Super Suppers with Friends

Martina won a free dinner where she got to invite ten couples! It was so fun and yummy, we also got to make two dinners to take home and two side dishes!

Martina, Jamie, Cortney and me

Me and Jamie

Dinner is served... Trey, Cortney and Jamie fixing a plate.

Jared watching as Camron and Trey made their take home dinners.

Me, Jamie, Cortney and Martina in our Super Suppers aprons.

Jared and me

The group.

What a cool concept read more about Super Suppers!

Wow! I'm Out of Shape!

I ran 5 to 6 miles a day 4 days a week my senior year of high school weighed about 10 lbs less then I do now but it is when I'm playing tennis that I really feel just how very out of shape I am in!

Leah took some funny shots while we were playing, most of them no one will EVER see! :)

Me pooped!

Jared and me before we switched from the slow balls to the fast ones. :)

Jared tired of getting his pic taken. :)

I'm ready

I'm ahead of the ball... probably the only one I timed well.

Pretty sure I'm not supposed to look like this when I hit it... uncoordinated much?

Leah making her shot. :)

Quotes:

Jared: You have to time it better...

Rachel: If step one is keeping it in the fence, timing can not be step two! Baby steps remember!

(Insert Jared's eye rolling here.)

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Rachel: I'm hot!

Jared: That's what happens when you exercise.
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Random girl on the other side of the court: It is 2010, I went to a website and it helped me figure out that I won't graduate until 2016...

Rachel to Leah: Oh my goodness, did you hear that?

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Leah: I didn't think about that shot.

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Jared: These balls don't even bounce!

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Rachel: Whipped that one out like Ron!

Pandora Stations You Have to Have

(Pandora is an automated music recommendation service. Users enter a song or artist that they enjoy, and the service responds by playing selections that are musically similar. Users provide feedback on approval or disapproval of individual songs, which Pandora takes into account for future selections. Learn more at http://www.pandora.com/.)

I hate the quiet! I sleep with a loud box fan and when I don't have it I barely sleep. When I'm not asleep the TV or radio must be on making some sort of racket or I'm uneasy. Enter the beauty of Pandora... I play my Pandora stations while I'm getting ready in the morning, on my drive to work, all day at work, on my drive home, while I make dinner, and while I'm getting ready for bed! Lucky enough I'm still using the free version! I love love love Pandora and am addicted!


My Top 10 Pandora Stations:

#1 Glee Cast Radio

#2 The Phantom of the Opera -Thanks Codie!

#3 Sweet Caroline Radio -Thanks Ed!

#4 Taylor Swift Radio

#5 Chicken Fried Radio

#6 Wicked (Original Broadway)

#7 A Whole New World

#8 At the End of the Day (Les Miserables)

#9 Sweet Caroline (Glee Cast Radio)

#10 Chris Tomlin Radio


Let me know your favorite stations! :)

Weekend with the Girls + the baby bros

As most of our get togethers start, we prepared food to munch on the rest of the weekend followed by a photo shoot... then the paparazzi never ends which is why 5 of us are dressed up in my dresses! :)

Me, Ashley, Leah, Jessie Dean holding Sugar, Codie, and Calli

Me, Ashley, Leah, Jessie Dean holding Sugar, Codie, and Calli

Codie and Leah

Me and Jessie Dean

Codie holding Sugar, Leah, and me

I love this shot of Calli laughing... She has the most contagious laugh! :)

After munching and munching we moved it out to the back porch for girl talk and more laughs.

Me and Leah

Clint and his friend Jake after attending the ACA's Senior Banquet

Colton, Jessie Dean, Clint, and Me

Calli, Clint, Codie, and Colton

So after our fun talk on the porch Clint talked everyone into playing Quelf... it is just about the silliest game I've EVER played! We sure had a lot of laughs! :)

Everyone ready to play!

Calli, Larrah and Jessie Dean (Larrah arrived late but she'll be in more pictures tomorrow).

Clint and me

Me and Ashley were on a winning team.

Jessica and Larrah were on a team... this is a picture of them after they landed on a blue color, their card said they had to stay under the table until it was their turn again. Hee Hee!

Leah, after landing on a yellow, writing her limerick (a light humorous, nonsensical, or bawdy verse of five anapestic lines usually with the rhyme scheme aabba), before her next turn.

Their once was a man with five arms,

Who lived on a very big farm.

He had a whole slew of limes,

That he picked all at one time.

So fortunate it was that he had five arms.

(The right person drew that card!)

Codie

Jake and Clint landed on a blue and had to play patty cake... it was amusing!

Leah and me.

Leah had to find something in less then a minute that had a chin strap so she headed straight to the mud room and grabbed Mom's gardening hat. I am modeling my mask that Ashley and I had to hand make in less then a minute and wearing my post-it that had a target on it, whenever you catch anyone looking at your target they had to move back one space... yes this game is SILLY!

Calli and Colton

Calli said it all in one look as to how we all felt about Clint's game... crazy and chaotic!

Clint, Calli, Colton and Jessie Dean as we played Catch Phrase and Clint shared his Fun Dip.

The Harry Potter team beat the Volemort team... it was rigged.

Leah, Codie, Ashley, and Larrah singing to Glee to finish off our fun evening of silliness! :)

Quotes of the weekend (laughing hysterically while typing them up):

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Jess: I don't have a spare tire in my car, I have Friends. The complete series.

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Codie: OH, OH, there's a napkin on fire!

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Calli: There are a lot of eyes going on.

Jess: Not that one, it doesn't work.

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Rachel: I want wine!

Jess: IT WAS YOUR JOB 45 MINUTES AGO!

Jess: DELEGATE! DELEGATE!

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Codie: Should I put on a dress?

Leah: She made me put on a dress earlier.

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Calli: Personal life window closing!

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Codie: Why are we shouting?

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Codie: Who knew laughing was such a workout?

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Rachel: This is a new one so we don't know the lyrics.

Codie: Lucky you.

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Rachel: One more CAMERA! Two more pictures!!

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Codie: Don't drink all of it! He bought it for everyone!

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Calli (while Leah danced): Interpretive dance by Leah... There's no jelly fish in this song!

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Codie: Don't wear this dress I just wiped snot on it.

Calli: Good thing it's green.

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Calli: All talk and no bowel movement!

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Codie: That's some legs, some could call it a centipede.

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Leah: Let me bring the quote book, lest something funny be said.

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Calli (to Rachel singing to parade): Sit down women, reel it in, reel it in!

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Codie (as Colton beat boxed): Thank you Justin, zip that fly up.

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Codie: Um, I have a card in my hand!

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Calli: Could you stop yelling.

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Ashley: Quelf... it sounds like an impolite word!

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Codie: Quelf is the worst game ever! Did I say it right that time?

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Rachel: Excuse me, I feel a question coming on.

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Codie: Look alive Jake! Look alive!

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Calli: We won.

Codie: The whole game?

Calli: No...

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Jess (from under the table): This game is not fun yet.

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Calli: We are going to have to find the turn down button on you.

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Calli: I would have to say we aren't in a romance novel.

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Jess: Do I look like a person who is nice to dogs?

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Leah: I have sunscreen in my eye.

Calli (laughing hysterically): It's just the way you say things.

ACA's Scrimmage

After purchasing my bathing suit for the weekend, at Target on clearance for less then $8, Leah and I met Jess to watch Clint and Colton's scrimmage. Jess had to leave early so Leah and I stayed to take Colt home, Clint had ACA's Senior Banquet afterwards.

Colton blocking someone twice his size! So proud! :)


ACA's 2010-2011 Football Team

The Giving Hand - Missing Aunt Barbara

Today is the anniversary of my Aunt Barbara’s death. Barbara was diagnosed with breast cancer the summer of 2003. She was cancer free for almost a year. In December 2005 we found out that it spread to her brain. Christmas 2005 the Bradford family spent in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at UAB. She was a fighter and went through treatments again. 6 months later, June 7, 2006, Barbara passed away at Hospice in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Barbara taught P.E. at Vestavia Elementary in Northport, AL she loved wearing fancy hats, strawberries in her wine, children, running, being girly with her fabulous nieces, but mostly hanging out with her 3 boys. Her husband, Brad, and 2 sons, Jake and Joe Claude were her world! She always had a smile on her face and more contagious energy than a high school cheerleader at a Friday night game… throw in 7 cans of Red Bull and that gives you a glimpse of a night with Barbara’s personality.


Below is a quote from the book September by Rosemound Pilcher that Nonnie, my Grandmother, read to me the day of Barbara's funeral. It was good for me to read again in remembrance of my loving aunt.
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that is always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow on it. Life means all that is ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is an absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you for an interval somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well.”

Below is the poem called The Giving Hand, wrote in honor of Barbara and read at her funeral by my sister Jessica.

The Giving Hand
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She’s the “hello” you love to hear
Because her voice is full of delight
Even when cheering in the fall
For the Tide on Saturday night
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She’s the giver I wish I could be
The most thoughtful person I know
She wrapped presents all by-herself
Finished off perfectly with a hand-made bow
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She’s got her own language,
Barbara-isms you might say
Yepper and Ugger to name a few
There was a new one from day to day
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She’s always in the cutest clothes
Pink is her favorite color
She loved polka dots too,
Especially with fur on a hugger.
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She’s the Mama to the college boys
Those Sigma Chi’s so far from home
Dinner at the Bradford’s in Northport
They didn’t have far to roam
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She’s the first smile you see
When you walk through the door
Entertaining family and friends
There is nothing she loved more
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Than to throw a party at her house
No matter the occasion
Christmas, Graduation, and Birthdays
Going to Aunt Barbara’s took little persuasion.
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She always outdid herself
And made the parties grand
So thoughtful and humble
She has the giving hand
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Proverbs 21:26 says
that some people always want more,
but the godly love to give.
Aunt Barbara was godly to the core.
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Her giving hand is rare
But comes easily to those chosen few
Aunt Barbara had that gift
A role model for me and you.
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But what gave her the most pride
What gave her the most joy
Was just to be in the presence
Of her three favorite boys
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Aunt Barbara, Thank you for every memory
We will miss your energy and your love
Your humility and your smile
We’ll see you again in heaven above.