Pioneer Woman Comes to Food Network

Who is as excited about this show as I am!? Can't wait!

Ree, better known as The Pioneer Woman, is a blogger, photographer, rancher wife, mom who home schools. There is pretty much nothing this woman cannot do. I can only dream of having her life! Be sure to set your DVR's to record her show!

"It was the worst of times. It was the best of times."

Yesterday I took a little trip down 1-30 to my alma matter, Ouachita Baptist University. Our family friends, the Lechners, who are near and dear to my heart are sending their eldest son to OBU. As I was driving into campus I was flooded with memories of my time at OBU, both good and bad. College was both the best time in my life but also the hardest.

During those four years at college, I lost my grandmother and the very next year I lost my best friend to leukemia. I struggled with an undiagnosed disease for years. I learned who my real friends were and I also came to understand how toxic a bad relationship could be for me. While I made my fair share of mistakes in college, I also was overwhelmed by God's grace and forgiveness. Even in my darkest of times, He brought me through it all. I met some of my best friends in college who are still the ones I call on today when I need someone to talk to. And even through those toxic relationships, God was able to lead me to the one relationship that would pull me out of the trenches. It was at OBU where I met my best friend and husband, Brent Buie. Without going through some bad times, I wouldn't be the woman I am today and I wouldn't be married to the amazing man I am with today. So, you see, in the a way, college was for me the worst of times and the best of times. It was hard, but was it worth it all? Most definitely. I can look back today and be thankful that I am not that person I was in college but be grateful for who those college experiences made me today.

As we said good-bye to Coleson yesterday, I felt myself feeling a little jealous of him. He will learn so much in these next few years. He will make so many new friends. He will learn that life is not always fair and easy but most of all, I know that he will have fun! I might just have to sneak back down to Ouachita and hang out with him some. ha! I'll be like the "big sis" that just can't admit that college is over and still hangs out there. ha! Ok. maybe not. But I may just have to make him a care package with homemade cookies. I always loved getting those from my parents! :)

Coleson and his new roommate, Paul

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
English novelist (1812 - 1870)

Weekend Review

Whew! It's been a crazy few days! Let's recap:

Thursday I headed down to Louisiana to meet my new doctor. I have been seeing a specialist in Dallas since 2006 and recently their offices underwent several changes in administration. My doctor is no longer there and instead of going through the hassle of getting to know a new doctor in Texas, I moved my doctor to Louisiana. Yes, it's still a state away, but this new doctor is closer to my hometown. Also, it is the same doc that my mom goes to, so we try to schedule our appointments on the same day.

Thursday after my appointment, I played with my niece Makaylan Joy (better known as M.J. in our family). She is about 3 1/2 months old so I snapped a few 3 months pics for her parents to document her growth. We're still not quite sure who she looks like in the family, but my brother swears she looks like me when I was her age... and I'm totally okay with that. :)

Friday I ran some errands in Ruston including stopping by Songbird where Kelly Moore has her bag line displayed. I have always been a fan of Kelly since I was in a wedding that she photographed in 2006. After taking her workshop, I was inspired to go full time into my photography. Kelly is such an inspiration to my photography. I guess you could say she is my photography idol. Friday morning I went by the shop Songbird in Ruston to buy a new Kelly Moore bag - I need the Libby bag that holds a 17" laptop. I sent Kelly a twitter message and asked her a question about her bags. Kelly was so sweet to come down to the shop to show me her bags personally. Now that's customer service, huh. I didn't end up buying one that day because my color was not in stock but I plan to purchase one soon!

Friday evening we had a family dinner at our favorite restaurant in Northwest Louisiana - family owned and operated, Port at Prince. They have THE BEST CATFISH ever! Seriously, people drive from Arkansas just to eat at this restaurant - I guess I'm one of those people! It is right on Lake Claiborne. Landon had such a good time splashing in the water after dinner.

Saturday morning I shot a birthday party for some friend's of ours. Their son was turning 3 and she wanted a photographer for the occasion. I'm not a mom but I can imagine that taking pictures is hard to do when you are trying to light candles, help open presents, and wrangle a bunch of 3 year olds. That's where I come in. :) Moms don't have to even bring a camera to their kids birthday party. I'll take care of it for you. Seriously, I wonder who will photography MY children's birthday parties. ha! Some of my favorite images from the party are over at my photography blog if you would like to check them out.

After rehydrating and eating some of my mom's yummy chicken salad, I headed back home to Arkansas where Buie and I ended the day with a burger from David's Burger. If you haven't eaten there yet and you live in Little Rock, you are missing out! Go eat the best burger of your life - they're on the corner of Markham and Bowman. Amazingness!

Sunday didn't slow down much at all but we enjoyed some time with Buie's parents. They took us out to eat at Logan's Roadhouse in Bryant. We had good food and excellent conversation. That evening we went to Eikon for a great night of worship with our church friends.

Monday morning Buie and I woke up and went and bought me a new car! Yup, we've been planning for months to buy a new car - well, new to me anyway. It's actually a 2009 but we got a great deal on it!

Whew! Wow. I'm tired just from writing all of that! And now it's currently 4am on Tuesday morning and I really have no idea why I'm still up. B will be getting up in about 2 hours for work! ha! Good night!

Meet Charlie!

Well, if you are a regular reader of our blog, you know about the loss of our dear George & you know about our decision to get a new kitty. After thinking long and hard about the pros & cons of adding another member to our zoo, we found the perfect kitty!

Meet Charlie! Tuesday afternoon of this week we went by Bryant Animal Shelter to check out their kitties. We went just to look to see what they had available. We played with several of their kitties for a while without finding one to adopt. If we could, we would take all of them home, but we knew we could only take home one.
So, as we were heading out the door, we told the guy behind the desk that we were looking for a kitty to adopt but that we didn't want to split up any kitties that were from the same litter. All of the kittens they had were brothers and sisters. We know that it's best to keep at least two from the same litter together if at all possible. We were looking for a kitty that came in alone so that we wouldn't split up a couple. I know that might sound silly but if you saw the little kitties playing together in their kennels, you would understand. It would break my heart to break them up. Even though chances are, they will be split it anyway when they get adopted out, I just didn't want to be the one to do it.
The employee at Bryant Animal Shelter told me they actually had this orange tabby come in earlier that morning and he was by himself. Yay! Our hopes were raised! I thought it was neat that he was orange because I had JUST told Buie earlier that day that I think I wanted a little orange kitty. Growing up I had a orange kitty named Sunshine who I just adored. He was over 20 years old when he passed away a few years ago.

When they brought out this little guy, my heart melted.

We played with him for literally about 2 minutes before we decided he had to be ours. We went home, got our kitty carrier and came back to sign adoption papers.

The name he came with was Phillip but we changed it to Charlie. And after spending a little over a day with this little guy, we think it fits him. He is a little feisty and playful 12 week old kitty. I can't wait to see him grow up but I kind of wish we could keep him this size. He's just so tiny and cute.
We haven't introduced him to his brothers and sister yet but he has settled in to his new room quite nicely (which is the guest bathroom for now). Everytime we go in and check on him he is in a new spot: on the toilet, in the sink, in his bed, on a stack of towels, in the bath tub. He loves exploring!

We love our new kitty and hope he has a long happy life at the Buie house. :)

Landon & Aunt Ra Ra

WARNING: There is a lot of cuteness in this blog post. If you are not sure if you can handle all of it at once, please read in several sittings. :)

The other day I hung out with Landon. It's been a few weeks since I posted about our nephew so I thought I would share a few pictures. Everyone needs a little cuteness in their life, right? I mean who cares if you even know him or not, just look at this face. Too cute.

I met my brother, Craig, and Landon at The Wonder Place in West Little Rock. Have you ever been there? If you have kids, I highly recommend this place. Landon loves it!

He crawled through tunnels with his daddy.

He played in the water with some splash toys.

He practiced sitting on the window seat next to daddy like a big boy. He also like looking out of the window and waving at everyone walking by. :)

They had so many neat toys to play with and crawl through.

I think Landon's favorite thing was finding himself in the mirrors. He would look at himself and make faces and laugh so hard.

Who is that cute little boy that looks just like me? :)

After playing hard at The Wonder Place, Craig took me and Landon to Tropical Smoothie to get a smoothie. We LOVES smoothies!

While we were sipping on our smoothies, me and Landon practiced saying my name, "Aunt RaRa." Here are a couple of hilarious videos of how he says "RaRa." They crack me up! Everytime I ask him to say "RaRa" he says it just like this. I LOVE it! I will probably never delete these videos off of my phone because they make me smile over and over again.

Decisions. Decisions.

As a married couple we have many decisions to make. What color should we paint the bedroom? Where are we going on vacation this year? What are we having for supper? When you are a pet owner, like we are, many of our decisions are based around our four-legged children: What kind of food should we feed them? Should we get them micro chipped? Where do we get them groomed? How can we properly socialize them around children? When we lost our Georgie in January, we even had decisions to make: Do we want to burry him in our backyard or let the vet's office take care of the remains?

George

We chose to bury him in our yard. Without having a playmate around, Hazel, of course, came to mind. Would she miss him or would she even notice he wasn't around anymore? Well, for a while we thought Hazel liked having all the attention to herself, but the truth is she's lonely. She doesn't have a playmate anymore. She sleeps more and walks around the house and meows all the time. Sure we play with her and she sleeps with us more now than ever before, but we think she needs another Georgie in her life to keep her company. While we know George can never be replaced, B & I have decided to add a kitty to the Buie household in hopes of adding a little joy back into Hazel's life, as well as ours. :)

Hazel

We are so happy about this decision and glad it's finally made. Now for the fun part: picking out the perfect kitty for our family!

NOLA pictures!

Our pictures are here! We received our CD in the mail from Jen Amato Photography this week so I thought I would share a few of our favorites.

And of course, we had to take a few in our Arkansas & LSU shirts!

Get your game face on! You're going DOWN, Arkansas! Who's ready for some football?

Thanks so much, Jen, for showing us around your city! We loved hanging out with you, even in the extreme humidity... I can't say the same for my hair, though. :(

It's Monday!

Well, I had a lazy lazy weekend. I'm not sure what's going on with me health wise but the most I did all weekend was go to church and even that was an effort in itself since we live 30 minutes away from our church. I have literally not felt like doing much of anything since we can home from New Orleans. It took me like three days to do all of my laundry from our trip, mainly because it was too much of an effort to carry it down to the washer. I have been exhausted. Maybe the summer heat is finally getting to me. Maybe the cultural shock from going to Louisiana then coming back to Arkansas hit me. ha! Just kidding. Maybe I'm just ready for football season! That must be it. I don't know what it is but I'm ready to get out of this funk. I feel better this morning. I have a bit more energy. It might have something to do with the two cups of coffee AND the 5 hour energy I had this morning. I'm just hoping my heart doesn't explode. Remember when I tried to give up coffee last year. haha. Yeah, what was I thinking?

Well, if you need something to do today, go check out the pictures we had taken of us by Jen Amato in New Orleans. They're posted on her blog! When we get the CD in the mail, I'll post a few of our favorites on our blog. :) Hope y'all are having a great Monday!

And I have to give a shout out to my wonderful dad who is turning 60 today! Thanks for being the best dad to me - for always supporting my creative endeavers, for always forgiving my not-so-smart endeavers and for always making me smile. :) I love you daddy!