school shower preview

Today was the shower we threw for Malary!  It went so great and she got lots of great stuff from people who obviously love and are so excited for her and James.  I'll update later, but I loved this shot of her so much that I had to share.  Isn't she a beauty?? :)

I'll update on the shower specifics and all the wonderful help I received when I get my energy back up again, but I hear my slippers calling my name.  Is it too early to go to bed before 8??

Happy Shower Day Mal!   

mardi gras madness

Happy day after Mardi Gras!  This year's festivities completely snuck up on me and I didn't even go to a single parade.  I'm so ashamed!  Without realizing, I had scheduled all sorts of things on my calendar without even thinking about Fat Tuesday.  I would call it a bust if I didn't still have off work or if I hadn't already enjoyed two wonderful king cakes from Meche's, which is the best thing about Mardi Gras anyway, right?  :)  

But even though my break wasn't full of beads or float chasing, we still had lots of fun enjoying our time off.

In fact, the weekend held a few unexpected (and expected) firsts for me. I guess I should be grateful that my first gray hair appeared at my ripe old age of 26, but there it was in all it's silver glory.  And I've found one more since then!  I always vowed that I would never dye my hair and, somehow, I managed to escape the 90s and early 2000s without any Sun-In or highlights, but if this keeps up, I'm not sure what I'll do.  

 

One of the things I had planned was to organize myself for my future sis-in-law's shower I'm throwing at my place. It's my first shower to organize, so I'm having a blast, but I had to spend some time reigning in and editing all my ideas.  My brother and fiance were high school sweethearts and she is in school for teaching, so I'm planning on it having a stylish, simplistic, school theme (it makes sense in my head).  I'll be sure to update with my progress!

 

And then there was the great flood that happened on Mardi Gras day.  It rained, and rained, and rained some more.  We were watching a movie and didn't even realize how crazy it was until we looked outside.  After it stopped raining, we got on our bikes and rode around to see the extent.  We didn't realize it then, but it was a great opportunity to meet some of our neighbors that live a bit further down. We learned that the only other time it flooded was during Gustav--and that was a hurricane! Then on our way back, Joel's pedal broke off, so the whole way home, I was amused/impressed at how Joel kept pedaling with only one pedal.

So that was our purple, green, and gold festivities!  I hope y'all enjoyed your Mardi Gras and did more season-related things than we did!  :) 

design update

Wanna see designs I've been working on over the last few months?  Then check it out.  Happy Weekend!!

dating anniversary [5 years]

1-2-3-4-5.   When you think about it, 5 years doesn't seem that long at all!  But yet, it's amazing to me what all can happen in such a short amount of time.  To think back to my 5 year younger self, I had no idea what the next few years of dating had in store for me and my new boyfriend with spiked hair, Joel.

[2006]

[2007]

[2008]

[2009]

[2010]

[2011]

Now, 5 years later, our go-to and favorite date is still dinner and a movie. I know many people think this isn't the most fun or original date idea, but we love it!  But with that said, we recently have talked about tackling some more fun date options or ways we can spend time together. 

I've talked about Redbook's list of dates before, and we've done some of them (e.g., Dexter marathon), but I thought it'd be fun to actually print it out and both of us mark 5 that we want to do.  I think it'll be exciting to slowly go through all 10 them during the course of a year and see if we come across any winners. (Because who am I kidding?  We can't give up our movie dates!)

Either way, it really doesn't matter what you do. I've come to realize that it all just stems from just spending intentional time together, not getting stuck in a rut to where you're more roommates than spouses, building off of the relationship you had from day one when you couldn't get enough of each other, getting to know each other even better than you thought you did (I can't believe some of the things I still learn about Joel!), and just having a great time laughing and being with the one you said "I do" to years ago.   

Happy Dating Anniversary Dante!