Halloween fun

My friend, Farren, invited me to go to the mall with her last Friday evening. I thought this sounded like an awesome plan! As she was coming to pick me up, she called me.  She forgot that she had agreed to go to a corn maze with her husband and some friends, but she wanted me to come with them.

Now, I am an introvert, and proud of it.  I have been doing a lot of extroverting the past couple of weeks and let me tell you, it's exhausting. I wanted to say "No, I'll just stay home, read, and watch Mad Men." But I didn't. I agreed.  (Side note: Mad Men did not interest me at first, but after watching 4 seasons, I'm hooked.  It's a pretty good show, however, it is filled with a lot of "adult subjects."  The show may not be for everyone.)

She told me it wasn't a scary one, so I thought, "What's the harm?"

We carpooled with one of their friends and as we were driving there I hear Dayton, her husband say, "I'm going to be so scared tonight."

I looked over at Farren and yelled, "You liar!"  I am a big chicken and HATE anything scary.  I refuse to watch scary movies or go to haunted houses.

Well, I was committed because the (haunted) corn maze was an hour away and we were already almost there.

I was extremely anxious to start this corn maze.  But, after the first 20 or 30 minutes, I realized it wasn't so bad.  Just people in masks that jump out of the corn at you.  We had a pretty big group and I stationed myself in the group so I was the least likely to be the one who encountered the 'haunters' first.

In the end, I had a fun time and met a bunch of new people.

Sometimes it is good to do things that you wouldn't normally do- especially if it scares you.

I felt very accomplished because I faced my fears.

The next day the Mr. and I made our way to his mother's house. My parents were gracious enough to drive to Springfield to pick up our dog to dog sit for the weekend.  His mother doesn't allow indoor animals and CC wouldn't fare well outside all weekend long.

While in Sedalia, we not only spent time with his mom, but we went to our friend's family's Halloween party.  This party includes friends, family, food, hayride and haunted house.

After the haunted corn maze, I skipped going through their haunted house.  One scary thing per week is my new rule.

I love this Halloween party.  Paul and I have been going to this family event since we started dating, so going always reminds me of fun memories that we share.

Halloween is a fun part of fall, but for Paul there is something more important that happens in the fall.

Hunting.

This man loves hunting.  He gets so excited when he talks about it and works out his strategies of where he plans to put his camera and set up his deer stands. To me it sounds like the Charlie Brown teacher, "Waa waa, waa waa, waa waa..." But I just love seeing his passion show through.  I love hunting because I know it makes him happy, but I don't think I will ever join him.

While in Sedalia we went on a little walk to go check his camera. While out in the fields, I played with my, I mean our, new camera.  I got some pretty cool pictures. At least I think they are cool.  I enjoyed figuring out more about my, I mean our, camera for future use. I also got to take some pictures of the animals Paul's camera caught.

I had a wonderful weekend full of extroverting.  Now, I am glad for a few nights to spend by myself, being an introvert with a book and Netflix.

3 does

Turkey

A Coyote.

And a buck.  Paul was as giddy as a 6 year old on 

Christmas morning after seeing this on his camera.

I walked not even a foot into some brush to get a picture of the flower below.

I got covered in stick-tights (is that how they are spelled?). 

You can see all of the little dots on my leggings.

I think the picture was worth it, though. I think it is pretty cool.

Can you see my little spider friend on the flower? It's on one of the petals.

I was playing with close up stuff and focusing the camera.

I love how you can see all of the details on the dandelion. 

Finding the happy.

This week seemed to start off like any other week. 

Work. Class. Homework.

Then Tuesday night happened.

I found my passenger car window shattered.

No clue how it happened.

My first thought was, "This is JUST what we needed this month. Vet bill, eye doctor bill, and paying for a new car window."

I woke up this morning in a pretty bad mood. 

I was being very short tempered and was thinking a bunch of extremely negative thoughts.

"Well now we won't be able to go do fun things for a few weeks."

"Why is it when it rains, it pours??"

(These are just a small sample of what has been running through my mind this morning.)

Then, my dad offered to help us out if we needed it.

And then, on instagram, someone posted a picture of a saying. 

"There is always something to be happy about."

I really needed that this morning.  I began thinking,well, at least I still have a running car. I have a supportive family that are extremely gracious and would never let me get into bad financial troubles. I have a wonderful husband who came to my rescue last night after I found my window.(It happened in a shopping center at like 10 at night.) I thought about how thankful I was that my window had tint on it so that the window didn't completely shatter into my car. I thought about how both Paul and I have jobs that allow us to pick up extra hours of work if we so choose, so that we can make extra money to cover unexpected bills, such as this.

In the end, I realized that this is not the worst thing to happen.  Sometimes some not so awesome things happen to us to help keep us mindful of the all the good things in our lives.  

When did we grow up?!

So, I began reflecting on life and where it has taken me the past few years.

Between graduating high school, going to college, getting a degree, having a few different jobs, my parents moving to a different state, and of course, my friends and I getting married, there have been SO many changes since 2010.

My best friend (more like sister), Farren, posted her wedding pictures on Facebook. This got me thinking about her wedding day, my wedding day, and then our good friend, Rachel's, wedding day.  I began looking through all of their pictures and remembering what beautiful celebrations they both had.

Marriage is such a special, amazing, fun, scary, frustrating, wonderful thing.  There is no one who I would rather do life with than Paul.  I know that Rachel and Farren feel the same about their husbands.  Looking at their wedding pictures, I can see the love and excitement in their eyes.  We are all young; 22 years old.  To me, this means we share something special. Our American culture seems to frown upon young marriages, like it means we are ending our lives or we won't be 'free' to have fun anymore.  I have heard many comments about how people cannot imagine getting married at my age because they have so much more living to do or they want to get their careers in order before they decide to settle down.  Getting married at a younger age is not for everyone and no one should get married if they are not truly ready for what marriage entails, but here is what I want to say. Paul is my best friend.  There is no one I would rather share life with than him.  Just because we are married, does not mean we don't have fun and don't live life to the fullest.  We go on our own adventures, support each other, and most of all love each other.  We are fully committed to each other and were fully prepared for marriage when we entered into it.

I love that two of my closest friends can relate to me in this aspect.  I see the love they have for their spouses and I am inspired by each of their relationships. They both live lives and marriages that are Christ centered. This is so inspiring and I hope to learn more from them and their spouses in the future.

I hope they don't get upset with me for sharing some of their wedding photos on my blog, but I just want to share how beautiful my friends are and share some special moments from their wedding day (and mine.)

Rachel and Josh

Farren and Dayton

The rest are of me and Mr. C. 

Thank you to two of my closest friends for doing life with me, sharing stories, being supportive, loving me for me, and just being doggone cool people. I love you!

Triple Date Night

So, it has been a while since I have posted.

I really only want to post when there are fun or exciting things to talk about, or if I am inspired. I think my greatest inspiration are friends and family.

So, on that note. I will write about a triple date night I had with some of my best friends.

Paul wanted to spend some 'us' time first.  There was an event downtown called Taste of Springfield and Oktoberfest.  It was an event where local restaurants served samples of some of their dishes.  You purchased tickets then used those tickets to get food.  It was so much fun! We got to try out food from restaurants we have never eaten at before, found a new place we want to go try out with my parents, ran into some co-workers, and had a much needed date.  I love weekends that I get to spend with my husband.

Later that evening we met up with our friends for a triple date.

Farren, Rachel, and I have all been good, well let's say best, friends since fourth grade. (This is when Rachel came to Sacred Heart School.) We have had our ups and downs throughout the years, but recently we have all became really close again.  We started doing girl's nights a few months back and then decided that we all needed to have a triple date night. We are all married, now, so we thought it was appropriate for our husbands to get to know each other.

We found a Saturday where we were all free and planned to go bowling then back to the Kizzire household for nachos and fun.

Bowling was great! I am not a huge bowler, but it was really enjoyable.  Everyone did really well, and we had a little healthy couple competition going on.  The Kizzires won, with the Morrises in second, and the Chernioglos in third.  I'm ok with that.  Farren is way more competitive and we wouldn't have heard the end of it if they would have lost.

We went back to Farren and Dayton's house to have dinner.  We made nachos and let me tell you, they were delicious! It was cool the way the turned out because everyone brought something different to include in the making of the nachos.  I made the chicken and bought sour cream, Rachel brought chips, beans, and jalapenos, Dayton and Farren supplied tomatoes, onions, cheese, and lettuce (and their house.)  What was unique was that Dayton had this seasoning that he added to the sour cream which made it extra delicious and made homemade guacamole. The collaboration made the nachos WAY better than if I would have made them just on my own. One of my favorite things about the night was being able to have dinner family style.  It is rare that I get to eat dinner around a kitchen table with friends or family (because of Paul's work schedule).  It is crazy how much you can miss little things like that. We had lots of good conversation and fellowship that evening.

After dinner the men-folk went off to do man things while us girls finished up the dishes and cleaning and then went to the living room to chat the rest of the night.

The night ended with Farren and I sleeping on the couch.

The next day Farren, Rachel, and I were texting saying how much our husbands enjoyed themselves and how they all asked why we haven't been doing this sooner.  Paul asked when the next one would be.

I would say the night was a HUGE success. Me and Mr. C cannot wait to do it again!

My attempt at being 'artsy'.

Us pretending to be laughing at something super funny. It looks so natural, right?

Our handsome husbands. I gotta say, we did good ladies! *wink*

Love my friends!

Taste of Springfield!