Teacher's Day at the Zoo

Had to get this post done since I promised it to Jenna before we left for the cruise. Jenna arranged for us teachers to meet up for a day at the KC Zoo. A few people couldn't make it and the temps were 100 degrees but we still had a fabulous day!

Safari Sam ready to go!

Jenna and Jess bought some food so Sam could feed the sheep. But we didn't know how pushy those sheep could be!

See... those sheep were crazy!

On the train ride before Sam threw Jenna's phone off and we had to ride the train around 3 times before we could squat down and scoop it up. Phone was still in tact thank goodness.

Our fave exhibit was the polar bear. We stopped in during one of his training sessions which was cool to watch.

I liked his belly flops so he could catch his snacks.

Riding the brand new sky-fari with Jess was really cool!

Emerson and Sarah were behind us.

Sam and his older girlfriend, Emerson.

The whole group!

Where We've Been

For a while I was doing really good at blogging pretty darn frequently cause I was trying to catch up with all that's been going on. But then all last week I didn't post a thing. Why... because we were in paradise!!!

We were doing a whole lot of this and were away from technology for 8 days! No facebook, internet, blogging, texting, calling, anything. It was actually wonderful to shut down the Evo, toss her into the safe, and "log off" from the real world for a week. But now that we are back to reality and I have 1,304 pictures (taken by me, Ashley, and Bob) to sort through I'll try to blog the vacay as quick as possible!

Jeryn's 1st Sleepover

One of my 25 Things I had to get done this year was to have a sleepover with Jeryn. We babysit her alot but have never done it overnight. Ashley and Jerad were going to P&L with some friends last Thursday so that gave us our perfect opportunity to try out our parenting skills haha.

She is quite the little mover and likes to play on the stairs. Lesson learned- we are gonna need to buy a lot of gates!

She liked staring out the front door with the dogs for Tio Trent to come home from work.

We ate a delicious dinner of chicken nuggets and apple sauce and Jeryn cleared her plate. Maybe this is why she's already 1/2 my height :(

After dinner we went and got ice cream cones at Blazer's. She was a hot mess!

Then we walked over to Cornerstone Park to play.

She climbed all over the jungle gym!

Then on our way back to the car we had to stop and admire the fountains.

After Jeryn went home about 11 the next day I crashed and took a 2 hour nap. Props go out to all you parents because after watching Jeryn for just one day... not even a full 24 hours... I was pooped. I think I'll enjoy being Tia Kala and spoiling Jeryn for awhile longer before I jump on board the baby train :)

Pinterest Inspiration

I've become addicted to the Pinterest site after getting an invite from Ashley. Finally one website where you can see all the pictures and inspiration you've ever wanted to keep. I only have 34 "pins" right now but I'm sure I'll keep finding pictures of things I want like or want to do/make.

One of my first pins was this ribbon organizer from beneathmyheart.net. I am addicted to ribbon and knew this was a perfect afternoon activity for me on summer break.

This is what my ribbon looked like before. It hung on a closet hook organizer on the door of the office/scrapbooking room's closet. Then I organized my ribbon by color on binder rings. While it worked ok it just wasn't the best. I couldn't take my ribbon with me for scrapbooking weekends at Ashley's and it just looks messy, which isn't me.

So I plopped all my supplies down in front of the TV and found 2 Real Housewives of OC Reunions saved on the DVR to watch while I worked. My furry friends thought they'd help out too.

And here's the after shot!!! I bought a package of 80 pins thinking, "There's no way I have 80 different ribbons." Nope... turns out I have more like 100 so I had to head back to the store to buy more pins. My final verdict is that I am MUCH happier with the new ribbon organization. And Trent gave it 2 thumbs up too!

Pool Time

So far this summer I've only hit up the pool one time :( Sad face. I went with Ashley, Jerad, and Jeryn to the Spring Hill Aquatic Center. It's new this year and is pretty cool. Not as cool as the Gardner Aquatic Center (Duh... G-town always beats out Sprung Hole ;) ) but it's nice not to hear, "Mrs. O! Mrs. O! Mrs. O!" every five minutes. Kala in her bikini around her 10-11 year old students= AWKWARD.

How cute is the little miss?! It's a miracle I even got this picture cause she was running around everywhere!!

The lazy river was the best part cause we could all work on our tans for the cruise and Jeryn could start getting sleepy for her nap.

The whole Gorney family. Too cute :)

Baby Shower for Jess & Emery

One of my best friends, Jess, is expecting a little baby girl on July 10 (my birthday!!) and Caysie and I helped shower her and Baby Emery with lots of goodies!

Here's the glowing mother to be with the cute cake that Cays picked out for the shower.

Ryan, the son of our friend's Dan and Erin, helped Jess open all the presents. He was so slow and careful with everything, it was adorable!

Our other little helper was Dan and Erin's daughter, Kynzie. Until Emery comes she's been the only little girl baby in our group of friends so we are all so excited for Kynzie and Emery to become girlfriends :)

One of Jess' cool gifts were these monthly patches you iron on to a onesie for the baby's monthly pictures.

The cutest gift of the day had to be the little tutu and ballerina slippers that our friend Dani sewed for Emery! Dani is a fellow scrapbooker/crafter so I of course LOVED that they were handmade by her. Dani is marrying our friend Tyler in August and we are so excited to celebrate with them!!!!

Group shot of the shower guests with Harlee making a guest appearance :)

All the Carlson women!

The shower hosts with Baby Mama Jess and little Emery! We can't wait to meet you little girl and your Aunt Kala would really like you to come out on the 10th so we can be birthday buddies :) If you can't do the 10th that's okay... just don't pick the 7th or you'll have to share your day with your daddy and Fritz... and nobody wants that ;)

Trucks & Tanner's

Early June one of Trent's co-workers offered us free tickets to the NASCAR truck races and being the redneck racing fans that we are we jumped at the chance before you can say "Dale Earnhardt is the best race car driver that ever lived."

Only problem is that the tickets were 7 rows up from a hot track in the middle of the afternoon in June. It's fair to say that we were HOT.

We were super excited cause Trent's fave driver (my #2 favorite) and Emporia hometown boy, Clint Bowyer, was driving trucks that day!

Clint is the #2 truck.

After sweating our butts off for a couple hours we were thrilled to see Clint take the win and celebrate with a big burnout!

We then headed home for a shower, power nap, and dinner before heading to Trent's ESU track reunion at Tanner's. I didn't get a whole lotta pictures but as always we had a lot of fun catching up with everybody!