jin and sun

jin and sun. if you are not a LOST fan, then you might think this post is a little ridiculous. now i know it is a little weird to blog about t.v. characters like they are my friends, but tuesday night's episode was such an emotional rollercoaster that i just had to write about it. and by emotional, i mean the end had me sobbing uncontrollably.

jin and sun's relationship on LOST has been one of my favorites {the other being Desmond and Penny}. they have been through so much and i have just fallen in love with their story. when they crashed on the island, their marriage had been struggling and plagued with lies; however, after being stranded on the island, their marriage began to heal and be renewed {the island tends to have that affect}. during this healing time, jin learned english, sun got pregnant, and they fell more and more in love.

unfortunately, tragedy struck when they got separated during the tumultuous attempt to flee the island. jin was left behind on a freighter that sadly blew up and fans experienced sun's emotional reaction to watching what she thought was her husband's death. fortunately, jin survived the explosion unbeknownst to sun.

years went by until they were finally reunited on the island. so much had happened during their time apart; sun had gone back home and given birth to their baby girl while jin had been time travelling back and forth on the island. all that mattered was that they were finally together again.

on tuesday night's episode, they were with the other cool kids of LOST trying yet again to escape the island - this time on a submarine. tragedy struck again thanks to "the man in black" acting as John Locke. he had magically implanted a bomb in jack's backpack that caused the submarine to quickly fill with water and begin to sink. the explosion trapped sun up against the wall and jin desperately tried to free sun so they could swim out of the water filled sub.

sun tried to get jin to leave her behind and save himself, to which he said "i will not leave you again". gahhhh tear jerker!!! it was painful to watch jin struggle to free sun, knowing that there was no possible way he could free her. the show ended with them holding hands and dieing together. wow. so emotional and at the same time so beautiful and selfless. "locke" had successfully killed two of the candidates, but their love prevailed and they were together. i think being married now just makes me more sensitive to things like this. when you have someone in your life that you would rather die with than live without or sacrifice your life for them, life is put into a different perspective. this is what my grammy would call "pure love". with all this said, the alternate reality better be the real life in the end, LOST.

glad i got these little girls

i am so thankful for the rain this week. our air conditioner was broken all weekend {lovely} and the rain on monday definitely cooled us down! it rained all fall here and once i bought these fun boots at target a few months ago, it hadn't rained since! so i am also thankful for the rain, because i FINALLY got to wear my new rain boots. however, not so thankful that the downpour washed away my baby strawberry plant...oopsies. buh bye baby. failed attempt #1. ha.

intern appreciation

intern appreciation. makes me think of an episode from nbc's the office, and the infamous re-make of "kittens, inspired by kittens". but most of all, it makes me think of my own experience as an unpaid intern.

it was merely a year ago that i was saying good bye to mrs. reid's 2nd grade class and closing the door on student teaching. i can remember my last day like it was yesterday. i remember packing up my belongings for the.last.time, hugging the precious babies, and thanking them for the wonderful children's books that they had bought me at the bookfair {definitely got a ton of use out of those babies this year}. i also remember walking out to the intern parking lot in the rain and getting a call from the fiance'. it had been a very important day in his life as well: gmat day.

a few weeks before this, our future life had drastically changed from moving to dallas with a job to maybe no job, so let's go to grad school somewhere. life had been extremely overwhelming and a drastic switch in the end like this was almost unbearable. but it was in this moment that my faith in the Lord saved my little heart from despair. i was able to look back on my life and see how He had already provided and blessed me with so much. i knew that His plan was going to be the best plan, and we just had to put our trust in Him and patiently wait for the right door to open. and oh did the Lord know what He was doing!!! thanks to the brain that God gave tyler and to divine intervention, tyler scored wonderfully on the gmat. i can remember sobbing in my car in the school parking lot, exhausted, overwhelmed, and so thankful. i drove away from the school with such a peace that day. the Lord had gotten me through student teaching and the new plan was grad school.

fast forward a year now and grad school at Auburn has been great! we love it here and i am so excited to have my first year of teaching almost under my belt. our interns on our team are leaving this week, and it is going to be so sad to lose them. to show our appreciation, i baked them some love. as challenging as the first year of teaching is, student teaching definitely takes the cake! here are some pictures of the red velvet cake i made them! thanks for the help paula dean!

lots of food coloring

cooling in the freezer


layers and layers


homemade cream cheese icing

ta-da!! the finished product.

cake ingredients:

1. 2 1/2 cups cake flour
2. 1 1/2 cups sugar
3. 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
4. 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
5. 1 teaspoon salt
6. 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
7. 1 cup whole buttermilk
8. 2 large eggs
9. 1 (1-ounce) bottle red food coloring
10. 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
11. 1 teaspoon vinegar

cream cheese icing ingredients:

1. 1 1/2 packages of cream cheese {12 oz}
   
2. 1/2 cup of butter
   
3. 3 1/4 cups of powdered sugar
4. 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

*i like a lot of icing, so i added 1/4 cup more powdered sugar and an extra 1/2 package of cream cheese*

instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) cake pans.
2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
3. Beat in oil, buttermilk, and eggs at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth.
4. Stir in food coloring, vanilla, and vinegar.
5. Pour 3/4 cup of cake batter into each cake pan, turning to distribute batter evenly.
6. Bake 8 - 10 minutes.
7. Let cool in pans 3 minutes; remove from pans, and let cool completely on wire racks. {i put mine in the freezer}
8. Wash and dry pans; repeat procedure with remaining batter until all layers are baked.
   
9. Depending on how thick you want each layer to be, the mix can make between 4 and 7 layers. The best thing to do is measure out each layer evenly.
10. Let butter and cream cheese soften.
    
11. Add vanilla and sugar and beat until creamy.
    
12. Spread cream cheese icing evenly between layers and on top and sides of cake.
13. Garnish the cake however you like! I used chocolate shavings.
    

merry christmas to me!

for christmas, tyler bought me a gift certificate to spa 180. the even better part was that tyler and our friend tom planned this together and he also bought his wife, chane', a gift certificate so we could go together! we both had been so busy and had been trying to find the perfect weekend for both of us to indulge in this treat. well, four months later, we finally were able to go! it was a perfect way to start the month of may off right! we both went for the facial and massage. the massage was definitely my favorite. i think i've been harboring a lot of stress in my shoulders lately... come on may 26th!!! the facial was good, but nothing beats a facial from karen at spa jardin! we came home rested and relaxed and told the boys we wanted to do this every saturday. to which they said, "sure, we will just stop eating lunch every day" how sweet and thoughtful! {haha}

the second part of the gift was that the boys would then cook us dinner! wahoo! talk about the best saturday ever! sure, i will go to the spa all afternoon and then come home and relax some more. such wonderful husbands we have. the dinner menu included ceasar salad, corn on the cob, baked new potatoes, and beef tenderloin. it was delicious. thanks boys!

vote for dayna's bag!

our good friends the bates need your vote! dayna has created a reusable bag design for kroger and if they win, they get $1000!!! so go vote for dayna's bag today!