second star to the right

taylor & me wearing christmas pajamas or something

last weekend was pretty special. kyle and i decided to surprise my sister, taylor, and come into town for her 20th birthday. yes, my little sister is 20. holy crap. anyway, we left tennessee around 630 friday evening and got home right about the same time she and my brother were getting home from the football game. was she surprised? oh yes. she even cried. :)

casey & taylor playing in the snow. i think i'm the
giant purple coat in the background

we had a fun weekend celebrating the beginning of her second decade of life and spending some time together. we had dinner out on saturday with a bunch of her friends, which i rode to with my brother. yes, my 17-year-old brother drove me to dinner in his new mustang. in.sane. then we had dinner and cake at home on sunday with our family. fun fun fun.

the kids helping taylor blow out her 20 candles

brady waiting patiently for ice cream cake

 i was so happy to surprise her for her birthday. i even had butterflies on the way there, and when kyle merged onto exit 8 to my parents' house, i had the same excited/throw up feeling i get when i have surprises for him. and it was especially great since she didn't have a clue and was so shocked she teared up. she is such a wonderful person. i'm so lucky to have such wonderful siblings.

it's hard to believe my sister and i are both in our 20s and our little brother is right around the corner. i'd just like to know where all that time went. one minute we're sleigh-riding and the next we're going to work. we've traded our pirate hooks for cellphones, pixie dust for gas money. neverland is far away and we're just trying to find our own way to another magical place, wherever that is. lost boy or not, i'm glad to have landed here with them.

sister <3

so, anyway, i know it's already over, but happy birthday, seester.

love.
krq.

it's hard to dance with a devil on your back

two songs you need to listen to right now:

"shake it out" by florence + the machine
"all kinds of kinds" by miranda lambert

please, if you never do anything for me ever again, just do this. look up the lyrics. study the music. i can pretty much promise they will both be stuck in your head and that you'll be a better person for having listened to them. and then if you really love me, you'll buy both of these albums and dance and sing around your house/apartment/parents' house/street like i've been doing.

love.
krq.

update on everything

not having internet hooked up yet makes it really difficult to blog as often as i want. which would explain the lack of posts or general online presence. so to quickly update a little of what's been going on, here i am, at panera bread, using their wifi.

the house is still a mess, but coming a long nicely. i even have a little porch owl. (thanks, mom)

hoot.

and pumpkins. it's like a legit porch.

from a local produce store down the street called pratt's country store

and new pillows (thanks, mom. again.).

we've basically just been trying to get organized in our new place. kyle works all day, and i stay home/run errands/clean/cook while he's gone. i've turned into a housewife overnight. hopefully i find work soon. i love being at home, but i'm not trying to be bree van de kamp. so this weekend, since we worked pretty hard on saturday, we didn't do much around the house on sunday.

we spent our first real weekend day doing what you should be doing on the weekends -- whatever the heck you want. sunday morning was spent watching seinfeld, eating cereal and drinking coffee out of christmas mugs.

then we cleaned just a little bit and then left to go for brunch. we found this great little place to eat called The Creamery. kyle says it might be our answer to not having a jim's in knoxville. no spaghetti or SMILE placemats, but a similar feel to the place. we had a great sunday brunch, and if not for our other busy plans for the rest of that day, i'm certain i would have promptly entered a carb coma. oh well. on to the next one.

apple stuffed french toast croissant, eggs and bacon

then we came to panera to use the internet (naturally), and after that, went to a movie. there's was a little mishap with the internet time and the actual time the movie was supposed to play. apparently daylight savings time doesn't apply to google. so we missed the first showing, but walked around this weird mall for an hour to wait for the next one, and kyle bought us some very comfortable/slightly too expensive sweatpants from hollister. we saw "sarah's key." omg. so sad. i won't even talk about it. just look it up if you're curious.

we had also planned to start trying churches to see if we can find one we like. the one we had planned to go to was having their thanksgiving dinner, though. two new people. first time they've ever been here. they just wanted free food. we didn't want to be those people, so we decided to wait until next week.

then after the movie, we used a gift card i had and enjoyed a free dinner, walked around target and looked at christmas decorations and lamps, and i bought us some peppermint mocha coffee creamer. it's no starbucks, but delicious nonetheless. and i'm sure you can see where this is going...

skinny sweatpants that smell like cologne. christmas mugs. coffee. seinfeld. couch. perfect end to a close to perfect day.

along with overpriced fleece, we also bought the new florence+the machine album and miranda lambert album. i'll probably post more about these later, but just trust me. they're both incredible.

in other news, the most handsome man is living with me. 

keep us in your prayers and good thoughts.

love.

krq.