Instagram and Photo Dump!

Thought I would take some time to share some pictures with your guys from my iPhone-mostly Instagram. Anyways, let's begin!

The above picture is summer salsa, I made it over the weekend and it was DELICIOUS. There is a very small amount left-we put a hurtin' on it y'all!

Last night the weather in Manchester was beautiful so we took the bikes out for a spin. It was a great night to ride! I really love evening bike rides with the hubs, especially when it is cool enough to breath outside. But wait, that cool weather won't last long...the high is 100* on Thursday. Ugh!

Our first stop on our bike ride was the birthplace of Thomas R. Marshall, the 28th Vice President of the United States. I wanted to stop because this location was part of this years garden walk (which we didn't do) and I wanted to see the pretty flowers. The pink hydrangeas did not disappoint. So beautiful!

We also rode around Manchester College a bit too...and took at break to read some historical signs near the chapel. Neither of us knew that Manchester College started out as a Bible School before becoming a Liberal Arts College-interesting!

This is the bell tower at the Peabody Retirement Community. They always have beautiful landscaping here and I love it. From the outside the facilities are beautiful and full of front porches with wicker chairs. I don't know that I would ever want to live in an assisted living type place, but if I had to pick Peabody might be the one. I promise it's so pretty!

Double Knock Out Roses @ The Peabody...see what I mean? Beautiful landscaping!

The above pictures were my craft project from last night. I can't say this idea was my own, but I am so pleased with how it looks already. I plan on distressing the edges a bit before hanging in our living room. Everyone needs some initial wall art, right?

Now I will leave you with some super cute Louie pictures and a sweet video. I took this video this morning while I was getting ready for work, he was cracking me up with him tongue. Oh how we love this puppy!

Have a great Tuesday!

Little bit of this, Little bit of that...

Hello again sweet blog friends and family! :)

How is your Monday going?

Mine is going pretty good...aside from having a rough night of sleep and a non functioning computer this morning. All is good now and I'm on a roll! We had a pretty low key weekend, which was just what we needed. We did some smaller projects around the house, baked, cleaned a little, played with Louie and floated in our little pool. In my opinion, it was PERFECT. I love my little family and the times we spend at home!

Heads up: this post is going to be pretty random.

We didn't take many pictures this weekend, but I did snap some pictures on my nightly "flower walk" Friday evening though! Here they are for your viewing pleasure:

Have I mentioned that I love flowers? If not, well I really, really do. I am very thankful that we have someone staying at our house this coming week while we are on vacation so she can water and care for our flowers-and Louie of course. We leave for Florida on Friday evening...that's a whole 4 days away and I already feel nervous about leaving Louie. I know that he will be in good hands, but I am scared he is going to become depressed and not eat. We will only be gone for 5 days, so at least it's not longer...but still. I can't imagine leaving him because he is so our baby...but we have to do it on Friday!

Speaking of Florida vacation...I really, really hope that Debby doesn't ruin it. I have been looking forward to some fun in the sun and beach time...that won't be easy to accomplish is everything continues to flood. Come on Mother Nature...send that Florida rain to Indiana. It's beginning to look like we live in the desert for crying out loud!

Seriously, our grass is dead. Dead and crunchy. As in, it hurts when you walk on it bare foot. :-(

In other news this weekend, I think I found the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I am so excited! We have tried several recipes, but had not found the one yet...well friends, I think the search is over. Finally! We now have the perfect recipe for crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, delicious chocolate chip cookies. Stop by anytime!

Last but not least, I'll leave you with some adorable pictures of Louie:

He was so, so, SO cute swimming with me on Sunday. After swimming he would float on the raft and eventually go lay on his beach towel in the grass. I love his look when he start to dry and his fur looks all spiky. Agh, I just think he is the cutest!

My lunch break is officially over so it's back to work I go. Lot's to get done before Friday!

Have a good week everyone!

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

Is it really already Wednesday? Hallelujah about that!

We had a fun Memorial Day weekend this year! Our Friday night consisted of dinner at my favorite place (Chipotle) and frozen yogurt from Spoonz for desert. Perfect in my opinion! We also spent a couple of hours shopping around Lowe's...nothing says homeowners like getting excited about shopping at Lowe's! We picked up a new ceiling fan, some more plants, rocks for another landscaping project and a hummingbird feeder. It was a fun night!

Saturday morning we started getting ready for a summer cook-out that evening. I had made a large batch of cupcakes and decorate them quite patriotic to match the occasion! We took some cupcakes over to our new neighbors to officially welcome them to the neighborhood and I felt good about it, I think they loved them! I'm looking forward to getting to know our new neighbors more and becoming friends!

We had Stephen's family over for dinner in the evening and it was delicious! Thankfully the temperature dropped enough for us to enjoy being outside for dinner-it had been HOT during the day!

Above: Louie was so good while we had people at the house. He would just follow me or Stephen around as usual and lay just about anywhere. I'm so glad he is good when we have people around. Such a good pup!

Sunday went a little off schedule. By a little, I mean a lot. You see, during Sunday School I was sick. I felt to hot and just had to get home as soon as possible. Thank goodness I made it out to the car in time because throwing up all over the inside of the church was NOT on my to-do list! We ended up spending the day taking Sunday afternoon naps, sipping on Sprite trying to keep my blood sugar up, and watching movies: The Devil Wears Prada and Eagle Eye. I had heard of other people having a stomach bug recently and I was praying that's what had gotten me! That must have been the case because on Monday morning I woke up hungry and feeling good. I was SO glad it was only a 12 hour bug!

This was Sunday before church and before getting sick:

Monday looked a lot better than Sunday! We blew up the pool and I planned on spending much of my time there soaking up the sun and reading. Let me tell you...it was nice! Monday was another really hot day for Northern IN and our vet had told us not to let Louie outside for longer than necessary. Well, poor pup does not like being left inside while we are outside so we had to come up with something! We would put him in the pool for a quick swim occasionally to keep him wet and cool. I don't know that he loved it, but he didn't seem to mind it at all. Stephen and I both thought it was so cute to watch him swim around, too! After his swims he would run a couple laps around the pool and then crash on his beach towel. Precious!

We spent several hours out by the pool on Monday and it was lovely. I even got a little sun, which was good because I needed some color! :)

All in all it was a great weekend, minus the 12 hour stomach bug-but I'll take it!

Much needed update! :)

Hello, hello blog world! Please note that this post is incredibly picture heavy and make take some time to load if you have a poor Internet connection. Consider yourself warned! :)

My childhood best friend, Keri flew to Indiana on Wednesday of last week. After picking her up at the airport, we promptly started our shopping adventure. After an hour and knocking over one display at Charming Charlie (fingers pointed at me for that one) we headed home to the apartment. Of course, I did drive her by the house on the way home! Thank goodness I have a wonderful husband who had cooked and had dinner ready for us when we got home...because we were hungry! Hubby made yummy meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and succotash. Of course a chick flick was in order after dinner and we had planned ahead by stopping at RedBox on our way home. We picked up "Just Go With It" and I LOVED it. It made us all laugh and was perfect...hubs even liked the movie!

Thursday morning we work up to dreary weather. There were gray skies and misting rain, but we did not let that ruin our plans of going to the zoo! My MIL and FIL picked us up and had my nieces with them. We grabbed some lunch and had a blast at the zoo. I had never been to the Fort Wayne Zoo, but I was impressed! I will let these pictures do the talking:

After the zoo, we headed to dinner at Cerulean's. It is a little pricey, but so good. The hubs and I actually prefer it at lunch because the menu has more options and it is more affordable, but it is good at dinner too. Keri had been there before when visiting so she wanted to go again. This meal was actually a breakthrough meal...we found a sushi that I liked! WOW! I never thought that day would come!

The excitement that day just kept growing. We came home from dinner to find and see that our tomato plant has a tomato growing. I am so excited about this and cannot wait to have home grown tomatoes! I also envision some fried green tomatoes in our future very soon!

Saturday morning Keri left to help our friend Tina prepare for her wedding reception. Tina and Kyle were married in December at a small, intimate ceremony and had planned a large reception for June when the weather is nicer! The Mr. and I slept in Saturday morning (always nice) and made plans to tour a chocolate factory. We had read about the factory and that they give tours when we were in Indianapolis a few weekends ago. We drove the hour to the factory and found out that we missed the last tour by an hour. Apparently the last tour on weekdays is 4pm, but they failed to mention that the last tour on weekends is 2pm. Sad day. We did buy some chocolate and find a furniture store to kill some time in before heading to Kyle and Tina's reception.

The day was not a total waste because we did buy a rug for in our dining room and at a great price. I am excited to open it up and see it rolled out! Also, we got ideas for sofas since we will be needing a new one pretty soon. Side note: I had no idea how expensive sleeper couches are!?! Wow! We were and still may be thinking we want one for a room downstairs that will essentially be a library or craft room but also double as an extra guest room if needed.

Oh, and the dreary weather from Thursday and Friday was gone. Thank the Lord for beautiful weather!

Now, onto Camp Camana-Wana-Marrya! Kyle and Tina had a camped themed reception and it was oh.so.cute! They had a camp "schedule" that included things like a talent show and river wading. They also had a mess hall that served dinner and a sweet treats table with cookies and cupcakes.

Umm hello chocolate-chip bacon cookies, nice to meet you!

(they were so good, I promise!)

The reception was held at Kyle's parents beautiful house which is riverfront. We had a wonderful time at camp!

Sunday we were a few minutes late to church, totally my closets fault. After church we were invited to lunch with a sweet family from church and we had some yummy hamburgers and baked beans. After lunch we headed back to our normal Sunday hangout spot to do laundry. I was able to paint the last end table for our living room too!

We went by the house to take some pictures and here is what we got:

LOVE this one!

Anyone know what these plants are?

Hello backyard!! :)

YAY!!

We ended the evening in the cornfields with two of our nieces (Ainsley was at church camp) catching fireflies or lightening bugs...whichever you prefer. We had so much fun with the girls and I loved Hadley's excitement when she caught one. These girls are so precious and close to me. It was a great way to end the weekend! 

And that folks, is the end of my story. Well, minus a couple side notes...like me getting my eyebrows threaded instead of waxed (what was I thinking!?), but that could easily be another blog post entirely! Hope you had a great weekend and nice weather to enjoy!