Vacation!

Vacation starts in 4 hours!! :)

That's right, after work this evening we are hitting the road! Our plans have us stopping in Nashville, Tennessee for the night and then moving onward to Florida first thing in the morning. We are all packed and the car is almost loaded.

I am looking forward to staying here (that is my Gram on the balcony):

Swimming here:

And enjoying this view:

Even more than I am looking forward to the beach and all it's salty goodness, I am looking forward to seeing my Florida family and spending the 4th of July with them! The hubs and I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July filled with fireworks and hot dogs! We are off on a little adventure to Florida :)

See you when we get back...(with lots of pictures!)

Proofs from Matt!

During the fall, our niece Emma sold us an awesome fundraiser for her softball team and we finally used it last weekend. Matt Howard is a photographer in the North Manchester area and also a softball Dad with daughters on Emma's team. He sponsored this fundraiser and boy is he talented! We decided to take the pictures at our house and include the SOLD sign. I am so glad we did! I was so excited this morning when he had emailed the link for the proofs. I really like so many of them!

The package be bought in advance through the fundraiser includes, 1 8x10, 2 5x7's and 8 wallets. Now I just need to decide what I want in addition to that and what photo I want to purchase on CD to use for our Christmas card! :)

And yes, I am already thinking about Christmas. It is only 6 months away and it is not often Stephen and I have someone taking our pictures so I plan on taking advantage of that and using one for our card. So, you may be seeing one of these again come December!

I think I like them all! What is your favorite?

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!

Hello homeowners! :)

Well folks, we officially became first time home buyers/owners yesterday afternoon at our 4pm closing!!!! We are so excited about the little gem we bought...don't remember it? Well, I would upload a picture of it but blogger will not let me upload for some reason. Is anyone else having this problem?

I have my thoughts and memories to post about our closing, but that will have to wait until next week. My best friend from Florida is flying into Indiana this afternoon and I will be busy baking cupcakes, shopping, and having fun with her! Have a great rest of the week everyone, see ya next week!

the things husbands say sometimes...

Let me paint a picture for you...it all started last night as me and the hubs were home and putting our purchased groceries away. The kitchen was kind of messy, with fruits needing to be washed and cut and plastic bags all over the counters. When we put groceries away I always organize. Organize the cabinets, the freezer and the refrigerator.

Am I the only one who does this?

Moving on...I offered to pack his lunch and the conversation went a little something like this:

Me: "Do you want me to pack your lunch for tomorrow since I am already in the kitchen?"
Hubs: "Pack my lunch? No!"
Me: "umm...am I not qualified?"
Hubs: "No, you are qualified. It is just that if you pack my lunch I will get made fun of at work."

Apparently having your wife pack your lunch is grounds for ridicule. I did not think I had to worry about anything like this until we had kids and I could start embarrassing them. Guess I was wrong about that!

So, instead of packing his lunch I took down the 8 bananas that we bought and wrote notes on all of them. Since I have no way of knowing what one he will grab in the mornings for his lunch I had to doodle on all of them. This resulted in my morning banana telling me how handsome I was. Ha.

I got a good laugh out of this last night and thought I would share!
Do you pack your husband's lunch?



We're Back! Weekend and Indy Wrap Up!

** This post will likely be very long and contain lots of pictures by the time I am finished. Consider yourself warned!**

We are home from our weekend in Indianapolis and back at work in the real world. I just love traveling and seeing new things/places but nothing is ever a nice as coming home to your own bed. I think traveling makes you appreciate home that much more.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we? We started our Indy adventure early on Saturday morning. We wanted to be in Indy at 10 to meet baby Anna...so we left our apartment at 7:30am. If you know me, you know that 7:30am is not something I come by easily on a Saturday. What can I say? I like to sleep!

We were able to spend a couple hours visiting with Anna and her parents who live in Indy. It was great to see them and of course get to hold the precious baby. I mean, how could you not love this cute little thing?

After soaking up all her sweetness we headed to get lunch. Her parents had recommended a place called Taste so we headed there. It was amazing. We both had a delicious lunch and tried new things. So, what is Taste? It is a little cafe and marketplace near Broad Ripple with an pretty impressive menu. They offer things from breakfast dishes to gourmet sandwiches and salads. They are widely known for their  pommes frites, which are delicious thin sliced french fries made with kosher salt, cracked pepper and basil aiolo. Yummo!

My husband is handsome. The End.

We laughed at this picture because it kind of looks like my head is floating...

This is was delicious looks like!

My sandwich: prosciutto & caprese,  imported prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, balsamic vinaigrette, basil aioli. Overall, it was very good. I think prosciutto is a little too salty for me though so I will steer clear of it in Italy!

Stephen sandwich: BALT. The "A" is for alvacado. He said it was great!

After lunch we headed towards President Ben Harrison's house, but there was no parking due to a art festival. We scooped out the situation and decided to head to the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) because there would be plenty of parking there and it is free. All day long! The IMA is beautiful from the time you drive through the gates. Specifically, what we wanted to see was an estate called Oldfields.

Oldfields, also known as Lilly House and Gardens, is a 26 acre historic estate that was built between 1909 and 1913 for the family of Hugh McKennan Landon, who occupied the home from 1913 until 1932 when it was sold to the Lilly family. The historic house is currently interpreted to reflect the 1930s era when the Lilly family occupied the residence. The Lilly family and company Eli Lilly is interesting to me because they were the first medical company to market and sell insulin (which keeps me alive). While they did not discover the drug, they deserve credit for the accessibility of insulin today.

Formal Gardens at Oldfields

We strolled through some of the properties gardens while we waited for our tour to start. Our tour guide was incredibly knowledgeable in the history and different things about the house. The interior of the home is preserved as it was when the Lilly's lived there. The property along with most of the Lilly's personal items were donated by the family for the museum.

After our tour we did some more strolling and exploring in the gardens. Everything was so green and beautiful that I felt like I was a little girl playing in The Secret Garden! It really was a neat experience and a great thing to do on a Saturday for free. Oh, and the landscape architect that designed and built the gardens for the Lilly's also designed Central Park in NY!

Onward to our hotel for check-in!

We checked in, lugged our luggage up to our room and then headed to park the car. We had planned on checking in and cooling off for a bit before going to dinner. It was hot in Indy on Saturday! Or maybe we just felt hot because of all the walking and activity we were doing. Anyways...our room was so nice at the Hilton Garden Inn and we totally took advantage of the AC! The beds were adjustable, kind of like Sleep Number beds but apparently these were designed specifically for Hilton's or something. Regardless, Stephen tested it out when we got there and I think the above picture shows that he approved! After spending a little time in our room getting settled, we changed...

 Have dinner...

 And go for a walk around the circle...

We may or may not have stopped and gotten a sweet treat on our way back to our hotel...you may never know :)

Sunday morning we relaxed and slept in pretty late for us, 10am.  We decided to get outside and walk to the Canal District in Indy. I had heard of this area, but never seen it. It was a bit of a walk, or maybe my flip flops were just hurting my feet...but when we finally saw the canals it was worth it. This area in Indy is beautiful! I could totally close my eyes and pretend I was in Venice. They even have gondola rides available in the evenings by reservation.

Now it was time to get ready for Serena's wedding!

The ceremony took place at the Scottish Rite Cathedral. Oh my. This place is stunning in person. Seriously. The bride of course was equally stunning. Everything was put together beautifully and in such a nice location. We were able to walk there from our hotel...actually, we walked everywhere all weekend. No driving for us!

The desert reception was held downtown as well in the One America Building. The views were spectacular from all the angles! Such a perfect location for a party!

This was my favorite view of the evening...he was so handsome!

Sunday morning we slept in pretty late. 11am to be exact. Thankfully our checkout time was not until noon! We ended the trip with a delicious lunch at Taste (again) and some Orange Leaf frozen yogurt and headed home...

That concludes our weekend in Indy, minus a few details that I left out. All in all, we had a fantastic time and are looking forward to our Chicago weekend getaway in August. Weekends away with your husband/wife are the best!