NYE!

 

What are you all doing for New Years Eve? 

 

We are staying home and I cannot wait!  Kevin's niece is coming over at 4pm to hang out with us for a few hours while Kevin's parents go to dinner.  Her parents are at the beach for the night with their friends.  We are excited to spend time with her!  Then I plan to lay on the couch and watch the ball drop....if I make it to midnight haha! 

 

CHEERS!

Best of 2012

I always love looking back at my year and what happened.  So here are some highlights!

 

January

 - We went to New Orleans for the BCS National Championship.  An unreal experience.

 - Mom came to Charlotte and we did lots of wedding planning.

February

 - Celebrated Kevin's birthday with a special night out.

 - Back to New Orleans for another free trip.  This time Mardi Gras.  Got to meet Trishy!

 

March

 - Blogger get together in Charlotte!

 - Finalized vendors for wedding things.

 

April

 - Ran the half marathon in Nashville.

 - Went to Maryland for Easter.

 - Stayed at the St. Regis in Atlanta and went to a gala.

 

May

 - Mom came back to Charlotte for more wedding planning and we had a triple date with two friends and their moms..

 - Atlanta for my cousins's doctorate graduation from Emory.

 - My friend Suz had her babies!

 

June

 - Miami for a ridiculous trip and surprise Lionel Richie private concert.

 - Kenny and Tim concert with Kelly and Brett.

 - I cruised to Maryland and surprised my Dad to watch him become his chapter's Rotary president.

 

July

 - Booked our honeymoon to Maui.

 - Coldplay concert with Jenn and David.

 - Raleigh for my friend Cheryl's Airport baby shower.

 

August

 - Fran and Matt's wedding.

 - Celebrated Tara's birthday in Charleston.

 

September

 - The DNC was in Charlotte so we escaped to Maryland.  Kevin's parents came with us!

 - Went to a Panthers game

 - Had a fun date night.

 - My college girls threw a couples shower for us!

 

October

 - Anna Kate (my niece) came to visit me in Charlotte for a whole weekend!

 - Closed on our new home!!!

 

November

 - We went to Nashville for the CMA awards.  Crazy!

 - I turned 30 and Kevin surprised me with Mills!

 - My parents came to Charlotte for Thanksgiving and helped us with the house A LOT!

 

December

 - Girls nights - Charlotte girls and Blogger ornament exchange!

 - My brother, SIL and nieces came to visit!

 - Went to Maryland for Christmas.

 

Wow, what an incredible year it was.  Here's to 2013!!!!

 

Christmas 2012

I'm going to try to summarize the past week in one blog post.  There is an important reason. 

 

One of the gifts from my parents was my Dad used blog2print.com and printed my entire blog by year to PDF and put them on a CD for me.  I plan to print it in color by year and bind them.  I'm excited!  Therefore I need to get all of the 2012 posts in this year.

 

I got home on Saturday to Maryland.  Crab cakes were for dinner of course!

 

Let's start on Sunday the 23rd:  Family Dinner at my cousins on the Wicomico River...

 

 

 

 

 

The 2012 picture of my parents and I.  We have many of these as I showed you in an outfit post a few weeks ago. 

 

Mills didn't get any attention from his grandparents...at all.

 

Merry Christmas blog friends!  I urf you!  Love, Mills.

 

My buddy and I.

 

My parents front door.  I want ours to look like this one day.  I think it looks so classy.

 

Christmas Eve Dad and I did our usual stocking stuffer shopping for Mom.  That evening we popped open a bottle of wine that Kevin's and my friends (Brad and Shauna) gave me for my 30th birthday - Christmas at Biltmore.

 

It was lovely!

 

Christmas morning we opened everything that Santa had brought.  He and my parents ALWAYS go overboard!  J. Crew, a neat box my Dad made for Mills' goodies, sheets, towels, iTunes cards, nail polish, a set of our flatware, a pretty scarf, VV clutch, trimmers for the yard and plenty of other goodies.

 

Mills loved his toys that Santa brought!

 

Christmas evening we went to our family friends home.  My parents are the two boys godparents.  Joe on the left and Trey on the right. 

 

Mrs. V and I.  Her home is gorgeous.  Again it's on the river and is absolutely stunning.

 

Her table was perfectly set with the 12 days of Christmas tablecloth from Williams Sonoma.  She served beef wellington, green beans, twice baked potatoes, a fancy applesauce and other goodies.  Finished it off with sweet potato pie and most importantly Bourbon Slushes.  I am going to ask for the recipe.  They were awesome!

 

My parents and I.

 

Poor Mills was a tired puppy!  He got so much attention the whole time I was in Maryland.  He loved Mama's comfy robe!

 

Racked out on Nannie's couch.  Oops...

 

I didn't get out of my pajamas on the 26th.  The 27th (Thursday) Mom and I did some shopping and returning.  That's when we scored those cheap fleeces at Old Navy.  By the way, I love yall's idea to monogram them!

 

Then it was time to leave Nannie and Poppas and head back to Charlotte on Friday.  Mills was sad and so was I.  But glad to get back to reality.  And Kevin of course. 

 

I pulled in and found the below in the garage.  Kevin had found his dream jeep and bought it.  Without telling me.  That was his last large purchase without consulting me I hope!  Only a few months left ha!  His Dad told him he should have asked me.  I agree but don't really care THAT much....yet. Haha!

 

Oh but it's a 1986, CJ-7 and it has this killer soundsystem and it has these awesome mufflers and the upgraded lights and it's been completely rebuilt and it's in mint condition and it has the original this and that.............................yeah okay.  Thankfully he kept his regular car.

 

Last night (Friday) he and I did our Christmas.  He opened lots of gifts from my parents...my Dad made him a business card holder for his desk.  In it were a couple insurance business cards of my parents good friends in Maryland (that Kevin knows).  He thought that was hilarious and Dad got a kick out of doing it. 

 

His favorite gift was hidden in my backseat.  A weed wacker!  He was so excited! 

 

Uhh and the two boxes that I had seen wrapped for a week before I left (which was a record)?  One was a pair of 3X pink panties that you see beside me.  The other was a 3X nightgown.  Ahhh....he is something else ladies!

 

But then he brought out a box with this in it and redeemed himself haha! 

 

 The oversized Bombe clutch.  It's actually more tan than this picture shows.  I've been looking for something like this for forever.  He had thought he ordered a different one but I actually like this one better than the one I originally told him I wanted.  I'm excited!  And when I just looked up the link I noticed it's now on sale so he's going rebuy it and return the first one.  Well he doesn't know that yet but...  I mean it's all the same pot of mulah at this point right?!  

 

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!  I've de-Christmas'd the house today, learned how to drive that stick shift jeep (which was a site I'm sure) and done lots of errands.  We plan to hang out this weekend and chill out!

Old Navy Fleece Pullovers $4

Mom and I were just out and about returning things and checking sales out. We came across these $4.23 half zip fleece pullovers at Old Navy. I had gotten two last year for $4 each and was on the hunt again because I've worn them so much - running, around the house, yard work, taking pooch out etc. They are great and come in many colors. Figured I had to pass along the deal to y'all!

Trip to MD

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. Just some pictures from our long ride up to Maryland! Mills had a great time and did so well!

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

 

I'll be taking a blog break to enjoy time at home with my parents!  I'm looking forward to being "home home," a lil break from work (I hope!), Mama's cooking, playing with Mills for a week straight, seeing my friend Ashley and her fam, crabcakes and filet for Christmas dinner, hopefully snow (and if it snows I'll put Mills on a sled ha), wearing pajamas for 24 hours straight, running when I want, making luminaires with our neighbors and not having any real obligations.  Saturday can't come soon!

 

Meanwhile, Kevin will be holding down the Charlotte fort and finishing out his year at work.  This is our last holiday that we won't be together.  Next year we'll be married and of course we'll be together for every holiday after that!  It's been a long 4 years of not being together on Christmas and I cannot wait for him to come up north next year.

 

Merry, Merry to y'all!

 

 

Catch Up Thursday

This has been a heckuva week. 

 

Monday night Mills wasn't acting right.  Around the same time, Kevin got told by a nurse that because of numbness in his arm and his head hurting that he should go to the ER and not wait until a doc appointment the next day.  So we spent a few hours at the ER (he will be fine).  Came home and Mills was sick.  I took him out really well and woke up to a disaster in his condo.  Poor guy couldn't help it.  He went right to the vet and I stayed home with him.  Tuesday night he had a lil more pep in his step.  Yesterday morning he was back to his usual wild self.  I felt SO badly for him.  We had a follow up appointment for Kevin on Tuesday afternoon.  Needless to say, I worked from home Tuesday.  Eesh!

 

Last night we had our company party at The Palm.  SO good and always a blast!

 

 

Tonight I need to get my act together to go to Maryland.  I'm also trying to figure out my plan of having a puppy with me for an 8.5 hour drive.  I think a long run followed by a 4am departure time may be the ticket.  I also plan to wear my running clothes in case he's being too crazy I can stop and take him for a trot around whatever town I'm near.  Of course I have plans to stop and let him out to see new things.  Definitely a stop on the water with pictures of course!

 

Can y'all believe Christmas is in less than a week?!  Unreal!!!!!!!!

Wedding Wednesday - Final List

I will say this and I know everyone does, but the guest list is driving me nuts and probably caused me the most stress.

 

Kevin and I are rich in friends.  We both individually have a lot of friends from growing up, high school and college.  Then we have a lot of Charlotte friends and couples that we hang out with often.  We feel so fortunate.

 

But when it comes to a wedding, we simply cannot invite everyone.  We have friends that we have been to their wedding as recent as this past year and cannot invite them to ours.  I feel SO badly about it but it's reality.  We cannot invite 500 people to our wedding or even 300.  It just isn't possible....for a multitude of reasons.  Mainly because we simply don't want that many people at our wedding and quite frankly, we haven't won the lottery recently so we just can't do it. 

 

 

 As Kevin reminds me, if they are true friends, they will understand.  And I know he is right.  But I just have to be told that very often these days.

 

So, as we make our final list to send to the calligrapher at the end of the month, I just have to realize that there will probably be hurt feelings.  But unfortunately it's the way the cookie crumbles and I hope that they will still be our friends and understand.

Secret Gifting

Do any of you all give to someone you know or maybe you don't know, anonymously?

 

There is a couple in our lives that is going to give a substantial amount of money to someone they know this year.  They don't want a single person to know that they are doing it.  They just know that this person is very deserving and gives back to the church and community.  So they'll get the money to this person anonymously and make their year or even their life!  What an amazing thing, right?! 

 

I wish I had the funds to do this.  Kevin and I talk often about how we want to do this sort of thing one day when we get a bit more settled.  I'm glad he and I are on the same page with giving back.  We'd rather give it to someone we KNOW not an agency where you never know what will be done with it. 

 

It reminds me of that show Secret Millionaire.  Did you all watch that?  Basically a millionaire goes and lives in a community for a couple weeks and does service work.  He or she finds the organizations that is doing really good things and making a difference.  Then at the end of the week, he surprises them with a huge check. 

 

It also reminds me of a group in Charlotte that over the past few years in December went around and randomly handed $100 bills out to strangers.  They showed reactions on the news and it's just unbelievable how much people freak out over $100.  While it may not seem like much (or maybe it does these days!) to you and I, it really impacts people.  It makes them be able to turn their power back on or go buy a suit to interview in.  You never know what is going on in people's lives.

 

Tis the season.....to give back.  Whether it's with your time or money.  It's worth it.  And more power to the couple in our lives that is about to make someone SO happy with their thoughtfulness. 

Fun Weekend!

We had a low key weekend. Kevin made a fire Friday night and we ordered Chinese. Saturday I took Mills back to the vet (he's feeling better now) and to my bossman's house to play with his dog (she and Mills are from the same breeder). Look at Mills go!  I think this is an awesome picture! 

 

 

 

Mills went for his first swim in their pool.  I think he really liked it although it probably scared him when he jumped in and went completely under.  He did doggie paddle though!  He'll do anything to get a chuckit ball which was in the pool. 

 

 

Saturday night we had Kevin's parents over for dinner.  I set some snack stuff out and made a corn appetizer (one can of corn drained, one can of creamed corner and one block of cream cheese.  all mixed and bake at 350 for 20 min.  serve with fritos - AMAZING). 

 

 

I had made French Onion Soup and then we did a make your own salad.  I got a few differen types of lettuce and lots of toppings - chicken that I baked ahead of time, goat and feta cheese, mushrooms, green peppers, grape tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, celery, avocado and a yum ranch dressing.

 

They brought over some coconut cake they had and it was such a treat after a big dinner!

 

Yesterday we chilled and I took Mills for his first run.  He was SO tired last night.  He actually fell off the ottoman that he was sleeping on ha!  Of course he was fine.  He's also fallen off the bed.  Crazy pooch!

 

 

His royal highness!  I mean really?  On the couch AND head on the pillows?  SPOILED rotten!

 

Did yall watch the bachelorette wedding last night of Ashley and JP?  It was really good!

 

I'm excited for this week to go by quickly and head to Maryland for Christmas.  Let the countdown begin!