a weekend in texas

I was lucky enough to discover that my work had given me 4 days off in a row without realizing it (Saturday, Sunday, Monday was a holiday, Tuesday). In a week's notice I quickly found $89 airfare and hopped on a plane to visit my fam! Oh we were so happy! Of course we wished James could have gone too, but medical school would never allow it. LOVED hanging out with my family...wished I could have stayed longer but am thankful for this blessing that Heavenly Father blessed me with. 

Saturday we had a girls day out! We went shopping at the Stonebriar mall and Piper bought a cute skirt. We  went out for lunch at Panera and went to Half Price Books. We made & ate homemade Ben & Jerry's ice cream and they introduced me to season 1 of Drop Dead Diva! 

Sunday we went to church and then had dinner at Nana & Grandpa's house. We had Nana's lasagna & Grandpa's chocolate chip cookies. We did some genealogy and watched the hilarious youtube video of cats playing patty cake! 

Chandler and I went out for lunch to Chipotle and had a brother-sister date!

 

 This boy makes me laugh.

 Can you tell we are related?

 I fell in love with the family dog, Paxton. He is the sweetest dog in the world. I am not an animal person, but I will forever love this sweetie. I am glad he is part of the Fakkel family.

 We took a quick family picture in front of their new house

 Missing Pete & James!

 We also went out for dinner at Chili's! 

(Dad took the picture so he's not in it)

Love my pretty sister Pi! 

I loved hanging with her and singing and dancing to crazy songs on the radio in the car! 

I had a blast with my fam in Texas. I hope we can play again soon!

Love, Chels

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Haircut

I love long hair. I love my long hair. What I don't like is unhealthy hair. I always feel like when I get a haircut, my long hair I've let grow for 9+ months gets chopped off. But I understand it's necessary to maintain healthy hair, and a trim is always the best way to keep those split ends gone! I realize that I should get my hair cut more regularly, but I can never find the time! Well, after 9 months, I finally got my hair cut and most importantly, I got new bangs!
I fell in love with these bangs when I found this picture on Pinterest.

This is a drastic change from my usual side swept bang. But hey, hair always grows back.

Picture overload of self-picture-taking.

Here I am my last hair cut which was on April 25, 2012!

Here is my long hair in December 2012

Here is the back of my hair this morning before the cut. I measured 21 inches roughly. Oh and my side swept bangs grew out to 11 inches. That's practically half the length of my longest piece of hair! I looked in the mirror and thought, should I just grow out my bangs completely? Then I thought of that Pinterest picture and vowed I was going to get those bangs TODAY.

New Bangs & Healthy Hair!

The rest of these pictures just show that I can still style my bangs different ways.

Yay for haircuts! 

Thanks so much to Melanie, the awesome lady in my ward who cut my hair. She always does such a fantastic job! 

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Happy New Year!

I can't believe it is 2013 already! 2012 has flown by and we can wait to see what 2013 has in store for us! 

On New Year's Eve we ate cold-cut sandwiches (deli turkey & cheese on rolls) with chips & dip (Ruffles & Lipton Onion dip). We watched a few episodes of The Office because that is the tv series we are currently watching. My family typically watches some sort of comedy movie/show on New Years Eve (years past have been The Three Stooges & What's Up Doc), so we thought The Office fit into that category. We stayed up until midnight even though we were both tired doing so! 

On New Year's Day we made our New Years Resolutions, took down the Christmas decorations, did a little shopping, then went to fulfill one of my dreaded family New Years traditions--going out for Chinese food. Every year this happens I NEVER feel like eating Chinese because I haven't had the greatest experiences with that in the past. James really wanted to carry on this tradition, so we went to the Elephant Bar Restaurant again because they have Chinese food as well as American food there! I was happy. James had Chinese food and I had a burger with macaroni & cheese (can't get much more American than that)! After dinner we went to see the movie Lincoln. It was a really well done movie. We both enjoyed it, however James is much more interested in history than I am so I am betting he enjoyed it more than I did. I am just thankful we live in this country & feel blessed & grateful to all those who have fought for the freedoms that we enjoy. Abraham Lincoln was a wonderful president. Thanks Abe! 

Here are our pictures of the first day of 2013:

Here we are with Chinese & American food! James is wearing a new shirt I gave him for Christmas. Doesn't he look great in it? :) 

lover of Chinese food

 my bacon cheesburger & macaroni & cheese were delish!

an excellent movie

A collage of our day. We are so thrilled to have a whole new year ahead of us. I am excited to fulfill our new years resolutions! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

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