July - Nationals, Celebrations, and Outside Remodel

Shew, just looking at that post title sounds exhausting!  Let's start with Bible Bowl Nationals.  They were in Orlando this year at Marriott World Center Resort - talk about NICE!  The pools there were unbelievable...

...and that wasn't even the biggest one.  We flew with all 30 or so of us down to Florida, get to the Marriott, go to check in, and the clerk says "You reservations aren't until tomorrow."  *gasp*  There was a third party we went through when booking through Nationals and they had the dates of Nationals a day off!  Luckily, the rooms were already available...otherwise we might have been finding lounge chairs by the pool to sleep on!!

The kids put in so much work that year and they were disappointed not to come home with any trophies (don't get me started on all the crazy/unfair things that happened that contributed to this!), but we still had a blast!  Went for a celebration dinner the last night to Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney, which was great because the kids got to walk around Downtown Disney and also go to Disney Quest arcade (although I wouldn't recommend Disney Quest - overpriced for what you get because it's super outdated, there are better gaming systems at home now - Disney fail!).

We made it home in one piece and closed out a successful Bible Bowl year with a banquet.



July is always full of fun because it's Ben's birthday and also our anniversary.  My parents had us over for Ben's birthday:

Ben's parents took us out to eat at Vincenzo's downtown to celebrate:

Emma and Shanon (Ben's sis and bro-in-law) were in town and went to dinner too, but I don't have a pic of them. :(

We celebrated our 7-year anniversary...hard to believe how time flies!  The funny thing is, I can't even remember what we did to celebrate, and neither can Ben, and I can't seem to find any pictures...must have been really memorable, haha.

For a joint birthday/anniversary present, I got Ben hockey tickets to a Nashville Predators game and planned a weekend in Nashville to go with it - in November.  Looking forward to that - I'll be sure to post after that trip.

Finally, yet another project on the house - but this time we paid someone to do it!  The wood trim on the outside of our house was rotting in places, so we had it covered in vinyl, and also had the shutters and door repainted.  I never liked the bluish/periwinkle color that was there before:

After: 

 Ahhh...much better :)

June - Dinner and a Remodel

Only things of note I can remember about June: a fabulous dinner and a basement remodel!

We had Carl and Deena over for a joint Father's Day/belated Mother's Day dinner.  It was so much fun!  I wanted to use all the cooking-related fun stuff they've gotten me over the last couple years, so I pulled out all the stops.  You can see my menu here, which I had printed up and on every plate.

Got out the china...

...used the heat lamp they gave me to warm my homemade rosemary bread, made recipes out of the Ina Garten cookbook they gave me for most of the recipes, and used the individual crocks they gave me for the chocolate melting cake dessert.

Wish I could go back to that moment and eat that whole meal right about now!!  Of course, all these pictures of the food and none of Carl and Deena.  Ugh.  I'll work on my food picture obsession and try to get more of people! :)

So Ben took it upon himself to remodel our basement.  After a few conversations with my dad, some guidance from my brother Wes, and many youtube videos, Ben was ready to frame the wall:


...cover up the concrete with water-resistant drywall:
...and even tile!

Ben painted the ceiling and walls himself (I'm no help!), we had the carpet laid, and the end result?

LOVE!  What used to be a cold, uncomfortable basement with basically no use has turned into a whole new living area and a new office for Ben.  We are down there constantly and love it!!!  Ben did such a great job!  Only things left are to put a white cabinet door over the electrical box, have my dad build a white column around that pole by the stairs, and do some decorating! :)

Oh, one last thing - hit my 5 year anniversary at work!  Woah!

May - Ladies' Month!

May was a ladies' month!  The girls in my small group and I went to Uptown Art and painted these fun fleur de lis for girls' night out:

I also painted this plate with me and Ben's monogram at Paint Spot during a fun birthday party for my friend Laura:

And best of all, I went to Los Angeles for a girls' trip with my sisters- and mother-in-law!

We went to Universal Studios...

...had a fabulous lunch at The Ivy...

...had a baby shower to prepare my sister-in-law Ellie for her upcoming adoption...

...had dinner on Rodeo Drive...

...and solved all the world's problems, as we always do!

More ladies I'd like to mention - my mom, what a beauty!

My mom, grandma, and sister at my house for Mother's Day:

And finally, Ben's Grannie Ruth - always up for spending some quality time over lunch with her grandkids! 

Here's to more months like May!

I'M ALIVE!

Yep, still alive, even though I apparently gave up blogging for like 5 months!  But even though I haven't been blogging, I've been thinking about it...what I would post, the clever little comments I'd put with each picture...thinking about it so much so that I can't just start back blogging today and ignore all those pictures I took to share with you over the last several months!  But where to begin?

I've decided to do one blog post about each month to catch you up on the highlights.  I won't be able to be as detailed as I normally would be (due to lack of time/effort/memory of the details!), but you'll at least get an overview of what I've been up to.  I'm sure you're just dying to know!  To begin tomorrow...MAY!