Quarter Century Old

Another year older, another year wiser??? Last Saturday Ashley and I both had birthdays. It's awesome sharing my birthday with my sister-in-law :)

I think Jeryn's saying "My mom is HOW old?!?" ;)

Birthday girls and our birthday drinks! We started our night with dinner at Houlihan's.

The drool-icious Coldstone birthday cake!

My fam at dinner.

Ashley's fam at dinner.

After dinner we headed down to Westport to meet up with some of our friends at the piano bar, Ernie Biggs.

My parents came too and the bachelorette parties loooved them haha.

The party crew... too bad only 1/2 of Jerad made it in the pic. Thanks to everybody for coming out!!!

Much to Ashley's dismay the guys paid to get us birthday girls up on stage.


Then they had some guys up on stage to serenade us and my dad came up with them. The song choice wasn't the best with your dad on the stage!

My BFF

Ash and Jerad

Birthday shots

The July birthdays!

My handsome boy and I

Cheesy self portrait time

Lots of fun with my girlies

Thanks Mom and Dad for coming out :)

We turned 25 today!!!!! Wait.... how old are you now Ashley?

Oh that's right I'm 25, you're 30 ;)

Check out Jo's new creations... she's now in the fabric flower making business!

After the piano bar the celebrating didn't stop... we headed to Harrah's Casino to lose some money and scarf down some pizza. Finally made it home at 4 a.m. and felt alot older than 25 the next day!

Mason Jar Masterpiece

My new name is now Martha Stewart. I have taught myself to make Pottery Barn knockoff mason jar candle holders! I love everything at Pottery Barn but hate paying the price. I drooled all over their summer catalog with their outdoor living and candle items. But with the fabulous world of blogging I can blog stalk how to make them myself, thank you very much.

All you need is glass jars of any kind, aluminum gauge wire, needle nose pliers, and wire cutters. The pliers you see above are from my very own set I got from the hubs for my birthday :)

And here is my end result as my new table centerpiece!

The clear jars are just salsa jars we've been saving and the blue mason jars we found for a couple bucks at some antique stores and flea markets down in the Ozarks over the 4th of July. Since these are in the kitchen I filled them with food related items- coffee beans and white rice.

Buy some cheap-o votives and voila! My new centerpiece I made all by myself :)

2 Year Anniversary

July 12... our anniversary!!!!!

The BEST day of my life... so far at least!

For our one year we got dressed up and ate on the plaza then Trent surprised me with a sunset hot air balloon ride for later that week. It was AMAZING and what a way to celebrate one year of wedded bliss.

This year we celebrated 2 years of matrimony! We exchanged our presents before we headed out to celebrate with dinner.

We headed to Longhorn Steakhouse this year for our dinner. We got some summery drinks that were delicious... I could get in trouble with a few more of those ;)

Appetizers... a fruity summer salad. Trent's starting to become a salad fan and he LOVED this salad.

My dinner... loaded sweet potato and crusted parmesan chicken. Mine was so good Trent was jealous!

Trent's dinner... loaded sweet potato and portobello mushroom chicken. I'm sure it was good but I don't like mushrooms so I didn't try his.

Our caramel apple ice cream dessert, a.k.a. Heaven on a plate!

Back home for our champagne toast in the wedding flutes... Callie, check out the wine stopper from your wedding :)

We were horrible at this on our wedding day! We're starting to get it mastered!

Happy 2 year anniversary to the most amazing husband in the world... two years down and forever to go!

My 25 Things

In two days I will be turning a quarter century old!!! The big 2-5!!! I feel like this is a big birthday for some reason (not as big as 21 of course ;) ) but more like "Kala, you need to start acting like an adult finally" big. Riiiiight.

I LOVE birthdays. Anybody's birthday really. I'm that girl who claps and sings along at Applebee's for people I don't know, the girl that buys a shot for a 21st birthday guy/girl I've never met, and the kind of girl that likes to stretch birthday celebrations out for a full week... right Mom? And I especially love that I have a summer birthday. Back in the day in G-town all the best birthday parties were the summer birthday parties. Flashback to some of my favorites...

1998 and the best party of the summer was for the birthday blondes turning 13 woop-woop! Katie's birthday in June, me in July, and Kinsy's in August. Man, what that a party. We PACKED the Gardner pool with pretty much everybody from our grade. It was awesome!

2001 and the last to turn 16 and get that driver's license! For my Sweet 16 my parents let me invite a group of friends on a canoe trip in Missouri! Lots of fun, sight-seeing, and tanning :) Perfect birthday!

2006 and I finally was the last in our group to turn 21. Sometimes it stinks to be the youngin'. This birthday literally did stretch out for a week because I celebrated on the actual day down in Emporia but had the big bash that weekend at my parents' house. I have pretty awesome parents who let me host a keg party/pool party/overnight campout for all my friends... it was the highlight of my summer.

2008 and I turned 23 just two days before our wedding. My last birthday I would ever spend as Kala McMillan :) This birthday kinda got overshadowed by the whole wedding business going on... but that was a-okay with me!

So to document my quarter-century year I made a mini-album of 25 things I want to do during my 25th year of birth. I made it like a month ago and have been dying to start but it doesn't count until July 10th.

On the first page are all the things I'm going to try and accomplish from 7.10.2010 - 7.10.2011. Each goal has it's own page where I will stick in pictures, memorabilia, journaling, etc. Can't wait to get busy!!!

And a birthday shout out to my friends who also celebrated their birthdays this week...
Parker, Dave, Kenny, and Fritzy!!! See... all the cool kids have July birthdays ;)

4th of July Weekend

Harlee loves when her Daddy takes a day off for fun... extra cuddle time :)

Bentley and Harlee love to maul Trent when he gets home.

To start the holiday a little early we headed to the newest water park, Schlitterbahn last Thursday with Ashley and Jerad.

Schlitterbahn was awesome! It was still nowhere near complete but had some awesome slides and a crazy cool tidal wave river (like a lazy river but with huge waves!). It was my favorite part except for the one time that Trent positioned us wayyy too close to the wave machine and it hit our double raft like a semi truck and I literally rode the wall instead of the wave. Hello headache.
On Friday, me, Trent, and my mom headed down to meet up with my dad, brother, and his girlfriend at our neighbor's cabin on Lake of the Ozarks for a nice lake weekend. Out of all the space in the car this is where Bentley chooses to ride. Ridiculous dog.

Saturday morning boat ride with my fur babies!

Bentley literally swims in the wind... it's hilarious. Unfortunately, on our first boat ride of the weekend our neighbor's boat had something go wrong with the motor so we had to get towed back to the boat slip. Bye bye wakeboarding, tubing, and skiing... maybe next time :(

But a boat mishap didn't ruin our weekend cause my brother had 2 nights of racing we got to go see! Brent's a mini-sprint car racer on the weekends and him and my dad love it. They got started in it a couple years back while Brent was in college and he keeps improving every season. It's a blast to watch those little things go flying past y0u!
Putting on the gear to go racin'! Brent's only allowed me to drive his car one time. He had his car at my parent's house and since they live in the country we can drive in our backyard. I hopped in, floored it and started spinning doughnut after doughnut. My dad and Brent were all freakin' out thinking I was gonna put myself in the pond. So even now Brent won't let me near his car anymore cause he doesn't trust what I might do ;)#55 Brent McMillan!

He's out there somewhere!

Trent took this as I was hollering and getting rowdy. I tend to be an overly enthusiastic fan at most sporting events ;) I'm going to try and get better before I have kids and become that kind of mom in the stands haha.

Sunday night races... a whole wopping one picture. I stink. After all the races were over we didn't get back to the lakehouse until 2 a.m. but still wanted to do fireworks. It was the fourth afterall. So the whole family stayed up till 4 a.m. celebrating how great it is to be an American! Needless to say all we did on Monday was sleep sleep sleep!

Twilight+Diehard= TWIHARDS!

If you are not a Twilight fan then you'll want to stop reading this post right now. And it's also like the longest blog post in history. Sorry.
Anywhoo... another radio win... this time for advanced screening Twilight tickets! Trent's boss actually won the tickets but couldn't go. Lucky us got to see Eclipse on Monday night!
At the theaters I answered some Twilight trivia and won a pen!

But 2 months back I made plans with my BFF Jobeth to camp out and go to the midnight showing. Even though I'd seen the movie already that didn't mean I was missing out on the Twihard mania with Jo! We arrived at 3:30 and were like the 20th people back. It was hot and we were unprepared (thinking we'd be inside) so Trent had to bring us lawn chairs, an umbrella, water bottles, and shorts.

I also brought our portable DVD player to watch Twilight and New Moon in line :)

Jo stocked us up on magazines, pop, and candy!

1 hour down... it's 4:30

2 hours down... it's now 5:30

3rd hour down picture got deleted I think? But now we've survived 4 hours and it's 7:30

Afton's arrival!

5 hours later and the sun is finally set. 8:30

In the fifth hour is when a dad next to us gave his spot to his birthday daughter and her 10 screaming/annoying/singing 13 year olds. They seriously sang "If you're happy and you know it" at the top of their lungs. This is why teachers need the summers off... annoying children!

Soooo then all the news crews that had been there all day brought lifesize cut-outs of Edward and Jacob. We may or may not have been on Fox 4 news. I may or may not of screamed like the 13 year olds while bobbing Jacob up and down in the air. I'd like to think that what happens at AMC 30 stays at AMC 30.

Ashley arrived and we completed our wolfpack for the evening. Yes me and Jobeth are wearing Twilight T-shirts. However, before you roll your eyes and say "Really? How old are we Kala?" they are both Jobeth's and were gifts that she received. We HAD to wear them!
Hour 6... it's 9:30!

Total madness! And we're in the front!!! The line seriously wrapped all the way down the front of the building, around the side, and around the back almost to the dumpsters. I know this because the hubby came back up and did a drive-by to check out all us crazies.

Protestors even came out, what?! These kids were anti-Twilight, pro-Harry Potter. I say why can't you be both? I am!

Hour 7... 10:30... still outside. Seriously? We have the biggest/best theater and out of the 17 theaters that were doing midnight showings 0urs was the last to be let in. Of freakin' course.

YES!!!! We made it inside to the comforts of our comfy leather chairs :)

8th hour, 11:30... the movie finally came on around 12:15 and was just as good the second time around. I'm willing to go see it a third time for anyone who hasn't gone yet... and Jo's in too :) Now I know most people think Jo and I are certifiably insane for doing this and camping out all day. But we're all about having "life-experiences" ;) and we can now take this one off our bucket list. And hey, we're both teachers, what else do we have to do on summer break?