Five on Friday

One
I'm super excited because I'm having a girls weekend with my SIL and niece! Stephen's brother is having a guys weekend filled with camping, shooting guns and catch phrase for his birthday so I am heading down to stay with Lauren and Siena. I'm so looking forward to some quality girl time, laying out by the pool and seeing all the home makeovers they've been doing!

I realized I have no pictures just the 2 of us since Siena was born! T

Two
I ran into VS the other day to check out the semi-annual sale going on and I was shocked to see all the swim (excluding Pink) was 40% off! Some of the Pink swim was on sale and I ended up snagging this top but in red. I feel like it's very flattering and isn't too revealing and since it's red, I can't wait to wear it for July 4th! This top reminded me of Jo Jo's swim suit from Tuesday's episode during Luke's 1 on 1.

Three
Speaking of the Bachelor, it's starting to get juicy!!! Chad is a freaking crazed roid rager and I can't believe she kept him around this long - and was confused about whether or not to send him home after Alex told her how scary he was. I can't believe there's not an episode next week because I'm dying to know what goes down in the preview!

I'm getting the biggest kick out of Stephen - I always ask him to watch the show with me and sometimes he does and other times he doesn't. One of his friends mentioned watching it with his wife and of course, Stephen had to start watching it... But! He's actually really enjoying it! He gets a kick out of all the guys there and them peacocking each other lol I'm just glad I have a buddy to watch it with so I'm not talking to the screen the whole time

Four
Wednesday morning, I got my oil changed before work and wanted to grab a smoothie before heading into work since I didn't have time to make mine before leaving. Well, the smoothie places weren't open so I ran to Jamba Juice (I know that's a smoothie place lol) but wanted to try the acai bowls my co-worker had been trying. I got some kind of tropical one and it was good not great - thought it wasn't worth the money or calories. My friend told me a different flavor was way better so I'll have to try that one but it was fun mixing things up and trying something new!

Five
One of my friends invited me to do an online Bible study through Proverbs 31 called The Husband Project and I jumped at her offer. From what I'm understanding, it's an online study for 21 days (you also read out of a book) and focus on changing yourself in your marriage to be more like God and loving your husband the way God wants us to love them. I'm super excited to get going on this and I can't wait to see how God uses this! Let me know if you'd like to join us :) You can always purchase the book here.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Thoughts for Thursday: Goodbye Trees

Our yard has been a mess basically since we moved in and had time for things to start growing through our new landscaping. One of the big things Stephen's been wanting to do since day 1 was to remove a few trees from our yard and I've been wanting to trim up 2 of the bigger ones. We finally got the work done last week and we couldn't be more happy with the results!!

I was an awful blogger and completely forgot to get some before pictures so here are some random pictures of our yard when we moved in so you can get a feel of what it looked like before.

The palm tree on the left is the one we had removed. The tree guy told Stephen it's bad to have trees that close because rats can get in them and then into your roof/house. As he's telling Stephen this, they cut the top off and a rat ran out!!!!!! SOOOO disgusting!!

We removed 2 pine trees for safety reasons during storms and hurricanes, 1 holly tree that was dead and looked awful, and 1 large palm tree that was planted too close to the house and was starting to mess up our roof and foundation. While we had someone out here, we got them to trim up our oak and royal poinciana tree.

Here are the after pictures (hopefully you can tell a difference lol!)

Palm tree is gone! Check out how bad our landscaping is right now... so embarrassing but I'm not touching those spider filled plants when I'm paying someone to come do it in 2 weeks lol Also note, they had to remove the other hibiscus bush that was as big as the one still there

Soo much debris...

Doing this tree work made a HUGE difference with our yard and house! I feel like we have SO much more room in the backyard, everything's open and bright and the breeze comes through the back porch better. Now that the trees are done, I can't wait to get the landscapers out to redo everything in a few weeks!!

Linking up with Annie.

Weekending: 30th Birthday Edition

This was the first of 3 crazy weekends and we kicked it off with a bang - we're still trying to recover lol This weekend was the first of two 30th birthday celebrations for my BIL.

Friday after work we headed over to Orlando to have a family birthday dinner with John and Lauren's side of the family - we were going 15 people strong! They catered a famous, local BBQ joint, 4Rivers (we catered them for our wedding) and it was delicious! After dinner, we did some cake, presents, played ping pong and checked out some of the new cars in the family.

This is one excited Uncle

He sure loves Siena!

Saturday, we were up bright and early - we got to see the beautiful sunrise over the lake and play with baby Siena before breakfast. After breakfast, Lauren and I ran over to a neighbor's moving sale and she scored some great roller blades! We then loaded up and headed out to an Orlando favorite water park - Wet n' Wild. Everyone kind of grew up going there and Universal is shutting it down at the end of the year so they can eliminate competition for their new water park. We decided we had to go this summer and John's birthday was the perfect excuse. It was a lot of fun but man, some of those rides were intense!! I faced my fears and did most everything :) After the water park, we grabbed dinner at Kobe's with everyone. I was completely oblivious for the first 5 minutes of sitting at our table but there was a group of clowns sitting across from us. That's right - CLOWNS!! It was so odd... guess you never know what you'll come across in Orlando.

For some odd reason, I woke up at 6:30am on Sunday and couldn't go back to sleep - how fun.. After watching some TV and browsing my phone, we headed to church and then ran to Publix. We got home right as it rained so I made lunch and then we finally booked our hotels for our CO trip! I think we've got all the big things done (except a hotel in Denver) so now we just need to figure out the activities we want to do in each city. It finally cleared up so Stephen ran outside to mow while I ran to a local farm to pick up some fresh, organic blueberries from our friends' farm in GA. Oh my, they were the best blueberries and every single one of them was perfect! Once I got home, I regretted waking up at 6:30, so I laid around the rest of the day (Stephen joined me after he finished up outside).

We finally finished LOST on Thursday night and we're glad our nights have now opened up (although now we don't know what to do with ourselves lol). We decided not to start another series anytime soon because I'm tired of having it take over our lives!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!! Linking up with Biana.

Side note: one of my best friends finally announced that she's having a little girl in November!! I am so excited for them and they picked out the most beautiful name :)

Five on Friday

One
I cannot believe it's already June 3rd - half way through the year! Time is flying and we packed June full of all sorts of fun. Tonight we're heading to my SIL's mom's house for a birthday dinner for my BIL - who is turning the big 3-0! We're following up dinner with a visit to a local water park on Saturday. I'm so excited to see everyone and go to the water park - I haven't been since I was a kid!

Next weekend, my BIL is having a guys trip back to their hometown for his birthday and I'm going to stay with my SIL and niece. I'm so excited to go have a relaxing girls weekend in south FL. This is going to be the first time we've really gotten to hang out "just us" since they told us they were pregnant!

Two days later, I'm packing my bags and heading up to Atlanta for a business trip followed by staying with my parents for the weekend. I'm super excited to get back to the South and see everyone again :)

Two
Another fun thing that I get to do is go to Chicago this summer! For my birthday gift, I'm flying up to Indianapolis to stay the weekend with my sister who's doing a summer internship up there. While there, we'll take a night trip over to Chicago since it's not far and I've been dying to go see the city! Please feel free to send along any suggestions!!

via

Three
Last weekend, I snagged these pillows at Target for our family room couch. Did you know Target price matches their online prices? In store, the pillows were $30 but they were on sale online for $20 (p.s. they're still on sale!).

I'm not going to lie, I'm too lazy to get up and take a picture of them on our couch - so stay tuned for my 1 year house recap later this month ;)

And with that, I'm going to go ahead and say "have a great weekend!!" I've got to pack and we've got 3 more episodes of LOST left and I'm dying to finish it (priorities, right?)

Confessions

It's Thursday which means the weekend is almost here and it's time for a good ole confess sesh!

I confess that...

I have really bad teeth. I've heard it's genetic and it's gotten to where it's a miracle if I get a good report from my teeth cleaning. With that said, last week I did not get a good report and this afternoon I'm getting a small cavity filled. The plus side? Hopefully I'll get home earlier than usual and can catch up on the Bachelorette

We're going to a water park for my BIL's birthday this weekend and I'm so excited! The only thing is this isn't the nice and clean Disney water park so I feel slightly inclined to wear wave runner shoes but that would just be too embarrassing...

We (I especially) had a taste of summer this past weekend and had a really hard time going back to work. I don't know why, but it was SO hard #imissbeing10

We've got a few episodes of LOST left (y'all are probably soo sick of hearing me talk about this dang show!) and I can't wait to finish it so 1. we can see the ending 2, so we can get our lives back BUT, I know I'm going to be super sad once it's over

I really messed up our trash schedule last week. I was running late for my training class on trash day  (Th) and completely forgot about taking out our trash - I would've gone back but I was late for the class. Our super garlic-y food sat in the trash and the whole garage smelled. The next trash day was Monday but that was a holiday. Thank goodness I saw everyone taking theirs out on Tuesday so I didn't have to wait another 2 days.

I was really looking forward to going through blogs during lunch yesterday but some weird thing kept interfering with looking at the blogs and I didn't get to read any #firstworldproblems

Linking up with Annie.

Off the Shoulder

Last week I ran to Old Navy during their Memorial Day Sale and came out with this amazing off the shoulder shirt for only $10 (it's currently on sale for $14)!! I've been wanting to jump on the off the shoulder trend for a little while now and haven't been able to find the right shirt. I was really excited for find this shirt - it's super comfortable and has a fun lace trim detail.

Shirt / Jeans / Sandals / Purse (similar) / Watch / Necklace (old)

I haven't done an outfit post in forever and since we were running around at our local mall, we figured it'd be fun to give it another shot :)

Linking up with Jessi.

Weekending: Memorial Day Edition

This Memorial Day weekend was so fantastic! We're having a really hard time coming to grips with reality and having to go back to work... can we just not adult? For some reason, the whole mood of the weekend was different knowing we still had Monday off - and let me tell you, it was amazing and we definitely need 3 day weekends from here on out ;)

Friday, Stephen took off work to get some things done around the house and once I got home from work, we headed off to the mall to look at some glasses for Stephen. He didn't find any yet but I sure did find a few pairs; too bad I don't need glasses right now. After looking at glasses we had dinner at Moe's (we haven't been there in years!) and it definitely brought me back to my high school days lol Afterwards, we debated on what to do next but ended up walking around the mall area and browsing through some stores. We closed out the night with finishing season 5 of LOST and going to bed happy that we had 3 more days in the weekend.

We're totally getting these ;)

Saturday, I was up bright and early (because my body hates me) and we got ready and headed out to the beach. We live about 20 minutes from the beach and this was our 2nd time going in a year - we're crazy for not going more and definitely need to change that! We bought a beach umbrella the night before and it made all the difference! We had an amazing time out there and loved watching all the surfers. 

After the beach, we came home, ran to Publix, had lunch and watched some more LOST before grilling out. For desert, I made Fresh Strawberry Cake that Katie suggested and it was delicious, only problem is it didn't come out of the bunt pan... so it ended up getting thrown into a big Tupperware. Thank goodness no one else was supposed to eat it. Even though it looked like a hot mess, it tasted delicious!

Sunday, we got up and headed out to church. Afterwards, we came back and did some cleaning, Stephen mowed, I gave him and haircut and I worked on some embroidery orders. Afterwards, we relaxed, watched some LOST and I made a fun cheese tray before going on a bike ride and eating leftovers for dinner.

Monday, we slept in (finally!) and got to work figuring out where we were going to stay during our CO trip. We got 3/5 cities nailed down so we need to figure out the other 2 cities this week and officially book everything. I am definitely getting more and more excited for the trip after seeing the hotels and all the fun activities!! Afterwards, we tried to hang up our new outdoor fan and turns out, the builder did a sloppy job and didn't install the anchor properly. We're still not sure how to fix it without calling an electrician. After dinner, we watched a little more LOST until it was time for the Bachelorette!

I'm still pretty bummed we have to go back to normal life today but I'm so thankful we were able to have a lazy weekend and didn't have to travel anywhere. The next 3 weekends are going to be pretty crazy so hopefully I savored the slower weekends while I had them ;) I hope everyone else had a great Memorial Day Weekend!!

Linking up with Biana.