10 Facts About Me

Since I took so much time away from this little space, I thought I would take today to do a reintroduction of the girl behind this blog. If we haven't met, hi! My name is Chelsea, and I appreciate you stopping by to read this little slice of the Internet. 

I always like reading random facts about others that I maybe wouldn't know just by meeting someone once, so here are 10 little things about me that most might not know. :)

1. My friends joke that I am the Chandler of our group because nobody knows what I do for a living. They all know I work from home, but nobody can actually name what I do. It's not exciting to explain, so I usually don't bother. In a nutshell, I am on the sales team for a company based in California. 

Here's a throwback to my son's first birthday with a few of my friends.

 2. My dream is to settle down in Texas and raise kids with my sisters in the same neighborhood.

3. I hate long pants and will wear shorts when it's 30 degrees outside. I am the 1% that doesn't even think leggings are comfortable. On any given day of the year, you can find me in shorts or a cotton dress. 

4. I am passionate about animal rescue and follow rescue groups on Facebook just so I can see the adoptions. Jenny is a rescue, and there are so many wonderful dogs out there like her that just need someone to take a chance on them. Adopt, don't shop! :)

5. I eat a bowl of cereal every single morning for breakfast and don't think I'll ever get tired of it. My child feels the same way. ;)

6. My all-time favorite sitcom is Friends (see the Friends reference in #1), and my all-time favorite drama is Grey's Anatomy. 

7. The beach is my favorite getaway. (Jenny is also a beach girl!)

8. Running is my favorite form of working out and the only one I really do if I am being honest. 

9. My husband is a pilot for a living, but I really dislike flying. I totally support his love for it, but I'd prefer to stay on the ground! 

10. Since I chase around a toddler all day, when he takes his naps, it's like a game to me to see how much I can get done before he wakes up. I wish I would just lay there and watch TV instead. 

Recent Reads: July

It's been a hot minute since I did a recent reads post, so I wanted to take today to share my thoughts on three books I recently read. If you're not a bookworm, hit the snooze button and come back next week for some non-book talk! ;)

I wasn't obsessed with any of these, but I didn't hate them either. They were all entertaining and had solid pros in their own way. 

This Girl

By Colleen Hoover

This is the fourth book that I have read by Colleen Hoover. She wrote one of my all time favorite books, It Ends With Us, so I started her Slammed series shortly after. This is the third book in the Slammed series. The first two were captivating, entertaining, and real page turners, so I was so excited to finish the story of Layken and Will in the third and final book. Yall, I was so disappointed! This book picks up on Layken and Will's honeymoon, and the entire story is them laying in bed together recapping their love story. Aka, this book is just summarizing the other two. I was so bummed! I had just read the other two, so I didn't really want to waste time reading a giant recap. Oh well. :/

I Got This: To Gold and Beyond

By Laurie Hernandez

Raise your hand if women's gymnastics is your favorite Olympic event! (insert hand raising emoji) I followed Laurie Hernandez in the 2016 Olympics as well as her journey on Dancing With The Stars, so I was excited to pick up her book. She recounts her journey to the Olympics and talks about her time on Dancing With The Stars as well. If you followed Laurie through any of that, you'll find this book entertaining. I enjoyed it, and it was a pretty quick read. 

What Alice Forgot

By Liane Moriarty

I typically love Liane Moriarty novels by the time I finish them, but they also usually take a while to suck me in. This one was no different. In What Alice Forgot, Alice suddenly loses her memory and has no idea where the last 10 years have gone. She thinks she is happily married and expecting her first child, but she wakes up in the middle of a divorce with three children she has no recollection of. She has to pick up the pieces and figure out how how her life got to this point. The book makes you think and has some neat perspective. I liked it and would recommend it to a friend. :)

What have you been reading and loving lately??

Padre Island 2018

Ever since I was a little girl, my family has been going to Padre Island, TX. My grandparents, aunt/uncle/cousins, mom, and sisters all set aside a week out of the year to go to the beach, and it is seriously the best. week. ever. 

It really is my favorite week of the year. I had the amazing blessing of getting to grow up in the same town as my grandparents and cousins, so we are all really close. Now that everyone is geographically more spread out, this beach vacation is all the more special. 

Last year, Preston was 5 months old, so while it was fun, let's be honest: I spent the trip upstairs in the condo while my baby napped. This year, however, my toddler wild child absolutely LOVED it! Seeing the world through your child's eyes is awesome, and watching him fall in love with the trip that I love so much was so neat. 

Here are a few highlights from our beach vacation!

We always go to Snoopy's restaurant one of the first nights, so Preston and I did a mini photo shoot while we waited for our food. Sunsets, oceans, and babies... life is good. 

Preston hit the condo jackpot and got Grammy and Aunt Natalie for roommates this year! I'm sure everyone loved getting up at 7 AM every day of their vacation. ;)

Aunt Natalie is so good with these babies. So thankful for her!

This might be the only picture from the trip where these two cousins were playing happily and independently... one day they will love each other. Right now, we will settle for the rare moments of peace.

Nana and Grandaddy are the glue and what makes this trip possible each year. Loved this picture of them taking their youngest great-grandson out to the water.

I'm a closet nerd and think puzzles are one of the best ways to bring people together. You sit and work a puzzle and just talk... I'll make a great 80 year old one day. We brought two puzzles for the trip, and this was our puzzle crew!

Being an aunt to this boy is one of my favorite parts of my life. I cannot express how much I love my sweet Emmett.

"Wait, we don't have a kid?? Let's take a selfie!" I assume that's about how this picture went down. ;)

My patriotic boys. I gave Parker a hard time for his extreme Texas patriotism with those swim trunks, but we have probably seen 20 people this summer with the same shorts. Texans love Texas... and $10 shorts from Walmart.

Our whole group minus my uncle who was taking the picture!

The original cousins before we all started getting married and having babies. After six girls, my cousin Jon finally broke the trend as the seventh and final grandchild.

The suntans will fade, but the memories will last forever. It was a truly wonderful week. 

Why I Took A Blogging Break, and Why I Am Back (For Real This Time)

Real talk: I have struggled internally over what to do with this blog for more than a year now. I started blogging back in December 2012, and it quickly became my favorite hobby and part of my identity. What started as a way to keep our families updated turned into a creative outlet, a way to meet new people, and an avenue to help and inspire other military spouses. I loved blogging, and it was definitely my "passion project". 

Fast forward to February 2017, and my son is born. He is everything I've ever dreamed of and more, and I have never loved anything like I love this kid. Suddenly, I go from being the biggest oversharer and blogging basically every facet of our lives to wanting to protect my kid and hide his face from the world. I want to believe everyone is good, but with a public blog, I really have no control over who reads it. 

Being that this has always been a lifestyle blog, and being a mom is now the biggest part of my life, I didn't know how to blog without sharing about my son. To me, it was either going to be all or nothing, and I chose nothing. I started posting once a month or not at all about random things, but my heart wasn't in it. I was mentally done, but every time I thought of something cool to post or fun to write about, I got sad thinking that I didn't really blog anymore. 

I prayed and thought a lot about it, and something in me recently shifted. I am not sure what or why exactly, but I really want to get back into blogging, and I feel like I finally have the time and the right mindset to do it. There is so much that I want to share and so much I have learned that I want to pass on. I am still going to try to keep things about my kiddo private to an extent, but there are a million other things to write about. 

So here we go. After over a year of neglecting this space, does anyone still read it? Probably not many (hi mom and dad!), but let's give this another whirl. 

I plan to post as close to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule as I can, so here goes nothing! If anyone is still around to read this, hi again, and thanks for sticking around! :)

Jenny Turns 8!

Earlier this month, we celebrated Jenny's 8th birthday! Confession: I looked at the date and thought "oh crap, I completely forgot Jenny's birthday yesterday". Poor sweet Jenny, she is just the best pup, and I forgot her special day. So this year we celebrated a day late with a good walk, snuggles, and lots of peanut butter!

We rescued Jenny when she was 6 months old and have no idea when her actual birthday is, but we always celebrate her on July 5th. I've told this story many times, but Jenny was the best spontaneous decision we ever made. We went to visit a rescue group we had gotten to know at their weekly adoption event at Petco purely to "pet the puppies". I put that last part in quotes because anyone who loves dogs knows if you go to "pet the puppies", you "come home with the puppy". So glad we did!

Jenny had a sweet disposition from the start and wanted to please us and do everything we said. She has been a joy from day 1! We have no idea what Jenny's breed is. She is probably at least part black mouth cur, but we don't really know beyond that. We just call her pure dog.  

I cannot say enough good things about Jenny. She is just the best dog ever and so patient and loving, especially to the toddler currently invading her life that she didn't ask for. ;) She puts up with Preston like the best of them and would sleep in his room if I let her (sorry Jenny, you're not accidentally waking up your brother on my watch. #MamaNeedsSleep).

Happy birthday Jenny girl! We love you so much and could not imagine our lives without you!!