Tuesday, January 18, 2011

8 reasons why this past weekend was great...

Of course, every weekend is great because...well....it's the weekend! But this past weekend was REALLY great. Here's 8 reason's why:


1) Kenzie got a haircut! I may be weird for saying this, but I LOVE when she gets haircuts. She always looks like a completely different dog, and it usually makes me giggle when I see her right after getting groomed...because she's always so fluffy and sweet! This time before getting groomed, she REALLY needed it because of this.....

Why yes, that is a black GREASE spot on top of her head. She decided to sniff way to close to a dirty car outside, and this is what happened. Andrew and I could not stop laughing at how ridiculous this looked. Fortunately, this happened right before her grooming appt. Oh the joys of a WHITE haired dog. But we love it.


And ta-da! No more black grease spot! Isn't she just so sweet with her little bows, and fluffy white fur?!? We think so.
Love this little girl. Yes, we may be slightly obsessed with this dog. Don't judge.

2) Friday night was date night with dinner at Bonefish Grill followed by the Blue Man Group! (My Christmas present to Andrew)
And yes, that is Bang-Bang Shrimp pictured. DELISH! Along with everything else we had that night. This is definitely a new favorite restaurant, and we will definitely go back.

Quick snapshot before heading into the show.
Can I just say, this show was by far one of the best shows I have ever seen! If you have never seen a Blue Man Group show, you should. Promise you won't regret it. I mean, does this not look awesome?

They had me mesmerized.
The end! So cool.
3) Saturday we decided to make a trip to the driving range. So fun. And so cold. I told Andrew I want to get better at golf so that I can EVENTUALLY work my way up to being able to actually play a round. Ambitious...yes. It will definitely be a while before that happens, but it's a goal. Something to work towards. And something for us to continue to do together :) Best part.

(Don't judge my form too much. Remember I'm learning)
He's really good.
And really cute :)
Love this face


It was great to spend time with my man while doing something that he loves.
4) Saturday night we joined our dear friends , Krystle and Steven, for dinner and an Admirals Hockey game!

They played the Tigers I think? Not really sure. Awful at these details. But it was a great time and the Admirals won!



Krystle and I go way back. She was even one of my bridesmaids. I dearly cherish our friendship and love when we get to hang out!
5) Sunday morning we went to a new church recommended to us by our dear friend Tripp Purks. And we are so glad he did, because we loved it! The message was awesome, and the people were so friendly and so welcoming! One sweet couple even invited us to dinner at their house this Thursday...awesome! So we are excited for this opportunity to explore a new church and meet some great new people.


6) Sunday afternoon, Andrew went to battle my Stepfather, Patrick, on the golf course while mom and I spent a leisurely afternoon at the nail spa. (Thanks Patrick for treating us to this with the gift cards for Christmas!) What girl doesn't love a day being pampered, spent with mom, and getting fun new nail polish!?

Our fun, freshly manicured nails! Let me also just add, this nail polish is apparently some new kind of polish "gel" that is supposed to last for about 3-4 weeks WITHOUT chipping! We'll see if it's true. So far so good.

7) Sunday night, we had dinner at my Mee Maw and Pee Paw's house. For those who didn't know, my Pee Paw is Mexican, and therefore, you will find the absolute BEST Mexican food at their house. Seriously, the best. My favorite thing....my Mee Maw's spanish rice. She learned this recipe from my Pee Paw's mother and it is the most delicious thing ever. She sent me the recipe while I was in Milwaukee, which I attempted but failed. Multiple times. So Sunday night she coached me through it and I finally had success! Doesn't this just look yummy?! And it was in fact...very yummy.
I love spending time with Mee Maw and Pee Paw. They're so fun to be around and time spent with them is always full of GREAT food, good laughs, and awesome conversation.

8) Monday evening (yes I'm including Monday as part of the weekend because "technically" it was a holiday!...so I'm counting it) was spent in Va Beach...mainly to shop for some new snowboard pants for me. The shopping trip was unsuccessful. boo. But we did get to have dinner at Dad and Sandy's house! We enjoyed delicious homemade lasagna, and spent the rest of the evening chatting and catching up. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures (boo again), but it was definitely necessary to include this as part of what made this long weekend so great.


Hope ya'll had a great weekend also! :)

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Honeymoon Reminiscing

This time last year, we were soaking up every last blissful moment of our wonderful honeymoon in the Dominican Republic. We wish we could go back. And we will someday :) For now, we'll just have to reminisce with this sweet video Andrew made of our honeymoon last year. Love him.




Monday, January 3, 2011

1 Year

Yesterday, Andrew and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that an entire year has already gone by. I think I must have turned to Andrew about 50 times yesterday and said "Can you believe it's been a year!?"

I will never understand how time flies by so fast, but all I know is, despite the speed, an abundance of amazing memories are made along the way. I love reflecting back on our past year of marriage and thinking about everything we've done, every where we've visited, every new friend we've made, and every new memory we've created. I love reflecting on how marriage has allowed us to grow in so many ways, and has taught us so much about each other.

I am so thankful to be married to such a wonderful man. And I am so blessed to be able to share this journey of marriage with my best friend, and the ONLY person I know of that could ever put up with me 24/7 for a lifetime.

We started our special day with homemade cinnamon rolls by your truly. I've been on this baking kick lately, so any reason or occasion to bake, I will! Plus, they're Andrew's favs, so what better way to show him I love him :)


We got tickets to go see the Lion King since they were in town on our Anniversary. Ever since I saw Wicked in Chicago, I've been dying to see more shows...and with Andrew. So we finally got to see one together, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of this part of the night since of course you can't take pictures at the show. sad. But we did grab a couple of shots at Andrew's parents house when we dropped Kenzie off! They were kind enough to watch her while we were at the show so she didn't have to be home alone. Such sweet in-laws.



The show was at 6pm, so we planned to just eat a late dinner at Bonefish Grill. I have been dying to eat here (since neither Andrew or I have ever been...crazy, I know), so luckily the Virginia Beach Restaurant didn't close until 10....at least that's what it said online. We pull into the parking lot a little after 9, only to find they had closed...at 9. BOO! So there went our anniversary dinner. sad again. I'm not gonna lie...I was a little bummed out. I had this perfect evening planned out in my head of getting all gussied up, going to a sweet show and then finishing off the night with a nice dinner. Clearly my "planned-in-my-head" perfect evening just took a detour. We decided to just head home and tried to figure out what to do now. We were both starving and everything was pretty much closed.

Then I remembered something. The night of our wedding after we left the reception to go to our hotel, it hit us that we were starving! We had been warned about this before our wedding about bride and grooms being hungry after the wedding since they are so pre-occupied to really even eat. I told myself there was NO way this would happen to me because I was stoked about the food and couldn't wait to eat to my heart's content on the most special night of my life! Let's be honest though...I should have known the first day of my dress fitting that there was no way any food was filling up my stomach with my corset of a dress. I tried to eat at the reception...I really did. But everyone was right...there was just so much excitement, and due to the dress restrictions, I clearly did not eat to my heart's content. So, there we were, hungry after our reception. So what did we do? Why, we picked up a large half cheese, half pepperoni pizza and a side of wings from Chanello's! Chowed down on our king size bed in our hotel suite and finally ate to our heart's content.

So on the Anniversary celebrating the day we got married, we decided why not re-live the same meal we had on our wedding night? Plus, we're not cake people, so didn't save cake from our wedding to eat on our anniversary....pizza is such a better idea.

So yes, Chanello's it was! Large half cheese, half pepperoni with a side of wings.

And it may not be a king size bed, but we had to follow the same eating spot.

So it may not have been the evening I had planned in my head, but it's definitely one we will remember and laugh about. Actually, Andrew enjoyed it so much, he thinks this should just be our annual Anniversary tradition to have Chanello's pizza and wings in bed...We'll see ;) . But last night really did humble me, and made me feel silly for getting so caught up in the "events" of the evening. It reminded me that's it's not about what we do, or where we go, but it's about celebrating the covenant that we made a year ago in front of family, friends, and most importantly God. It's about taking time to cherish and celebrate that special day that we united as one, united families, and started this amazing journey of marriage. I am so grateful for a loving husband to share life with. And I can't wait to celebrate many more anniversaries in years to come...even if we just celebrate with pizza in bed :)


(p.s. For all you Bonefish Grill lovers...no worries, we did reschedule for another night this week. We are still dying to try it. ha.)