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...

Living Room Remodel

The living room is a room that I've wanted to make my own style (whatever that is) since the day that we moved in.  We were fortunate enough to get my parents couches, which provide a lot of seating, but they do make the house look very traditional and dark.  They are just in too good of shape to get rid of, and they are too big for the basement, so I am going to have to work them into the design for now. 

This is a picture of our living room last year. 

The love seat couch closed off the space and made our house seem less open.  We were given a gigantic clock for our wedding, but we had to switch it out for a smaller one because of the trim on the fireplace.  The smaller clock never looked as good and it doesn't even work consistently.  I bought the blue candles in hopes of incorporating more blue into the room, but it's just been too hard to do with the couches.  The crazy lampshades were also to incorporate blue, but they are just too different for the rest of the room.  We liked the pictures on the side of the fireplace, but they add more browns, greys and golds to the room.  I recovered the big pillows to match these.  And finally, the chair in the corner was a hand-me-down from college that I always said I would recover, but that hasn't happened yet.  As you can tell, we have a lot going on and working towards one consistent design is probably a good idea.

We both like a living room where the layout looks more conversational, rather than making the TV the total focus, although let's not kid ourselves, we all know that it is.   This is the reason that Greg got his TV first to kick-start the re-design.  The picture below is what we mean as "conversational" where the chairs are facing the couch. 

I love the grey color on the wall in the picture below.  I think painting our fireplace wall with an accent grey color would really make the fireplace pop and bring in the grey that is in the pillows and the pictures on the wall.

I want to get rid of the bulky end tables that we bought on Craigslist and go to a long bookcase along the back of the couch and have some baskets to hide the clutter.  Right now, we really don't need Abby's toys displayed on the fireplace and thinking to the future, the baskets would be good for hiding away kids toys.  I decided that I am going to move the fun colored lamps to the basement and decorate around those downstairs, and I might replace them with new lamps. 

I think the windows need something to dress them up and draw the eye upwards.  What better than  adding more horizontal stripes to the room!  In the picture below, the person used a painter's drop cloth and painted the stripes.  I think I'm going to try it and use a green color for the contrasting stripes.

The last thing I want to redo is the decorations above the fireplace.  I have read this website on layering what you place above the fireplace.  I'm not really sure what to put up there, but I'll figure it out.

So, there are some ideas that I'm working towards so I can finally finish up this room and call it good.  Greg went out of town last week, and I went out and bought some paint, a drop cloth, and a new piece for over the mantel.  I'm really excited to get started!







Millers Visit in April

It's been a while since my last post, but we've been busy with our families coming in town to visit.  My family came through town around Easter on their way to and from South Dakota, and we got our last bit of snow so it kept us inside.  What a bummer!

The Millers visited last weekend, and it was absolutely beautiful!  Greg's mom had a dietitian conference to attend in town, so she and Greg's brother came in town on Wednesday evening, and Greg's dad and sister came down on Friday. 

Friday evening we went out to dinner at the Blue Moose, which is a local chain that they don't have in St. Louis, and then we came back and played one of our favorite games, Loaded Questions.  Abby was just exhausted, so Chase had the chance to be the favorite for a while and catch up on some much needed love from Greg's mom.

Saturday was packed with activities.  We first started our morning off by attending the Roasterie tour, but we arrived 5 minutes late due to a train moving at snail speed blocking the intersection.  After hyping up on coffee, we headed to the City Market to buy some fruits and veggies for our "Food Trip" that we were going to try later and a side dish for BBQ-ing.

We went back home for a while so Greg's dad could watch the Nebraska football game, and then we went to Stone Pillar Winery to sit outside and enjoy the weather.

Greg's brother brought these pills that turn sour food sweet.  We started out with a control group by tasting all the foods before taking the pill.  Then, we slowly dissolved the pill on our tongues and tried them all again.  The strawberries tasted like they had sugar on them, or even better, the strawberries dipped in cocoa powder were like chocolate covered strawberries.  Alex's favorite was lime juice over yogurt, which tasted like key lime pie.  We pushed off grilling for a while, so that our taste buds had some time to go back to normal.  Ha!

We finished off the night grilling and talking around the fire pit.  It was so nice out!

Sunday morning, we played some Playstation Sports Champions.  There is a tournament mode that is pretty fun.  Greg's mom and sister really got into the boxing.  Greg would always make fun of me for flailing and waving my arms around for a playstation game because he doesn't think it truly matters, but for some reason, I noticed him getting into it a bit more when he was playing against his brother.  I think some pent up anger from their childhood was released. 

Then, our other favorite sport was skiing, where Greg's sister and mom are ducking low so they can get more speed, and Greg's mom must be going around a curve on the slope.

It was a great weekend, and so nice to be able to spend it outside.  We love when the entire family is able to come up and visit. 

On Monday, I went to the Royal's Home Opener with people from work.  Hello Springtime!  We've been waiting for you for a while now.