Bon Voyage, Wilkins Siblings

Last night, we had to say goodbye to Jake and Becca (Levi's brother and his wife) since they're headed overseas next week for six months or longer. While we're very excited that they get to have such an awesome adventure, we're very sad they're moving and will miss them a lot. The four of us have gotten really close over the last few years, and we consider J & B some of our best friends.

In honor of their upcoming travels, I'd like to share pictures of some of the adventures we've shared with them over the years (these don't even begin to cover all the places we've traveled together and all the fun we've had). 

Thankfully, we'll be able to talk to Jake and Becca via Skype and Facebook, plus read the blog they'll keep while they're away. They plan to be in Vienna around Christmastime, and Levi and I hope to go see them then. Vienna is a special city to all of us, since it's where Levi studied abroad and where we got engaged (during a trip with Jake and Becca), so it will be great to return. With hopes of traveling to see the "other" Wilkins soon, we'll say "see you later" instead of "goodbye". 

J+B: May your adventures be all that you hope for and more! We love you guys!

Annual Choctaw Oktoberfest

Last year, we started the tradition of going to the first Oktoberfest of the season in Choctaw with our friends Ann and Trent. Conveniently, there's always a half-price Groupon for it, and it's a lot of fun. We went last night, which was the first night of this year's event (it goes through next weekend). They've added more entertainment and food options, so it was even better than we remembered. We're already looking forward to next year!

Molly's First Therapy Visit

On Tuesday, Molly had her first official therapy dog visit.

Doesn't she look excited? Haha, she had no idea where we were going!

We went to the Oklahoma Baptist Children's Home and got to play with several kids of all ages there. It was very laid-back, and Molly loved being pet to her heart's content. We're already looking forward to our next visit this coming Tuesday to Norman Regional Hospital's breast cancer support group.

Weekend Project: Dyed Jeans

It's been another busy August for me traveling around Oklahoma for work, but instead of boring you with the same post as last year I'm going to show you my most recent project: dyed jeans. I've been wanting a pair of red skinny jeans but I really didn't want to pay for them. Then, I saw this great tutorial on Pinterest. $5 of bleach and dye later (plus an old pair of skinny jeans and 48 hours), I have red skinny jeans!

Here are my before, during and after photos. As you can tell, my jeans didn't bleach as well or as evenly as in the tutorial (I probably didn't use enough bleach), but I was getting impatient (and I didn't want to have to buy more bleach) so I went ahead and dyed them anyway. I love how they turned out!

Weekend Project: Kitchen Stool Redo

Today I tackled another overdue DIY project: recovering the seat of a flea market kitchen stool I bought back in March for $15. The seat was covered in a cracked green vinyl from the 1940s. Its need for recovering was two-fold - the crack and the fact that our kitchen walls are the same green color. 

I wanted to find a yellow chevron fabric to tie in to the yellow in the fabric shades I recently made, but JoAnn didn't have any so I settled for a small yellow patterned fabric. I then used clear vinyl from our generous neighbors to finish off the seat since it lives by the stove and occasionally gets splashed during my cooking frenzies. I think it turned out cute!

Molly the Therapy Dog

I'm so proud of my furry-faced hound! We've been going to therapy dog classes together since June 12, and she passed her certification test today. Several months ago, my neighbors suggested we put Molly through therapy dog classes because of her easy disposition, and it turned out to be a great fit.

For those of you who don't know, there's a difference between therapy and service dogs. Service dogs are those who live with and serve one person with special needs and therapy dogs live with their normal owners and visit places like hospitals, nursing homes, schools, etc. to bring joy to the people there.

At a nursing home, Molly might just work the room and let people pet her. At a hospital, she may walk down the hall alongside someone who needs to get out of bed but needs an incentive. At rehab places, she may have people brush her or throw a ball for her. At schools, children might practice reading to her because dogs don't judge those who can't read well. There are seemingly endless ways Molly can help others, and I'm excited to be a part of that with her!

Catching My Breath

The last two weeks have been super busy leading up to a big two-day work event I planned for July 10-11 and then a work trip to Austin last weekend. Since I don't have anything particularly exciting to share, here's a short video showcasing the fun we had at our leadership conference (one of the biggest events I plan all year) so you can at least see what I've been up to: