4th of July Weekend 2013

Happy 4th of July Everyone!  The holiday and weekend turned out to be great when our friends, Jessica and Evan, decided to visit at the last minute.  We visited them in Washington DC earlier in the year and you can read about that trip here.  They recently moved to Arkansas (or as Greg likes to say, "Ar-Kansas") for the next chapter in their lives.  We didn't have any plans for the 4th, but our friends Lisa and Joe invited us to Somerset Winery the day before around 10 AM, and then Jess and Evan contacted us around 4 PM.  So, we all went to the winery, and then played yard games and grilled out in the evening.  Once again, the weather was gorgeous!  It's been a great start to the month of July!

On Saturday we went to the Royal's baseball game.  I got tickets for all of us through someone at work, and they were in the Dugout Box seats.  They were awesome, so it was actually enjoyable to watch. 

Afterwards we headed to the city and hung out at the old Opera House that they converted into a coffee house/bakery/paleo grill/bar...  Yes, there was a lot going on, but we loved the place.  So, we got drinks and played some dominoes.

We were waiting until Jessica and Evan's friend, Brian, got back in town.  We went out to dinner with him and then went to Westport to hang out at another patio bar. 

Then, we went back to Brian's apartment in the city, and he took us up to the rooftop patio.  It was an incredible view overlooking all the areas in the city!  Brian is moving to Washington DC now in a couple weeks, so I'm so upset we didn't hang out before this.  His apartment was in a great area. 

Needless to say, it was a great weekend seeing our good friends and just relaxing and doing what we love to do.  Last weekend at Church they talked a little about the history on the Declaration of Independence in light of the holiday, and how our nation was founded on the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Then, they really went into the idea of happiness and what that means to each of us.  He was saying how bad/evil has always existed in the world and that it shouldn't scare us from truly living our lives and doing what makes us happy and choosing good along the way.  It 's our gift back to God.  So, here's to living life to the fullest, making every moment count, and giving thanks for each opportunity!

Have a great week!

Invitations

One of the activities that has kept me busy in the last few weeks was making invitations for my friend, Amy's wedding.  She found a design online and got a quote for $1,600 and said no way!  She showed me the design, and I said I could make those for her.  She didn't believe me and there's nothing more that I like to do, than to do something that someone says I can't do.  So, I said give me a couple of days, and I'll send something her way to see if it's good enough and if I should continue.  I spent the next evening working on the invitations while listening to the somewhat soothing voices of those on The Voice! 

Well, needless to say, Amy loved them!  She and Alex were so fun to work with on the design, and I'm really happy with the way that they turned out.  I gave them the name of the printing company that I used called Minuteman Press, and they went through them to get the invitations printed and they came out only paying a few hundred dollars.  

I designed my own invitations for my wedding as well by seeing a design online and trying to recreate it.  I was really happy with mine as well, but I love Amy's!

I really enjoy working on invitations or anything creative on the computer.  It sort of artsy and relaxes me in a way.  I would love to help you with any invitations for get-togethers, birthday parties, anniversaries, bachelorette parties, etc.  If you know of anyone that would like something made, please have them contact me.

Have a good rest of the week!

Miami - June 2013

Greg usually takes a guy's trip with his friends to see the St. Louis Cardinals play somewhere every year.  This year one of the other wives wanted to go, so we all decided to join them and make it a couple's trip to Miami.  We and Ryan and Kelly arrived on Wednesday afternoon.  We ate lunch at a place called, Yardbird, that was pretty pricey, but the food was delicious.  It took us only 20 minutes to park, and that's all I'm going to say about the parking situation and driving in general, but trust me, it was a constant frustration for me the entire trip.  We stayed in a hotel the first night.  We checked in and went directly to the beach with a drink in hand.  We played frisbee for a while, and then went up to the pool. 

View From Our Hotel Room

We asked the hotel where a simple sports bar was located for us to eat at.  He suggested a bar at the Days Inn.  We walked just a couple of blocks to this bar that was located in the basement.  It was a dump, BUT we had a blast!  We ordered a pizza, which was clearly a frozen pizza, yet it was still delicious.  The bar had a ping pong table, so Greg and Ryan played and Kelly and I picked out songs to play on their sterio system.  The boys finally lost all the balls and broke the last one under their foot, and we were too afraid to ask the bartender for more balls, so we headed back to the hotel.  We played our beloved Cards Against Humanity game and blasted Disney songs throughout the room.  Ryan started it, but I loved it and now I still can't get the Pocohantus song, "The Colors of the Wind" out of my mind.

The next day, we checked into our condo.  This is the first time that Greg and I stayed at a condo outside of a time share.  We found it through Flipkey.com, where individuals can rent out their own spaces.  The place we stayed at was nice!  And, maybe a little too nice as we were greeted with only a valet parking option, and were told not to touch our bags as they were loaded onto the carts because the doorman would bring them up to our room for us.



The view from our condo was gorgeous!  We were happy that the place was more updated than the lobby.

There were 2 pools, a waterfall, a bar by the pools, and beach access.  What more could you want?  And really, that's pretty much all that we did the entire trip was enjoy the beach and the pool.

On Thursday, we struggled to find a place to eat yet again.  We walked a good mile and a half to finally find a Pita Hut in a Jewish community.  Kelly and I ordered sushi and Greg and Ryan had a Greek pita sandwich.  The highlight of our walk was that we walked along the inner canal and saw a gigantic yacht with "Usher" on the side of it.  Kelly looked it up to confirm that it was indeed Usher's yacht.  If only we could have seen Usher...

On Friday, Jeremy and Kristen arrived late in the evening, and we didn't make it to play trivia at a restaurant like we wanted.  We ended up ordering pizza, walking on the beach, and then playing cards.

More beach and pool on Saturday, and then we headed to the Florida Marlin's Stadium in the afternoon.  We had a cab drop us off at a Sports bar that turned out to be closed, so we walked about a mile to an authentic Mexican restaurant.  Hardly anyone spoke English, and the entire menu was in Spanish.  Our meals were actually really good and we left there paying only $30 per couple, where each of us had 3 beers.  Not too bad.

The stadium was recently renovated, and they have a retracting roof that was closed and air conditioning was on.  It was weird not being outdoors for baseball, but the break in the heat was nice.  The Cardinals won! 

On Sunday, we dropped Jeremy and Kristen off at Carnival Cruise Line because they were going on a cruise for the week.  The views were gorgeous over there as well.  Greg and I went shopping before we left for our flight, and then we got home around 10 PM.

We had our neighbor watch our pets.  Abby was so afraid of the little boy that is around 10 when they came over the week prior to learn about their responsibilities.  Chase wouldn't even come out to greet them.  We called them before we got home and they said they love seeing Abby smile, and that her son was such a cat whisperer because Chase would always come out when they had Abby outside.  We had to break Chase of jumping up on the table again, but Abby is really good at fetching now and bringing back her toys and gently letting go of them, so I'm happy that it worked out. 

Enjoying the 1st Weekend of Summer 2013

Well, it's been a while... I'd like to say that I've been busy working on house projects and just crafting away, BUT we've just been busy with typical springtime activities like cleaning the house and taking care of the yard.  I do have a couple posts that I can write up so you can see what we've been up to.  Greg and I got back from Miami a week ago, so you can look forward to that post in the future.  For now, I will just fill you in on our first weekend of summer.

To start the weekend off, I got really sick on Thursday sneezing all day and had so much sinus pressure in my face before I went to bed, so I decided that I would actually go to the doctors on Friday so I could get a z-pack or something since I wanted to have a good weekend.  The doctor said that since my cold came on so soon, she was just going to give me some steroids in order to reduce the swelling in my sinuses.  Steroids?  Really?  But she swore by them...  She said they would make me go crazy and give me lots of energy, so she advised that I don't take them before I go to bed.  Then, she said I could also get some antiboitics if I still needed them.  So, I started off taking 6 pills on Friday, 5 on Saturday, and now 4 on Sunday and so on and so forth.  I'm still feeling pretty sick, but let's face it, I never really stopped to rest the entire weekend.

FRIDAY.  So, most of you probably don't know the local radio station of 96.5 The Buzz, but Greg and I really like some of their talk shows and we almost always listen to one of their podcasts on the ride home to St. Louis.  Greg is more of a frequent listener than me, but needless to say, we find ourselves laughing out loud at times when we listen to them.  My friend had a happy hour in Power & Light on Friday, so I went out and Greg stayed at home since we had a long week in Miami the week before.  96.5 The Buzz was putting on a free concert in Power & Light and Matt & Kim were playing.  This almost brought out Greg, but he still stayed home.  Anyway, long story short, I ran into "Slim Fast", one of the guys on the afternoon show that Greg loves.  I asked to take a picture with him for my husband because he is in love with him.  Matt & Kim were awesome, and by the end of the night my ears were ringing and voice was hoarse from screaming over the loud music, and I tell myself that I'm getting too old to party down there.

SATURDAY.  Greg was super nice to me all day.  He started off making and bringing me a breakfast sandwich and coffee in bed, and then he said he wanted to go trail running.  He said he would try out the trails at Kill Creek Park, rather than going all the way down to Lawrence, so I said I would go with him.  I popped 3 steroids and was good to go.  We ran just under 4 miles and it was difficult.  The woods made it really humid, but it was still better than being out in the sun.  There were lots of rocks on the trails that made it difficult.  Greg is having his friend, Andrew Mais, that was in our wedding up next weekend and they are going to go mountain biking on a couple of trails around us, so they will be back.  We drove around the park before we went home, and we saw that they have a little man-made beach on a lake and a fishing area, so we know what we're going to do next time my dad is in town!  The only downside is that we found 10 really tiny ticks on each of us when we got home.  We were happy that we didn't bring Abby.

Saturday afternoon we went to the winery up the street and packed some snacks.  We love just sitting out and relaxing over a glass of wine.  We got their chilled Cayuga, which was very refeshing.  Then, we went to the movies to see "This is the End".  It was pretty funny.  We were almost going to go home to eat dinner, but then we saw a new sushi place called Sake by the theater so we stopped in.  Greg recognized the Owner as the guy who used to own Wasabi Cafe that was a small, BYOB sushi place that closed.  This guy really liked us when he owned the other place and would always make good suggestions or make a special appetizer for us to try.  Sure enough, he came over and said hi, we tried a delicious tuna appetizer and he gave us a tour of the place before we left.  We promised him we would be back the next weekend with friends.

SUNDAY.  We were both miserable today with allergies.  My cold has now moved to my chest and Greg is all stuffed up.  We watched a couple movies while working on other stuff on our computers.  Greg was nice and took Abby for a run, and then cut the yard.  I cleaned the house, and then we tried making some glasses out of our wine bottles and failed miserably.  So, we just made dinner and are watching movies again...