Five on Friday

Happy first Friday of the New Year! I'm sure it was hard for everyone to go back to work and get into the groove of things (I know it was very hard for us) but I hope everyone had a great first week back in the real world. Before I get started, I wanted to give my mom a quick shout out - today's her birthday! Happy Birthday, Mom! I hope it snows for you today ;)

One
Now that we have a little more free time, I've finally been watching some shows that have been on my list for a while. I know I mentioned this before, but I finished The Crown last week and it was fantastic! I wish I had paid more attention to the middle episodes (guess that's what you get for binge watching while trying to get things done) but maybe I'll go back and watch them before Season 2 comes out.

After finishing The Crown, I finally decided it was time to start Downton Abbey (nothing like an England overload and I'm totally 6 years behind). I just finished the first season and it's really good! I didn't realize how much time is in between each episode though so now I need to start keeping up with the timeline better.

One show I'm NOT watching this season is the Bachelor. Nick is just too gross and skeezy for me to watch all those girls over him... no thanks. But you better believe I'll be reading Sheaffer's recaps so I can stay in the loop and get a nice laugh.

Two
This week I decided to try out Christina's Creamy Tomato Basil Soup and it was a big hit! So delicious and even better with some toasted crackers. I think next time, I'll try her Baked Potato Soup. I've also tried her Creamy Zuppa Toscana Olive Garden soup and it's amazing!

via

Three
For our Anniversary (wayyy back in July) Stephen was so sweet and got me a new monogram decal for my car. We knew I'd be getting a new car by the end of the year so he went ahead and surprised me with a specialty one made with a Lily Pulitzer print! I've been wanting to put it on my new car for a while, we kept forgetting and then Stephen wanted to wash it before putting it on the car. Thankfully, my oil change on Monday came with an amazing car wash so I asked Stephen to put it on my car and he did an amazing job! I love it!

Sorry for the poor photo quality, it was dark and in our garage

Four
For my sister's college graduation in May, we all decided it'd be a blast to stay a week at Disney World! We are getting so excited for it and are starting to look into some custom shirts. We've never done "Disney" shirts before so we're trying to find something fun on Etsy. I'd love to know if y'all know of any good Etsy shops to purchase from! Here are our ideas so far:

Etsy Store

Etsy Store

Etsy Store

Five
I'm excited because tomorrow, we're going to have a girls afternoon! My friend got a few of us free tickets from work (she works with Stephen, they really like to promote the space movies ;)) to see Hidden Figures. I'm very interested to see how it ends up being; the ads made it look like it had a lot of feminist and racist tones to it so we'll see. Hey, it's a free movie with girlfriends - how can you pass that up? ;) Other than that, I think we'll be relaxing a lot of the weekend which will be much welcomed!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

The First Weekend of 2017

I cannot believe that we've already had our first weekend in 2017! I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years! We've been having a great few days at home and neither of us are ready to get back into a work routine.

One of my co-workers husbands works at Sea World and had some extra tickets so they graciously gave us a pair! We finally made it over there Friday and we had so much fun! It had been 6 years (exactly) since I had been there and more than that for Stephen. There was so much that had changed and that we hadn't seen before. We saw about every show and did most of the rides.

This is the picture quality you get when a kid ends up taking your picture lol

We were SO impressed because Sea World really does it up for Christmas and really keeps the meaning of Christmas in there. They even had a show that told the Christmas story and sang tons of Christmas songs about Christ. It was so nice seeing that in a theme park after how PC our culture is today. If you're ever thinking about going to Sea World, go at Christmas time!

They had an amazing Christmas ice skating show

And it snowed!

Saturday, we slept in and got things ready for my parents to stop back in on their way back from Miami (go Noles!). I finished The Crown - which was amazing, can't wait for Season 2! I made our favorite dish for dinner and crock pot lava cake for dessert before we all loaded up to go see the Spacecoast Lightfest which was a big Christmas light display that you drive through (nothing like holding onto Christmas, right?). Afterwards, Stephen and I headed out to a NYE party which was so great. We raced home to watch the ball drop with my parents and made it in at 11:55pm!

Sunday, my parents hit the road bright and early, we went to church and then got right to work on tearing down our Christmas decorations. It was so sad to see it go but I definitely enjoyed getting things put back the way they go. The crappy part about putting all the decorations away is the huge mess it makes, I spent the afternoon cleaning but now it's nice to have a clean house. I cooked a traditional, Southern New Years meal which turned out great. I've tried making collard greens a few times to no avail so I gave it one more shot with this recipe and oh my word, they were SO good! I will definitely be making them this way in the future. We finished up the night with The Magnificent Seven which turned out to be a great movie.

We both had Monday off so we slept in and got to work on chores - I ironed, organized my office closet and got my oil changed while Stephen worked on our finances. We had a wonderful time away from work and enjoyed our New Years. We have lots planned for 2017 - 2 weddings, our siblings graduation, a week trip to Disney, a week trip to HHI and so much more. We cannot wait to see what 2017 has in store! Happy New Year to everyone out there and thank you so much for all of your support through my blog! I've really enjoyed the friendships I've made through here and I look forward to growing them in 2017 :)

2016 in Review

I always dread the actual writing of these posts because they take so long but I love going back through and seeing our year! I feel like there's so many things we forget that we did which is why I'm so thankful I have this blog to remind me of the past year.

January
The first weekend of January, we celebrated Christmas at Stephen's parents. It was a quick weekend trip which worked out perfectly so we were able to see our new niece, Siena for Christmas.

A few weeks later, we were all back together celebrating Siena's baptism. It was a very sweet service and she did so well. That was also the same weekend we found my dream china cabinet at Restoration Hardware Outlet.

Stephen and I built our new shelf for above our TV and we are still so happy with it!

At the end of January, I squeezed in a quick business trip to Pittsburgh and saw some snow which was very exciting for me :)

February
Stephen had another successful launch at the beginning of the month! We also hosted my parents during the first weekend for Super Bowl Sunday.

The following weekend, we finally got our back porch screened in and we're still so happy we did it, especially before the summer. We also celebrated Valentine's Day with donuts in the morning and homemade sushi for dinner.

After a few weeks of trying to find the perfect chairs for our living room, Stephen found some that fit perfectly! I'm still debating if we need a small table for in between them.

At the end of the month, my sister came to visit. We had a great time cooking out and visiting Disney Springs. That was also the first time we had supper club!

March
We spent the first weekend of March celebrating my SIL's 27th Birthday at the new Sugar Factory in Orlando.

I passed my PMP and obtained my Project Management Professional Certificate. After 3 weeks of intense studying, I will not be doing anything school related anytime soon ;)

At the end of March, we celebrated Easter with Stephen's family.

April
April was pretty low key. We did some house updates and finally bought a table and chair set for our newly screened in back porch.

Towards the end of April, we spent the day at the zoo next to our house. We had so much fun and really need to go back sometime soon. That Sunday, we headed down to Stephen's parents house for his dad's 25th anniversary at the church.

May

At the beginning of the month, Stephen made me the most perfect centerpiece! 

The following weekend, we hosted Stephen's family for a Mother's Day cookout.

The next weekend was jammed packed! Friday night, we attended the Astronaut Hall of Fame Gala which was a real treat, Saturday we attended my co-workers son's 1st birthday and then Sunday we attended our friend's kid's 2nd and 4th birthday party.

I finally did a "day in the life" post which was a lot of fun!

We discovered how much fun our local minor league baseball game was! We're so glad we got to go but now we're super bummed they moved to another city.

June

We celebrated my BIL's 30th birthday with dinner and a water park day at Wet N Wild before it shuts down at the end of this year.

I went on a business trip to Atlanta and then drove over to my parent's house to spend Father's Day weekend with them.

While Stephen spent a weekend celebrating his brother's birthday with the guys, I took the opportunity to spend the weekend with my SIL and niece.

We also finally got our landscaping re-done which was much needed.

July

The beginning of the month is always so special and exciting for us! July 3rd, we celebrated Stephen's 27th Birthday with a trip to the beach and a lake day with John, Lauren and Siena.

We enjoyed July 4th with our friends at the minor league baseball game

The next day, we celebrated our 3rd Anniversary with a surprise (for Stephen) date at the Escape Zone - which we successfully finished ;)

We celebrated my 25th Birthday with a pool day and afternoon at Disney Springs.

My friend and I threw our co-worker a "Donuts and Diapers" baby shower at work.

August

At the beginning of the month, I took a weekend trip to see my sister while she was interning in Indianapolis and we spent a few nights in Chicago!

We celebrated my best friend and her sweet baby girl, Eloise at her baby shower in Ft Myers.

We finished up the month with our big vacation and bucket list trip - a mountain road trip in Colorado! This was definitely the highlight of the year for us :)

September

September kicked off the rest of a ridiculously busy year. First, we hosted my sister for Labor Day Weekend and spent our time going to our last minor league baseball game, Disney Springs and 

grilling out. 

I officially opened my business, Premium Pineapple Embroidery.

We took a weekend trip to visit our friends in South GA where our friend took our pictures for us.

We celebrated our friend's birthday at the springs

Finally, we traded in my car and bought a 2016 Honda Pilot which I absolutely love!

October

The beginning of October was something else, I had gotten sick from the springs and then I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics so that was about a 2 week ordeal. After I was just healing from everything, Hurricane Matthew rolled in and we had to hunker down. Thankfully, everything was alright and we survived our first hurricane together.

Just 2 days after the hurricane hit, my parents stopped in for the weekend on their way to a work conference. We had a lot of fun getting out of the house and shopping and they enjoyed the beach while we were at work.

The next weekend, we met up at FSU for our 5th and final FSU annual football weekend.

Then, we spent the following weekend at Stephen's parents house for his 10 year high school reunion which was a blast!

Lastly, we helped shower my SIL's SIL and her new baby girl, Olivia. We also pressure washed the driveway and helped out at our church's 20 year celebration.

November

If anything tells you how busy we were in November, I only managed to get 3 blog posts up, The first weekend, we hosted my niece's 1st birthday party which went so well!

A few days later, we were on a plane headed to Nashville for my cousin's wedding.

The following weekend, we drove to Chattanooga to spend a week with my parents for Thanksgiving. I failed to blog about our time up there but it was filled with lots of family and food ;)

December

I kicked off the month of December showcasing our Christmas card. 

The first weekend, Stephen worked the entire weekend but we were able to squeeze in a Christmas party Friday night and Stephen's work party Saturday night. 

We were so thankful that Stephen didn't have to work the next weekend so we went to a birthday party Friday night, bought our Disney passes Saturday and went to my work party on Saturday night.

Stephen had a launch the following weekend so I went to Tampa by myself to meet my family for a childhood friend's wedding. I also saw my friend, Susannah and my friend Camilla and met their newest little bundles of joy :)

Finally, we celebrated our own Christmas and then headed down to Stephen's parents house for Christmas.

2016 was good to us - we had a great year and even busier fall. I am very much looking forward to a slower winter and spring. 2017 is shaping up to be a very exciting year! We have lots of trips, weddings and graduations in our future :)