Weekend Craziness and Five on Friday

I am gearing up for a very crazy and fun-filled weekend!! I will try my best to take pictures and post everything!

This morning I am headed of to the Convention Center here is Pittsburgh, PA for the Health and Wellness Convention. This kicks off the Pittsburgh Marathon weekend!! YEA! I will head dwn there around noon to pick up my packet and hopefully get my knees taped for the 1/2 marathon that I will tackle on Sunday!
After I get my packet, I am meeting two friends for linner (lunch and dinner) at Sienna Mercato! This is a new restaurant that features meatballs! We are really excited to try it!
Then I will head from there to pick up a veggie tray and go to Painting with A Twist to meet up with a bunch of friends from work!

Whew! And that is only Friday!!!

Saturday is planting and hanging out with the best boyfriend in the land and Sunday is my second half marathon!

Just to participate in Five on Friday fun...

Here are the 5 things that I will think about when running the half marathon on Sunday...
1. Family and how grateful I am for all of their support and love through the hard times
2. My body is a machine and it can do anything that I ask of it - my mind is what limits me!
3. How far I have come from when I was close to 300 pounds, smoking everyday and drinking everyday
4. How good it feels to have that BLING at the end!
5. I will actually make it back to the finish in time to enjoy something in the Corporate Tent this year...last year my marathon was 6 hours and everything was gone :-(

Happy weekend a little early!!! HA
 

Jacksons Mill Spring 2015

What an amazing weekend I had last weekend! My friend Laura and I attended a weekend long Conference in WV at Jackson's Mill 4H Camp. It is located in Jane Lew, WV and is very easy to find! We had such a great time and great weather all weekend!
This was like my 100th time here and it never gets old!!!

I always have a blast and with Laura it is even more fun - we laugh all weekend!  Like complete belly laughs!!! Get ready for a picture heavy post!

These are windmills in WV...who knew!?!?!

That's a close up of a windmill - there were like 20 of them all in a row in nowhere land, WV!

It took us about 30 minutes driving in circles to find this store that we had a brochure for in Elkins, WV. It looked so awesome in the brochure and it ended up just being a little corner store - lol! But we found lots of fun and cute stuff to buy anyway! HA! The store was called Hiawatha so we had to get a selfie with the statue we thought was Hiawatha - turns out, it wasn't her...it was a statue of her mother. Oh well, a selfie was still in order!

This is a shot of one of the windmills headed back to Jane Lew, WV

We ran into this awesome lawn and garden store on the way back too. It was also fantastic!!!! We spent so much money on candy and souvenirs!! HA! This Bigfoot that we posed with is a garden accessory - life-size mind you!!!  He cost $3000 dollars!!! WOW!!!

Laura recently went on a work trip to the Philippines and she brought me back these awesome earrings!!! Seriously, love them!!!!!!!!!!!!  We're twins!

We we got back we wandered around and checked out the wildlife...these ducks were swimming around and dunking under to catch fish!

So cute

A picture with our buddy Vaughn! For as much as I tease him, I must like to hang out with him because he is in a lot of my pictures! HA

 
See what I mean?!?!??!

Then on Saturday we took a fellowship break and went to get our nails done...yea!

Ready for Summer!!!!

We made a few of the guys little cars with the plastic parts of a pushup ice cream pop! This is why we get along. We are both ADD and need to do projects to stay busy! HA They loved them!

Then we went to family dollar to get a good friend of ours his Scooby Doo coloring book and picked a few up for Laura and I also!

This is the last morning...we went out to breakfast to see the Jesus mural and did not get a picture as two men were seated in front of it...:-(

So this is our car selfie instead!!!

We saw this little newborn fowl on the way back to pack our things! What a great weekend full of friends and fellowship! I hope I never lose Laura's friendship - she is everything to me!!!

Home again...home again...jiggity jig!

I hope you all had just as much of an amazing weekend!!!

I am blessed and hope you are as well!

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Landscaper for Hire

I gotta say I love my boyfriend! I am one lucky girl!! We have been friends for a long time and we get along like a couple that has been together forever. We never fight and it is soo good - we just hit the four months mark! YA!
I also love his dogs and his house! I have always wanted a big yard and garden and it has been so fun planning Spring planting with him this year! This is his three-legged dog Wilson...he lost a leg in an accident and has no front left leg but you would never know it! He is so fast not to mention sweet and cute!!!

And this is his other dog, Neno. He was hit by a car and is missing his back right leg. Again, sweetest dog on the planet!!!

We spent the weekend cleaning out the old nests from his birdhouses on his property. There are about 10 currently and we are planning on building and putting up more (see what I mean, I love this stuff)!!! This one was infested with termites...look at what they did to the inside of the birdhouse...Its crazy!!

And this stuff is what came off of the sides of that above birdhouse! It was so strong it was weird! It was like an attached old nest - really crazy how hard it was to scrap this stuff out of the birdhouse!

Then we got these perennial plants...

And all of these...

And planted them here...

This is a view of the entire hillside. We are planting creeping Philox on the entire hill and adding these misc perennials in bunches here and there. Any ideas from any of you what would look good? This is so much fun to do - I am loving this landscaping planning!

Another shot - the plants look sooooo big in the cart and sooooo small when planted on the hillside! HA

I also love his house because it is in the middle of nature!!! Woods everywhere and nature everywhere!  I got a shot of the cutest bird ever while I was sipping coffee on the deck! Adorable, right?!?!

 Again, and as I always say...I am one blessed woman!!!

I hope you are all having an amazing weekend!

 PS - Don't forget to enter my birthday giveaway for a $25 Starbucks gift card HERE!!

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Foster Bird Mom

I think I have mentioned before that the Company I work for has a Wildlife Sustainability Program for the Company Campus. It is so much fun to be a part of! We are just starting the bluebird monitoring season and I am soo ready for some adorable baby birds!!!!

I monitor three sets of boxes throughout the Campus. It is great for a little lunchtime stress relief. We have a nature path that I can just go out on and walk around and stop by and check on the nest boxes.

Here is what is going on so far this year...

Both nest boxes by Building 8 have nests in them...should be no time soon and eggs will start appearing!!!!

Nest 1

And nest two...

We already have four eggs in the nest box by my building. She may lay one more egg and then start incubating. It is about a month from when they incubate to when the babies will fly away...QUICK!

Pretty pastel bluebird eggs!

And the set of boxes by the park has eggs too!!!!

Four very blue bluebird eggs!!!!! They are so pretty! Again, she should lay one more egg and then incubate. The momma bird will generally lay one egg a day. I cannot wait to show you the adorable babies when they are born!

 Happy Friday!

PS - Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a $25 Starbucks gift card HERE!!

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First Holy Communion

Have to recap the MOST amazing weekend ever! I made a run out to Columbus to visit my adorable nieces and nephews (some of them at least) and watch my God-daughter/niece make her First Holy Communion!

What a great and blessed weekend!

It started of with many soccer games and lots of snuggling cute kids on soccer fields!

Here is one little superstar!!

And her brother!!!!!

 An action shots on the field...

 Then the true reason for the weekend began. This adorable child made her first communion! I love these kids from the bottom of my heart! Isn't she adorable?!?!

A little car selfie with her favorite Aunt (says me!!!!) HA

A little church photo of my sister and Dad and nephew! He was really excited to be in my picture!! HA

 That's my niece in the front turned sideways....hard to see, I know.

And the action shot of her receiving her FIRST blessed First Holy Communion!

And another shot...

Loved my sisters decorations!! This photo is of my niece holding a picture from when my sister made her First Holy Communion! It was so awesome and sentimental as both of those Grandparents have since passed away. Also, my niece wore the same dress that me and all my sisters did for own First Holy Communion! What a great tradition!

You can see the picture way better in this shot...

Here is my niece and her parents...

 A nice picture of my niece and the priest...

Love this one!!! This is three generations of God-mothers~ I am my nieces Godmother and my Aunt Marti on the left is mine! Great picture!

 This is my Aunt Marti and I doing a selfie...Love her!!!!

A little hockey on First Communion Day??!! I'm from Pittsburgh so there always has to be hockey!!!!!

What a great weekend of family and fun and blessed activities!!! I am one very blessed woman!!!!

 PS - Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a $25 Starbucks gift card HERE!!

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