The Best is Yet to Be

Monday, February 10, 2014

This Post is Bad for Your Diet

Just last week as I vowed to be a better blogger, it struck me that I should probably give this space a little face lift while I'm being ambitious. I wanted to simplify things a bit and change up the color scheme. I'm no blog designer, but I have to say I'm pretty happy with how this thing turned out! I've made a few updates to my About page and promise to get better about sharing my favorite recipes with you all again. There are already a few of my favorites under the Recipes tab, but I've been cooking and baking like crazy lately, so there is a lot more to come!

In addition to giving a little TLC to this happy space, our weekend was pretty great. Saturday we spent the afternoon with my new father-in-law and went to see Lone Survivor. You guessed it, the boys definitely picked the movie and even though some of the war scenes were hard for me to watch, I thought the movie was great. After the movie, we grabbed a bite to eat and went grocery shopping to stock up on everything we needed to host brunch at our house after church on Sunday. I also spent Saturday night baking these babies...

Those are Orange Creamsicle cupcakes...with a marshmellow cream filling. I can't put into words how magical our house smelled while these were in the oven. The recipe is here if you want to experience this for yourself. They are currently hiding out in our freezer so they don't disappear before I have chance to bring them to my brother-in-law this weekend for his birthday.

...and then there was Sunday, which was basically the best day ever. It was one of those days you have a goofy smile plastered across your face and you don't even realize it. We woke up bright and early to meet our friends for the early service at church. After church, we all met back at our house for brunch and I have to say, my husband and I did a damn good job putting it together. Jonathan's parents came over too, and we all spent the morning eating and drinking and laughing...there was lots of laughing. We made eggs, bacon, fruit salad, corn muffins and I tried this awesome recipe for Cinnamon Crescent Rolls. Between that and all the necessities for mimosas and the perfect bloody mary, we had quite the spread.

Yes, that is bacon in my bloody mary. Yes, it was amazing.

We were all having just way too much fun with this brunch business. After a few drinks, we decided to take our party on the road and walked/biked up the street to the bar. I have to add that while my mother-in-law and I road bikes, most of our group walked, but my husband, he roller bladed choosing not to bring a change of shoes. It was quite the scene watching him roll into and around the bar. We all had an absolute blast and our simple little brunch turned into a long day of fun.

I'm not going to lie, though, we were pretty hungover (already) by the time everyone left around 5:00. We spent the rest of our weekend watching several episodes of Breaking Bad. Jonathan's already watched the series, but he's watching it again with me. We just finished season 4 and well, I just wish we weren't adults so we could still be watching right now. Instead, it's Monday and we're back to work, but only for a few days, then we're off to Destin for the weekend!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Life Lately

"I will get back to blogging once the wedding is over."

Clearly, I was lying to myself because here we are, one month post-wedding and I can't seem to get on track here. It's funny too, because there are always stories to share, recipes to rave about and thoughts it would do me a world of good to get out of my head.

To be honest, we've been busy around these parts, but that is all the more reason why I need to get better at this blogging business. I want to document this time in our lives. I need to be more intentional with my writing. I love reading back on my old blog posts. It takes me back to what I was feeling during that time, good or bad. I am enjoying life and living in the moment, but I truly want to be better about taking time to sit down and write.

The good news is, I'm finally starting to get back to normal after the chaos of the holidays and then our wedding. Here's what else we've been up to lately -

We're working on our fitness. Right after we got home from our honeymoon, my sweet husband took me out to buy this beauty.

I would have been just as happy with a budget-friendly bicycle from Target, but Jonathan wasn't having it. We ordered this from our local bicycle shop and I'm glad we splurged a little bit. I love this baby! We've been going on bike rides left and right since we brought it home. I'm absolutely loving it!

Speaking of fitness, Jonathan and I started Shaun T's Focus T25 program about a week ago and it's kicking my butt. It's a love/hate relationship though, because I do enjoy the workouts despite the tears and yelling at Shaun T through each workout. I love that each workout is only 25 minutes long. By the time I'm starting to feel like I might die, I realize, "hey, there's only 12 minutes left. I can totally do 12 more minutes." I also love that Jonathan and I are doing it together. I'm not going to lie, we are only a week or so in and he is the main reason I haven't missed a day yet. It's not that I'm lazy, I've just having a tough time getting my head in the workout game. I'm getting there, though and in all fairness, he got me started on Breaking Bad and I have very little desire to do anything else but devour ~~a few~~ several episodes a night.

In other news, we got our professional wedding photos back. I woke up Monday morning and basically jumped out of bed when I saw an email from our photographer. I love them. Absolutely love them! I'm planning on getting my shit together and linking up for Wedding Wednesday for the next few weeks so I can share all the details of our day. Oh, what the heck, I'll share one of my favorites with you today because I just can't help myself!

Photo by Lora Rodgers Photography

I finally feel like I got our house put back together after organizing our wedding gifts and whatnot. I've been baking up a storm as usual and trying out some new dinner recipes, too! I'll have to post some of my new favorites soon. I've also started the oh-so-fun process of changing my name and boy, the Social Security office is not my favorite place. It's quite the process but obviously, totally worth it!

We're one month into married life and I'd say it's pretty fantastic. We've been so busy getting settled back into our day-to-day schedules, but I am absolutely soaking up every minute of this time as a newlywed. It's amazing, really and I still can't believe this is my life.

So, cheers to married life and to me taking the time to write about this it and all the other random ideas that float through my head. I'm back!

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

MARRIED.

Why, hello there. It's been a while but I figured it was about time I make an appearance around these parts. It's been a while, so let me update you real quick. I married the man of my dreams on January 3, 2014 and our day was better than we ever could have imagined. We honeymooned in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and since then, we've been getting back to our normal day to day and enjoying every minute of married life.

I'm still waiting to get our professional photos back and when I do, I'll fill you in on all the wonderful moments from our big day.

In the meantime, all I can say is that our wedding day was absolutely perfect. People are absolutely right when they tell you the day is over in the blink of an eye. There were so many moments throughout the day/night when I had to stop myself and just watch in awe what was going on around me. I can't compare the way I felt that day to any other feeling...it's so surreal and overwhelming in the very best way.

I'll be the first one to say wedding planning wasn't my favorite thing to do. It's stressful and at times, it's hard to justify going through all that trouble for one day, when all you want to do is marry the love of your life. I'll also be the first one to tell you when the day comes, none of that matters anymore. Surrounded by our family and friends that night who came from all over to celebrate our love, I couldn't help but think that the work I put into planning our wedding was so absolutely worth it.

I absolutely can't wait to see our photos and share the details of our day with all of you! In the meantime, here are just a few personal snapshots.