Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Again . . .

On Wednesday Josh & I went to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens again, we had just a fun time last time we decided to see what the gardens have during Autumn. 

The Roses were pretty, and specifically the Yellow Roses smelled so nice.  

There were tons of Marigolds, I don't personally like the smell but all of them clustered together looked so amazing with the colors blending.  

I hope you can see the butterfly on top of the flowers.  I kept telling Josh, "Get the butterfly in the picture, get the butterfly"  Love it!

Josh got this cool picture of my reflection in the lily pool.  This is without doubt my FAVORITE place in the gardens.  The lilies looked SO amazing and when the sun went down a little Josh got some really pretty pictures.  He tried when we first got there but there was a funny glare, I am so grateful we went back because these look perfect!!!

Yeah Lilies are amazing, Love this picture.  And they were purple which made it a million times more perfect. 

AND this one!!!  There was four little clusters going down the pond, and the lily pads were so pretty and a little colorful, I have never seen a place in nature that I honestly thought was more beautiful.  I could have stayed by this pool all day.  

We figured out my camera's self-timer and Josh got the angle and level that we wanted on the ground and ran to get in the picture with me.  We did a few takes but it looked great in the end :)

And in this picture you can hopefully tell that we are MATCHING!!!  Josh, so sweet, got a size small from work so we could have matching shirts to wear.  He did the same thing while were caving, we have matching shirts then too (sorry no pictures).  My boyfriend is basically amazing.  

I think this picture turned out so pretty with the trees reflecting in the little pond.  After coming from Arizona with 95 degree weather and palm trees Alabama was almost exotic.  

We stayed at the gardens for a while.  Josh and I just sat on a bench & just enjoyed the weather, the wonderful clean smell and the beauty of the nature around us.  It was sweet to just spend that time together and enjoy each others company.  I Love moments like that. 

Mountain Trail Biking

 Sunday we left to go caving and that was super fun, but we didn't take pictures because  it's dark and the air saturated in the caves.  It was really fun :)

The next day (10/21/12) we went to the Hays Nature Preserve in Huntsville, AL to ride some nature trails on mountain bikes.  Josh rented my bike at his outdoor rental shop where he works.  The bike is a little big for me but it worked okay, the area was really pretty.   

I love all the autumn colors, the trees, the leaves on the ground, all very beautiful.

Josh tried to get pictures of me riding my bike, I am not very good, Josh would ask me every now and then questions like, "Erin do you try to ride as close as possible to the trees so that it looks like you're going to run into them?"  

Us together :)

Josh posing for the camera, very thoughtful look. . . 

Josh has a very artistic eye, he takes very pretty nature pictures.  I like pictures, and he likes nature so it works out pretty well.

So this picture isn't my favorite, but I feel I look a little focused and rugged. 

I was so sore after the bike riding, seriously couldn't sit because my butt hurt!!! Josh laughed, he thought it was funny but on the ride home I sat on my neck pillow & walking in general was difficult borderline painful.  

These trees were awesome, they were in the water and the trunks were super fat an amazing.  

AND BIG!!!

We had a fun weekend with Caving and Bike Riding but we headed back in the afternoon to get back before evening.  Josh has work and class Tuesday so we head back...

My visit with Josh

I went to visit Josh almost exactly to the day a year from my first visit last year.  Left October 19, 2012 on the red eye to Atlanta to have a 2 1/2 hour delay to arrive in Birmingham, AL almost 9 a.m. AL time.  We were supposed to go caving with some friends Saturday and leave as soon as I landed but they ended up having to cancel so when I arrived we were free to stick to our own schedule. So. . . we decided to just chill on the couch because I was SO TIRED!!!  We just went grocery shopping and got food to make spaghetti and Dirt - a dessert Josh was Super excited to eat :)

Unfortunately while making Dirt I forgot to add the Cool Whip & remembered too late so Josh made what he called, "Polar Bear" and went crazy over it.  

Josh was so helpful, with the spaghetti and with his Polar Bear.  Since I messed up the pudding portion he decided to just leave the pudding on the bottom, and he added Reese's Peanut Butter Cup next then another small layer of what pudding was left then his crushed Oreo.  And lastly he added the Cool Whip and topped it with Gummy Bears - he was so sad at the grocery store when we couldn't find gummy worms so he decided "Polar Bear" was more appropriate anyway.  

Josh crushing Oreos, he did a great job. 

And LOTS of Cool Whip

He is arranging his Polar Bears in a strategic battle formation or something like that.  Not sure. . . He seemed happy with the end result. 

Ta Da

You cannot see the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups but Josh basically almost cried with Joy every time he ate it.

It was fun to cook together, but mostly just fun to spend time with my boyfriend.  We decided to just stay the night in Birmingham and not head out caving until early Sunday Morning so I could be well rested.  So thoughtful. 

Brunette

I went brunette again :)

It was amazing, I LOVE Groupon, I got a deal for $40.00 of an $80.00 service at Dolce Spa and Salon, and being a new member or something I got $10.00 off that!  So for $30.00 I got an $80.00 color and cut at a really fancy salon.  It was so fancy there and the stylist did all these fancy things & I LOVE the color. 

I also got my toes polished for Halloween, a lady at work came in with this design and I got the salon she went to and basically copied her.  

The attention to detail was great.  You cannot tell but there is like a little red hourglass and little dots of red for the eyes and a little gray glitter on the web.  It was amazing & pretty cheap too!

I am getting myself all dolled up for my trip in exactly one week.  I leave for Birmingham Friday Night on the Red Eye to arrive Saturday Morning super early.  I know Josh won't notice, but it will make me feel better AND hopefully I will have fun pictures with my boyfriend to bring back!

Easy As Strawberry Shortcake

My Linger Longer today was amazing.  I bought 25 packs of strawberries yesterday at Sprouts, can you believe it, on sale for 99 cents!   I bought 12 angel food cakes from Fry's and 5 whipped creams from Walmart, oh and 5 pounds of frozen blueberries.   I already have napkins, cups, spoons, plates etc. . .

This is the first round of what I bought.

Only exciting things is I go to cut them this morning (Sunday) and like 3 or 4 strawberries in every case had gotten moldy and squishy.  I went through almost 15 of the cases and saw how little I had and freaked out! So I went to Sprouts fast and bought 30 more packs of strawberries.

Mom & Brian got home and suddenly a knock at the door and Mom was like "Oh I thought Parker was kidding!"
A little boy in our homeward heard my mom say how many strawberries we had to cut (that was even before she knew I bought 25 additional packs) and said he'd come help.
HE DID!!!
This sweet eleven year old comes to help cut strawberries for my YSA Linger Longer AND he doesn't even eat Strawberries.  I sent a pack home for the family but WOW that was sweet.
I told him you really don't have to do this, and he is like I have nothing else to do, I want to help. SO SWEET!

The strawberries smelled so delicious, I was happy with how many I had.  This pic doesn't show all that we cut :)

I personally LOVE blueberries so I bought that little 5 pound pack so put sugar & lemon juice to cook up just for a few people who didn't like strawberries.  

Turns out they were a big hit, once the blueberries ran out, I went to take it, and people were like NO keep it, we can just use the syrup sauce that's left.  Yum.

Me on my last few packs.  

It went well, and it was so easy!  And clean-up was a piece of cake ;)

R.A.D. Certified :)

I have been taking a Rape Aggression Defense Class the last two weeks on Tuesday and Thursday Nights from 6 p.m. to about 8:30 p.m. and have LOVED it :)

The class starts out with talking about general awareness, being aware of surroundings, people and situations and then possible threats. 

Next you get into defensive tactics with your blocks and punches.  

It was seriously GREAT!

Last day of class was simulations and it was crazy, 3 male (big) police officers are there decked out in padding and as your can see from my picture, they have some padding for us and they run us through three different scenarios where you have to fight off your attacker(s).

So glad I took this class, it has been such an amazing experience, just in four classes I feel more confident and probably just smarter.  Make better decisions, more informed decisions.

I would strongly recommend taking a defense class!!!

They taped our simulations so you could see not only experience being attacked and honestly, trying to be unbias I think I did really spot on.  I am really happy, I thought I would freeze up but I did well :)

My Taco Salad Linger Longer - the family pitched in

I had a Linger Longer Today and I knew it would be a little more

complicated than the ones in the past.

It is TACO SALAD!

Which means:  Lots of perishables. 

Lettuce, sour cream, tomatoes, guacamole, & cheese.

Plus Beans both black & re-fried.

And LOTS of ground beef.  

What these next three pics are of me on the big unit on the stove & on the electric frying pan

& Dad on his camp stove.  

Mom is cutting lettuce bc there was TONS of Lettuce too!

Dad was great.  Mom was still at church & he saw me trying to cook 30 lbs. of ground beef & the

roaster wasn't cooking it like Mom said it would.  The heat comes from the sides not the bottom :(

So dad busted out the electric frying pan and started cooking with me on the stove,

but then also busted out the camp stove.  Propane is on the floor.  

And Dad was helpful for the figuring measurements for the meat seasoning. 

It was a mess. 

A girl in my ward posted this on the ward blog site so I copied it so you can see (kind of) 

what it all amounted to. 

People seemed to really like it but I am super tired.  Not sleepy but definitely worn.

Not to mention the clean up.  

What a mess. 

Between my family & my committee everyone was very helpful.  This event though was definitely a lot of work so I am thinking something a little simpler for the Fifth Sunday Linger Longer.