Cheers to 7 Years!

Today we hit big #7 on the anniversary log!  I still can't believe it's been that long.  I'd spare you the cliche "It seems like it flew by, but then it seems like yesterday" spiel, but it's true!  Some days it really seems like we've been married forever but the details from our wedding are always in the back of my mind...and several are in albums on facebook so I can relive them whenever.

Since our day fell on a Monday this year we celebrated over the weekend, on a boat - where else?! We set off for the Middle Pond so Eric could scout some crappie on Saturday. He said he wasn't leaving until he caught a fish.  Thankfully he caught one at the first hole he fished so we didn't have to stay all night.

We took the young pups with us - it was a little too warm for the old boys.  It was LG's first trip back to a boat ramp since Eric brought her home about 6 months ago. I wasn't taking any chances of her getting loose either.  As long as her feet were on dry land where she could run her little booty was on a leash.  But she did get to play off the leash and swim with Beau for a bit.

 She enjoys sunbathing like her Momma

They did a little fish spotting for us

I decided that a boat is no place for a hyper-active pup though.  She can't sit still on dry land, and the boat was no different....she was climbing and pacing the whole time, but I think she enjoyed it.

Sunday we celebrated with brunch at Springhouse, where we had some fantastic drinks and food!  This was our first time, but I think we both agreed it won't be our last. It was a really unique place with a ton of character near the lake.  It's kinda out in the middle of nowhere, so unless you're around that area of the lake you wouldn't know it was there.

When we got back from brunch we changed and headed down to the river for a few hours.  The cool water was just what the doctor ordered on a steamy afternoon. We even got to see an engagement on the sandbar!

It was a pretty fantastic way to kick off year 7 and I can't wait to see what it has in store for us!

A Weekend on the Water

After a particular cool, rainy start to the summer we've been hit with oppressive heat the past few weeks.  It started 4th of July weekend and it has not stopped.  Luckily the afternoon rain showers have reappeared, bringing with them a nice breeze and bearable temps, but the days have been hot.

Instead of trying to fight it, we gave in this past weekend and spent our entire weekend on the water; we just didn't see any other logical solution other than staying inside all weekend (which is what I did last Sunday when I finished up by book after about 7 hours on the couch reading).

Our view Saturday at the Lake

Saturday we headed up to Lake Martin to help a friend break in his new pontoon boat.  We cruised the lake for 3 straight hours and it was glorious! We had the top up so we could sit in the shade and enjoy the boat-made breeze and it was perfect! We cruised up the lake to pick up our friends who were camping for the night, then back to the other side of the lake to look at some cabins, then back up to drop our friends back off at the campsite and then back to the other end to head home.

I wouldn't mind hanging out at this lake "cabin"

The guys contemplating life and discussing the upcoming football season.

Chimney Rock

Well almost....were so close we just had to swing by Chuck's Marina for pizzas since we hadn't had any yet this year. Pizzas in hand we headed for the house. It's amazing how much 3 hours riding on the water will take out of you!

Captain Beau made sure we didn't get lost.

Sunday we were in full-out beat-the-heat mode and headed down to the river where the water stays in the 70s even in the heat of the summer.  We packed the boat down with coolers, a tent, and a grill and drove until we found a sandbar - which was quite a ways down since they had 3 turbines on at the dam.

#riverlife

We set everything up and sat down at the water's edge enjoying ourselves, until we realized the water was creeping up toward our tent.  We moved our things back a few feet, and then a few more feet, and then we gave up on sliding it back and just moved everything to the tree line.

That gave us plenty of time to grill the burgers and hot dogs, and enjoy them along with a little more time in the water.  Unfortunately the water did not seem to be receding any time soon, so we packed everything back up to head home and finished off the evening with a swim in the pool.

We did get to enjoy the view though....I still think the river is one of the prettiest places around!

This view on the Tallapoosa never gets old!

Life Update: 6 Years, a Stuck Boat, Football, and Rio

Since things have been rather sporadic around here lately, I've decided that a life dump post is most appropriate to catch you up on what's been going on around these parts lately. July ended up bring a crazy busy month for us and all of a sudden it's August and kids are going back to school and I am wondering where is summer going, it just started?!? But the heat can take a hike because I've been over it since it started. So here's what life has looked like around here lately....

+ We celebrated our 6th Anniversary this past weekend with a lazy Sunday afternoon, and capped it off with an amazingly delicious dinner at Firebirds.  If you have one near you, go, and when you're there order the Blue Cheese Filet. You won't regret it, I promise. It was one of the best steaks I've had!

6 Years with this guy has been 6 years well spent!

+ Part of the reason we chose to take it easy on Sunday was because of the shenanigans that occurred on Saturday. We opted to spend the day at the river (as we have most recent weekends since it's been so hot). Unlike most of the previous weekends we actually had a rainstorm! But this was not your typical summer one-and-done shower.  This was a drencher that settled right on top of us and dumped buckets of rain for more than an hour. Unfortunately we were quite a way down the river and it was raining so hard that Eric could not see the currents in the water (the river is extremely shallow so you have to be able to see where the water runs), which meant that we either had to sit tight or slowly make our way up river. We did a little of both...and thanked the good Lord that the boat had a canopy top that kept us at least a little dry. After about an hour we were almost back at the boat ramp and Eric decided he had to "show what his boat could do" by running behind an island (which in his defense he had done a couple of days prior with no trouble). Unfortunately for us the water was about 6 inches lower on Saturday and instead of running through the shallow water, we got stuck...in the mud. The five of us managed to push the boat back around so that it was in the channel of water, but the boat was so heavy that we could not push it the 20 yards it needed to go so that the water was deep enough to float. As much as I know it hurt Eric's ego, he had to call some buddies to come help push us out. Thankfully, they rounded up a crew and after a couple of hours of being beached the boat was free and we were headed home.

 Thank goodness for good friends!  Although I am pretty sure most of them came just to see us stuck!

There's a silver lining to every situation though, right?  Ours were #1) that the rain had stopped just before we got stuck and #2) this amazing triple rainbow! Two in the sky plus a reflection in the water!   It was gorgeous!

+ Saturday night we are hosting the 4th Annual Football Coaches Kick-Off Cook-Off. This is going to be a bit different as Eric has officially crossed over in to "former football coach" status. I know he'd been saying all along, and I know he passed on summer practice, but it was finally real to me a couple of weeks ago when I met the new defensive line coach...aka Eric's replacement. Both of us have made the comment how different it has been having him home in the evenings, but as anyone who knows him would tell you he certainly isn't just sitting around.  He's been busier than ever!  Even though he is not part of the staff in an official capacity, I am glad we could still get together with everyone this weekend.  I'm going to miss all of the time I spend with the wives, too! Luckily, we're good friends with all of them so I know we just won't see anyone anymore, we will just have more time to do other things.


+ Tonight is the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Olymnpics in Rio de Janeiro Brazil!  As a self-proclaimed Olympics Super Fan I am sooooo excited about it! I forsee A LOT of telelvision watching in my near future and a lot of cheering on Team USA!

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Happy 240th Birthday America!

Who else is for adding July 5th to the list of national holidays? Anyone? Surely we can get a petition started on this one. Ok then, only if the 4th falls on a weekday...surely this needs to be done. My little booty is dragging this morning for sure!

We did some serious celebrating for the 4th of July this year.  We were in town for the second year in a row after several years of being out of town and we had a blast! It was ridiculously hot all weekend...100+ degrees with heat indexes of 110+ degrees all 3 days....and no rain in sight. As much as I would have liked to stay at our house and swim in the pool, the water felt like a hot bath so it wasn't cutting it.  Instead, we opted to head down to the river where the water never gets above 80 degrees, and the scenery is hard to beat.

It doesn't get much prettier than this!

Saturday we had a crew with us, but Sunday it was just Eric and I so we took the boys with us and those puppies had themselves a time....splashing and playing in the water all day long! Eric went back on Monday to fish and stayed most of the day. I needed a break and had some things to do around the house so I joined him for a couple of hours that afternoon.  We didn't stay too long because we planned to head to Montgomery for fireworks with some friends. We spent the evening outside listening to a band play underneath some giant oak trees and ended our night with a fantastic fireworks show. I hope this becomes a tradition for us because it was so much fun!

 Friday night at Chuck's Marina: Top: sunset from the new top deck! Bottom Left to Right: 1) Chimney Rock Pizza...totally worth the hour and a half wait. I promise! 2) Refreshing beverages taste better on the lake...I'm sure of it. 3) The boys watching the band below. They have built on to one of our favorite summer spots on the lake and it's so much bigger now!  We all agreed they could add some fans upstairs, and we cannot wait for the new pizza kitchen to open up! 

Where else can you find glassy water on 4th of July weekend?! And that sunset over the cotton fields? Swoon!

 Clearly we're dog people. As if you couldn't tell.

Hawk and Peanut attempted to show Beau the ropes at the river, but he was a little intimidated.  Top Row: Beau's favorite place to ride (besides curled up on my lap) vs. Hawk and Peanut's favorite place to ride.  Bottom: Hawk and Peanut playing in the water vs. Beau "playing" in the water. In his defense there was a dog there that nearly drowned him trying to play with him when we first got there so he was a little hesitant.

 Boat ride with my guy!

 4th of July band before the fireworks show! They were fantastic!

The end of a fantastic holiday weekend!

Hope you had a great 4th!

Welcoming Summer

A beautiful Saturday evening on the river. 

A couple of weeks ago I was told I had a bit of leave time saved up at work that if I didn't use by the end of the month, I'd lose it.  Not being one to lose out on vacation time and not having any projects that needed my immediate attention, I gave myself a 4 day weekend....at home...for no reason. And I wondered to myself why the heck I didn't go into teaching the whole time. It was nice, my double weekend.  As we do on most weekends we relaxed, had fun, and ate like we were teenagers.  I believe it was Sunday night when we were eating a plate of cheese fries comprised of leftover Rally's freezer fries and stuffed hamburger ingredients (after we'd already had ice cream from Dairy Queen) that I posed the question of why we felt obligated to eat as much crap food as we could on the weekends. We decided, in between bites of cheesy fries, that it just felt like the thing to do.  So there. All eating aside, it was a wonderful, relaxing weekend full of good food (obvs), awesome people, a little Father's Day action, and a sweet new face.

Clockwise from top left: 1) My golfer perfecting his swing.  He has been bitten by the golfing bug this summer....BAD.  I think he has played every week or weekend since May, and he's getting pretty good.  It must be all that practice hitting into the neighbors' pool. 2) We celebrated Peanut's 8th birthday on Saturday with a Peanut Butter Milkshake from Dairy Queen for the boys to split.  It's safe to say they loved it! 3) I've said before that we watch waaaay to many cooking/restaurant shows which results in us recreating dishes we see on them. Some of them are ok (my attempt at stuffed hamburgers on Friday night for example), and some are out-of-this-world amazing like the French Toast Eric made for us on Saturday night.  We used a loaf of Brioche bread (from Walmart of all places) and breaded them with Cinnamon Toast Crunch!  We topped them off with some homemade whipped cream and were comatose within the hour.  I think we may have found a recipe that will replace our traditional breakfast casserole for holidays.  4) Cruising the river on Saturday afternoon.  It was super hot here all weekend and the river is always cold, so it won for our afternoon activities.

We had a really great Father's Day lunch with Eric's Dad, grandma, and his brother's family! We hosted it and we whipped up some goodies that included veggies from the garden and a southern-style cornbread recipe that I will be sharing.  It was amazing!

Sunday night we picked up a new addition....for my parents.  A sweet little chocolate lab puppy whose Daddy is none other than our Hawk.  Isn't she precious!?! She is staying with us until we can hand her off to my parents. The verdict is still out on whether Hawk "knows" she's his daughter. I 'd like to think that he does.  He'll let her cuddle for a minute, but clearly he isn't too ecstatic about sharing his bone (see below). Sweet girl doesn't have a name yet, but hopefully will soon!

2014 In Review

The time has come for another annual recap.  I can't believe how fast this year has gone by; I feel like I've just gotten used to writing 2014 on everything and now I have to change again!

I started out 2014 in survival mode which sounds terrible but it was so true.  We had a killer basketball schedule with tied me up 4 out of the first 5 weekends of 2014 with back to back Friday/Saturday games.  But we did manage to slip in some fun. Eric turned 30 and since I was tied up with basketball I sent him to Las Vegas for a weekend of shenanigans with his best friend.  While he was gone Mom came and stayed with me for the weekend and we made my quilt rack for the beautiful quilts my aunt and great-grandmother made.

February was a lot more fun for us with a 3 days snow/ice in thanks to the polar vortex that brought a beautiful blanket of snow to the south.  We rang in my last year in my twenties by heading to Steamboat Springs, Colorado [part 1, part 2, part 3] for a few days of fun playing in the snow with our friends.

In March I got to take a business trip to Arkansas which meant I got to spend the weekend prior in Memphis and even took a trip over to Waldron to visit my grandmother.  The end of March was a wedding whirlwind as one of my good friends finally tied the knot.

In April we got to take in an Auburn baseball game and watch 2 of our hometown kids who are best friends square off against eachother and ended the month with the first of many beach trips we took this year.

We kicked May off with our Dance Recital, which is always one of my favorite weeks of the year and my BIL and SIL announced they were expecting (though we'd known for a few months but I was so excited I could finally start talking about the arrival of our nephew)!  We finished off the month of May with a relaxing Memorial Day weekend with my parents in Destin.

I need that tan back stat!

I stayed on the road in June heading to Memphis to perform in my old dance studio's 50th recital, and then got to spend a few days in our Nation's Capitol for a work conference.  It was my first trip to DC so I did as much as I possibly could in our spare time! We also celebrated Peanut's 7th birthday. However, June ended on a not so happy note as our Hollow puppy went missing.  I am holding out hope that he found a new family to love him.

We celebrated the 4th of July at the beach with my BIL and SIL and the boys' cousins and did some serious blueberry pickin which yielded some delicious treats! We finished up the month with a 4th Anniversary trip up north to spend sometime in my childhood hometown with my grandparents and some time in Chicago with my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins which included a surprise appearance of my brother and a bike race.

August brought the beginning of another football season and the end of our major travels for the year, but we ended it on a high note by hosting a Baby Shower for my BIL, SIL and soon-arriving nephew! We also celebrated Hawk's 7th birthday with peanut butter milkshakes from Diary Queen (his favorite).

September brought a low-key Labor Day on the river with just Eric, myself, and our river dogs since football was in full swing at this point. We ended the month with a fun weekend at the Yokohoma Tire LPGA Championship with my parents.

We kicked off October with Homecoming at Huntingdon which is always one of my favorite weekends of the year since we get to see all of our college friends. This October marked my first October in 3 years not coaching which was a little bittersweet, but mostly sweet. =)  I still got to play in the Lady Hawks Alumni Game with is always a blast.  However, the best part of the month was the arrival our nephew, Wyatt!

November was full of family time for us: getting to meet Wyatt for the first time, spending several fun but very cold Friday night with our football family, and hosting Thanksgiving again this year for both of our families.  I also moved in to my new office...with a window...and a door.  It's the little things I tell ya!

This brings us to December.  The family theme continued, although for difference reasons with Eric's Dad and Aunt both being in the hospital.  It was stressful, but it really brought this family together more than I have ever seen in the time that I have known them.  They both improved enough for us to get away to Memphis for a few days to see my family for Christmas and we finished off Christmas with his family.

I know I say this every year but it really does blow my mind when I sit down to write my year-in-review post because I can't believe everything we pack into one year's time. This year certainly turned out to be a trying one at times for us, but overall it was a wonderful year.

Looking ahead to 2015, it's going to be hard to top.  With it being my 30th year I am expecting BIG things!  Cheers to to 2015!

Labor Day Weekend Done Right

I don't know if we could have packed anything else in to our wonderful, fun, relaxing Labor Day Weekend.  From THS football to college football to a cookout/mini-concert extravaganza to a relaxing afternoon on the river, we did just about everything we could think of during the past 3 days. Long story short....it was awesome.

We started our weekend with an away game Friday night.  And it was waaaaaay far away....2.5 hours away.  Since I did not want to have to drive home from the game by myself I had decided not to go, but some of the other coaches wives offered to let me ride with them so we headed down south, like 20 mins from the Florida state line south for the ball game.  Unfortunately the game did not turn out the way we would have liked it to, but they were a good team and the boys played well.  A win surely would have made the 2.5 hour drive home a little better.  Neither one of us got to the house before midnight.

It was rainy during the game so my phone was tucked away for most of it.  This was the only picture I have from Friday night.  This is the line of traffic to get into town at midnight Saturday morning.  There was a super slow train that decided to block the ONLY way into town from the interstate. 

We took it easy Saturday morning.  Since it was kickoff weekend for college football we did not have anything planned for the day that did not involve being in front of a television set. A couple of neighbors came over and we threw some deer meat, hot dogs, and chicken wings on the grill. Most of the games we were interested in watching were decent games to watch, although having Alabama and Auburn kick off 30 minutes apart made for some tricky tv watching.  The good news is both teams won and that's all that matters.

Sunday we were ready to get our Labor Day celebrating on.  Since Eric had football practice early Monday morning we opted to celebrate on Sunday.  We had a several friends over and Eric smoked some Boston Butts on the grill.  I have decided this year I do not want to spend my weekends in the kitchen, so I will not be making tons of dips and appetizers and desserts this year each weekend.... I'm keeping it simple.  Saturday I made a dip, Sunday I made cookies.  That's it.  We still had tons of food and I was able to enjoy myself. We had our friend Kevin Adair come play some music Sunday night and one of the guys Eric coaches with brought his drum set.  They played for nearly 4 hours and it was awesome!  Kevin is a really talented musician; if you're ever in the Auburn area you should check to see if he's playing somewhere.  It's totally worth it.   His song I Can't Make You Love Me, is currently my absolute favorite!

Of course we had the UT game on in the background. =)

The party wrapped up around 11:30pm and we headed to bed.  I guess it wore me out more than I thought because it was 8:30am before I started stirring.  Usually when Eric gets up earlier than I do (he had practice at 8am Monday) the dogs wake me up shortly after he leaves.  Not yesterday.  They were still sound asleep when I got up.  I guess we weren't the only ones who enjoyed the weekend.  When he got home we vegged for a few hours... I even got him to watch Legally Blonde!  By the afternoon we were both ready to get out of the house so we packed up the boys and headed to the river for a couple of hours of riding, fishing, and swimming. At the river I made up for the lack of pictures from Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Captain Hawk

This one prefers to hide behind blankets on the ride. 

Me and my boys at the cat fishin' hole.

Hawk: Throw the stick, Dad!  Throw the stick!

Playing on the sandbar. 

Have I mentioned how beautiful this place is?!

Labor Day fun with my love!

That's our weekend in a nutshell. I hate to admit, but sleeping in really threw off my sleep schedule.  I was up until almost midnight last night like I have been the past few nights and 5:30am came waaaaay to early this morning.  But for a weekend like that is was totally worth it.  Plus we only have a 4 day week which is like an extra bonus after a 3 day weekend!