Feel Beautiful!

It's Monday, again.. somehow.. haha. There's always a toss-up if Monday's going to be a forest-fire kind of day or one that makes the weekend ending not seem so drastic.

Today was the latter, and that's pretty awesome. There was a good vibe in the air all day today, I managed to snag a lunch break, and as the day winded down, even squeezed in some office yoga.

feed your body right!

I also scrolled into this link, a video by Colbie Caillat that demands the attention of well, everyone, in my opinion. This is an absolute call to every girl - and guy! - out there to love themselves for their own skin, and not for the skin someone else says they should wear. I'm all about au naturale, so this made me smile.. a lot :)


Let's see if the rest of the week can be this positive, too.
Where there's a will, there's a way!

xo | cmd

Boatin' With The Gang

Man I love these people (:

As promised, we made an early start out of our day trip to the lake.

little tagalongs

Kalyn & Brittany showed up, and it was out to a cove for the day.

just a couple of wannabe yogi's on a boat!

and the water yogi's ;)

Jesse planned on going back to Illinois today.
Guess who didn't go back to Illinois today :).

Instead, he joined us all for dinner!

homemade guac to start it off!

Try that whole leaving thing again tomorrow, Jesse :)
Another awesome weekend come and gone. Cheers to a great week, everyone!

xo | cmd

Paintin' The Town

Well, I'm not quite sure exactly what the boys got into last night [they swear it was closing down Hahana Beach..], but they managed to sleep nearly half the day away before coming back to life. That meant that this guy arrived to a house full of snoozers:

furnace maintenance at 7am on a saturday.. booo :/

And the mail came; Marianne is planning a missionary trip to Italy, and the letter I received in the mail today had this drawn on it:

hahaha..

^ Anyone who knows the story of her and my matching tattoos, and of her more-than-slight geographic deficiencies, knows that that is absolutely appropriate. :)

Rob & Jesse finally arose from their beauty sleep, just in time for a lunch trip out to Eli's.

rainbows en route to lunch!

Lunch was followed by some more thoroughly relaxing time at the house, a bit of World Cup coverage and then an outing down to Mainstrasse in Covington.

lovely, awkward picture, hahh..

hangin with this guy in covington ♥

We voted to meet up with Kalyn, Brittany & Co. back in OTR to round out the night, so our final stop was Bakersfield to see them.

i wore the wrong shirt.. dangit!

Tomorrow, it's boating.
We're ready!

Lizzy's Birthday | Jesse's Here

I love Fridays, and I love birthdays. Happy birthday, Lizzy!!


hbd, lizzy!

Today happens to be both; we celebrated our owner's daughter [& also our sales rep]'s birthday today, in true Express fashion. 

the sweeterie!

Cupcakes. Why? Because we love food and we love The Sweeterie in Mariemont.
You should, too. ;)

Fast forward to now, when I'm just waking up three hours later, from that nap I told myself would be a half-hour snooze.. Hah. Jesse is here for the weekend, and he and Rob are heading out for some quality guy time. Fine by me. I'm heading back to bed.

G'Nite, ya'll!

xo | cmd

Lunch Outings With Elisa: Park+Vine | World Cup

The last time Elisa and I took a lunch break, we made our way to Findlay Market, and made a quick stop at Park+Vine afterwards. It was our mission to actually eat lunch there, so today we made that happen. Plus, I wanted some Fab Ferments kombucha like nobody's business, so that became a reality, too. Winnnnnnnn.

omg. yum!

pretty little p+v

 

Yum.
Yum.
And YUM.

After lunch, we took a stroll down to Fountain Square to catch a bit of the USA v. Germany World Cup game. The crowd there was unreal, and the energy was just as electric.

cincinnati was all in for today's game

We had to leave downtown before the game ended [sidenote: do this many people in Cincinnati have today off for this?! haha], but that didn't mean we missed the tied score with Germany when we got back. Good effort, boys... now get yourselves ready for Belgium!

Not a bad day at all! Tomorrow is Lizzy's birthday, followed by the weekend. It sounds like Jesse may be making a trip in to visit from Illinois, so this should be a good one!

See ya then, blogbots..

xo | cmd

Journey | Steve Miller Band

On Sunday, Rob told me to check my email. I'd assumed it was information for our upcoming vaca, but I was wrong.

It's been a while since I've been so happy... to be wrong.
Instead of itinerary notes, it was a ticket confirmation to see these guys:

journey

steve miller band

STAAAHHHP.... My poor heart!
I LOVE the SMB, and Journey is, well.. they're Journey! C'Mon!
I have the best boyfriend imaginable. While the fastest and most direct route to my heart is through my stomach [aka, food], a very closely-contending route would be through live concerts for some of the bands I adore.

So I spent the entire day with SMB & Journey on my Pandora, singing "wheel in the sky keeps on tuuuuurnin'... don't know where I'll be tomoooorrooow...." over and over in my head in anticipation that they'd play that song [*spoiler alert: they did.].

Work passed quickly enough and it was home-bound to get ready. The sky threatened rain for a mere 20 minutes until it passed through and we voted on taking the bike down to Riverbend. Good call, too, since there's a Harley Row literally just outside of the entrance to Riverbend [tiny things = big wins!]

harley parking!

Kalyn, Brittany and their dad Papa Todd were on a separate trip to the concert, but we rendezvoused with them and parked ourselves on the lawn for a good night.

rob. me. brittany. todd. kalyn

And that's exactly what it was.

brittany! [& rob filming the concert.. haha]

love. this. guy.

and someone brought.. watermelon?

because sharing.. is caring... ;)

he loves me ♥

some smb!

A little [shaky, sorry] video footage of us and a thousand of our fellow folk enjoying perfect weather for the show!


happy people!

Last one for the night before the sun went down...


& so i love these people.

What an awesome night.
I told Rob next time, I'll drive, too ;)

whatcha think?? ;)

We're all home safe & sound. That's a wrap here, folks!
Good night!

xo | cmd

Nevermind About That Spider Thing.....

Yesterday, I posted a video of a "funny" spider. Today, by chance, I scrolled across an article involving an equally-large arachnid, who apparently hitchiked its way out of Cameroon in a suitcase.

Excuse my while I look away with goosebumps:


I mean come on. This woman brought back a venemous, pregnant spider from vacation. This is the kind of luck I have, but I will say that had that been me, I would've died of a heart attack before this 8-legged mama even had a shot at me. Good grief.

I'm going to Jamaica in less than 2 weeks. I'm fairly certain supersized spiders aren't an issue there, but let's just do a double finger-cross that I'm right. Otherwise, I may be back a little sooner than the end of the trip ;) Hah.

Here's to a spiderless Tuesday!

xo | cmd

"Hoh-Hoh-Hoh-Hohhhhh" - Spider Laughs

It's no secret that I'm easily entertained.
It's also no secret that I love YouTube videos.
It is also very well-known that I'm not a fan of spiders.

HOWEVER... 
 

This video just basically defied everything anyone's ever told you about my fear and hatred of spiders. Ok, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration - actually, entirely exaggerated - but it still elicits a laugh from me every time as opposed to that feeling of terror and dread that usually happens..

 

I hope it gave you a smile or two, also!

 

Happy Monday!

 

xo | cmd

Kara's Grad Party | USAvPOR!

1. Church.
I'm not really sure exactly what the direction is that our latest sermon series is heading; I'll have to weigh this one a few more times and see if we agree or not. It's basically entitled, What Would Jesus Say To....________________, and the blank is filled with the name of some A-list celebrity. Pardon me for saying this, but it was really hard for me to connect with a lesson centered around what Jesus would say to Kim Kardashian. Frankly, that's nothing doctrinally-centered for me, and I was left disappointed. Sorry to say it, but certainly not one of the stronger messages I've heard. At least Sydni and I had a little more quality time after church:

sunday selfies.. yep!

love her love her looooove her!

2. Kara's Grad Party!
So, Kalyn & Brittany's little sister Kara is graduating from high school. I can only imagine how fast they feel like this has gone; I seriously feel like it was just somewhere around last year, at the farthest, that I met Kara when she was in 6th grade. Holy whoa. Happy graduation, Kara!!

syd found the hammock!

she also found the horses :)

these two. ♥♥♥♥♥.

tree girl

with the powell girls

ladies! happy graduation kara!
[aka, sydni & me with our blonde entourage!]

3. World Cup : USA v. POR!
After Kara's graduation party, we headed back home, where Becky & Mike meet up with us to watch the USA v. Portugal game. To spare you all from the ruckus that came out of that house, here:

this....

... followed by this.

Nobody's mad here!

Thanks again to Kalyn's mom & family for having us out today. Not a bad way to end the weekend!

Seeeee you on the flip side!

xo | cmd

Hello, Summer!

It's SUMMER!
I have a feeling this one's gonna be a long one, but I'm okay with that. It's been hot outside a few times already this year, so let's see what the year has to offer.

Last year around this time was Paddlefest, the river-based expo for vendors and adventure-lovers alike. We decided to attend again this year, so that meant gearing up for it today!

But FIRST..

Breakfast. Today that meant home made French Toast, because I love these people who live in my home and also because WHY NOT.. It's Saturday! :)

delicious!

Then...
A trip down to the farm, because there are baby goats! They're just a month old right now, but cute as could be. We had to see them.

hi, babies!

syd with the goats

mr. rob helping her ring the farm bell

We made a pitstop to pick up some organic feed, and there were more animals - this time bulls.

sydni the bull-whispering yogi .. ♥

bulls!

It was back to the farm to drop off the feed, and then back on our way to our main destination of the day - Paddlefest!

someone was ready to go!

Sad fact: Paddlefest this year - at least the daytime Saturday version - was a bit of a disappointment. We had hoped the reason was just simply that we came during the day, when the crowd was super light and there wasn't much going on. Most of the vendor stands had limited foot traffic, and the event as a whole seemed a bit sluggish, at least in comparison to what we saw last year.

Fortunately, Becky enlisted her and me with her tree-climbing group, an entity with which I'd apparently climbed before, years back, but not realizing it until the owner of the business mentioned it to me. Small world!

becky & me

Anyway, we hooked in, roped up and climbed our way into a half hour or so of air time in the beautiful Sycamore overlooking the river.

roping up

pardon that weird face.. not really sure about that look?

hello down there!

descent :)

Back on the ground, we ditched the harnesses and headed for the river. Sydni was being so good all afternoon, and for that we'd promised her some play time in the water.

running back and forth in the "boat waves"

And this guy:

look at those snazzy glasses! ;)

We finally decided to load up and head home; there was World Cup action to be had and we didn't want to miss any of it. I found these in Becky's car on our way back:

inspiration!

Starbucks is really stepping up its game with the new Teavana partnership [and apparently one with Oprah, as well...]. Speaking of Starbucks, Becky & I made a quick run to get some iced caffeine in oiur lives, and found a collection of donated Starbucks mugs from around the world.

Right in front? These:

awesome awesome awesome!

^ LOVE that!

Anyway, we're creeping up on the evening hours now and although it's been a great day, we... are.. spent! That's how a good Saturday is supposed to be, so I'm not complaining. Tomorrow it's church and Kara's graduation party. I'm excited :)

Happy weekend, friends!

xo | cmd