Random|| Picture Update.

Posted on December 23, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Merry Christmas Eve Eve! 😀

Since it’s almost Christmas, I thought it would be fun to share all of my Christmassy pictures that I’ve taken over the last couple of months. Some you may have seen on Instagram (if you follow me) and some I haven’t posted yet. It’s going to be really picture heavy, just a heads up.

The first sets of pictures are from around our city (Lakeland). The Christmas tree pictures are from the big Christmas tree that they have up at Lake Mirror. I was sad I didn’t get a chance to see it at night (except from far away), but it’s still pretty in the daylight too.

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Story behind these last two pictures. The hubby and I were walking away from the big Christmas tree and as we were walking away, Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus were walking by us! It was so random, but so cool. They were having a little photo shoot by the Christmas tree, haha. The second picture is a Christmas tree made from kegs from Swan Brewing. It’s a brewery we like to go to. My family was visiting one weekend and I took them there.

These next set of pictures are ones that I took at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. They were all decked out in Christmas decor. I would have loved to see it all lit up at night, but we never got the chance to.

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This last picture is from watching the retelling of The Grinch (Grinchmas) at Islands of Adventure. It was probably about thirty minutes, but it was really fun to see it acted out live.

These next set of pictures are from when my family and I went to this little Christmas event in Celebration, Florida. There was live music, SNOW (aka soap, LOL), and lots of fun Christmas things and decor to look at.

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Celebration, Florida was a cute little town and I wish we would have walked around the neighborhoods at night, because so many houses were decorated with so many decorations and lights. It would have been so cool to see. And most of the houses were HUGE (like the one I shared). Always next year! 😛

The hubby and I are spending Christmas with his family this year, so we will be leaving tonight to drive over there. We are both really looking forward to it. I will catch up with you guys after Christmas and I have a bunch of end of the year posts lined up, so be on the look out for them!

In case you missed it;
Book Tag|| Christmas Book Blogger.
Friday Finds #84.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

ashleychristmas

Dr. Von D Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park.

Posted on January 14, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

travel

Hey!

Andy and I decided to find another park in our area that we haven’t been to and check it out. We used to do this a lot, but haven’t in awhile. We want to go to as many places as we can in this area before we move, so we decided to start checking out parks again. Dr. Von D Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park (damn that name is a mouth full, LOL) is pretty much just a few minutes down the street from us and I can’t believe we haven’t known about this place, because it was so nice; especially the the beach area! Part of the park is ocean and the other part is woodsy.

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These are all the pictures that I took in the beach/ocean part of the park. It was really pretty there and I was obsessed with the view, especially the very first picture that I shared. I think this is more of the fishing area, because a lot of people had fishing poles and they were fishing off the rocks as you can see in the first set of pictures. The last four pictures is more of a sandy area where a lot of people were swimming and laying out. It’s a lot more secluded in this area of the beach than the typical touristy part, which is pretty neat. Nice to keep in mind if I want to ever go to the beach. Even the bathrooms looked nicer than the typical busy touristy beach.

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These are the few pictures that I took in the woodsy area of the park. I didn’t take too many, because I was freaking out because of all the mosquitoes LOL! We made it through though and this was the view when we came out of the woodsy area. IT’S SO PRETTY! Heart eyes for days! We ended up on a bridge and when you cross over the bridge then you’re at the beach (the more sandy part)!

Below are just some random pictures that I took over the last week. I haven’t taken very many, so I figured I would include them in this post as well.

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It wouldn’t be a proper post if I didn’t include pictures of the sky. You all probably know by now that I am obsessed with the sky, so I take a lot of pictures of it. These are my first 2019 pictures of the sky LOL with probably a million more to come. 😛

It also wouldn’t be typical Ashley post without pictures of my furbabies. So the left picture of my kitties, this is the first time I almost got the perfect picture of them all three together. BUT of course the littlest one (Leaf – white calico at the top) ruined it. She was in the middle of smacking October (black calico), so I called her name and she looked up but October was still like “WTF” at Leaf and didn’t look up when I called. You can see little Leaf’s paw being held up slightly, lol. UGHHH. I just want one good picture of them all looking at the camera at the same time, is that too much to ask for? 😛 And then my pup Dax on the right.

That’s all for this post. I can’t wait to figure out which park we want to check out next. I have a few bookmarked and there’s a couple museums that I want to go to as well. So we’ll see what happens!

In case you missed it;
4 Star Reads of 2018.
5 Star Reads of 2018.
Thoughts|| The Wicked King.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Christmas 2018.

Posted on December 27, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

pictureupdate

Hey!

For Christmas this year were were able to go visit Andy’s parents. It had been a very long time since we’ve been able to have a Christmas with them. They live about 2-2.5 hours away from us. We left on Saturday morning and stayed until the afternoon of Christmas Day. We both had to work the next day, so we had to come home on Christmas.

On Saturday we went downtown to look at some Christmas decorations. Above are a couple of pictures that I took on the way to downtown. You have to drive over a bridge and the sun was starting to set, which was nice.

There are two houses downtown that put up a ton of Christmas decorations. Top two pictures are of one of the houses. For $5 you can go inside and see them all. I didn’t take a ton of pictures inside, because there was so just so much to see and I was pretty much living for everything. I did get a few though.

There were Christmas trees in every single room, it was pretty crazy and totally awesome! These above are some of the Christmas tree pictures that I was able to take and a few of my favorites.

These above are just some other random pictures that I took inside and out side of the houses. After we looked at the Christmas decorations, we went to get some food at 3 Pepper. It’s a Mexican restaurant. It was pretty good. No pictures though. I was starving and dived into my food right away.

After seeing the Christmas decorations and eating, we went back to the house and watched TV for awhile. I think I went to sleep pretty early every night we were there. I had a list of Christmas movies that I like to watch every Christmas, so we worked our way through my list of Christmas movies all weekend/Christmas. On Christmas Eve we had dinner and then Christmas Day we opened presents, had breakfast, and then ate Christmas “dinner” for lunch since we had to leave shortly after that. It was so a lot of fun and I’m glad we were able to spend Christmas with Andy’s family. Dax had a lot of fun being able to hangout with their pup Digby too.

Below are just a bunch of miscellaneous pictures that I took throughout the time we were there.

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We (Andy, his mom, and I) took the dogs on a walk around the neighborhood and the park that’s down the street from their house. These are all the pictures that I took on that walk. It was a really nice day out.

I seen a squirrel in the tree in Andy’s parents backyard and got pretty excited about that, because it was the perfect opportunity to try out my new zoom lens that Andy got me for Christmas. The squirrel was pretty vocal and basically screaming at my dog. HAHA. I think the pictures came out pretty great.

Andy’s parents have an orange tree in their back yard, which is always cool. We were able to pick some oranges to bring home with us. I had fun taking pictures of the tree. Left the orange picking to Andy, haha.

First picture is of Andy and I after we ate dinner of Christmas Eve. Second picture is just a random selfie of myself.

These last set of pictures are from a couple of weekends ago when we went to Lakeland to visit my friend. I figured I would include them as well.

Random view from her guest bedroom window on that Sunday morning. I’m a sucker for a pretty view, haha.

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We seen a house that had SO MANY Christmas lights and decorations, so I had to snap a picture. We also drove down another street and every single house on the street went ALL OUT with their decorations. I didn’t get any pictures, but I wish I had.

And these are just a couple pictures of her cat Bruce. He’s so cute, but he’s still unsure about me. HAHA. Once we are living in Lakeland, I am determined to make him love me. 😛 Although we did make some progress after I gave him some treats. Treats = friend?

Anyway, that’s my picture update for today. I had a great Christmas and we got so many wonderful presents (including an Instant Pot and an iPad Mini) from both our families. I ate a TON of food and candy, which was good and bad (because I totally over did it) haha. How was your holiday or weekend? I have five other blog posts that I am working on that will slowly be making there way onto the blog. Wrap up and book haul coming soon. I’ll have a 2019 reading goals post and a reading challenge I am hoping to tackle in 2019 coming as well. I still need to work on my end of the year book survey too. Be on the look out for a bunch of posts soon. 😀

In case you missed it;
TBB Asks: Holiday Edition.
Random|| Picture Update.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleychristmas

Random|| Picture Update.

Posted on December 11, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

pictureupdate

Hey!

I haven’t done one of these updates in quite awhile, so I have a TON of pictures to share with you guys. It’s almost 50 pictures, so be prepared. 😛 I’m just going to jump right into it!

My sister (Stephanie), Andy, and I went to this Renaissance festival called Camelot Days that we have here two weekends in November. It was an okay time. I felt like other years were a lot better than this year was. I didn’t take a ton of pictures while I was there, but these above are the ones that I did take.

My mom making homemade noodles for Thanksgiving! 😀 She made SO MUCH food! Thanksgiving was really great. Lots of food and some family friends came to our Thanksgiving too.

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My younger sister Stephanie and I made Christmas cookies for Thanksgiving too. We started off really good with them, but then we were just over it from spending so long making them that you can tell with the cookies when it started to go downhill for us HAH. They all tasted good though. 😛

A bunch of us sitting on my mom’s sofa waiting for all the food to be done. We were watching the dog show that they have on every Thanksgiving. We were also switching between that and the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. Right picture is DINNER! That was only one of my plates. There was so much food and I couldn’t fit everything on one plate, haha.

Speaking of Christmas, I got some pretty awesome wrapping paper from Target this year. SHARKS! SKULLS! YETIS! FLAMINGOS! SANTA BEARDS! 😛 I also go Home Alone 2 (my favorite one) for only $9 at Target on Black Friday. I can’t wait to watch that this week.

I’m not having a full size Christmas tree this year, but this is my mini Christmas tree that I have on my dining table. The cats already messed it up though, lol. But it was good for about a couple days.

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Stockings hung! I moved my desk to the living room, so it was right under this wall, so it was kind of hard to reach over my computer to get to the wall (LOL), so they all kind of went crooked and downhill. My sister is moving back here and going to be living with us, so I didn’t want to forget her and got her stocking up too. She’s the top. My stocking is Santa, Andy’s is the reindeer, and then of course the other stockings are for our furbabies (three cats & a dog).

Speaking of cats, here they are! Leaf (left picture), October (top right), ColbyJack (bottom right).

I can’t forget my boy, Dax! We took him to the groomer a couple weeks ago to get his haircut. His hair was getting out of control.

A couple weeks ago my sister Stephanie, my nephew, and I went to the park to go Pokemon hunting. I took my camera with and got a few pictures. Middle two are pictures of my nephew. The bottom left is a picture of my sister.

A couple different sunset pictures from the nights I went to the gym. You guys already know how obsessed I am with taking pictures of the sky. It’s the first thing I do whenever I step outside. See if the sky is picture worthy, it usually always is. 😛

Some random pictures I took at the park over the weekend. It was Andy’s work holiday party (HOLY ANXIETY) and I went with him. It was kind of awkward, because well..I’m socially awkward and I don’t do good with small talk or social gatherings, lol. It was okay though. It wasn’t a horrible time and the food was good. There was also a ton of cookies and I love cookies. First picture is when we first got there. That’s Andy walking in the first picture. Second picture is when we were leaving the party and the sun was starting to set.

Some random pictures. Left one is of little Leaf laying on me. She was totally hugging me and it was the cutest. Right picture is just a random picture I took because I really loved my cacti shirt, lol.

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Another random sky picture that I am obsessed with.

So Andy and I kind of sucked with Christmas this year by deciding to give each other our big presents (the expensive ones) that we got each other, lol. He got me a new zoom lens for my Nikon D3400, which I was so stoked about. Check out the size difference! The zoom lens is on my camera and the lens that is next to it is the original lens that it comes with.

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I’m so used to my original lens being able to auto-focus, but this zoom lens that I got doesn’t auto-focus, so it’s going to take me some time to get used to focusing the shots myself. It’ll be fun though. I haven’t had the chance to use it very much yet, but I did take this picture that I thought came out really nice.

We all decorated the tree outside of the house a few nights ago. Totally looks a mess, haha. 😛 Very Charlie Brown-ish. It’s still cute in it’s own way. First picture is the three. Top right is one of the ornaments on the tree, and the bottom right is just an out of focus picture of the lights (bokeh). I like taking out of focus pictures of Christmas lights.

That’s all the pictures that I have. Feel free to follow me on Instagram (heyyitsashley) if you want to. Some of these have been posted there already in the last month or two. Others haven’t made it there yet. The next couple of weeks I’ll be pretty busy, so not sure how active I will be on here. Seems to always happen around the holidays though.

In case you missed it;
December TBR.
Wrap Up|| November.
Book Haul|| November.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleychristmas

Travel|| Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse & Museum.

Posted on October 24, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

travel

Hey!

Andy and I decided to go check out the lighthouse in Jupiter on Saturday, which was a really fun time. Continue reading to see some of the pictures that I took while we were there.

I didn’t really get any pictures of the museum/inside the museum. I wasn’t sure if you were allowed to take pictures in there or not, so I decided not to. The museum was actually a World War II naval housing building that they turned into a museum. It had different things in the museum from World War II and information about the area. It was really neat and interesting.

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This is the Tindall Pioneer house. It was built in 1892! Again, I didn’t take pictures inside the house because I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to or not. It was really neat inside though. They recreated the rooms.

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This was the outhouse next to the Tindall House. I really liked the moon carved into the door, which is why I took a picture. LOL. We also came across this bell while we continued on the path to the lighthouse. I wish I would have gotten more pictures of things along the way to the lighthouse, but I was more enjoying everything I was seeing than taking pictures. Once the lighthouse came into view though, that was an entirely different story. HAHA. I couldn’t help but take so many pictures of it.

Above is a sign in front of the lighthouse with a little information about it. I thought it was really neat.

And here’s part of the lighthouse! I’ll have a few other pictures of the lighthouse below, but this is a small glimpse of it as we are walking up.

and almost died. 😛 They weren’t lying when they said the climb was strenuous. My legs were killing me the next day and still are. I am glad that I did though, because the views were pretty amazing around the lighthouse.

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Here are some more pictures of the lighthouse! I read online that it wasn’t originally painted red. It was seriously so beautiful though and pretty tall. It was 34 stairs to the base of the lighthouse and then 105 stairs to climb inside of the lighthouse.

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These last two are hands down my favorite pictures that I took. I wanted a picture of the plants, but also with the lighthouse in the background. I think they came out pretty perfect.

Here’s a picture of Andy with the lighthouse in the background. The red brick path was neat too. I wish I took a picture of it. You can donate to them/buy a brick and get your name or any message written on one of the bricks. So the entire walk up to the lighthouse were different names and messages.

This is a random picture I took on the stairs of the lighthouse. First picture is looking up and the second picture is looking down. I really love how these pictures came out.

Next weekend we are hoping to go check out the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach. I am so stoked for that! I seen a few pictures of it and it looks amazing. I feel like it might be an all day thing, because it looked like there were a ton of things to see and do there.

In case you missed it;
Thoughts|| Dear Evan Hansen.
Photo A Day|| October 11-17.
Random|| Picture Update.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyhalloween

Random|| Picture Update.

Posted on October 16, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

pictureupdate

Hey!

I haven’t done one of these photo dumps in awhile, so I figured now would be a good time to do one. Feel free to add my on Instagram (heyyitsashley) if you want to see them as I post them. Some of these pictures haven’t been posted there yet, but will eventually make there way over there. I love posting my pictures on here, which I ended up having to upgrade my blog to a personal plan because I was running out of storage space for photos. It looks like I might have to end up upgrading again to a premium plan, because I’m getting to a point that I’ll probably be out of space (AGAIN) by the middle of next year? I guess we’ll see what happens. Anyway! Onto some pictures that I’ve been taking over the last couple of months and different things I’ve done that I never updated about. I think I’ll start off with the newest things/pictures first.

Now that Andy has weekends off from work, we’re actually able to do stuff! This weekend we decided to go walk around Target and the Spirit Halloween store. I actually left Target not getting anything for myself, crazy! I usually walk out buying things I never needed and spending way too much money. The Spirit Halloween store had a bunch of different Hocus Pocus costumes and accessories. I was living for this sign they had. We also decided to grab Taco Bell for lunch and eat it at the park. It was actually really nice since we were under the trees in the shade.

More food pictures. Andy’s birthday was on October 9th, so we decided to go to our favorite restaurant for dinner. They seriously have the best pizza ever! I decided to try something else from their menu though and got the baked ravioli. It was so good! I need to go back this week for more.

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Another weekend we all (my entire family) went to go eat at Joe’s Grill. It’s literally right at the end of our street, so we can walk there. They sell amazing pulled pork and mac & cheese. They have a lot of food on their menu, but I always get the pulled pork and mac & cheese. I always forget to take pictures of the food, but it’s so good!

The weekend before Andy’s birthday we decided to go visit his parents. I mentioned that in my last post, I believe. It was a pretty fun time. I took this picture at a rest area that we stopped at before getting to his parents. I really love it.

These are just some random pictures that I took while there. Top left is his parents’ dog Digby. Top right is just a picture of my shoes and the grass. I have this weird obsession with taking pictures like this, I don’t know why. I have a ton and I do it all the time. 😛 Bottom left is my dog Dax exploring their backyard. We don’t have a fence yard, so whenever he goes to visit he gets to run around without a leash. Bottom right is a picture of Dax and Digby together, which I shared in my last photo a day post.

Andy and I decided one weekend to walk around Anne Kolb Nature Center park, so I could find things to take pictures of. We didn’t stay too long, because it was so hot outside, but I didn’t get a ton of nice pictures. Left is the observation tower, which you can go up. Right is one of the walking trails. Below are a bunch more pictures that I took at Anne Kolb.

These six pictures are all taken from the top of the observation tower. I took the stairs to the top, but took the elevator down because it was seriously so hot outside, HAHA. I love all these pictures that I was able to take though.

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I was pretty happy with every single one of these pictures that I took. This is another part of Anne Kolb. There’s different parts to the park/nature center. This is an area where you can actually go fishing at. The last picture is this really cool butterfly that I seen. It’s called an atala butterfly. I love that it looks like it’s glowing with those blue dots on it. I wish it had it’s wings opened, because they are even prettier with their wings spread.

And now this is where I just post a bunch of random pictures and a ton of my furbabies, haha. 😛

I was trying to get the girls into the Halloween spirit. Honestly, I wanted them to sit next to the pumpkin and look at the camera. They didn’t want to do that. I even tried to offer them toys, but nope. 😛 These were the best I could do.

Sleepy kitties! Left picture (October), I started to give October treats every day, so she’s starting to come out more. She’s usually a loner and never really likes attention much. We have a room that we call the “cat room”, because that’s where we keep the litter boxes, their cat tree, and it’s warm so they all like to chill in there. 98% of the time she is in there. Now that I’ve been giving her a lot of treats, she’s been coming out of the room more and hanging out in other areas of the house. She’s even sleeping more in our bedroom at night! Right picture (Leaf), that’s Leaf’s favorite blanket. she LOVED it since she was a really tiny kitten. It somehow ended up lost for months and months. Finally found it in the hubby’s trunk of the car and as soon as we got it out and washed it, Leaf was in love again and obviously super stoked to have her blanket back. Below is a picture of her when she was a tiny kitten with her blank versus now.

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And some other random Leaf pictures. Left picture, she was being so weird and wouldn’t stop looking into the lamp, lol. Eventually I had to turn it off, because it’s a really bright light and I didn’t want her to hurt her eyes, because she seriously wouldn’t stop. Right picture, was Leaf trying to lick my eye, haha. She’s such a strange cat, but I love her to death.

The boys! ColbyJack (left) and Dax (right). We celebrated Colby’s fifth birthday recently. I can’t believe he’s already five. He refused to put the birthday hat on as he does every year. I think only two years I’ve actually been able to get it on him, haha. And my pup. he’s forever the cutest.

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These last two pictures are just some random pictures I took outside of my house. That’s all for this post! I hope you enjoyed seeing all my pictures. I’ll have my next set of photo a day pictures in the next day or two. I’ll catch up with you guys later this week as well.

In case you missed it;
Photo A Day|| October 6-10.
Blog Tour/Thoughts|| The No-Good Nine.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyhalloween

Travel || Road Trip to Illinois.

Posted on September 12, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

travel

Hey!

Over the weekend I went on a weekend road trip to Illinois for my one of cousin’s wedding. It was my mom, my niece, my cousin Scotty, his wife, their daughter, and me. Scotty’s brother was getting married. The drive is about eighteen hours. I live in Florida and Illinois is a ways away! The drive there wasn’t too bad and seemed to go pretty quickly. I think we only had to stop a few times to get gas and some food. A lot of the family on my mom’s side lives in Illinois and it’s been quite awhile since I’ve seen most of them. Years and years!

Top left picture is Atlanta, GA at 3am. That’s when we drove through. Top right is sunrise in Kentucky. Bottom is the start of the sunrise in Tennessee. Tennessee sunrise came first and Kentucky a little while later. We drove through all three places. We started the trip at 5pm Thursday, so we drove through most of the states at night, so I couldn’t get a lot of cool pictures (especially of Tennessee) until on the way home, which I will be posting later in this post because I took so many cool mountain pictures!

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Another sunset picture below from either Tennessee or Kentucky. I don’t remember exactly where I took it, but it was one of those places on the way there. I love this picture.

On Friday when we got to Illinois, we went to another cousin’s house to change clothes and then head out to my aunt’s house to visit with them for a little while. It was nice seeing them, because it’s been years since I’ve seen them.

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This is a grain elevator right next to her house. It stores crops for farmers.

After hanging out there for a little bit, we decided to go to my cousin’s house that is getting married to help decorate for their wedding the next day (Saturday). He lives on a farm, so we got to check out some animals (cows, pigs, chickens, ducks). I didn’t take any pictures of the chickens or ducks, but I did get some pictures of the pigs and cows! First though, here is some of the wedding decorations that they had. My cousin built the arch, which was really neat.

Now onto all the animals! There were some baby pigs too, which they were all hiding so we couldn’t see them all. My cousin did get into the pig pen and get one out though. It was a little difficult since the mom pig was chasing him around, lol. There were so many cows on the farm. All different sizes and colors. There were some pigs that were sharing space with some of the cows too.

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This is probably my favorite picture that I took of the cows. I just really like the way that it looks. There were also tons and tons of corn and other crops on the farm as well, so I took pictures of those too.

After helping out there and taking a ton of pictures, my cousin/bestie Tammy, my mom, niece, and I went to get something to eat before heading to my brother’s house where we were staying. Tammy and I went to Walmart, so I could get some new shoes since my other ones got so muddy with all the rain/mud on the farm. I ended up not even bothering with wearing my new shoes, because I knew they would end up getting muddy too. But I had them for the ride home at least. Saturday, my mom, niece, and I got up early and dressed for the day then went to get breakfast.

Left picture is Tammy and I messing around with all the masks at Walmart. Right picture is what I wore to the wedding. I was originally not going to wear my black tights, but it was raining and cold so I ended up going into the Denny’s bathroom and putting them on. I’m glad I decided to at least carry them in my purse with me, lol! The wedding turned out nice even though it rained. I got super muddy (my shoes and some of my tights) when we went to the barn early to help setup and fix things up since the barn got a little bit of rain in it, so we had to come up with a new idea. But it turned out nice. I didn’t get a ton of pictures besides a few that I took of the ceremony for my cousin and his new wife. Below is just a picture of my niece, me, and Tammy. We decided to take a picture of our muddy shoes, lol.

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On Saturday night after the wedding, I went out to eat with Tammy and her boyfriend. That was a good time. I never met her boyfriend before and he seemed pretty cool and nice. After dinner I went back to my brother’s house and went straight to sleep. Had to get up early Sunday to get ready to leave. So we went to pickup my cousin Scotty and his family and then went to say bye to everyone. After that we headed for home!

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Now for all the awesome pictures I took of the mountains in Tennessee. You have to actually drive up mountains to get to where we needed to go. On the way to Illinois we went through the mountains at night, so we couldn’t really see anything. On the way home though, it was daytime, so we got to see everything. We even decided to go to Lookout Mountain and drive to the top of that. Lookout Mountain is kind of a touristy type place, because it has Ruby Falls and Rock City, but we didn’t do those tours. We just drove to the top ourselves and looked around. It’s really cool though, because it’s like it’s own little community up there. They have parks, stores, even a Starbucks (LOL), etc. I guess it’s helpful for the people that live on the mountain, so they don’t have to drive up and down it every single day. Some of the street names were neat too, like Cinderella and Red Riding Hood. Even their pharmacy was called Fairyland Pharmacy.

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The next set of pictures are of some flowers that I seen around Lookout Mountain when we were walking around the mountain.

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The ride home felt like forever, but I think that was just because we were all anxious to get home after being in a car for so long. All in all, the trip ended up being pretty fun and I got to take so many awesome pictures. See some cool things that I haven’t seen in years and visit with family that I haven’t seen in years. 😀

I brought with me a ton of reading material (two physical books and my Kindle filled with 100+ books downloaded), but I couldn’t focus on reading while in the car on the way there or back. It’s usually easy for me to read in the car, but for some reason not this time. I was hoping to at least read two books, but I ended up only reading 40% of one book the entire trip. Hopefully I can catch up on some reading this week. I’ll also catch up with your posts tomorrow or Friday and reply to comments.

In case you missed it;
Wrap Up|| August.
Book Haul|| August.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Travel|| Lake Placid, FL.

Posted on August 3, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

travel

Hey!

Over the weekend my mom and I went to Lake Placid to help my cousin move into her new house. We went on a Friday and stayed until Sunday morning. I was able to leave early from work Friday, which was nice. My mom picked me up from work and we hit the road.

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Scary rain clouds! It rained almost the entire time on the way there. It was off and on. It was kind of amusing, because we would be driving it crazy rain and then a few minutes later it was gone. It did that the entire 1.5 hours to Moore Haven (where her old house is and where we were meeting up with her and her husband). That’s Florida for you! It’s always like that. It can be pouring rain on one side of the street and the other it can be sunny af. While waiting for my cousin to get there, I swung on the swings across the street from their house. It helped to past the time and I love swings.

When they got there we loaded up my mom’s car and their car. We only did one trip since it’s 30-40 minutes from their new house and because it was about to rain again. The next day (Saturday) was going to be the big moving day where we filled up the cars and the U-Haul. Once we got back to her house she gave us a tour of her house and we just ate and helped unpack the boxes we brought. When it stopped raining I went outside to take some pictures. There was a rainbow over the top of her house, which was awesome.

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Below: I’m not entire sure what these plants are, but they were really pretty so I got a couple different pictures of them.

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And you know me, I had to take a picture of the pretty sunset. I wish the weather wasn’t so crappy, because I would have went down to the lake to take pictures of the sunset there and same with the sunrise. I wish I would have went down to the lake for that, but I did get a few good pictures of the sunrise from their balcony on Saturday morning.

We spent the entire morning packing up the U-Haul in Moore Haven and then we spent the rest of the day unpacking the U-Haul and getting the boxes and furniture inside the house. We also took breaks to set up her son’s playroom. We were all tired, so we didn’t even attempt to unpack any of their boxes. Instead we ordered massive amounts of Chinese food, which was even better than unpacking boxes. Haha. My mom and I got up early to go back home. Before we left we stopped off at the lake to take pictures. Then we also stopped at the grocery store and walked across the street to another area of the huge lake to take more pictures. Here are all the lake pictures that I took and more of those plants that I loved, lol.

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Funny story about this mushroom. So we were walking around the grass and I spotted it and I got so excited about taking a picture of it. You can see in the first picture that there was grass in front of it. I went to move the grass to get a picture of it without the grass in front and I accidentally touched it and I start freaking out.

Me: oh my god!
Mom: what?
Me: i accidentally touched it. am i going to die?
Mom: *laughing* no, you’re not going to die.
Me: some mushrooms are poisonous.

And then the entire two hour car ride back home I kept saying “I can’t believe I touched the mushroom.” and kept asking my mom if she was sure I wasn’t going to die, LOL. Clearly I didn’t die. HEYYYY! 😛

Oh, and here is a picture of their new dog Stella. I’ve met her before, but never longer than an hour. She LOVED me though. She was always laying next to me or wanting me to pet her. I swear, all animals love me. So strange, but I am not complaining. Haha.

And that pretty much concludes my post about Lake Placid. We didn’t get to do a whole lot while actually there since we were just there to help my cousin move. Now that she lives there though, I will definitely need to go take a weekend and stay with her and actually roam around Lake Placid and do things. From what I did get to see, it seems like a really nice and pretty town. Feel free to follow me on Instagram (heyyitsashley)! A lot of these haven’t been posted on my Instagram yet, so you’re seeing them first! 🙂

In case you missed it;
Book Tag|| Meme Book Tag.
Top Ten Tuesday|| Popular Books that Lived Up to the Hype.
Wrap Up|| July.

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

ashleyblack

Random|| Picture Update.

Posted on July 9, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hey!

It’s been almost three months since I’ve done one of these posts and I don’t even know where to begin with it. I don’t remember what I have and haven’t posted already. So there may be a few repeats. I love posting these type of posts and my pictures, but when I go so long without doing one then I have no clue where to begin again, ahhh. 😛 Warning this is probably going to be REALLY picture heavy, because there’s probably 60+ pictures.

Feel free to follow me on Instagram (heyyitsashley)! A lot of these haven’t been posted on my Instagram yet, so you’re seeing them first! Eventually they’ll make their way on there. I take so many pictures and don’t want to post a million at one time, so I hoard pictures to post later, lol. Anyway, onto my pictures!

Let’s start with FOOD, because food is amazing. 😛

I stumbled upon this restaurant called “I Heart Mac & Cheese” and holy crap I was in heaven. I needed to go their, ASAP! Last week the hubby’s parents came down to visit and they took us there and it was great. I got the pulled pork mac & cheese. SO MUCH CHEEEEESE!

Recently the hubby and I tried a new pizza place (it’s amazing and we’ve already gone twice in like a week and a half) and we also tried a new burger place that was really great too. The burger place is called BurgerFi and the pizza place was called D’Salvos.

This new shaved ice place opened up down the street so we tried it out for my aunt’s birthday. It was really good. They sell alcoholic drinks in kind of shaved ice form and they were good. No picture of the drink, but I do got a picture of the shaved ice we got too. Also, their interior decor is amazing. One wall is painted like the ocean/sky. The ceiling has lights that are printed with clouds on them. The floor is like the ocean. And the table is sea glass. I accidentally deleted my picture of the floor. They also have a chalkboard wall so you can write/draw on it.

The shaved ice is blueberry. It’s sitting on the shaved ice table. The ocean/sky scene in the background is one of their walls. Below is my mom writing on their chalkboard wall and the top right corner is their sky/cloud lighting. SO COOL! 🙂

Alright, moving right along. Onto, furbabies!

A year ago yesterday my little Leaf turned one (well technically she turned one in June, but I got her in July so that’s her new birthday). I tried so hard for days to get pictures of her in the birthday hat, but she just wasn’t having it. So I got pictures of her eating the birthday hat instead? They are all still pretty cute pictures though. I am so stoked we decided to keep her. We love her so much.

We’ve been dogsitting the hubby’s parents’ dog and Leaf and Digby love each other so much. It’s cute. They’ve been playing so much together to. 😀 Here is another picture of Digby, because I have a problem with taking pictures of animals. 😛

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My four! Dax, Leaf, October, ColbyJack.

And some pictures of them loving each other.

Some other misc. pictures. First two are the cats are when I was trying to relax in the bath, but they all wanted to watch me. WEIRDOS. Third picture of me walking the pup. And the last picture is Leaf photobombing my picture of October.

Now onto nature type pictures. First up, the sky.

Next, flowers and plants.

First picture is a shadow of some leaves on the side of our house. I really love how it turned out.

The rest are just some random pictures.

Some really neat buildings I’ve seen. The first picture each shop is a different color. Second picture is a parking garage that is painted to be a sunset (or sunrise). The entire parking garage isn’t picture. It’s HUGE.

A couple different pictures of the moon.

Playing with sparklers with my nephew and sister. My nephew didn’t a bunch of scribbles with his sparklers while I took a picture. My sister tried to write things out. Got this really cool one of an “A” she did. Last picture is just me holding the sparkler.

The hubby’s eye, lol. For some reason I really LOVE this picture though. And the second picture is of me and my new glasses! 😛 I really love these glasses.

And DONE! So many pictures. There’s even more pictures that I probably didn’t post, but trying to figure them out will be so hard. I’ll just leave you with these and hopefully I don’t let myself go months without doing another one of these posts. I will hopefully catch up with all of your posts at some point this week. I hope you had a great weekend!

In case you missed it;
Travel|| Black Point Marina.
Wrap Up|| June.
Book Haul|| June.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Travel|| Black Point Marina.

Posted on July 3, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hey!

A few ago my mom took my sister and I to visit our dad. I love going to visit him, because I don’t see him that often. I am also able to take a ton of pictures when I go to visit him, because he has a huge garden with so many plants and flowers. I’ve posted about it before over here. If you haven’t noticed, taking nature pictures is kind of my thing; especially plants and flowers. So I took a bunch of pictures at his house and then we went to walk around the flea market for a little while. After the flea market we went to walk around Black Point Marina.

PICTURES FROM MY DAD’S GARDEN.

My dad had a few of these giant rocks that have little crystals covering them. Kind of like a geode or maybe it’s a geode, lol. That’s what I thought about when I seen it. It looks so cool and they shine in the light, because of all the tiny crystals. My dad broke me off a piece to take home with me (below). It’s so pretty, especially when you look at it in the light/sunlight.

Spider, caterpillar, and snail (above). There are massive amounts of spiders in my dad’s garden. You’re always having to duck down or collide with a spider/spider web. I hate it! I don’t like spiders. I don’t really like any insects, to be honest. I like taking pictures of them though, so I have to face my fear of spiders (and other creepy crawly bugs) every time I want a picture. 😛

PICTURES FROM BLACK POINT MARINA

Mom & Dad.

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Bright green iguana! It looked really neat. There were TONS of them all over this park. I mentioned in my last post with my pictures from TY Park that iguanas are everywhere in Florida. I think the younger ones are bright green. Because I see a lot of even bigger ones and they aren’t as green as this one.

We got my dad in on the lensball photography fun! 😀 I think this shot came out really neat. He wanted to hold the lensball while I took the picture. Inside the ball is a restaurant that was on the water at Black Point.

After the park we went to go get pizza and I also got these mac & cheese balls that were amazing! I didn’t take any pictures of the food, but I wish I would have. Went back to his house where I took more pictures and that was the end of the day. It was overall a great time and hopefully we can go back to visit him again really soon. Below is a picture of my dad trying to figure out what was up with his phone, lol. It kept randomly playing some man talking, haha.

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In case you missed it;
Wrap Up|| June.
Book Haul|| June.
Travel|| Topeekeegee Yugnee (T.Y.) Park.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Travel|| Topeekeegee Yugnee (T.Y.) Park.

Posted on June 25, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hey!

I am finally posting the pictures that I took when my sister and I went to a park down the street from my house. We had nothing else to do, so we decided to take my cameras around to see what we can take pictures of. Warning, it’s a post of a lot of trees. This park is FULL of trees, lol. I love these trees though, because they have leaves and vines growing on the branches and they look really neat.

My younger sister (Stephanie) came down to visit for the weekend a few weeks ago and we took my cameras out. I let her use my Nikon COOLPIX while I had my Nikon D3400. As you scroll, you’ll see a ton of trees like mentioned above. LOL.

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My sister took the bottom right corner picture of me. I didn’t know she was taking pictures of me, lol. I like it though.

We saw quite a few iguanas at the park, which is always neat. They are everywhere here in Florida. I have more iguana pictures, but I must have moved them off my phone already. I was also able to get a shot of this dragonfly too.

This park also has a water park in it, so these are two things from where the water park is. I love the different signs, especially the ones that say “the moon” and “going crazy”. They also have this really big chair outside of the water park too; it says “Castaway Island”, which is what the water park is called. I’ve only ever been to the water park once since living here and it’s pretty neat.

We took my lensballs with us to the park and took some pictures with those too. I got a few good shots. The above picture is a behind the scenes picture I took of my sister taking a picture of the lensballs with her phone. I edited it to only show color on her phone screen.

I already shared this one, but I am posting it again since it goes with this post. It’s a picture of me that my sister took. Me in the lensball taking a picture of her, lol. And below are a bunch of different lensballs pictures that I took.

The last four pictures are just some random pictures I took while at the park. No real explanation for them, but I thought they were cool.

The next day we went to visit my dad and went to another park. I’ll have those pictures coming soon. 🙂 I’ll also have a post of the pictures I’ve taken over the last 2.5 months that I haven’t been posting. Feel free to follow me on Instagram (heyyitsashley)! A lot of these haven’t been posted on my Instagram yet though, so you’re seeing them first! Eventually they’ll make their way on there. I take so many pictures and don’t want to post a million at one time, so I hoard pictures to post later, lol.

In case you missed it;
Friday Finds #73.
Random|| Life Update.
Book Tag|| Mid-Year Freak Out.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Photo A Day|| May 25-31.

Posted on June 1, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hey!

I’ve been taking part in monthly photo a day challenges on my Instagram account (heyyitsashley) and I’ve been having a lot of fun with them (when I don’t fall behind on pictures). I figured I would also cross post them to my blog as well. I think for the purpose of blogging, I will post 3-6 per blog post that I do throughout the month. That way I am not spamming my blog with a million photo a day posts back to back. You can follow me on Instagram (linked above) if you want to see them daily though! Some of these pictures will be taken with my Nikon. There will also be some taken with my iPhone.

Days 25-31 of May.

I did end up skipping of the days, but not sure which one since I don’t number the days on my IG account.

Instagram Caption: i am over this rain 😒☔️🌿 || photo a day • macro.
Camera: Nikon D3400.

I really love this picture, but it does look a little fuzzy to me because my camera lens kept fogging up. As soon as I wiped it away, I had only seconds to get a picture before it would fog up again. The humidity, plus taking my camera from a cold house to a really hot humid rainy outside resulted in my fogged up lens UGH. I took multiple shots and then just gave up, lol. This was the best one.

Instagram Caption: my mom has a little pineapple growing in her garden. 🍍 || photo a day • garden.
Camera: Nikon D3400.

My mom’s pineapple plant is going strong. It actually looked like it was pretty dead only a couple days before this picture. It came back to life though! It’s so pretty. I love when it gets pink and starts to get little purple flowers blooming out of it.

Instagram Caption: it stopped raining long enough for me to snap a few pictures outside today. || photo a day • make.
Camera: iPhone X.

OMG, it stopped raining for like a couple hours! I was able to take my camera around outside my house to snap a few pictures. I think the rain is finally going to stop for awhile though and I am stoked. I am hoping I can actually go somewhere this weekend. I’m tired of sitting at home every single weekend due to this stupid rain. This is a picture of my new Nikon D3400!

Instagram Caption: my girls ♡ || photo a day • silhouette.
Camera: iPhone X.

Leaf & October. I love these girls so much. They love to sit and look out of the sliding glass doors. There is also always cats that run around our backyard, so they like to watch them too.

Instagram Caption: a year ago today i walked around an entire city and then walked up 87 steps to hang with my dude, abraham lincoln. probably one of my all-time favorite moments in DC. 🇺🇸 || i need another vacation, ugh. || photo a day • temptation.
Camera: Nikon Cool Pix.

I ended up reposting two pictures from my honeymoon for this day. These are from when we went to Washington DC. I loved Washington DC so much. It’s probably one of my favorite cities that I’ve been to so far. We literally walked around the entire city and it was ridiculously hot outside too. The Lincoln Memorial was one of our last stops. Saved the best for last! After all the walking, we finally decided to catch a bus, and then a taxi to a pizza place. After we ate, we caught the metro back to Virginia. Such a fun day though! I still need to do my honeymoon post, ahh. It’s been a year since I’ve been wanting to do it.

In case you missed it;
Wrap Up|| May.
Book Haul|| May.
Photo A Day|| 15-24.

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

socially awkward bookworm.

Tag Archives: Travel.

Random|| Picture Update.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve! 😀

Dr. Von D Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park.

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Christmas 2018.

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Random|| Picture Update.

Hey!

Travel|| Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse & Museum.

Hey!

Random|| Picture Update.

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Travel || Road Trip to Illinois.

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Travel|| Lake Placid, FL.

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Random|| Picture Update.

Hey!

Let’s start with FOOD, because food is amazing. 😛

Alright, moving right along. Onto, furbabies!

My four! Dax, Leaf, October, ColbyJack.

And some pictures of them loving each other.

Now onto nature type pictures. First up, the sky.

Next, flowers and plants.

The rest are just some random pictures.

A couple different pictures of the moon.

Travel|| Black Point Marina.

Hey!

PICTURES FROM MY DAD’S GARDEN.

PICTURES FROM BLACK POINT MARINA

Travel|| Topeekeegee Yugnee (T.Y.) Park.

Hey!

Photo A Day|| May 25-31.

Hey!

Days 25-31 of May.