February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

January First, Two Thousand and-freaking-Thirteen

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I don’t expect you to get it unless you’re really awesome. If you do get it, you win.

Mom’s yelling at me across the house at the moment because of this post’s title. “NO Kait just because it’s not snowing doesn’t mean Florida hates happiness. That means it LOVES people who can’t take the cold. I can’t believe you hate Florida.”

My response?

“JERRY DID IT. DANGIT JERRY!”

I’m sorry. No more Parks and Rec references. Probably. Maybe. I don’t know.

So the Herd, as we call ourselves(and by that I mean, I call us the Herd and no one argues because they’re kinda scared of me. It was inspired by Ice Age, ok?) decided a few weeks back to do Secret Santa this year. Mom helped out and was the moderator. We each drew a name out of Chris’s fedora and had two weeks to get a gift for our person.

What did we learn from this experience?

Most of us are really bad a secret keeping.

By the time we exchanged gifts, I knew who Ian, Chris, Christian, Joe, and Gabe had as their people. And several knew who I had.

What else did we learn?

We are really a pretty darn awesome group.

It wasn’t originally going to be a full blown party, but Christin and I decided that we should because that was the only day that we all were going to be around this whole Christmas vacation. Matt and Chris left for the whole break this morning and won’t be back until the day school starts.

After deciding to go ahead and throw a party, the plan was to order pizza. But Christin insisted on making something I could eat, I’m on a gluten-free diet right now(long story) so instead we ran to the store and got stuff to make sloppy Joes.

Best. Gluten free meal. EVER. Sloppy Joes on Fritos was so good…definitely a new favorite of mine. Nom nom nom.

Anyway.

Christin came home for the weekend(yay!), and we decided we were going to make a Minecraft cake that we saw on Pinterest. This cake, to be specific.

Yeah we’re adventurous.

So not only did we have to make the cake, but we decided we would also try making our own fondant. And that is why this cake took about 4 hours to complete.

Here are pictures of the process after we went shopping for all of the stuff.

Before we started.

After melting the marshmallows, we had to mix powdered sugar into them until it was a texture we could handle. Then we had to knead it on a powder sugar covered counter.

Christian joined in and "helped" us. A.k.a played with the dough and got it everywhere.

Yeah this is what Christian did with the fondant we let him use. At least my phone is happy.

Kneading...so much kneading...

Then we added food coloring. Aaaaand lots more kneading.

So after a lot of kneading and trying to get our balls of fondant the right colors, which was just about impossible when it came to brown, we put them in the fridge and went to the beach. It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

Then we came back, got all cleaned up, ate dinner, then got back to the cake, which Christin had baked while we ate dinner and was already cooling. The boys went to play kick ball and man hunt and we got back to cake making.

So we got out the fondant and rolled it out. One of the blobs didn’t really work out that well. We tried adding chocolate to it for the brown one because working with red, green, blue, and yellow food coloring wasn’t working out very well, but I guess the chocolate…messed it up. Or something. Because it turned into weird tasting fudge like…stuff. Christin thought it tasted good, I thought it tasted weird, and Christian thought it tasted like death and spit it out so we ended up just throwing it away.

The light brown, where we only added a little chocolate, turned out okay though so we rolled it out and attempted to cut squares into it. That was an adventure. Christian stood over our shoulders criticizing the whole time. Most of them did not look like squares of fondant, but more like strangely proportioned rectangles of bologna.

After we got all of the fondant square/rectangle things done, we cut the cake and got them into square shapes and started dirty icing them.

Handyman/critic Christian took a lot of pictures for us.

After that, we started applying the fondant.

Nailed it.

Okay so they may not look perfect but all four of our brothers knew what they were and said they were awesome, and so did the other neighborhood kids that came over to try it.

And then it all kinda turned into a party.

And then yesterday evening we all hung out again, doing nothing really. We rode Ripstiks and tossed a football around. Some of the guys played basketball. It was nice.

And then today we played cards. For hours. Christian, Joe, Gabe, and Ian played Minecraft while Christin, Cliffy, and I played Garbage/Golf, later joined by Chris and Matt. When they arrived we started playing Spoons. It was so fun.

No idea what is going through some of these people's minds.

And then after Christin left to go back to college around 2:30, we played four square and messed around with Ripstiks again and after dinner we played basketball, aka took turns making hoops, which I am actually starting to get fairly good at surprisingly enough.

So basically, we had a fun Labor Day weekend. It was nice having Christin back — another girl amidst all these boys I’m surrounded by.

That’s about all that’s been going on. In 9 days I’ll be going up to South Carolina again, as has become tradition, and staying with my aunt for a week and a half. I am really excited to go see all my cousins. It’s sure to be fun!

Now please excuse me while I go watch more Bones. I’m totally not obsessed with this show.

I miss my best friends.

So as some of you may or may not know, I am a photographer. You can see a lot of my stuff on either my Flickr or my photography blog. I have never gotten to do an engagement shoot, though I DID get to be a secondary photography at my friend’s wedding a year and a half ago.

THAT was a lot of fun. And pretty crazy! It was a great experience though. I never really knew how much went into a wedding! From like 6am, they’d been getting ready. We got there to photograph her getting ready(above) about 4 or 5 hours before the wedding actually began. It was non-stop snapping from that point.

But that was a long time ago. I’ve learned a lot about photography since then and have gotten a new camera. I am DYING to do another wedding/engagement shoot. Especially since I’ve become a Pinterest addict and have gotten so much inspiration.

Seriously. I have two different friends getting married in the next two months(one of them this weekend) and I can’t be there for either of their weddings. And I’m all like “WHY?!”.

Mom says I should save all these ideas for my own engagement and weddings shoots so it’ll be the most awesome ever. But my wedding will be the best ever simply because all my awesome friends and family will be there and I’ll be marrying the most awesome dude on the planet. Plus those are not anywhere in the near future AND I’d rather be behind the camera. It’s more fun.

So now I just have to…wait.
Gosh I am always waiting it seems.
Does one ever get to the point where they aren’t waiting at all?
Probably not.

I’ll just have to convince my friends, Jess and Jacob, to let me do a shoot with them after the wedding.

Cause I just have a bajillion ideas.

What am I doing right now? I am cleaning my room.
And not just cleaning , but really going through and decluttering and all that jazz.
Gosh, I hate doing this.
Okay, its not that bad. In between I’m playing Words With Friends(and totally kicking BUTT by the way) and, obviously blogging.
Yes JULIE I’m blogging on my gossip blog TWICE in one day.
Don’t be too jealous dear.
Anyway. We’re having a garage sale on Saturday and my parents are totally making me get rid of stuff.
Aren’t they brilliant?
To answer that question, yes. Because a lot of this is useless junk that I really don’t need.
Amid doing all this I found an old, special possession of mine.

Why yes, this is me in a cowboy hat.
My cowboy hat.

I haven’t gotten to wear it in forever because, ya know, there just aren’t many horse ranches here in Florida.

Sad, sad face.

But anyway. I was all like “Ohmegosh its my hat!” And then all these memories of riding horses with my cousin, grandmother, and grandfather and showing my sheep and wandering around the fair with my many friends cousin and everything country that I used to do and immensely enjoyed.
Then I sobbed for a while because those memories are 5 years past.
And then I put my hat on Lucy.

And the world was good again.

UPDATE:
Wow y’all would never believe how much sand is covering my surfaces in here…like I lifted my lamp up to wipe under it and there was like 3 pounds of sand sitting there.

“Surprise! Happy birthday, Kait!”

February:

“Ohmygosh! It’s a girl!”

March:

“No Mom, not that far away.”

“Okay, just do a bunch of funny poses now.”

April:

“Are we at Disney World yet?”
“No Mark.”
“Oh. What about now?”

May:

“Can you believe it? We’re finally graduating.”

“…congratulate this year’s graduating class.”

June:

“Hey boys, I need the floor cleaned.”

July:

“Kids, we have some news: We’re moving onto base.”
“Yay!”

August:

“Kait, that doesn’t look anything like a platypus print. ”
“Yeah…it kinda looks like a chicken. Give it a beak.”
“And legs.”
“Why the heck are it’s legs coming out like that? Now it’s going to have balance issues.”
“Okay. Here are some wings.”
“Skylar. Those are flies wings. And where on earth did the mohawk come from?”
“That wasn’t supposed to be a mohawk.”
“Well it is now.”

September:

“Did you guys see the turtle?”

“Can I sign your cast?”

October:
“Yay! I can’t wait to meet Jack and stay in South Carolina for a week!”

“Ohmegosh ohmegosh ohmegosh NANI!”

“Hey lets be kids and play tic-tac-toe…hey how do you spell that anyway?”
“…What?”

“What are you telling Taylor?”
“Nothing…”
“I thought you said texting was bad.”
“No. You just won’t ever catch me doing it.”
“Umm. Savanah just took a picture.”
“Oh. Darn.”

November:

“Ohmygosh. These peppermint milkshakes are to die for.”

“Alright, it’s time for those braces to come off.”

“The Johnsons for Thanksgiving? A second visit this month? Heck yeah!”

“My stomach is going to explode.”

“Wes, urit.”
“No you’re- darnit! Kait no, urit!”

December:

“Wanna come over and help us build a trebuchet?”

“I’m so excited for our family reunion!”

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

WOW. What an awesome Thanksgiving we had this year! Our amazing friends came over once again and we celebrated together in our own crazy fashion. After a depressing mishap that changed our original plans for this year’s turkey day, everything became happy again when Taylor and I managed to scheme and get our two families together. Yay!

So Wednesday night at around 10 o’clock, the Johnsons showed up on our front porch. We hung out until close to one before hitting the sack. Taylor and I woke up early around six the next morning and hung out on the back porch for a while before the kids started getting up around seven thirty. The moms were already up and at’em, preparing food in the kitchen. After that, things just went uphill.

Mom and Mrs. Johnson were in the kitchen constantly, while Mr. Johnson and my dad sat at the table discussing helicoptery things and such, the boys played games, and Taylor and I played card games.

It wasn’t too long until it was time to feast. The food was AMAZING…an outrageously awesome meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, mac n’ cheese, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry salad, stuffing, homemade rolls, and gravy to top it all off…literally. YUM.

After stuffing ourselves as full as we could, we all relaxed and waited a few hours before digging into the pie. Taylor and I purposefully waited until hours after everyone else had had some, hoping to make as much room as possible for the deliciousness.

Sadly enough, I wasn’t able to eat more than a few bites of mom’s amazing pecan pie, but oh well. What I did eat was scrumptious.

On Friday afternoon, we all went to the beach and enjoyed a nice walk in the cool weather. It was really nice, though a bit windy. We had a lot of fun.
Then, after staying up forever late Friday night, Taylor, Wesley and I hung out with all the boys Saturday morning while the parent’s went out to breakfast and did a bit of shopping..

After that, we went to the Gator Park and messed around there for an hour or so. Taylor and Wesley climbed a tree.

Gabe and Taylor kicked a soccer ball around and chased each other around the park while Wesley and I sat down and played a simple game of tag.

And following that, we went to the beach again to get pictures of the family and such.

Wesley and I continued our game of tag while we waited. And for the record, y’all, I’m winning.

Sadly, this morning came the time for them to leave. But we had so much fun these past four days…it was a blast.

Overall, it was an amazing Thanksgiving that will not be forgotten. We all had SO much fun! Time went by way too fast, and already we are looking forward to the next time the Johnsons visit, or vice versa. Thanks so much for coming, Johnson clan! That was an amazing holiday!

First off, I’m going through old seasons of The Office lately, so laughter can be heard coming from the spare bedroom, my hang out place, throughout the day.

And then something even more awesome happened.

Johnsons got here! Whoo, what a fun weekend we had with our amazing friends, the Johnsons. It had been way too long since we’d last visited, and all of us were so excited to see them again.

We had so much fun! Taylor and I, sometimes joined by Wesley, had epic conversations on the back porch in the freezing wind. Since we don’t have wi-fi ourselves, we spent a lot of time on the porch picking up the base’s local hotel’s internets. It was frigid outside most of the time, but when in good company it’s easy to forget about. Well, almost. Sometimes we just had to go inside.

On Saturday, I made pancakes and bacon for breakfast, and after stuffing ourselves with deliciousness, we watched a movie and relaxed. Mom, Mrs. J, and I went to the thrift store, and after returning we chilled for a while before Taylor, Wesley, Joe, and I went to the bookstore, dollar tree, Wal-Mart, and Chic-fil-a. It was awesome. The peppermint milkshakes we got at Chic-fil-a were AMAZING.

And the balloon guy there made us an Iron Man balloon. It was awesome.

Of course, the bookstore was fun. Books always equal awesomeness.

They are gone now. *sniffle* Life has returned to status: boring. We eagerly await the day they return. Or we go there. Either one.

Hopefully it will be very, very soon.

Very.

Because the Johnsons are awesome.

Taylor, me, Skylar, and Wesley over at Skylar's playing the Wii

And that sums up just about all the excitement that happened in the past two weeks or so. The next two weeks are going to be awesome…but information on that will just have to wait. Until next time.