Last day for Jenna’s Journey 3rd annual blog commenting challenge.
Today is about your DREAM VACATION! I’m lucky and have actually been on my dream vacation, I’m just ready to go back today! We honeymooned at Couples Swept Away in Negril, Jamaica and it was heaven.on.earth. I’d love to visit Bora Bora too in a little hut sometime, but the amenities at Couples were incredible…here’s a few pictures from our trip to paradise!
I’m linking up (a day late) for Jenna’s Journey 3rd annual blog commenting challenge! I’ve found some neat new blogs this week and have had some sweet people visit mine!
Today’s post is all about hobbies!
A hobby Kody and I have recently gotten back into to do together is golf! I love it and so does he. In fact, we have a little every Friday night golf date just the two of us. It’s my favorite time of the week. I used to play a lot when I was younger and he did too, so we were a little rusty to begin with but are quickly warming up! I got some new clubs back in May and that’s really helped me a lot. I’m just so glad we have a hobby to do together.
Another hobby, if you can call it that, of mine is laying out! I love to be in the sun by the water. I enjoy reading, but social media has taken over my life (sad, I know).
What’s your favorite hobby?
I’m linking up again with Jenna’s Journey for her commenting challenge. This is a lot of fun, definitely give it a try!
I love, love, love social media! It is such an outlet for me, probably too much of one but who cares?!
I remember when Facebook was only for colleges and not even all colleges at that. I got my first account in May of 2005. I thought it was awesome and now it’s so cool, I just hate it continues to change. I keep Facebook mainly for people I know in real life, but I do have some blog friends on my list!
Once I got a smart phone I joined Twitter. I’m beginning to love that more and more and would love any of y’all to follow me! My name is MrsMalThompson, look me up! Twitter is so amusing and my favorite tweeter is the Honest Toddler. I don’t even have kids but this person cracks me up!!
Another one of my new-found loves is Pinterest!!! Ohhhh boy, I can’t hardly get enough of that sweet, sweet site! I love followers and love to follow blog friends back, click here to link up with me. I also am obsessed with Instagram!!! It’s so neat and I love the different editing choices. Once again, I love new followers and love to follow new people. Find me by searching trulythompson.
My husband would tell you social media takes up a lot of my time. And it does, but I’m a good multi-tasker when on my phone or iPad. I barely can go 2 hours without checking my email, facebook, and twitter. I’m pathetic!!
What’s your favorite social media outlet? Or like me, do you love them all?
I’m linking up with Jenna’s Journey for her 3rd annual Blog Commenting Challenge. So far, so good! Yesterday’s post is right below this.
Why do I blog?
I started this blog right before we got married. I actually had no clue how to blog or add pictures or anything. I thought you could only add 2 at a time. Ha! My blogging dropped off right before the wedding but I picked it back up around December of 2009. I’ve been a regular ever since.
I blog for the friendships with so many of you. It tickles my heart when I find someone who shares a common interest, struggle, or even better when I get to meet a blog friend. I was on the phone with my husband in Target the other day and rounded the corner and just about screamed…there was a blog friend, I quickly told him I had to go and meet her! (I’m a nerd!) Anyways, it’s great meeting people, just wish we could all meet together sometime.
I also blog because my husband’s family lives 3 hours away. This is a way his mom or anyone else who cares can keep up with us. We’re on-the-go a lot and so I try to blog about our lives and what’s going on for them to all read up on us.
I share a lot on here, but not everything. In the past year I’ve shared our struggle with infertility, where in fact, not many people that know me in real-life know about. The odd thing is as soon as I shared my problem I had tons of people emailing me, facebook friending me, and even calling me on the phone. My real-life friends have no clue about this struggle because none of them have gone through it, so it’s nice to have people to relate to when the going gets tough.
Leave me a note if you think we’re a lot alike so I can visit your blog!
Can’t wait to read about why YOU blog! Link up today!
I’m linking up with Jenna’s Journey on the 3rd annual Blog Commenting Challenge. I encourage my readers to do the same, this may open up some new blogs for you to enjoy and I thought it would help me get back in a more regular swing of blogging. She’s even got prompts for you to write on! Doesn’t get any easier, so go visit her and link up!
Today is about me!
Obviously, I’m Mallory Thompson at Truly Thompson blog. I’m in my mid 20s (woa!) and just really enjoy life. I live in southwest Missouri in a little town called West Plains. We border Arkansas and are about 20 minutes from the line in a few different directions. I love where we live, we’re deep in the heart of the Ozarks and I’m not sure there’s many other places that are as beautiful to live in. I grew up here and graduated from West Plains High School, home of the Zizzers. What’s a Zizzer you might ask….well it’s supposed to be a winner in all aspects of life, but let’s just hope our football team is better this next year! ;)
I’m married to this fine guy right here…
Kody is my favorite person in the whole wide world and brings out the best in me. I’m so thankful to be part of his life! We have two German Shepherds, Jax and Bo, who for the time being are our only children. 
We live in the country with about 9 acres including a little patch of woods and a large field. We have a huge garden and we love to sit on our deck and watch the boys play and chase each other.
I work for the City and am the City Clerk and have been for almost 4 years. Just this week I will take over the public relations duties so I will now be the City Clerk and Public Relations Director for the City. I’m so thankful to work for my hometown and LOVE my job. I work with some of the best people too.
That’s about all for today. I can’t wait to see what we’re supposed to write about tomorrow! I hope you join in!!!
Last night was our only night where not much was going on. We both worked until 6 and then I went to a family night (visitation) for my babysitter’s husband. Lyndall (my old babysitter) was like a grandma to my brother and I. Unfortunately she’s got an early case of Dementia or Alzheimer’s and isn’t remembering everything…she puts on a good show though and acts like she knows what’s going on. Regardless her hugs are the best thing ever! Her family is also near and dear to my heart just because we spent SO much time at her house. Her granddaughter, Caitlin, in a year older than me and never lived in WP but when she would come for visits we always got together and played. As she said last night she would be lying if she said she didn’t stalk me on Facebook…likewise for me! She’s a traveler and it’s always fun to see her pictures. :) Good hugs must run in the family, it was great to get a hug from her. It had probably been 9 years since I’d seen her!
Anyways….dinner was in the crockpot and Kody made the side on the grill. BLAH!!!!!!! I had this recipe from Pinterest, Crockpot Stuffed Peppers and then we grilled cabbage. We made the peppers with deer meat and then the cabbage, which I will say looked great in the picture….tasted like cooked cabbage AND I don’t like to eat or smell that. I’m not sure what I was thinking other than knowing Kody would surely like both (he enjoys cooked cabbage) and I took one for the team on that one. I took one small bite of my pepper and then a small bite of the cabbage (honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered if it tasted like chocolate…the smell gets me) and I just kind of sat there. Kody could tell I didn’t like it…he kept saying he would make me a grilled cheese but I said I was fine. He knew I didn’t like either…finally he started laughing and said he didn’t like the peppers and we could just throw it all out. He said he liked the cabbage because he likes cooked cabbage, but we threw that out too. So it was one big giant flop and we just died laughing. It seems to me that it’s always a crockpot recipe that if we experiment it’s not good. BLAH!!!!
So what did I have for dinner? Ice cream and cobbler. The ice cream was fat free, the cobbler had fruit in it so I’m good. ;)
So, this is a fair warning….Pinterest is wonderful, I love it, but you never know how some things may turn out!!!
I was reading one of my favorite blogs today, Laurie’s Life, and she made a random list and I think I will do the same.
1. We are so incredibly busy during the week. Mondays Kody has class and 2 Mondays a month I have a meeting and the other 2 I come home and relax, but it’s not that often….Tuesdays it seems we’re always doing something. This past Tuesday we drove to Springfield and then came right back for dinner with my great uncle Joe, his friend Joanne, and my 3rd cousins, Hannah and Sophie. They live in NYC and I blogged about them last summer. Excuse the picture, it was a rough, long day…
Wednesdays we work late and then Kody runs to the gym from work and I drive, but I do a Yogaflo class while he works out. This week was my 3rd class and I.love.it! I’m not quite ready to do this like my teachers, but maybe I will get there…once they carpet and pad the floors. It’s a vinyasa flow class and a really good workout!
2. Thursdays are more of my free nights and Kody’s too. That’s when I do the mound of laundry that piles up throughout the week.
3. I drove to Springfield Monday….Tuesday…and then had a meeting in Seymour, which isn’t far from Springfield on Wednesday. I’m done driving for awhile. We travel to Jackson in July and that’s the next time we’re leaving. We are beat!
4. I am a candy freak. I love, love, love all kinds of candy especially chocolates. I eat minis from one of the offices here and will eat like 5 in one setting. That is not healthy, mini nothing when you eat 12 of them. I will complain that they are not as wide as most candies, therefore I reason that eating more than one (5) is ok.
5. It’s GRILLING and GARDEN season! We’ve done really well in our garden this year. We have 24 tomato plants, 2 thick rows of green beans, 10 squash and 10 zucchini plants, 8 okra, and 2 hot pepper plants…………I’m ready to pick!! We picked our first thing last night and it was 3 okras. Kody grilled them with green beans and onions and OH MY WORD! SO Good!! If you like okra fried, but don’t want to go to the trouble or the fat, sauté it or grill it. SO good!
6. I had a peach today from a little stand on the street and it was soooo soft and juicy! I could eat my weight in those, another thing that is SO good!
7. I could definitely use all kinds of prayers the next couple of weeks. Please, oh please! :)
8. With all my SO goods, I sound like Sophia Grace...love this little girl and her sidekick Rosie!
9. Hope you enjoyed my random lists……….this helps with my foggy mind and my blogging!
I’ve always told Kody that maybe when we retire we can buy a cabin/house on the river and go relax in the winter and fall…and of course in the summer. I love to be outdoors, but I wouldn’t consider myself super outdoorsy, snakes scare me and I’m always afraid there’s a snake nearby in the water…there probably is….anyways…our friends Ericka and Craig have a house on the river and invited a bunch of us last weekend to go for the night. It’s Ericka’s mom and dad’s river cabin house. We pulled up and I thought this is not a cabin, I would live here!
It was RIGHT on the river and had the best yard…and perfect fire pit spot!
Ericka has a twin brother and then an older brother who are all married and there are 3 grandkids…they have family Christmases there and other holidays which I think is so neat. There are 4 little bedrooms, a big kitchen, dining area, big living room and then den downstairs, and the deck was great!!!
We brought back shrimp from Gulf Shores for a shrimp boil on Friday night. I could eat my weight in hush puppies, YUMMY! The shrimp was good too! ;) We sat outside LATE for us old folks…I think it was 1 before we went in. We had the perfect fire going and it was actually chilly from the river and the breeze. You can see the fire pit below and it was built by the family where you could have your chairs all around the fire on the stones. So neat!
Funny story…I rode down with friends before 5 and there were 5 couples total. Well Kody came after work but we got to waiting and we were afraid he was lost. This place was not easy to find. So the girls pile up in a truck and go looking for him on dirt roads to (nowhere) and couldn’t find him, none of us had cell phones, and it really didn’t matter because cell phones didn’t work down there…so we were stumped but my friend Tara who knows everyone said we could go across the highway(once we made it) to a little old lady’s house who has like a bed & breakfast and use her phone. Tara said she’d eaten there once, many years ago, but knows one of her friends. We literally walk in this lady’s living room, Tara goes and pats her on the knee to say HI—I know so-and-so and we’d like to use your phone. We use it, I figure out Kody made it, and in the meantime, while this lady is eating her dinner watching the news she tells us to go back to her kitchen to try what she made for dinner. We were dying laughing about it because it was SO RANDOM! But I will say the mashed potatoes she makes that had 7…yes S-E-V-E-N sticks of butter in them were TO DIE FOR!
Saturday we tried to hang out in the river but it was cloudy and we were cold. We came home in the afternoon and that was pretty much it!
I’ll leave you with this. Kody HATES cold water…Jason and Kody thought it would be a good idea to jump in around 7 Friday night when it was about 70 degrees outside and around 55 in the water….Ashlea joined them. Good for them, I stayed dry though! We got a good laugh out of it.
We woke up Friday to clouds and I was immediately disappointed! I wanted to spend every last waking minute soaking up the sun on the beach! Instead I ran to exchange a swimsuit top at Target and by the time I got home it was clearing up. We spent all day out there and had a great day. I took a lot of pictures of the boys the last day. Kody made a big breakfast before everyone got going. 
We came in around 4 and started getting ready for our last night out at the Hangout. It’s my favorite place, mainly because there’s so much to do and see and there’s always good music and that night it was good, live music! The Hangout is also a great place for kids because they have all kinds of stuff for them to do. My favorite is the huge sand mound. 
We were immediately seated at the Hangout which was really unheard of. This place is super popular and fun and although we did arrive around 5:15, it was a Friday night…so we expected to wait. In the picture above of Drew & Kody we are seated where you can see those windows. SO we had a perfect view of the beach and the play area. We played around until it was time to eat, dinner was also fast. The guys split “The Incredible” which was a ridiculous amount of seafood. They couldn’t eat it all, there were a few shrimps left!
After dinner the band had started playing so we went down to listen and dance! Kody and Drew were dancing machines! Drake enjoyed dancing too!!
The boys were hot and sweaty so after about 30 minutes or so we headed back to the condo. Kody and I walked on the beach (my favorite) and sat outside for awhile before going in to pack up. I’m always sad leaving the beach! For some reason it really refreshes my soul and always gives me new hope for things to come.
We had the best vacation and are so thankful for my in-laws in hosting us. It’s a fun tradition that we may not get to do every year, but hopefully something like that. Sounds like next time we will be getting a bigger condo or house, which is fun to think about!
We don’t make as many trips to Jackson as we used to because of all of our other travel but we’re so glad we got to spend a full week with our nephews, niece, and the rest of the family! FUN TIMES!!!!
PS—thanks for humoring me and reading the ridiculously long posts filled with the ridiculous amount of pictures. I’m a crazy paparazzi!
