Capital Grille

We had a big lunch date out on Thursday to Capital Grille! :) It was such a fun spur of the moment decision! Thanks Kev!

Check out this ah-mazing pumpkin cheesecake. We never get dessert out so this was a big treat!!

Tory Burch

I may need these...what do you think?

Kimmy's Birthday!

Last night we went to Cantina on East Boulevard to celebrate Kimmy's birthday. She is one of my bestests from sorority in college. I'm so thankful that she and her husband live in Charlotte. :) Here she is about to blow out her candle!
The group (clockwise) - Kimmy and Jeff, Bill and Summer (friends from college and kim and jeff's neighbors), Kevin and I and Bryan and Donna (their neighbors).

Finding the humor...

At this point, I have to find the humor in my leg situation. Kevin took pictures the other night as I washed my hair in my kitchen sink.

Panthers versus Buffalo Bills

Kevin's parents have season tickets to the Panthers so they invited us to a couple games. First we went to their Club for lunch with them then headed back uptown. It was fun! Kevin's Dad is good friends with Jerry Richardson and he sits right behind their seats.
Good shot of the guys coming out...

His Dad gets really into it!!! They've been to every game but one since the Panthers got started in Charlotte. The one they missed, Mr. Godfrey had taken Mrs. Godfrey to Hawaii for their anniversary! ;)

Here they are...so cute!

Thank yall for such a fun Sunday!!

Cheryl and Brian Cass

We went to Greenville on Saturday for Cheryl and Brian's wedding. Check out this gorgeous view where their ceremony was - "Pretty Place" is the name of it...
Look how happy they are!

Wow....

Kevin and I taking in the view.

Kevin, B, Jason, Suz, Kelly, Brett.

This is when the happy couple arrived at the cocktail hour in downtown Greenville. Beth, Kelly, Suz, Bride Cheryl, Groom Jason, Katie G/H., B, Brehon.

There was a lot of dancing...

And a lot of partaking....

Chi O's after Shades...

Off to Jamaica for a week and a half!

Congrats to the Mr. and Mrs.! We are SO happy for you both and wish you many years to come!

Leg accident

Oops, had a lil accident on Wednesday at work. Was carrying a table with a glass top, went to turn it over to put in my car upside down....wellllll...evidently the glass top wasn't attached to the legs and the heavy glass slid down my shin. Yea, gross image, i know. It is foul looking, but I won't post a picture, in case we have any weak stomach readers! I got my purse, ran up to my office and got help from some people in the office. One of them was sweet enough to take me to urgent care. Kevin met me there. They couldn't give me stiches because there was nothing to stitch back...the piece of skin was hanging from the bottom. They cut that off, cleaned out the laceration and wrapped it up.

I went back yesterday to get it re-wrapped but she said she wants to start letting it dry out so it'll heel. OUCH, this is the worst it has hurt. Since it is right where my foot meets my leg, every time I move my foot, the skin moves and cracks. SO, Kevin is helping me walk everywhere I go. Talk about an amazing BF!!! He has waited on me hand and foot (no pun intended!). I'm very lucky to have him...especially only one floor away!

Tomorrow, we are going to a wedding for one of my very best friends from college down in Greenville, SC. I can't wait! I hope to hobble around and we'll party on down to celebrate Cheryl and Brian. Pictures to come early next week!

Cause it's ladies night....

I hosted a mini girl's night at my house last night! We had some chili, salad and a yum dessert (recipe is below). Nothing fancy but I just wanted us all to be together! Girl's nights are essential - let's do it more often! :)

Here is everyone (sorry for the flash in the window). Back row L to R - Wendy, Emily, Shannon, Kimmy, Kim, Emily. Front row - B, Tara, Lauren.
We tried it again with no flash. I had such a great time - thank yall for coming over!!!! :)

Here is the dessert we had - it was SO good. Kevin actually told me I should make it because I had a ton of apples. Let's call it "Apple Bake":

10 apples peeled and sliced thinly

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1 cup of brown sugar

1 teaspoon of lemon juice (optional)

dash of nutmeg

dash of salt

Mix all ingredients together and place in a non-stick baking bowl (I mixed everything in the bowl I baked it in to save on dirty dishes!)

Bake at 375 for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. We served it with a lil scoop of vanilla ice cream! Yum, tasty fall treat!

Clothes Swap

I got to talk to my best friend of all times (aka since age 5) on Saturday. We only talk every so often, but we always start off where we left off. It is like time never went by...you know that feeling. Well she was telling me about a clothes swap/game night she went to on Thursday night with some girlfriends. So this is how it works:

- You go into your own closet and pick out clothes, jewelry, purses, accessories you never wear that you would otherwise donate (they do have to be in relatively good shape!).

- Take some items to the swap and you look around at other people's things and ask if they'd like to swap. And so on... Pretty easy, right?

- Then you go home with a few new pieces for your closet and you made others excited about their new finds! And, nothing goes to waste!

- Also, Lindsay told me their host donated the remainder of everyone's collection they didn't want to charity.

In addition to the swap, they drank wine and played a few board games. Sounds like a fun girls night. What are your thoughts? Any creative ideas for girl's nights?

Weekend

We went out to Town Tavern on Friday night. Saw my friend Kim there so that was a nice surprise. Also a bunch of Avenue guys were there. For some crazy reason we went to Dixie's afterwards - mistake!

On Saturday, Kevin thought it would be funny to rearrange all of my stuff and take all of my decorations and put them somewhere else in my house. Look at how messy my counter was! PS - all this happened when I was in the shower and I thought Kevin was at his place! He's crazy! Okay so maybe you had to be there...

Clay and Emily called yesterday and told me they were coming through Charlotte in about 40 minutes. I flew down to where 485 and 77 come together and met them at a Panera. It was SOOO fun to see them and Anna Kate. She is just so adorable!!! Here she is identifying flower colors...

You can point to anything and she can tell you exactly what it is. Clay has taught her to touch her tongue to her nose...here she is doing that...ha!

Last night we decided to make a nicer dinner than usual. Kevin made some filets and I did the creamed spinach, potatoes and salad. Needless to say, the steaks were way too big, we cooked way too much and we have lots of leftovers!!

Poppyseed Chicken Recipe

I don't know that I would really recommend this recipe because neither Kevin nor I loved it.....but I found it on a blog and took a picture of it before we found out it wasn't that great.

Poppyseed Chicken
3 chicken breasts boiled, cooked and cut into small pieces
2 cans of cream of chicken (i used the 98% fat free kind)
1 16 oz. sour cream (again i used the low fat)
2 T. of poppyseeds
Ritz Crackers (used the reduced fat kind)
1 stick of butter

Mix the first four ingredients together and place in a casserole dish. Crush some ritz crackers over it and melt the stick of butter over it. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes. I served with a salad, like I do most things.

Okay so I didn't melt the butter over it because I thought those were pointless calories and fat. And I probably didn't put enough ritz crackers over it because I thought those were pointless too. But maybe, just maybe, if i had put the correct amount and added the butter, it may have been good. Who knows. But we aren't going to find out. It wasn't our cup of tea. :) Oh well, I guess that's why we try recipes, right?!

Funny story - Kevin is always very nice about any new recipes we try and most of the time he likes them. If he doesn't, he is polite about saying ummm maybe we should try something different next time. Well this time he said, "well if you want to save the leftovers for you, you can, but I'm not eating that for lunch tomorrow." Haha!!!

Anna Kate

Here are some updated pictures of Anna Kate! She is turning into quite the little girl! My parents were down visiting them last weekend....

EDIT - Anna Kate is my 2 year old niece!
Check out that tutu...
Hayride with mommy and daddy.

Looking for fish!

Cutie patutie!

Pumpkin Carving

Last night, Kevin and I decided to go pick out a pumpkin and carve it. This is what we came up with. We just did the standard jack-o-latern, but we thought it came out pretty cute!
Of course we had to roast the pumpkin seeds...Here is my recipe (for you Melissa ;)):

Preheat oven to 350.
Rinse all of the seeds well.
Dry them well (we used a hair dryer per Kevin's suggestion and it worked great!)
Toss them in some olive oil. About 1/2 teaspoon per 1 1/2 cups of seeds.
We added some sea salt and continued to toss (remember there is a fine line between enough and too much salt!)
Spread them all out over a baking pan in a single layer.
Bake for 11 minutes then take out and shuffle around.
Bake for another 11 minutes until they are golden brown.
Take them out and enjoy! Don't forget to store in an air tight container!
Final product! And oh la la, my place smelled amazing!

Slacker

I've been such a slacker about posting lately. I need to get back on it! Anyway, we had a big weekend. Here we are out on Friday night. We went to Town Tavern with Josh and Wendy and another couple they are good friends with.
Kevin and Josh are always getting into trouble together. Josh was glad the Yankees had just won.

Part of the reason they always get into trouble together. We got there at 9:57 and everything was $2 until 10pm. Needless to say, we had 8 drinks sitting in front of us within a few minutes. We shared ;).

The four of us...

Saturday morning we got up and went to Asheville for the day. We mainly went for the J. Crew distribution center where they have a clearance store (well in my opinion, this is what we mainly went for). Kevin thought we were going to look at the leaves changing and to just do something different. Ha! We just so happened to pick the day that JCrew also had a sidewalk sale....amazing, let me tell you. It was bins and bins and bins of clothes about 50 yards long and multiple aisles. You had to search through them all to find the deals, but boy oh boy were they deals! Bargains I tell you!!! You must go! Here is their address and phone number: 1 Clifford Way, Arden, NC. 828.687.3900. Thank you to Lauren for introducing it to me!

Sunday we went out to Stoolies and CANS to watch the Panthers game. B, Carol, Tara.

Brad, Kevin, Rob, Lindsey...

Double Double

Wendy and Josh asked us yesterday if we could go to dinner with them. It was perfect timing because we didn't have much of anything going on last night. We had a blast (as usual)! Thank you guys! We are THRILLED for them - Wendy is 14 weeks pregnant!!!!!

We ended up seeing Patrick out at Town Tavern so here are the boys...Josh, Kev, Patrick.

Catch up

We went to Wilmington this past weekend for a couples shower for Kelly and Brett. It was at Brett's sister's and her husband's home and it was just gorgeous. We had the best time. A bunch of us went out to the Dirty Martini afterward and acted like we were in college again - it was a blast. Here is the happy couple...
Suz, Jason, B, Kevin, Kelly and Brett....

Kev and I out....

When we got home on Sunday, Kevin had the urge to make a low country boil. We had fun making it together and it has been multiple meals for us this week - shrimp, sausage, corn, potatoes and onions. Yum!