Dear Friday, I am so happy to see you. Every week feels like an eternity, at this point, and I feel like last weekend was forever ago. I only have twelve more days to report to the office and I'm marking them off with a big X, every chance I get. Dear Anniversary, It's crazy to think that I've been married for sixteen years. SIXTEEN YEARS?! We were such babies then and while so many things have changed, so many things are exactly the same. Dear Blog Friends, Did you even notice that I pressed publish five times this week? It's been a really long time since I managed to share a post with you every single day. It might not happen again for awhile, so I really hope you enjoyed it. Dear Ella, You were such a champ this week. I know that transitioning to a new school and learning ...
Josh
Fourteen
To my favorite boy, I'm not sure what I can say today that I haven't already said in the last fourteen years. Thank you for being persistent nineteen years ago when I was too young to know how perfect you were. Thank you for teaching me to drive on the interstate and to pump my own gas. Thank for you spending countless nights in the printmaking studio when I was panicking about advanced critique and for carrying my backpack the 10+ miles out of the Grand Canyon when I didn't think I could make it. Thank you for insisting we get married a year early, for indulging every silly wedding request I made and for taking such good care of me in those early days. Thank you for renovating the same two houses over and over again. Thank for holding my hand every time the pregnancy tests said no and ...
Homecoming
Homecoming in our tiny little town is always such fun. People share photos from high-school on Facebook all week. The marquees on the schools boast of activities. Our yard is full of cars every day because there is something going on at the high-school. The kids in our family always want to ride in the parade and I never get to see it. I don't get to take many Fridays off from work that aren't vacation or holiday related, but this year I decided to spend the day at home with my family. I somehow convinced Taz to bow out of the parade and watch downtown with me. After dropping Ella off at the parade line up, we walked the few blocks downtown from our house. In case you haven't figured it out yet, we live in a TINY town. This is downtown. We have exactly one traffic light, a mom and pop ...
i don’t have a choice, but i’d still choose you.
I tried to narrow it down to eleven images, but I just couldn't do it. Happy 11th Anniversary to my favorite. Every year is the best with you. 7 year post // 8 year post // 9 year post // 10 year post Just case you aren't Facebook friends with my sweet husband, this was his status this morning: I admit. I have a secret smile. Eleven years ago today we said “I do” and I had a secret smile. I smiled because I knew she was the one for me. The one that would make me happy and the one that I could make happy. I smiled because she was fun. I smiled because she was true. I smiled because she knew me. We started our lives together and we laughed and we cried. And I smiled because no matter what we went through, she was there and that’s all I needed. We had children together and I smiled. ...
the GrandLife
Our plan for the last day in NYC was... you guessed it, to walk around some more. Since we're both big Lumineers fans, Josh wanted to walk to the corner of Canal & Bowery. We saved that for Sunday and spent the morning exploring Chinatown, Little Italy and more of SoHo. The neighborhoods were beautiful, the cheap goods were abundant and the food was delicious. I've only stayed in the city twice and both times were for business trips where the hotel were paid for. Once we stayed in a smaller boutique hotel and the other time, a massive modern chain. Both times were in midtown, only a few steps from Grand Central. Since Josh was working part of our last trip, we opted to stay outside of the city closer to his office and take the train. It was less expensive for us, but we ...
Brooklyn Bound
We slept even later on Saturday morning than we did on Friday morning and it was WELCOME. I think I woke up somewhere around 9 o'clock, but it was closer to 10 before I made myself get out of that cushy hotel bed. We were just about 15 minutes from the Brooklyn Bridge, so we took our time getting ready and then set out on foot. The last time we were here, it was freezing and when we got to the halfway point we turned around and found the nearest Starbucks to warm up. This time, we planned to walk into Brooklyn for lunch and some sight-seeing. Just in case you haven't noticed a theme, SD & I are masters at the self-portrait. We always laugh because people volunteer to take our photo (and we let them), but we still take one of ourselves, too. One day I'm going to put together a post of ...
City Love
We haven't been to NYC enough that I would consider us pros in any sense, but had definitely hit all of the tourist traps on our last visit and decided to take this trip at a decidedly slower pace. We didn't have an agenda, just a handful of restaurant recommendations and a few must-sees that we knew we wanted to fit in. Otherwise, this trip was a walking tour of quirky neighborhoods and an inventory of hole-in-the-wall restaurants we found along the way. We slept in on Friday morning (and watched John Mayer perform on the Today Show while we got ready). At the recommendation of one of my favorite girls (hey, Leila!!), we made brunch reservations at Sarabeth's in TriBeCa for Friday morning. It was about a ten minute walk from our hotel and the restaurant itself was adorable. The ...
Independence Day
The fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays and while we usually spend it laying around the pool enjoying BBQ and homemade frosties, this year we did something completely different. I was sad to leave my girls, but so excited to spend a few uninterrupted days with SD. Some of our best trips have been spur of the moment and this was kind of one of those. When we decided not to go to Europe this summer, we contemplated what to do instead. Early in May Josh mentioned spending a weekend in NYC and before he could change his mind, I booked non-refundable plane tickets. That's one way to guarantee your trip! When he asked me what I wanted to do when we got into the city, the first thing I said was SHAKE SHACK. Y'all, it is crying shame that we don't have one of these in the south. I ...