Overview of our weekend

First of all...GO GAMECOCKS!!! I never thought I'd be one to say that-I grew up a Clemson fan, but since my husband is about to graduate from USC, and because our good friend, Kyle is on the baseball team that's headed to the National Championships, I just can't help myself this time

So Friday night we started our weekend off with Mellow Mushroom, and watching the big game against Clemson. We were so excited that KYLE HIT A HOMERUN!! (clarification...he's the catcher for USC-I couldn't find a picture of his big run, sadly)


The next day Blake had to work all day so I got a FREE DAY TO MYSELF!! Let me just say that I LOVE being with my husband 100% of the time, but I also LOVE having a day to do whatever I want to do! I hit all my favorite spots. Including...



of course...and then...

to get some energy...and then here...



To an estate sale! Oh my gosh, I love these! You can find some gems at these places if you hit a good one.


Then I decided to rent myself a movie, so I chose this one...

It was pretty cute. Overall my day to myself was wonderful, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time of mindless tasks :)

The next day Blake asked me if I would go play disc golf with him. I told him "No" 7 times before I finally said yes, and I was so happy that I finally gave in because we had the best time together!! (I've told you before I always do this!) It was so hot, but it's a very hilly course so it kind of felt like we were in the mountains...kind of.

After we were done, we went grocery shopping together.

I know these things have to seem boring, but I had the best time just because we were doing it together! Funny how the little things make you happy.

Now...Counting down the days until Friday where we'll be headed off to the LAKE for the 4th OF JULY!!!!!!

Bahamas Bound...(Hopefully!)

My dad is planning a trip for July 31st-August 7th, and Blake and I are going to try to make it!! Since I don't have much to say today other than this I thought I would share it with you! :) I've never been to the Bahamas, and my passport expired since I got a new name :) so I'm going to have to jump on the process if we plan to make it on the plane in time!


Has anyone ever been? What were your favorite things to do there? Give me motivation to get going on my passport and book our trip!


Yayyyy for summer vacations!!!!! (especially when your parents are paying!!! :)

Dress Me Up!

My favorite piece of clothing is a great dress, and when I think of summer, I think of wearing the perfect dress. You have weddings and beach trips and date nights out so you are bound to need at least a couple for the season. So here are a few of my favorites for summer!


The Long Dress


Diane von Furstenberg $385 Saks.com


J.Crew On sale $250 Jcrew.com

Diane von Furstenberg $795 dvf.com

Rachel Pally $251 shopbop.com

The Short Dress

French Connection $298 Bloomingdales.com

Diane von Furstenberg $375 dvf.com

Seneca Rising $150 Saks.com

Herve Leger On sale $696.50 Shopbop.com

Alice and Olivia $396 BergdorfGoodman.com

The Colorful Dress (My newest love!)

French Connection $288 Bloomingdales.com

ABS by Allen Schwartz On sale $273.75 Bloomingdales.com

Tibi $255 Shopbop.com Parker $245 Saks.com

Clearly these are not all the "budget friendly" dresses, but as you probably know, all stores make "similar versions" (aka-usually copy exactly) the designer dresses. Don't feel bad when you look at a beautiful dress and can't afford it...chances are you'll see them in the affordable stores in a couple of months!

My rule of thumb is to buy at least one expensive nice piece of clothing per year. You end up having a closet full of great clothing over the years, as long as you take care of them, and you can piece the cheaper things with the nicer ones and no one will know the difference!

I wuf my Birdie!

and so does Teddy...



And I'm pretty sure my husband wuf's his Birdie too...



All weekend long my heart melted about every 4 seconds when my niece would say my name, tell me she "wuffed" me, ran around laughing because her new best friend, Teddy was chasing her or licking her, or hug whoever was around and say "Awww" because that's what we would say...let me just say that there is nothing Terrible about the Two's!! At least not if you're the auntie :)

I absolutely LOVED every second of my weekend with my precious sister, my family and my babies!! I have baby fever now that they're gone-I want them to come back immediately!

On Friday night I went and spent the night with her and in the middle of the night, Birdie (my niece-whos name is actually Naphtali) couldn't sleep so Kelly brought her into our bed. Mind you it was a King size, and she still managed to almost knock both of us out. I didn't sleep but a couple of hours, and my sister slept less than that, but those are the moments I treasure because when I woke up at 6 am I just got to look at her little hands and feet and kiss her while she slept...Heaven.

The rest of the weekend was spent eating or swimming, and I managed to snag a couple of pictures...

I have a feeling my brother in law, Jim is trying to tell Blake to do something...

Like this...

Birdie LOVED swimming...she told us all weekend about how she's moving to the "BIIIIG POOL" (Miami)

The boys managed to not break any bones this weekend...Hunter only bit through his chin...that's progress

It was probably during one of these moments...

(Excuse the bum, but I couldn't help myself...poor little thing was thrown so fast he lost his swimsuit)

(and again...glad he's only 7 and will probably never see this blog, or he may kill me)

It was a perfect weekend, and I felt like I was on vacation. It was so fun to have everyone pruning in the pool until sun-down...

A little update...

I've had the BLUES all week, and I could not for the life of me figure it out...

And then I remembered, my mom is moving HERE...(no not South Carolina, heeeeeere...)

HALF WAY ACROSS THE WORLD!!!! to Brisbane, Australia...

I always hated in high school when she would go on a business trip because I would literally get sick to my stomach. I'm a worrier...it's a terrible thing, but I'm working on getting better.

I was never one of those people who couldn't leave the house or the town they lived in, in fact, I LOVED LEAVING! I just didn't like my mom leaving :) I want her to stay put and keep her in a bubble! :)

So as I type she is doing this...




And to heal my heart, my sister and MY BABIES (my niece and nephew!!) will be directing that flight MY WAY...TOMORROW!!!!!!!! Heavenly heavenly heavenly DAY!!

I called Kelly and BEGGED her to come a few days early (they are moving to Miami this weekend and they were going to stop through Sunday night) so that we could have a girls weekend to ourselves in Greenville, and she booked her flight! THANK YOU, KEL!!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


So we're going to go to the Greenville Market downtown on Saturday Morning...

Have lunch at Brick Street...

And we're going to shop 'til we drop!!

Who am I kidding?! There will be no bags...I told you I want that mattress!! (See post below)

Sleeping on a Cloud...

Forgive me for my short hiatus, but lately I've had writer's block due to being consumed with wanting one of these...a Tempurpedic Cloud Mattress. And no, I didn't even have to google the spelling of Tempurpedic because I've typed it out about 100 times in the last week or so...

Since we've been married I seriously CANNOT SLEEP. Every time Blake wakes up (which is A LOT) it wakes me up, and in the morning my back is always hurting and my eyes are puffy from sleep depravation.

When I went to my sister's house in New York I slept on theirs (thanks Jim!) with her right before she had the baby, and I SLEPT LIKE A BABY! Those commercials where the person is jumping on the bed and the glass of wine doesn't move is REAL. I was so unbothered while I slept and the next morning I felt like a new woman! So I came home on the mission to find one myself (and convince Blake that it was a GREAT idea!)

As of right now I'm counting down the minutes until 10:00 am so I can call a guy I found on Ebay who is selling them from his factory at 25% off! Side note...apparently Tempurpedic's NEVER go on sale. The company has a rule where they can't sell them any lower than the set price, so I'm going to find out how he has his on sale (plus he offers free shipping!)

Ok I know I'm a little over-joyed about a mattress, but I promise if you slept on this thing, you'd feel the same way.

I promise next time I'll have a better post :)

Happy 11 month Anniversary Blake!!

Ok I know you're not really supposed to count "months" anymore as an anniversary when you're married, but I promise I'll stop after this...I just like a good excuse to celebrate a day, and what better day to celebrate than being married to Blake for 11 months! :) I seriously DO NOT KNOW where the time went! I feel like it was last week that we were at the church about to walk down the aisle, but I do know it's been the best time of my life.

It has not always been easy...I remember the first two months thinking "WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME IT WOULD BE LIKE THIS?!!!" We had kind of a hard time making that adjustment (and the more I talked to married people, they said the exact same thing). I think everyone goes through those times...some are shorter or longer than others, but I remember the day of our 2 month anniversary, and thinking "Wow...the joy just clicked" haha. It was pretty much 2 months to the "T". Now I tell everyone when they ask me how I've liked being married that it literally is the best thing in the world, BUT it was a hard change for me. I have a REALLY hard time with change, so I resisted a lot of it, and poor Blake probably was thinking "Who is this person I just signed up for life with?!" But I just kept telling him give me time...I promise I will get better with time, and he was patient, and I got better and better with the change. I remember the most annoying thing I would hear during those 2 months was "Oh isn't marriage just the greatest thing EVER?!" I kept thinking "Actually no it's not, but thanks for asking..." I hope Blake doesn't kill me for sharing this, but I remember just wishing during that time that I had someone to identify with, so I hope this helps put someone out there at ease that you're not the only one! :)

With that said...I am now so totally head over heels in love with my husband, and I cannot imagine a single day without him! He has proved to me God's enormous love for me because I know I do not deserve such an amazing, wonderful husband, but I am SO thankful for him!! There are so many times I wish I could express all the wonderful things about him...but I think I'll save that for our 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY! :)

So our plans to celebrate tonight?




Dinner and a movie...he even agreed to watch Dear John with me! (I told you he was wonderful)



What are your weekend plans? I hope you all have a wonderful one!!

To Go or Not to Go...

Since before Blake and I got married (on July 11, 2009-almost a YEAR!! crazy...) we have both always wanted to move out west for a while before we settle down and have kids to see if we'd rather live out there for the rest of our lives, or live in the south.

So for the past 3 months we have been trying to decide when to pick up and go. I love my job here in Columbia working at an insurance company, and Blake has to finish his internship at an assisted living to graduate in August. So with that said, the earliest we could leave would be around Sept. 5th.

On our way home from Greenville on Sunday we said, "Ok it's a done deal, we're moving in September" so we decided to tell our jobs that our last day would be August 31st.


The next day I went to work, told my supervisor our plans, and explained I would be leaving August 31st. Blake did the same...only his outcome went a little something like this...


The marketing director actually came up to him and asked him when he was done with his internship whether he would like to stay on as Director of Events or switch to the Marketing department. First of all...we didn't know this was an option?? Secondly, we thought to ourselves, "is this God opening a new door and closing another like we prayed for the night before?"

So now we're in a dilemma.

Do we stay and take the safe route for now, put off our plans for a bit and figure out the next step later, or do we leave everything behind and just go?


Well, we don't know the answer to that just yet...of course the popular choice is for everyone to say "Just go, you're young, have fun!" which is popular with me too, but we just want to make sure it's the SMART choice...you know, since we are in a recession and jobs and money are a bit more scarce than ususal :)

So we're in the process of weighing out the pros and cons. I'll start by saying I have many more Pros than cons, but I do have one very big CON, and that is...SNOW. Before you start judging me, let me just assure you I'm not talking about this kind of snow...

Joyful. Blissful. FUN snow.

No no no...I'm talking about THIS kind of snow...

The kind where my dreams of this...

Turn into something like this...

And this adventure...

Turns into THIS adventure...

Brrrrrrrrr...No thank you.

You see...I want the chance to experience the outdoors, go to the farmer's markets and walk everywhere around town simply enjoying being alone with Blake, but I realize you have to take the bad with the good. So with that said...maybe November through February in Boulder will resemble more along the lines of this...

And I'll cope and get by like this...