Christmas Card.

This year I decided we should send out Christmas cards.  Not unreasonably overpriced hallmark ones, but a card that included images of our pretty mugs.  Matt was hesitant at first, but after some begging and pleading, he agreed.  If you were wondering, there are a few rules for making a Christmas card people are sure to cherish for years to come:

1. Blue eye shadow.  Lots.
2. *A winning orbit smile*
3. Blinking.
4. Pensive stares.
5. Just the right amount of bang curl.
6. Your grandparents Christmas attire.  From 1970.

With all of these things in place, plus some honest to God major Cheese, we couldn't go wrong.  With some minor tweaking of the tripod and the camera self-timer, we accomplished what some might call taking the greatest photos for a Christmas card, ever.



Matt: Do you think it will rain today?
Ashlee: Perhaps.




Matt: I blinked in that one...
Ashlee: Is that food in my teeth?

 


Matt: I blinked in that one too..
Ashlee: This sweater makes me look fat.. Doesn't it?




Matt: The owl just spoke to me!
Ashlee: Oh Crap.. 

Matt: There must be dust in the air or something...
Ashlee: Mental note:  There's no such thing as too much aqua net.

The Finished Product.





Spirit of the holiday.

What's better than festive lights, glitter balls, and gift wrapped presents??  Not much.

Inspiration.

Enjoy the colors and warmth of the season.  I heart Christmas.

Crystal, Rob & Dresden.

Good Morning!  What a weekend!  On Saturday, I met up with my friends Crystal and Rob, and their little boy Dresden to take some family photos.  I've known Crystal for a couple years and when we first met, I told her she sounded just like Sarah Palin, and we've been great friends ever since.  We have a lot in common.  We're always on time.  We love the movie Newsies.  We're crazy good bakers.  I love when she has get togethers, because I always know there will be yummy food.  Anyway, now that I'm hungry thinking about the oreo balls she makes, enjoy a snip-it of some of the photos we took Saturday!

Hanna Lane.

Had a mini sized photo shoot with my niece over Thanksgiving.  Click on over to my photography website and check it out!!!  http://www.ashleedavisphotography.blogspot.com/

Thanksgiving Bonanza!

Happy Thanksgiving! (Belated)!  Sorry!  Matt and I got up at the crack of dawn Thursday morning, and half asleep drove 6 hours to Old Fort, NC where we spent the holiday with my grandparents, parents, brother, sister-in-law and  niece.  Once the sun rose, and we were awake, we conversated, and the drive went by quickly.  We drove through some very pretty mountains, which made me want to barf.  I like looking at mountains, but not driving through them.  Ick!  <sidenote>  I wouldn't enjoy crossing a semi and a runaway truck ramp.  Talk about freaky.  Since we were all traveling Thursday, we ate our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday.  We had turkey, ham, cracker stuffing, corn casserole (Paula Dean, with butta'), green bean casserole, scalloped potatoes, ambrosia and rolls.  We ate and watched a lot of football all weekend.  Poor 49ers and Gators.. They didn't fare so well.  Neither did my self esteem after trying to get into my jeans once the weekend was over.  We had such a great time and will have an even better time next year, because we'll be back in Florida for Thanksgiving 2012!  Ya buddy.

Whistle.

We're that fun couple that makes funny faces.  You SO want to party with us.  And Matt whistles as soon as he gets out of bed in the morning.  He's weird.  But cute.

WICKED!

This past weekend I went to Nashville with my friend Crystal to see Wicked.  It was wicked awesome!  I only changed clothes TWICE before leaving the house!  Can we say accomplishment?  Yes, it was quite the feat...  This is my first outfit before I decided, "dress?? not so much." :


What is that crud on the floor?  How embarassing..

 Anyway, I kept the sweater, boots and belt, but ditched the dress and went with jeans instead.  Anyway, this is not a fashion blog, so I'll continue and not talk anymore about my clothes..... My belt's so cute, right?! When we got to Nashville, we went to the Big River Grille for dinner.  It was so yummy!  Crystal had shrimp and grits, which I'm unsure she actually enjoyed and I ate the crap out of my mexican taquitos!!  Once we finished eating, we began our treck to the TPAC.  It was very far if you ask me and by the time we got there and got seated I was ROASTING.  The elevator ride up to the nosebleed section was like a sauna and jam packed.  It took everything inside of me not to strip naked in front of everyone.  I didn't, however, because Crystal would have been embarrassed, and because I wasn't wearing sexy panties.  The show started at 8 and it was such a beautiful show.  The costumes and lighting were incredible and of course, the singing!  Elphaba can rock it, OK!?  I desperately try to sing like her, but only vaguely resemble a cat in heat... I was so happy I got to see it, and given the opportunity, will see it again! Here's a view from our seats:


Yes, that is a giant dragon head and yes it did blow fire and burn the eyebrows off of everyone in the front row....



Inspiration.

Sequins.

Sunlight.

Pink.

Surgeries and such...

It has been quite a while since my last post, and thats mainly because up until two weeks ago, I was unable to do any typing with my right hand.  I had surgery on my right shoulder 7 1/2 weeks ago, and for the first 4 weeks, it was confined to a sling.  I couldn't use it to do ANYTHING and it was HORRIBLE.  For a little background on why I had surgery, let me take you back 10 years to a snow tubing mishap in West Virginia.  To keep a long story short, I slipped out of a snow tube and my shoulder slipped out of it's socket..  More like, it was pushed out, but regardless it was the beginning of a very slippery shoulder.  Since then, I've dislocated my shoulder over a dozen times doing simple things like, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, or sleeping..  YES!  Sleeping.  That happened twice and it was traumatic.  Well since Matt is getting out of the army in 8 months, we thought it would be wise to fix this on the army's bill.  My surgery was June 30th, and it went smoothly.  The recovery was the worst, and still is, the hardest part of this whole situation.  Surgeon's and Dr's never mention recovery because I'm pretty certain 99% of the people would never go through with the procedure.  So here is a picture of my battle scar a day after surgery:



ICK huh??!

 It is feeling much better these days, and is gradually getting stronger and stronger.  Matt has been such a trooper helping out with everything around the house, but I think he's had his fill.  Lucky for him my arm is getting better and I'm able to help out much more than I have been able to.  I'll be back to my slave duties in no time.

 

Update!

 Well it's been over a month since my last post and that's because I've been SOOO busy!  SO busy.  I'm still working full time (boo) and taking summer school (double boo,) so my life has been pretty consumed with that.  If you've never worked full time and taken a summer school class, don't.  It's awful and stressful and makes me want to cry like a baby everyday.  So I'm looking forward to August when I'm done for three weeks and then fall starts at a much slower pace.  So since I last blogged, we bought a new motorcycle and I cut all my hair off.  If anyone didn't know us, they'd think we were having some sort of quarter life crisis....  I will be 30 in two years, so maybe that is it?!  Here's a picture of me and my babe, and my babe's new babe.

Happy cinco shake your bon bon fiesta de mayo birthday to me!

As most people know (since I'm so annoying about announcing it a full two weeks ahead of time) my birthday was on May 5th.  The day before I left, my coworkers bought me some super yummy cupcakes.  They were super delish!

On Thursday morning, CINCO DE MAYO!!, I left Matt at home since he had to work, and traveled to Columbus GA to spend 3 days with my family.  I was greeted by my sister in law and beautiful niece, Hanna.  We spent the day together just hanging out, and Thursday night, Luke, Amanda and I went downtown to eat some yummy mexican food, drink margartias, and celebrate!  We had a blast!  It had been a long time since any of us had been out in this type of setting, and it was definitely welcomed!  I don't get to see them very much, so it really was nice getting to spend my birthday with them.  Friday was low key.  Hanna especially enjoyed her breakfast.

My parents arrived Friday night, and Saturday morning we woke up early for a photo shoot.  My mom was enrolled in a photography class, and for the week, her assignment was people.  I was her "people."  We went to this rock park to take the photographs, and it was pretty amazing!  The sun was still relatively low in the sky, and it wasn't too hot, so it was a pleasant experience..... Until she made me lay on the ground, where I got stabbed by a cactus!  It was a teenie, tiny cactus.....  Probably the smallest I've ever seen, but it caused me to break out in an itchy rash all over my legs.  EEK!  Like a true model, I pushed through the pain, smiled with my eyes, and made our time worth her effort.  She did such a good job and the photos turned out awesome!  Without further ado......

My very best gazelle leap.  I know.  It's awesome.



"smeyesing"=smiling with my eyes.  Tyra would be proud. 

After the photo shoot, we drove about an hour to Gay Georgia, to go to the Cotton Pickin Fair! 

It was a craft fair this town holds every year.  It was fun to see all the neat things people make, and it was great to eat good food!  I had the best strawberry shortcake.  Yum yum.  It's always so nice when I get to see my family, and can't wait to be home in less than a year.  Cheers! 



Easter.

When we got to Home Depot on Saturday and I picked out the assortment of plants I wanted to plant in our first flower bed, Matt said nothing...  Just looked at me like this...  HA!  He was such a good sport and let me pick out and design it all on my own.  I normally hate trying to decide stuff like this all on my own, but it was surprisingly easy to pick out what I want.  My parents have the most beautiful backyard with a butterfly garden that I love.  Everything is tall, and wild, but looks so uniform together.  Mine looks

nothing like theres, but I was still inspired none the less.  Anyway, we finally got both of our flower beds filled with soil, and Saturday we completed one side.  We would have completed both sides this weekend, but due to it storming ALLLL day Sunday, we weren't able to.  I was super bummed, but my body was thankful I had to wait to finish it.  My back sang out in praise.  As did my hamstrings... 

Anyway, this is what the space looked like before......

This is what it looked like AFTER!  Matt is off today, so he went and bought the mulch and will be putting the mulch down sometime today.  I can't wait to finish the other side.  Our yard is going to bring sexy back to the neighborhood.  OW!

Sunday was the WORST!  We woke up to crappy weather, and around 9:30, our power went off, and stayed off.  A huge strike of lightning came burrowing through our living room, shutting off all the power... Ok, I'm being extremely dramatic, but the lightning was super close and scary.  The power was off for at least 4 hours.  So we decided to be proactive.  This meant going to Gamestop to trade in 7 or 8 of Matt's video games for store credit....  $167 worth of trade ins!  Holy cow, right?!!  He bought 4 games, including Monopoly so we could play a game together..  The computer totally kicked our butt, but it was still really fun!  Then it was time to get our Easter Egg Dying groove on.  Unless you have kids, this is really more of a one man job since there is only one dipper stick...  So Matt and I alternated placing the eggs into their colors, and then I proceeded to watch the cups and the eggs, while Matt went back to play video games.  That was the extent of this fun time.  We were super happy with the bright colors, and had fun the 2 minutes we spent working as a team giving the eggs their new makeovers.  I think Pink was the happiest with her new look....  Later, Matt enjoyed the orange egg for a snack.  He said it was yum.  It reminded me of the year when I was young, and our family dyed Easter Eggs and forgot to put them in the fridge that night.  My mom got upset, and we had to throw them all away.  Bummer right??  I'm sure we spent at least 10 minutes as a family dying the eggs....  Oh Well!  Happy Easter to all!! 

Heart.