Photo Catch-Up

Ah! I have really missed blogging over the past week!

Here is a photo dump from our early Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the engagement party for Tyler's brother and his fiance! It was such a fun week!!!

How many Law men does it take to light a fire? 

Ty's dad excited about gifts! 

Early Christmas!

Sarge relaxing ON the hot tub 

Brothers

My sweet potato soufflé for Thanksgiving  

Florist in the mkaing 

Finished product

Stair pic 

Cake my mom sent

Thanksgiving night

Christmas pic 

We all stayed in the same house for 2 nights! So fun! 

Most delicious brie EVER. Recipe to come later 

TyTy + Me 

TyTy + Sarge

And that's a wrap! Hope you enjoyed my photo dump!

Ta ta,

Thanksgiving "Break"

I plan to take a couple of days off from blogging to enjoy family, help cook, and get ready for the engagement party that we are having for Tyler's brother and fiance! I'm not sure if I will give in and blog or not but it may happen because it has been a great break from all of the hustle and bustle of the house over the past couple of days!

Today consisted of lots of grocery shopping for "Christmas dinner" tonight (we're doing it tonight because we will not all be together on Christmas), for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and for the party on Friday. It is busy, busy, busy here. I finally even got to check my work email today for the first time. Whew.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Side note....

Thanks, Ryann for my first blog award. How exciting! Check her out at { joy, joy, unspeakable joy }! Love this girl, aka my mini-me! We are ZTA sisters and great friends from college.

Liebster means "favorite" or "dearest" in German. This award, which originated in Germany, recognizes up and coming bloggers! In accepting this award, I agree to;

1. Thank the person who gave me the award and link back to their blog.

2. Copy and paste the award to my blog.

3. Reveal the 5 blogs I have chosen to award and let them know by commenting on their blogs.

4. Pay it forward to 5 blogs.

The 5 blogs that I choose are:

Megan @ life's a beach

sCe @ Summer Wind

Sarah Elizabeth @ We're Just Like You Only Prettier

Molly @ A Midwestern Touch

Katie @ Let's Be Preppy!

Ta Ta,

Top 5 Tuesday

Top 5 Tuesday linkup with Rachel at Just Peachy!

Today's theme is Thanksgiving!

1. Food

This is my first Thanksgiving without my family, so I am going to experience new foods on Thanksgiving day! My family has 2 sets of dinners on Thursday: one at lunch and one at dinner. It is seriously a food overdose!!

Moms family (lunch): Turkey, country ham, sweet potato casserole, asparagus casserole, rolls, rice, butter beans, dressing + more!

Dads family (dinner): Turkey, country ham, dressing, rice and gravy, string beans, butter beans, butternut squash casserole, MiMi's macaroni (will have to do a post on this sometime), shrimp casserole, fruit salad (like 3 kinds), broccoli salad + more. Seriously so much food!

I will have to report what we have with Tyler's family. My dish to make is my grandmothers sweet potato casserole. It's my all-time fav!

Wish I had a good picture to go along with this one!

2. Family

Again, first time away from my family for Thanksgiving, BUT I love spending time with this family!

Easter 2011

December 2011

Tyler's Graduation December 2011

3. Relaxation

Hello Law and Order SVU Marathons, Pedicures, and Sleeping!

4. Making a Christmas List

This will come in a post soon!! I just made my list and sent it to the appropriate persons (Did you get it, Mom?)

5. A Special Day

 This coming Saturday will be one year ago when I met sweet Tyler at the South Carolina v. Clemson game. Look for a post about that soon, too! Can't believe it's been a whole year. Wow!

Happy Tuesday!

Ta ta,

Christmas Dilemma

I know it is not Thanksgiving yet, but I just had to do a quick pre-Christmas blog post. This morning Tyler's mom (Heather) and I went to this cute little store called Bucks Country Gardens before she took me to see her classroom. The store was overwhelming (in a good way) with Christmas decorations and I thought "Oh crap... Christmas will be here before I know it. I have zero decorations!"

It doesn't even feel like Thanksgiving to me yet, partially because I have been in about 6 states in 3 days and my body clock is all confused. Ty's family is doing Christmas some time this weekend while we are all here together and I can honestly say I have never thought about Christmas this early before. I have bought my family a couple of gifts only because it saved me shipping costs from IL and they are already at my house for Christmas. I also have the presents for this weekend ready.

Let's just say I got a little overwhelmed this morning looking at Christmas decor... This is my first Christmas where I am not at home. Yes, I am flying home December 23 and will be home until after the New Year, but normally I get home around December 15 from college. Well, no more college for this girl. This means my Christmas shopping must be done early to ship everything else home. It also means no decorations.

Here is my dilemma and the reason for this post:

How do you decorate for Christmas at a new place with no decorations of any kind!?

I kind of freaking out at the thought of getting my (and Tylers of course) own tree (that will be at his house). I literally have 5 ornaments. I have no wreath, no candles, no garland, no nutcrackers, no snow babies, no nativity scene, no ANYTHING that I have at my parents house and that I am used to!

But, here are some things I have found on Pinterest that have helped my Christmas anxiety:

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How are you decorating your home for Christmas? 

Ta ta,

Roadtrip / 24 Hours in NYC

Hi blog friends!

I promise I am alive. Between packing Thursday and leaving immediately after work on Friday to drive to Pennsylvania, I was a little too preoccupied to blog! I have been missing it though!

Here is the recap of the past several days! Enjoy! It is realllllllly long so hang in there! Making up for lost time!

Friday: Worked all day (had a pretty awesome day!) and then hit the road at 5:45 pm (central) to drive halfway to PA. Stopped at 1:15 in Zanesville, OH to sleep a few hours and then hit the road.

Saturday: Left Sketchville (Zanesville) at 6 am and I took 3 naps on the second leg of the trip! Poor Tyler, he was whooped. We listened to Fox News Channel for 12 hours on our trip. No music for me....

Side note..... My sweet blog friend Lacey and I discovered that we were both in the same city on Saturday... How crazy that our boyfriends both live in the same town in PA (well, Tyler's parents live there... close enough).. Too bad we didn't get in until about 1:30 and had to be ready to go to NY at 3. No time to meet up.. Next time! How crazy is that though?

So, Saturday we went to the train station to head to NYC! Tyler's brother is getting married next fall, so we went for a really nice dinner with their families to celebrate their engagement.

Cameron and Lis live in Houston and her parents live in Rhode Island. Obviously, Tyler and I live in Illinois and his parents live in Pennsylvania. It was so fun to meet up in NYC! This was the event I was worried about finding an outfit for. I honestly just threw something together, oh well!

We had dinner at Mas (la grillade). Lis's brother-in-law is the chef at the restaurant so we were really wined and dined! Our dinner was like 8 courses. Forgive me that I don't remember the specifics of the menu.. I can give you the gist of the food and only a couple of names from the menu. Sorry for the lack of food pics!

Outside of the restaurant

Appetizers:

Popcorn with parmesan cheese and spices

A bite of duck with some type of lettuce-y veggie. The boys loved this!

Diced scallops

Wood- Fired Oysters with Lemon Thyme- Shallot Butter (or you could have chosen Artichokes "a la chapa")

Rabbit with crab apples (OMG THIS WAS AMAZING)

Red snapper. Delish!

Entree:

Spit- Roasted Whole Hudson Valley Squab and a baby baked potato (or you could have had Grilled Rack of Lamb with Red Wine- Shallot Butter). Yum

Pre-dessert cleanser for our palate:

Apple tart sorbet with a pear-ish / apple-ish fruit. Tasted like apple pie sorbet!!

Dessert:

Pumpkin chocolate tart with marshmellows and sorbet (or cheesecake with apples and sorbet)

Mini lemon/ cranberry tarts/ mint chocolate tarts/ gingerbread tarts

And lots and lots of wine. I'm still in shock of how crazy this dinner was!!!!! And after it we got to tour the kitchen where David works. SOO cool! Highly recommend this place, NYC friends!

Tyler, David (the chef who got to enjoy dinner instead of cooking that night) and me

Lis (the bride to be!) and me

Brothers + Fiance + Girlfriend

Trying to wave down a cab

After dinner we found a cab and headed back to our hotel, The Jane. We had a silly cab experience on the way home.... Our foreign driver was very sassy. We got stuck behind this idiot lady trying to park in front of her apartment. She was livid that it took her 10 minutes to park and those of us behind her were making it difficult for her to park. Our driver got out of the massive Expedition and started screaming at her in both English and whatever language he spoke. All we could hear was "You get out of the car right now!" and "You cannot drive you dumb lady!" It was so hilarious and I really hate I can't give you the full effect. Lis and Cameron's driver hit another cab on their way home. WTF. I didn't know any of that really happens? I'm so sheltered.

Sunday: Got up, grabbed coffee and look what I saw in the window at the coffee shop, COTTON!

See it in the background?

We then went to the Church of the Ascension (Episcopal) for worship. The music was gorgeous.

After church

The Laws and Reades (+ me!)

And finally, we had brunch and called it a trip!

Brunch Spot

Ty's mom and me in front of our hotel 

Time to go home!

On  the way back to PA on the train. Ty is not so happy about more pictures!

So there you have it. The past 3 days of my life and a very short trip in New York City. Whew, I've been all over the place over the past couple of days. Stay tuned for more this week!

Ta ta,