#33, #61, #62 Check!

I can mark three more things off my 101 things to do in 1001 days list! The first is #33, Updating facebook albums to delete old ones. Being the picture lover that I am, it was hard to decide which albums to take off. I had about 30 albums on facebook and I deleted 11 or so. I'm down to 19!! Of course that is going to go up as the wedding draws closer and more events start happening. For starters, Lindsey Owens' wedding extravaganza starts on Friday and her wedding is on Saturday. My bridal tea is also on Sunday and my bachelorette party is next weekend. LOTS of pictures to come!!!

#61 was to Join Twitter. I must say, I was very hesitant to do this. I already am on facebook, myspace, and have a blog. One more social website would be stupid....and it is. I'm not a fan of Twitter. It's like facebook, but only for the status'. You only see what people put up as their status for the day....that's it. Nothing special at all. The only reason I like twitter is because you can follow people and see their updates. For example, I follow the shows Lost, The Office and So You Think You Can Dance. A lot of times, they'll put up status' about a show before it airs or put up gossip info about the people that star in the show. You can tell which celebrities have twitter and it is actually fun watching them put stuff up. I also follow Lauren Conrad and she has some funny thoughts. Because I'm obviously obsessed with the Twilight book series, I am also following New Moon (the sequel to Twilight that comes out in November). I love following them because they put up pictures of the cast filming the new movie, so that's really fun to see. Other than those things, I think twitter is kind of pointless.

#62 was to get a professional massage. I have NEVER had a professional massage before. I know. I'm crazy. Justin gave me a gift card to Santa Fe Day Spa for my birthday this year and with it I bought a 90 minute Swedish massage. It was UNREAL! I may be addicted to massages now!

So I'm getting married in less than 2 months now. How crazy is that??? I still can't believe it! I actually did a ton of wedding related stuff the past two days. I have made final appointments with the florist, caterer, DJ, and cake lady and Justin has booked the horse and carriage that will take us from B&A Warehouse to our hotel at the Tutwiler. (That was actually Justin's idea, shockingly! He proposed to me in a horse and carriage and he thought it would be a good idea to use one as we leave our wedding!) My bridal tea is this Sunday, my bachelorette party/lingerie shower is next weekend, my bridal portraits are at the end of June and my last shower is at the beginning of July. It's all coming so quickly! It really hit me on Monday afternoon when Justin and I went to his parents house to stuff invitation envelopes to get them ready to mail out. They will be mailed in a week and a half. Something about looking at your wedding invitation.....YOUR WEDDING INVITATION! I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it really hit me then.

LILLIAN AND CRAIG HAVE A WEDDING WEBSITE!!! Click here to go to their site. Lillian is one of my bridesmaids and was my Nashville BFF when I was living there. She managed to get me through my last year living in the country capital of the world! Lillian was the first friend of mine that Justin met and I was one of the firsts that Craig met, and I'm his favorite ;)

Today's Prayer Requests:

1) Anonymous friend of mine. A friend of mine is really starting to find out who her real friends are. This happens to everyone at some point, and it is happening to her now. Pray that God gives her strength to cope.

2) May 30th - Pray for good fortune on May 30th. My life long friend is getting married so please pray that the weather is perfect, the setting is perfect and that in general, the whole day is perfect for her.

# 72 Check!

Number 72 on my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days was actually completed last weekend. It was to take a roadtrip! Justin and I took a roadtrip of the southeastern highpoints that we wanted to complete. Actually, Justin had already completed them, it was me that wanted to do the highpoints. We drove over 1100 miles in 4 days! We started out driving from Birmingham to Georgia, then to South Carolina, then North Carolina, then Virginia, the Tennessee and finally back to Birmingham. We completed 4 highpoints which brings me up to 9 total. I also went camping for the first time and it was A BLAST! We camped in Virginia one night and then in Cades Cove the next night. Here's some pics:



First stop at Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia



Then to Sassafras Mountain, South Carolina's highpoint



And completing the day with Mt. Mitchell, highest point in North Carolina.

We woke up early the next morning to head to Virginia's highest point, Mount Rogers.



Justin and I at the summit of Mt. Rogers. This was my last highpoint to climb as a "Rogers". It's amusing to me that the name of the mountain was called Mt. Rogers!

Something incredibly unique about this highpoint was how open the terrain was. It was like a really super big farm. There were tons of wild ponies roaming around. See below for a lot of pics of them.





We saw tons of wild ponies while hiking Mt. Rogers in Virginia. They were a big fan of Justin's smores granola bars.





The pictures don't really do it justice. The only word I could use to describe it is "peaceful".

After leaving Virginia, we went to camp at Cades Cove in Gatlinburg, TN. This made the THIRD time Justin and I have been to Gatlinburg in one year. We had a blast there, except the fact that it rained most of the time. It's not easy cooking on a grill when you're in the rain. However, it was all worth it because Justin's ultimate dream came true....we saw a bear! Actually, we saw 14 of them!





Fabulous travel weekend for us :)

101 in 1001

So my photographer, Amelia Strauss, had a blog a long time ago that I was incredibly interested in and I wanted to do. I started it a while ago but since I had some downtime at work today, I finished it! It's called "101 in 1001". It's a list of 101 things I want to do in 1001 days. This timeline gives me until about February 15, 2012, give or take a couple of days. Some of these things I've even already done so I can mark them off the list. As I do them I'll make a blog post about them and hopefully the whole list will be completed by the 1001st day! Without any further ado, here is my 101 in 1001 (in no particular order):

1. Go on a mission trip


2. Get a passport


3. Buy a new home


4. Get married


5. Buy a jeep wrangler


6. Win bingo at work


7. Go on a Mediterranean Cruise for an anniversary or other special event


8. Go to the Grand Canyon


9. Get promoted to supervisor at work


10. Do a half-marathon


11. Go to New York City again


12. Go whitewater rafting


13. Go to Canada


14. Watch Fireproof with Justin


15. Join a bible study


16. Get new countertops for the kitchen


17. Visit Lauren in Seattle


18. Go to Niagara Falls


19. Go scuba diving somewhere exotic


20. Go through my clothes and give a ton of stuff to goodwill


21. Have 30 highpoints under my belt


22. Go to sips-n-strokes


23. Get frames for my CPA license and actually hang them up


24. Learn more about gardening and plant flowers in our yard


25. Pay off my car


26. Get off myspace since I only get on it to play games when I'm bored


27. Cook Justin a meal every night of the week


28. Finish P90X, the FULL 90 days


29. Get my wedding dress stored and out of my closet


30. Go to Vegas


31. Make a scrapbook


32. Read a fiction book


33. Update my photo albums on facebook to delete the older ones


34. Do a "Top Five" blog


35. Go camping in Cades Cove again


36. Take an Alaskan cruise


37. Go on a cruise in the Caribbean region


38. Climb Mt. Washington to the summit


39. Wear full blown makeup to work for an entire week


40. See a big horn sheep up close


41. Have Anderson spend the night with Auntie M and Uncle Justin


42. Attend one church service at The Basement in Birmingham


43. Start helping clean up dog poop in the backyard instead of making Justin do it all the time


44. Go para sailing


45. Serve breakfast to the homeless with the SMUMC ladies


46. Buy a new coffee table and end tables for the living room


47. Grow my hair out then chop it all off


48. Climb Kilimanjaro and do an African Safari


49. Take Anderson to the McWane Center just the two of us


50. Get my name changed on all important documents


51. Take a girls trip to Six Flags


52. Get all our wedding gifts set up and put them to use


53. Finish sending thank you notes for showers/wedding gifts


54. Cut the grass for Justin, even if its only once


55. Go to San Francisco


56. Climb Mt. Marcy in New York


57. Take a roadtrip to the West


58. NOT HAVE A KID


59. Run the Vulcan Run again


60. Go horseback riding


61. Join Twitter


62. Get a professional massage


63. Buy a frame for my Master's Degree and display it in my office


64. Replace all the appliances in the kitchen with stainless steel appliances


65. Buy more tropical fish for our tank


66. Host a party at my house for something


67. Get another devotional and keep up with it


68. Go kayaking


69. Buy a real Christmas tree instead of a fake one for Christmas


70. Go to a Hoover High School football game just for kicks


71. Help our church in some disaster relief effort


72. Take a roadtrip


73. Go tubing down the Cahaba River with our friends again


74. Get a new dining room table


75. Go to Justin's high school reunion


76. Go to my high school reunion


77. Go ice skating just for fun


78. Give blood


79. Clean out the third bedroom


80. Help build another house for Habitat for Humanity


81. Help host a baby shower for someone


82. Introduce mountain climbing/hiking to someone who's never done it


83. Buy cool new frames for my engagement pictures


84. Go to Rocky Mountain National Park again


85. Get a pedicure (I have only done this once in my entire life)


86. Obtain all items on our gear list for the Africa trip


87. Go riding with Justin on the mountain bikes somewhere fun


88. Go to a movie at a drive-in theater


89. Go zip lining


90. Buy a new pair of sunglasses. Nice ones that I have incentive to not lose


91. Read one of Nicholas Sparks' love stories


92. Obtain a door wreath for every major holiday


93. Get hardwood floors in the living room


94. Surprise someone by giving them a gift that they're not expecting


95. Watch one episode of The Bachelorette


96. Try a glass of wine


97. Take a couples trip to Six Flags


98. See every episode of Andy Griffith


99. Buy a new camera, one with a BIG lens for awesome pic taking


100. Go snorkeling


101. Take Anderson to the Atlanta aquarium (he LOVES fish)

Engagement Pictures

There's a lot I can blog about right now, but the one thing on my mind for the moment are our engagement pictures! Amelia gave me the pictures today and I've already put them on facebook. She took over 150 pictures and picking out a select few is incredibly hard, but I put most of my favorites on our wedding website under the photo galleries section. I've uploaded a few of my top picks below:



























A big thanks to Amelia Strauss for doing these pictures. She is truly an AMAZING photographer with an amazing eye!

Weekend Happenings

Justin and I are taking a vacay just the two of us this weekend. We've both been crazy stressed with work and wedding happenings and he's been out of town for 3 weeks in a row. So we just want to hang out and focus on eachother this weekend :) We were suppose to do northeastern highpoints and have a 2 days trip to DC, but that plan had to change (I'm slightly bummed-I REALLY wanted to go to DC). Anyway, we've decided to take a roadtrip to do the southeastern highpoints instead. For those of you who don't know, Justin and I have a goal of going to the highest point in each of the 50 states. A lot of times this means we get to go mountain climbing, but not this trip. The highpoints in the southeast are relatively flat so they are all either drive-ups or consist of a mile walk or so to get there.

We're leaving Thursday at 5pm to drive to Hiawassee, GA to stay in a hotel. This is very close to the GA highpoint, but we won't go to the highpoint until the next morning because by the time we get to the hotel it will be close to 11pm.

This is Brasstown Bald, Georgia's highest point (4,784 feet). It includes only one mile of hiking to get to it.

Friday is definitely our LONG day! Friday morning we'll wake up and go to the highpoint at GA and then drive about 2 1/2 hours to South Carolina's highpoint, Sassafras Mountain.

This is the USGS marker for the "summit" of South Carolina's highest point. It's devastating that these highpoints involve little to no hiking. I miss mountains :( Sassafras Mountain is 3,560 feet in elevation and involves a whopping 10 minutes of hiking time to get to it.

After leaving Sassafras Mountain, we'll get back on the road to drive for 3 hours to get to Mount Mitchell in North Carolina. This one is the different one of the bunch. We are choosing to drive to the top of the summit in order to have time to get in all the other highpoints, but you can hike Mt. Mitchell and we are planning on coming back to do that.



Excuse the random guy in this one, but I loved this picture of the view :) Justin and I have been trying to do this hike for months but the summit was closed and we didn't want to go if we couldn't be at the "true summit" of the mountain, so we waited. It recently opened up!

After leaving the NC highpoint, we're driving for another 3 hours to make camp in Virginia. On Saturday morning, we'll wake up and do the ONLY actual hike for the whole trip. Mt. Rogers (yes that would be my last name, for now at least. There's also Mt. Marcy in New York!) is Virginia's highest point and takes about 5 hours to hike it round trip. The best part about this hike is that it is known for its wild pony's that wander around.



These are the wild pony's from Mt. Rogers. Justin plans on feeding one....I plan on watching them chase him when he runs out of food :)

After leaving Virginia we'll make our last stop in Gatlinburg to camp in Cades Cove. (This will make 3 times we have been to Gatlinburg since we've been dating...I wonder what our favorite national park is....). We'll get into Cades Cove relatively early, so we'll probably do some small hikes in the area. Justin is desperately hoping to see a bear, he's crazy.

On an unrelated note, we took our engagement pictures last weekend! Our photographer, Amelia Strauss, met us at her studio and then we went off to various locations around the Birmingham area to take pictures. We started at the Bessemer airport to take pictures with a private jet, which Justin LOVED! He wants to get his pilot's license someday so he was very intrigued by the jet. We even got to sit in the cockpit and put on the little headphones and everything. It was awesome!

Then we drove back to Birmingham. Amelia is big on trespassing, as she says. She loves taking pics in random fields that usually end up being property owned by someone. We pulled off on the side of the road by the airport because she saw a field of flowers in someones front yard that she liked. We also took some by the railroad tracks near the airport. Our final stop was at Morris Ave. which was an absolute MUST, if not for the contemporary brick walls and road, then definitely for the name of the road itself! (My new last name will be Morris). The weather wasn't amazing that day but we were lucky because there was about a 4 or 5 hour time period in the day where it didn't rain and it just so happen to be the time period when we were taking pictures. LITERALLY, it started raining while we were in the car on the way home from Morris Avenue.

Amelia will post the pics on her website and give me a login id and password and as soon as she does that I'll put it on here so you can see the pics! Justin and I are both really glad we chose Amelia to do our wedding. We both love her style and she is so cute and so much fun to work with. I would HIGHLY recommend her to anyone :)