Lake Michigan's sunset was breathtaking tonight.

 I edited the next one, obviously :)

 I literally SPRINTED to the beach to make sure I got there in time before the sun disappeared. Ugh. So sweaty.

 So peaceful. The end.

These are a few more pictures from our adventure with some of our friends a couple weeks back.

 This game can get old rather quickly. Tim and I came up with random things to do before we hit the puck (or whatever the darn thing is called) such as kicking our feet in the air...

 backwards and with our eyes shut...

 and I'm assuming more kicking, lol. It was a lot of fun :)

 We're lucky to live right on Lake Michigan. It's so pretty.

I posted this on Facebook, and Heather wrote something like "I am Katniss, watch out squirrels" or something along those lines. She's seriously awesome.

Today entails going to a graduation party, getting POURED on (we're having some bad weather here), and planning our trip to Wisconsin next week! I'm working on a mixed CD for our iPod. Tim and I don't always care for the same music, so I figured I'd mix our music together :). Anyone have a personal favorite song they like for road trips???

 Chicken fajitas and corn on the cob for dinner. Really crappy picture, but it was SO GOOD! I love the summertime, mainly for all the delicious food I can afford again :) It's easier to have healthy food in the summertime, and it's MUCH easier to detox as well, since fruits and veggies are cheaper.

 Picking out a summer color :)

 This was SO GOOD! It's Near East couscous mix with toasted pine nuts, asparagus, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, garlic, and parmesan cheese. SO YUMMY! Bonus, I have leftovers :)

 I haven't really been happy with my life for quite a while now. I'm a receptionist at a job that most of the time I can't stand. I've been there three years. I know there's jobs out there where I won't be taken advantage of and where they'll actually appreciate what I do. Why do I stay? No clue.

Tim and I have been saving to move; but in the mean time, I'm doing everything I can to make my life better. I got this book at the library, and Gretchen Rubin has so many insightful things to say about making your life more simple and happy. Every chapter in the book is a month in the year. Each month, Gretchen tackles a new set of resolutions that she believes will make her happier. It's so interesting to read; and she has TONS of great ideas, many which I've started myself.

One thing I recently started was a Happiness Journal. At least once a week, I write down ten things that make me happy/smile. Thinking up different things that are going on in my life that I'm happy about is SO much more fun than focusing on things that make me depressed. This journal is something in my life that makes me appreciate the little things in life more.

 It IS all in your attitude. You have the ability to change how you act or feel. It's possible. I've been working on it :)

This is SO hard to do, but it's true! I HATE the feeling after you gossip about something-that nagging feeling that you just did something wrong. I've been working really hard for the past few weeks to not gossip and not listen to gossip. I've been trying to remove myself from the room wherever gossip is taking place. Gossip may be true, but I'd rather just not gossip. It drains me.

I highly recommend this book. It's so good. I've renewed it twice now from the library, just so I don't miss any important information :)

Yesterday, Tim and I spent the entire day with some good friends of ours. We'd been planning this trip for a few weeks now and were SO excited it finally came :)

WE WENT KAYAKING :)

 Ok, so my brother-in-law told us about a few different hidden places to go; and for each one, you have to go through these "tunnels" of reeds in order to get to the hidden place. So we did. And got a dead end lol. So we went in reverse. It was so funny! Tim's oars were SUPER long, so he practically had them vertical in order to get through the reeds. We ended up just pulling on the reeds to get through :D And to make matters worse, the area we were in, swans must have taken a crap or something because it smelled SO BAD and the water was brown. DISGUSTING...

 The water was relatively calm until we got near the channel; I need to do more arm workouts with Tracy Anderson because I got pretty tired :)

Heather is seriously such a good friend. I know we'll be friends for life. I had prayed for almost a year asking God to give me a friend at work; and, well, He did good. She's just what I asked for :)

 Tim wasn't feeling too well, so we had homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner. And wheat saltines, which I didn't even know existed. Tim kept saying he could taste a difference. Whatever, lol :)

We had a really strange storm come through earlier this week, but it produced such a GORGEOUS rainbow! And actually, when I downloaded the picture onto my computer, I could see TWO rainbows-can you see it? It's super, super light. The second one is above the first. 

No, I wasn't outside like this during the storm lol :) Today we are having AWESOME weather, super warm and sunny; me and the kitty just had to go enjoy it first thing in the morning. I do that in the summertime, it always makes the day go better :)

 This is one of my all-time favorite plants, it's a shamrock from my parents.

 Can you guess what this is? It's a green onion! If you're like me, you never use all of the green onions; and they go to waste. HOWEVER, I was looking on Pinterest the other day; and if you cut off the getting gross green onion part and put the white ends in a bowl of water, you will LITERALLY get green onions growing the next day. It's awesome. And now I never have to buy green onions again :)

 This was one of my favorite Christmas presents. Actually, who am I kidding, I loved everything I got :) Anyhow, Tim got this from JJEvensenArt on etsy, and I LOVE it. When the wind blows, it makes the most relaxing noise. Ah, I just love it.

I'm detoxing today because apparently I ate almost an entire bag of Doritos Salsa Verde last night. They're SO GOOD!!! 

Yesterday was quite possibly one of the best dates we've had in a long time. I've noticed when I'm trying to save every penny, even if it's for moving somewhere to make our lives better, that I get depressed. I love shopping, I love spending money. Not spending money is depressing for me. Anyway, yesterday was the happiest Tim and I have been in a while. We went and saw The Avengers, which I HIGHLY recommend. 

You will feel like this after the movie. I personally wanted to punch someone, it was THAT good. :) This picture was taken at the car wash. We went to a place where the somebody else actually cleans your car for you and even towel dries it. We felt rich lol :). And lazy.

Afterwards, we went to a place called Chuck Wagon, a local pizza place that's apparently pretty well hidden, or it was to us anyway. It's in the town next to where we live, where we've lived our entire lives, and I've never heard of it. Anyhow, we got some pizza and then had a picnic at the beach.

 

During the picnic, Tim turned "Rachero" music on Pandora. It made us laugh so hard, but it really set the mood for our picnic lol :) The best part was when Tim tried telling me who the artist was and what the song was called, seeing as it was in Spanish.

 Pictures of us together never turn out great :)

 I'm sure you can't tell, but that bench says "precious". I thought it was cute.

After being so pumped up about The Avengers, we decided to watch Iron Man. I personally have never seen it, which I have no clue why. I've seen all the other Marvel movies, including Iron Man 2. We're going to go back through all the Marvel movies. And then probably go watch The Avengers again :) It was such a good day.

 We've lived in our apartment for, I believe, three years now. We've lived TWO blocks from the grocery store for three years. This past week we took our first walk to the grocery store. Talk about laziness.

 My little (but tall brother) went to prom this past Saturday. When I went to pick him up to take him there (my parents were out of town and he just found out he was going a few days before), his outfit just wasn't working. So, five minutes before prom, we ran to the store. Luckily, we found a shirt and tie in his size; the employees at the store even STEAMED his shirt! And bonus, he got to use their sample cologne :)

 I still can't believe he's old enough to be going to the prom. And that he's graduating next year. Time is flying by WAY too quickly. I still think of him as a little kid.

 Can you tell she rules our home? She's so spoiled.

We got pizza from Big Al's Pizzeria tonight. It's our town's favorite pizza place. They're known for their sub sauce (the orange stuff-the yellow stuff is nacho sauce). Honestly, I think their pizza is too greasy; and the crust is really thin and kinda floppy, but Tim loves it. He could eat it every day. Actually, he used to (he used to work there when he was in high school). They do have awesome food-my favorites are stromboli and their chicken, cherry, almond wrap.

I'm watching like SIX episodes of The Voice tonight, finally having time to catch up. And you have to have popcorn to go with it :) Popcorn with butter, shredded cheese, and parmesan cheese. Yummy.

 mmmmm, an omelet with cinnamon and sugar toast :)

 kitty helping me wrap a present for my mom's birthday

 Soooooo, for some reason, the dough EXTREMELY raised when I was making pig's in a blanket lol. They were really good though :)

 My dad made a DELICIOUS dinner for my mom's birthday

 I made a coconut cake for my mom. I added some coconut extract to the whipped topping too-SO GOOD!

 Wednesday morning when I woke up, this book was sitting on the table :D :D :D Tim is seriously awesome. I love surprises :) Thursday night, I sat down just for a SECOND to read the first few pages; and before I knew it, it was 12:30am, and I finished the book. The second book is BY FAR better than the first book. In my opinion :)

 I called Tim at work after I finished the book, and let him know I'd be going somewhere on Friday to buy the last book because the second one was SO GOOD. Well, I woke up Friday morning, and low and behold, Tim bought the LAST BOOK FOR ME :D He's the best. He got serious bonus points for buying these. Not many guys know how happy surprises including books make me lol :)

 I made snickerdoodles as one of the many things I did for Tim to make up for him buying me the books :) They're one of my favorite cookies too, so it worked out for me too :)

 Friday night, my dad graduated from college. Long story short, my dad has a cognitive problem where he has seizures in his brain, can't remember things...etc. For some reason, no doctor has been able to diagnosis him. He lost his job (that he had for just about 20 YEARS) as a respiratory therapist quite a few years back because of it and hasn't been able to get disability/social security because no one can diagnosis what he has. He decided to go back to school to see if there was another job he could actually do as he needed to find a way to support my mom and brothers. He graduated with HIGH HONORS as a Paraprofessional. He's really wanting to help special needs children. I'm so proud of him. Pray for my dad though-somebody NEEDS to diagnosis him. Or at least someone with power needs to BELIEVE him as there's a lot of people who don't. Trust me, I've seen the change in my dad. Something's wrong.

 :)

I love my dad :)