Busy Busy Busy

So in case you were wondering, the month of April for the Howells is being spent in the car. We are doing all of our driving for a good cause though, my sister's wedding showers and Easter this past weekend. But none the less Scott and I have had quite a few hours of QT together on Interstate 65. If anyone has any suggestions for fun car games, please let me know, because I get car sick from reading, watching movies, basically doing anything while in motion. And this is not good for Scott, because that means lots of time with me asking how much longer like I am five years old. Good luck with that Scott!!



One of the highlights of Louisville this past weekend for Easter was when all of my cousins (I have quite a few) ,with much coaxing from my mother, decided to have a Peep eating contest. It was hilarious! I will try to find a picture to capture it, but my cousin Nelson, won with an impressive 13 Peeps in his mouth at one time!! Let's just say memories were made, Christ has risen and Nelson is the Peep champion!!!



What has been going on with us the last month you may ask, as my blogging has been nothing but sporadic. We have been busy going to the lake, flying to Dallas, TX for a shower for Sallie the sister, heading to Seaside with all the wonderful Howell girls, sneaking a Dave Barnes concert in with Scott, going to a bull riding contest (that was Scott I am sure you could guess, he has a shirt he bought there that he is very proud of), fixing up the house a bit, and joining a Tuesday night tennis league. When I look back at the list it does seem a little overwhelming. But when someone is asking me what is going on in our lives, I always say not much. Sometimes I think that our life as a two and a half year married couple seems quite mundane, but after looking at that list I think we are pretty busy people.



Our excitement continues as we are heading to see Wicked this Thursday. This is my FAVORITE play and Scott will be seeing it for the first time. Can't wait!

Let It Snow!!

I woke up this morning to excited to even try to go back to sleep on a Sunday, with the snow falling outside our window!!! Here are some pictures of our house covered in snow, which is a pretty big deal since we live in Alabama!!! I am sure that next week we will be back in short sleeved shirts and sunglasses, but for the day we loved all the white. I love living in the south!! If only we could have gotten a snow day out of it!

My Sister

Every once in a while I get these urges to write about one special person in my little life. And since this is the first post that I have actually started writing instead of thinking about. I thought that keeping it in the family was a good idea. So Sal Pal, this one is for you.

I have a sister who is four years younger than me, her exact birth date is October 28th. We really don't even look like sisters, except for the texture of our hair and that we used to have the same last name. She is 5'9 and I am a solid 5'4 1/2, I have red hair, she has brown, she is a tooth pick and let's just say I would not call myself a tooth pick, she LOVES to exercise and I am good for a walk everyday, she has always known that she wanted to be a nurse and help sick children and I ended up working with kids when I took over the finances for a children's ministry, I guess that is closer to something in common.. right?! Let's just say that Sallie is one of a kind, I seriously have never met anyone like her. She is one of the most caring, thoughtful, and entertaining (to say the least) people that I have ever met.

Random facts about Sal Pal: she grew up being a soccer goalie because she liked standing in the goal instead of running on the field, when she was little the ONLY person that she would let come within 10 feet of her was my mom, she has cowlicks all over her head, she loves ministering to high school aged girls, she is a cheese ball, she loves dumb humor, she is about to graduate from Belmont University with a degree in Nursing, she will be an incredible nurse, she loves the Lord, she was named after her god parents, my Aunt Sallie and Uncle Baker, whaaa la her full name is Sallie Baker Heard, she loves a good laugh, she can ramble with the best of them, she has only dated and kissed one boy in her life, Tyler Cole, and they are getting married this June, growing up the only thing we ever fought about was clothes because she would constantly steal mine (one day I chased her to the bus stop to get one of my shirts back), she has an amazing voice (our Mimi would always tell me that Sallie should go sing and that I should go act, this did not really help my confidence very much), she has one the loudest laughs that I have ever heard and she likes to use it a lot, she has driven the SAME Toyota Corolla since she turned 16 (what a trooper) and I am not sure why it has not broken down yet??, she is my dad in a girl's body (weird but true), she loves animals (any kind), she can burp very loud and she is proud of it, after she marries Tyler they are moving to Dallas, Texas and they just bought their first house today!

Sal Pal this blog is for you!! I love you and am so blessed to have you as my sister! I am so excited for all the BIG changes that are coming into your life at a VERY fast pace. I can't wait to be there for all of them. Thanks for letting me be your matron of honor, but I guess that race was pretty slim seeing how I am the only sister you have got!! I love you and am so blessed to call you sister.

Love you Sister!!

Kate

Ode To Brown and Katherine Johnson

Brown gets the picture, sorry Katherine because the two of us couldn't be in an action shot since we were hanging out with Jack and Kate instead!

This is a week late, but I need to publicly put a very large THANK YOU out to Brown and Katherine for helping a poor sad wife who just wanted her two new light fixtures put up in her house. Scott went out of town last weekend and so I asked Katherine if Brown could help me put them up in our house. Just like any loving wife she volunteered him for the job. And they were at my house for WAY longer than they had anticipated last Saturday, but the end result was great. Brown's arm was getting sore from the many hours of devotion to my house, while Katherine and I sat comfortably on the couch watching the DVD of the last episode of Lost. And on that note, they also get many many points for being my inspiration for starting the Lost obsession and finishing all four seasons in the months of December and the beginning on January. So... Brown and Katherine, this blog is for you!! Thank you sooo much for all your help

Quite Some Time...

So it has been quite a while since I have updated this little blog, and we have had a crazy past month. So here is a little catching up, pictures to follow! December was the month of the Christmas party for us, every weekend was packed with at least one party to go to. We had a blast, with tons of dirty Santa, great food, fabulous parties, (even a cookie and cocoa party), and of course are friends. It is always so fun to have big events to look forward to with your favorite people. We started the month off with Brent's famous Tackey Christmas party. Scott and I went with a theme as we usually do, but this year's theme was lets just say interesting. Our theme was "iron on", High School Musical. We had the whole HSM gang on our Walmart sweatsuit sets. Of course, me with a red sweat shirt and green pants , and Scott with the opposite. It was classic!!

Then onto Christmas Party at the Cochran's, with Santa Wes leading the way. It was so fun and the entertainment was priceless (thanks for that Elliott and Wes)!!! Next on our list was the Christmas Feast, and it was exactly as it sounds. Liz and Grant went our of their way to impress a pretty large group of hungry friends. We had a wonderful time at their house, and it was decorated perfectly, props to Liz!!!

The week before Christmas was great with an Amy Grant and Vince Gill Christmas concert in Atlanta with a bunch of fun girls, Bradley and Sarah's Christmas Cookie and Cocoa which was adorable, and of course the Cordell Christmas party which has been a yearly event since Scot was born. Let's just say that we are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family to love us so much! What a blessing.

Christmas was perfect, we went up to Franklin to spend some time with my family and then back to Birmingham for Christmas with the Howells. We had wonderful time with family and Scott and I even won the Howell family quiz, very impressive, yes I know!!

The week after Christmas on Wednesday I met up with 5 of our favorite couples and made the trip down to Fort Walton Beach, FL. We were down there until Sunday, so we had a long break which was wonderful. Scott came down on Friday to make it even better. We had such a great time getting to spend a bunch of quality time with so many of the people that we love. Let's just say that by the time Scott and I made it home, we were exhausted and all we wanted to do, was sit on the couch and watch Lost, (which is my new obsessions, and Lost is so great that it will get it's own post for sure!)

The moral of this very long story is that Scott and I are so blessed with all of our wonderful friends and family, thank you so much for who you are in our lives!!!

2009 will be amazing if it has all of you in it! We love you!!

Quick Twilight Thought

So it has been a while since I have been a part of the blog world, but I promised a Twilight wrap up, so here it is. I am sure that more of you know about the movie by now. The first time I saw it, I was quite a freak. But the great thing was that I was surrounded by Twilight freaks for the sneak peek, except for Scott, of course. So through out the whole movie I got to have a conversation with the girl sitting next to me, that I did not even know before the movie began, but we became great Twilight friends, discussing the movie as it went, how were they going to put important scenes from the book in the movie, why did they chose the characters that they did, and why was the camera so close to their faces in the beginning of the movie. I thought my first viewing went pretty well, Scott was pacing outside of the movie theatre before we got in the theatre while we were waiting for a VERY long time to get in , and I got to sit on the floor with high school Twilight obsessed kids and talk Twilight with them. Let's just say it was hilarious and I was in heaven!! But the movie, was pretty good, I enjoyed it even thought there was a lot of cheesy moments with Bella and Edward. It is very hard to show the deep relationship that they had in a two hour movie, but I think all in all it was done well. Scott enjoyed it way more than he thought, and he was actually asking me questions about the next book when we left. All in all a Twilight success!
My second showing was even better than the first because I was not on the edge of my seat waiting for how they were going to handle things. The second time around was not as exciting as the first, but I got to watch the movie for what it was and let's just say that I can't wait until it comes on video.

My Obsession

Today is a very big day for me! And my wonderful husband made it happen! Let's just say it started way back in the summer with a little book called Twilight. My cousin Robin Clark asked me if I had read this book, and I asked her what it was about and she told me vampires, so of course I told her that I would never read a book about such a thing. And her response was, just give it a shot. So while I was at the beach and I had already finished my first beach book, I opened up Twilight around two in the afternoon, and I finished it the next day. I could not put it down. I HAD to know what was on the next page. I love to read when there is time, but I have never experienced the desire to read forever. I would think about the characters when I was at work, when I was driving places, I was thinking about the characters like they were real people, and THEY ARE VAMPIRES. If I had this same kind of passion for my bible, let's just say I would would be a bible scholar. But sad to say, the obsession has just been with Twilight. So I finished the next book on a Sunday and the entire work day that followed on Monday, all I could think about was getting the second book. So right after work I rushed to the book store to get the second installment, New Moon. And this process continued until I had read all four books, Eclipse, and then Breaking Dawn. Let's just say that I was out of society for a good week and a half, because I all I wanted to do was read. I would go to work and then read, eat dinner and read, go to sleep and you guessed it read. The only word for it was an obsession. When I finally got to the end of the fourth book, I didn't want it to stop. I wanted to learn more about the characters, what was going to happen next, but sad to say that Stephanie Meyers, the author was had a different idea, the end, so I had to say good bye to Edward and Bella. Bummer! The good part of my obsession, was that I started reading the books right when the last one, Breaking Dawn was released, so there was no lapse in my reading from one book to the next.
I have already read the first two books again, to make sure that I caught all the details. I know scary, uh?!
Well, now it comes to my husband is a hero part of the story. After I started reading I could not keep it to myself, (as most of you know, I am not very good at keeping my opinions and emotions to myself) I told everyone at work about the books, and many of the girls started reading them. One of the girls had brought in an article say thing that if you email this magazine the four names of the books that you could get in the running to win two tickets to an early screening of Twilight the movie, which comes out this Friday. So of course I freak out and email the magazine, and I call Scott to beg him to email also. I mean two chances are better than one right?! Well, last Wednesday comes and no email, and so I call the company and ask when they will be emailing us one if got the tickets or not and they said in a few days. Friday comes and I am at home, (since I don't work on Fridays which is glorious by the way) and Scott calls me and we are having a normal conversation and then he tells me that he won the tickets and that we could see Twilight this coming Tuesday November 18th, at 7:30. Let's just say that I was jumping up and down pumping my fists in the air shouting VICTORY in our kitchen! (If any of you watch Entourage, which a terribly scandalous show, but you just keep watching because it is so good, he called me Johnny Drama). next, I wen tot my email to see if I had won the tickets to, you know, spread the wealth, and I had a sad email sayign that I had not won. So my dreambwould have been shattered if it had not been for the one and probably only boy that will be in the theatre come tonight at 7:30!
So, tonight is the night, for me to continue the Twilight love and see the movie three days before it comes out. Scott's love and loyalty to me keeps coming out, as we will go to dinner at five in the afternoon so that we can get in line at 6:00 to make sure we get our tickets. They overbooked the theatre to make sure that it is full, so we have to get there early.
I promise that I will post my thoughts on the film, but I am expecting nothing but perfection. High expectations, yes, but have you read the books?? Unless that is a yes, you better get reading, you will love it. And if not, at least go see the movie, so we can talk about the obsession.
So in conclusion, thank you Scott for going with me, as you can tell I will be bouncing off the walls the second we get to the theatre, while Scott will be standing beside me in line for more than an hour, probably shaking his head at all of the girls waiting in line for the big event. (Just like Disney World as part of our honeymoon) But as most know, Jordan this is for you, "No movie is too girlie for Scott Howell." Right? I guess we will see!
Happy Reading!!!