Sunday, December 9, 2012

Christmas traditions

Ever since we've been engaged Hubby and I have tried to do start some Christmas traditions.....well besides our tradition of driving 8+ hours every Christmas to be with our families! One of the ones that has stuck is picking out a new Christmas ornament each year. This weekend we went out looking for the 2012 ornament. We finally found it! It is from Nightmare Before Christmas. Kind of a fun theme for both of us. My high school dance team danced out the story (I was the fat prisoner kiddo that helped kidnap santa clause). Hubby just loves the movie! So here it is! (Also bonus pic of Mav bc he's a nosey dog and had to inspect the ornament!)

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Thanksgiving

I can't believe the Holiday's are already here! I was supposed to be working Thanksgiving this year and was so sad about that....and the fact that it would throw off the holiday rotation we have....BUT then I got an awesome new job and holidays are not not an issue :)

Ed and I headed to Illinois the Tuesday before Turkey day. It was a long and incredibly foggy drive. Mav did AWESOME in the car and slept the whole way (jerk). I tell ya there is nothing sadder then being squished in the front and tired after working all day then looking in the backseat to see 80 pounds of love all stretched out and comfy 100% unconscious. Thanks for rubbing it in Mav :) We made a pit stop in Iowa City and got Caribou for us and a dog treat for Mav. I love how they give dog biscuits out! We made it to my parents close to midnight!

Wednesday I got up and had coffee with my mom and ran Thanksgiving errands while Ed stayed at home to work (lucky him). Ed met us and my dad and little bro for lunch and then we all split up. Dad went back to work. Jeff and Ed went home. Me and Mom went shopping. I had to swing by Apricot Lane (new favorite store, SUCH cute stuff!) to pick up 2 cardigans I had ordered online and exchange a necklace. Luckily for my credit card there was nothing else that I wanted there! Wednesday night my other bro and sis in law came to stay the night. We exchanged Christmas presents with them since we won't see them at Christmas. I got an awesome wine bag that chills wine in 10 minutes (HELLO PERFECT GIFT!) and some bowls I had been wanting from Crate and Barrel for like 5 months.  That night we all relaxed and had my favorite pizza and drinks.

On Thanksgiving mom was hosting the whole family. There were 18 people and 2 dogs. Talk about a full house! I was a little nervous about how Mav would do with that many people so I took him on a 3 mile run to exhaust him. It worked, he was an angel. No jumping on the grandmas and no barking! He just layed in the living room and chewed a bone, I was so happy he was good. It was awesome to see my entire family. Literally everybody but my cousin and her husband were able to make it. It was loud, crowded, and SO FUN! My mom of course made all my favorites and it was delicious. I found a new favorite wine thanks to my aunt Cindy. By night time we were all in a turkey coma...and as Thanksgiving passed.....we crossed the line where it is socially acceptable to listen to Christmas music!!!! (Dont get me wrong its totally been on in my car since Sirius XM launched their station but now I can't be judged for listening!)

Friday and Saturday were spent with more family time, more eating, and lots of shopping. Sadly I did not get any good black friday deals, but it was still fun going out :) Friday I did try to hunt down a vacuum for a black friday deal. How sad is that, now instead of looking for deals on clothes I am getting home appliances....I feel so grown up now :( I did not have luck with the vacuum, but I did get a steam mop I'd been wanting for 50% off at Target so I guess it was a successful day. I also got a few books to read. Our annual Christmas book and then Gone Girl. I have heard SO many good things about Gone Girl and can not wait to get it started!!!

Saturday we took Grandma to lunch, to a few stores she doesn't get to on her own anymore, and then home.  We helped my brother and sis in law with some yardwork then headed back home. That night we celebrated Christmas with my parents. We made out like bandits :P Afterwords we went to the country club for dinner and even got a pic of mom by her parking space she won over the summer for being the country club champ in womens golf! That night we watched basketball and went to bed early so we'd be rested for our "fun" drive home the next day. As always our trip home went way to fast. So thankful we got to see so many family members and have so much time with mom & dad :) Already looking forward to our next trip to Illinois....or mom and dad's next trip here, whatever happens first!

Putting their new ornament on the tree....Go redbirds!

Modeling her new clothes

Ed got his video game.....yay for him...booo for me!

Dad in his new ISU gear

Mavs toy from Grandma


Yay new clothes!

Mom in front of her parking sign at the club!


Now....bring on Christmas!!! Posts of our very decorated house to come :)

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Girls Weekend!

I love all the time I get to spend with the hubby, but every now and then a girl needs a girls weekend :) In the beginning of November I was lucky enough to have one with two of my favorite girls from grad school. I don't know how I would have gotten through grad school without them. We had been trying to find a weekend for over a year but between work, weddings, and babies it was not working out. In July we finally looked out far enough to find the lone November weekend we all had free. We locked it down and then I waited impatiently for almost 5 months for it to get here!

The girls got in late Friday so we ordered pizza, opened a few bottles of wine, and popped in Magic Mike. There was lots of laughing and catching up! Hopefully we weren't too loud for Ed and Mav :) Saturday we went to my favorite breakfast place in Blaine. It has THE best pancakes ever. Everything is homemade there and I love taking all our visitors up there. After we high tailed it to Mall of America and let our shopping spree begin. A few coffee breaks, snack breaks, lots of shopping, and about 6 hours later we left with aching feet and empty wallets.

The Saturday night we took on downtown Minneapolis. I took the girls to Hells Kitchen which is my current food obsession. They have awesome live music and the food is amazing! I went with my standard bison burger and sweet potato fries....I know what you're thinking...bison burger? I thought that too the first time, I mean why would a burger loving girl like me venture from beef?! Ummm b/c it is the most tender delicious meat ever! Oh and its healthier so thats a perk. After eating we went to my new favorite bar, Prohibition. It has gorgeous views of the city as its on the 20 something floor of a hotel. Its very swanky and has over priced drinks....but they were delicious! A few martinis later we headed home and had a dance party with the kinect :)


Jenn, Me, and Nikki at Prohibition

Delicious Martinis!


It was a perfect and much needed girls weekend!! Special thanks for the Hubby for putting up with us!! Was sad to see the girls go but can't wait to do this again!! Love you girls, thanks for visiting!!!

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween! Luckily for me the man I love, loves Halloween too. Maverick does not seem to share our appreciation of it....but I have a feeling that that's because we stuff his large body into costumes. Honestly he does pretty well as long as theres nothing on his head. This year he started out being Hugh Hefner....just a cute red velvet robe and a pipe that squeaked. Naturally he loved the pipe and we hated it :)

Inspecting his pipe

You mean this really makes noise?! FUN!

I tried to get him to bite his mustache toy and pipe at once.....it was quite the effort

The closest I got to the pipe and mustache at once....good effort by Mav though, we worked on it for 20-30 minutes and he didnt get to annoyed :)

Inspecting carefully

Turned his robe into a hoodie! I don't get why he isn't amused hahaha

Anyways like a week later Ed and I were still searching for the perfect Halloween costume for the Halloween party. We eventually decided on Mario and Luigi, SO FUN! AND I got a glitter mustache necklace and Ed got puffy white hands! So Mav needed to match the family.....naturally :) Luckily I found a dinosaur costume at Target and Bowser was born!!! Here are some pics from Saturday night:




Mario and Bowser


Mario, Bowser, and Luigi

Mav getting into costume....dinosaur body...not bad....he was still happy, notice ears up

Add dinosaur head....ears down...sad Mav haha

Punching through some blocks haha

Love the big white hands haha

Glitter stache!

Driving to the party....mariokart?? :)

At the party

Love this picture

Ed & Nick

Battle Shots!!!!!

Me & Devan

Shots with Devan

All in all it was a fabulous Halloween :) Until next years!!

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Office Renovation

I've had a long list going of things I'd like to update ever since we got our house. After 4 years, the office was finally up :) We needed to paint it a different color b/c I'm kinda over all the brown in the house and I wanted a new desk. We had a crappy brown one I never loved but it was free when we moved in so how could we say no! I had been looking at nice black executive desks for about 6 months but they were all $700 plus....I finally found one at Target that I loved!! It didn't even cost 1/4 of the other desks I had seen. Jackpot :) So we bought the desk....and when it arrived Ed knew it wasn't long till we were at the paint store.

We did the renovation the way things always go when I decide on a project.....fast. We had the room cleared out, walls wiped, holes filled, paint up, desk together within 36 hours. And I LOVE how it turned out. We still need to get a small table for the corner to put a cute lamp on and the printer and router. We also still need to hang out diplomas, but otherwise its dunzo! Here are some pics:


Before

Before

Before...ugly brown desk...ugly metal file cabinet

Too much brown....Ed's diploma wasn't even hung

The desk ready to be assembled

Taped up and ready to go, buh bye brown

Ed checkin out the supplies

Our little "helper"...he did not appreciate getting locked out while we painted

2nd paint coat up! LOVE!

View towards the closet before putting book cases back up

Looking towards the hallway....time for furniture

Putting the final touches on the desk....Mav has found his new sleeping location....Ed didn't need leg room right?

Our new desk! LOVE LOVE LOVE it! File cabinets built in, much wider. More organized on top!

Bookcases put back together

Hopefully we'll get the small table for the printer soon and the diplomas hung then the office will be done. What renovation to do next......kitchen? Our bathroom? Only time (and I hear it will be a long time) will tell :)

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Vacation in Florida

In September Ed and I went down to stay at my parents condo for a week.(Thanks mom & dad!!!) It was SO nice to get away from work and life for a week and just relax! We didn't plan it, but we were also down there on the anniversary of us being together for 5 years (awww sooo sweet!)

Getting there was a fiasco as always. Would it kill someone to let us have a trip with good travel luck? We left our Minneapolis gate and then came back and sat at the gate for an hour.....thus missing our layover in Atlanta (in retrospect i shouldn't have thought 45 minutes was enough....but who am i kidding, Atlanta is ALWAYS delayed!!!!) We managed to get on standby on the last flight out of Atlanta once we got there and we made that flight. However we did not make the rental car store which was closed. We got the last car at a neighboring rental car place which was fortunate but it was so small Eds head practically touched the roof! Oh well.....at least we made it!!!!

Our days consisted of sleeping in, going to the pool, playing mini golf, happy hour, and dinner somewhere fun (live band or on the beach!). It was perfect! The weather was almost perfect too. We had 2 really rainy days in the middle (Thanks hurricane issaac reminants) but the rest were great. We managed to make do on the rainy days and did bowling, shopping, a movie, arcade games, and drinking :)

Towards the end of the trip we made our drive to Seaside Florida that I insist on every time we go to PCB. Seaside is where the Truman show movie with Jim Carrey was filmed and its the cutest little seaside town. I love walking around and seeing the houses. Theres also a GREAT bar on the beach with a beautiful sunset view that clearly we couldn't pass up. As always it was great to get back home to see Mav....but I am missin the beach already!!! Here are some (ok a lot) of pics from the week!

Drinks at the Atlanta airport to de-stress once we knew we'd get to PCB that night

Just some snacks for the week

On our way to the bars on our first full day in PCB

Ready to hit PCB running!

View from the condo...paradise

Black light mini golf, so cool!

Sunset from the condo


Sunset from dinner on night #3, GORGEOUS


After dinner and the sunset at Schooners

Ice cream break

Dinner and shopping at Pier Park

Huge waves from Hurricane Isaac

Mini golfing

Ed goofin around at the mini golf course

Kisses for the giraffe

Hole in 1!!

Hole in 1!


Our version of a Corona ad



More huge waves from Isaac

Beach Walk

Love him :)

Seaside Florida, isn't it cute!

View from Happy Hour in Seaside


Sunset at Seaside

Us at sunset in Seaside

Happy Hour Drinks

Pool time

Mini golf on our last day



10 rounds of mini golf later vacation was over :( Ed won 4 games, I won 3, tied 3!

Enjoying drinks before dinner

I could do this every night

Beautiful PCB on the last day.
Until next time Panama City!!