"Lovin' God; Lovin' each other..."

Welp, the Gaither Vocal Band lyric above pretty much explains what life has been all about lately!  Traci graduated from Palm Beach Atlantic University last month and the whole fam gathered for the occasion!  We had a lovely time together!  

Mom, Traci, and I went and got pedicures and manicures to celebrate mothers day and being all together!!  It was such a blessing to be able to be with our mama on mother's day!! :)  Aaaand you can't have a good spa day without some starbucks!!

yeah we can't make normal faces...
evidence #2...
mom, dad, and nick in the ocean!!
we were dressed up, had a fun camera, felt artsy, were bored....so yeah.....

     PART 2 OF THIS BLOG:  HUFF WEDDING IN MEXICO!!!

My dear friends Morgan and Andrew got married in Rocky Point Mexico and asked me to be there to share their day!!  It was a blast!  I am back without any swine flu :)  no worries folks!

morgan is definitely NOT high here although her face might look otherwise! hahah.....
rehearsal dinner!!  these are the other bridesmaids with the bride and her mom!
BEACH TIME!!!  we did this every morning and afternoon!!
Valerie and I after we were all ready!!!  we put on fake eyelashes for the occasion!!  woo!! (it's a girl thing!)
the wedding party!!
bridesmaids!

jump shot!

Here's a couple updates of the babies!!!  Jess and Brent's little ones, that is!  Mason is mr. strongman and likes to hang on things!!  And mr. Cash is just as smiley as ever!!  so cute! 

This one was kinda long with pictures!  I had a lot to update though!!  Hope you all are well!  

one and a half thumbs up :)

So I thought I'd give a quick movie review on a movie I recently watched! It's entitled Lars and the Real Girl. Ryan Gosling, an actor in the Notebook, Remember the Titans, and other flicks, is in it and I figured it should be pretty good. I knew it had the possibility of being strange since the basic plot is a withdrawn man who falls in love with a manican doll who is life-size. But I like Ryan Gosling and I like watching something that someone worked on enough to turn into a movie...just to get a glimpse of how others view life, etc.

I must say....I really enjoyed it! Yes, it's strange at times. But it was very clean, funny, and moving all at the same time. It ends up being about the small town where the boy lives embracing the doll into their community in order to show love to this man who is kinda lost in life at this point in time. His brother and sister-in-law are embarrassed because he's "crazy" and the psychologist tells them to just go along with it because the doll is "here for a reason." And the psychologist ends up working through issues with the boy as she "treats" the doll. Different, but excellent! I give it 4 out of 5 stars :) I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the movie:

"We came over to sit. That's what people do when tragedy strikes. They come over, and sit."

mountains and food drives.

So as you've seen over my past few blogs, i've taken to hiking as a fun new hobby!  I never have considered myself to be an out-doorsy person.....i mean, i enjoy it, but never like to just be hiking around in it!  But lately I have been really enjoying myself!  It's a good way to get some air, some exercise, some time with friends, and some beauty that is God's creation!  This last time we decided to hike Camelback mountain....which had rumors of being fairly difficult.  But I gotta say...i lOVED it!!  it's been my favorite one so far!  It was definitely a challenge, but very beautiful.  There's even some parts of it where you have to pull yourself up using metal handle bars!  

me, jen, and mikael!!

THE TOP!!  victorious :)

the way down was a little trickier! haha....
So at youth a couple weeks ago we had a canned food drive to contribute to our food bank at church! We give food/non-perishables to over 100 families a week from our church food drive, which is just incredible!  And it's getting to the point where we aren't having enough to give out.  So although the food bank is always taking contributions, the church takes a couple weeks in particular to highlight it and raise more awareness about it!  It was a great chance for the youth to have a little friendly competition, so that's what we did!  My girls (11th-12th grade) came in second place!  They were a little sad being second, but we did really well!  All in all it was a fun time and all of the youth combined collected SO MUCH STUFF!!  Here are some pics of my girlies! They rock!

"Make a joyful noise to the Lord

All the earth

Make a joyful noise to the Lord

All the earth 

The flowers of the field

Are cry'n to be heard

The trees of the forest

Are singing

And all of the mountains

With one voice

Are joining the chorus of this world

And I will not be silent

I will not be quiet anymore 

Running through the forest

Dive into the lake

Bare feet on beaches white

Standing in the canyon

Painted hills around

The wind against my skin

Every ocean

Every sea

Every river

Every stream

Every mountain

Every tree

Every blade of grass will sing"

-I will not be silent, David Crowder Band

californ-i-a :)

This last weekend I went to cali to visit my friend Tara, from nursing school, in Burbank and my cousin Mike in San Diego!  It's not far from me now---so it was a nice short flight!!  

We went and saw a musical called the Scarlet Pimpernel the first night with her sister and some of their friends from church!  The next day we drove to San Diego and went to the wild animal park there!  It was so much fun hanging out with tara and getting to talk about all of our nursing experiences so far!  She works in the operating room and had lots of fun stories to share!  
i love this sign!

Me, Tara, and her friend Eric that was also visiting!  We had to be like all the other little kids and jump on this rhino! :)
Then after the wild animal park I met up with Mike!  We hung out with his friends and roommates all weekend and it was a blast!  On Sunday after church we went to Sea World for an hour! haha....basically with a shopping pass you get an hour to go in without paying.  So we sped walked to see the killer whales, manatees, and bat rays!  it was a good time!  They now call the collective group of whales "Shamu" but shamu died a long time ago i think!  Anyways....i have no idea what all the whales names' are now!  But regardless, they are cool!

After Sea World we went to Coronado Beach and Hotel, the place where lots of famous people/presidents stay!  It was very cool and the beach was awesome!

Mike and a cow!
Me and Elvis!!  ow-ow!!!

mike and his roommates live in this house....the right side!  We had so much fun hanging out and catching up!  It was great meeting his friends and hanging out with them all weekend!  

Okay.....so i was hangin out with jess and the boys the other afternoon and mase and I had some fun making faces!  He's really good at doing an expression you tell him to do, so we did happy, then excited, then sad!  he is so cute!



Well that's all for now!  Easter is coming soon and i will be super busy at church this weekend with all our services!!  I mentioned that i love Easter because of the white chocolate Reese eggs that get put on store shelves.  Mike reminded me that HEEEE likes Easter because Christ rose from the dead.  thanks for that.  I'm allowed to like Easter for BOTH reasons, right?!!  All that to say: HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!  

YEAH MARCH!

So these past few weeks have been AWESOME! Two of the guys i sang with in college, Cameron and Bryce, were out here in arizona on their spring break with the IWU chorale! I got to hear the chorale sing again (which was great b/c i miss majestic music!), and they even had a free day so we could hang out! we took a trip to sedona while they were here! it was so good to see them!

And, it's MARCH!!! March is what i like to call 'Birthday month!' Not only is it MY birthday, but also the birthdays of MANY of my friends and family! In fact, let me give some birthday shout-outs!

3:Jordan Hird

6: Dustin Ramirez

7: mom

11: heather white

12: me, andrew huff, and kyle martinez

18: morgan hummel and katie-lynn myers

23: jenn porter

26: nowell hardin

Two of those mentioned above, morgan and andrew, are in this next picture and we all celebrated our birthdays together later that weekend!! we ate lunch and went bowling! haha....good times!

Morgan and Andrew, who are getting married in May, got me a fish for my birthday. Granted, it is pretty funny...but i don't get fish. i just don't understand why people think they are cool! but regardless, i now have one. and since they named it...i have decided to love it as my own. and i use that term loosely! hahah! Its name is Bubba. Bubba the beta fish.

Probably my favorite present that i received was a card. My dear friend Beth Pettit and I have a long-running joke about Michael Bolton. We think he is hilarious and we often make fun of him. Seen below is a birthday card photoshopped by Beth in which she has copied my head onto some other woman with michael bolton. It looks SO REAL!! i love it so much! The inside says: "livin' the dream." best present ever.

Here's a picture mom and dad got me! looks perfect in the apartment! thanks!

I really had a wonderful birthday! I had to work the night of it and the night after. I will probably never do that again...but it was okay! I DID get to have a birthday dinner the next evening with my aunt, uncle, and cousin! So that was good! Thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes!

The week after my birthday i went to see the broadway musical RENT with my cousins and aunt! It was so fun!!! Any time there is singing on a stage...i'm there and totally into it!

And most RECENTLY....I got to see my bestests this last weekend!! All of my college roomies always get together every year! This year we met up at athena's house (outside of chicago)!! It was SO great to get to talk in person and just hang out together! Her dad got us tickets to see the Blue Man Group! I had seen them in high school once and loved it....but had forgotten just how awesome the show is!! I highly recommend it! Athena is also preparing for her wedding, so it was just wonderful to be able to see her dress, try on bridesmaids dresses, see locations for the wedding and reception, and just be there for her!! Here are some pictures!

We used to have 'dawson's creek' thursdays in college, so before bed every night this weekend we watched dawson's creek! haha......

Well, that's all for now...but MUCH MORE to come in these next few months! I have multiple weddings, camp, and some mini-vacations coming up that i'm very much looking forward to! Hope everyone is well!