Busy, Busy!

Today has been nuts! I'm sorry I'm just now getting a minute to post something. Traveled this morning and busy afternoon. Got to go to Charlotte Country Club for lunch with bossman so that was an extra special treat. He took the three girls in the development group. The Club is GORGEOUS.

The picture above depicts where I will be for the next few days! Going to Ft. Lauderdale for Kelly's bachelorette party!!! SO excited to celebrate Kelly and enjoy girl time! Will have fun pictures for Monday! Hope yall have a good weekend!

Where in the World Wednesday - Pawleys Island, SC

It is Where in the World Wednesday over at Jessicas - Classy in Philadelphia! Today I'm in Pawley's Island, South Carolina.
My brother, sister in law and niece live there. It is gorgeous. Last July we met my parents down there. My brother took us on his jon boat down Pawleys Creek to a little island only accessible by small boats since the water is so shallow. A bunch of their friends go there and everyone just hangs out.

My perfect niece!

Parents, Emily and Kevin hanging out. Okay so Kevin is wishing he was on the jetski...

My bro after taking a lil spin. This is a cool picture -

We all came home and took showers to grill out. This picture gets me every time....Kev and Anna Kate. It is framed and on my bookshelf at home.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Shopping with Kelly

My friend Kelly came into town last night from Raleigh for work so we hung out. Of course we went to the mall and walked around. Kelly introduced me to these adorable JPK purses. Have you ever seen them? They are practical - they have a couple pockets inside and button at the top. I think it may be a necessary change from Longchamp one of these days! Here she is modeling the pink one -
Then we ventured over to the accessories department at Nordstrom. We were talking about hair pieces for her wedding and I thought this was super fun for a random day or night out. I know some of yall talk about headbands on your blog but I am just never creative enough to put something like that together. It is kinda hard to see because of the lighting but it is an ivory poof! And PS - this picture is terrible (I ran at lunch yesterday so my hair was foul looking).

AND the best part?! She gave me my bridesmaid's dress for her wedding in April! It is SO pretty! But I'll save that picture for April 26th (the Monday after her wedding!).

Wendy's Big Day and Exhausted!

Yall must think I'm crazy but we celebrated another friend's birthday this weekend! It has been birthday's galore this month and we have another one in a couple weeks! (Yes, I shared my scarf that night!)
The birthday lady, 7 months pregnant and drinking water at the bar until 1:15am, with her husband!

Have yall just been completely exhausted and all you want to do is sleep? Well that's what I attempted to do this weekend. 12.5 hours later and this was after a two hour nap too! Whoa!

Basically feel like I didn't get much done other than spend three hours at one of Kevin's condos trying to get it rented! We met two girls over there and are hoping one of them says yes this week! Then we went to my first Southern Baptist church service last night...definitely different than the Methodist church I grew up in. Different strokes for different folks but glad I went to get a new perspective! ;)

Did yall have a good weekend?

Hurry Summer!

Please spring and summer, hurry! I LOVE this Lilly bathing suit! Isn't it presch?
Thankfully it is supposed to be 58 here tomorrow and 62 on Sunday. Hopefully we can get outside and enjoy the weather!

Can't wait until flop season!!!

Happy Birthday Emily!

Today is my sister in law, Emily's birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the best sister-in-law ever!!!

Parents in St. Kitts

My parents are lucky ducks and are in St. Kitts this week! I'm so glad though - they deserve a vacation! Look how pretty....

Dad says this was staged....

Yall keep having fun! We'll still be here in the arctic when you get back with your nice tans! :)

Where in the World Wednesday - Wilmington, NC

Today is Classy in Philadelphia's Where in the World Wednesday! I'm in Wilmington, NC for July 4, 2009!
We went down last July 4th to meet up with my best friend from college and her fiance. Her fiance's family lives down there! First we went to dinner at BridgeTender. It was SOO good.

It was a gorgeous night!

Check out that sky! We watched the fireworks on the Landfall golf course right behind their house!

Look at the cute couple! 04/24/10 is almost here!

All the ladies - Brett's sister's friends and Kelly and I.

As always, thank you to Classy in Philly for organizing fun Wednesday's!

My First Award!!!

Thank you so much Adelaide Sweet, Sassy, Southern and Classy for my first award! I'm so excited! I started following her through her sister. Her sister told me about the J. Crew Clearance store so I'm indebted to these fabulous ladies! Sweet, Sassy, Southern and Classy always has the most classy posts of anyone I read. You can tell how genuine she is. :)

The requirements for this aware are to list six things you're a master at. Here it goes:

1. I am a master at shopping, okay not always for the best deals but at the time, I think they are. 2. I am a master at driving...or at least I think so! ;)
3. I am a master at always picking out the most expensive thing (if I don't know the prices before picking it out).
4. I am a master at over-committing to things. I always want to do everything. I'm working on learning how to say no!
5. I am a master at always wanting my house to be way too perfect...like making sure my pillows are in the right place...needing fresh flowers....making my bed....
6. I am a master at talking to a brick wall. I think I can pretty much find something to talk to anyone about.

I am going to pass this award onto:

1. Christin at A Classy, Catholic, Southern Bride
2. Preppy Pink Crocodile
3. Miss Monogram
4. D.A.R. at Just Another Day in Paradise
5. Pink Sass
6. KAG at Monograms and Martinis
7. Heather at Live.Love.Laugh.
8. Classy in Philadelphia
9. Suz's Treats
10. MMC at Black Labs and Lilly

Valentine's Day Recap

Yes, I know, this is post #3 today...I find it is easiest to do separate posts for each topic! Sorry if it is annoying! ;)

Anyway, we had a fun Valentine's Day. My favorite ever. We watched the Olympics yesterday morning and made breakfast - eggs and heart shaped sausage patties. Then we went for a long walk and took our baseball gloves to throw in a park just outside of uptown - something different and fun! We got back and walked to Harris Teeter for our weekly groceries.

When we returned we got ready to go out to dinner. He came back up to my place and I put together this goat cheese recipe from the Pioneer Woman. I didn't put enough dill on the half so I learned to do that for next time. He opened up a bottle of wine we got when he took me on my first winery tour last May to Chateau Morrisette. We had been saving it for a special occasion!
Then we opened gifts from each other. Murfee scarf!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE IT!!!!!!!

I had already given him personalized stationary on Friday so he could use it for his birthday thank you notes. I got him this 4x6 frame from Pottery Barn just so he would have something to open on Valentines.

Then we walked to dinner. This is at Trade and Tryon in uptown Charlotte.

Annnnd....we ended up at Flemings again - for the second time in 5 days! Ha! It shows just how much we think alike. He had mentioned going to Flemings for his birthday awhile back so his dad said to make reservations. As you all know, we went there last Wednesday. Well Kevin had made V-day reservations there at the beginning of January. Ahh! So evidently I spoiled the surprise! We had a great time and of course it was tasty, as always!

I know, I know, picture overload of Kevin and I....but the main reason I started this blog was to "scrapbook" and "journal" what we do day to day. Now, it obviously has grown into way more than that, thanks to all my blog friends and real life friends which I'm super excited about! ;)

After dinner, we wanted to get a drink somewhere we hadn't been before. We headed over to Enso which is in the same area as Flemings to grab a glass of wine. Enso is a sushi place but they have a pretty cool bar. I'm not sure we would go back, it wasn't exactly our style (is a nice way to put it), but we had fun trying somewhere new.

We went home and had some more leftover birthday cake! :)

Hope yall had a fantastic Valentine's Day. I must admit - this was my first real Valentine's Day with a real Valentine (other than my Dad)!!!

Bridal Shower and Icy Roads

Yall, nothing gets between me and a bridal shower. Especially one for my best friend (I'm her maid of honor) and one that I'm helping to host. But on Saturday morning in 18 degree weather, the icy roads did. I was LIVID. So I left at 7:15am to get to Raleigh by 10am. Plenty of time. Mecklenburg County roads were fine, but I get about 20 miles north of Charlotte and it was like they didn't plow or salt the roads from our 3" of snow on Friday night. I-85 was a sheet of ice. I slid all over the place. I saw probably 10 cars in the ditch. I was freaking out.

So I stopped at the next exit and got under the gas station canopy so I was assured I wouldn't get stuck. Of course I called Dad because he knows everything (in my opinion). He was basically like - absolutely not, you will not drive further. I said, "Yeah, I'm worried about my car." He said, "I'm worried about your life more than your car!" Oh yes, that too. Ha! Anyway, I called the Bride and the Matron of Honor. It just didn't make sense to keep going. I wouldn't make it in time by driving 25 mph for another 60 miles until I got to I-40. I knew 40 was okay because of other girls that had already driven it.

When I got back on the road to drive South back to Charlotte, I saw the below. This didn't include the 6 car accident or the tanker truck in the median facing the opposite direction.

I am SOO sad I missed the shower but it was the right decision. I got home and saw there had been over 300 accidents over night and that morning in the Charlotte area...I shouldn't have even tried to go. If the shower had been later that day and the ice had time to melt, it would have been fine, but it wasn't, so nothing I can do about it now.

Got to see lots of fun pictures and the bride had a great time. I missed yall but am very excited for the bachelorette party in Ft. Lauderdale in two weeks! :)

The "Surprise"

Hey yall! So today I'm probably going to do three separate posts to recap this weekend. It was THAT exciting!

Remember I told yall about the surprise for Kevin on Friday night for his extended birthday celebration? Welllll, he already knew about it by the time he got home from work. Ahh! Oh well, it isn't the end of the world. I had gotten him tickets to The Marshall Tucker Band at The Neighborhood Theatre (aka hole in the wall in the NoDa area of Charlotte). His brother and sister in law also came up for the festivities (this was a surprise still!). Then we went down to Stool Pigeons (our favorite hang out) and I had organized for a bunch of different groups of his friends to be there to surprise him. He still had a blast hanging out with everyone (okay, maybe too much fun).

Here are my girls....Brittany (Kev's SIL), B, Lauren and Tara. Thank yall for coming!
Kevin and his friend Brad from high school. Brad gave Kevin a Zen Garden. Yes, they are that random.

Kev and his high school buddies. I think it is so cool they all still hang out!

All of Kevin's friends that came out for his birthday! Sorry about the flast in the mirror! :)

Around 8:45, we left for the concert. We stayed there for about 4 songs and then Kevin wanted to go back to the bar where his friends are. When I first planned this, I honestly thought more people would go to the concert but the tickets were a little steep. Oh well, we still had fun when we went back to see everyone.

Brittany and Joe...they are presch!

Lindsey, Kev, Rob. Kev probably shouldn't have been out at this point, but it was his birthday so it was okay! Maybe they are holding him up? Not sure, haha!

It was a fun night! Thank you everyone for coming out!

A Very Special Valentine

I feel SO lucky to have gotten this very special valentine in the mail. It is my favorite I've ever received! Look what Anna Kate (my niece) made us!

Check out the stickers on the back!

So I've had it on my desk since I got it yesterday morning. It has been shown off to everyone that has come by my desk! I will definitely be taking it home with me this weekend to enjoy it there too!

Yall have a Happy Valentine's Day!

Kevin's Birthday Celebration!

Well we had so much fun celebrating Kevin's birthday last night.

My parents sent him a new Southern Tide shirt and he loved it. It is striped green. It will be very nice looking on him. He basically wears polos year round so this is right up his alley!
I gave him some Costa del Mars. Maybe I'm biased but he's pretty hot in these, don't ya think?!! He had broken sunglasses and had been wearing mine. Now he has his own!So his parents surprised him and took us all to Flemings. His brother and sister-in-law came too. It was a HUGE treat!

Random story - I had ordered him a Smith Island Cake which is 10 layers of yellow cake and chocolate icing. It is popular on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where I grew up. Well they sent it last Friday regular mail so I would receive by Wednesday. And yall know how much snow they had gotten. Well yesterday I called when our mail had arrived and it didn't show up. I FREAKED out and came up with plan B. Go to Dean and Deluca and get him a chocolate peanut butter cake....which I did. I got home and received an email from USPS saying that the package was delivered. Oh my goodness yall, it was in the mail room in one of the boxes so it didn't go to our concierge. AHHHH. So we ended up with two cakes. It was fine and all worked out though!

Anyway, when we came back from dinner and walked into my place, all of our Avenue friends were there to surprise him! It was so perfect and he was shocked. Thanks to Wendy, my partner in crime - she let everyone in and set it all up! We enjoyed cake and did a little champagne toast! :)

Our Avenue friends...

Kevin's family and I. They treat me just like family, I'm SO lucky!

The birthday boy and I!!!

Thanks Kev for a fun week of planning this for you! I thought no one could surprise you?! HA!

He does have one more gift to open but he won't do that until Friday after work. All he knows is that we have plans starting at 6! And since he occasionally reads my blog, you all won't know either until it's over! Sorry! ;) ....but I promise, it is super fun!