BURN IT DOWN TOUR!

It's here, it's here, IT'S HERE!!

We bought tickets back in what, February for this? YAY, COUNTRY CONCERTS!

[Picture time!]

ready to go!

my perch for tailgating!

tailgating with a thousand of our closest friends ;)

jessica & anna stopped by to join the fun!

It came time to head into the actual concert, so off we were, into the swarm of people at the gates of Great American Ball Park. We made our way down through the bleachers and onto the FIELD :D, where we located our seats and prepared for an awesome night.


on the field!

fgl

miranda!

happy birthday, again, babe!

my long lost love natascha

cincinnati's here to party!!

a... is for aldean!!

burn it down tour

jason!!!

kelly clarkson made a [video] appearance

yeah, jason!

happy birthday, to this man.. I.. LOVE YOU!!!

There's some video footage to go along with all of this; please pardon the shakiness and semi-decent sound quality - It was LOUD!

 

Rather than post each and every video here, I'll give you links, if you feel that inclined to go watch them :)

 

Florida-Georgia Line - This is How We Roll

Miranda Lambert - Automatic

Miranda Lambert - Baggage Claim

Miranda Lambert - House That Built Me

Miranda Lambert - Mama's Broken Heart

Jason Aldean - My Kinda Party

Jason Aldean - Night Train

Jason Aldean & Kelly Clarkson - Stay

Jason Aldean - Fly Over States

[NEW!] Jason Aldean - Burnin' It Down

 

 

We rounded out the evening with a late-night grub-out at The Yard House with Brittany and Wayne before heading home [sidenote: staying late = postponing parking lot madness!].

 

What an AWESOME night!!! Here's to country music, country friends and an incredible round out to Rob's birthday festivities.

 

We're some happy people here, folks. Tired, but happy.

G'Nite! ♥

 

xo | cmd

Moving-Stuff-Mondays

There's going to be a theme carrying on for the next few weeks: Moving.
If it gets old to hear, trust me, I'm with ya.

I headed out for work around the same time that Rob headed in the opposite direction to meet with a prospective employer [yep, still plugging away at that task, too]. My drive was far less scenic than his, apparently, but he made sure to share the jaunt out 32 with me:

hello, world! ♥

Nothing like a small reminder of the beauty that our God creates, every single day. It's been chaotic around here; a tiny glimpse of a much bigger - and gorgeous, at that! - picture, is always welcome.

There was another nice little break in the mayhem today, when the last part of the order we placed on NoMoreRack with SANTA... arrived at my office today, as part of Sydni and my Christmas present. (: To say that she was equally excited is probably a gross understatement. 

tablet! (:

After work, I picked Sydni up and we made our way to the destination of the new house. I was bound and determined to get the dining room table in from the screened-in porch to the dining room. I had no idea how I was going to do that alone, and if you ask me now how I did it, I honestly couldn't give you a straight answer, other than I am lucky to have accomplished it with all my fingers & toes in tact.

"raaaaawr!," exclaimed the ninja......
hello, dining room (:

Sydni helped me babysit the pups while I was creating and navigating through pathways of boxes and furniture. This place looks like a household goods bomb detonated right in the middle of every room; it's a familiar, overwhelming sight that I'm determined to change by the end of this week.

........ Challenge accepted.

xo | cmd

Who Needs Professional Movers?!

Anna and I were feeling generous today, so we left the privelage of the bulky stuff to the boys: 

booom. bring on the heavy lifting.

^^ & yes, that's a total load of hogwash. While Anna and I did somehow manage to hoist some pieces that may've appeared to outweigh our abilities, by no means did we do the majority of the moving. Haha. No way. We'll take credit where it's due, but I'll definitely give it to the guys for practically clearing this thing out within a couple of hours. I have no idea how they managed to get those three big ticket items [toolbox, air compressor, pool table slates] up into the truck in the first place, but I'm thankful nobody was injured loading or unloading.

With the exception of a small portion of things still back in Rob's Illinois house, he's moved. The truck, 4-wheeler and Harley come later (:

To celebrate, we said to heck with healthy and made a beeline to Newport for some Bar Louie. Nobody complained.

lumberjack invasion...

Rob has a few things to wrap up tomorrow morning before he and the others head back to Illinois. For now, we're relaxing and not doing much of anything, save for resting up. It's back to the real world tomorrow, whatever that means (:

G'Nite!

xo | cmd

Let The REAL Moving BEGIN!

Itty bitty backdated... it's whatevs.

It's gettin' real here at the new digs, folks.

saturday warm up!

The first thing I have to do is acknowledge Rob, Jesse & Anna as being saints for enduring the trip out here. I say that because apparently, in the midst of trekking out here, the boat trailor suffered a flat tire, which meant an extra goose chase to replace it. By the time they conquered slow speeds, hilly climbs in Cincinnati, road construction and general traffic, Jesse & Anna had named the apparent face on the boat from following it for so long. They were all ready to get out of the car. I don't blame them one bit.

With their unfortunate delay, I opted for a quick visit to the gym to get the muscles warmed up for the day. Plus, the UA's are still in the process of being properly broken in; we're getting there!

After some brief leg stretching, there was the matter of planting a boat in the driveway. It might've been a 15-minute ordeal, but eventually Rob managed to settle the Stingray into its home for the cold months. I would've had the thing halfway in the yard, so no complaints here.

boat & truck: parked like a pro!

Nobody had any real expectations of anything being unloaded today, so with that being said, we took a few minutes to all collect ourselves before readying for a night out in Cinci. I learned earlier this week that Magnolia Sons [the super-talented collection of artists from Nashville] was scheduled back to The Drinkery tonight, so we sculpted evening plans around that.

We attempted to visit Bakersfield for dinner; they were at occupancy capacity, so for the first time ever, I visited Taste of Belgium outside of standard brunch hours. Of course, that didn't stop us from ordering the usual chicken & waffles, appropriately replacing orange juice with some Belgium house brews. Nader & Keith joined us for the experience, and it wasn't long before we were finished there and en route to heart of OTR.

Drinkery it was. Magnolia Sons it was. Awesome set list, it was [again]. We were not disappointed.

... after finally managing this around nader's head haha.. magnolia sons!

'Twas a good night all around, definitely :). It's great to have some of Rob's friends visiting, even if everything right now is up in the air and all over the place as far as sleeping arrangements and whatnot. We're taking comfort in the fact that it will not always be like this, haha.

For now, we're back with the pups, who were proud today to sport their new collars and tags to the bunch. They're ready for some snuggling, and we're all ready to call it a night.

xo | cmd

OHIO HOME {Literally! ;) }

A whiiiiiiiile back, I ordered some window decals from a grassroots company here in Cincinnati. Hometown pride is a big thing around here; I'm admittedly on the bandwagon, because I tend to think I should be proud of where I am. And I am. It's not sheer perfection, but it's home nonetheless and undeniably a part of my identity. Now that the Subie's here, I thought it better late than never to get this puppy on display!

yes, subie.. and yes, us... we're home! ♥

My next matter on the Ohio pride agenda is a Home-T. Updates on that later, hah...

For today, it was the standard schedule of work, lunch {Naked Pizza, with the pleasure of Lizzy joining us!}, and back again to continue trodding through this whole moving thing. The poor Subie's getting a workout between the two houses.

A quick update on all that [aka, status check on the new mess I'm building out of things from the "old house"]:

♥♥♥

^ I couldn't help it. I stacked those up just to get the rack started, and didn't catch the aesthetic cuteness of it until a couple of coats were on their way in later. Adore. Adore. Adore.

But seriously, I've started outlining the rooms with boxes and piles of things; I hate that this whole moving thing is practically a science to me by now, but it still doesn't make it any less agitating:


this is how grown-ups make messes....

The mess is temporary, Cori. Haha.

Anyway, that's the most exhilirating update out of this neck of the woods. I've done all I can do for now. Tomorrow = Rob, Jesse & Anna arriving with truck, boat and lots of stuffffff.

Here. We. GO!

xo | cmd

Trading '13 for '14

*backdated, durr!*
First things first : HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EVE!!!!!
Today of course was the last day of 2013; I'm once again floored by how quickly it went, and again I'm looking very much forward to what 2014 is going to bring us.

The daylight of December 31st really wasn't anything super magical; I made us all breakfast before we continued our mission of packing and cleaning Rob's house. Sydni was here this time, so of course she did her due diligence of unpacking every other box and playing with whatever was in it, but in spite of it all, we still made some pretty massive progress.

As the evening rolled around, we made our way down to Fairview to Dawne's....

coco playtime

2013 has been a rocky road [nothing like 2012, I'll say that much... but still.... ], but I'm looking back at it and making sure to identify some key individuals who made life a little better for us during our various transitions. Dawne is one of them, and tonight I was so grateful to spend a little time with her before the year ended. I probably would've collapsed into myself early on in '13 if it hadn't been for her helping hand and generosity to Syd & me. We sure do love her!

dawne: love. her.

From Dawne's, we headed back to Granite to Mike & Kelly's, where we started our New Year's Eve journey. Soon enough we had Jesse & Anna in tow, and the six of us rustled up some dinner plans. Before we left Jesse's, I made sure to capture Zepplin's New Years salutes; he. is. adorable.

zepplin says happy new year, too!

After dinner, it was off in search of a New Year's crowd. Nobody put an ounce of planning into the night, so it was essentially us flying by the seats of our pants for the evening. That meant a pit stop [a bust, really] at a local dive downtown STL before we pretty much crash landed at Lumiere a half hour before midnight.


None of us are prolific gamblers [which is probably a good thing], so we had to laugh at our BIG WINNINGS after feeding $5 to a slot machine and pocketing a buck-46 [which went right back in, haha].

yeah.. we party hard, ya dig... hahaha

Most importantly, we managed to get out of the car & the parking garage before the ball dropped, and in the company of some great friends, we welcomed the new year. I'm feeling pretty good about this one, and I certainly didn't mind bidding '13 a farewell in the midst of some pretty awesome people.

hello, 2014!!
♥ kelly. mike. cori. rob. jesse. anna ♥

last couple selfie of '13..
.. with the best thing this place has to offer ♥

Happy 2014, to you & yours!
Let's make this a great one!

xo | cmd

Best Friend | Sunsets | Bowling

Ali and I missed out yesterday on getting together, but we were determined to make it happen before I left town. Sooooo, we met up this morning at Crackerbarrel for breakfast. It was pretty awesome, but duhhh, of course it is whenever I get to see her!

love you, ali!!!

After breakfast, we ran some quick errands before she had to head in to work, and I found myself back at Rob's for a continued run at some more packing and cleaning up around his house. If you're tuning in for the first time, the update as of now is that he's moving to Ohio and we've been ransacking his house in preparation for the big haul. Fun stuff, right there... :|

.. taking a break ;)

The evening started to creep in, so Rob and I headed off on an errand run, which wound up taking us out to Horseshoe Lake; I was mad at this point that I'd left my camera at the house, but my cell phone did what it could to capture the sunset across the way..

horseshoe lake..

Anyway, it came time for dinner with some other friends, which happened to be at Sushi Tatsu in Fairview.

... For the second night in a row, Rob and I ordered the exact same things from the exact same place. I'm not mad about it, because I love sushi, but it is kind of funny that I just remembered this place yesterday and now we've been twice. Oh well; the second time with friends was way better anway!

Finally, we were off to bowling in O'Fallon; with this bunch, it's never a dull moment!

my love, the pool shark

his & hers ♥

holdin' down the fort for the girls
fil. haley. anna. cori. jesse......... & bobert, haha (:

And of course, we picked the bowling alley with an arcade, so naturally the boys took to it like teenagers... which was just as fun to watch I'm sure as it was for them to do it.

boys will be boys!

yes.. yes, they will. haha

We're in the fiiiiinal countdown to Christmas. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and thennnnn... Christmas! (:

For now, good night, blogbots!

xo | cmd

Detroit : Sales Summit 2013

Well it's been a long day.
Great, but long.

It started at 5am when I was up and getting ready for the rest of the day. By 6:45am, I was in the foyer of my boss' b-e-a-uuuutiful home, joined shortly thereafter by Elisa and Nikki. The five of us piled into "Mom & Dad's" car [that was their title all weekend], and embarked on our 4-hour trek north to Detroit, MI.

And because I'm an Ohio native.. and because I've been to Findlay, Toledo, Perrysburg and further... I can say this:

The downtown bowels of Detroit are a DUMP. Literally. It is so much so, that in an eerily-fascinating way, it's enticing.. but at from behind a camera lens. Otherwise, it's not much to celebrate at this point if you consider what those vacant, destroyed-but-standing buildings once were or held. *sigh.

yep. room with a view... it's definitely.... somethin' ..

We landed at the Westin, in the heart of downtown; there were business-professional clad people milling around all over the sidewalk, assuring us we were in fact at the right place.

Fast forward to Elisa and I checking into our room, changing out of yoga clothes [aka, road trip attire] and making our way down to the opening presentation for the weekend. We reunited with owners and members of the other four local Express offices, along with a slew of other offices from around Ohio, Michigan and Canada.

Super profesh, I say. Super.

yyyyep (:

From there, we started in on our first round of training tracks, designed to cater to our job functions, but of course with a twist of fun [as is the Express way, for which I am ever grateful]:

kortney's a magician ;)

The formal part of the day came to a close and it was time for some fun, the way our local offices are known to do it: We [our 5 local offices] reserved a huge table at a local Greek restaurant, ate calamari and baklava, and drank uzo until we couldn't stuff one more thing into our stomachs, and had a really good chance to get to know some of the newer gals. We all agreed this should be a much more frequent thing, this whole social outing part of it all.

parthenon, greektown | detroit mi

flaming cheese. yes. queso con fueeego!

After dinner, the lot of us found ourselves directly across the street at the Greektown Casino, where we finished off the night out with some Blackjack, slots and more than enough people-watching [let's be honest]. From there, we made our way back to the hotel where Anna, Nikki, Kate, Elisa, Kortney and I spent the next two hours laughing ourselves into tears along with some random co-guests in what we learned was an out-of-town wedding party.

kate. elisa. kortney. cori. nikki. anna
greektown casino | detroit, mi

Oh, and we ate more food.
Not only will we be off the wagon this weekend.. I'm not really even sure we brought the wagon.

*and chyeah, this is backdated. Actual bedtime happened around 1...ish... AM.
Summit, Day 2 is tomorrow.

Signin' Off from the Motor City herself...

xo | cmd