Celebrate

I was talking to my sister the other day and she asked what was new with us and I realized that there really isn't anything new and exciting going on with us, but it seems like there are lots of exciting things going on with our friends, and we've been spending a lot of our time celebrating, which is lots of fun for us. So here's a little recap of some of the celebrations that have been going on with our friends.

1. Lucianne is going to have a baby girl very soon, so a couple of weeks ago we threw an alphabet themed shower for her. We had lots of yummy treats, we made onesies for the baby girl, wrote stories about Lu, played a fun little trivia game and gave Lucianne lots of fun things for her baby girl. I didn't take any pictures, shock, but you can go here and here to see pictures and a more detailed recap of the shower. Another fun thing we did was each guest brought a letter of the alphabet and Lucianne was able to hang them all up on the nursery wall. She sent us a picture of the finished product, and here it is:

2. Our friend Randi is getting married in May and we had a tea party themed wedding shower for her. There was lots of tea and other treats, we wrote her letters for when she and her new husband move to Colorado, we played fun games, including dressing friends up in bridal gowns made out of toilet paper, as well as watching her fiance try to answer questions about Randi, and of course we gave her lots of fun things for her new life as a married woman.

3. Derek's best friend and one of my favorites, Bryan, got engaged a couple of weeks ago to the fabulous Fran, who we absolutely love. A couple of friends of mine recommended Fran's blog and I started following it last summer. Literally, the next week, I was talking to Derek and he said that Bryan had a girlfriend and that they were coming to Lexington and we were going to have dinner with them. I was super excited to meet Bryan's new sweetie already, then Derek told me her name was Fran. I asked if she was a flight attendant, and he said, "yeah, how did you know?" Well, funny story, I just started following her blog, so I kinda already  know a little bit about her. So funny! So anyways, we met Fran in real life and absolutely love her, and Bryan popped the question a couple of weeks ago. Derek and I got to help pick out the ring, although Bryan knew what we he wanted, so really all we did was agree that we loved it too. We also got to go up to Northern Kentucky for a celebratory dinner with their families and drinks at a sweet little tavern in Cincinnati with friends to celebrate their engagement with them. We are super excited for the wedding and for their marriage. They are both seriously awesome, and we considered ourselves blessed to be their friends. I actually did manage to take a few pictures throughout the evening with my ipod, meaning they're not great quality, but here you go!

The happy couple

Our view at dinner

Yummy drinks at The Blind Lemon

4. One of my close friends, and the sweetest girl you will probably ever meet, Jenna, got engaged too! She and her roommates were vacationing in Orlando and her sweet boyfriend, now fiance, Scott, flew down to surprise her and propose to her at Disneyworld. How precious is that? We all wished we could have been there to witness Jenna's surprise, speechlessness and giggling, but luckily there are lots of photos to document the occasion. The weekened after they got back we had a little party to celebrate Jenna and Scott, to hear the full story, look at pictures, and just let Jenna know how much we love her and are excited for her.

So there is some of the celebrating that has been going on. My friend Anna is also getting married this weekend, and our friend PW is getting married in about a month, so we will head down to North Carolina to partake in wedding festivities there. And my sweet friend Jen has a little girl on the way, so we'll be throwing a shower for her soon, so the celebrations will continue. It's going to be a fun (and expensive) year.

Kitchen Reno: Pendant Lighting

I left you kind of hanging with our "before" kitchen pictures and then nothing for a while. But I promise, progress is being made, just in spurts.

One of the first things we did was take out the can lights over our island and install new pendant lights. This is part 1 of our lighting update.

Part 2 of the lighting update will require an electrician, as we are going to be getting rid of that crazy plastic grid in  the ceiling, as well as the fluorescent lights on the other side of it and put in some new can lighting.

However, before we get to that, we were able to purchase new appliances, so I will be back soon with pictures of our shiny new stove, microwave, fridge and dishwasher!

Bad Pictures

I came across this today on the internets. Ellen had people send in their worst pictures. And you all, they are pretty hilarious. So if you need a little escape today, then I suggest checking this out. Enjoy!

Rocky Mountain High

Last week Derek and I took a little trip out to the mountains to visit my sister and go skiing.

The weather was pretty great for being the end of April. It was sunny the first few days we were there, followed by a snow storm with 6-ish inches of fresh powder and more falling throughout the day our last day of skiing.

I took no pictures this time around, probably because I am getting spoiled and feel like all of my pictures end up looking the same.{Here is last years post full of pictures.} But Derek never gets tired of the views, it's his favorite part, so he took lots of pics with his phone.

A few things to note from this trip:

1. I felt the best I have ever felt, physically. We're doing an exercise challenge at work, so I had been doing P90X for almost 2 months before the trip. While my legs did get tired from a full day of skiing, they were in soooo much better shape than they usually are.

2. This was Derek's first ski trip that involved skiing in serious powder. I think he liked it, even though it is a lot of work. He did great - I was impressed with his abilities. He is getting to be a better skier every time we go out, and it's fun to watch him improve and be able to ski runs that he hasn't been able to in the past.

3. The Pioneer Woman was in Vail at the same time we were in Breckenridge. Of course I didn't really read any blogs or spend much time on the internet while I was there, so I didn't know this til after the fact, but I can't believe we were so close!