I'm Excited About....

KATIE! First and foremost, one of my very best friends in the whole world is moving to Charlotte this weekend! Katie and Mitch will be moving here tomorrow and I am soooo excited!!!! Yay for more friends in Charlotte, I seriously can’t wait!


CHARLESTON! Matt and I decided that it was time for a visit to Charleston so we were going to go down for Valentines Day weekend, I am so excited, I can hardly wait!!!


TONIGHTS TV line up…Thursday is my new favorite TV night for sure: The office, Parks and Recreation, Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills? Yes Please! Matt will not even complain because he likes 3/4 of the shows (even though he will claim to not like Jersey Shore but I know he secretly does). I know I might be a loser for saying this but… I can’t wait!


VEGAS! Last April at a work event I won 2 free nights at the Wynn Encore in Vegas. The nights expire at the end of April and the next few months are going to be super busy for me at work so we really weren’t sure when we were even going to get to use the free nights. Matt pretty much refused to accept this defeat so we started looking for tickets. We found some decent ones the second weekend in March so were going! We decided to make a long weekend out of it, we will leave Wednesday after work returning on the red eye Monday morning then head straight to work (yesh!) Sooo excited, Vegas-here we come!


CHARLOTTE RESTAURANT WEEK! This is currently going on right now and we have already gotten 2 awesome dinners out of it: Flemmings and The Melting Pot….yum!!! I love Charlotte Restaurant week: good restaurants, good deals, great food! We may hit up one more place this weekend before the deal is over, well see….

Our yummy dessert at Melting Pot.....

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Things I Am Obsessed With Right Now

Sooo…I decided to copy Megan and Brittney and write some things I am currently obsessed with in no particular order:


Hot Chocolate and Oreos

This started when the snow came…and has since continued. I like to make the small Keurig cup of Hot Chocolate and dip 3 Oreos in it. Weird? Maybe. Delicious? For sure…

Punjammies
http://www.punjammies.com/

I got these as a Christmas Gift and decided to get myself a pair as well. They are made in India at an after-care facility by women who have been rescued or have escaped from a life in forced prostitution (The International Princess Project). They are super cute and comfy and best of all the proceeds go towards a really good cause.


Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

Ok, it must be said that I love most of the Real Housewives series (except Atlanta and DC). BUT this one takes the cake. It is so much better than the others (sorry New York)! Kyle is definitely my favorite…I am so sad that tomorrow is the season finale. However, I cannot wait to see the reunion show!



Shellac Manicures

Whether it is OPI No Chip Manicure or CNDC I love them both! I am obsessed with this new manicure. I always hate getting a manicure that chips/comes off 2-3 days later and I hate fake nails because of how damaged it makes my real nails. To me this is a perfect combo. My friend Courtney told me about this last summer and I’m not sure why I waited so long to try it. My manicure lasts at least 2 weeks (sometimes 3) with this. Even at 3 weeks the polish is still perfectly in place but by then there’s been too much growth so the jig is up! French is the best option as the growth is not as obvious. It’s about $10-$15 more expensive than a regular manicure but totally worth it. Plus it’s your real nails so you can still cut them and while its on the polish makes your nails stronger and less prone to break. The only down side is that they do not have as many color options.


Citizen Avedon Skinnies

My friend Katie recommended them to me and I got the black pair, they are so cute and comfortable! I liked them so much I got another pair in indigo (on sale now at piperlime.com!)


This website

http://www.joshhosler.biz/numberoneinhistory/selectmonth.htm

This tells you what the #1 song was on the day you were born. Mine is We Are The World by USA for Africa. Matt’s is Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham!


Nuggets and Chick-Fil--A Sauce

I have majorly been craving this combo lately!



The Bachelor



I’m always glued to every season of the Bachelor/Bachelorette and this one is no different. I definitely like Brad again and I love Emily from Charlotte. Not just because she’s from Charlotte but because she’s so sweet! I love to make predictions of who will win. I would say Emily but I’m not sure she is that into him. So for now my prediction of who will end up in the top 3 is: Emily, Ashley (Nanny from NY) and Chantel O. But who knows....

I can think of lots more but I will save them for another post!

Until Next Time....

The Penguin

Within the first couple of weeks I moved to Charlotte I saw The Penguin featured in the "Best of Charlotte" Magazine. Since then I had heard so many good things about it. I had been telling Matt forever that I wanted to go there so we finally made a trip there this past Saturday. Immediately when we got there the manager gave me a free hat, score! The place was packed and there was a 30-40 minute wait and we had to wait outside.  They had live music in the parking lot, haha and there was also a photographer there taking pictures for some reason...

30 minutes later we were seated and started off with the fried pickles, yum...they were so good!

Then we both got burgers and fries; Matt got the double chili burger (it was a monster!) and I got a single cheeseburger they were delicious! When we were getting our check the waitress mentioned that if we bought a penguin T shirt for $10 we can get free fried pickles any time we came back (and wore the Tshirt) in 2011. We thought, what the heck, so I got one. We definitely felt like regulars by the time we left...

Me in all my Penguin gear!

I hope you all had a great weekend!

New Year, New Beginnings

I realize that all of my blogs are about 2 weeks behind real life….and for that I apologize!
It is resolution time! Some years I forget to make any at all, other years I make totally unrealistic ones that I never follow through with. This year I will try to make a couple of simple ones that hopefully (fingers crossed) I will be able to keep track of.

1. Find a church here in Charlotte that we love to become members of. I so wish we had a New Spring here, I always here such good things about it and I would love to check it out. But we are really looking for a Lutheran church…if you know of any good ones in Charlotte please let me know, we’ve visited 2 that we like but are still looking.


2. I want to cook more! We got so many great kitchen/cooking supplies at the wedding it makes me want to cook more. I feel like when the holidays rolled around I got into cooking/baking more so than normal so I would like to stay on that kick. What I really need to do is look into new things to make. I’m sure Matt is getting tired of my limited menu and us making the same 10 things over and over again!

3. Take a beginners photography class. I go all of these cool places and I would like to take advantage while I am there and take great pictures. Last year I bought a Cannon G11 (which is supposed to be one of the best point and shoot cameras) to try to get better photo quality. I do think my pictures look way better than they did with my old cybershot but it has all of these different settings but I always just keep it on AUTO. You probably have to have a ‘real deal’ camera in order to start any kind of photography class but who knows, maybe 2011 is the year I will invest in one…


4. Learn Spanish…ok I know this sounds like a huge goal and no, I do not expect to be fluent by 1/1/12 BUT I want learn it. As I have mentioned in previous posts we have a Spanish speaking client that takes a group of 700 people on a trip with us each year. Of those 700 about 500 of them speak Spanish so it would really make things easier if I were at least able to carry on a casual conversation. Plus, for our trip with them this year we are going to Spain so there’s even more of a reason to learn. My boss had mentioned us having someone come to the office to give us some lessons and I think we should take the initiative and try to learn it.


5. Learn to play tennis!


Ok that’s all for now! It was time for me to get rid of my 2010 planner. (And by get rid of I mean move it from my work bag to a desk drawer- I can never throw planners away for some reason!) Either way I started flipping through it. 2010 was SUCH a great year full of Life Changing and special events, great trips and lots of fun! I can without a doubt say it has been my best year yet, here’s a quick recap of where I went and what I did in 2010.


January- Work trip to Santa Monica and San Diego
Feb- long weekend in Charleston
March- Girls trip to Lawrence Kansas
April- Austin, TX for my SISTER in law Hayley’s wedding
May- Birthday Weekend in NYC and work trip in Paris
June- work trip to Puerto Rico. My bachelorette weekend with all of my girls in Tybee/Savannah!
July- work trip to San Diego and Fourth of July in Pawleys Island
August- WE GOT MARRIED by far the best and most important event!!!! Followed by an amazing honeymoon in St Lucia
September- Work Trip to Costa Rica
October-got to see my besties when they came back for the Clemson/Miami game and a work trip in Chicago
November- work trip to Barcelona and Thanksgiving in beautiful Hawaii
December- Our first married Christmas and New Years in New Orleans

Goodbye 2010, thanks for a great year! I can’t wait to see what 2011 has in store for us…

New Years in New Orleans!

Matt and I took a trip to New Orleans for New Years. We originally started off thinking we would go with a big group of friends, we had a bunch of people interested in going at first but as NYE got closer more and more people started saying they couldn’t go. We looked up plane tickets from Charlotte to New Orleans online and they were SUPER cheap so we decided to go ahead and go even if no one ended up being able to come. We spent NYE in Charlotte in 2010 and while it was fun, we did not want to do it 2 years in a row. I’m so glad we went, it was the first time either of us had been to New Orleans and we had a great time! Here a recap of everything we did and where we went on our trip!

We stayed at the Quality Inn on O'Keefe Ave. We were definitely looking for a budget hotel in the French Quarter. This place totally fit the bill: safe, clean, walking distance to everything, inexpensive, free breakfast and wireless internet with SUPER friendly/helpful staff. Granted it was no 5 star hotel but if you’re looking for a place to stay in NOLA close to everything I would definitely recommend it.
We arrived on afternoon Wednesday, 12/29. We immediately headed to Bourbon street (about 3 blocks away). Our first stop on Bourbon was the Old Absinthe Bar, home of mojitos that are too strong to drink and for extremely high prices (needless to say I would not recommend it-haha!) We had dinner at Napoleon House which has an awesome atmosphere like one in the early 1800’s. We had the Pimms Cup which is Pimms, frozen lemonade and 7 up…sooo good!



After dinner we grabbed some “street drinks” and walked up and down Bourbon Street





The last stop of the night was The Beach Club where we stayed all night laughing as we watched people "ride the whale" (which is basically mechanical bull riding but with a whale).


On Thursday, 12/30 we started out the day with a New Orleans cemetery/Voo Doo Tour. The weather was in the 70’s and perfect! The tour was of St Louis Cemetery #1 and it was very cool and  interesting. 








The Voodoo portion of the tour started off at Marie Laveau's (the Voodoo queens grave). Then we went to the voodoo spiritual temple where we met Priestess Miriam, the founder of the voodoo temple. She talked to us awhile and they showed us the voodoo offering room.



Marie Laveau's grave



A small portion of the craziness in the offering room

voodoo supplies...

After the tour we went and grabbed some beignets at Café beignet…yum!!! That night we went out to dinner at Dickie Brennans steakhouse and then to Pat OBriens Piano bar. We stayed there the whole night, drank hurricanes and had a great time!

New friends I made on the walk home

lobby of the Quality Inn- JK this is the Waldorf which was actually right next door to our hotel

Friday, 12/31

We went back to Café Biegnets for brunch then watched the Clemson game at a nearby sportsbar (sooo glad we didn’t stay in Charlotte to see that game!) We went to look at the shops on Frenchman st, they had some great shops, antique stores and the French market (pretty much exactly like the market in Charleston).






Then we headed to the Casino at Harrahs. We were only there for a little while but Matt won $55 in blackjack (its always great to leave a casino a little richer!) For NYE we had bought tickets to a NYE party at Pat OBriens on the river. It is totally different than the Pat O’s on bourbon and it was not a piano bar or anything like that. But they have all the signature drinks that Pat OBriens has and it is right on the Mississippi River with a great view of the fireworks from the windows. It was a lot of fun (actually probably TOO much fun!) We made friends with a couple that had recently moved to Nola from Raleigh. The Pat OBriens party ended at 1:00 and when it was over we went to a jazz club with our new friends.









Saturday, 1/1- It took me awhile to get going on Saturday due to having wayyyyy to much fun the night before so we laid low until that afternoon. Late that afternoon we went to have drinks at the Carousel Bar in the hotel Monteleone.



Then we went to have dinner at Mona Lisa, an awesome Italian restaurant.





After that we went to Café Du Monte for hot chocolate and beignets.







Then we walked down Bourbon st again and Matt got a grenade at Tropical Isle.






Sunday 1/2- We woke up and got our fortunes told at Bottom of the Cup. It was an interesting experience. They wouldn’t let us go together which kinda bummed me out. I had read several reviews about the place and I ended up getting the psychic that had gotten the worst reviews (all the other had gotten awesome reviews). But it was still interesting and fun, some stuff they said was right on and others was way off (I’m sure that’s how all reading are.) They did record both of our reading on a cassette tape though, which is a cool touch. Then we took a streetcar/trolley to the Garden District and had lunch on Magazine st. at Café Rani. Then we headed to the airport.

on the trolley!

beads all over all the trees!

Back home and back home and back to reality... New Orleans was a great way to ring in the New Year. It was a great place to start off 2011. New Year Resolutions post soon to come!



Christmas Recap

Sorry to be posting about Christmas so late but here is a quick recap...

Matt had traffic court on Thursday morning, 12/23 (he had gotten a ticket for rolling through a stop sign.) When he went to court he didn't even have to go in the court room, they dropped the ticket in the 'sign in area' (looks like the cops were ready to get home for Christmas). So it was a great start to the break!

Then we drove to Clemson to have an early dinner with Mimi and Grandy and all the Kingsmores. We had a ton of food and had a nice dinner together then we all did our Christmas exchange, we got some great stuff but most of all it was great to see everyone!



After we were done we drove strait to Matts Dads house in Simpsonville. They were having the annual Kern Christmas Party which is always a great time! This year they made it a Tacky Christmas Sweater Party, which was a fun twist. Lots of friends were there and it was a really fun night! The next day we went out to lunch and opened presents with the Kerns before we headed to Spartanburg





I promise I was not the only one wearing a tacky sweater....

 

















We went to Matt's moms house in Spartanburg for dinner on Christmas Eve. Matts moms house has a Christmas tree in practically every room, decorations everywhere you turn, and she owns every Christmas movie you could imagine; I love being there over the holidays, it really puts you in the Christmas spirit! We had a great dinner, went to church then came back and watched A Christmas Story (my favorite)! We woke up on Christmas morning, had breakfast and did our Christmas exchange with the Loadholdts. Then around lunch time we headed to Piedmont...

We got to my parents house and had Christmas with my family. That afternoon it started snowing! Fun fact that I heard a million times that day: it was the first white Christmas Greenville has had since 1963. HOWEVER, I do remember a Christmas in Greenville when I was in third of fourth grade where there were snowflakes falling but they did not stick so I don't know if that counts or not? Either way, I am so glad we had a white Christmas! That night Matt and I went to have a drink at Courtney's house, I had not seen her since she and Keith got engaged so I had to see her and check out her amazing ring!!! Then we headed back to my house, grilled filets, had a great dinner, watched the snow and played the new wii my dad got, It was a GREAT day and the perfect Christmas!



Allies new Clemson sweater I got her for Christmas!






















The morning of the 26th my Aunt and Uncle and my 3 cousins came to our house to have Christmas. My youngest cousin, Whit, had just gotten a Basset Hound puppy for Christmas named Buck that he brought with him. He was sooo sweet and cute! We opened presents with them and had a delicious lunch.

Then we packed up the car and headed back to Charlotte. We had such an AMAZING Christmas and I am so glad we got to see SO many of our family and friends this holiday! It was a prefect, first, white, MARRIED Christmas and we could not have asked for a better one.

I always get sad when Christmas is over, we still have our Christmas decorations up (that is a project we will tackle this weekend). Oh well, Goodbye Christmas (sigh) we will anxiously be awaiting your return next year!