Lake bound

If anyone needs me this weekend I'll be here:

Well, technically, I'll probably be here for the majority of the weekend. On a boat anyway.

Lake Quitman, TX

It'll probably look something like this:

me and my girl cousins. we know we're hilarious. and water sport pros.



And this:

me, mom and aimee. note my sunburn. that will likely return.

And of course there will be some of this too:

us. wow. that shot's a little close.

We're both soooo ready for a relaxing weekend and a little fun in the sun. Hope you have a great Memorial Day weekend too. And for any of you would-be robbers, I have a house sitter. Thanks for checking. Love, ashleigh

5.24.11 in Photos

iPhone photos to be exact. My camera battery is dead. (Note to self: must get that charged before we leave for the lake.) Yesterday was a little nuts, specifically last night. My friends know that I love storms. Good old-fashioned Texas storms. However much I get strangely excited when Pete Delkus breaks into regularly scheduled programming with his sleeves rolled up, my love has waned over the years now that storms = potential I have to go to work. Plus, the tragedy of what's happened in Joplin and other areas of tornado alley over the last ten days is a little un-nerving. To say the least. With that being said, I am fortunate. Extremely. My family is fine. I am fine. Our homes are fine. My only casualty last night was missing the Biggest Loser Finale. Urgh. But, like I said, I am super lucky that's the worst thing that happened to me. I did end up in my closet with a camping lantern, a quilt, Avery and a few of his toys. That's a first. It just seemed that bad outside. So, here's my day from start to finish in photos.

First off I texted this "Good Morning - Love, Avery" photo to my friend Kelly. She liked the photo on facebook with Avery and his monkey, but wanted to see Aves with his pig. Ha. It's a long story...

Avery and his pig were still a little sleepy

Mom brought my nieces over for lunch. A nice mid-workday treat. Keira is turning into such a little person these days. She'll be two on Memorial Day!

cutie patootie. love that sweet face..

this is keira saying, "cheeeese"

baby sister micah. she's smiling now, but it's hard to capture on film.

serious face. i love this one too.

It was pretty stormy-looking on the drive home. Scratch that, on the drive to get my hair done. Priorities people. I thought I had several hours, which turns out I did, before the storm hit and it's hard to get hair appts rescheduled. I ended up leaving with wet hair, after multiple texts, twitter updates and radar checks. I did get my shine rinse put on and my hair cut though. Like I said, priorities. I actually drove home in the sun. Not long after I settled in to watch Biggest Loser, it started getting very windy and dark. Then sirens start going off and my programming is interrupted. Still wasn't too concerned until it all of a sudden stopped. And got bright (at 8 p.m.). And then green. And perfectly still. Then started hailing from different directions. I hopped outside like any redneck idiot  normal person to snap a photo and see if I could spot a funnel cloud. Then made it back inside just before the hail it. When I saw it coming in from different directions and my trees swirling, I got Avery and headed for my closet. I had gotten it ready just in case. You know how the story ends. We were fine. The house is fine. It was just a scary night. Here are my blurry pics from scary green sky to closet shelter.

through the screen

this was when it got eerily still. and green. (pic doesn't really capture it).

avery was so confused. and nervous.

"seriously. what. are. we. doing. in. here?" - avery

Happy Wednesday friends. And Go Mavs! The end.

Where in the World?

Where in the word has Justin been? (cue Carmen San Diego theme music) Anyone notice who has been notably absent from the last couple of weeks of postings? If you guessed Justin, you'd be right. That's because he has been in China. Hong Kong and a couple of inland cities to be exact. He was there for 10 days as part of a class for his MBA. It was a long ten days. At least for me. The connection and sheer distance made phone calls and even emails challenging and sporadic. I missed my man. A lot. He was definitely ready to come home, especially after a grueling day of traveling half way across the world, but I know he had a great trip. And learned a little too ;) Here are some pics from his trip:



 

he said hong kong is a lot like nyc



they toured a lot of chinese factories

and ate some pretty interesting local cuisine

and met up with a university in hong kong. looks like they are attempting to brainwash the locals ;)

Good Equation

I'm that girl that uses the calculator on my phone on a daily basis. My last math class was in the fall of 2000 at Baylor and it was called Ideas in Mathematics. I got a C. Ouch. Despite seriously lacking any real mathematical skills, my little old PR-self discovered a pretty good equation last night. Allow me to share it with you:

Mixing Different Circles of Girlfriends

+



pizza night at Times Ten {via}

+



s'mores calzones. my new fav.

+



yummy sangria {via}

=

a fantastic Thursday night
amen.



Happy Birthday Tucker!

the birthday boy! (photo stolen from kinsey's blog)

I have written quite a bit about my two nieces. I am smitten with them. Completely. Totally. Pretty sure you get that. What you may not know is that I have two nephews too! Well, not technically nephews, but pretty close. My best friend from childhood, Kinsey, has two little boys who I consider nephews. Kins and I have known each other literally our entire lives. I have always felt like part of their family and am so grateful for our friendship! Naturally I was there to celebrate Kinsey and Brent's first born, Tucker, on his third birthday! Kins always puts that special touch in Tucker's parties and this year was no exception. The party had a firefighter theme and how cute is Tucker in his "uniform"? He kept it on the entire afternoon. Priceless. I think it's safe to say that the birthday boy had a great time and I loved being able to celebrate with him. Even if he was too busy for a picture with me. Maybe next year? Happy Birthday Tucker Andrew! "Aunt" Ashleigh loves you!

Scenes from the day:

he was very excited about each new toy!

opening gifts with mommy

ready for cake!

me and kins

tucker and his little friends treating us to an impromptu afternoon concert after the party. love.



Meeting in the middle

on Main Street

I've mentioned my circle before. We're all pretty spread out, but we do have a nice conglomerate in DFW. The DFW girls met in the middle on Friday night, which also happens to be my hometown. Bonus. We really just wanted to go to one of our favorites, Esparza's, but it ended up being Main Street Days in Grapevine, so we got a little shopping in too. Another bonus. I had taken Friday afternoon off to get a facial (rough life, huh) and then met up with everyone on Main Street in downtown Grapevine. The weather was unseasonably cool for May, there was no wait at Esparza's due to the festival and we ended the night with some yummy fro yo. Pretty much a perfect Friday night! We missed you Nat, KSti and Kate!

Wednesday night with my nieces

way more interested in american idol

Last night Dad was supposed to come over and help me put down some sod in my front yard. If you were anywhere near DFW yesterday afternoon you know that was not an option. Crazy lightning, although the rain was much appreciated. Anyway, since Matt has youth on Wednesday evenings Dad and I went over to their house to help with dinner and bed time. We had a lot of fun with the girls. Keira is very vocal these days and speaking in full sentences. She's a character, that's for sure. My mom says she acts like me at that age. Typical first born I guess? Ha.

Keira is also a big fan of Justin and she was a little disappointed that he wasn't with me last night. So sweet. She didn't get to play with him, but she did learn a new word: China. Pretty sure she'll assume Justin is in China from now on if he's not with her. She kept saying, "Justin's in CHI-na!" while nodding her head. Yes Keira, Justin's in China and Aunt Ashleigh can't wait until Sunday when he comes home. At least it's Thursday right?

Dad and I enjoyed spending time with the girls. Micah is getting big and she's beautiful. She's smiling and it's the sweetest thing. The jury's still out on who she looks like. It's hard to tell, but she doesn't look like Keira. At least not in my opinion. She slept most of the time in Dad's arms, so I didn't get a lot of pictures. Here's a montage of Keira at dinner. With food in her hair. She'll love me someday for this.

And here are a few of baby sister:

Being an aunt is the greatest. Amen.

Same day, Same outfit, Different cities

I had planned to do a Mother's Day post today, but didn't make it out to Colleyville to steal a few pictures to scan. I'll do that this week. I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day, speaking of. My family did. I think my mom's favorite gift may or may not have been but definitely was the MAVS big win. Mom and dad have season tickets and went to the game yesterday, so we celebrated last night after the win. More on that later.

Saturday was a fun, event-filled day. First off, I treated mom and Bebe to lunch and the Fairmount Home Tour in Fort Worth. I love that they love to tour old homes with me even if they would never live in one. I, on the other hand, hope I don't ever have to buy a "new" home. Now, don't get all offended. I have lots and lots of friends and family with beautiful "new" homes. I think they are wonderful, I just prefer old homes with lots of character. And yes, maintenance issues, I know. My current house was built in 1958 and I hope the next house is much older, although I love my little character-filled first home, maintenance "issues" and all. Now that I'm completely off-topic, back to Saturday. We had decided on Paris Coffee Shop for a late breakfast, but got there too late. Really, close at 11 on a busy Saturday? Urgh. We settled for burgers instead.

mom and bebe after our lunch

After lunch we headed off on the home tour path and had a great time! Lots of fun homes, restored with such great detail. Little slice of heaven for me.

us on the tour at blanchard schaefer

That night Carrie and I went to the Jason Aldean concert in Dallas. I opted for shorts, but was too lazy to change outfits completely. Hence the title of this post. We had a great time as usual. Perfect weather. Perfect people watching. Not so perfect? Disgusting pizza. Really? It was teeny tiny and tasted like bad Totino's. Ick. Lesson learned. 

ew

Bad food and all, we had a great time. We're in the midst of that perfect time in Texas where the evenings are just cool enough and the days are nice and warm. It will be 110 next week I'm sure. Anyway, Carr and I enjoyed being outside, good music and gooood people watching.

me and carr

Yay for family, friends, live music and sweeping the Lakers!

Cry Baby

I have no idea when I became so emotional. I don't remember crying a lot growing up or even much through my college years. (Except for the year I was on SING committee. I cried for a week straight that spring, but we won't talk about that). Up until a couple of years ago I always informed people, "I'm not a crier. No, definitely not." At some point I realized that was a big, fat lie. I cry at most weddings. I cried when my last niece was born. I even cried at Toy Story 3 last year. Yup, somewhere down the line I became a crier. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a basket case or anything, but it is not unusual for me to tear up at the silliest things. Last week was a bit of an extreme for me. In the last seven days I cried at this:

and this

and this

Just to name a few. I know, ridiculous. And yes I watch 16 and Pregnant. Don't ask me why. I almost always cry through it too. So sad. Anyway, just thought I should publicly, once and for all admit that I, Ashleigh Nicole Whiteman, am a cry baby.

Date Night at the Drive-in

the big screen at the brazos

Anyone that knows me at all knows that I love almost anything vintage. And I always have. Ask my mother. With that in mind, you know I jumped at the chance to go to the Brazos Drive-in Theatre, especially after groupon offered a great deal. If you live anywhere near the DFW area, I highly recommend trekking it out to Granbury and catching a movie at the Brazos! What a treat. Everything is authentic, original and makes for a really fun night. It's one of the few drive-ins left across the country and has been in business since the 50s! Love it. They show current movies, have a cute concession stand and you can bring your own little picnic. Really, you need to check it out for yourselves. I'm sure we'll go back this summer.

As I've said before, this spring has been crazy busy. In mostly the best of ways mind you, just busy! I think we purchased the groupon back in January or February and barely fit it in last weekend, the weekend that it expired! It worked out perfectly, although the wind was in-sane. We invited our friends Kelly and Robert and brought our own little picnic. On the menu: sandwiches from Central Market, quinoa and sweet tea ice box tart. YUM. We also had flavored popcorn for a snack. (I chose key lime and Justin got garlic parmesan)! We had a fun night in spite of the ridiculous winds and Justin's chair breaking. Okay, it was actually my chair that broke, but it was already broken. Justin sweetly offered to sit in it until it finally sank into the ground. Ha! Always something with us...Yay for fun date nights, good friends and good food!



the Paclebs




us



and again, just the long shot