New Blog!

Hello everyone,

Long time no see!

I have good news though... I have decided to jump back in to blogging-but with a new twist.
My amazing soldier and I recently got engaged and have decided to blog through our entire wedding planning process.

If you would like to still follow me and read about our most recent adventures please visit us at:

http://hakdesignswedding.blogspot.com/

Happy Thursday everyone!

Going Private

Hello All!!

I know it has been a very long time since I have posted. I've had a lot to post about but am having trouble deciding what to post on a public forum.

So, I've decided to make my blog private.

If you're thinking that you would like to still read about my life and we've built some sort of a bloggy friend relationship I'd love to still have you follow my blog!

Let me know in the comments of this post and I'll add you to my list of approved readers. I'm planning to change it to private by next week!

Hope you are all having a fantastic weekend :)

All Over Again

Here we are, less than a week from Brother's date to leave for basic training and it feels like doing everything all over again. He has a (newer) girlfriend who is finishing up her last year of high school, kind of like I was when my soldier left for basic training. My Mom is getting stressed out just like my soldier's Mom did, and my Mom did when my soldier left. Brother's been saying goodbyes to his friends for a week or so now as they are home for spring break. Thankfully we have been through it before, we know he is going off to do great things, and we know we'll all be okay, it will just be different.

His girlfriend sent me a text message the other day asking if we could get coffee after he leaves to talk about what to expect and how to deal with everything since I had been through it before. I of course said yes, and am pretty excited to be able to help someone else navigate military world from this perspective!

And a little fun bit, here is a picture from last week on St. Patrick's Day:


The five of us were very close in high school and don't see nearly as much of one another as we would like, so a night with all of us in one place at one time to celebrate and drink some green beer was great!

My spring break is this week so I've just been working a lot, spending some time with friends, running, and counting down the days until I visit my soldier (less than a month from now!). I haven't slowed down any, but it sure is nice to not think about school for a few days.

Happy Spring (it's officially here!)

Do you have any exciting Spring Break season plans?

And We Caved

My soldier has been at his new Army "home" for only a few weeks and already we have caved and bought me a plane ticket to go visit him. Almost every conversation we have had since he arrived there has included some form of "I wish you were here with me". Oh what I would give to be there instead of here.

You wouldn't guess that we have gone up to 8 months without seeing one another during deployment, but here we are three weeks away from one another and I have a seat on a plane in about a month to visit for a few days on a break from school.

And I am SO excited!

It's not just that we still have multiple feet of snow on the ground here in the Midwest and there is no snow there, but that we will get a few days to just ourselves for the first time since Arizona last year. Don't get me wrong, we have time by ourselves at home every now and again, but the nature of still living with/near family and being around family and friends all the time is that we hardly get just "us time". We love all of these people, but just needing to worry about the two of us is kind of nice sometimes.

Between now and then I have two nasty midterm exams on Thursday (who gives a midterm on St.Patrick's Day?!) and then spring break! Also between now and the West Coast trip my not-so little-anymore brother leaves for Air Force basic training. He can't wait, and my Mom is starting to panic a little. Needless to say, I should have plenty to post about in the next month!

Happy Wednesday to you all!

I Love Them, and We Were Jazz Dancers!

I have amazing friends. I know everyone feels that way, but I have been feeling especially blessed by my relationships with my friends lately.

I have a group of girls that I have been friends with for a long time. Two of the girls I went to elementary school with, and the third and I became very close early on in high school.

I also have been blessed to have stayed in touch with a number of people from my youth group growing up, from school, and from work that I still see on a regular basis and completely appreciate time with.

The group of us have had all kinds of crazy adventures from river floating to nights out. We've also had some less fun times where we have supported one another through family deaths and illness and when they became an important part of my deployment support system.

I love these girls and would love to share some photos with you of our creative and glamorous Halloween of last year (since I failed to blog for a VERY long time last year...oops).

After changing our minds about 12 times we decided to be Jazz Dancers when friend KK found the awesome suspenders:

We had glitter and sequin on everything.
Our tights, our suspenders, our gloves, our hats, and our bow ties.

We were basically a walking parade through the bar.
No one knew what we were without asking, but they all liked whatever we were very much!

(My sister completed our group that night)

We even had glitter in and on our eyelashes. I had glitter in my car for weeks after that night, and may even still have some specks of it here and there. It was a very fun night and gave us lots more memories and pictures to look back on.

So here is to you ladies, for making every time we're together priceless. Love you!

Etsy Launch!

My sister and I have been working on launching our Etsy site and business for the last couple of months. We have both been creating things for years and using them personally to give as gifts to friends or family and usually upon the giving of the card/gift/etc. have been told, "You should sell these!" So now we are! We had our first sale and are officially Hak Designs.

If you have a minute or two over the weekend you should check out what we have in stock : )

The link for our website is here: http://www.hakdesigns.etsy.com

And here is a small sample of some of what we love to create:



Have a great weekend!

Snowmageddon 2.0

Last week in the Midwest it was really, really nice. We're talking 40-50 degrees, sun, snow melting, people wearing t-shirts and flip-flops (yes, we're that crazy) nice.

Then it all came crashing down yesterday when we got snowmageddon 2.0. I think so far we have 13 or so inches and it is predicted to snow into tomorrow morning. It's not as bad as snowmageddon 1.o with the 18 inches we got in one snow that happened in November, but a lot of snow none the less.

The plows didn't even start plowing until about eight hours into the snow. Which equals some serious driving adventures. My school, along with most schools in the state are closed for the day. Yay snow day! So I'll spend the day writing a paper, clearing off my car and the driveway, and working. Snow days were so much more cool when we were 8.

Anyway... one of my best girlfriends is in Texas for the week on a semi-impromptu vacation so I shot this video message to send her as a warning of what she gets to come home to. She sent back, "Ahhhhhhhh!" Haha, Enjoy!

Happy Monday to you all! If you live in the Midwest, happy shoveling. If you don't, be happy you won't be shoveling all day : )