You guys. You know how I am usually terrible at preserving the moment in picture? Well, I am on fire here lately and I have a bomb of Halloween 2015 photos for you to prove it! After some bumps in the road, we followed through with our plans to do Halloween in my hometown of Wilmington and it was a blast. We brought one of Andre’s best friends from highschool, Justin, along with us and got to spend time with some of my friends as well.

I spent much of the day putting together Andre’s costume. Mainly just tracking down a Hawaiian print shirt and making his mug shot sign. He went as H.I McDunnough from one of our favorite movies, Raising Arizona. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s Nicolas Cage gold. Holly Hunter is in it as well and is amazing of course.

I went as a 70’s disco queen and literally felt like I was living out a past life experience. I loved my costume so much that I want to wear it out again sometime. Ha! I’m not exactly sure where I got it but I do know it’s an authentic outfit from the time. I want to say I got it from my grandmother but it could have been someone else’s grandmother. I got the costume from someone’s grandma, possibly mine, not sure. ANYWAYYYY I had the shoes, borrowed the arm bangle, got the earrings from Claire’s for $1. The wig wasn’t too pricey so all in all, our costumes were pretty cheap.

The night wouldn’t have been expensive overall if I wouldn’t have dropped my phone at the very first bar we went to! After the getting my shattered phone screen fixed the overall price of the night will go up about $150. Oops! Lesson learned, trust me!

That aside, everything else in the night was perfection. A few friends who were going to a bonfire in lieu of the downtown bars still met us out for drinks and bar food before the night kicked into high gear.

70’s disco queen, Catwoman and Wonder Woman!

It was still fairly early (for downtown party time) when we finished eating but we wanted to skip out on waiting in line forever for the place we knew we wanted to start the night out in, so we just headed straight over from dinner. After a quick 2 minute walk, we were the first ones to get there which may be lame to some but this is my FAVORITE time to be there. I love having all that space on the dance floor to boogy without being shoulder to shoulder and to take photos. It’s so fun!

SKB as Medusa with an amazing headpiece she made herself! And Justin as…well, you get it ;)

Solo on the dance floor!

 

Once it started to fill up it was still fun as the energy was good awesome. People were dancing, asking to take photos with Justin, just having a good time all around. It was here we met up with my sweet friend Kristi Ray! She was dressed as a Unicorn with her horn made out of a decorative mini Christmas tree and headband she put together herself. It was awesome!

Before we left we hung around on the second level of the bar for some more mellow music and photo opportunities of course! This is where a girl spilled a drink all over me but it was totally cool because…I’ve been that girl. Guilty. I was about 6 tequila shots deep at that point so I was literally giving zero fuvks, I was having too much fun!

Vision.

Photo taking began to decline at this point as more drinks were consumed and more friends joined in on the fun. We left here to find our friend Hal who brought his new roommate James along. We all made our way to a new bar and met another friend, Jenna, who joined in on the festivities after she got off work. I was so glad she made it out with us!

Silliesssss

We stayed out until riiight around 2AM (before the clock switched back!) and then decided it was time for pizza! The cab got there before we had a chance to order so Hal stayed behind with another and brought a couple of pies back to our house. A few more friends joined for drinking games and we all hung as long as we possibly could.

I would say it was a very successful Halloween night! It was a lot of fun being able to let loose in my hometown with some of my very favorite people. I hope everyone had a safe night with people they love! Since it took us FOREVER to decide on what to be this year, Andrew&I already have our costumes planned out for next year…and it’s going to be epic.

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween! Any festivities you’d like to share?! Tell me a fun story from your night or leave a link to your blog post in the comments! I love reading about fun!

Until next time….

xx

 

The end of October is quickly approaching and I don’t even have my costume figured out yet. That my friends, is a scary thought! Over the years, Halloween has become one of my most favorite holidays and it’s always been a dream of mine to have an annual epic Halloween party but I think Andre and I need to get some things settled first before we do that…like I don’t know…decide where we want to settle?!

My epic annual Halloween party will eventually happen I’m sure, but one thing I already love to do every year is dress up! To be honest, over the past few years I have reused costumes out of laziness because I’ve either been working or unable to really do anything but this year, Andre and I BOTH are off work and it’s 3 days before Halloween and neither of us have decided on anything officially. We are slacking for sure. So while I ponder today what I will dress as this weekend, I thought it would be fun to share a few moments from Halloweens past…

This first photo is circa 2007? I’m pretty sure I was a junior in high school and I’m pretty sure my parents had no clue I was dressing like this. I got ready at my friend Blaine’s house who was the “good” to my “evil”. We were also Angel and Mimi from rent I think the next year but I couldn’t find that photo unfortunately! and yes I was wearing little dance shorts under that tutu…as if that makes the costume any less scandalous. ha!

Part of me can’t believe I’m posting this.

Next up is I believe 2009? Yea, I’m pretty sure. I went downtown to an 18 and up club with my friend at the time who dressed up as a bunch of grapes. It was a pretty clever costume with a million balloons pinned to him. Everyone loved my costume and some girl convinced me to go out for the costume contest but of course it was one of those “all the people you know scream for you” kind of things so when it came time for people to cheer for me…my friend was literally the ONLY one who cheered for me and it was an epic.fail. Even though he&I haven’t spoken in years, I think about that hilariously embarrassing moment and laugh still to this day. I have yet to enter another costume contest. ha! I did meet another Cleopatra on the way back to the car though so we snapped a photo together.

I had the jewelry&shirt, got the skirt&wrap at goodwill and bought the wig&headpiece. I’ve used it again a few times!

And last but not least…last year. This year was particularly fun because it was the first I spent with Andre and his friends together. We went to Charlotte for the weekend and just bounced around a bar crawl they were having. It was a blast although it started off kind of rocky. Leave it to me to leave my ENTIRE makeup case at home and have to go to target to rebuy literally everything. It was so frustrating. But once all that was worked out, it was a great time. Andre and I don’t always do couples costumes but on occasion we will. This particular year we didn’t go full out but when he decided on The Cat in the Hat, I went with just a regular ol kitty cat using clothes I had in my closet and some $7 cat ears. Of course add the price of my makeup and it was like a $110 costume. Is that another epic fail? Even if so, the night certainly wasn’t!

Andre n friends

I’m super excited for this weekend and can’t wait to see everyone’s costumes! Have you chosen anything yet?!

xx

Umm..hello you all!!!

I can’t believe it’s been almost a week since I was last here. When I realized that yesterday, it hit me that this past week has FLOWN by! I guess it’s because after I got home on Wednesday from my trip to my hometown (part one, part two) my husband had off from work the very next day through YESTERDAY! That’s right, a whole SIX days off!!

He is in the restaurant biz so if you know anything about that, you know it can be rare to have almost an entire week off…and over a holiday? Whaaaaa?! So, I’ve been off frolicking with him. It’s been awesome. We didn’t plan any trip or anything, we just stayed home and celebrated the 4th with friends. Sometimes planning a trip over a long period of time off from work can be more stress than fun (not always, just sometimes!) then you feel like you need a vacation from your vacation…but what we chose to do was laid back and actually relaxing. Even clean up from the day after the 4th was surprisingly easy. I think it was just what we needed.

Honestly, I did yet another terrible job at photo documentation. I WILL GET BETTER AT THIS! Not sure if I’m trying to convince you or myself…

We made pickles on Thursday for the first time! We used cucumbers from our garden, the recipe was great and they turned out awesome. I don’t know that I can ever go back to store bought pickles again. After seeing and tasting these it really makes me question why the heck store bought pickles are…yellow..ya know? Anyways… I do think that for my tangy taste buds I would add an extra helping of vinegar ;)

 

Making Pickles with this recipe from diynatural.com

So, we had people over on Friday and I was assuming it was just going to be people we knew, a laid back little adventure, but there ended up being a few people there that I hadn’t met. They were nice and a wee bit younger than me so I found myself chilling looking like this:

yoga pants, favorite sweatshirt. Ya know, the usual.

Toooottally feeling like this:

Even though we were just at my house. Ps- I found this on IG somewhere srry idk where! bad blogger!

Saturday I helped a girlfriend move the first part of the day. She had to put stuff in storage because she’s moving to Florida. I’m so sad! But strangely enough we didn’t do a long drawn out goodbye. I think we both feel like it doesn’t matter that she’s moving, our friendship is solid and I like that. But I will still miss you Hay!!

I have got to start practicing better posture.

Following helping Hayley was grilling, drinking domestic beer and not taking photos. I did manage to get a day photo and a night photo. I really wish I would have gotten a picture of our outfits. They were casually festive. Andre’s day shirt had random red stars all over it and it’s epic. It’s vintage from his dad from the 70’s. It’s super see through though and he spilled chili on it so changed for the evening when we went out to the bar and went with a t-shirt to pay a different sort of respect. I put on heels and makeup. All around it was a fun day!

Day

Night

Sunday was an easy clean up, hangover free and relaxing. No photos documented this day because it was filled with junk food, Netflix and some good ol’ fashioned alone time. Monday things picked up a little bit with our 4th of July Folf (Frisbee Golf or Disc Golf) tournament. We have a course on our property and love hosting friends to come play! I say we but I mean Andre and his dad. I walk out there sometimes but I am president of the wives club so I usually just sit inside and drink wine with the women. Or alone if I’m the only women. I like to go out there in the evenings though when it’s blue. I’ll have to remember to take a photo out there during my favorite time of day. It’s so serene.

Snapshot with the tournament winner!! ♥

So that’s my little 6 day long staycation! Ok so maybe just 5. Tuesday’s photos&update will appear tomorrow when I’m back here for The Makeup Mix up ;) !! Whewww was I thrown right out of my comfort zone. Can’t wait to share! I’m sending you lots of warm and fuzzy energy, hoping you made it safe through the holiday and are having a wonderful week!!

 

xx

 

 

I titled this post Snow Day but it really should be called Snow Week!

After our trip to my hometown the week before last (which I still haven’t written about and I need to because I have another thing to cross off my bucket list…!) we got back to our house and it was like the Universe just wanted to tell us to slow down because the weather started going crazy!

It may not be alot to some of you, but my little beach bum heart swells so much at the sight of snow. I’ve seen it before and participated in snow sport trips but I’ve never walked out my own front door to a straight up winder wonderland!

 

 (And for those of you wondering, I didn’t edit that photo to make it blue, my sweet husband woke me up at the crack of dawn so I could see all the snowy goodness in my favorite light of day. Everything turns this blue hue in the evenings as well and I just love it! I loved seeing the earth look like this with all that untouched snow. It was so serene. Cold. But serene.)

We got back from our trip late Saturday night (we originally planned to leave Sunday morning but thought we’d get an early start), had a chill day Sunday preparing for the week of getting back into our routine (lol), Andrew worked Monday then was off Tuesday because the snow started! It was off and on then we got a load of about 6 or 7 inches on Wednesday night and it covered the ground well into the weekend. It was awesome.

 

 

We made a snowman with my brother in law’s fiancé who was here visiting for a few days and got snowed in! yay! 

Some of these photos are blurry because I didn’t think to wipe off my iphone camera ha! also because- iphone4s camera.

 

 

 

Me, right smack in the middle looking like a giant goofball! I was so excited about the snow!

After she went in for a nap (she’s from up north so I think she was getting the biggest kick out of me and Andrew being so excited haha!), Andrew and I had an adventure around our property and pretended we were in Narnia (which we watched later that day of course).

 

 

I can’t lie, I had soo much fun and it was so beautiful but by the weekend I was ready for the warm weather and routine to find it’s way back into our lives! I hope you guys had a great week last week and weekend. I’m looking forward to sharing about my trip back home although I took like…zero pictures. I promise I’m working on that..as you can see by today’s photo overload ;)

Love to all of you!!

xx

Finally! I bring you our Christmas&NYE update! I know it suuuper late but better late than never right? Thanks for hanging in there with me while I get things squared away around here, though. I really appreciate it! I present Christmas in February. Which is actually just a post about Christmas in December…posted in February. Shout out to my father in law for taking a bunch of these photos!

 

Although it’s come and gone I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday season and has wonderful memories to smile at the thought of. We took our tree down Sunday 1/4. No tears were shed, but it was bittersweet. We will celebrate its life and give thanks for all the holiday fun with a bonfire in the near future.

 

 

Christmas week was a blast. I say “week” because our family Christmas this year was set for Sunday the 28^th for a number of reasons, but all that mattered was that we would get a day together!  On Christmas eve Andrew&I did our annual check out the house lights in the neighborhood and watch Polar Express with hot chocolate. It was cozy and lovely. Christmas day was actually really low-key as well but my favorite part was the “every Christmas episode of Frasier” marathon that Andrew&I had. We had never done that before. It was awesome. Thank you Netflix! By Sunday afternoon everyone was here except one who had to stay home with the sniffles (We missed you!)

Photo courtesy my sister in law’s instagram

 

 

Our family Christmas day was filled with wonderful food and lots of laughs. We even made it through an entire game of Cranium (which Andrew&I drew each other for a team and ended up winning!). We exchanged Secret Santa gifts and ended the night the way we usually do, playing music! There’s pretty much an instrument of some kind for everyone to play at the house and enough space to just sit back and enjoy if that’s more your thing. It’s definitely a haven for the creative.

 

 

The next day, Micah&Kristen left for South America to hike in a park in Chile. Amazing. I think we’ll have that bonefire when they return…

 

 

Everyone else eventually made their return back to the real world over the next few days and then all of a sudden, it was New Year’s Eve. Crazy! In keeping with the vibe of this whole holiday season, we kept it low-key for NYE. Not sure if you caught this photo on IG

 

 

Or this one

 

This photo didn’t get a ton of likes but I love that I can see where Nikita liked it :)

But as you can see, we kept it casual and classy. With fuzzy socks of course.

A couple of our family friends came over, we watched the ball drop, drank some champagne and ended the night like usual…with music.

 

 

I hope you all had a beautiful holiday season and got to kiss the one you love at midnight. Speaking of which..did anyone else get as excited as I did about the new Cinderella movie? Do you think maybe in 20 years they will make Frozen in this “live action” genre? I like to call it “semi-animated”. Can’t wait for The Little Mermaid! And Pocahontas…

 

 Love to you all.

x