Hi, it's me again. Another week in June is gone! How is time flying by so quickly? I guess it's always that way when you aren't thinking about it. I have been meeting up with family and friends pretty frequently; the summer is always an incredibly busy time of year. I seem to take my camera just about everywhere I go, but often forget to upload the pictures, begging the question: why bring it in the first place?
    So yeah, I'm going to leave these pictures here for your enjoyment! Meanwhile I really need to start packing for our Utah trip- we leave in 2 days. I'm trying to get the house in order for this, in conjunction with a decent itinerary. And ya'll know I won't have anything ready in time and will still end up leaving half the junk I planned on yanking around. Well- tootles!

Disney's Hollywood Studios Star Wars' Weekend with the Hill's

Alexander Meet Up

   

Acey's Letter Opening

                                                     

    When I look back at my older blog posts, certain ones bring back stronger emotions than others- List's letter opening on June 7th, 2014 was one of those. It was wonderful to see all of my close family get involved with such a special event for her. 360 days after that day (making it June 2nd 2015) we gathered together for another party in honor of my brother Acey for the exact same occasion. 

    As I have posted before, there have been so many events going on here lately for him. He has went to his senior prom, turned 18 years old, received his Eagle Scout award, graduated high school, went on his first cruise and sent in his mission papers. AKA more big events than should ever be allowed in a 7 week period. As we sailed through the Bahamas the letter was expected to arrive. Friday (when the envelope should be in) passed, then Saturday without any letter getting delivered, of course mail doesn't run on Sunday and still no letter by Monday! The worry began to increase- we had told family, friends and the Mutual program to meet with us on Tuesday evening to open it. A fine event that would be: important mission call letter opening without the letter. Great idea. I prayed fiercely that my parent's mail would run early on Tuesday in order to give me an idea if I needed to travel 2.5 hours upstate or not. I won't even mention the fact that the location contained in that envelope was enough to drive any curious person crazy. 

    Tuesday morning rolled around, Mama and I had concocted a plan. If the letter would arrive that day we would still hold the party, if not we would try to have it on Friday with hopes of it coming in the mail between then. Knowing the postman could come anytime between 2 and 4 o'clock, I messaged Mama to check the mail at 2:02. Her response 5 minutes later was a picture of the LARGE WHITE ENVELOPE containing important info on Acey's next 2 years. It was here! Finally! Praise be! And a hallelujah to boot! 

    Immediately I had to rush out the door with my train of ideas and box of decorations to get there in time. Speeding all the way to Folkston I met Mama and Grandma who rushed me back to Douglas (we decided to leave my car halfway since it can't be trusted for a big trek). By the time we got to the church there were several cars parked outside, just waiting for the big news. I barked out orders for others to assist in decorating, luckily sweet family and friends consented. In a very quick time frame we transformed the Relief Society room and a section of the gym; there was a mixture of a global and outdoorsy theme throughout. I thought that it was very cute and fitting to Acey's personality.

    Using a huge world map I had put up, all of the guests were invited to add their guesses. The United States was filled with stars and name tags, only a few out of the country ones could be seen. I had secretly kept my thoughts of him being sent to the Ukraine to myself; I had recently heard many new elders were being sent to Kiev. I prayed for understanding and Acey's excitement, despite where he would go. So I stuck my Boston, Mass and Kiev, Ukraine stickers on.

    The Bishop got the show started at 7pm. Graham had just arrived, luckily, and we were waiting on my Daddy. The thought was focused on the boy of the hour's willingness to go, particularly Listi's contribution to that. It was an emotional intro. Next up was Mama who shared her thoughts on Acey's decision and her pride in him. As she spoke old Jacob Mizell showed up and we were ready! 

                                 

    I asked everyone to please be quiet as he read the entirety of his letter. As he stood I could see he was a little nervous. He excitedly tipped his letter open. He began, "Dear Elder Acey Mizell, you are hereby called to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the New Zealand Hamilton mission." Mouths dropped, eyes bulged and hands clapped together! My grandparents bit their nails hoping for his safety. The rest was a blur for me, I was far too excited to decipher whatever else he said. 

As he read the words: New Zealand!

    What! NZ: home of the hobbits! My dream destination! And my baby brother was able to go! And wait! I could pick him up! (Yes every thought did end in exclamations at this point.) It took a minute to sink in that he would be sent to the other side of the world to those island people. What an amazing adventure he would be blessed to go on. And to think he requested to stay in the United States :)

    As he read I asked Mama when did he report, because as I jumped up and down I missed the announcement. The answer? October 8th at the New Zealand MTC speaking the English language, to his relief. (So much for Mama flying him out to Provo!) He read onward to parts which said he was recommended as one worthy to serve in this capacity, signed President Thomas S. Monson. He lowered his paper and the room exploded with applause! Without having the integrity to contain myself I ran up to Acey and asked him what he thought. He was still trying to gather those up when I showed him where it was located on the map. This large island in the Pacific near Fiji and Australia. I put my hands on his shoulders to let him see how magical I thought this would be for him. His eyes widened and he said, "Wait what! All the way over there?!" 

    And we all laughed wholeheartedly. Everyone came over to congratulate him, shake his hand or hug him. Without making this too much about me, Mama stopped and said, "I want to let everyone know that Lacey said on the ride over she wished he would go to New Zealand so she had an excuse to go!" How is that for good guesswork? I guess we will call it a little bit of sister's intuition.

    No one from Douglas, Georgia had been called to that location prior to him, but furthermore, none had ever been sent to a location as far as that one either! Elder Mizell is already making an impact. This really caused me to think about how important Acey must be to the missionary work over there, what a joy.

    The rest of the evening the crowd ate pizza, a missionary name-tag cake and ran around taking pictures. Everyone was still a little got-away with, so they inspected the map and globe, respectively, with interest. We documented with many video snippets and photographs.

    It's hard to find a decent stopping point because there is so much that could be said. But I'll just leave with a quick testimony- I know Acey is doing the right thing. I know that missionary work is true and hard and fun. I know that New Zealand is going to be a wonderful place to spend 2 years of his life. I know that the people will love and take care of him (as Tucsonians have for Listi). I know that he is going to be blessed beyond measure for serving the Lord. And I know I love him lots ;)

    I am so excited for this chapter in his life. Just think- he's going to New Zealand 4 months from today! I still need to pinch myself.

Grad Cruise

    Those 3 ragamuffins, Acey (brother), Dylan (first cousin) and Logan (first cousin, looking away) are all high school graduates amongst other things.  I am very pleased with them, it's easy to forget how that was 14 years in the making. The plans for a graduation trip floated around for a while: should we go to the Keys? Washington DC? Nashville? After a bit of bickering we landed on a cruise, a first for all of the boys. Two of my best friends, my Mama and my Aunt Tracey, decided that we would accompany them, all the while enjoying their success too ;)
    The cheapest option by far was a cruise for 3 days to Nassau, Bahamas leaving from Miami. Boy! That was a trip, 5 hours for me and 7 for the Georgians. On Friday morning we left my house at 4am- bare in mind we fell asleep at 1:30- to try our best to make it on the ship early. We stopped for breakfast, made a quick dip in Walmart for 12 packs of coke's and Bank of America to fix my debit card. We were in extremely high spirits as we got ready to get on the ship.
    Finally we made it on board! This time I felt rather seasoned since the layout was generally the same. Also, we loved the room on the 7th deck, the Empress level, which was pretty central to everything and also adjoined the boys. We ended up with with a kind and funny steward named Izzy who would say "Mees Mechele, Mees Laycey, Mees Traycey- how are YOUUU?" While everything was going on us three girls clung together as the three boys ran amuck, exploring every nook and cranny of the Carnival Ecstasy and we would always meet up for supper and various times throughout the day. The Graduates carried their Ship and Sail cards with pride as they bought video game tokens, wristwatches and other trinkets. Mama, Tracey and I spent our time enjoying many meals, laying out in the sun, sporting our new clothes and watching all of the drunkards warble out the words in karaoke.
    I enjoyed our trip to Nassau much moreso than my last cruise. We did not book an excursion, instead we decided we would find a local beach to spend the day. As everyone purchased going home gifts and Bahamian items, I ended up getting directions from a local to Junkanoo Beach. We really enjoyed this place! It was a 5 minute walk from McDonald's, which we stopped to grab a bite from, and only 20 from our Port. The beach lived up to our expectations as the crystal water lapped up on the shore. There were not lots of annoying salesmen, as I predicted, plus it wasn't too overcrowded from other tourists. Since it was gorgeous place without all of the undesirables that often hang overhead we were able to have a grand, relaxing time.
    I think there were many times when all 6 of us really had a ball on this trip. We laughed until tears came (particularly over a lesbianesqe embrace the photographer made us do), occasionally huffed and puffed (dinner time was hit or miss for some people, ie: Dylan) and made some lasting memories ("I have ears like a Hawk!"- Logan).
    I am super grateful for the 3 young men who we celebrated, they all make me very proud with every new step they take in life. They really are all good boys with lots of spunk and work ethic; I feel confident they will go far in life. I love each of them so much more than I can say.

                           

Down Memory Lane

    Day 3! In a Row! Of blogging with actual words! And occasionally halfway decent pictures! Now the question is, who's gonna give me the medal for this feat? Just know I prefer silver over gold, with the initials LAM. Please and spank ya.

    As we spent time together over Memorial Day Weekend  I decided to document it with pictures, but continued on with that in mind as we drove to Georgia to make it home. Many of these photos remind me of fun things in the past, so I decided to share a few memoirs while they're on my mind. To keep up the blogging, ya know ;)

While the two of us dated, Graham would drive up every single weekend. Bless that man. The very first trip by himself he made a huge error in navigating, which made the 2.5 hour trip for him 4 looooooong hours! I felt so sorry for him, he has many skills but a sense of direction is not one of them. Whenever we officially started dating I decided that I would give him the simplest route possible to my house, which also added on another 20 minutes to his trip. Just last week as we past these run down cabin I've passed a thousand times (see above). Graham commented on the particular route I chose, not his typical one, and I told him, after  three and a half years, there there were many other shorter, yet slightly more difficult, ways to travel to my house. Sorry babe. 

Our first date together was all over the place. We began at the Valdosta mall, went over to a pizza joint, stopped by the local college to play soccer, drove around the town, watched a movie in the dollar theatre (to this day I couldn't tell you 1 thing about that show) and went back to Taco Bell that evening. The entire day was way more fun than I had anticipated, since Graham and I totally hit it off. But my favorite part was not our first kiss (you know the drill, insert embarrassed emoji) but instead it was as we passed the ball back and forth. While Graham is very good with soccer tricks, like bicycling, he was not able to hold on to the ball. I kept snagging the ball away until he started grabbing my waist to prevent it. And I felt like a dang soccer god after that event. He now says "oh I let you" but there is no way that competative man would ever allow that! It was my skills :)

I can not stop wondering what our future babies are going to look like. Genetics are completely awesome in a Russian Roulette kinda way. G and I have fairly similar features, or so I have been told. Once in a shop when we were looking at wedding dresses, pre-engagment of course, the owner asked if he was my brother. Um, well no, more like my lover- creepy. Since then several people have told us how similar we look, my Mama even had someone tell her that he looks like he could be her son. Okay then. Anywho, when comparing the two of us, I feel like I can get a general idea, but who knows about the actual construction of a human. But I imagine a dark haired, tan skinned, slopped nose bubbly babe with bright eyes. Of course, we'll probably end up with a blonde haired, brown eyed babe but it's still interesting to try to guess. 

Graham was the first boyfriend to ever go on vacation with my family, which happened when I was 20 during the summer of 2012. He joined us in visiting Lake Eufala in Alabama where we would go every summer with my grandmas when I was a little girl. Looking back, I am still surprised he was welcomed, that was never something my family did. I remember showing him my favorite things to do: speeding in the golf cart with at least 5 cousin in tow, wading in the boat ramp catching tad poles, and particularly scaling down broken stairs from the cliff to get to the lake from our cabin... He had never been on a vacation where 2 bedrooms housed 16 people! I have to give him credit for going without losing his mind with 11 teenagers with us 24/7. He also shared a bedroom with my parents and 3 cousins while I slept in the living room. It's so much fun looking back, especially since that was our last trip to Lake Eufala. 

Unbeknownst to me, 7 months after Graham and I started dating he went shopping for my engagement ring in Jacksonville, Fl. We had talked extensively about marriage, though we made a pact not to do anything until we had reached the 1 year in dating point. But as we discussed it I told him a few of my requests. I love the idea of a twisted band, I wanted a princess cut perched above it and I wanted it to be raised to give the effect of the diamond looking bigger. I didn't care so much about the size, moreso I wanted the settings to be really cute. Well as he searched he could not find what I was looking for! In May of 2012 he bought a diamond and a wedding band as Kay's Jewelers crafted the perfect ring for me- one of a kind! The ring was stored in his locked glovebox for several months. He would even joke, "maybe I've got a ring for you in there!" (Real subtle, ha.) In typical fashion, he lost it two separate times but managed to find it again. Finally after 5 months of holding on to it, after 1 year and 3 weeks of dating and on my birthday weekend, he proposed with this special ring to me. And don't worry, I've never misplaced it! Though Graham did lose his wedding ring right after I gave it to him in the Temple. After 4 months he found it too! He's lucky I find his clumsiness cute.

Memorial Day 2015

    For Memorial Day weekend, we got together with 3 other families to stay in a vacation home on Lake Sinclair in Milledgeville, Georgia. The interior was super rustic and just big enough for us to all gather up without feeling cramped. This trip was perfect for a little get-away, it was only 4 hours away and completely different from our normal vacation spots. The best part, to me, was how serene the area was and how relaxing the days were. With my handy dandy camera in tow, I tried to capture my most favorite things about the trip. Enjoy!  

Scenery:

Baby Photoshoots:

Games:

Lake Sinclair:

Relaxing:

Friends: