Park City

Good Thursday morning everyone!  It's almost time for the weekend, yay!! 

Today I wan't to share some pictures from Park City with you.  Last week,  The Bachelor that aired was in Park City, how fun!  Of course it was probably filmed weeks ago when there wasn't a couple of feet of snow on the ground! 

Baron and I had wonderful intentions of driving to Park City (about 45 minutes from Salt Lake) and walking around through the quaint little ski resort town but after our treacherous drive there we were too scared to park anywhere, not to mention the sidewalks were all covered with snow and there were people everywhere!!  Apparently we made it to Park City just in time for the Sundance Film Festival.  Unfortunately there were no celebrity sightings :(


Yeah, we're not gonna be parking here

 We did manage to make it up a hill and find a place to park and get out to take pictures. Hope the neighbors didn't mind, they were probably out skiing anyway.  The slopes were packed!  We'll be brave and go skiing next time we visit.

We also stopped by the Olympic Training Center on our way out of town.  The 2002 Olympic Winter Games were held there too! It was a really neat facility and there weren't a lot of people there at all.  There were a few kids out on the slopes doing crazy big jumps, I'm talking like these kids were 6 years old!!

Ladies & Gentlemen, my husband's favorite sport

We both decided that we'd love to go back to Park City in the summertime and actually be able to walk around and see the city!! It was beautiful all covered in snow but for us Floridians Alabamians we just didn't have the appropriate footwear for it this time around.  We are religiously entering the HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes every day in hopes of winning a vacation home in Park City though!!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Hey y'all! Linking up with Jamie for What I'm Loving Wednesday, check out her blog and play along!

- I'm loving being with my sweet puppies again.  I missed them and I think they had a blast at the doggie daycare place where they boarded.  When I dropped them off before leaving for Salt Lake City, they ran straight into the daycare place and didn't even look back. I was so happy they were excited to be there.  They were pooped when I brought them home yesterday from their little vacay.

- I'm loving that Baron and I had such a great time in Salt Lake.  It started snowing at the most perfect time and left the city glittering and beautiful!  But as usual, I'm happy to be home again.

- I'm loving sweet husband.  Seriously, how did I get so lucky to marry someone who puts my happiness and comfort above his in every decision he makes.  We celebrated our 8th "monthiversary" while in Salt Lake.  And by celebrated I mean I just remembered right this second like 4 days later.  Ha!

Happy Wednesday people! Make it a good one!

Driving Mrs. Brekkie

Hey y'all! I'm back from a wonderful, quick trip to Salt Lake City.  The trip was wildly uneventful! All of my five flights were on time and I sat next to incredibly normal people on all but my first flight.  On my flight into Atlanta, I sat next to a man who was teetering on the edge of having major hearing loss and a woman with a trach.  You know, the little tube that is surgically put into someone's neck and airway in order to allow them to breathe.  They have to plug the hole with their finger to be able to speak, but it's still really hard to understand.  They were nice people who really wanted to talk, which was just terribly awkward on a really loud airplane.  Thankfully that was a short flight, not even enough time to drink my whole Grande Skinny Caramel Macchiato.

I took lots of pictures in Salt Lake, mainly because the snow was wonderful!  There were small areas of gathered snow in some parts of town when I arrived, but I was unimpressed.  On Saturday we were driving back into town from a little adventure and it started snowing!  Baron said I was squeeling, which I will never admit to, but it was pretty cool!

By Saturday night there was about an inch or two of snow all over the ground.  We played in the snow and took lots of pictures, I'm sure people were thinking "Dang Floridians!", but it was so fun.  I can't tell you how many times we slid on the sidewalks. Thankfully, neither of us ever ate cement.



Kid from A Christmas Story?!


In hopes of not totally boring you, my wonderful readers, I'll break up my posts about Salt Lake City in a few posts.  Today, let's discuss driving in Salt Lake City.

First off, let me say that I am very pleased to have grown up in Florida and not run into too much snow in Alabama yet because I'm not sure that I'll ever go anywhere when it happens.  I realize that in states like Utah, there are plans in place for when snow covers the roads.  In my short time in Salt Lake I was schooled in snowblowers, salting the roads, snowplows, and chains on your tires.  Thank goodness we didn't have any incidents while driving in the snow, and by we, I mean Baron.  I had a personal driver :)

We did have a few moments of tension in our cute little 2012 Ford Edge (thaaaaaaank you,  Budget Rent-a-Car) but after pulling over to clean our windshield and waiting until no cars were coming before sliding down an exit ramp, we both remained calm and arrived home in one piece!

I cannot possiblly capture the amount of snow that was at this gas station!

I was SO happy to know that we had covered parking to come home to, because most cars were driving around with several inches of snow all over them.  I've never appreciated a parking garage more than I did the one at our hotel!  Speaking of our hotel, it was a pretty suite deal. Haha, I crack myself up!  Baron had a little suite with a tiny living room, kitchen, and bedroom.  They had breakfast for us every morning and a "Welcome Home" dinner at night where you could indulge in complimentary beer and wine with your dinner.  Apparently Utah has strict rules dealing with alcohol and their drinks have a lower percentage of alcohol in them than the rest of the country.  Maybe it was the altitude because I didn't feel like my Chardonnay was any less strong than in good ol' Alabama.  And their coffee?  It was G.O.O.D.  I had to grab a cup or three each morning.

And no, we didn't drive everywhere.  We did the typical tourist thing and walked around the city as much as we could, weather permitting.  On Saturday night, after the big "snowstorm" we decided to walk to a local sushi place.  Okay, imagine millions of ice cold slushies from 7-11 on the side walk, like 5 inches deep.  Yeah, that's what we walked through to get some dang good sushi.  My boots were soaked, and my little tootsies suffered for that King Kong Roll, but it was good!

What? You don't blow dry your boots??

We went to Park City on a little day trip one day, but we'll talk about that in another post! The HGTV Dream Home is in Park City this year, not that I'm encouraging you to enter or anything.  I want to win!!

Hope everyone is having a good week!

We are still waiting on a roadblock about the house.  I think I'll wait to post about it until we get it resolved or we back down and just give them the extra money.  It's just too long of a story!  Basically they still want us to pay for the extra square footage that will be added to the first floor in order to put stairs in for the bonus room upstairs.  Ugh.  This has been SO frustrating.

I'm so glad to be at home with my pups!  I hope you all have a great day!

Keep Calm and Carry Only a Carry On!

How's that for a tongue twister?!

So this is going to be a very random, I'm bored, Hubby isn't home yet, and it's pouring outside kind of post.  I'm heading to Salt Lake City, Utah very soon and I'm thrilled that I'll just be boarding the plane with this bag only:


From the Thirty One Catalog

I have my new monogram on mine, and not "Dream Home" or whatever her's says. I got this bag as a wedding gift from a friend and it can hold SO much.  I plan on shoving my purse, travel pillow, ipad, and makeup in it and off I go! Where are my clothes, you ask?  Well my husband graciously allowed me to shove a few shirts, one pair of jeans, and exactly 4 pairs of underwear into one of his suitcases that he plans on taking to Salt Lake.  I'm a chronic over-packer and this time around I brought exactly what I needed for each day's bottom layer plus 2 sweatshirts and a heavy coat.  It's gonna be cold, when I woke up this morning I checked the weather in Salt Lake and it said 14 degrees.  Come again?!  Brrr!!

Speaking of cold, I bought this jacket last week on clearance at Target, score!!  I also bought the boots, not on clearance but still cute and warm! I was taking a picture of my little eskimo ensemble to send to Baron and Max was seriously not happy.  Check him out, mid-bark! Haha!

Baron and I traveled to Toronto back in August of 2010.  Actually I flew up and met him over the weekend while he was there for work.  We had a great time exploring the city on his long three day weekend.  The bad news- I was recovering from a broken foot.  The good news- I was still wearing a little "boot" on one foot so I only had to pack my left shoes! Made a lot more room for packing and I succeeded in traveling with solely my carry on and purse. 10 points for me!



Toronto Bound:
Both bags courtesy of my best friend :)



A lovingly referred to my right foot as "Shrek"

Baron & I in front of the CN Tower- we had dinner at the top one night :)

Almost to Niagara Falls!

The Falls: Beautiful!

Thanks for taking a little trip back to Toronto with me :)  I just love exploring new cities and can't wait for a little time with my hubby in a new town.  Sounds like fun to me!  Not too much going on here, taking the puppies to doggie day care tomorrow to try to get them used to the place where they'll be boarding.

I hope you all have had a wonderful Tuesday!

Still Waiting

On Friday I overcame a big fear and learned to like sushi!  Some new friends, Amanda and Stephanie, invited me to their favorite local sushi spot for lunch and promised that I would change my mind about how I felt about sushi.  I admit that the best place to try sushi is probably not the premade stuff at Publix. 


Our spread

We ordered several rolls that were cooked and a few that had some raw ingredients.  I started with the cooked ones and worked my up to the rolls made with raw salmon flopped on top :)  They were all good!  Baron will be so happy that I'll eat sushi with him now!

I received a call from our realtor on Friday afternoon that all the problems that I had discussed in this post had been resolved and we simply had to sign the plans and drop them off at the builder's office.  Which is what we did...that night...at 11 o'clock!  We just wanted to be able to say it was finally finished!

Fast foward to the next morning, when we get an email from the builder's representative.  You know, the one that we've kind of clashed with from the beginning.  Well, she says that the builder didn't agree to us having the original floor plan and that we'd still have to take 6 inches off of every room, or pay $5,000 if we wanted the rooms to be the size of the ones in the model home.  UGH.  Our realtor was told by the builder that it wasn't the case and they were going to cover the cost for both of the things that we were upset about.

So more phone calls, texts, email with our realtor and we're still waiting to get a final response.  It just seems absurd to me that we've agreed to pay for a bonus room on top of the price of the house and it was never mentioned that we'd have to cut down the size of all our rooms in order to not have to pay for the extra square footage that the stairs would add to the house.  People...you have to have stairs to get to a second floor!!  Not to mention that we've had three meetings to review plans and all the plans we've looked at had the larger square footage and the addtional cost was never mentioned until this last meeting when we were ambushed.

We are frustrated and tired and so, so thankful that we decided to work with a realtor.  I can't imagine all the ways that we would be taken advantage of if we chose to do this all on our own.  Sure, we could've fought these battles on our own, but it would've taken twice as long and I can't imagine how much more stress would be involved!


On Saturday night we met some friends downtown to watch our local hockey team play.  It was a lot more crowded than the first time we went to a game, apparently it was "free jersey night" for the first 1500 people.  Unfortunately we didn't get the memo.  The fights were a lot more frequent and it was hilarious to watch the crowd go wild when a fight broke out.  Kind of made me feel guilty :)

We had a low key weekend getting ready for our upcoming trip to Salt Lake City!  Trying to round up all our cold weather gear and make sure we have all the dogs' stuff together.  I've found a great place for them to be boarded while we're gone and I plan to take them for "daycare" one day this week before we actually leave them there for a few days at a time.  I keep reminding myself that they are dogs and not humans.  I just want them to have fun and not be scared while we're gone. 

Hope y'all have a wonderful week!

It's Snowing!

I'll admit it, I've been dwelling on the house drama all day. When the snow started falling it was a nice break!!

House Woes

To say that our meeting with the builder's representative yesterday didn't go well, would be an understatement.  Y'all, it. wasn't. pretty.

It's an extremely long story, but I'll cut to the chase.  They had never built a bonus room over the garage on the specific floor plan that we wanted, so there wasn't one that we could see to decide it we wanted a bonus room or not.  Well, good news! They have one over another floor plan that we can go see if we want. Yes!  We drove 45 minutes one way and decide, yes, we love the bonus room.  It was a ton of useable space, but away from the rest of the house, perfect!

We write up our contract to include the bonus room, which adds a certain amount of money to the house.  We agree.  We're told that in 10 days we'll get our plans back and sign off on them, go to the design center, then construction will begin.  That was on November 10th!! Over two months ago!  The first time we went to review our plans there hadn't been any of the modifications that we wanted included.  All the architect had done was add the bonus room, but didn't include any of the things we wanted changed/added to the floor plan.  Okay, whatever, a mistake can be made.  The other problem?  The bonus room didn't look a thing like the bonus room we saw.  The one on the plans was a long, narrow room with a tiny window on the very end.  Did I tell you the walls were slanted? So yeah, here's a bonus room that has about 4 feet of useable space. Fantastic.  We say we aren't happy with that, they tell us they can add a dormer but it'll cost us, we argue, the builder rep's mom (who also works there) steps in and says we'll just ask the architect to see what he can do, we'll find a way to make it how you like it. Yay!

Don't know what a dormer is?  I didn't either.  It's just a thing that sticks out of the

roof line that allows the ceiling to be a normal height in that area, plus windows!!

The second time, the builder's rep/realtor sent them back to the architect because she found a few things he didn't include (<-- this was the first and maybe only thing she's ever done to help us!).

The third time we were to review them (about 2 weeks ago) we actually met with the architect.  My husband, who is an engineer so he freaking knows what he's talking about, had a good meeting with the architect and we just had to wait for one more meeting.  The new bonus room was beautiful!! It looked perfect and we were so excited that we had come to a resolution.  Everybody was in good spirits and we left feeling like this was all gonna work out.  ALL the architect had to do was move our pedestrain door in the garage over 2 feet.  It was supposed to be an easy meeting and then we'd FINALLY be finished with that part!

Well yesterday we went to the meeting (without our realtor) because it was supposed to be a simple check off and our realtor has a previous commitment. We sit down and realize that the builder's rep brought her broker/boss with her to the meeting.  That's funny, because he hasn't been around for any of the rest of this crazy process.  So first she says, you have to pay for the extra square footage that having stairs to the bonus room requires.  Um, what?!  I'm pretty sure we agreed to pay a significant amount of money for the bonus room, which of course requires stairs because it's on the second floor!!!  When the rep realized that we were a little ((WHAT?!)) by this, she states, "well if you don't wanna pay the additional $5,000 for that, then the architect drew up these plans which have about 6 inches shaved off of every room so that it doesn't add square footage for the stairs."  First of all, that's a no go.  You're not just gonna shave off inches from random rooms and we'll be okay with it.  IF we were going to agree to shave off some inches (which is a last resort) we'd like to do it from where we choose! Thankyaverymuch.  For instance, our master bedroom is going to be much bigger than we need/want and we'd love to take the inches from that room.  AND isn't it pretty obvious that if the floor plan you agree on has only one story and you want to add a bonus room, upstairs!, that you would have to add, STAIRS? Wait, maybe they're planning on giving us a free elevator?!

Then the builder's rep pulls out another sheet of paper that says we'll need to pay $5,000 for the addition of the dormer in the bonus room.  Yeah, remember at our last meeting when everyone was happy and NOT. ONE. WORD. was said about an additional cost involved?  That meeting, where the rep said, "I'm glad we could make you guys happy!" with a big, fat, fake smile on her face? 

At that point, I wasn't sure who was going to blow first.  I looked over at my husband who said to her, "I'd like to know why that wasn't mentioned AT ALL at our last meeting?!"

She says, "I'm sorry if I forgot to mention it but I think I told you at some point that it might cost a little extra."

So I'm thinking in my head, "Are you kidding me, you deceptive little brat?!  You're saying on top of all the extra money we agreed to pay for the addition of the bonus room, now you're gonna need an extra $10,000 for it to be to our liking and to include stairs?!"

But I said to her, "Okay, we're NOT happy with this.  You are trying to bait and switch us, you've totally misrepresented the idea of a bonus room in the first place, how dare you do this to us at this supposed 'easy meeting' when our representative isn't here and you knew she wouldn't be here."

Baron continued with telling them both how unhappy we've been with her, the builder's rep, and that we've been jerked around from the beginning.  We said we are not going to pay for that and we will be meeting with our realtor, our realtor's broker and who ever else needs to be involved in order to find a resolution. 

The rep and her broker said blah, blah, blah, we told you that most of our bonus rooms look like the long skinny unusable one did, we told you that a long time ago, blah, blah.  Then she made a rude comment about how if the money was a problem we could just add it to our mortgage.  Okay hon, listen, we got this.  We will not be seeking financial advice from you!  Add if we did add it to our mortgage we'd end up paying twice as much in interest.  We're not ignorant like you. We are not irresponsible with our money and we will be making a wise decision.  DO NOT pipe in with your free financial advice.  Why don't you work on doing your job well first!

We called our realtor when we got home and she was just as on fire as we were.  Her broker is calling the rep's boss today and we're going to the actual builder and tattle tell on this girl.  She has been nothing but deceptive, hard to deal with, and totally ignorant about everything involved with building our house.  I have a feeling if the builder actually knew how his hired realty company was handling things, he would not be pleased. 

This got crazy long, sorry!  I'm mostly writing all this so we have something to look back on later.  I want to remember all the craziness involved with building so if we ever think about it again, we'll reconsider, haha! Kidding. Kind of.

I was so proud of my hubby and I. We are both somewhat soft spoken people but we let them have it yesterday, it a professional way of course!  We'd of course love the threaten to just walk away but that's the problem, they totally have us because we want to be in that house and neighborhood!!

We'll see what transpires, everything will be on hold for now because of upcoming travel for both my husband and myself so we probably won't even get back to all the arguing for a few weeks.  We've come to realize that we'll probably have to renew our lease for a month or two but there's not much we can do about it.

Getting to Know Me

So I stole this idea from Sweet Tea in Sicily, go check out her blog.  She's also recently married and moved a long way away with her new groom...like overseas!  I thought moving to Alabama was far away!

1. Post a picture of yourself:

Here's the most recent one.  Max and I in Blue Ridge, Georgia on Thanksgiving

2. How old are you?
26! Woah, when did that happen??

3. What is your zodiac sign?
I used to be a Virgo but didn't they all change a few years ago?  I don't know, I've never put any meaning behind that stuff.

4. What did you do on your last birthday?
A few days before my birthday I received my first speeding ticket ever, so I went to the courthouse the morning of my birthday to sign up for driving school. Yipee!  I think we went out to dinner or something that night, nothing too exciting, getting old is no fun!

5. What is one thing you'd like to accomplish before your next birthday?
I'd like to lose about 10 more pounds and maintain my weight loss.

6. What is your hair color?
Blonde, with a hint of green if I've been swimming too much in the summer :)

7. Have you ever dyed your hair?
Nope, Momma wouldn't let me when I was growing up and now I'm glad she wouldn't.  Good job, Momma!

8. What color are your eyes?
Green/Blue, they change a little bit if I'm wearing a bright blue or green shirt

9. Do you wear contacts or glasses?
No, I tried to wear some colored contacts for a brief period in high school and walked around twitching my eyes all day. 

10. Have you ever considered plastic surgery? What would you have done?
Never seriously, I'm such a wuss that I couldn't get past the pain of it!

11. Do you have any tattoos?
Oh dear, I knew this was coming.  I have one on my hip, the only one I'll ever have!  Remember I said I was a wuss, it huuuuuuurrrrt!  It's a really pretty swirly tree from a picture I took while I was in Africa, it means a lot to me.  I'm glad that I got it but I won't do it again.

12. Do you have any piercings?
I'm a rebel, I have two holes in each ear ;)

13. Left or right handed?
Right handed, my Dad and brother are both lefties though.

14. Do you have any pets?
2 Boston Terriers, that's not a secret!  Macey is almost 4 and Max is 9 months.

15. Share 2 habits?
I bite my nails, I try so hard not too but it's a habit I just can't seem to break!  I crack my knuckles a lot too, I know it's bad!

16. What's your ideal career?
Soccer mom :)

17. Is your life anything like it was 2 years ago?
Haha! Not at all!! Two years ago I was living in Jacksonville, Florida working night shift as a labor and delivery nurse.  I had just started dating a guy who lived about 2 hours away from me.  My oh my has my life changed!

18. Ever broken any bones?
Does a stress fracture count?  Last summer my foot starting hurting like crazy and got really swollen suddenly one night.  My coworkers (over-reacters!) convinced me that I had a life threatening blood clot and wheeled me over to the ER.  Nope, not a clot but a stress fracture.  I got some crutches and was to be totally off of it for 2 days until I could get in to see the orthopedic specialist.  I got fitted with a little boot thing and was able to work with it.  When I went in for my checkup the doc said it wasn't healing and I had to be on total rest for two weeks. Uggggghhh!  I lived on the 2nd floor at the time and had a dog, so my momma came and picked me up and I spent 2 weeks at my parent's house, recovering.  My foot was sore for a really long time and it's finally back to normal, 'cept for when it's really cold outside :)

19. Share something about yourself that others might think is weird.
I can get worked up and nervous about almost anything!  If someone called and said, "You won a free trip to Paris!" and I'd be all like, "Oh my, what will I wear? Where will the dogs stay? Too much to do in too little time, ahhhh!"

20. What are four things you can't live without?
My husband, family & friends, Diet Coke, my pups

21. Are you more like your Mom or Dad?
I would say that I'm a great mix of both. My sense of humor is spot on with my Dad's.  He is the funniest person I've ever been around. My personality is a lot like my mom's though.  I love my parents <3

22. Do you have any siblings?
A "little" brother who's about 6 inches taller than I am.  He's 23 and works as an EMT in Florida, I'm very proud of him.

23. Are you going out of town soon?
Heading to Salt Lake City, Utah in a few weeks! So excited to explore a new city with my hubby.

24. Do you have someone you can totally be yourself around?
I'm very blessed to have a bunch of family and friends who totally get me and support me even when I totally am myself ;)

25. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Here's what I hope:  I hope that we are settled here in Alabama and really feel like we're at home. I hope that we have a child by then and that we have friends and family come visit often!

Alright folks, that's enough for today.  It's nice to have random link ups and surveys for those days that you're just feeling uninspired!  Tomorrow, I'll try to come up with something a little more exciting to talk about!

I know I've said this several times but today we're meeting with the builder's rep to hopefully completely sign off on our plans for the house.  I can't wait to get into the design center and pick out everything for our home!  I'm so thankful that Baron (and my) schedule allows us to meet up with these people at all hours during the day.  I don't know how people build/buy a house when they work an 8 to 5 job that doesn't have that kind of flexibility!

Recipe Roundup

Hey gals,

So the interview went very well.  I felt comfortable with all the questions and I feel like they responded to me well, should hear something in a few days.  Monday thru Friday 8am-5pm will be quite the adjustment but might bring some "normalcy" to our lives.

Wanted to chat about some new recipes I've tried lately.  My Mother in law got me this cookbook for Christmas:

It's full of a ton of recipes that I can't wait to try!!  I've made a meatloaf and a pasta dish so far and can't wait to try some more.  Weight Watcher recipes have come a long way even since I've been doing it on and off for the last few years.   How about this one from the 70's:

Doesn't that look delicious haunting?!  I'm so thankful for recipes that actually taste good and can work well with the Weight Watchers program.

Another great place that I've found for a lot of recipes is this website:  Skinny Taste.  I know I've linked her site before but I seriously can't get enough of this website.  Everyday it seems, there's a new recipe posted and every one I've tried has been great!

These are some of our favorites:

Thai Chicken & Pineapple Stirfry (Little spicy, beware!)

Slow Cook Sweet Barbacoa Pork

Chipotle's Cilantro Lime Rice (make this with the Barbacoa Pork and some black beans, yum!)

Crockpot Turkey White Bean Pumpkin Chili (almost feels like cheat night served over whole wheat noodles)

Roasted Potatoes, Chicken, and Sausage (One dish wonder, easy peasy, and a hit!)

Autumn Penne Pasta with Sauteed Brussel Sprouts (Even better leftover, a great way to sneak brussel sprouts into your diet!)

Last one from Skinny Taste: Tuscan White Beans with Spinach and Shrimp

Okay, I should stop now because it's not really listing my favorites if I list every recipe on her website.

Veggie burgers and roasted vegetables have been a staple at our house lately.  I haven't found a vegetable that I don't like roasted yet.  Broccoli, Squash, Cauliflower, Zucchini, Brussel Sprouts, Onion, Carrots, Mushrooms, Tomatoes, you name it, you can roast it!  Just turn up your ovens to 400 degrees, pop in your cut up veggies that you sprayed with cooking spray, roast for 10 minutes, toss, then cook an additional 10 minutes.  Easy and delicious!



Veggie Burger with Roasted Brussel Sprouts and a bit of Bleu Cheese= 6 points!





Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?

Here's what I'm doing today.  I have an interview this afternoon with a doctor's office in town.  I'm nervous, but maybe that'll help me out a little bit.  I keep telling myself that I don't have to have this position.  It's not like we have 12 kids to feed or anything.  I guess it's just human nature to want to be liked and wanted.  Here's hoping!  Cute outfit? Check.  Rain? Yeah, bummer.  Ready for anything? Check!

We are still waiting to schedule our appointment at the design center so that we can pick out everything for our house.  This is taking forever!  It kind of doesn't even feel like we're building a house, because we've been stuck in the same position for two months with no progress being made.  Our realtor is pushing for us and trying to get us in to the design center before Baron has to go on his next business trip. 

This week feels like it has the potential to get crazy!  Interview today, WW meeting tomorrow, hopefully two house meetings, taking the dogs to a boarding place for daycare to get them used to it, lots of stuff to do!!  Crazy is better than boring I guess!

Happy Monday Y'all!

It's been a year!

Hey y'all!  Another way random post comin' at ya today, but that's how my brain works.  Baron always says to me, "Brekke, you switch topics so fast that I can't keep up!"  Haha, c'mon rocket man, I can assure you I'm not talking rocket science! 

- Yesterday the sweet, Amanda,  from Kevin & Amanda invited me over to meet some of her girlfriends and have a Chocolate Taste Testing and Painting party! How fun!  Stephanie from All Artful taught us how to paint like professionals.  The amazing thing was our paintings all turned out great!  Amanda just got back from New York and had a bunch of chocolate for us to taste test.  Helllllllo, cheat day!


My finished painting!



- Our meeting with the architect yesterday went great!  They had fixed everything that we had issues with and we should get to finally sign off officially on Friday. Yay! Enter panic mode, because that means we'll have to make all the decisions about color and such very soon after.  I can't believe that we'll be living in our first house this year!


- A year ago today I was driving to Gainesville to visit Baron.  When I got to his apartment there was a note on the door that said this...

"Dearest Brekke,

Meet me at the location of our first kiss.

Love, Baron"

So I drove like a madwoman to this little chapel on the water where I knew I was gonna run in and find him.  I got pulled over on the way, started sobbing and told the guy, "I'm about to get engaged!" and he let me go (thank you officer!)  I ran up to the church and as I opened the door about three or four people walked out together and were smiling at me.  One girl even had tears in her eyes.  I looked inside and saw Baron all dressed up standing at the altar.  I ran down the aisle to get to him and he said all kinds of nice things, then got on one knee and asked me to marry him.



Reinactments of the day :)

- I heard about Free Crappy Portraits from several other blogs that I read and just had to send in a photo.  Seriously, I love this picture, and I don't think it's crappy at all!! Captures us so well.  All you have to do is send in a picture with a short description of the people in the photo.  Here's what I wrote:

"Baron is a real rocket scientist, like too smart for his own good. Brekke is a "Domestic Goddess" at the moment. We just moved to Alabama from Florida after our wedding in May. We're both big Florida Gator fans. We love our two dogs, Macey and Max (both Boston Terriers, one black and one brown), and we're both kinda miserable right now because we're trying to lose weight, haha!! Baron likes flying remote control planes and checking up on the stock market (boooooring!) and Brekke enjoys learning to cook, blogging, and obsessively painting her nails. Oh and she drinks A LOT of Diet Coke."

We're featured on their website today, go check it out and get yourself one! I seriously want to have this framed!



Happy Wednesday y'all! I hope the rest of the week is good for you!

Tuesday

Well all the Christmas decorations are put away and it feels like the holiday season is over.  It always feels like it goes by way too fast.  We had a great Christmas and New Year's even though we didn't do anything too exciting.  Baron is back at work today so vacation is officially over.

We're meeting with our realtor, the builder's representative and the architect today to (hopefully) finalize all our house plans so that we can get this show on the road.  It's been almost two months since we signed out contract to build.  After we sign off on our plans then we have to schedule an appointment at the "Design Center" dun dun dunnnn.  Apparently this is a several hour long appointment where we select all the different colors, finishes, etc. that we want in our house, and apparently they won't start construction until we've been through the design center.  It's a little bit frustrating because we'd thought we'd be done with all that already.  Hopefully today we can finally sign off on the plans and then we can schedule our appointment to pick everything out.

Random: I made another delicious recipe from Skinnytaste.com the other night and I think you should try it!!  Thai Chicken & Pineapple Stirfry.  I left out the hot pepper and used soy sauce in place of fish sauce, and Sweet Chili Sauce because I couldn't find the pineapple dipping sauce.  It was sweet (and spicy too, beware!)

We tried using chopsticks but let's be serious.

I hope to make several new recipes this week to help get out of the boring-weight-watcher's-food-veggie burger-rut.