reasons i love this photo

Let's talk about the photo above for a moment.

There are several reasons that I love it...

One, I love the girl in it with me.  Her name is Kylie.  At least once a week, Kylie and I hang out.  I say that I am her mentor; but really, she teaches me a lot, too.  Kylie was in my small group at Switch {LifeChurch's teen program} awhile back before moving to the Yukon campus.  We really bonded from our initial meeting, and I didn't want to lose the relationship I had formed with her.  So, I talked with her about getting together on a weekly basis.  We talk about God and boys and life and everything.  We are open and honest with each other.  We laugh {a lot!} and cry and read and pray and eat and chat.  My life is better because my Kylie girl is a part of it.

For Kylie's birthday this year, I wanted to get her some cool thrift store clothes, because she appreciates my thrifting skills and she likes to be unique like I do.  So that brings me to another thing I love about this photo:  our outfits.  I found Kylie's dress, along with a couple others for her, at a Goodwill for less than five bucks.  My dress, tank top and belt were all also found at various thrift stores for dirt cheap.  Oh!  And my fabulous earrings -- they're one of my favorite thrift store purchases ever. 

Also, our shoes make me smile.  I got those Frye boots for a great price at Marshall's last year.  I think I paid sixty- or eighty-something for them, I can't remember for sure right now.  But either way, if you know anything about Frye boots, you know that's a great deal!  Kylie's shoes were purchased on a fun night of adventures on one of our Tuesday hangout nights.  I love how they perfectly match her skin tone. 

And please don't think I am a total narcissist for this, but I really love how my hair looks in this pic!  My friend Jamie Roark gets all the credit for my hair ever looking good, because I mostly just neglect my hair, with minimal washing, brushing, or styling.  Jamie has done my hair for awhile now, and I have never been so happy with it!  For over a year now, I have had red hair with pink in it, and along the way we also added in the oh-so-popular feathers and even some hair tinsel.  I love, loved my fun hair when it was pink and red and feathery and tinsel-y; but this last time we decided to go in a slightly more glamorous direction.  We ditched the pink and the feathers and tinsel and we added a little dark red-brown.  I love it!  Thank you, Jamie!  {She's at DK Salon, if you need a hair girl!}  We discussed making it even darker next time.  I'm super excited.  Plus, I love that it is getting so. very. long.  Woohoo!  I have this idea in my head that women who are past their thirties don't look that great with super long hair {of course, there are always exceptions to the rule}, so I want to rock the long locks while I can.  :)

The last reason I love this photo so much is because yesterday was just a really good day for me.  I went to church, stopped and saw my friend B {who snapped this photo for us}, and spent most of the rest of the day at the fair with Kylie, where we ran into/hung out with my family and some friends.  It was just a lovely day, and I will always smile and remember when I look at this picture.

I hope you all had a great weekend.  Anyone do anything fun?  You know, there's still a whole week left of the fair.  Get out there!  Maybe I'll run into you. 

~abi~