High Five for Friday!!

Today, I'm headed to Redding (3 hrs from here) for an AWANA conference. Yay for a fun weekend with other who love Jesus!

I'm linking up with Lauren for high five for friday.

ONE. Knobs.
My hubby got knobs for the heat and air speed control in my car. Sure, they stick out about .5 an inch or so but wow it's easy to turn them!

TWO. Whales!
Mike and I went whale watching. It was so cool to 1) be able to see a whale and 2) watch the whale simply play in the swells.

THREE. Nature.
I wish I would have captured this better but the clouds in the distance (in and above the tree line in the center) looked like the tops of mountains.

FOUR. Pumpkin Patch.

I volunteered at a local pumpkin patch on Wednesday. Schools from the area come through and each kid gets to choose a pumpkin. It was fun (even without my coffee that day)! Bonus: the volunteers got "paid" with a pumpkin of our choosing! I chose this grayish blue one.

FIVE. Blessing.

God has blessed my marriage and I am thankful! If you want encouragement in your marriage I strongly suggest To Love, Honor, and Vacuum and Time-Warp Wife. They have been an encouragement to me when I felt like I couldn't (or didn't want to) talk to anyone else.

Cheers to the freakin' weekend!

~Emily~

All Kinds of Ocean

It has been a couple days of big blue (ocean) stuff over here.

Yesterday, Mike got to go on a shark bite call (the victim is going to be fine. Lucky man!)!! If you are a paramedic or are married to one, you know how cool this is! Anyway...

Something Mike and I have noticed is that we haven't seen any dolphins up here. Odd!

Remember on Friday, when I mentioned whale watching? Well, we went today and we had success!! We didn't have to go far from home (maybe 20 minutes).

{via}

We didn't get a picture but we are pretty sure what we saw was a Gray Whale. Not much is really known about whales. If you want to know more about whales in general, click here. It was SO COOL! There was a whale, seals (or sea lions), and I'm sure all kinds of other things. We saw a fin come out of the water and that's when we found the whale. Their fins are huge (even 300-400 yards away from our lookout point). So cool. I don't even know what else to say. :D

"Praise the Lord from the earth,

you great sea creatures and all deeps."

Psalm 148:7 (ESV)

My brother had a shirt he loved that had whales on it. He'll even tell you now, he loved that shirt.

And for your viewing pleasure:

{wearing maxi-skirts before they were cool #trendsetter}

After that we headed north and found a beach (thanks to some direction from my father-in-law) that was COVERED in driftwood. Some people had made forts and there were lots of birds. Yay! Pelicans!

{Whoa driftwood!}

{sorry for the poor quality. I was trying to get closer to the birds...}

{cool rock that you could almost peel apart.}

{more driftwood}

{driftwood fort}

{another driftwood fort. Mike made sure no one was living in this one first. ;) }

How was your Monday?

Have you ever been whale watching?

What's the coolest animal you've seen? Why?

~Emily~

High Five for Friday : Blue Edition

High Five! It's FRIDAAAYYYY!

Linking up with the fabulous Lauren Elizabeth as usual!

ONE: A Meandering Day.

I love days where I just get to poke around. After a dentist appointment, I hit up all the stores I wanted to browse though and I didn't even spend much money. Score!

Here's what I got from the thrift store/rummage sale for  $22.

{I also got 3 white shelves and some fabric napkins}

{and for my 31 days of blue!! I love the bits of blue in this painting I picked up for $6}

TWO: 31 Day Writing Challenge. 

This is my first time joining in with The Nester on her challenge. I choose to write about the color blue (more like the hues of blue) for 31 days. So, far it's going good! I hope you'll join in and enjoy the posts!

THREE: Trash the Dress Session.

I have wanted to do a trash the dress session since before I was married. 

What is "trashing the dress" you ask? Well, you go do something you could normally do in an all white gown. Get in the water, have a paint war, get muddy. 

We were going to get in the water (at the beach) but, when we got to the ocean it just looked ... angry. intense. too powerful. uncontrollable. The hubby and I both grew up being beach goers. Swimming in tides and learning to handle rip tides. But when your gut God is telling you not to do something, don't do it. 

So, instead of trashing the dress, we got some awesome, beautiful, stunning, romantic beach photos and we were able to reminisce over our wedding. Ah, love. <3

{photo by Jessica C. O Photography}

{Mitzy helping me put my dress away. I just want to wear it around the house once in a while.}

FOUR: Clean House.

I must be getting older if this is a high, and it is. Whenever people come to visit, I put any kind of cleaning off (other than some laundry, dishes, and the like). Plus, I hadn't really cleaned in a while (I know I'm not the only one)... It's nice to have a clean home. 

FIVE: Pumpkin Scented Candles.
I bought a small one of these a few weeks ago thinking we wouldn't really use it all. Well, it's gone. All used up! So I bought another one. A bigger one. Bigger is better! ;)

{YUM}

I hope you have fun weekend plans! Mike and I were supposed to go whale watching tonight but when you're a paramedic (or married to one), sometimes you don't get off when you're scheduled to. Oh well, maybe next week?

~Emily~