved
• Gotten married
• Went on a honeymoon
• Moved more stuff
• Unpacked
• Started a new job
• And I'm currently in the process of selling my house which will require moving even more stuff

The good news is, I should have all the time in the world to write about stuff going on and I have plenty of things to share with you...I just need to get my house sold so that we can move the last of my things to our house. 

In case you were wondering, here are a few pics from our wedding, along with the blog put together by our talented photographer, Amanda Eaton.

It really was the best day ever; we had PERFECT weather, everything went as planned, all of our friends and family were there, and we had the best time sharing our day with everyone!

two months!

Eek!  In two short months from today, I'll be getting all gussied up for my wedding day!  Time has flown by.  Seriously.  Flown. 

As far as I know, I'm as ready as I can be for the wedding.  I haven't really done anything wedding related (besides a tasting last weekend for our rehearsal dinner and a dress fitting tomorrow) in months. 

(Back on the tasting, it was SO GOOD and we had so much food leftover!)

I've been busy planning a fundraiser, trying to find a new job, and getting my house ready to go on the market. When I say getting my house ready to go on the market, I mean that Lincoln fixed this problem over the weekend...

Since I haven't really talked about wedding plans too much on this blog, I thought you might want to see what's going on:

Here's our church:

Funny story about the church we're getting married at...neither of us go to this church.  I always drive by it and thought it was beautiful. 

When I was contacting churches (mine was too far away to get married at), they only allowed members and people considering joining their church.  No exceptions.

For one reason or another I decided to look at the staff of the Church and recognized one of the ministers as someone that used to preach at my hometown church when I was very little.  Oddly enough, he married my parents and one of my aunts and uncles!  Because of that connection, we were able to have our wedding at the church AND he's marrying Lincoln and I!  Small world, huh?

Here's our reception venue (it's so cute inside and they have the BEST food):

via

Our colors are green and pink.  Mostly green.  I think Lincoln would've killed me if our main color was pink!  We're for the most part just using pink in my bouquet and in flowers at the church and the reception. 

Here's what my bouquet is supposed to look like:


via

The guys are getting different patterned green ties.  Lincoln's is the exact one below and the boutonniere's will look similar to this:


via

Because Californo's has exposed brick walls and the room is pretty dark, I'm hoping to create a romantic feeling in the room by having some of the centerpieces look like this:


via

Some of the other tables will just have vases of hydrangea's or peonies as a centerpiece.

We're also having a photo booth and a band that all of my friends have been snagging for their weddings, the Mikey Needleman Band.  They're so fun!

Our cake is going to be pretty simple and is being made by one of my best friends who needs to have her own bakery.  We used to live together and I probably gained a good 5 pounds because of all of the sweet stuff she would make.  We're having 5 different flavors of cake, I'm most excited about the strawberry buttercream frosting though...

I decided that I only wanted my sister to stand up with me and Lincoln is having one of his best friends stand up with him during the ceremony. 

I have so many friends and have been in or will be in most of their weddings, however, I just wanted to keep things simple and to have all of them come and enjoy the day and to not have to worry about helping me out and feeling like they needed to spend a bunch of money on dresses, shoes, and accessories.

After the big wedding day, we're hoping on a plane to Cancun for the week!  I'm so excited!

Here's our resort!

oh gawd, i'm almost 30.

So, today marks my half-way point to the big 3-0.  In six short months, I'll be thirty years old.  Yikes that sounds old.

The good news is that my favorite sports team of all time, and probably the best team in the whole entire world, Kansas State Univeristy, is playing in the Cotton Bowl tonight.

For some unknown reason, Lincoln and I decided to not make the trip to Dallas where all of our friends are at this weekend. (Maybe it had something to do with getting married in two months, remodeling a bathroom, and paying for a honeymoon, or something like that?)

And, for the handful of friends that are still in the state of Kansas, they either already have plans or were invited to a watch party that we weren't invited to (thanks mom and dad...yes, even my parents have plans).

So, Lincoln and I are having a watch party all by ourselves, and secretly I'm really excited about it.  We're making these mouth watering sliders from the Pioneer Woman, fries, and drinking beers together.

I also made this seriously delicious oatmeal that I found on pinterest this morning for the girls at work.  It was sooooogooooood.  I probably could have eaten the entire pan.  No joke.



Baked Oatmeal with Strawberries, Bananas and Chocolate

AND, as if that wasn't enough, the weather in Kansas has been in the sixties this week.  That's not normal.  It's January, folks.  I'm not sure if you remember or not, but this is what it looked like last year.



Happy Friday!

the melting pot

Lincoln's department did really well this past year so to reward them, his boss took his coworkers and their significant others to dinner at the Melting Pot on the Plaza.

It was goooooooooood.  I think I'd be fine with just going back for the cheese course and the dessert course. 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it all, but the cheese and the dessert were my favorite!

Umm...so Lincoln's boss and I did pretty well on finishing off the dessert...

After dinner we walked off our food coma around the plaza to take in the lights.



warrior dash champion!

Ok, ok, maybe in my own head I was a champion...

But I finished at least!  And I finished in under an hour.

Earlier this summer I participated the Warrior Dash in KC.

You might be thinking that finishing a 5K in under an hour is easy peasy, but try running with 5 lbs of mud caked to your feet, being soaking wet, and doing an obstacle course along with all of the running.  No big deal, right?

I mean it was kind of a big deal. 

There were really tall rope things we had to climb over, a really scary tall wall that we had to climb over, mud that we had to swim through, fire that we had to jump over, among all of the running (which I despise).

Luckily my gym, (PUNCH, if you couldn't tell from my muddy t-shirt and bright orange hat-we all wore similar outfits so that we could find each other!) got into the first wave of participants at 9am.

Otherwise, the race would have sucked.

It rained a little the morning before the event, so it was a little cooler in the morning, but the afternoon became quite steamy...also we were some of the first people to run the course and run throgh the mud...otherwise I think it would have been nearly impossible!

The weather this summer in Kansas and Missouri was unreal.

Because of the hot, hot days, sadly, this race proved to be deadly for three of the participants.  Many more had to be taken to the hospital during the event as well.

While the event was fun, I think one time is good enough for me!  It was tough!  But if you know me, I don't really care to be muddy...and there was a lot of mud.  And sweat.  And port-a-potties that I had to change my clothes in. (SO SICK, BTW-I forgot to lock the door and someone walked in on me changing.  Gah.)