Thoughts..

Over the weekend, a young woman, passed away from acute leukemia at the age of 22.  I only had the privilege of being around Camila a handful of times, but when I was I loved her.  You can't help but love someone who is so bubbly, kind, and sweet.  I will always remember the Valentine's Day I spent with her and Corinne and her performance in Rent.  We found out about her cancer right after our wedding and it was a shock, but as her disease progressed I swear it sounded like their wasn't a negative bone in her body, she was positive and radiant about her circumstances.  

Her passing made me very sad, but also gave me a wake up call.  We might be struggling financially and things might be going wrong right and left, but we are healthy and in the huge scheme of life, our problems aren't that big.  I'll be thinking of Camila's family in the days, weeks and months to come.

...

This has been on my mind the last few days.  Doing the right thing, speaking truth when no one wants to hear it, and living with integrity, sometimes makes you part of the unpopular crowd.  Keep you chin up and continue to be a light.  People will start to notice eventually.

My dog Molly..

I got a call from my mom a few minutes ago telling me that they had to say goodbye to our dog Molly today.  Molly was my first true dog love and always will be.  When I was little, like 8, I started praying for a dog.  This dog had to have three very specific qualities: it had to not shed, it had to be free, and my dad had to like it.  So for months and months I prayed almost every night for that very dog. One day, it was answered and my dad brought home this little puppy, already named Molly, and from then on she was my baby.  She slept at the foot of my bed every night, until she couldn't jump up there anymore.  She was always so excited to see me when I would come home from a trip or from being away at school.  I'm so sad that she won't be there to greet me the next time we make a trip home, but I'm glad she lived a long life.  I mean, the girl was 16 years old!

RIP Molly...you'll be missed a lot.

thoughts.

Where did January go?  I can't believe it's come and gone and we're almost a week into February.  Did time fly like this when I was younger? It always seemed to drag on.  As much as I love this month, with it being the month of love and all, I keep thinking about the promise of Spring and Summer right around the corner.  I had a long conversation with my grandma yesterday.  She grew up in the town that husband and I now call home and she was telling me what to look forward to in the coming months.  All the flowers and trees in bloom and the warmer, yet humidity free, temperatures.  I look out the kitchen window at our back deck and get excited for eating outside during Summer and having my family all back in the state we love.  I look down at my feet and miss flip-flop tan lines and the freedom of shorts and a bathing suit.  Don't get me wrong, I love this winter season and all the days spent staying warm in bed, but I'm ready for the newness of Spring and the fun of Summer.

What about you?

Mind-blown...

source unknown

Totally makes you think...

Let's do this thing!

Another year is coming to a close. Is it just me or does it seem like time speeds up as you get older?

This year has been chalk full of ups and downs, good memories and bad.

I went back through my posts and found some that I really loved looking at again.

Being inspired back in January by Meg and still needing to remind myself that my "book" has a birthday, I just don't know it yet.

Going through a rough point in February and reminding myself of the sometimes and all the time things that need to happen in life.

Being a host family to two precious little girls and being inspired to help somebody in March.

40 at 400 in April!

Also in April, a look back at being a nanny and a wonderful wine filled day.

Running the Color Run in July with my most favorite group of women.

Getting married on August 18th to my best friend.

Life flinging a deer my way in September...just a few days after moving across the country.

I hope that everyone has a great New Years and a wonderful 2013. 

I can't wait to see what it holds for my little family!

election

Can we please talk about this picture for a second? She's putting up that sign with a gun.  Hilarious.

Anyways, Happy Election Day!  Hope everyone got out there and voted and remember to play nice with others in the next couple of days.  I know tempers are bound to flare and fingers will be typing furiously on keyboards everywhere, but just be happy we live in a place where people can vote.

Have a wonderful Tuesday lovelies.

ninja style

Today my lovely roommate, Jess, and I took our two dogs children for a walk in the woods down the road from our house. It has a bunch of dirt bike and quad trails that are perfect for letting these two big guys run around and expel some energy .  We were doing great until we decided to follow some pink tape tied in the trees back to the truck.  Basically, there was a whole lot of this going on...

'Twas fun and I really wish I had my video camera rolling.

Hopefully the boys will settle down and take a nice long nap for their mommas tonight!

Recently

Hi everyone!

Man it's been such a long time since I wanted to sit down and blog longer than a few sentences to let everyone know what's up.  

The wedding: The picture above makes me smile even 23 days later.  Our wedding was everything I could have ever wanted and then some.  Our "village" helped make everything run smoothly and I seriously don't have one thing I would change about how the day went.  We're still talking about it over here.  I can't wait to share more of our amazing pictures with you!  

It's crazy how fast the day flies by isn't it?  One second I was waking up and getting ready and then the next I was leaving my reception.  There are three things from that day that have really stood out to me as favorite moments.  One was our vows.  James and I rocked those things...even though we wrote them the night before.

The second was the speeches that our closest friends and dads gave at dinner.  I cried. A lot. They were very precious and every single one of them meant the world to James and me.

The third was when my sister Candace and her boyfriend Colin caught the garter and bouquet. It was priceless and I hope that their wedding comes soon! 

The move:  Three days after the wedding, we loaded up my belongings into a budget truck and started our trip across the country to North Carolina.  We stopped in Idaho to visit with my in-laws and get some more stuff and then we were completely on our own.  

Let me tell you, 8 hour days in a Budget truck is tiring and your butt will be very sore by the end of the day.

Seeing a good chunk of the country was a lot of fun and doing it with my husband right next to me made it even better.  

The new home:  Right now we currently don't have our own place yet, but we're working on it!  We're enjoying staying with friends and all the craziness that brings.  I can't wait to get into our own house though and be able to start really settling in, instead of living out of suitcases.  I've loved being in NC so far.


I'll blog again soon, I promise!

Remember me?

I swear I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.

We made it safe and sound to North Carolina and spent Labor Day weekend enjoying the last few days of our "honey moon."  Now things are hopefully going to get back to being normal and I'll have more time to write and post pictures of our amazing wedding. 

For now, here's a picture of my new little family to tide you over.

early morning

I think my body and my mind decided together that they were going to start preparing to be a military wife.

My eyes popped open around 5 this morning and I was out of bed by 7 after having a nice long staring contest with my ceiling.  It was real fun, let me tell yah.

On the bright side I ate breakfast, caught up on some blogs, and drank a cup of tea before I needed to leave the house today.

Have a good Thursdays lovelies. I'll be back later with my little bits of happiness this week.

Hectic

My weekend was nuts! However, it was a lot of fun. These next 68 days are going to be crazy busy and I'm trying to keep a normal blogging schedule as much as possible.  There's just so much to do and such a short amount of time to do it all in!

This weekend was taken up by a lake/babysitting trip, which was a blast and quite possibly my only wakeboard trip I will get this summer and a huge bonfire at Carmel Beach with lots of good friends celebrating a bunch of people who turn 50 this year (my dad included).

Here's a quick Instagram photo dump (amandanoelm) from these two events.

1. Pretty mountains on the way to the lake.

2. View from my beach chair.

3.  Surf competition happening down the beach.

4.  Prettiest sunset ever.

5.  Bonfire and S'Mores.

6.  Pool night with the best friend and little sister round 2.

awkward and awesome thursday

Awesome:

Being sore in the morning from your workout the day before.

Still being able to run despite the soreness.

Having Corinne come home for the weekend.

Playing pool and having a beer with her.

CMT Awards.

A weekend spent at the lake with some of my favorite kiddos.

Mailing out our invitations and getting RSVPs.

Awkward:

My car being in the shop...again.

Hot Chelle Rae on the CMT awards.

Blurting something out and then getting the look telling you that was the wrong thing to say.

These last two shots of our game...

Pre-wedding bucket list

Before I leave California, for maybe the rest of my life, I decided there were some things I needed to do.
Enter the "Pre-Wedding Bucket List!"

I added a few more after I took the picture. 

Here they are:

1.  Bonfire(s) at Carmel Beach

2.  Wine Tasting: Hollister/Pessagno

3.  Camping at Pinecrest

4.  Sacramento trip

5.  Santa Cruz Boardwalk trip

6.  Day at Morgan Hill Swim Center

7.  Sleepover with Corinne Elizabeth

8.  Wreck the dress shoot with Candace.

9.  Cooking lesson with Blair 

10.  Family breakfast out on a Saturday

11.  Waterski trip

I might think of a few other things in the coming days.

Better get going on these! 2 more months!

bro code, article 3

Bro Code:
3) If a bro gets a dog, it must be atleast as tall as his knee when full grown. Corollary to this states, naming a lap-dog after a pro-wrestler or a character from a Steve McLain movie does not absolve a bro from this article.

 Talkin about our dog tonight made me miss him. Then I found this. 

3 more months.

no such luck..

Tonight we were talking about jobs.  I've been hoping and praying that I'll be able to find a journalism job once I move to NC.  Tonight I decided to face the music and look to see if the local newspaper was hiring writers.

No such luck...at this point in time anyways.  I guess I could always drive around and deliver the newspapers that I so desperately want a byline in.

It's actually been weighing heavily on me the last couple days that I'm not working in the field that I studied so hard in.  In less than a week it will be the 1 year anniversary of my graduation.  Don't get me wrong, I have loved being a nanny over the last year.  I've made a lot of money and my life has been impacted greatly by these little babies.  I've also loved being able to plan my wedding without distractions.  I wouldn't trade any of it.  I'm just hoping that in this next stage of life I can have a different job.  Here's hoping!

.....

Sums up my afternoon/night.

I really wish it wasn't dark outside so I could go for a run.

 

"not all who wander are lost"

So this video and the other ones on this family's youtube channel make me want to live my life like this someday.

Watch Chapters 1, 2, and 3 for more.

How amazing does that look?

as of right now..

I saw this idea on Bright Wishes and Brooke got the idea from Sometimes Sweet.

Loving... Lazy Sunday afternoons, sans parents, with my siblings.  We came home and ate lunch after church, napped on the floor, watched "The Incredible Hulk" and "Iron Man," snacked, laughed, and played guitar.  I love you Candace, Becca, Matthew, Cassie and Colin.

Anticipating... August. Duh. 104 days left till I get to skip down the aisle and marry my best friend and end our 5 year long distance relationship and move to my favorite state in the world with him.

I.  Cannot.  Wait.

Listening to... Since the Hunter Hayes concert the other night we've been on a constant country music kick.  His CD has been on repeat since Thursday.

Watching...  The Avengers.  Have y'all seen it yet?? Go quickly to your nearest theater and see it if you haven't.  I honestly wasn't expecting it to be that good and wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did.  

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

visiting prom.

When Bethany blogged about prom, it made me smile and feel old at the same time.

My mom and I were just having a conversation about how this is the first year in a very long, long time that we won't be having a Mann kid going to prom. Weird. 

I've never blogged about my high school experience (that I can recall anyways).  Mine was very, very different than most of you, except for my sisters and my old roommate, Hannah.   My mom made the decision before I was born that she was going to home school her kids.  So that's what she did, until I was getting ready to go into 9th grade.  I enrolled in a charter school that met twice a week for classes and then I was assigned homework for the other three days in the school week.  It was a great experience.  At the end of my 4 years, I got to walk in a graduation with all my friends and other kids from my charter school and it was a blast.  I did miss out on having sports teams to go cheer on or the other fun activities that a public school does, like homecoming for example, but I did get to go to prom for 4 years.  Yep, we got to go to prom as a freshmen.  Now, I'm not about to dig up those awkward pictures of brace-face, freshmen, 80-pound me, but I did find a couple pictures from my senior prom.

That's me in the hot pink.  That dress was the devil in fashion form.  I don't know what possessed me to buy it and wear it, but I have regretted it to this day.  It was so incredibly hot and heavy.  By the end of the night I had cuts in my shoulders from the tiny spaghetti straps holding up all that fabric (Anyone remember the spaghetti strap fad?).

My proms were not normal by public school standards, but they still were pretty fun and I always had a great time.

If you want to share your prom photos, link up here.