Share Your Style Swap Party

If this is your first time here, welcome!!!
And if this post looks terribly familiar to you (because I posted a longer version on October 27, know this one has a post-election update. :)

Laurel and I met through a blog party being hosted by Vintage Wanna Bee and Agape Love Designs. We were randomly assigned a partner, encouraged to get to know one another through our blogs and emails, and then at the end of three weeks or so send each other a hair accessory to remember our new friend across the country by. The following snippets are excerpts from our conversations.
  

Brittney writes:

Hi Laurel! I just wanted to say hi. I've only spent two minutes on your blog and already am excited to know you because 1. I love skinny jeans too, and 2. I went on a trip to the South for the first time about six weeks ago and loved it. So nice to meet you.

Laurel writes:

Hey, Brittney!!!  I haven't checked out your blog yet but I'm excited to get to know you better. I love living in the South but people down here say I'm not a true Southerner because I don't sound like one. But I am a Georgia peach born and bred! :) It's absolutely so nice to meet you, too. I can't wait to get started on making something for the swap. :) 

Laurel, after only an hour or so writes again:

Hey, Brittney! I checked out some of your posts and even though our politics definitely aren't in alignment...

For the record, Laurel didn't put those last six words in giant glaring text, but that's how I read them. And when I read them, I did something like this:

 

because I knew she had visited my blog, where it would be impossible to miss the current ROMNEY, ROMNEY, HE'S OUR MAN theme. And if our politics definitely weren't in alignment, what must she have to say to me??? It wasn't that I wouldn't be willing to stand behind everything I have said the last several weeks. It was just that in this instance, I hoped to be making a friend. I braced myself for being told I was ignorant, naive, and uninformed...and prayed it wouldn't be worse than that. Through partly squinted eyes, I continued reading.

Laurel, after having been interrupted by Brittney's thoughts, continues:

...and even though our politics definitely aren't in alignment, I can absolutely respect someone having well-formed, well-thought-out opinions on who to vote for. Kudos to you for having a reason instead of blindly following the masses. Faith in humanity - restored. 

Needless to say, we are friends.
Here are some excerpts from my favorite parts of our conversations.

Brittney writes:

Laurel! There are few things I like more than meeting someone who differs from me politically and totally hitting it off with them. :) Thank YOU for restoring MY faith in humanity. There is too much unkindness and incivility in the world and I appreciate your openness and friendliness towards me.  

Laurel writes:

It's always so, so, so, SOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice to meet someone who is opinionated (see what I did there?) but not hateful about it. Lots of people aren't like that, like everyone and their brother on their Facebook wall posts. 

Laurel writes:

I'm not voting for Romney because he's Mormon. But I'm not not voting for Romney because he's Mormon either. His choice of religious belief/worship/denomination does not even enter into my spectrum of reasons to vote a certain way, though it is clearly of interest and it might matter if he was a Satanist or something more sinister.  

Brittney writes:  

It made me laugh, when I made that very definitive statement, that a vote should not be based on religion, I did make a little mental disclaimer like the one you did...I thought, shoot, if some religious fanatic ever comes up for the vote, I would have to take that back.

and all politics aside...

Brittney writes:

I've attached a picture of what I pictured when I read your preferences on hair accessories... please let me know how close or how very far away I am to something you'd enjoy receiving :).

  

Laurel writes:

I love that bow clip!!! My motto is basically, "When in doubt, add glitter."

Finally, one of my favorite things my new friend Laurel has had to say:

 
Laurel writes:

I can absolutely respect someone having well-formed, well-thought-out opinions on who to vote for. It's your vote, not mine!

I knew when I chose to throw my mind and heart into this campaign that a lot of it wasn't going to be pretty. In fact, I knew that choosing to stay informed and aware of the issues meant that I was going to be subjecting myself to a lot of the ugliness politics has to offer. It's been said, however, that most things in life worth having don't come easily, and for me this is one of those times.   

Discussing our views and getting them out so that they can be heard is our blessed right as Americans. However, I hope Laurel and I have been able to demonstrate that you can disagree with someone, even passionately disagree with someone without allowing ill-will or hate to enter the situation. Laurel hasn't changed my mind, and I seriously doubt I have changed hers, but we are both better for having bumped into each other.
Go pay her a visit. She's a really great girl.
http://www.theopinionatedgirl.com/

Unless you live under a rock, you know how the election went down last Tuesday (I bet you've found out even if you do live under a rock). I am happy that regardless of the results, I have found a new friend. This is how Laurel ended her last email to me last Thursday.

Laurel writes:
I'm so happy that even with the harsh political climate surrounding elections that we were/are able to find common ground in that we are both politically passionate women who form their thoughts independent of social pressures. How awesome it is to live in a country where we CAN do this... and even better that we can move past that difference to be friends. :) 

Lovelovelove, Laurel

I got a panicked email from Laurel letting me know that the hair accessory is on its way. I assured her I already had plenty to blog about. Pictures are sure to follow soon. ;) Thanks Nichelle and Maria-Isabel for hosting the swap.

6th Saturday of Seven

Laurel and I met through a blog party being hosted by this blog. We were randomly assigned a partner, encouraged to get to know one another through our blogs and emails, and then at the end of three weeks or so send each other a hair accessory to remember our new friend across the country by. The following snippets are excerpts from our conversations.

Brittney writes:

Hi Laurel! I just wanted to say hi. I've only spent two minutes on your blog and already am excited to know you because 1. I love skinny jeans too, and 2. I went on a trip to the South for the first time about six weeks ago and loved it. So nice to meet you.

Laurel writes:

Hey, Brittney!!!  I haven't checked out your blog yet but I'm excited to get to know you better. I love living in the South but people down here say I'm not a true Southerner because I don't sound like one. But I am a Georgia peach born and bred! :) It's absolutely so nice to meet you, too. I can't wait to get started on making something for the swap. :) 

Laurel, after only an hour or so writes again:

Hey, Brittney! I checked out some of your posts and even though our politics definitely aren't in alignment...

For the record, Laurel didn't put those last five words in giant glaring text, but that's how I read them. And when I read them, I did something like this:

because I knew she had visited my blog, where it would be impossible to miss the current ROMNEY, ROMNEY, HE'S OUR MAN theme. And if our politics definitely weren't in alignment, what must she have to say to me??? It's not that I wasn't willing to stand by what I have written all these weeks, it was just that in this instance I hoped to be making a friend. I braced myself for being told I was ignorant, naive, uninformed and the rest of the barrage of insults that might follow. Through partly squinted eyes, I continued reading.

Laurel, after having been interrupted by Brittney's thoughts, continues:

...and even though our politics definitely aren't in alignment, I can absolutely respect someone having well-formed, well-thought-out opinions on who to vote for. Kudos to you for having a reason instead of blindly following the masses. Faith in humanity - restored. 

Needless to say, we are friends.
Here are some excerpts from my favorite parts of our conversations.

Brittney writes:

Laurel! There are few things I like more than meeting someone who differs from me politically and totally hitting it off with them. :) Thank YOU for restoring MY faith in humanity. There is too much unkindness and incivility in the world and I appreciate your openness and friendliness towards me.  
 

Laurel writes:

It's always so, so, so, SOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice to meet someone who is opinionated (see what I did there?) but not hateful about it. Lots of people aren't like that, like everyone and their brother on their Facebook wall posts. 

Laurel writes:

I'm not voting for Romney because he's Mormon. But I'm not not voting for Romney because he's Mormon either. His choice of religious belief/worship/denomination does not even enter into my spectrum of reasons to vote a certain way, though it is clearly of interest and it might matter if he was a Satanist or something more sinister.
  

Brittney writes:  

It made me laugh, when I made that very definitive statement, that a vote should not be based on religion, I did make a little mental disclaimer like the one you did...I thought, shoot, if some religious fanatic ever comes up for the vote, I would have to take that back.

and all politics aside...

Brittney writes:

I've attached a picture of what I pictured when I read your preferences on hair accessories... please let me know how close or how very far away I am to something you'd enjoy receiving :).

Laurel writes:

I love that bow clip!!! My motto is basically, "When in doubt, add glitter."

Finally, one of my favorite things my new friend Laurel has had to say:

 
 
Laurel writes:

I can absolutely respect someone having well-formed, well-thought-out opinions on who to vote for. It's your vote, not mine!

I knew when I chose to throw my mind and heart into this campaign that a lot of it wasn't going to be pretty. In fact, I knew that choosing to stay informed and aware of the issues meant that I was going to be subjecting myself to a lot of the ugliness politics has to offer. It's been said, however, that most things in life worth having don't come easily, and for me this is one of those times.   

Discussing our views and getting them out so that they can be heard is our blessed right as Americans. However, I hope Laurel and I have been able to demonstrate that you can disagree with someone, even passionately disagree with someone without allowing ill-will or hate to enter the situation. Laurel hasn't changed my mind, and I seriously doubt I have changed hers, but we are both better for having bumped into each other.
Go pay her a visit. She's a really great girl.
http://www.theopinionatedgirl.com/

I am voting for Mitt Romney because it is my vote and I want to. No, it's bigger than that. I have never so confidently or earnestly placed my support behind a candidate. For all the reasons I have stated the past five Saturdays and will state in next week's final post, I believe America would be blessed to have such a man as president. I am voting for Mitt Romney because even after I am exposed to the mountain of hate spewed in newspaper discussion forums, in YouTube videos,  on Facebook, Pinterest (I didn't know Pinterest could be an engine for hate, I just thought it was for yummy recipes and cute decorating ideas :), network television and talk radio, I am not swayed. I am still able to dig my candidate out from underneath it all. I dust him off and he is still worthy of my vote.

There is one remaining Saturday in the Seven Saturdays series.
If you have disagreed with me, that's okay. Laurel is one of several very dear friends who don't agree with my political stance.
But if you have agreed with much of what has been said here, or any of the other posts, please share them. Send the link in emails, post it to Facebook, pin it on Pinterest.

What can you do in these final days in this election to make a difference?    

A Month Ago Today was a Really Happy Day

So we dressed up really nice

because my sister was marrying

the love of her life.

Lots of special people came to town,
Colin's family from Indiana, Aunt Paula from California, and

Kelli (Arizona), Rakel (Sweden) and Joe (Missouri) to name a few.

and we may have thrown the most successful

Utah Mormon wedding dance party known to...Utah

(oh, you thought you were here to

shake some hands, grab some cheesecake

and run? Get your hands in the air!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sOYvVtB43k

And so ended the summer that I went from

no brothers-in-law to three.

I am so thankful for these people.

You Really Should Go To Tennessee

Generally I try to keep my posts pretty short and to the point so that they stay interesting. But I'm going to have to break with tradition here because Danilo and I returned from a trip to Tennessee a few weeks ago, and I'm going to provide you with plenty of pictures and a day-by-day itinerary. Basically I'm going to do my best to convince you that you should go to Tennessee too.

Why did we go to Tennessee? To visit Lynlee. She hadn't been in Utah long when we met around 7th grade and after we graduated from high school we even had a few college classes together. She returned to the South after she landed a job in Tennessee shortly after graduating with her bachelor's degree. Ever since she has made it a point of letting me know we would be welcome to come stay with her and her husband anytime.

All of us Utah kids got a kick out of Lynlee because as a result of her Texas upbringing, she would say "ya'll" where the rest of us would say "you guys" ("knock it off you guys," vs. "ya'll need to knock it off"). It didn't take me more than a few hours after landing in Knoxville to find out I was definitely now part of the minority.

The night we arrived before going to bed Lee, Lynlee, Danilo and I sat around the kitchen table in their beautiful home and pounded out a plan for the next six days. We did it all and then some. We came home completely exhausted and with no regrets.

Nashville, TN

Here we divided our time between The Grand Ole Opry 

and The Country Music Hall of Fame Museum. 

The Grand Ole Opry began with a radio show that broadcasted country music as early as the 1920s and the Opry House is where they've put on the show for the last several decades. When you have made it big in country music, they invite you to be a member.

For the price of a tour at the Grand Ole Opry, you get to go inside the auditorium at 

the Grand Ole Opry.

But wait... that's not all. For the price of a tour you may also view 

the Artists' Entrance when they come to perform at the Grand Ole Opry

the country artists' backstage rooms

See the man on the bottom left? Willie Nelson. I am not kidding.

 

you get to see where the artists and guests gather after the show

All I'm saying is Alan Jackson may have sat on that couch. That's all.

and for the price of a tour, you even get to go backstage.

But ladies and gentlemen... I am not through yet.

The circle on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry 

is where artists have stood to perform

through several generations of country music.

When the location of the show was changed to the Grand Ole Opry House

in the 1970s, the circle came along. 

My Nashville dreams culminated the moment they let us

STAND ON THE CIRCLE.

There is a gift shop. I have never had so much fun in a gift shop.

I could not have been more satisfied.

About ten minutes away you'll find the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum.

Here is the actual Hall of Fame.

The museum is full of country memorabilia.

Elvis's Cadillac

Taylor Swift's dress

Faith Hill's shoes

Tim McGraw's jacket

all this was worn by Jason Aldean

I was already satisfied with my trip and we had five days left.

We spent the next day in the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains and Gatlinburg, TN.

cabin from the 1820s

Church from the 1800s surrounded by a cemetery... we had to drive about 40 minutes through the Smokies to arrive at these landmarks... it fascinates me to think about these people and why they chose to live so far removed from civilization as they knew it. I may have mentioned Dr. Quinn a time or two during the course of this trip.

 Gatlinburg is an entertaining little town with a Ripley's Believe It Or Not on every street.

Lee joined us Friday night. We grabbed a hotel in Atlanta and spent the next day at 

 The World of Coca-Cola

They told us Coke's secret formula was moved from a bank after 80 years to this vault. I think they were serious.

For the price of a tour, you can try hundreds of different Coke brand sodas from all over the world.

and The Georgia Aquarium

I sang about baby belugas in first grade, but I hadn't ever seen one before

see man's head vs. fish for size comparison

we were told that this manta ray weighs over 6,000 pounds as it swam over us

the way the fish are displayed to view at this aquarium is incredible

a shark whale

Monday we drove for a few hours to Asheville, North Carolina to tour the  

Biltmore Estate. It was built by George Washington Vanderbilt in the 1890s and we were fairly awestruck by it's grandeur.

Pictures were not allowed inside, but there are over 250 bedrooms, a massive dining room, an indoor garden, a bowling alley, swimming pool and kitchen dumb waiter system. 

We spent the last day of our trip in Pigeon Forge, TN touring the Titanic Museum.

The exhibits are presented in really fascinating ways. ways. Not only do they have luggage and personal effects recovered from the wreckage, but, for example, as you turn the corner to move to the next part of the exhibit, you find yourself staring into a glass window where on the other side there is a stairwell with water pouring down the stairs. At one point you enter an area where the air temperature is the same as it was the night of the shipwreck and you are able to dip your hand in a pool of water that is set at the same temperature as the ocean water that night. They have ramps set up in one exhibit at different angles of incline showing you how steep the deck became as the ship sank that night. They have handwritten postcards mailed from people who sent them just before they sailed, and they have the telegram a man sent to his family to let them know he had survived. Having been on a cruise ship, the experience really impacted me. The Titanic, as far as everyone was concerned, was not supposed to sink. But it did, and it still intrigues us 100 years later. 

(If you have some time and want to see some fascinating pictures of the Titanic taken by a passenger before it sank, go here. These pictures didn't surface until after the photographer's death.)

   

If I had to pick my favorite part of the trip, I would be at a loss. I haven't even gotten to the fireflies or fried okra or uplifting church sermons. 

Thanks to our good friends Lee and Lynlee for their friendship and efforts to ensure that we had SUCH a wonderful time in their home and everywhere else. I am excited to be able to say, "I spent some time in the South..." and I hope to go back before too long.