Kansas Weekend

I hope you all have had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! 
I had a very busy one full of lots of driving and great family time.  This weekend, I left Jonathan and Sugar to their own devices, and Mom, Dad, and I headed to Kansas.  We dropped Dad off at my Grandpa's house for the weekend, and then Mom and I drove to Hutchinson for the night, but not before making a very important stop in one of our favorite Kansas towns, Yoder.  Yoder is a Mennonite community that has a restaurant, a furniture store, an amazing hardware store, and several other cute little shops.  They also had a farmer's market going on.  Here is a picture of almost all of the items I purchased during our time in Yoder.

This includes a purse, a 1-gallon crock, a couple of packages of wheat kernel snacks, a quart of homemade bread and butter pickles, a quart of homemade sweet garlic dill pickles, and a jar Sandhill Plum jelly.  Not included in the picture, is a cinammon roll as big as a dinner plate (no exaggeration)  from the Carriage Crossing Restaurant.  It was yummy!

 The next morning, we drove about an hour and a half to Wilson, Kansas for the Steinle Family Reunion.  On our way, we passed the Smokey Hills Wind Farm.  After miles and miles of flat land filled with wheat, it is amazing to see rolling hills filled with enormous wind turbines with blades slowly turning that close to the interstate. It was a beautiful site! 

The reunion was wonderful time filled with lots of love and laughter (and lots of yummy food).  Mom has two remaining aunts on her Dad's side, and it was wonderful to see them and all of the many cousins and second cousins that she hasn't seen in many, many years (the last reunion we attended was in 1983), and meeting many others for the first time.  We had a great time, and can't wait to do it again!  Here are some pictures from the reunion.

Mom and I

Mom with her Aunts Helen (L) and Violet (R)

Steinle 1st Cousins

Steinle 2nd Cousins (minus a few who had already left)  I am the pink arm - my head is hiding.

That night, we stayed in Salina, and on Sunday,  we started our trip home.  When we got to Edmond, Oklahoma, we made a short detour on Route 66 to stop at one of mine and Jonathan's favorite places, Pops, and picked up two 6-packs of various assorted pictures.  I have never seen Pop's so busy in my life!  Granted, we are normally there when it is 15 degrees outside, so that may have something to do with it.  After that, we headed the rest of the way to Mom and Dad's house, and then I came the rest of the way on Monday.  I am so glad to be home.  I think I drove some 1400 miles total this weekend, and I am tired!

On another note, with this being Memorial Day, I wanted to take a moment to remember two very special people who are no longer with us:  My wonderful Poppop, Ben, and my beautiful Grandma, Thelma.  I love and miss you both!!

Poppop

Grandma and Grandpa with my Dad as a baby

My New Addiction

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and I am an addict.

I have many addictions in my life:
  Skittles and Starburst
  Chuy's Creamy Jalapeno
  LUSH Bath Bombs
  EOS Lip Balms

But I have a new addiction that may be stronger than all of my others combined:  Pinterist.  I first learned of Pinterist from the blog from a high school friend on her blog, Hollywood Housewife.  Then I saw a post about it on another friend's blog, SortaCrunchy.  I started checking it out, and realized this is such a great idea.  According to their About page, Pinterist is a place where you can create collections of things you love and "follow" collections created by people with great taste.  People use Pinterest to collect and share all sorts of things -- wedding inspiration, favorite T-shirts, DJ equipment. You name it, people are pinning it.  You can follow friends on Pinterist and see their collections, and create your own collections.


I am having so much fun with it!  You can click here to follow me.  If you are interested in learning more about Pinterist, Megan at SortaCrunchy has created Pinterist:  A Beginner's Guide.

If anyone wants an invite to join Pinterist, let me know in the comments below.

Movie Night and some Random Blog Thoughts

Tonight, I didn't have worship practice, so Jonathan and I decided to head to our favorite movie theater to see Bridesmaids with Kristen Wiig and Mya Rudolph. It was hilarious!! There were some moments that were quite inappropriate (not to mention gross!), so this is definitely not a family-friendly movie (it is rated R). The theater was packed, and everyone laughed the entire way through. We ate way too much food. It was a nice break from such a busy week.


I've been thinking a lot about what I plan to post on the blog. I've got lots of interests going on right now, including (but not limited to) Health/Beauty, Home Organization and Cleaning, Cooking, as well as Travel and Books. So be forewarned, my posts may be random for awhile until I get into a groove. If you have any thoughts for what you would like to see for my blog, please feel free to comment.

I hope all of you are having a great week. It's been a little slow at work, which has been nice for getting caught up on some of the "busy work" that can sometimes fall by the wayside when things are crazy.

Introducing.......

Welcome to Joyfully Loud!

I decided to start this blog as an outlet for all of the crazy thoughts running through my head. Those of you who know me well know that I have many random thoughts and ideas going on at any one time in my head, and I thought this would be a good place to channel them.

I chose the name Joyfully Loud because of one of my favorite verses, Psalms 98:4. The King James Version says, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise." I sing all of the time: In the car, in the shower, with my church's worship team... Most of the time, it's a safe bet that I have some random song running through my head. Sometimes it sounds good, and sometimes it's just noise. But all of the time, it tends to be loud.

So this is my blog. If you decide to stick with me, I hope you enjoy it. If not, it's okay, I TOTALLY understand!! :o)