July Feels

Happy month of July and happy halfway mark through the year! I just love everything about the month of July - celebrations of all kinds, shorts and flip flops kind of weather, beach days, late night sunsets. Something about July is just magical for me. It's as if the year reaches a point where it recharges itself and begins again for another round of life to be lived. I feel like July is a month where a new page can be turned over, fresh and clean, ready to be written upon.

 

It also happens to be my birth month, so there's that. I've been through a lull the last few years with each passing birthday. It was just another day, another year, nothing entirely special. For some reason, my excitement and passion for birthdays has resurfaced and I'm entirely excited to celebrate my last year in my 20's. Let's just let that set in for a minute....
 

My 20's contained some of my most influential years of my life that have brought me to where I am today. Growing pains and sweet moments have molded me into the person I am now that has allowed me to very readily take on all that my 30's will bring. The last 9 years of my life have been quite mesmerizing in the sense that I can't believe a decade has nearly passed. I feel like my teen years are so far behind me now, yet, it seems as if yesterday that I welcomed the young age of 20 into my life. Such a bittersweet time in my life.

 

I have a few things up my sleeves that I want to accomplish in my last year of being in my 20's. Things like learning how to play one song on the violin, seeing someplace new that requires a plane ticket, taking local adventures and rediscovering my love for the beauty that surrounds me and is within a short car drive, going to a Braves game in their new stadium, hiking new trails, primitive camping with my man (I honestly can't believe I just typed those words #needabathroom #andabed), and so many more adventures. To my last year of being in my 20's - let's knock this out of the ball park.

Vacation Blues

Hello Monday-after-a-weeklong-vacation! Our time spent at the beach was so needed and loved in every sense of the word. I will say though, coming back to routine really does my little soul some good. We stayed in Mexico Beach, visited Port St. Joe, Apalachicola, Pier Park in Panama City Beach, and the famous 30A drive. We really are so fortunate to live just 1.5 hours from the coast. LOVE my state!

 

An honorary photo dump for your eyes to feast on while I try and get this next load of laundry going...

 

 

 

 

Welborn {Woodworking}

I'm not sure if I've mentioned before how our home is pretty much entirely secondhand items... but it is and we love it. We built our kitchen table ourselves and are so proud of the simple beauty in it, and what it represents to us. Over the last several weeks, we've toyed with an idea, talked about the basics, harped over the costs, analyzed the products, and in the end, came to a decision.

 

Hunter and I have decided to {bravely} step into the world of woodworking and repurposing. We will begin by building a couple of simple things and learn new tricks and tips. I will frequent the local thrift stores, yard sales, roadside shops in search for the unwanted, older items. And we'll bring them back to life.

 

That's right, we are going to see what God has in store for us as we take on a somewhat daunting dream of building furniture and repurposing items for others to find joy and comfort in. We hope that as we start out, we will be open to learn all the do's and don'ts of woodworking; the various styles and colors that people covet for their homes; and assist in making families' houses feel more homey and adored.

 

Hunter and I want what we build to reflect the love and work of Christ. We will pour our blood {we'll try to keep it off the furniture}, sweat, and maybe some tears into each piece as we design them into an artwork. We will pray over each item as it's completed with hopes that it will bring blessings to that person's home. But more importantly, we want our endeavors to reflect those of people who just dadgum love other people.

 

The pieces that are built will be built primarily from old wood, whether it be from old barns, palettes, or anything of that nature. Just like our life in Christ brought us back from the dead, we want to revitalize what has been discarded. And make it glorious. We're hoping that in this process, we will meet and greet and get the chance to love on so many folks. Be in prayer for us as we embark on this dream. If it becomes something great, awesome. If it's something that just passes the time, that is amazing too. 

May flowers bring June bugs

With the month of May came beautiful weddings and celebrations of sorts. It also brought the goodbyes of loved ones and learning how to find a new normal.

 

May brought about few storms to water our growing tomato plants but the good Lord introduced new friends into our lives that have sparked our ministry.

 

Many gatherings and cookouts took place in the month of May. Babies were snuggled, graduations were had, and life was lived. I couldn't have asked for a better month of May.

 

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June will bring beach trips, days spent in the sun and soaking in all that the Forgotten Coast has to offer.

 

The month of June will also bring about school for Hunter, the testing of his patience (and mine) as he endures his way through it. I know that God will guide him confidently through it all.

 

I pray that the month of June continues to bring fellowship, discipleship, love, and celebrations of all kinds. June, let's see what you're made of.

Memorial Day Shenanigans

Happy Memorial Day friends! And holla for a 3-day weekend for me. Gotta love a good, long weekend. Whether you're grilling out with family, digging your toes deeper into the sandy shores, or resting from a long week, always remember why we are celebrating Memorial Day.

 

We can celebrate Memorial Day because men and women have sacrificed their own lives so that you may live freely. Keep their family and friends in prayer on this day {and every day} as they continue to try and live life without that person. Thank the good Lord for their sacrifice!

 

In other news - we're counting down to our beach trip with my family to the Gulf Coast. Ya'll, words cannot fully describe the magnitude of our excitement to be slipping away. I love traveling anywhere but my heart and soul will always lie in the sandy shores of the Gulf of Mexico. We're eager for the easy days where the hardest decision will be which fruity drink will I choose today.

 

Praise be to Jesus {cue raised hands emoji}.

 

Would it be weird if I started packing now for the trip? No? Okay then, glad we're on the same page. Thank you Lord, for blessing me with a man who loves the beach almost as much as I do. Almost is the key word here.

 

a little throwback of baby Hunter and baby Kelly to 4 years ago



Soul rejuvenation

Lovely weekends tend to make Monday's just a little bit harder to come back to. Whether it's time spent with family and friends, or celebrating the little moments, creating memories for years to come can always make for wonderful weekends. We had just that - little moments with old friends, God-moments with new friends, laughter, sun {maybe some sunburn}, and a few more laugh lines on our faces.

 

 

We spent Friday evening and Saturday evening with friends - old and new. I'm part of a very small bible study group; it's just me and 3 other gals. We do life together, study the Word intently together, pick each other up, encourage each other throughout the week. A fun fact about our group: we absolutely do not meet unless every person can attend. It creates accountability and reliability between each other.

 

Now ya'll know, my sweet husband is quite the country boy. He is everything country and southern and my my, he's all mine. HA! We decided to go bass fishing Saturday morning and really enjoyed our little bit out on the water. We caught a few bass, some tree stumps, and sun rays. I love watching him in his elements and he loves teaching me a thing or two.
 

 

God really has a good sense of humor and has a knack for orchestrating folks getting together. My sweet uncle and aunt (hey uncle Steve and aunt Jenny!) were traveling through our area a few weeks ago so naturally, we met up with them over lunch. They mentioned getting in touch with a friend of theirs who runs the local Young Life here. We said sure, not sure what would come of it, knew in our minds there was no way in heck we would be leading anything because, duh, we had stepped down from youth leadership just a few months back. But we thought sure, let's meet the guy and if anything, establish connections.

 

We had dinner with the fella, his lovely wife, and their adorable children last night. Ya'll, God's a hoot. Really, He is. We instantly connected and felt God's presence was with us through the entire meal and conversation. We swapped stories and promises of more to come. Hunter and I are eager to see where this leads and love to serve. Prayers would be much appreciated!

Festivals + Dedications

I'm not even going to say it. Yes, actually I am. HOW IS IT ALREADY MONDAY?! Okay, that's all.

 

What a glorious weekend for the books, huh?! Between the beautiful weather and time spent with friends and family, I couldn't have asked for a better weekend.
 

My little buddy {Jep was in the front seat next to me}

 

Saturday was spent roaming the streets of a local town, checking out the local vendors selling their goods and wares. It was so neat seeing some friends and their adorable little shop - be sure to check out their website here for all the adorable things!
 

 

I couldn't help myself - I bought the hometown sign

 

 Coffee was had and later in the evening, a marriage was celebrated. My brother's lifelong friend married his beautiful bride and it was such a joy and honor to witness the sweet event. Not to mention, my brother looked rather handsome in his suit.

Me + brothers + sis

 

Sunday came along as beautiful as ever with a baby dedication of our sweet friend's little girl. Ya'll, I'm absolutely smitten with this little gal. We celebrated mothers and grandmothers at our home with all the southern fixins' - fried chicken, tater saled, coleslaw, and rolls. Of course I didn't get a single picture with any of the ladies but hey, life was being lived.

It is well

Happiest of Monday's and happy May people! Can I just take a sec and talk about how it skipped from somewhat comfortable spring days (read: 3 days of "spring") to oh-my-gawd-I'm-melting hot. Yep, Florida is back in action with its blazing hot days.

 

We've been busy bees in our lives. This past weekend, we celebrated a sweet friend of ours and all her accomplishments. Ya'll, my gal graduated college, turned another year old, and had a baby all within the last few weeks. She's a rock star!

 

 

Sweet friends of ours are tying the knot next year and Hunter and I were proposed to to stand next to them on their big day. We are so honored and humbled by their love and friendship. We can't wait for April next year! #MeetTheSewells

 

 

We've been working on lots of house projects - growing a garden (I'm literally dying over the fact that I haven't killed a single thing), making our backyard an oasis, contemplating repainting our living room (don't read that part Hunter), and just really enjoying making our house a home. As I always tell folks, our doors are always open; just knock ;)

 

God has also been opening and closing doors for us and we're really excited to see where He leads us next. We're starting a new chapter in our book of life and I can't wait to share with ya'll soon (read: no babies). Embrace the joys and wonders of a new day!

 



What's new?

This past weekend, I made it a point to totally disengage from social media of all kinds. You name it - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat - I was far, far away from those things.

 

And it was so utterly glorious.

 

Other than totally disengaging myself from the social media realm, the weekend was spent building my first ever garden, celebrating new life, and just enjoying the beautiful weather.

I decided to start my garden from the seeds. Something about it is so symbolic, to be starting from the ground up. Knowing I will have to nurture these little seeds so regularly, and then having so much joy as I watch the tomatoes and peppers burst forth. I'm also realistic and started small with just 2 plants. If they survive and thrive, then I'll add more.
 

Hmm I'm thinking some cute artwork is needed for the back drop...

I've been knocking out projects here and there for our little home and it always feels so good (list-maker nerd) to cross those items off the list. Our home is little, but it's ours, and we're so proud of it. We strive to make our home an open and loving space for anybody and everybody.

 

I just finished a book by Nicholas Sparks, See Me. It was so good and gave me all the feels. I prefer all the books over the movies simply because I can get lost amongst the words.

 

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I love that I notice the crave the soul feels for God's Word when I've been out of it for a day or two. It's like my heart is itching to dive into the words, look at the application in my life, and just meditate on them. It really is like a drug to my starved soul.

 

To-Do's

Happiest of days today! After celebrating the beauty of Easter yesterday with our families, I can't help but to feel refreshed and renewed. And so dang grateful to see some sunlight. It literally rained non-stop from Friday thru yesterday evening. All that rain sure does make the grass and flowers pretty {and the pollen all gone - praise Jesus}.

 

With the change in weather, I've been bitten by the "project bug". Yep, I literally have a list a mile long of things that I want to accomplish this spring and summer. And lucky for Hunter, all projects pertain to the house... Yayyyy! {I know he's rolling his eyes}
 

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Just to give ya'll an idea of what I've got planned (and to give myself another checklist), here are some of the items on the list of to-do's:

 

+ Backsplash in our kitchen - we really do use the heck out of our kitchen and it can get pretty messy sometimes. Plus, hellur pretty walls right?

 

+ Repaint the door frames and front door - just typical wear and tear on those bad boys requires a fresh coat of paint. It also doesn't help that our dogs have decided the back door is a fun chew toy....

+ New blinds for our back door. Again, dogs are the culprit.

 

+ GARDEN - I'm most excited for this one! I'll plant a couple different types of flowers but my main goal is to plant a couple different easy to grow vegetables. If I can manage to keep them alive, then I'll add more to the garden next year. Start small, less heartache in the end and less money out of the pocket.

+ Creating our back patio area into an oasis. A small oasis, but an oasis nonetheless.

 

+ Paint the guest bedroom - I'm going to regret this one.

 

+ Remove satellite dishes - so when we had satellite for tv, they decided to place the dish in the most inconvenient and eye-sorest spot possible. Fun fact if you're looking at switching to satellite: They don't remove what they placed there if you cancel it. Thanks, DirectTV. Since we've done away with cable in general, those bad boys are getting ripped out. 

+ Remove a towel rack in our guest bathroom {replace it with a cuter and more efficient one}, paint a small wall {accent wall} in our guest bathroom.

+ Lay down wood flooring - this is the biggie. We have tile throughout our entire house, with the exception to the bedrooms. Those are carpeted and with dogs, it's just gross. I'm already not a fan of carpet anyways {allergy freak} so dark wood floors are going to be put down. And I will swoon, swoon, swoon.

 

I've got a few other little things on the list but these items will do for now. Wish us luck! More importantly, pray for the hubs to survive. Ha! I'm sure I'll share in the adventures because maybe, if we're lucky, we'll become famous like Chip and Joanna Gaines. I can dream. Also, anybody want to donate to our fixer-upper adventures?! {Totally kidding, maybe.}

New Adventures

I mentioned on Monday about some peace we've had with a decision that was made, and of course, had to leave ya'll hanging. I'm not a fan of cliff hangers so I thought to myself, "Self, you can't leave these people hanging. You wouldn't like it either."

 

Self is pretty wise.

 

No, we're not moving. Nor are we having babies through pregnancy or adoption (yet). Nobody got a new job. And yes, we're still married.

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It's actually quite the exciting news we have, a bit unnerving because of the unknown, but nevertheless we're resting in God's guiding hands on this one. Let me back up a little bit...

 

A couple of months ago, we received a letter from the County Commissioners' Office notifying us that a wonderful condominium complex was in the works of receiving approval and being built right next to our neighborhood. We thought, "Great! Our property value will rise and will only help this house sell one day." We were invited to join in on the meeting where they vote on the building plans, but like almost all of our neighbors, none of us went because we were under the impression that this could only be good.

 

Our wise HOA manager decided to go and sit in on the meeting as our representative. So glad he did because when he returned, we discovered that the condominium complex being built is part of the re-entry program we have here for homeless and transients (people coming out of prison).

 

Here's where the hypocritical, ugly, snobby Christian came out (I'm still ashamed of myself). Our immediate response: UGH GOD NO!! WE CAN'T LIVE NEXT TO THOSE PEOPLE. WE'VE GOTTA MOVE. CALL THE REALTOR! CALL FRIENDS! WE'VE GOTTA GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!!

 

So Christian, right? And then we were served a nice dose of humble pie (it didn't taste good, if you're wondering). We realized that it's so easy for us to GO into other communities to love and serve on others; it's so easy for us to GO to another country to share the Gospel there. But when God BROUGHT the need to our backdoor (almost literally), it wasn't part of our plan. The reason it's so easy to go and seek others is because, at the end of the day, you can leave it. You can come home to your nice things, your comfortable routine, all the pretty prettiness. Am I right?
 

 

I know we appear clinically insane to some folks, but we're actually really excited about this {now}. God is bringing an opportunity to love on others, to support them in their efforts to get back on their feet. They are already facing so much condemnation and judgment from society - we do not have the authority to make those judgments. Judge your brother/sister, you will be judged by the Creator (Romans 14:10). And good news for us, we have a couple of friends who are part of the re-entry program and they are helping us to take the necessary steps to educate ourselves on what to expect, not to expect, etc.

 

So friends, we ask for prayer. Prayers that as more develops, we will remain at peace with our decision. Pray that God will use this opportunity to really bring people to know Him. And honestly, just pray that people don't get mean and nasty about the whole situation. We were there in the beginning, and it's not very nice.

Celebrations, oh my!

This past weekend was full of firsts, celebrations, and victories in many ways...

 

+ We celebrated this little cutie's birthday on Saturday with a "Pow-Wow" theme and it was precious. His mother is officially hired to do all of our kids' birthday parties. Happy birthday, Abel! Mr. Hunter and Mrs. Kelly love you so very much!

 

 

+ A high school friend of Hunter's got married this past weekend and it was so wonderful and beautiful. He also really enjoyed seeing some old faces and being able to catch up. Fun fact, Hunter's high school graduation class was whopping total of 20 people - 10 boys, 10 girls. Compare that to my 500+ graduating class... Ha!

 

 

 

 

+ Now that spring has sprung, house projects are underway! We have a tree that overhangs our fence in the backyard and, of course, drops tons of leaves. With the accumulation of leaves and wet ground, we were having quite the mosquito problem. We decided to tackle that this weekend and ya'll, I'm pretty sure we have been breeding the Zika virus in our backyard. It was awful! But our backyard is looking better already!

 

+ I have to say, Hunter and I have really come to have a lot of peace in our hearts about some decisions we were needing to make and with other personal things in our lives. I will share soon one of those decisions (no, it's not a baby) because honestly, we need prayer. And we're excited + nervous. How's that for a cliff-hanger?

 

Happy Monday folks! It's a coolish day here in north Florida but the sun is shining, birds are tweeting, and pollen is thick as all heck. But the good Lord woke us up this morning so let's embrace it all.

Sine Die #wedidntdie

My goodness, it has felt like eons since I've written in this here space. Last week, was the final leg of the race in the Florida Legislature sessions. Whooo it was a doozy, but really so much fun! Just to kind of catch everybody up, I guess...

 

+ Hermit life is what it was all about last week. Shoot, I didn't even do any of bible studies. Sorry 'bout that. Ha!

 

We were all smiles Friday

 

+ We celebrated my MIL's birthday with her friends Saturday night and we'll be celebrating her actual birthday (today) with dinner tonight. Happy birthday Allison!

 

+ Hunter and the pups survived without me. We did try to include some late, late night dates to the FroYo shop not too far from our house. Healthy and yummy? Sign me up!

 

+ Speaking of healthy - of course with last week being non-stop, I didn't get to grace the gym as much (read: not at all) but that all changes today. We've been kicking butt in the healthier eating lifestyle. Go team Welborn!

 

+ Uhm, is anybody else weirded out by the fact that it's still pitch black when you wake up at 6AM to get ready for work? I woke up at 7AM yesterday morning and was so confused about the whole thing.

 

+ ALL THE WARM WEATHER!! That is all...

 

 

Happy Monday folks! Enjoy the day, embrace the moments.

Welcome to Atlanta where the players play...

Please tell me I'm not the only person who has that song pop into their head when they go to Atlanta? No one? Just me? Bueller?

 

 

This past weekend, Hunter and I escaped our little city for the big city for a night. We just wanted a weekend away from everything; an escape to recharge our batteries. It was every bit of wonderful and more.
 

 

We didn't have any set plans or timetable - just go where the wind blew us. We enjoyed dinner Saturday night at this adorable southern restaurant straight out of Gone With the Wind called Pittypat's Porch Restaurant. Ya'll, good southern cooking doesn't even come close to describe what we tasted. Between my shrimp and grits, and Hunter's fried chicken plate, we were fat and happy little campers.

 

Blurry pic for the win

 

After dinner, we moseyed around downtown just checking out all that Atlanta had to offer. We shopped a bit at the World of Coke and had every intentions of doing the Georgia Aquarium but alas, it was crazy crowded there. Lucky for us, we've got family that lives in Atlanta so we know we'll be back and can check it out then.
 

 

Speaking of family! We were lucky to have brunch with some of my extended family Sunday morning before we jumped back on the road. I swear, we're so close to some of my extended family that we really consider them to be immediate family - ha! We totally ate our weight at OK Café. Holy moly, it was good!
 

 

I'm so grateful for this past weekend. It was just what the doctor ordered to help us relax, unwind, and really just spend time with each other sans dogs and real-life adulating stuff. We've decided we need to make this a pretty regular thing. Like an every weekend regular thing. Ha! I wish... Our bank account would hate us.