rushley & crew

Ohhhh getaway weekends. I'm not about painting a picture-perfect life on this little blog of mine. I paint the real thing--real life, real love, ya know? ;) Which, granted, is usually pretty great, but somehow, our getaway weekend started off not-so-perfect. For starters, I was supposed to pick Russ up from work at 2pm so that we would get to Logan (2-hour drive) before dinnertime. We only had about 24 hours of getaway, so I wanted to make the most of every minute! Unfortunately, everything on Friday morning went slower than expected, so not only did I not get to Russ until 3:30, but by that time I didn't even have make-up on or my hair done cute. Talk about looking good for the getaway, right? But we got on the road and got over it, mostly because Russ is nice. He wasn't mad that I was late, and he didn't care that I didn't have make-up on. Two points for Russ. The next thing that was wrong was the fact that we were both so tired! We went to bed late on Thurs

So apparently the 5 on Friday linkup goes on vacation during the summer, perhaps because every day is kind of like a Friday in the summer. But I still like having the prompt of writing about any five things that are on my mind, so I will continue to use it as my Friday theme :) one.  Yesterday I babysat my 20-month-old niece for a few hours. That girl is such a cutie. She came with me to the grocery store, I took her to the water park, bathed her, and fed her lunch. We walked to the water park, and on the way there, she was walking really fast on her little tiny legs; on the way back, I had to carry her most of the way, and when she did walk, it was super slow. Guess I wore her out with all my fun-ness ;) *favorite aunt award!* My favorite part was going in the wave pool with her . . . every time a wave crashed into us, she would burst into laughter! I sure love that girl :) not a picture from today, but it is a picture of cute haddie bug in her swimsuit :) two. From that exper

Many brides don't want their future husbands to see their wedding dress before the wedding day. They are traditional, and that's fine. But that's not me. I had no qualms at all with Russ seeing my wedding dress, so we took pictures a few weeks before the wedding so that we would have pictures out at our reception. Here are a few of those pre-wedding day photos :) i refused to have fake nails for my wedding day, so these are all mine! :)  Come back next Wednesday to hear all about our reception! :) **All photos by  Melanie Paxton Linking up for Wedding Wednesday!

Lately I've been thinking about one of my deepest fears. It's a fear I've had since I was at least 16, but it's become a more pronounced fear recently because of the timing in my life. It's not necessarily a justified fear, but it's not necessarily an unjustified fear, either. This fear's justifiability is something only time will tell. I'm afraid I won't be able to have babies. I have always wanted to be a mom. I used to tell my parents I wasn't going to go to college because I just wanted to be a mom (I was quite young when I said that). I've named and renamed my future children over and over since I was five or younger. Even as I've studied in college, my end goal has never been to have a super professional career; my end goal is to be the best mother I can be, a mother who loves, nurtures, and teaches her children well. The prospect that I might not get that terrifies me. I've heard too many stories about infertile women, an

School's out, people! And I've already been doing lots of fun things in the past few days! Here are 5 of those things :) one.  On Tuesday, my cousin got married! In my church , the actual wedding ceremonies are very small . . . maybe like 50 people are there in all? So that usually means parents, siblings, grandparents, and aunts and uncles, with only a few spaces for friends/other people. This was the first wedding ceremony that I got invited to where I fell into the "other people" category, so it was really awesome to get to be there for his wedding! :) I don't have any pictures of the bride and groom, but I do have one of me and my groom on that day! :) Do I somehow look tan?! What a miracle . . .  two.  Between the ceremony and the luncheon, we had some time to kill, so we stopped a little boutique I just happened to see. The shop is called Madeleine L'amour  and it is Parisian-themed! And since I have a minor obsession with all things Paris, I lo