Crafts & Dancing!

So by now you have all heard about my new favorite thing to do...CRAFT! I have been making these letter signs for a few months now and I had to share this adorable picture! This is my friends daughter posing with the sign I made for her room. Her name is Ellison Rahe...isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen? Photos were taken by Jenny Preston of JP Photography you can link to her blog here





If you are interested in purchasing one please write and I would be happy to make one for you...price depends on size.

On another note, are you watching Dancing with the Stars? I'm of course rooting for OCHOCINCO! Who are you voting for?

Exciting Weekend!

This weekend has been quite exciting. First, I bought a new car! I guess I shouldn't say CAR...its a rather large GMC Acadia. At first I was really nervous because it's sooo much different then my good ole Acura TL (which I will miss), but I have become more comfortable driving this monster each and every day! It seats eight people, has a DVD player, TONS of room for traveling and our two dogs...it really is perfect for us! Here is a picture!



The excitement doesn't stop here...Saturday night I went to dinner and to the Cincinnati Ballet with a friend. We saw Mozart's Requiem...it was my first ballet and it was GREAT! I would highly recommend it! This is a picture I took of the program and my cousin's school mascot (he has to travel to different places and get his picture taken...how cute)!



Oh I must mention that one HORRIBLE thing that happened this weekend was UK losing to West Virginia...of course I still love my WILDCATS. Moving past the devastation...on Saturday morning me and two of my best girlfriends drove to Louisville (in my new car of course) to purchase hats for the Kentucky Oaks! We were so lucky that all three of us found hats we loved at the first store we went to. We had a great time trying on hats, giving each other advice, debating colors and styles and finally making our purchase! Here are a few pictures of my hat from all different sides (the feather is actually in the back).





I bought it and added all the feathers. I love it...now I have to find something to wear with it...I don't normally wear brown! The Kentucky Oaks is the big race before the Derby for those of you who don't know. It is also held at Churchill Downs and it's tradition to dress up, wear hats, and drink the "Oaks Lily" which is the official drink of the KY Oaks. It's pink because the Oaks raises money for breast cancer research. The ingredients are:

* 1 oz. Vodka
* 1 oz. Sweet and Sour Mix
* 3 oz. Cranberry Juice
* Splash of Triple Sec


Here is a picture of Kim Kardashian drinking an Oaks Lily



One day I will make it to the Derby, but this year I'm perfectly content with the Oaks!

Lots of other fun things happened this weekend, but I have written enough for now! Hope you had a great weekend too!

Hawaii

It's official, my sister-in-law will be getting married in Maui June 17, 2011. It has been her dream for many years to be married in Hawaii and now her dream will come true! This past week, she gave me this adorable booklet that she made to ask me to be in the wedding. Here was the poem inside:

The day, the dress
The bride, the groom
The joy, the tears
Will all come too soon

Professing true love
To my husband to be
With family and friends
All watching me

Because to me you mean so much
I have one thing to say which I will phrase as such;
Nothing would give me more joy and pride,
Than to have you up there right by my side

You've stood right beside me throughout thick and thin
And I want you to be there when I marry him.
Many great memories I have shared with your smile,
So, I want you to meet me at the end of the aisle!

Isn't that the sweetest thing!!!??? Here is a picture of the front of booklet she made (I would post more pictures but they are all uploading sideways for some annoying reason):


Thanks LALA for including me in on your special day...Hawaii here we come!

Vacation

It has been a long work week and it has caused me to neglect my blog! Well now I'm ready to give some updates! We had a great time in FL (minus the chilly weather and my girlfriends getting super sun burnt).

Here are some pictures from our trip:


Pic of Jen, me and Mandi


This sign was hanging in a bar/restaurant in Tin City...funny!


View from the Marriott on Marco Island...we stopped in for a visit...it was so pretty!


Me and Matt on the beach...I told him to put that stupid stick down, but he wouldn't listen. lol.


The crew on our last night. We had to get up at 4:00 a.m. the next morning...eeewww!


Beautiful sunset on Marco Island.

As you can see, we had a great time! I'm ready to go back and enjoy WARM weather, lots of pool/beach time, more great food, etc. Speaking of food, we ate at a delicious Hawaiian Fusion restaurant (I had the trio which included salmon, butter fish and swordfish), the always FAB Tommy Bahama (I had ribs which were AWESOME and I'm not a big ribs person), plenty of pizza, Randy Fish Market (yummy), and lots more. Lot's of calories were inhaled! What is vacation good for if not great food!

Well now that we are home, we still have plenty of things to keep us busy. We have a 5K in the morning in memory of our good friend Taylor who passed away more than 2 years ago (wow time flies). We are also spending the weekend cheering on our BELOVED...C A T S! GO BIG BLUE!

Back from Vacation...Back to Reality!

We arrived home safely from vacation yesterday morning. It was an early morning that's for sure! We had to leave the condo at 4:00 a.m. to make our 6 a.m. flight. I will admit it was nice being home by 9 a.m., but I was exhausted!

We did lot's of fun things while we were in Naples! Plenty of dinner's, plenty of fun drinks, and plenty of fun times! The weather was much cooler than normal, but we made the best of it. I didn't pack too well because I ended up with two long sleeved shirts that I ended up wearing the entire time, but it was A - OK!

I had an extremely long day at work trying to get caught up and ready for our annual special event Dining in the Dark, so I'm too tired to post all of our fun pictures, but I will do my best to get to those tomorrow!

For now, here are three awesome cars we saw parked in a row in Naples!


BENTLEY


MASERATI


FERRARI

I'm dying for a new car right now, but I think I better KEEP DREAMING! THANKS MOM AND DAD FOR LETTING US USE YOUR CONDO!!! :)

Basement is Painted :)

I was so excited to see the basement painted! This clearly means I didn't help at all! I would have, but I think it was better for me to stay out of they way. I did chose the colors, so that was my part. We did the majority of the space in "Oak Cake", the bedroom is some type of Mauve color, and the bathroom in a very light blue. I think it looks great! We will probably slow down a bit now and take a breather before putting up trim, selecting tile, cabinets, counter-top, etc. Here are some pictures!






Today is my hubby's 29th birthday...Yikes! One more year till the big 3-0! We had dinner at his parents house on Sunday to celebrate. Here is a picture of Matt with his niece Sophie who was helping him blow out the candles.


On Sunday I also attended a shower for my cousin-in-law (who is pregnant with baby Kadence). It was at a local church and it was such a great place to have a shower! Of course, I couldn't resist making her one of my "crafts". She loved it!



I'm going to start selling these and I will be at the Ryle Craft Show in November...exciting!

Thats all for now. BUT, I leave for Naples Florida in the morning (YAY)...so I probably won't be posting until sometime next week. Have a great week and weekend! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT!

Dry Wall

Well...the dry wall has all been put up and is ready to be painted! Matt asked me not to post these specific pictures because this is before it was sanded (I guess???). BUT, as you can tell, I'm putting them up anyway because I'm too lazy to go downstairs, take pictures, upload them, etc. I think you get the point by looking at these :)

Here are some pics...





It will be as if we have a second home when this is all said and done! We are going to pick out some paint this weekend and try to get that finished and then take a break (so we don't blow through a TON of money in such a short amount of time)!

I will definitely post photos once it has been painted!

Happy Wednesday!

MeEt - N - gReeT!!!!

Well...I'm back from Chicago! It was quite the experience. The concert was Thursday night and as I told my friends "I'm not being dramatic, but it was the best night ever"!!! We went to Joe's bar on Weed Street for the concert and arrived to Meet-n-Greet passes! Here is a picture of me with Eric Church...



When I walked up to him he said "I like your boots" and of course I had to respond with "well I like your song THESE BOOTS", lol. After we all got individual pictures with him, we were off to the concert! Here is a picture of us during the concert (taken by one of his guitar players while they were in the middle of a song)!



After they were done playing, we went upstairs to the "VIP" area and hung around talking to people. After about 30 minutes, up walks Eric Church! We still weren't sure at this point if he was going to talk to anyone, or if he wanted to be left alone. Luckily, he was willing to talk and was SUPER nice. One of my more embarrassing moments was talking to him for about 30 minutes about Kentucky basketball. Good thing he seemed to be enjoying the conversation! I told him that when he comes to Riverbend in May we were going to bring him a UK T-shirt and he agreed to wear it, lol. We will see if that really happens. Here is a picture of him signing my boots and Brooke's boots!!!!! (It was only appropriate considering one of our favorite songs is of course THESE BOOTS!)




Finally, here is a picture of me and Jill with Eric Church and his manager after the concert. WHAT A PERFECT NIGHT!



We spent most of the day Friday shopping and eating Chicago style pizza. We had such a great time. Unfortunately, two of my girlfriends ended up with food poisoning and were sick all day on Saturday (we had a very rough drive home). I still think we all had a wonderful weekend all-in-all! Hope you had a good one too!

CHICAGO!

Hi friends! I am off to Chicago today at 12:30 with four of my girlfriends. We are going to see Eric Church in concert and we are 99% sure we have meet and greet passes!! YAY. I won't be home until Saturday evening, so I probably won't be blogging until Sunday. Have a great weekend...I'll post Chicago pictures when we get home!

Here is one of my favorite Eric Church songs...enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cky12qKldLo

New office, basement and nephew!

It's been an exciting weekend! When we had our snow day last week, Matt and I spent the day finishing our home office and this weekend we have gotten to sit down and enjoy it.





I think it's perfect!

The most exciting part of our weekend took place Friday morning. Long story short, we went to St. Elizabeth to meet our new niece (my sister in-law had a scheduled C-Section), and we ended up meeting our new NEPHEW instead! It was a great surprise. My sister in-law found out that it was a boy a few weeks prior to her C-section, but she decided to surprise the family. Her first ultra-sound tech made a mistake and said it was a girl...oops! It was the tech's 21st mistake in 31 years (doing hundreds of ultrasounds a year)! Here is baby Connor James!! (So much for the wooden letter "G" I made in pink and green, and the handmade hat I ordered...oh well, lol!



On Saturday we hung out with our niece Sophie (who is now big sister to baby Connor) and my other sister-in-law, Lauren. We had fun making a build-a-bear for Sophies new brother, eating dip-n-dots, shopping a bit, and hanging out at our house with Rupp and Zadeh.

Here is Sophie and Lauren on the carousel at the mall.



Our basement should be getting dry wall today! Pictures to come!