Favorite Memories

Ok, here we are at Day 5 of the 30 Day Challenge (technically I posted Day 4 today too, since it was about last night).  Today is: A picture of your favorite memory.


Well, I'd say my wedding day and my honeymoon are my favorite memories.  My wedding day was truly awesome and I will never forget it, but since you've likely seen pictures from my wedding day, I will give you pictures from my honeymoon in Hawaii, which is also a spectacular memory.

A little background on my honeymoon.  For those of you married to pilots (I know a couple of my readers are), you know that you don't have a lot of control over scheduling, even when it comes to things like weddings and honeymoons.  It was actually a small miracle that my husband was able to get off for four days for the actual wedding.  So, Greg getting time off for a honeymoon immediately following the wedding was not going to happen.  In fact we had quite a few guests come to our wedding that had more time off for the event than we did!  What we ended up doing was to wait for my hubby's vacation time, which he also had very little control over.  He ended up getting his vacation in February the following year (2007), so that's when we had our belated honeymoon to Hawaii.  

In addition to waiting nine months to go on a honeymoon, we also decided to go with friends!  Yes, I know, we're terribly unromantic.  Our friends Melanie and Benji had been to Hawaii on their honeymoon two years before.  They wanted to go again, knew the islands fairly well, and also (this is the big one) were willing to kind of PLAN the whole trip for us.  I'm not much of a planner when it comes to trips to places I haven't been before, and Benji was all over finding things for us to do, places to stay, etc...  He was like a travel agent.  It was awesome.  


In February of 2007 we left the dreary winter and headed to paradise.  We went to Oahu and Maui.  Here are some pictures of my memories of Hawaii :)

FYI, those first four pictures were from The Turtle Bay Resort in Oahu.  That's where Forgetting Sarah Marshall was filmed, so when I watch the movie, I also think of our awesome trip.  It was my favorite part of Hawaii and if you are ever going, I highly recommend it.

Road to Hana in Maui

View from our window in Wakiki

Me next to volcanic formations.

Dinner out in Maui

Snorklin'

Another view from Road to Hana in Maui

Best trip I've ever been on!  Ahhhh, I wish I was back there now!

Day and Night

It may appear as if I missed the 4th day of the 30 Day Challenge, but actually, I had to wait to post because it calls for a picture of your night ;)  I'm actually going to give you pictures from my whole day, including the night.  Bonus!

It was a seriously glorious spring day here in Charlotte yesterday.  Temps were in the mid 70's and it felt fantastic.

I started the day with a green monster.  This was ice, banana, some Stoneyfield pomegranate yogurt, chia seeds, vanilla whey protein, almond milk, Pom juice, spinach, and chia seeds.

Clyde and I had a date with Kelly and Rascal late morning to go for a walk in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte.

Clyde and Rascal = BFF's...

Beautiful!

We winded around then went to a nearby Starbucks with outdoor seating to grab some coffee (well, tea for Kelly) and chat.

The dogs managed to wind their leashes a couple times, but we straightened them out.

I had my usual, the Skinny Vanilla Latte, and also enjoyed some snacks Kelly picked up for us.  A Raw bar and some dried apples.

Post walk, I headed home and made a salad with random stuff I had in my veggie drawer.  I decided to go Asian-style and threw in:

spinach

green leaf lettuce

orange slices

black sesame seeds

roasted red pepper

broccoli

cucumber

peanuts

I made a dressing with about a tablepsoon of PB, splashes each of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, and a squeeze of orange.

I ate outside on the deck to enjoy the warm sunshine.

After lunch, my outdoor adventures continued in our unruly flower bed.

Kinda looks the same, but I pulled a ton of dead brush, leaves, and weeds out, and also pruned our butterfly bushes.

I actually need to go grocery shopping for produce, but I was feeling lazy, so dinner consisted of sweet pepper tomato sauce and pasta.  I chopped half an onion, the last of my yellow and orange sweet peppers, and some roasted red pepper.

Into the pan with some grapeseed oil to soften, then added garlic, basil, oregano, a little chili pepper and a can of diced tomato.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Over pasta with some fresh shredded parm.

It was actually really delicious :)  Not bad at all for a last ditch throw together dinner.

Greg's birthday is Tuesday and I've devised a plan to make him an assortment of cake balls instead of the traditional cake.  Last night I started by baking this chocolate cake, letting it cool, then mixing it with a can of white vanilla frosting.

I divided the mixture into smaller portions and added caramel sauce and Heath Bar pieces to one portion, thawed frozen raspberries to another, coconut to some (those will be for me, since Greg doesn't like coconut), peanut butter to another, and then some Nutella to the last portion.  Tonight I'm going to form the balls and dip them in chocolate.  I'll show you the results when they are done.  This is my first attempt at cake balls, so I hope they come out good!

The other thing I did last night was watch a marathon of Sister Wives on TLC. 

Have you guys seen this show?  I'm fascinated and can't decide what I think!  I mean, obviously I think the idea of multiple wives is weird, and it would not be ok with me, but I kind of don't care if that's what they want to do and they're all into it...  LOL!

The time change definitely threw me off last night.  I found myself still milling around at 10:30pm and that's pretty late for me on a "school night".  The lack of sleep is hitting me already this morning.  Off to find coffee I go!

My Favorite Shows

Hey all!  I'm sooooooooooooo glad the weekend is here.  The week felt kind of long and I really am in need of time to decompress.  I actually don't have a ton on the agenda.  Last night I stayed in with a headache and went to bed pretty early (I think I went upstairs around 9pm).  I know, I'm grandma.

I'm hoping to get in some yoga, run some errands, take some walks with Clydsy, and get a little face time with friends maybe. 

I think I'm actually relatively caught up on Tivo'd shows, which is good, because it's supposed to be awesome outside this weekend, so I hopefully won't be inside too much.  Speaking of TV shows though, that's today's 30 Day Challenge topic.  I actually don't have ONE favorite, but here's the ones I'm watching lately and love.

Day 03 of the 30 Day Challenge - A picture of the cast from your favorite show

Southland

I don't know if many other people even watch this show, but I love it.  Though LA and my former tiny police department in Virginia might be very different, when I watch the show it brings back a lot of the feelings I had when I was cop.  Especially the scenes that involve rookies with their training officers.  I think it's a great cop show, and Ben McKenzie is great eye candy too ;)

Grey's Anatomy

 

It may not be as great as it once was, but I still really like the show and catch it weekly.

Private Practice

 

I think this show has gotten better than it initially was.  This season, Charlotte's rape was horrifying!  I had trouble sleeping the night I watched that.  Yikes!

The Bachelor

I don't watch Jersy Shore or Real Housewives, but The Bachelor is my trashy TV.  I have no idea why I haven't gotten bored with it after watching it for so long, but I still get sucked in every season.  Love it.

Parenthood



This show regularly makes me cringe watching the characters go through their struggles, but I love it.

Brothers and Sisters

This one is sometimes a little cheesy and a total drama fest.  Everyone on this show has issues, but it's fun to watch anyway.

How I Met Your Mother

LOVE this show.  It's so funny, and it's something that I can watch with Greg and he likes too. 



That's my main roster.  I also watch SNL, South Park, Dateline, and Oprah on occasion.

How about you, what's your TV rosters?  Any TV shows I'm missing out on?  I know I've been told a lot I should be watching Modern Family.  I think I need to start from the beginning of the first season if I'm going to get into that.

Have a great Saturday!





The Person I've Been Close To The Longest

Ok, here we are at Day 2 of the 30 Day Challenge. I knew this would get me to post more, so that's a good thing, right?

Day 02 - A picture of you and the person you have been closest with the longest.

This is actually an easy one for me.  I immediately thought of one of my best friends, Jen.  I've known her since I was a year old and we grew up across the street from each other in our small town in New Hampshire.

circa 2006 at a wedding

We went to our first day of school together pretty much every year from elementary school in to junior high.

That would be us on the end there... with our brothers.

Participated in many birthday parties together.

Jen: top left, me: middle sailor dress

We went to the lake we grew up close to together a lot.

Obviously being goofy, with my brother.

We supported each others' interests (baton twirling, which I did also!)...

I saw Jen off to her first prom.

There are really no words...

We ended up going to different high schools because I went to private school, but celebrated our high school graduations together.

Ah yes, the bangs make another appearance...

We partied in college together.

We visited each other when we didn't live in the same state anymore.

Savannah airport around 1999...

River Street in Savannah

Old Town Alexandria, probably around 2002...



We were bridesmaids in each others' weddings.

Jen's shower

And I went to Jen's baby shower...

Hi, we like to wear similar dresses/outfits.

It's gotten a lot harder for us to see each other, now that I'm in Charlotte and she's in NH with two little boys, but we try to see each other at least once a year and when we do it's like no time has passed and we can talk for hours.  Our phone calls are the same way.  She's a life long friend and I've known that all my life.  She's probably the closest thing I'll ever have to a sister.  We even argue like siblings sometimes.  I love her and miss her a lot.  I'm hoping to visit or see her soon!  Miss you Jen!



Big View Diner

Last night I met Cindi for dinner at Big View Diner.  The place has been open for a while, and every time I pass by it I think to myself that I need to go there at some point.  I beat Cindi there and was forced to drool over the awesome dessert case they have in the front of the restaurant.  Be glad I am not showing you a picture of that.  You'd just cry because it all looks so good!

When Cindi got there we immediately started gabbing, and we needed time to look over the menu, so Cindi ordered us some zucchini fries to buy us some time, and because they sounded fabulous.  Yummmmmmmm, they were so good!  I need to recreate these at home :)

We both ended up ordering the same thing- the gyro.  I LOVE gyros and don't have them that often, so when I see them on a menu somewhere, I usually end up getting one.

OMG it was gigantic!  And it had FRIES stuffed in it!  We had each eaten an unpictured Greek side salad and the zucchini fries before the gyros came out, so needless to say that half of this bad boy came home in a box.  (Clyde did get a sample).

I did enjoy it though :)
Cindi started eying the milkshakes and I told her that I had noticed that they have won awards for their milkshakes which were up on the wall in the front of the diner, so we decided to take a look at the menu.  I ended up getting a toasted coconut (since I can not get enough coconut) milkshake.  It was soooo good, but again, I was full, so most of that bad boy went into my freezer when I got home!  Here's Cindi with hers...  I think she had the chocolate covered strawberry.

Big thanks to Cindi for emailing me these pictures.  I've seriously lost my head since I started trying to get pregnant and forgot to bring my camera!! 

Big View Diner was good, and I'll definitely have to come back with Greg so he can get the experience!