Welcome back!

Talk about a hiatus! I absolutely dropped the ball on this one.. and truthfully, to not be able to look back on the past year or so is kind of depressing. Although this is more of a personal reflection on life, and I'm positive no one reads it...it is still really neat to be able to look back on things that I've forgotten and reflect. So here we go! Be back tomorrow with some updates on what has been going on lately!

2011 Scarf Swap!!

Wow, talk about a hiatus! I had no idea that it had been over two months since I posted. Yikes. Well I'll spare you the details on why I haven't gotten around to posting and get right to the good stuff!

It was time for the Annual Scarf swap over on The Tichenor Family blog. I've been reading Meredith's blog for over a year now and absolutely love all of the swaps and fun things that she does. This is the first year that I've actually participated, and it was so much fun! I can't wait to see what she has in store for the Holiday swap.

My partner was Brandie over at The Growing Browns. She was so much fun to work with! She lives in Texas which is cool on its own. What's even more ironic is that after checking out a map of Texas, she is about an hour and a half from San Antonio, which is where we may be living when Trevor gets back from overseas. I'll have to get some tips/advice from her on how to handle the heat. (Temps in the 100's last week for her, I can't even imagine!!). She also has two adorbale little girls with the cutest names - Wesley & Hudson. It was awesome getting to know her and read her blog! I feel like we'd have a lot in common after reading some of her posts!

As for the scarf I received....SOOO adorable! It is a circle scarf that she ordered from Kristin over at Lullaby Lubbock. When I opened it up I was so excited because I subscribe to the Lullaby Lubbock blog so I recognized it instantly! I have been wanting one for a while but never got around to ordering it. I cannot wait until next month when it'll be appropriate to wear it. How perfect. Also, it was black and gray which just so happens to match both of my winter coats! Good work Brandie ;). I absolutely love it!




Love it!
*Please disregard the fact that I just woke up, am wearing last nights makeup & a purple pj shirt, and that my dogs backside is in the pic.* OH, and I wonder who rearranged those pictures on my wall?

Finger Lakes Wine Fest 2011!

Wow, only two weeks late. Impressive on my part. A few weekends ago we headed out to the annual FLWF. As you recall from last year, this is becoming a new tradition. As I mentioned a few posts ago, the line up of people changed signficantly (triple the amount from last year!) and we had a blast. A quick recap....

Kasey and I

Me, Crystal, Kasey & John

Most of the gang, minus Keith (who was taking photo) & Kansas (who we lost)

The festival technically runs from Friday - Sunday and you are able to camp the entire weekend. This was entirely too much for us (we were a good mixture of Momma's and well, just not binge drinkers), so we only went up for Saturday. We all met at Crystal's house as it was a local meeting spot and was close to the Thruway. There were 12 of us, so we were able to condense ourselves into two large vehicles (a van and an explorer that both seat 7). This was plenty of room for all of us, our bags, the tents and the grill. It is about an hour and a half to Watkins Glenn and the ride went by quickly. When we got to our campsite (around 10:00 in the morning), we hurried to set up our tents, get organized and then we walked over to the festival.

Just like last year, it was hot & sunny but surpisingly it was not humid. We had a great time, tasting new wines, samping delcious food and just enjoying the sunshine. Although we didn't stay in our group of 12 the entire time, I still feel like I got to chat with everyone.

The festival ran from 10-5, however we were only there for about 4 hours (which was plenty, let me tell you!). Before the festival closed, we headed over to the Beer Garden. To me, this was kind of a "bust" and I know it was our fault but we got there around 4:30 and as I mentioned, the festival closed at 5. You pay an additional $10 to get in (which is definately worth it), however, most places only had "1" or "2" beer selections available and some were shut down completely. To me, it was a complete waste of $10 and I feel like the nice guy at the door should have informed us of this beforehand & it would have swayed our decision to attend that area so close to closing. Eh. You can't win em all....

After the festival, we headed back over to our campsite to cook some food and relax for a bit. We grilled up some burgers and drank some beer until the sun finally went down and we were able to socialize. We met some neighbors, got together various games of flip cup, kan jam, frisbee, etc. and just hung out for the rest of the night!

Sunday morning we woke up early, packed it up and headed home! I had my little crew of hunter, buckley and trevor waiting for me and were more than ready to head over my mom's for some swimming! Great end, to a great weekend.

Also, since it took me so long to post this, it actually brings us to POCANOS WEEKEND :). That's right, tonight after work we are packing up and venturing out to Pennsylvania to the annual Pocanos trip! 5 dogs, 2 babies and several crazy adults all in the woods? Sounds fun to me!

ice cream SUNDAYS.

Oh Monday. You've come again too soon. I had a great weekend! I've got a post coming shortly about the annual Finger Lakes Wine Festival that we attended on Saturday. The rest of the weekend was very relaxed. Trevor worked Sunday night, so Hunter and I spent the day together. We did some grocery shopping, took a dip in my mom's pool, enjoyed a nice 2 hour nap. After we woke up we met my mom for dinner at one of our favorite chinese restaurants and then headed out for ice cream. Hunter loved his little kiddie cotton candy cone (free for under 3, score!), but took to enjoying my mom's soft chocolate one when he demolished his.

Happy Monday!

a swimmin' fool.

As I mentioned in a few previous posts, Hunter has finally given into the temptation of the pool. Now we can't keep the kid out of it! We are both super happy that he wants to enjoy it with us, however we were looking for alternatives to have him "beside us" rather than us holding him.

Now that he's been in a few times and is completely comfortable, we figured we'd give a few other ideas a try...

First we tried the "lady bug" floatie my mom bought for him. It's got little holes for his legs and he would just sit up in it.

This picture doesn't truly capture the "agony" that was trying to put him in this thing. The little stinker straightened his legs and wouldn't budge. We eventually got him in it, but he kept tipping forward, as though he wanted to swim, essentially giving me a minor heart attack.

We moved onto the next logical decision, that is arm floaties. And before anyone freaks out, I would never ever be more 1 inch away from him with these on.

Needless to say, he hated those as well.

I think for now, we'll stick to the happy way... and that is being held by anyone/everyone that dares to get in the pool!

(you can tell how deeply saddened I am....)

california rollin' & happy b-day to my BFF!

Greetings All! Monday's are generally hard enough, without having to wake up to a wonderful forecast of 85 degrees. I would love to spend the day lounging in the pool, rather than constructing E-Mails & building websites but who said life was fair. I'll stop complaining now.

This weekend was a great one. Friday night Hunter and I joined Amanda and some of her(/our) friends at California Rollin' for dinner to celebrate Amanda's Birthday. For those who aren't familiar, California Rollin' is a Sushi restaurant here in Rochester. They have really great food, but we were totally not impressed with the service. First off, we called ahead to make reservations for 13 adults (and 2 kids) for 6:30. We got there around 6:20 and were really shocked to find we were sitting outside of the restaurant. In booths. If you haven't been there before, just picture an old art gallery, full of various shops/restaurants. California Rollin' is somewhere in the middle, so there is a section (outside the restaurant but inside the "gallery), then the actual restaurant, and then there is an outside (for real outside) patio. Well they had us sitting on the (inside/outside <-does this make sense), so quite possibly the WORST place you could be. And to top it all off, as I mentioned they had us in about 6 different booths. Um, hello... generally when you make reservations you would like to actually sit with your party. So naturally, we complained. They made us wait out there while they "arranged" a table out on the patio for almost an hour! We weren't even offered a drink. Not cool.

The rest of the meal went off pretty well though, and it was gorgeous outside. We all had various rolls of sushi but for the kiddos (hunter and DJ) they had a hot dog and some strawberries (thank you Crystal!).

Then we had some dessert. Who could resist a deep fried oreo? Not Hunter I assure you....

After dinner, Amanda's activity of choice was to head over to the East End Festival. Since it was her B-Day, we had to oblige :). Delaney went home with Hunter (she isn't 21 yet sadly) and the rest of us went to the festival. It was pretty fun, I got to see some old friends from High School.

<--- Carolyn, one of the girls on my cheerleading squad in high school. She actually lives right next door to my Aunt on the lake (came in handy Senior year). Her house won the award for best party house by far...Boat, hot tub, need I say more?












Julie---> Also a friend from cheerleading, although Julie and I go a little further back. When I first moved to Honeoye, my parents bought her house. So it was nice to have a friend right away after moving to a new town. Julie is also responsible for getting me grounded for the first time (riding our bikes 5 miles into town w/out telling anyone), getting me grounded a second time (staying too late at the fair w/out calling) and for getting my car towed for the first/only time. Sense a pattern? ;) Apparently together we equal trouble.



It was really great to see both of them. And everyone else we ran into. I think the birthday girl had fun as well :). I'll finish up the weekend a little bit later...

but a big Happy 24th to my bff in the whole world!