Buddies

Zach made a new buddy over Thanksgiving Break. I had to share these; they are just way too cute.

I loved watching them play together it was super sweet.

More Trip Videos

This was after Josh cleared the panels to get away from the bull, unfortunately I wasn’t video taping when he patted the bull on the head while he was eating and the hilarity that ensued afterward.

Josh made a new friend.

 

New Year New Post

Well since I haven’t blogged in over a week I figure it’s about time to share something with you all.

Christmas went off without a hitch and I got a lot of cool stuff. Most importantly “Santa” brought me a new battery for my macbook which means I’m free and as Zach says I’m no longer tethered to the wall, which really is nice after months of being able to only go the distance my power cord would allow.

The week after Christmas we left for Missouri in my aunt Debra’s van with Zach’s brother Josh and Josh’s girlfriend Jessica along for the ride.

Tuesday through Saturday brought us many adventures. Tuesday was the drive up, dinner and then half a game of double twelve Mexican Train dominoes.

Wednesday brought a walk around the field, a walk to the river, Josh’s first attempt at petting a cow, Cheddars for lunch, Bass Pro and some redbox movies. (One of the redbox movies turned out WAY better than the other)

Thursday was Tron day, we went and saw Tron early that afternoon and I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it. After that we went to Andy’s Frozen Custard and on to Best Buy in hopes to purchase the old version of Tron, which we found out quickly was practically impossible and if you did find a copy it was SUPER expensive. After Best Buy we went to the Cook’s Dairy Farm and let Josh, Jessica and even Zach experience some of the daily goings-on of a dairy farm. I think everyone really enjoyed it.

Friday we spent half of the day being lazy. We watched the Sword & the Stone with Callie. Then we all went to Seymour to eat Twin Dragon for lunch. As we were on our way home we stopped and let Josh look at some chicken coops. When we got back dad had the 4-wheelers fired up and after a quick change of clothes we all spent the rest of the afternoon riding around in the fields and through the creek. Josh helped my dad feed the cows and once again got to pet a few of them. Rachel & Jessica stopped by to see me for a little bit and that was the ending of the 4-wheeler riding everyone got cleaned up and ready for the small New Year’s get together we had at my house later that evening.

We finished out the last 6 rounds of our domino game while watching the Back to the Future marathon, then we watched Despicable Me and for the first time ever I got my New Year’s Kiss 🙂

(My only domino)

(My only play is on to the yellow six and blank. Which meant I went out that round for the 2nd round in a row. Zach was right after me wasn’t super happy I went out … AGAIN)

Saturday meant the end of a great trip and the drive back which we divided up with a stop in Memphis to eat lunch at Neely’s BBQ, which of course meant bellies that filled up quickly and a lot of take home leftovers (I actually had some for lunch today.)

Neely’s Nachos

Rudolph & Clarice

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is one of my favorite Christmas movies. What about you?

Now that it’s Christmas time I thought I would share with you a neat thing about my family and how we are connected to Rudolph & Clarice. This has always been one of my favorite things to watch at Christmas time, (other than Elf.. I love Elf!) Rudolph though is a classic.

When I was little a funny coincidence was explained to me. My dad’s mom and dad, my grandparents are Rudolph & Clarice. For this reason the Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer movies are close to my and the rest of my family’s hearts. We have gotten my grandma Christmas tree ornaments, and the first year Build-A-Bear released the Rudolph & Clarice set like you see in the picture above, we got those for her, too. Rudolph’s nose lights up, they are both super cute and Grandma sets them out for Christmas decorations. (Hers don’t have the clothes though)

This is a picture from a couple of Christmases ago. Callie got cranium and we all played, all still in our pj’s from Christmas morning. If you look you can see them in the left hand corner.

This has in me spurred that whenever I see anything Rudolph related I want to have it for when I can decorate my (well mine & Zach’s) place with some Rudolph & Clarice stuff for Christmas.  Thursday night I saw that Wally world had Rudolph slippers. They had Clarice. They had Rudolph. They even had the Abominable Snowman. I wanted all of them. Zach said “To bad they didn’t have a pair that was one Rudolph and one Clarice.”

It is one have my most favorite things about Christmas. I mean how many people have this kind of connection to a classic Christmas movie?

What about your family Christmas traditions or things that are special to your family during Christmas time?

 

25 – Family

I love mine.

I have some from here, there and everywhere. Mostly though Alabama and then the Midwest (Kansas & Missouri).

I’ll start with the Alabama since it’s pretty simple and go to the Kansas & Missouri.

Alabama is where my mom’s family is, and currently who I’m living with and around/by.  Obviously we have my grandparents that I’m living with now. She is the youngest of 4, three girls and 1 boy. They are my Aunts Debra & Christy and my Uncle Dwight. My first cousins on this side are all girls when it comes to immediate family cousins that are boys I have very few, (only two actually one on each side). Including me and my sister there are 6 girls. In birth order there’s Heather, Hilary, Me, Kayla, Callie, and Candy. The last three are all a year apart. Then 4 years ago in October a little boy was added to the bunch when Heather had Shane.

Then on my dad’s side which is the Kansas one we have very simply my Grandma and/or her new name GG (since she is now a Great-Grandma x2). My uncle Artie and my two cousins Heather and Kim, who are now both married. Heather to Adam. Kim to Steve. This side of the family although small & simple is great fun. On this side too immediately there were only girl grandchildren: Heather, Kim, Me and Callie. Then this sides Heather added the 2 greats Kaiya and Eli.

There are 2 Heathers. One on my mom’s side and one on my dad’s, at first it caused Zach some confusion but he’s figured it out now.

Then in a way there are two more Heathers (lets just make this all the more confusing and see how well you keep up.. jk) Kansas Heather and I are VERY much alike.  We are pretty close to little carbon copies of each other only 12 years apart. Then Callie & Kim are very much alike as well. It’s odd how on the Kansas side there are two sets of granddaughters and they both act the same in attitudes and personality traits, and especially in ways of expression.

Then all of my Kansas Grandma’s family lives in Missouri, which is one of the reasons we moved there from Texas. I have many cousins and great aunts and great uncles and so on. There’s a lot of us.

The funny thing about that was we moved up there and were closer to everyone but we saw them less often than when we lived in Texas and would come up to visit.

Anyways family is an awesome thing. I’m enjoying the new family I gain with being Zach’s fiance and love them all very much as well. I’m so ready for when I get to have my own someday.

19 – Nicknames

Technically my name is Margaret Elizabeth … SO… that means I have a lot of room for nicknames.

Beth is what I have gone by since birth, I’m only called the full thing when I’ve been in trouble (or at the doctor).

My dad, grandpa and many other people close to me call me Bethy

In high school one of my friends tacked -loo onto the end of it and it pretty much stuck.

So here you are at “bethyloo”26’s blog.

I was also called Margarita by one of the guys in my yearbook class, I called him Jose because his name was Josh. Funniest thing about that was later on a commercial came out on tv about how Jose makes the best Margaritas, we thought it was hilarious.

Anyways there are tons more Bethickles (came from Zach), Bethers (another Zach one)… then Marge (unfortunately .. it is my least favorite), Margie, Maggie, all kinds.

I mean I have two MASSIVELY long names lol how could there not be nicknames?

17 – Something You’re Looking Forward To

I’m looking forward to a lot of things:

1. Our 5 day trip to MO! So excited to see my family and my Kansas family. How I have missed them, especially those two little ones. Seeing my friends. I’m going to try to see as many of you as I can in the little time I have. I hate that I won’t get to see all of you, I love and miss you all so much.

2. Our wedding. As stressful and annoying as planning is at times, I’m really looking forward to the day. Hopefully it will be beautiful and sunshiny so it can go off with out a glitch. I hope that it will be a beautiful day filled with a lot of friends and family and fun.

3. Being married. I’m so looking forward to Zach & I having our own little place. And being able to just stay home with him.

4. This goes along with 3 but I’m really looking forward to decorating our home and picking out plates and cups and furniture and bedding and decorations in general.

5. This is still far off but I’m ready for a puppy, after watching a tv show a couple of nights ago that featured the kind of dog Zach would love to have. I want a puppy yesterday. I’m excited to take care of it, play with it, and teach it to have manners and behave. (He wants one like the black & tan ones. They’re so super cute!)

Theres 5 things I’m looking forward to… what are you looking forward to?

Challenge 5

Siblings.

I only have one and her name is Callie. She is 4 years younger than me and 16 years old. She is one of my favorite people. We have a lot of fun together and she is one of the reasons choosing to move was a hard decision. She keeps stats for the baseball team and they’re all very lucky boys because she makes them cookies all the time. She also keeps stats and does the same thing with the basketball team. She inherited the basketball spot from me. I love her a lot! And she is coming with my mom to visit for the weekend on Thursday. I’m excited.

Raw T-70 Camping Pictures :)

Hiking Just Isn’t My Thing

Camping. I actually enjoyed it. I was good with the tent sleeping, the campfire and all that but hiking, just isn’t my thing. Zach discovered that pretty early on. My mindset on hiking through the woods was that it was something I could do in my back yard and that it would be 10x more enjoyable on a fourwheeler. I told Zach, I’m “country” not “outdoorsy”. If it has to do with cows or horses, riding horses, riding 4wheelers through mud, or on trails; I’m game. But just to trudge around in the woods to me is not very exciting. We can also figure in that I’m 5 ft tall, everyone else I was with is not. They cover a lot more ground with every step than what I do, so a slow leisurely walk to them, for me was not so leisurely.

We did get to see some cool stuff though. Most of the trails we went on had geocaches. Which if you don’t know, are scavenger hunt things you can find with a gps… its like looking for a treasure chest. Once you find it you sign your name and return it to its spot. It’s pretty fun, some are hard to find and others are pretty easy. The biggest disappointment was that because it hasn’t rained all the falls and creeks along the hiking trails we went on were bone dry. Along one of the trails was a CCC Quarry. It was cool. The rocks were huge.

The only thing that I did not like at all was that we had to use what they called “pit toilets” so like a portapotty but not. For those of you that are still not with me here; picture outhouse and that should be all you need. Friday using it was not ideal but it worked. Somewhere between Friday & Saturday though something bad happened and from that point on the smell was awful, to the point where using it, almost made me sick. I have never been so thankful to have running water and a clean bathroom at home with a toilet that flushes. Seriously who ever invented the toilet was a genius.

So the ruling on camping. I enjoyed it. Next time though I want to be close to the bath house and have some different activities other than hiking.

Pictures are coming. I took up two rolls of film that I need to get developed. So they’re coming soon.