A baby, a wedding, and Ashlen won Miss Arkansas!

It has been quite a week for us here at the McDonald house. We've been burning up the highways of Arkansas in our new car! We spent last weekend in El Dorado to attend a baby shower for some friends of ours, Austin and Linley. She was due August 7th, but she ended up having their beautiful baby girl, Kenlee Grace, on Friday! We are so happy for them and can't wait to go back to visit and meet her!

Yesterday, my friend Lindsey from OT school got married. She had a beautiful wedding and it was really good to see everyone from school at her wedding. Here are some pictures:

Lindsey and her husband, Ben

Kelly and me at Lindsey's wedding

Then we drove to Hot Springs last night to see our friend, Ashlen Batson, compete in the Miss Arkansas pageant. She has worked very hard over the past year to win this year's pageant and represent our state at Miss America. Her hard work paid off - she won! Her boyfriend and Tyler are best friends - he was a groomsman at our wedding, so we sat with him and his family, as well as her family. Here's Tyler and Dustin cheering her on:

Ashlen in top ten - She's the 5th from the right in the sparkly champagne-colored dress:
She won! Here she is with her four runner-ups:
Ashlen hugging her mom and dad:
Getting whisked away to do Miss Arkansas things:
It was really great to be there to share in the excitement with her! We're sad she will be on the road for a year now, but very happy for her because we know she wanted this so much!

Maybe the next week will be a little more chilled out for us!