Sometimes I wonder what it's like working in the kitchen at a restaurant, being a flight attendant, or even the local cop in town... 🤔

Maybe I need to read more books and expand my horizons some more... but why not just stick your foot in the door and try it for yourself? 

Last night, I got off work and headed over to Edna, Kansas to a little restaurant my cousin works at called "Dalton's Stakeout". This was their first night on their new summer hours of being open until 9pm on Fridays, and most of them (including my cousin Mecia) had been there since 6 that morning.

I really enjoyed getting to work alongside Mecia doing odds and ends, watching the orders come in, and trying to process in my mind what you do first when you get an order. ;) 

Dalton, the owner, is a single lady in her thirties, and for the little time I was around her, I gathered that she was just super relaxed about everything. I was little notes on the fridge about a little inside joke they have with calling everything just "weird" ;) She seems like a super cool lady to work for :)

By 8:30, things were slowing down, and one of the girls made an Italian Cream Soda for us... that was delicious!

Then Dalton's family and everyone who came to help for the day sat around to relax... finally.

Mecia and I went to town the next morning and picked up some of Braums new flavors of ice cream for company they were having later...

Walking around in Braums had me craving allllll sorts of random stuff, but I finally settled on a pre-mixed Asian salad. It was so good 😍

Me-cia-ching! I loved spending the day with her :)

We had smoked cream cheese, and four flavors of ice cream to try...  😊

Then we all zoomed off to a celebration for my great Aunt and Uncle's 50th wedding Anniversary.

And now I get to do laundry :D 

Yay! 

Have a wonderful weekend! 

-MarLeahJoy

It's already mowing and weed eating season!!! :D

And I just love the look of a fresh cut lawn. :)

As I pulled up to the house on lunch today I looked across the lawn up to the new picketing Tyrel and Daddy just put on the deck... and it was all looking so nice  ☺️

Tyrel was here last week and brought the cutest little teddy bear of a puppy with him. It's supposed to be "ours" now... but of course it had to go back home with Tyrel, so I've been missing the little snuggly cuddles. 

Most of the week was filled with work, meal time and family time... But we had some wonderful times going out to town and sitting around the campfire on a warmer night ☺️

-MarLeahJoy

Mmmm! It felt so good to have a weekend free of events and free of a trip to town! 😄
At our house, ever since we were little, we would turn on the Christian radio drama stories from 8-10 on Saturday mornings and do our weekly house work. ☺️
I haven't listened to those good old stories like "Ranger Bill" in several years, but I turned them on this morning and did some housework. ☺️

Then I began filing away 500 of my "free prints" from Shutterfly from all of last year's trips and times with friends and family. 😁

I also snuck outside to the garage for a bit to sand on this old door that's been in the works since the fall 😜 I feel like my sinuses are packed full of sawdust now, though 😷

But then my favorite part of the day... I sat down in the evening and did a little wood burning for some decorations for our wedding... 😊😉

-MarLeahJoy

This last month was a bit of a wonderful whirl-wind. 

I was already up in West Virginia the last part of January for my nephew’s first birthday. (But yeah, I was enjoying being with Tyrel maybe a little bit too ;)) On February 1st I got asked a question. A question I already knew the answer to, but I didn’t realize how my world would change when I got to officially say “Yes”. ;) Tyrel and I are engaged to get married in the backyard at my parent’s house… Lord Willing on September 16th. Consider this your “save the date announcement”, and we would love to have everyone join us in our celebration! 

I had to leave to go home the next day after our engagement, but I got to see Tyrel again that very next weekend when he came out to Oklahoma for a mutual friend’s wedding. :) 

Back at work the next week, I was finally able to announce our engagement to my co-workers… and we tried to not cry. Man, I’m really going to miss them! 

That following weekend, I took pictures of one of my co-worker’s boy before he got his first haircut and lost all his pretty little curls. ;)

I’ve done lots of wedding planning and shopping already. That’s one thing that I always fretted about because I had absolutely NO ideas of what I wanted for a wedding. But as soon as I said “yes” ;P it’s just like it opened up my imagination. Haha! So I’ve had a lot of fun creating things and finding bargains.

I have another video to share from this last trip up to West Virginia. I’ve watched the video like 12 times already, not gonna lie. 😏 And not to braagggg or anything, but Tyrel is just so fun to watch on the snowboard. 😄😎

Tyrel picked me up from the train station in White Sulfur Springs :)

:D After being on Amtrak for 28 hours traveling alone, I was happy to have this nice seat next to this man! 😉

We took the scenic highway home, and it's never plowed... :D So I wanted to get out and take some pictures.

And then we had some fun trying to jump for a picture :P

He's my favorite!! So naturally this is my favorite picture. People have "complained" that my videos and pictures and all are too much of Tyrel and not enough of me with him. Hehe, I just can't help that my camera always seems to get me pictures of him! ;) They sure make me happy anyway!

Then we slid around in the slick tracks (where he had been sliding his truck 😉😉) And fell, a lot! And got really snowy. And made snow angels. 😇

A little fun in the woods :) ;)

Where we got engaged :)

Brent turned 1!! He's already walking all around and very vocal in his babyish-jabber! ;D

Tyrel's hat was about the only thing making Brent smile ;D

I met my co-worker one Saturday afternoon to try to get some shots of "Stinky"... let me tell you, he is quite the stinker and had us chasing him all over the park.

Such a cutie!

Daddy and I worked on chopping up some limbs so I can do a little wood-burning on them for a project for the wedding. ;)

And notice, he's wearing a harness still... he just got down off of the scaffolding from scraping and painting the house (which is a major project to get done before the wedding! whew!)

And... that's my catch-up for the month or so! Hehe ;)

-MarLeahJoy