This Week's Obsessions

This week I'm obsessed with SO many more things than last week. The more I think about the things I love, the more things I seem to love! So I added more pictures this time because it's so much more interesting.

This week I love:

• The Kodak Brownie. I LOVE THIS CAMERA. I love all vintage cameras really. The photographic effects they create are so beautiful. I wish I could find more medium format film.
• I also love the vintage suitcase. I want to convert it to my camera bag. I love the floral leather detailing. It is beautiful! Now if only I had $200 to spend on a vintage suitcase.. I don't think Miles will go for it.
• I also love the color pallet below and want that to be my dining room. I love the purple, turquoise, green and cream colors together! It's so bold and fresh and wonderfully summer. I'm a big fan of color and can't wait to paint the walls of my home all sorts of crazy wonderful colors.

• I'm obsessed with tea parties. I babysit a little girl named Olivia and we have tea parties every time I'm there. We dress up in her dress up clothes, put juice in her tea pot and make little cookies or donuts or something that she refers to as "crumpets" and we have a fabulous tea party. It gets me so excited to have little girls of my own some day to have tea parties with and play dress up and use words like "crumpets."
• I'm also, as always, obsessed with red velvet cupcakes. I don't miss many things about Rexburg, but I do miss Cocoa Bean cupcakes. If I ever worked there I would get fired my first day for sitting in the back room and scarfing down red velvet cupcakes all day long. I especially love the cupcakes in the upper left hand corner of this collage.. they're so dainty and beautiful!

• I'm in love with etsy. I love the vintage dresses you can find. They're so unique and fabulous. I want to buy every thing I find on etsy. I love finding clothes that no one else will have. That's why I took the clothing construction class at school. I wanted to learn to make my own clothes so that I wouldn't be walking around campus wearing the same thing as the girl next to me. I love going to Decade's and finding vintage clothes and the excitement of going through racks of clothes and finding the little treasures. 
• I also love fun thing to put in my hair. I have no idea why I felt the need to cut 8 inches of my hair last November. I've regretted it almost every day. I have no idea how to style my hair anymore. That is why I constantly have some sort of headband or bobby pin hair clip in my hair. When I had a sewing machine for a week in Rexburg that I borrowed from my aunt I made all sorts of fun hair accessories. I love etsy for that reason as well. I'm so excited to buy fun things for my hair for Nikki's wedding! I already have so many ideas in my head.
• And last but not least, I am obsessed with shoes. Most especially the shoes in the bottom left corner. In fact, Miles told me I could buy them if I really felt it was a matter of life or death. Aren't they just beautiful?  I also adore the green shoes next to those. Well I guess if I'm going to be honest with myself, I adore all shoes.

To the World's GREATEST Dads:

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH and we really wish we weren't hundreds and thousands of miles away from you both today. Miles and I are so lucky to have the best dads ever. We hope that the two of you know how special you are to us and how much we appreciate you all you do for us. I love my poppy so much and am so lucky to have my dad that's also my best friend. I look up to my dad so much and feel so blessed to be his daughter. I'm equally so grateful to have a fantastic father-in-law. I love being a part of their family. I love you Mike! Hope you both had wonderful father's days. We love you both and have been thinking of you all day today.

And of course, to the future father of my home and love of my life, I hope I made your Father's Day special! Nixon and I made sure to get Miles his favorite treat, bought some fireworks, grilled steaks and asparagus for dinner, got him a Father's Day card, gave him a back rub and went for a long Sunday drive. Miles, I hope you know how much Nixon and I appreciate you! I'm grateful that even after a long day of knocking doors you come home and take Nixon for a longboard ride. I appreciate you getting up at 3am when Nixon whines to go to the bathroom. I appreciate the long summer hours you put in to working so that I don't have to, and so that we have the rest of the year to spend loving each other instead. I love you so much. You're going to be the best dad the world has ever seen some day, I can see it in the way you love our little puppy, and in the patience you have with me, and the love you give to every one around you.

Thursday's Thoughts.

I bought Nixon 4 really cute dog collars off eBay in March for a dollar each. I thought I was getting some sort of incredible deal because dog collars at Petco are nearly $20. While I still feel like I got a pretty good deal, Nixon has "the hulk" busted them all off his neck and each and every one of them is broken. I ordered another one off eBay and didn't go so cheap this time, but I'm waiting for it to come in the mail. So today when he was going stir crazy to get out of the house, I decided to take him for a drive. He loves to stick his head out the window while you drive. I'm shooting some engagements tomorrow and decided to scope out some area since I'm still not all too familiar with Nashville. We went for a really long drive and it was amazing.

I have this theory that when we get to heaven we can ask Heavenly Father for an instant replay of certain moments of our lives. In my head, He has a library full of your favorite moments. This drive is going to be one of those moments I ask to watch on replay. We had just had some pretty heavy rain so the clouds were gorgeous and there was misty steam rising in the hills. We went around this bend where you can see nothing but lush green and hills and trees and cattle and it was the most beautiful thing I have seen in my life. I was just about dying because I had decided not to bring my camera with me. (stupid stupid stupid) So I took a mental picture and decided that if I come home and write about it, the picture will be recorded in heaven and I can go back and look up that moment in my library. 

While I didn't get a picture of the hills and the mist and the sunset, I did get a picture of my puppy. Nixon had his head out the window and he was just loving life. His ears and fur were blowing in the wind and he had this big doggy smile on his face. It was so cute. It was a relaxing drive with no real destination and no timeline. The lighting was so soft and elegant, it was unbelievable. And that T.I/Rihanna "Live Your Life" song came on Miles' CD that was playing the car and he said some things at the beginning (it's in his music video not the radio edit version) that gave me so much clarity in that peaceful wonderful moment I was experiencing. (who woulda thunk I'd feel a little inspiration from T.I). He said "life is an interesting journey, you never know where it'll take you. Peaks and valleys, twists and turns, you could get the surprise of your life. Sometimes on the way to where you're going you might think this is the worst time of my life. But you know what? At the end of the road, through all the adversity if you can get where you wanted to be and you remember whatever don't kill you will make you stronger then all the adversity will be worth it. What you need is to be grateful for the life you've got. Stop looking at what you aint got and start being grateful for what you do got." 

I'm not going through any particular struggle right now, life is pretty good. But sometimes I get so hung up on being in the next chapter of our lives that I forget to be grateful for the life I have. I'm living in such a beautiful part of the country right now. It's lush and green every where you look, and I will probably never live here again. I get so anxious for Miles to be done with school and graduated that sometimes I forget to realize that right now we get to move around and experience different parts of this country. We'll get to where we want to be, it's only a matter of time. But for now, I just need to sit back and enjoy the road getting there, because it's a beautiful ride. 

At least I have this image to recall when I want to remember how that drive felt. I took it with my crummy cell phone camera, but when I look at it I can't help but smile. This drive and this moment never would have happened if it weren't for those crummy $1 collars. If Nixon hadn't busted through them all, we probably would have just gone for a walk. But instead we went for a drive I won't forget.

This Week's Obsessions

This week I am obsessing over the following:

• This website in all it's cute glory. It makes me wish I was getting married all over again because the ideas are simply amazing and I would redo almost everything! (except the groom, the temple, and my reception place).
• How handsome my husband is (very very) and how adorably my little Nixon pup is (again, very very).
• Anything Anthropology (but what's new).
• My honey dijon kettle chips (to die for).
• The wedding guestbook I just finished designing for my sister Nikki
• The fact that I get to take Josh and Taleya's engagements this week.
• The fact that my sister-in-law Sammy finds out the gender of her baby bell pepper on Friday (I not so secretly hope it's a boy).
• The fact that in 3 weeks I will be at home. I get to hang out with my favorite big sister Jen and her two boys, and I get to see my family! I also get to see my friend Hayley that moved to Switzerland right after high school graduation 5 years ago and my best friend Jenny! Oh and 2 nights with Jenny and Hayles at a hotel in NYC! How great is that week going to be!
• I joined Skype (I'm behind the times on this one).
• My chubby hubby Ben and Jerry's sitting in my freezer (but not for long I'm sure).
• Plato's Closet (I will be in attendance tomorrow).
• Jonsi (I'm a convert listener as of last night and have not stopped listening all day).
• Peonies. They are my absolute favorite flower right now. I'm obsessed.
• Floral printed dresses and skirts. 
• The colors yellow, orange and purple.
• As always, the style and perfection that is Zooey Deschanel. Can I please just be her?  I'm in love  with her Cotton commercial. I would live inside it if I could. Beautiful lighting. Exquisite fashion. And a day spent meandering through quaint little shops with your bike.
• And last but not least, Shailene Woodley. Secret Life is back on for the summer (finally!) and I want her hair. I'd take her clothes too.

A little R&R at Nashville Shores

The Friday, Saturday, and Monday of Memorial Day weekend the Pinnacle boys had to work 12 hour days. It was just awful. I'm not the kind of wife that functions well without seeing my husband. I'm the all about the "quality time" type of love language. So it was a rough weekend for us. But Chris and Miles made a decision that because the guys worked so hard and hit their sales goals, they could have most of Tuesday off. So we all headed to Nashville Shores. It was such a nice day! The weather was beautiful and I got to spend the entire day with my hubs, I'm not sure there's anything better.

Nashville Shores is the water park in our area. It has 7 water slides, kayaking, a lazy river, a wave pool, mini golf, basketball, jet ski & banana boat rentals, and 5 swimming pools. And they have funnel cake which was a delightful treat. As I'm sure you can imagine, we had a lot of fun!

The guys all left at 5 to go sell for 4 hours and Miles still got 2 that day. Kalahan had to sit in the trunk because the car was full... I thought it was funny.

100th Post!

check this: very very exciting
oh and it's my 100th post
and Miles and I have been married 664 days
that means on average I blog every 6.64 days.
that means something somewhat interesting/blog worthy happens every week
that's pretty good.. but it's going to get better.