Tuesday & We're At It Again

yay!!

That's right, my office has officially been open for one full year. I just looked back at the entry I made this time last year; it does and doesn't feel like it's been a full year since we opened our doors, but here we are, growing steadily and running full steam. Happy Expressaversary, to us!

To celebrate, the ladies of the office closed up for lunch and treated ourselves to Seasons 52.

seasons 52 | rookwood | cincinnati, oh

Fooooooooooooood...

bring on.. the lunch (:

We do things in rounds when we celebrate...

a proper 3-course lunch:
pesto chicken flatbread appetizer | cedar plank salmon | mini indulgence desserts!

Oh, and Nancy bought cupcakes from the Sweeterie. 

sweeterie! ;)

After work, I stopped by to pick up Sydni and headed home, pulling in the driveway just as Rob rolled down the street on the bike. We wasted no time switching clothes and adding work gloves for night 2 of some catch up on yard work.

We've had small brick pavers in the bed of Rob's truck for almost two weeks now, and tonight we finally moved them to the backyard, where they'll eventually become a miniature firepit. It was a quick process, especially since there were three sets of hands to help!

such a great helper!!

taking a break... after 3 whole minutes of work... whew! ;)

We contemplated using them for the front yard, but decided instead for the back yard.

this is how we transport around here.. haha.. toys..

As a reward for her hard work, she got to cruise down the block and back with Rob on the bike. Don't worry, friends, I could've probably run faster than they were moving, but she took to the bike like a charm and it was harder to peel her off than get her on it.

little harley girl!

For dinner, it was an easy decision to skewer up some meat & potatoes for the grill. I snagged one of the cupcakes from work for these two, and all together it became dinner for 3, and we are happy little campers!

grilled-up deliciousness [is that even a word? ...who cares]

Tomorrow it's volleyball, willing the rain holds off.
Hopefully it does.
Because hey, volleyball double-headers are the best ;)
See ya then!

xo | cmd

MONday Funday

Mondays usually give me some amount of anxiety, just from the inherent nature of Monday itself. Today though, while it was stacked top to bottom at work, proved to be busy but manageable. That's rare, for what I do, especially on Mondays. Haha. I'm not complaining.

Post-work was a continued contradiction to what Mondays usually bring. Sydni is back this week, and our first order of business was a little yard and garden work.

Over the weekend, Rob's mom gave us a couple of plants to get started. I decided this would be the perfect project for Sydni. She seemed to agree, wholeheartedly, when we parked ourselves on the front porch tonight to work on it!

let's get started!
[& yes, that's her chalk drawing of a cross on a hill.. ♥♥]

I'm convinced this little girl can do anything.

potted plant success
look at my little gardener!!

Excited!

i'm exciiiiiiited!

With the potted plants out of the way, she was ready to move on to the big leagues:

i'm digging... and i'm diiiiigging...

And to cap it off:
Watching that clip again now, I hear the bossy little girl from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory in my head making obsurd demands. So to clarify, no, Syd's not as spoiled as this clip makes her sound. I couldn't help but trade my garden gloves for the camera though as she fought with one pesky mosquito and several gnats that kept intruding on her workspace.

Either way, if she wants to claim a garden of all things, I'm not gonna stop her ;)
She's just like her mama.. haha.
G'Nite!

xo | cmd

Illinois & In Betweens

We're home. In Ohio.

Earlier today, we were still in Illinois. It was a much warmer day than yesterday, which made for a perfect time relaxing outside for a bit before we climbed back in the car for the 5-hour homeward trek.

sweet. bitter. bittersweet.
illinois to ohio, ohio to illinois...

After breakfast, we dropped by Rob's dad's house. They've made some major headway in some home renovation projects they're doing, including the outline for a pool. We spent a couple hours there visiting and chatting with them.

Most of that time was spent with a happy Travis parked on my lap. Sure, he's all of 75 pounds, but hey, who's counting? 


travis!

sunshine & a happy pup!

 Then of course there was Toby:

he didn't want in the chair ;)

And when Travis finally decided he wanted some shade, too..  

happy boys

The "see you soon"'s came before we wanted them to, but we managed through it, and headed onward to say the same to Rob's mom. We spent a little time there of course, too, admiring the blossoms and checking out her screen room projects. She's got some monster blooms in her yard, and gave us a few little ones to take back to Sydni.

beautiful blossoms!

She recently did a furniture upgrade on her patio and now has some chairs that I decided today were exactly what we need for our dining room table. We looked at several chairs of the same structural style, but of course either upholstered, leather or just plain frame with seat cushions. Nothing so far has seemed to really sway me, until I saw these. Our table's a finicky thing to try and match, but I know that these will work just fine.

dark wicker highbacks.
#want.

I'll keep you posted on when we acquire some of these for our dining room ;)

Speaking of our dining room, fast forward through the road trip itself to the fact that we're back in it now, laughing at the note Mike & Becky left for us on the back of a small shipping envelope they'd found somewhere in the house:

hahaha

If you can't read it, it says:

BECKY KILLED YOUR SCREEN DOOR HANDLE (SHE'S BLAMING THE DOGS.. BUT THAT'S JUST TOO COMPLICATED. & I JUST FOUND OUT, TOO LATE TO FIX... HMMM). HOPE IT WAS A GOOD TRIP. - MIKE

Hahaha. I thought about rubbing this in Becky's face out of good fun, but since the latch on the back screen door has been jamming for the past few weeks, I decided I'd just wait and give her grief about something else ;)

 

Plus, I decided at the last minute to do lunches for us for tomorrow. Here's to healthy living, both at home and at work!

hers & his ♥

Phew. What a day. I'm outta here.

See ya, tomorrow!

 

xo | cmd

Birthday Bashes

I just realized that in the course of the last couple month or so, we've done more traveling to Illinois to celebrate our friends' birthdays than staying in Cincinnati. That includes my friends, too. Haha. Really, it's because most of my Ohio friends have their day o' birth anniversaries on either side of the Illinois group.

First we came out for Ali's birthday. This time, it was both Mike and Dillon's birthdays [separately] that we are celebrating.

The day started off with a background romp with Zepplin, Jesse's dog. He's too cute [the dog, that is. Sorry, Jesse.. haha]

"come outside and play with me!"

Ok, ok.. we will (:


action shot

30 minutes later... 

a far less zealous zepplin... action shot ;)

= Happy Dog!

too cute!

Rob, Jesse and I met with Rob's mom & Don for breakfast before relaxing for the better part of the afternoon. The evening crept in before we knew it, so we trekked over a couple blocks to Mike & Kelly's house for Mike's 30th birthday celebration.

not a bad way to start!

It didn't take long for the small crowd to assemble, and we made an evening out of the bonfire and great company.

from mini crackles to roaring warmth (:

Oh, and folks - this is the difference between men and women when it comes to photography at a casual social gathering.. haha

Women:

hi, ladies!

... And men. In every single picture:

so close, guys. this was the best one.
[happy birthday, mike!]

Haha. All photogenic abilities [or inabilities, whichever you prefer] aside, it was an awesome little shindig and I'm happy that Rob is able to come back to his hometown and see his friends.

After Mike's, it was out to the Marina to see Dillon and that bunch, at the tail end of Dillon's birthday night out.

happy birthday, dillon!

It's been a long night, but an awesome one and I'm glad we were able to make it in town this weekend. Tomorrow we'll likely be visiting Rob's dad before we head back to Ohio, so with the trip ahead of us, I'm callin' this one a wrap.

G'Nite!

xo | cmd

And Here We Go A-Road Tripping...

Well, we got a later start than we would have liked, but it wasn't all wasted.

There's nothing quite like a sunset-on-the-run:

.. accompanied by windshield bug splatter.. lovely.. :/

We demonstrated how gullibly sold we are on the marketing ploys of rest-stop goodies:

.. & lottery tickets. because... uncle si, that's why.

^ In the defense of all things Brach's, they're actually pretty good.

Oh, and even though we rolled into Granite in the dark and endured a very young crowd at Bindy's, we weren't disappointed by the green beans. We never really are - at least I know I'm not.

+ bill in the background... + blue moon in the foreground..

So yeah. We're here, safe and sound... and tired.
G'Nite.

xo | cmd

Sidenote: Whispering Beard Festival!

We obliged an invite from Mike & Becky this evening after work to join them for dinner at Eli's. Why? Because you just don't decline invites to Eli's, and also because I love those two and was pretty excited to find time in the week to hang out. Solid reasons, yeah?

all the yesses.

AND live music?

double yes.

Grateful Grahams was onsite as well, which meant s'more making.. and that's really just the perfect addition to live music, Eli's and friends.

nom nom!

To top it all off, we scored some can coozies [koozies for those of you who argue over the spelling; I really couldn't care less... ] for the quickly-approaching Whispering Beard Festival in August. I would really like to go, but we'll play that one by ear and see if it blends all right with our schedule.

looks. like. fun!!

Anyway, it was another successful night with music, food, more food, local brew and of course, this guy:

love you to the moon & back, weirdo ♥

G'Nite!

xo | cmd

So Domesticated.. And Schtuff...

Yep. Crockpot chicken.

It's like I'm an adult now! Well, that, or a bonified Pinterest addict.

yummmm!

You're welcome, family (:

xo | cmd