Friday Favorites!!!

Happy Friday y'all!!! 

1) Ikea - I love Ikea. I love that we have one 25 minutes away (This is one thing I won't like about moving back to NC at some point. Can IKEA please come to Raleigh?). I love that it's so cheap and I love that they package things so that I can fit so much stuff in our tiny little car. I also love their $1 cinnamon rolls. YUM! We went to pick up some bookshelves and some other things. Josh was a bit worried about fitting the biggest bookshelf in the car because we bought an identical one when we had the Taurus and we had a really hard time getting it to fit in through the trunk and back seats. The Taurus is quite a bit bigger than the Civic. I was optimistic and I told him we would find a way. Well, even I was a little surprised that I was right. It went right in with no problem. The Civic may be smaller, but the trunk is made differently, so it was actually a lot easier to slide the box down into the trunk and through the back seat opening.

2) Our car - Refer back to #1. I love that it's smaller, but we can still fit things that we could fit in the much larger, harder to park, gas hog Taurus.

3) Wednesday off - I love short weeks! I took Wednesday off because we had contractors at the house fixing our bay window. We had some rotted wood and a couple other issues that we thought were leading to a bit of leakage in our bumpout on the front of our house. Thompson Creek came out to replace all the rotted wood, fix those issues and cap everything. Now it looks SO much better AND it's maintenance free. It has a double lifetime warranty, so it's covered during our time in this house AND the next owners. Hopefully having this done will increase the value of our home. We're not 100% sure this will entirely fix the leaking issue we have when it rains sideways, but it was something that really needed to get done anyway.

4) Maid Brigade - On my Wednesday off, I had 9843098 things on my to do-list:

- Clean the house 

- Start organizing the garage (we REALLY want to be able to park the car in there this winter) 

- Look in our attic and see how we can utilize it for storage 

- Finish putting together IKEA furniture

- Wash new towels and switch out the old ones

- Organize craft room (you could only see a few spots on the floor)

- Catch up on laundry

- Hang curtains in the guest room and our bedroom

- Hang up some pictures (our walls have been bare WAY too long)

- Break out the Fall candles and decor

- Cook dinner

I realized when I made this list that there was no way I was going to finish it. I decided to bring some help in and I'm SO glad I did. The ladies did a fantastic job and I was able to get SO much done while they were here. I just worked in the garage while they were upstairs and organized the craft room while they were downstairs. I kept Bailey on the floor I was on and she napped, sun bathed and people watched. 

5) Bark Box - A couple weeks ago, I saw a Groupon for Bark Box. If you've ever heard of Birch Box, it's the dog version. If not, it's basically a service that mails you a box of 4-5 items per month. These items could be toys, treats, or a number of other things for your dog. The boxes usually start at $17 a month, but with the deal, I got it for $10 a month. We definitely spend more than that on toys and treats for Bailey, so I decided to give it a shot after researching a little and finding out what had been in past boxes. I was SO excited when Bailey's first box came in. I sat it on the floor for her and let her sniff it and push it around a little. Then I decided she had enough teasing. This month's box included:

- Zukes Z-Bones in Clean Apple Crisp Flavor (She hasn't tried this yet)

- Whole Life Organics Sweet Potato Treats (She's still not sure if she likes these)

- Whole Life Freeze Dried Chicken Treats (of course she loves these)

- A Crinkit (She will get this today and I already know she will love it)

- w.a.g. Wash & Go bath wipes (She won't care about this, but I'm keeping it in the car for after the dog park)

6) Master Bedroom - We've had the paint to paint our bedroom for quite some time, but we've been putting it off. Well, it's finally done and I love it! I'll try to post pictures within the next week.

7) Andre Brown - I don't like the Giants...at all. But Andre had a great game and I love it! Who doesn't enjoy a good Panthers/Cam loss? 

Friday Favorites!

Goodness, is it really Friday again already?!? I'm not complaining :-)

1) Wolfpack Football - We enjoyed watching our first win of the season at home last weekend. I love going to games, but it's also really nice to watch the game from the comfort of my home. I made Old Bay Hot Wings (YUM!) and crescent rolls stuffed with cream cheese and jalapenos...also very good. 

2) Orioles - I attended my first...and second...Orioles games last weekend. I was not looking forward to Saturday's game. I had to go to it for a work event. I wanted to stay home and watch Wake win with Josh. I actually ended up having a great time and the Os won. Josh went to the game this time. We went with another couple and we had a great time. The Yankees won that game though :-/. We've been wanting to go to an Os game since we moved up here. It's really nice that we got to go to both games for free, and that the Os are actually doing well! 

3) This little lady...I love her so much. She's been doing so well lately. She's met 2 new dogs this week and she did really well with both of them. One was a Pomeranian. She was really calm with him (not very Bailey-like) while he put his little paws on her shoulders and stiffed her face. The next one was Apollo, a little Beagle mix. He was adorable. He's only 6 months old and he hasn't been to any parks or anything yet, so he's still a little nervous. He finally warmed up to here a little and she did really well with him. 

 She's serious about chasing her stick...

it's pretty much her favorite toy. 

4) New Faucet - I love it! 

5) My amazing hubby - We've been on a slightly different schedule for the past couple weeks. Josh decided to start getting up even earlier (around 4:45) so he could work on things before work. He usually isn't very motivate or productive after work, so he wanted to try this out. Of course, this means going to bed even earlier. He stayed up late one night installing the new faucet for me. I know that's not how he wanted to spend his evening after work, but he still did it for me...and removing the old faucet was a pain and extremely time consuming since part of the bolts were corroded. Once he got the old one loosened, it was really easy to install the new one. 

6) Dinner - Josh had a team dinner at Heavy Seas Alehouse last night. It was a pretty pricey dinner, but the food was amazing and we had a really great time. This is our second time going there and we really like it. It has a nice rustic feel to it.

7) Weather - I can tell Fall is just around the corner! We've had cool, mornings and the days have been beautiful this past week. The weather this weekend is supposed to be in the mid 70s and sunny...absolutely perfect! 

A Little Bit of NC

After we got back from Atlanta, we stayed in NC to visit our family for a bit. I never take enough pictures when we visit, so I don't have many at all. I just get so lost in catching up with people I don't even think about it. 

Anyway, we left Atlanta around 10:30 or so and got to my mother in law's house around 4:00 Saturday afternoon. I couldn't wait to go pick up Bailey, but we needed to drop off the mini fridge the Martins got Josh for his birthday to make room for her. We caught up with Josh's mom for a bit and told her all about the game, then we were off to my dad's house. Bailey's younger sister lives with my dad, so she's always excited to go over and play. She had a blast rolling in the dirt with Gia while we were away. My dad is always happy to keep Bailey. He told everybody he was keeping his granddaughter while we were in GA :-). He said she behaved well, but she didn't want to go outside by herself. She would bark to tell my dad she wanted to go out. Then as soon as he would let her out and close the door, she would bark to be let back in. Haha. Silly girl. I surprised her when I walked in at my dad's house. She was sleeping on the couch next to him. She woke up and looked at me when I opened the door. It took a second for her to register who we were because she was still half asleep, but we got a nice welcome "WOOF" and lots of kisses. We caught up with my dad and told him all about the game. We left one of our Pack Pilsners with him to drink during the game. I knew it would be too hoppy for him and he wouldn't like it, but I thought he would appreciate that it was red. Well, I didn't think to remind him to pour it in a glass. My dad isn't used to homebrews and he drank it straight from the bottle :-/. So not only did he not realize it was a red beer, he also drank some of the icky sediment that collects on the bottom of the bottle. Anyway, he didn't like how hoppy it was, but he drank it anyway because Josh and I made it. Haha. 

After we left my dad's house, we went to visit Josh's dad. We decided to wash Bailey at his house so we wouldn't have to worry about her rolling around with dogs and getting dirty while she was still wet. Josh's dad has a little dog, but he's a bit cranky and doesn't care much for Bailey, so we don't have to worry about that happening at his house. She looked SO much whiter after we washed her. She HATES baths with a passion and she knew she was going to get one. She tried to jump off Josh when he picked her up and scratched him pretty bad in the process. She whined the entire time like she always does, but I'm sure she felt better. It took me quite a while to clean all the dirt out of her ears. I'm always amazed at how much dirt finds its way into her ears after she's been playing outdoors for a while. They're like magnets for dirt! After we washed Bailey, we watched a the Clemson v. Auburn game through halftime. 

We left to go back to Josh's mom's so we could watch the second half there. Bailey was completely exhausted from playing at my dad's all weekend. She didn't want to miss out on anything though and she was so excited to see Aaron and Judy, so she wouldn't go to sleep. She was struggling to keep her eyes open. We all ended up going to bed not long after Clemson beat Auburn! We got up really early the next morning for Josh to go fishing with my cousin Bryan. I went to spend the day with my sister. Bailey was still exhausted, and I was pretty tired myself, so the 3 of us cuddled up on the couch to take a quick nap. Once we were all awake, Nikki and I went to Lowe's to pick out our new kitchen faucet. We had to run a couple other errands too, and Bailey ended up being in my sister's apartment by herself for 2 hours with 0 damage! YAY! She's gone that long before, but since she tore the carpet up about 3 months ago, we haven't left her out alone at home. I was kind of worried about her being in a new place all by herself, but she was an angel. It may or may not have had something to do with her being completely exhausted. :-). My sister and I spent the rest of the afternoon just catching up until Josh and Bryan got back to her apartment. Once everybody was back, we decided to play Trouble. It has been a LONG time since I've played that game. We ended up playing 3 games and had a lot of fun! 

 One of her napping at Nikki's house

We went back to Josh's mom's for dinner and to spend a little more time with her. Bailey was still tired. She's used to sleeping the majority of the day, so a couple naps just isn't enough for her. She was really excited to see Aaron and Judy. She loves playing with Aaron because he will let her play rough with him. She gets away with too much with him, but I guess that's what grandparents are for, right? Matt came in with his girlfriend and Bailey was really excited...until she realized there was a new person in the house. She was not OK with that. We put her to bed for a little while then let her back out. She was a little better, but she still wasn't comfortable having someone she didn't know around. 

We made plans to go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast Monday morning. I was so excited because it's my favorite place to go for breakfast. We have a couple of them up here, but they're too far to drive for just a meal, so we always try to go while we're home. As always, it was delicious and I was ready for a nap afterward. Y'all, if you haven't tried their hash brown casserole, you're really missing out! It's amazing. 

We went back to my sister's house for dinner Monday evening. This was the first time I got to see my mom and Natalia since we had been in town. Natalia had to show me her cartwheels and tell me about school. She showed me that the fish Josh and I got her for her Birthday was still alive. We all had dinner and just caught up for a while. The food was delicious and it was really nice to spend time with everyone together. After my parents left we tried to play another game of Trouble. It was a little more challenging to play it with Natalia. Haha. We ended up not finishing the game. You have to love the attention span of a 5 year old. Natalia had to go to school Tuesday morning (I can't believe she's already in Kindergarten!), so I put her to bed early. She laid down with me while we watched the VT v. GT game, then Josh put her in her own bed once she fell asleep. She was very chatty because she didn't want to go to bed yet, but it didn't take long for her to doze off. She is so funny sometimes. I was wearing my NC State class ring and she was looking at the Block S on it. She looked at me with the most serious face and said, "Aunt Kiss, how do you make an NC Steak?" It took me a few minutes to figure it out, but she was asking me how to draw a Block S. She is adorable and hilarious, I hate that I don't get to spend more time with her. 

 Bailey and Aunt Nikki napping during the football game. I love this pic.

Tuesday morning, Bailey was SO excited to see Natalia when she woke up. Natalia isn't a morning person at all, so I thought morning Bailey would be a bit much for her. Luckily, I was wrong. Bailey went in her room to give her good morning kisses and I think she was just as excited as Bailey was. We had french toast and bacon for breakfast then Natalia finished getting ready for school. I walked her down to the car to say our goodbyes. I love/hate our goodbye hugs. Natalia's normal hugs are very quick. When she knows she's not going to see you for a while, she hangs on really tight. So, I love her big hugs, but I hate that I won't get another one for a while.

 This is my foot next to my 5 year old niece's foot. Can you believe that?!? Crazy. 

 We made it on the road a little before 9 Tuesday morning.

 Bailey was either asleep or half asleep for 95% of the trip.

This is the part where she wasn't asleep. She smelled that delicious COOKOUT BBQ. Haha. 

We had a great time visiting our families and catching up. This is the last time we will be going home until Thanksgiving, but both sides of the family are coming to visit in October, so we'll see them before long :-)

Friday Favorites!

1) Another short week - I am SO grateful this was a short work week for me. It has been a tough one, so it's really a blessing that I didn't have to be there the first 2 days.

2) Exercise - We typically get up at 5:30 for work. I woke up at 5:00 Thursday morning. 30 minutes is not enough time for me to fall back to sleep. I would typically lay there and get tired and cranky just before the alarm clock goes off. This time I decided to get up and exercise. I was just going to do some pilates, but Bailey got up with me so I decided to take her running instead. I put her backpack on her and she carried my keys and phone for me. I think she actually likes wearing it. It has been over 3 months since I've been running, so it wasn't a great run, but it was better than nothing. We ran sprints rather than "long" (like a mile...haha) distance. This way Bailey actually gets a chance to stretch her legs and run. When I run at my normal pace she just gets to trot a little, which is just a tease for her.

3) Last Meeting - I've had to attend weekly planning meetings after work for an event that is coming up this weekend for the last couple of months. One late night a week doesn't seem like a lot, but if Josh plays basketball on Mondays and ultimate frisbee on Tuesdays, that only leaves 2 or 3 week nights that we get to spend together depending on which night my meeting falls. Let's just say I'm SO glad I just had the last one this week. I will be so glad to be back at my normal routine next week.

4) Visiting family - After Atlanta, we went back to NC to spend some time with our family. We were originally going to stay there from Saturday to Monday morning, but we decided to take an extra day off work and leave Tuesday morning instead. I'm SO glad we did. We got to spend extra time with our families and we didn't hit any traffic on the way back home. 

5) New faucet - We finally bought a new kitchen faucet! We just have the standard builders faucet right now and I don't like it at all. I don't like not having a sprayer either. We have a very busy weekend coming up, but hopefully we can get it installed at some point.

Football Kickoff...ATL Style!

We headed down to Atlanta Thursday morning to kick off football season! We made it to our hotel a little before 1 and got checked in. We arrived around the same time as the Martins! It was really great to see them. They surprised Josh with a mini fridge for his Birthday :-). We picked up Burgess from the airport and made our way into Atlanta to get ready for the SweetWater tour. We heard it through the grapevine that it was going to be ridiculously crowded and we would need to get there really early or we may not get in. The tour started at 5:30, so we got there around 3:30. NO ONE was there yet. We took a couple pictures and asked about what we could do before the tour and we decided on a bar nearby. We reserved our parking spot and went to find the place. We would have liked to have toured Terrapin while we were down too, but their tour times were around the same time as SweetWater's, and they're located in Athens, so it didn't work out. We decided to try some Terrapin brews at the bar instead. One of them came with a free glass, so it was almost like we got a tour anyway :-). Josh and I split a Pimento Cheese Burger with bacon mac and cheese. YUM! We made our way back over to SweetWater. You could get a small glass to sample the beers for free, or you could pay $10 for a pint glass and 6 "5 oz" samples. The samples they were pouring for us were more like 8 or 9 oz. Extremely generous! I did taste them all, and I didn't dislike any of them, although there were 1 or 2 I wasn't crazy about. Since I was driving, I gave my least favorite ones and my last ticket away. The tour itself was OK. Their equipment was extremely impressive and our guide was really nice, but it would have been nicer if the guide was someone more involved in the brewing process. Being homebrewers, we were curious about a couple things and she wasn't able to answer our questions. She knew the basics about their beers and a couple random facts, but we wanted to know more than that. Haha. We had a great time and I'm really glad we got to do this while we were in town.

Pretty scenery in front of the brewery.

We decided to go back to the hotel and take the MARTA downtown after the tour. We were hoping to find a local pub or something along those lines. No such luck. We asked our shuttle driver about places to go on the way to the MARTA stop. He lead us straight to the super-touristy area, so there were just commercial places like Hard Rock Cafe and Hooter's. No thanks. We finally decided on a place, but none of us were impressed. After it was all said and done, we all decided it would have been better to order pizza in. At least now we know where we don't want to go the next time we're in Atlanta!

We got up Friday morning to get ready for the game! We needed to go get breakfast/lunch and pick up tailgating supplies. We ate at Church's then went out to pick up a cooler, beer and snacks. Once we got back to the hotel, we packed everything up and went to catch the shuttle to the MARTA. We waited for what seemed like forever! After a ride that felt like forever and a walk that felt like it was longer than it really was, we were finally at our tailgating destination! We met up with some old friends, played some tailgating games and listened to tailgating music. It was great! It was also extremely HOT! We were tailgating on asphalt and it is SO much hotter than the grass or dirt we're used to tailgating on. I decided to find a couple other friends that were there. Come to find out, one of them had been right across from us all day! Tailgating came to an end too fast as always, but we were all ready to go to the game. 

 Just the ladies!

 We found Adam! I can't believe we tailgated right next to this guy for like an hour before we realized it!

 Love the grill!

The hubby and I with Burgess.

I won't lie, it was very nice watching the game in an air conditioned environment! The Georgia Dome is really nice and with it being as large as it is, you really forget you're not outside. The game was NOT a good start to the season, but we still had a good time. We really played horribly. I was disappointed in some guys I had high expectations for. I had high hopes overall and I was a big baby about us throwing the game away.

During the game, a Tennessee fan fell from the top level and died. Things like this really put life into perspective. Yes, my football team lost, but I'm happy and healthy. I have a great family and wonderful friends. I have a wonderful home and a great job. I have absolutely nothing at all to complain about.

There's always next week...or at least next season ;-)

GO PACK!!!

Friday Favorites!

1) Furniture - We FINALLY got new living room furniture! We took advantage of  Labor Day sale and ordered a new couch and love seat set last weekend. We were having a hard time finding something that would fit up our narrow stairs and I was starting to think we would never find anything we liked. We found some reclining sets that came apart and they fit perfectly! They were just delivered Wednesday and we left shortly after, so I haven't had a chance to enjoy them, but I'm still very excited to have them! 

2) Bay Window - Our pre-construction meeting was also this past Wednesday. Thompson Creek will be coming to fix it on the 19th! I'm SO ready to have this little project out of the way.

3) Short Week - I only worked 2.5 days last week! The past few weeks have flown by and they've been really busy, so the short week was more than welcome.

4) SweetWater - We did the SweetWater tour Thursday. We had a really great time and I'm SO glad we got to do it. 

5) FOOTBALL - I'm SO excited for football season to finally be here! It wasn't a great start, but it's a start nonetheless.