I'm Backkkkkkkkkkk

Obviously I've been on a little bit of a blogging hiatus but hopefully I will get back on track now. 

Here are the highlights since my last post:

1. I FINISHED MY MASTER’S DEGREE! I just recently had it framed. It now hangs proudly under my undergraduate degree in my home office.

2. We went to Maui! BEST. VACATION. EVER. 
Drew and I had convinced ourselves by the end that we would just stay; he would become a fishing guide and I would be a bartender… My favorite activity was our hike along the Waihee Trail. Absolutely breathtaking! Drew’s favorite activity was golfing at the Four Seasons on Lanai. If you are ever thinking of a trip to Hawaii I would definitely recommend Maui over any of the other islands. We will definitely be back!

At the Drums of the Pacific Luau

Golfing on Lanai

Hiking the Waihee Trail

3. Drew and Kathryn’s Birthday! They are birthday twins! We ate at The Good Day Café in celebration. We also celebrated earlier in the week with a delicious dinner at my bother-in-law’s house (Drew and his brother’s bday are only separated by a week (and 6 years)). 

4. Bird Dog Breakaway and the Color Run! Kathryn and I recently completed both of these 5K’s. I’m not going to say that I enjoy running now, but I don’t hate it (anymore!). We finished the Bird Dog Breakaway in 33 minutes and the Color Run in 29 minutes. We were thrilled with our time at the Color Run (I had a sinus infection, Kathryn forgot her headphones and we didn't warm up). It was a lot of fun though! Kathryn has a much better description of it here: Kathryn's Blog, Click here!

Bird Dog Breakaway in Waynesboro

After the Color Run

5. GSU vs. The Citadel
We finally made it to a football game! The weather was wonderful and the Eagles won, of course! 

6. I finally found a unique way to store a few of the trinkets from my wedding. Mrs. Cheryl gifted me a handkerchief from her wedding that I pinned under my gown. My mother had this tiny bagged made out of her wedding dress and one of my father's USMC bars was pinned inside (this was also pinned under my dress).  I have had both of these items in my fireproof safe since the wedding but I have always wanted to display them. They are now beautifully displayed on the shelves in my living room. 

Old Barn Wood Shadow Box (via etsy, duh!)

7. Kim’s is ridiculously beautiful when pregnant (and not pregnant, obviously!). Here are a few pics I took last week:

8. My other sister-in-law just found out last week that they are having a girl! I know they were thrilled to find this out, plus it is so much more fun to shop for a girl! My Etsy addiction is getting out of hand.

 IT'S A GIRL!

9. This past weekend Ansley, Lori and I went to HHI for a mini-getaway. We went to the outlets, which were a bust by-the-way. After that we spent the rest of the day hanging out, eating, bar hopping and finally ended up at the XO Lounge at the resort. We forgot to take a group picture though.. But here is a picture from college… you get the idea! 

July run-down

Wow! It has been over a month since my last post! Seems like I just wrote about Has Lina last week! Here is what has been going on since my last post:

We went to HHI for the 4^th of July! It was a lot of fun! We stayed in Folly Field. The traffic was terrible on the island though! We went shopping, spent time on the beach and ate ….a lot! Drew, my mom and brother even played a round of golf together at Indigo Run.

Mama and Parker

There were a bunch of birthdays this month too! Our nephew turned 2! Here is opening his Harley Davidson BIG wheel from Aunt Bean and Uncle Drew! I LOVED my big wheel as a kid and I hope he enjoys this one just as much!

Kim turned 27 this month too! I forgot to take a picture at dinner (we went to Myabis!) so her is a picture from a Kenny Chesney concert we attended in 2009! That was such a fun night!

My mother-in-law also had a birthday! I took a picture of her at the Mexican restaurant in a ridiculously large sombrero that I will decline to post… for now! ;) Here is a picture of us from 2007, I believe this was our first picture together!

Last Saturday was Caroline’s 30^th birthday! We went to Augusta to celebrate.. Beamies for dinner! Here is a picture of the girls before we headed out (by the way, this is Caroline’s front porch on their BEAUTIFUL new house!)

We have also started a few upgrades on our house! The bathroom was out of necessity (the tile grout was leaking (ughhhh!)) and we had the kitchen back-splash tiled too. The bathroom is almost finished (we decided to replace the countertops and then we added bead board to the walls since we had a mess on our hands anyway!).

Kitchen before and after!

tile coming down

mid-crazy-mess that was the bathroom. 

Drew and I have also been working out together in preparation for our upcoming trip! I will post about that soon.. But back to working out, I purchased a polar watch and heart rate monitor and I'll admit it’s pretty impressive (and keeps me motivated!). Among other things, it tracks your calories burned based on your heart rate during the workout (granted you have to wear a small strap around your rib cage while you work out and that can be a little uncomfortable at times.  I got mine on Amazon, of course.

We have also had a couple lazy afternoons too!  

The sun!! 

Another update!

It is obvious that I have been pretty slack when it comes to updating my blog; I've have been ridiculously busy at work and have had zero motivation for anything else that involves a computer (including school work!). On the bright side I am switching to a part-time-ish position with C4 in June and I am thrilled about the prospect of having a little time to myself again! Here are a few high lights from the past few weeks:

Kim is expecting again! Our family is ecstatic about another sweet baby! We find out the gender the first week in June and she is Due November 1^st! Whoop Whoop!

Our youngest nephew graduated from Bible Play School this week. He was absolutely adorable during the program and did such a good job singing and dancing with his class! 

We were fortunate enough to host a whole slew of mothers at our house last past weekend for mother's day! We had a great time having both of our families over. We cooked (way too much) low country boil and the kids got to play together which was a lot of fun to watch. 

As a fundraiser for Relay For Life I was a waitress at Burke Perk on April 25th. All of the tips and proceeds from chicken wings sales went to the American Cancer Society. Here we are in our waitress-ing gear:

We went up to the Mexican restaurant for Cinco de Mayo which has turned into an unexpected tradition over the past couple of years. I'm beginning to think that we eat Mexican too often because all of the waitresses know our orders....

We discovered 5 baby rabbits living in our front yard last night! They are adorable! Drew wouldn't let me keep them... something about this being another bad idea like the ducks.... rude! 

Chateau Elan

Drew and I managed to slip away for the weekend and headed to Brasleton, GA to stay (and play) at Chateau Elan. Chateau Elan is a winery in North Georgia that makes several different types of wine, my favorite being the sweeter Muscadine wines (came home with 6 bottles!). We played golf Saturday afternoon and that was a lot of fun for both of us! Drew actually played; I just caddied for him. Saturday night we ate Dinner at the Versailles Restaurant which was French food which was fine, but the desserts were even better! I literally had a plate full of chocolate before we left dinner (and of course made myself sick!).   The rooms were fantastic, very spacious, clean and well decorated and our room overlooked one of the three golf courses. The spa was beautiful as well with an authentic Parisian feel (well, as authentic as they could make it in Georgia). We both agree that we would like to make another trip to Chateau Elan  in the future. 

Outside of the winery

Playing the Elan course.

One of the suites at C.E. (ours was laid out a little different than this one). 

Dinosaurs!

On Sunday drew and I took our nephew to Augusta to see the dinosaur exhibit at the Civic Center. In my opinion there could have been more dinosaurs (I was thinking there were going to be legitimate fossils and artifacts) but there was none of that. There was however a good number of extra large animal tronic dinosaurs that my nephew loved looking at and touching although I don't think we were supposed to touch. It was fun especially for a 2.5 year old but the person paying $56 to get in was a liytle disappointed! There's also was a kidzone complete with several bouncy houses face painting dinosaur rides and sheer madness. He absolutely loved the kidzone! We went and ate pizza at Mellow Mushroom afterwards then finished of the day with ice cream from Dairy Queen. Drew and I immediately went home and slept for two hours. It was sooooo exhausting!

27th Birffday!

My 27th birthday has come and gone but it was an amazing birthday thanks to my wonderful family and friends! My mother and sister-in-law Kim went to great lengths to throw me a surprise birthday party and it was definitely a surprise party! Kudos to them for finally getting one over on me! They both work their butts off preparing ((way too much!)) food, hanging decorations and corralling people to come to Louisville on a Monday night!

Looking back on the clues now I could have probably put it together (Drew was super anxious about being on time, didn't want to go ride the ranger around, kept stressing that we didn't need to get dirty before we went to Kim's -- wow we sound super hick-ish!) but I just chalked it up to his occasional strange behavior! I really never expected a surprise party! It was great to see everyone together and I was truly overwhelmed with everyone's love and support! I am blessed beyond measure! Here are a few pics:

 

I also had to bite the bullet and update the about me section of my blog! 26 no more!

 

LAS VEGAS!

We have been back from Las Vegas for almost 2 & a 1/2 weeks now and I'm just now getting around to writing about it. We had an awesome time and I think we stay just long enough (to spend more money than we planned on spending and eating more than we should have!). Oops! We stayed at Caesars Palace again but this time we stayed in the Palace Towers which were almost identical to the other towers (I think these rooms for just a little bit larger though). Here are a few pictures of our room:

We also went and saw The Beatles: Love Cirque du Soleil show at the Mirage on our first night and it was truly amazing! That was my first Cirque show and I was blown away by how great it was produced and executed. The only thing I wish we would have done differently was going to the earlier 7:30 showing versus the 9:30 showing because we were all dragging by the end of it! They wouldn't allow photography inside but here are a few we snuck in! Ha!

Of course we gambled some too (playing blackjack and penny slots for the most part). My biggest win on the slot machines was $120! We walked across the street to play blackjack at the Flamingo because it was less crowded and the tables were much cheaper! I forget how much fun it can be when you're not losing all your money! We also tried playing craps for the first time and that game was just that ((crap))!

Of course we tried a ton of different restaurants my favorite restaurant was this little chocolate dessert place near our elevators literally everything was chocolate! My least favorite restaurant was Gordon Ramsay's Pub and Grill I thought the food was horrible but that is also because I'm not a fan of European style food; chicken fingers for this gal please!

Serendipity 

I also made a trip to the spa one day while the guys were out gallivanting. It was a beautiful spa but I can't say that it was worth the price of the services; yowza! Drew and Mr. David also went and drove sports cars at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on our last full day there ((Drew's Valentine's Day present)). Mr. David drove a white Porsche and Drew drove a Red Ferrari. They both enjoyed it and Mrs. Cheryl and I listen to them talk about it for the rest of the day! Here are few pictures for

Great trip, great weather, great family... GREAT time! 

Fat Saturday Pub Crawl

Last night was the third annual Fat Saturday Pub Crawl in downtown Augusta. Drew and I had to run to home depot first to return a commercial carpet cleaner we rented Friday night to clean our carpets and couches (I know, what a lame Friday night! --But our couches and carpets are like new again!). We also stopped and ate dinner at Firehouse Subs (which is one of Drew's top 10 favorite places to eat) before heading downtown. We met up with everyone at 1102 Bar and Grill first, which was nice because they had a table so we could sit and chat before the madness began! Drew and I only made it trough half of the bars on the pub crawl before calling it a night. Drew was rather entertaining on our hour long drive home might I add! I was a great time though and we are already looking forward to Fat Saturday 2014!

Man Shop Update

Here is a picture from yesterday of the progress on Drew' shop. It is moving along... slowly. The roof is finished and the electrical on the inside is basically complete. We still have to finish the tin on the exterior walls, install the roll-up doors, insulate interior then finish the interior walls and pour the cement pad on the front. Now that I think of it, ignore what I said int he post below about it being finished in 2 weeks!

Falling behind...

These past 2 weeks have flown by and I am still not sure where all the time went! Its been almost 2 weeks since my last post (sorry!) so here are a few of the highlights from the past couple of weeks:

1.We have started the process of building Drew a 'man-shop' (which I assume is different from just a regular shop?). When it is finally complete Drew will have a place of his own and will get all of his 'treasures' out of the house and the garage! (I really am excited about this part!). The dimensions are roughly 32x50 and this is similar to how it will look when complete (different colors, add a cupola and extra window and swap the door positions).

So far the  foundation and floors have been poured and they are currently in the process of framing the walls.

2. My parents are out of town this week which has left me with FIVE dogs in my house; this wouldn't be so bad if one of those dogs wasn't a 10 week old terrorist puppy! I am currently sporting a scratch across my forehead and eyelid thanks to this little devil! Her name is Emma and she is an English Springier Spaniel, she is actually a lot of fun but she is just so wound-up all the time. The other dogs do their best to tolerate her but she tests her limits with them regularly! She is a real doll when she is asleep though (apparently this puppy only needs like a 5 minute power nap before she start destroying something again).

3. Drew and I babysat Parker this past Sunday evening and we had a lot fun! We fed the horses, played on the playground, rode the golf cart, watched Rio (sort-of), harassed Emma for an extended period of time and even found time to take a few Christmas-y pictures. 

Dinner followed by a bath and ice cream (sugar free!).  Bean's house is so much fun! 

He loved playing with Emma (or Minga as he pronounces it). he probably enjoyed being outside more than any other activity and he also found time to ride this bouncy-car that was his as a baby. As a baby he wanted nothing to do with this car (and he is about 10 pounds over the recommended weight limit now!).

He actually like the antlers (he refused to take them off for a while!).

He was so excited about this lollipop! 

My sweet boy! 

4. This past Saturday I met up with some of my girlfriends from Waynesboro and we has an ornament swap. It was a lot of fun, and I got to spend almost an hour holding Brigham which was a win for me! Next year I think we should make it an ornament and wine bottle swap! ...why not?! :)

 

Sweet Brigham sleeping in my arms. 

Emma and Brigham; future sweethearts! ;) 

5. Scentsy. Ansley recently hosted a  Scentsy party for one of her friends in Statesboro and since receiving my items I have become a big fan (If I am home I've got them tuned on). I currently have a warmer in the kitchen that has the festival of trees scent in it and it smells so Christmas-y! Drew and I have also been watching Christmas movies lately and it has helped get us into the spirit (along with the overwhelming Christmas decorations that have taken over my living room)! I have a smaller warmer in my bedroom that has a lavender scent in it that is pretty great too. 

Here is her page if anyone is interested: https://laurablair.scentsy.us/Scentsy/Home

6. C4's Christmas Party. We had our annual Christmas party last week at West Lake Country Club. The food was great and it didn't last too long which was great as well! It was probably the best food we've had at one of our Christmas Party (except for the year that the Little Dutch House in Wrens catered). 

We also got some pretty sweet gifts from good ol' Tony-Tone. My sister-in-law, Kim, sells Arbonne and arranged for all the ladies at the party to get an awesome gift-set. I am a huge fan of the body creme and bath wash (the scent is so clean and fresh!). It also came with a sugar scrub but I haven't had an opportunity to try that yet. Here is the website if you are interested in checking out any of their products: www.arbonne.com 

7. I have finished all of my Christmas shopping (well all of the necessities at least). I have wrapped everything and I am pretty much prepared for the Christmas eve get together at my house with mine and Drew's family. I'm particularly excited to see my 2 nephews play together! 

8. I finally enrolled in my last set of classes for next semester. I'll be sooooooo glad when this is over! Although I am considering going back for another business degree in project management. But I will definitely take some time off before I head down this road again.

9. I also got my home-office set up after 2 years of being in our house. Mom and I went shopping for a desk and ended up getting one from Office Depot. It was delivered in 5 different boxes and took me 2 days to assemble everything! I can't find a picture online if my exact desk set but here is the smaller version of the I got -- I will add a finished picture of the office later. I am incredibly excited about getting to work from home some of the time! Yippie!!!!

--I'm sure there are a few more highlights from the past 2 weeks but my brain is out of gas from a severe lack of sleep these past few days... thanks Emma!