Yesterday Tanja, Kaity (an intern), and Crystal (a friend of Erika Haddock’s) and myself all traveled down to Dallas at 5am in the morning.  It was a fun little trip!  So we stopped at the Forever 21 store in Dallas and it’s 2 stories tall!!!!  Then off to meet up with Erika Haddock and Johnny for some engagement pictures.  We then ate at Cheesecake Factory which was AMAZING…..and to think this whole time all I thought they served was cheesecake…… boy was I missing out my entire life….(personally not a fan of cheesecake but their food was amazing).  So amazing that Crystal and I decided that we’ll be making a trip to Tulsa soon just to eat there again!  Anyways then it was off to the beloved IKEA.  By this time is was snowing just a tiny bit but we weren’t worried we still had an hour and a half to spend at IKEA before they closed!  :)  I bought a lovely orchid, I’m super excited about it.  Anyways then off to Fayetteville.  I drove the entire trip since I just got my car and honestly didn’t really want anyone else to drive it, plus I still haven’t gotten the tags put on it so I didn’t want any problems.  But just before we really headed out I insisted on finding a Quik Trip!  Which is the most amazing gas station ever……… As you can see it’s snowing a bit harder by now…….

Self Portrait from Saturday.

Then we started traveling home!  :)  The weather just got worse and worse as we traveled but we just kept trudging home, bc honestly the snow was so wet the roads weren’t bad at all.  The only thing I didn’t really enjoy was when the semi trucks passed me……..those punks threw TONS of wet yucky snow on us so we couldn’t see!!!  grrrr…   We finally made it to Fort Smith where the roads weren’t bad at all, in fact mostly cleared off except a little slush.  We dropped off Tanja since that’s where she’s living until she heads out for England soon, which don’t worry if you have a summer wedding she’ll be coming back in May to shoot them all with me.  Then we decided that we’d go as far as we could and try to make it home, even though we knew 540 was already covered.  It really wasn’t too bad and we didn’t really see anyone in the ditch so I wasn’t super worried.  I just drove REALLY slow and we finally made it to Fayetteville.  I dropped off Kaity and Crystal and headed home.  Then on my way home on hwy 412 I got pulled over……. I was thinking are you really pulling me over right now in this weather and with the road looking so bad?  Anyways later I was greatful.  He pulled me over to tell me I had a headlight out!  I said “Thank you so much I was wondering why it was so dark!”  I just thought that there was so much snow piled up on my car that it had covered up my headlights and that’s why it was so dim, plus the officer woke me up a bit which helped me make it home all that much further.  Well after that and driving home at about 20MPH, and constantly battling falling asleep I finally arrived home at about 6:45am and crawled into bed.  So Sunday I heard we didn’t have church and I just kept on sleeping.  In fact I remember waking up twice, the first time was at 12:30 and then at 8:30pm.  So I took my picture to describe what I did for an entire day……….

Sunday’s self portrait.

Enjoy!

-erika

So the last few days I have been home by myself all day long, then TW has gotten off work and went riding horses with his brother…..apparently that made me a bit jealous……so we decided to have a date to go hiking today.  I had so much fun.  Ellie came along and she was so so so good at fetching in the river, she loved it!  I enjoyed watching her have so much fun.  We used to take Roxy to places like that all the time and I think this is one of Ellie’s first times.  I didn’t want to pack my camera along, since I knew we would have to cross the river a couple times and I just don’t risk those kinds of things!  That water was so cold!!!!  I had to take my shoes off and roll my pant legs up so far that I looked like a sumo wrestler!  :)  Anyways I made it across the first time then convinced TW to leave his shoes on so I could ride on his back across the river, what a good idea.  :)  Anyways so this shot is from a camera phone.

Enjoy!

-erika

If you haven’t figured out by now it’s St. Patrick’s Day you have probably been sitting at home all alone because otherwise your arm would most likely be a purplish bluish color and hurt to the touch!!!

I’m not the biggest fan, maybe because I don’t think I have any Irish in me (well probably some somewhere, but don’t we all?).  Mostly I’m not the biggest fan because my entire life I usually have not owned a “true” green article of clothing…..point in case……this morning for my class I remembered to wear what I thought counted as green.  Well apparently pale green doesn’t count.  My entire life my green has never been good enough!    Anyways I got lucky enough today to get a green gumball!  :)

Just found some random St. Patrick’s Day Facts and thought I would share….

There are four places in the United States named Shamrock (West Virginia, Texas, Indiana, Oklahoma).

According to the Guinness Book of World Records,  the highest number of leaves found on a clover is 14.

In Seattle, there is a ceremony where a green stripe is painted down the roads.

The actual color of St. Patrick is blue. Green became associated with St. Patrick’s Day during the 19th century. Green, in Irish legends, was worn by fairies and immortals, and also by people to encourage their crops to grow.

Legend says that each leaf of the clover means something: the first is for hope, the second for faith, the third for love and the fourth for luck.

Yes I have a gumball machine in my house.

Enjoy!

-erika