Trip #2

Less than a week after our Trip #1, C and I hit the road AGAIN!  This one took a lot of planning, especially in packing.  We/I traveled 4 states in 4 days!  All so I could see my sister Hannah and attend her concert at University of Cincinnati: College Conservatory of Music - and it was totally worth it!! :)

Wednesday night C and I had a quick dinner with Jeff and hit the road.  We got to my parents house  just in time to put Charlotte down for bedtime.  The next morning, we loaded up and got on I65 to Bowling Green KY.  We weren't gonna subject Charlotte to our Cincinnati whirlwind trip, and she was more than thrilled to stay with her Granna and Grandad for the night.  They went shopping, ate and played at Chick Fil A, had a sleepover with cousin Reese and caused all kinds of trouble, I'm sure!  She is still talking about her little trip. :)

Mom, Dad, and I kept driving north until we got to Cincinnati OH!  Thankfully, we were able to stay ahead of all the storms and tornados. It was a hard knowing that Jeff was in AL, Charlotte was in KY, we had family in both KY and TN, and we were in OH to visit Hannah.  All these states had tornados, hail, and rain traveling through. We all came out of it untouched other than a power outage.

Hannah had no clue that I was coming up with Mom and Dad, so it was great being able to knock on her door and see her face as she opened it!  I loved seeing where she is spending her 2 years of graduate school. Her apartment is super cute and the CU campus is beautiful!

Before her concert, we had time to go to dinner - PF Changs!!  One of my favorite places - spring rolls and chicken fried rice - double yum.  I missed Jeff and Charlotte, but it was great catching up as the Shoopman family of 4.



Our evening was capped off by a lovely Orchestra concert by CCM.  Hannah played principal oboe in the firs

t half of the concert - it's great being able to go to a concert and hear her great solos!!  Now, classical music isn't really my thing, but if Hannah is playing, I know it's gonna be a good one :)


The next day, we all had breakfast at our hotel and found something wonderful to do with the rest of our day - IKEA!! I've never been but always wanted to go.  Amazing place!!



I had looked online before and thought their stuff was well priced, but never knew how great the quality was as well.  It is just as good as most furniture stores we've looked at, but so much more affordable - not to mention, super cute. We were all in awe as we walked around - taking pictures of so much that we loved.

Mom is trying out a great recliner that does not look like a recliner! yay!

I started making plans on what to buy for our next house :)  I'm starting to pin things here to keep track of what I want. Like this:



Mom, Dad, and Hannah each found a chair to get - $69 bucks and totally comfortable.



I was amazed at the size of everything - here is the area you go to pick up the furniture that you want to buy:



Of course almost everything I got was for Charlotte - a great car rug for $14, finger puppets for $4, and an awesome paper roll for C's coloring for $11.





After our morning of shopping, we grabbed some mexican for lunch, and Greaters ice cream before we had to say our goodbyes.  It was so great seeing Hannah.  I'm excited that she is gonna be down for spring break in just a couple weeks!

We drove back to KY, picked up Charlotte, stopped in to visit Nana (who is still in the hospital), stopped at Zaxby's for dinner, and all collapsed into bed!  Sunday we had a little bit of a lazy morning and then headed back to AL.  Now we get a couple week break before hitting the pavement again :)  See you next time!

It was a beautiful day for a drive home Sunday morning!

Christmas 2011

So we're a month past Christmas but I figured better late than never!   It was a different Christmas this year, with our being in Alabama we traveled the entire holiday and didn't get to have Christmas morning at our house :( I know other people have done this for years, and that this is just Charlotte's 3rd Christmas so it isn't a long standing tradition, but we missed it this year!  But I think we made the best of it and had a wonderful Christmas!

The Lyons Family Christmas: We traveled up to Bowling Green Kentucky Friday morning to spend some time with Jeff's side of the family.  We hung out on Friday and all the family came to Jim and Jolene's house Saturday for Christmas Eve fun.  We ate a great lunch, hung out with family, and watched all the cousins play together! That's the best part of Christmas to me  - seeing Charlotte enjoy her time with family, especially those that we don't see very often.  That evening we opened presents - it was fun chaos ;)   We had to pack up that night and head back down the Spring Hill, TN, but we had a fantastic Christmas Eve in Bowling Green!  Here are a couple photos from our trip, if you'd like to see more head here to Jeff's photo gallery.











We spent Christmas morning at my parents house in Spring Hill.  While we missed having it at our house, it was great being able to share in the Santa fun with my parents, sister, and Nana. Charlotte loved all her Santa toys!  (yes, it was a lot but they were all consignment sale buys or free from Kohls! Charlotte may be a bit spoiled but my wallet was happy.)







After Santa time, we had a great brunch and set about opening presents!!  We take turns opening presents so it takes a bit to get through them all - Charlotte actually lost interest in opening her gifts!  Regardless, we had a great time enjoying each others company and then playing with all our new toys.











All in all, it was a great Christmas spent with lots of family.  :)

To see more photos you can also visit my Facebook Album.

Progress!

I feel like this past week has been filled with wonderful progress!!  It has made the start of this week so much better too!

First off, we successfully got a full week of the low carb diets under our belts!  Proud to announce a weight loss of 9 pounds!  Super excited to see that in the first week - I know it will become less and less per week as we go on, but I can't help but dreaming what losing this much weight a week would be like!  Overall, the diet wasn't as hard as I had remembered it and while I am already losing interest in some of the foods, seeing that 9 pounds off the scale feels better anyway!  Hopefully gonna try some new foods/recipes this week to change it all up!   I have decided that I will only be weighing weekly.  Before I got caught up so much in the numbers every day and could get really discouraged by it - so just a week at a time people!

Secondly, we got a treadmill!  I have been looking at craigslist for weeks now, every day, to find a free/cheap treadmill to get.  This one was $70 so a little higher than what I wanted but I feel like it is a good deal.   Thanks to my Dad and Jeff for picking it up and hauling it upstairs to our room!  So far I have worked out twice (I'm doing an every other day thing for now) and have walked a mile each time.  I am soooo out of shape people!   But the second time I was able to shave 2 minutes off my initial time!  The treadmill is old and has some quirks for sure, its  really a tad loud so a little hard to watch TV while I'm doing my thing, but I'm thinking if I keep at it long enough and prove that I'll use it maybe I'll get a new (ie quieter) one!



I'm sure the above two items of "progress" has really had a hand in this as well, but I just FEEL so much better!  My stress level is down, my productivily level is up, and my skin has finally cleared back up!  I account a lot of it to having this past week (and forever) without the extra two kids.  It's tough having 5 kids 3 and under anyway, but when 2 of them are having some major stress inducing issues, it does not make life easier!  I have gotten so much done, the house stays cleaner, and I am in a better mood.  Even Jeff has noticed the overall stress level in our house is so much lower.  Say it with me "ahhhhhh"  :)

This week I am looking forward to just 2 more days of childcare and 2 days in Owensboro Kentucky!  Another thing that letting these kids go has allowed me to do - have some days off :)  I'm happy that Charlotte will get to spend some time with her Nana and we'll have a little girls vacay!

I'll share a fun little story to wrap up this little post!  I got in my latest Scentsy order today, and Charlotte loooves when Scentsy comes in.  She loves to help me unpack it all, to smell all the bars, and then to climb in the boxes when they are empty.

She was so enthusiastic in getting the paper out!

Then it was her turn to sit in her box, smell her bars...

And watch TV in her new spot :)