Memorial Day!

This weekend started out with a bang!  

Hubs went to get us Trops before coming home.  If you don't know, Trops (Tropical Liquers) is a frozen daquiri bar here-they mix up all sorts of frozen concoctions, ranging anywhere from schnapps to everclear.  Hubs always gets what is called the "57 Chevy," which is a cherry flavor with rum and gin and other randomness in it.  I typically get a "Sweet Tart" or "Sex on the Beach," both of which are fruity and mild, but this weekend I wanted something a little different! He brought me back a "Tiger Paw" this time, which is basically a caribou lou (peach, 151, and orange juice).  I'd never had it before, but it's DEFINITELY my new favorite!  

You can't go wrong with a cup this size.

I used my client-free Friday to start a new craft and a new, summer-themed manicure!  But more on that later.

Random but funny thing of the weekend?  We watched my mom's dogs.  They're both blind/partially deaf.  One of the dogs likes to walk into awkward situations.  I couldn't help but take pictures of her--I hope you find it as hilarious as we did.

Okay, okay.  Back on track.  Saturday it was rainy so we woke up and made a red, white, and blue themed breakfast!  It. Was. So. FUN!  I even broke out the GOOD bacon.  We rarely have bacon lately-so we buy the good stuff now!

We took Frank on a really long walk and then had hammock time, drinks, and BBQ on the porch. We ended the night with some Wii games--I'm proud to note that I won last night in at least one game! :)

Today I spent most of the day cleaning up and prepping food for some kabobs on the grill tonight.  I decided to kick things off tonight with a fun cocktail and a drawing on my newest craft! 

Happy Memorial Weekend, Y'all!

BUSY.

This weekend has been CRAZY!  It started off Thursday with our anniversary.  We didn't have a lot to spend this year, so we had mexican at home with some beers.  Technically the fourth anniversary is supposed to be flowers of some sort (who comes up with these ideas?!) so I counted our new front yard update as our major present to each other.  I made this super yummy, home-made-ish salsa Thursday too.  We also made plans to see our favorite band, Zac Brown Band, in September with two of our good friends as a future gift to ourselves.  But more on my love of ZBB another day, in another post...

I also found THIS gem at the market this week-the beer gods are OBVIOUSLY smiling down at me.  I've never found this beer in anything bigger than a 12 pack before, and it's my favorite summer beer :)

Enough about Thursday and on to Friday!  Friday went on as usual for me.  Hubs took Thursday and Friday off to celebrate our anniversary (lucky...).  I got finished with all my clients and met Andy and my parents at Tropical Liquers, where they'd been drinking for a couple hours already.  We left there soon after and went to a "Volunteer Appreciation" party which was held at Inside Columbia Magazine.

I'd previously been to this venue when it was still a bar (back in my sorority days).  I had the idea in my head that since a magazine had purchased this facility, that the bar/kitchen area would be something else.  I was SO WRONG.  It had a full kitchen where food was being prepared on the spot--beautiful, amazing food.  There was fresh sushi being hand-rolled in front of me, fresh, custom-trimmed pork loin with multiple sauce choices, cheeses, caviar with mozzarella and pesto, and fried pork and mushroom risotto balls.  

And there was wine.  Beautiful, delicious, wine.  More choices than I could ever imagine!  There was a game that we participated in attempted to participate in during which everyone guessed the type of wine they sampled.  All the wines were local and made near where we live.  We sampled at least 20 wines and made some new friends!  

I'd say the fact that hubs got wine on ANOTHER shirt means the night was a success.

Saturday, we woke up early and worked on putting up our pool.  We have an above-ground pool that was an anniversary gift to ourselves.  I think this is the third summer we have had the pool.  Every summer, the pool is a HUGE deal at our house.  We spend SO much time out there and booze a lot in it.  It's a ton of fun.  However, last year we found a leak and the water got gross at the end.  So putting up the pool on Saturday was a complete NIGHTMARE.  We had to re-level the area AND we found multiple holes to be patched and had to scrub the pool on hands and knees.  On the bright side?  The back yard looks amazing.  On the not-so-bright side?  I was SO tired yesterday.

I even took a little nap in the hammock for a few minutes after all the work!  

Later that night, my long-time friend and maid of honor in my wedding came to hang out/booze.  It's been at least two months since I've seen her, so catching up is always a good time.  I managed to get a measly two pictures from last night--go figure.  I guess we were having a good time?

And then, today.  We woke up early again--early for us, anyway (9 AM ON A SUNDAY IS EARLY FOR ME).  We had coffee and I decided I wanted to get to work on painting the kitchen.  Our kitchen is pretty big, and I knew this was going to be a huge amount of work.  It took us both around six hours to do the entire kitchen today.  But it is painted now, and I look forward to getting the backsplash tile installed so we can be done with this nonsense, at least for now.  I empathize with anyone who has lived through a renovation, because our kitchen was utter chaos while painting today.  

Here's the update so far, including the clutter and the attempt at cleanup: 

The color doesn't seem as dark now, so I hope it dries a little lighter than it was in this picture.  More to come!

Frank and I hope your weekend was as great as ours was!

Happenings at our house

We've been ridiculously busy over the past several days!  With Mother's day and all the nice weather, hubs and I have been super productive.  

Saturday we got up early early-ish early for us and went to the home store and to the department store.  We've been wanting to re-do the decorations in the front of our house for a long time.  The year before we got married, we bought this little bushes to put in our front yard.  I should note that when we first got married, I had absolutely NO idea what I was doing on the gardening front.  I was pretty terrible at caring for new plants, including remembering to water them....oops!  I also feel that I should not that I suck at taking before pictures...but I'm working on it! :)  This is probably the best "before" picture I have in this situation: 

So off we went, spending way too much money on stuff for the outside of our house.  But see how pretty it looks now!  I'm pretty proud of it.  Now if I could only work on the watering of the new bushes...

Another project I've been working on this week was this fun little laundry sorter that my hubs and stepdad made for me for my birthday last year.  I found the dimensions on pinterest and they whipped it up!  For almost a year, it's been sitting in our laundry room, plain wood, paintless, looking a little sad.  Hubs and I finally decided on paint for it this weekend! We chose a black for the inside, as it matches other shelves we have for shoes and such in the laundry area, and a red on the inside just to give it some pop! So off I went last night!  Below is the before and after, and the addition that hubs wanted to add to the back:

We also chose paint for the kitchen and tile to use as a backsplash.  Our kitchen is pretty big and I haven't made much of a dent in it yet.  Below is a picture of the progress I've made so far from my work area today...I did write Frank's name in paint before painting over the first half :)

Finally...a Frank picture and jeep pictures in celebration of the AMAZING weather we're having! 

I seriously have WAY too much fun in this thing.  I could probably write a whole post on my obsession and overwhelming love for my jeep.  But I'll save that for another day...