Night Owlin'

We're doing pretty well on the whole laying low thing so far.

Today was a day of rolling out of bed when we darn well felt like, staying in PJ's until the early afternoon, and taking our sweet time on everything else after that.

I took to running some errands, which were done at such a leisurely pace that I was almost convinced that they were fun instead of being done out of necessity. Rob lazed around a bit until I got home, at which point he did his deeds for the day by mowing the lawn and weed eating.

Like I said, not too much to report from the bulk of the day.

We decided to get out of the house for the evening. It's funny that we can't seem to sit still even when we try, but I will admit there is an entirely different vibe in the air whenever our missions are crafted out of sponenaeity, rather than extensive orchestration involving like, 15 people.

Ironically enough, we did wind up running with a crowd just shy of 15 people, at least that's how it felt. We hadn't been to OTR in a while, so we opted for that.

out on the town with this guy ;)
love.. love.. love him.

Naturally, that means I'm usually on my own in a mass of derpy dudes; Carolina wasn't available tonight so I was left on a solo mission to keep up with the rowdies. It wasn't hard. These goonies aren't strangers. (:

carolina... where are you.. haha..

take 2.

[*sings the rembrandt's song from friends*]

Oy. Haha.

love you, aweesome nerd ♥

l-o-v-e. y-o-u.

That's a wrap on our sponetaneous little Saturday!
These night owls need to rise n' shine tomorrow for church.
G'Nite!

xo | cmd

Weekends Are Fun

What's a good Saturday without a late start, right? Hah...

By late start, I mean we managed to completely skip breakfast. By the time we were all up and functioning, it was nearly lunch time, so we bypassed any notions of venturing down to Taste of Belgium, and instead made a beeline for Eli's, which Jesse's never had.

.. Until today. Eli's never disappoints! 

eli's!

After lunch, we scratched our brains for somewhere to take Jesse that we've not already shown him. We settled on Jungle Jim's, which became the perfect opportunity to both give Jesse a tour of the place and restock our depleted supply of mocha. Additionally, we left with a new growler, a growler koozie [I didn't know they made those...], some various exotic versions of cheese, sausages, juices and chocolate.

in honor of marianne & ali:
jumex & cameron hughes!

jj spoils!

It wasn't surprising that it took nearly an hour and a half for us to wholly navigate through Jungle Jim's with the frequent stops to browse the various sections, so by the time we got back to the house, we were all ready to relax for a couple of hours before catching up with tentative evening plans.

pretty much the afternoon.....

Fast forward a few hours to when we all woke up from power naps, it was time to rendezvous with Carolina at Mango Tree. Sushi tonight was a deeefinitely a good call!

mango tree!

Halfway through dinner, we finally started making some solid plans for the rest of the evening; Carolina figured out where Nader & Co. would be, which meant a trip downtown. I hadn't even taken Rob down to any of the venues in the actual downtown district, so we figured it wouldn't hurt to try it out.

We met with Nader, Keith, Eric and few others at one of the Irish pubs, then tried out some wannabe-ritzy place about which I'd never even heard [which was a bust beyond belief]. It wasn't long before we came to the surprising realization that we'd actually rather be in OTR. Sure, OTR is fun, but we thought it was due time to switch things up. We didn't count on wishing we were back there. Hah.

So as it happened, OTR became our final destination for the evening. We greeted the typical crowds with a little more patience than usual, realizing that the alternatives at this point were ridiculous in comparison. We landed at The Drinkery, which coincidentally proved to be a miniature reunion for several different people that represent the various different parts of my life in Cincinnati before I started moving all over the country.

I ran into Lora.... love & miss this girl!


lora & me, circa 2009

Then I turned around and bumped into Justin Jeffre, a friend of mine from years ago that has quite the history both in Cincinnati and well, internationally, but that's neither here nor there... haha..



justin & me, circa 2008?ish?

And of course, it wouldn't have been any sort of night without some double trouble [just kidding, they're not trouble]! I saw Regina & Renata for the first time in probably eight years.

& tonight, with regina & renata!

And of course, my lovely friends, awesome boyfriend and visiting guest of the weekend were there with me tonight. It was the perfectly energetic, hilarious Saturday night & I'm thankful for every single minute of it! (:

On that note, goooood night blogbots (:

xo | cmd

SURPRISE!!

So, here's a message thread from today [in which I deleted the line of my actual address response, for obvious reasons]:

indications of a surprise visit! ..... that i didn't catch.. at all.

What I didn't realize, was that he and Kyle were about to be en route from Granite to Cinci to visit me for the weekend. Even as I was lazing on my couch at 6:30, I didn't realize he was serious until he seriously instructed me to be available at 2am, which would've been their projected arrival time.

That being said, I figured I'd take the evening to rendezvous with the usuals and busy myself with something other than sitting at home watching the clock move too slowly, in anticipation of their arrival.

So I took a shower.


shower buddy.

Oh, forgot to mention that this house I'm currently renting has produced a couple of critter surprises of its own, thankfully none of which have been harmful, just, well.... surprising. No worries though - this girl grew up in good old MV, OH.. in the sticks.. and is far from skiddish of a little dweller like this guy. I named him Sylvester, and once we finished showering, gave him a quick dry in the towel I used to carry him outside, and re-homed him in a damp tree across the street. Is it weird that I miss forest friends, sometimes?

Anyway, off to Norwood, where the clan was already gathered at Nader's. We originally thought we'd make it to the Listermann Brewery for the craft breweries' Oktoberfest, but we missed that entirely and instead found ourselves down in OTR for a few hours.


leticia. nader. cori. eric. keith.

ping pongers, extraordinaire!
carolina+nader vs keith+cori
rhinegeist | cincinnati, oh

rhinegeist'ers!

sweet girls! [w. carolina & leticia]
japps | cincinnati, oh

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd... [this is backdated]...... Rob & Kyle showed up at 2am, right on schedule! Unfortunately, the digs in OTR close down right around 2, so we all stood assembled on the sidewalk briefly before calling it a night and promising a full-on romp for tomorrow.

So that's that. Rob & Kyle are HERE!!! & that undoubtedly means a fun couple of days ahead of us.

For now.. zZzZzz!

xo | cmd

5 More Important Things Than Miley Cyrus @ The VMA's

There will always be two sides to every argument; I know that I personally have some friends who are defending the VMA performance from last night [which I didn't watch last night... but unfortunately made the horrible decision to investigate the hype today via YouTube. Dumb call]. Call it what you want, whether you think she's being a boundary-pushing pioneer of the entertainment industry, or if you think, like me, that she's a renegade tween star, gone completely rogue and in need of some very simple, very real downhome reality. Whatever you call it, I call it absolutely insane that literally the only thing I could find for pages this morning when I checked in on FB [& apparently every other online outlet] was post after post about her performance.

+ 100 points for her pulling off a successful publicity stunt.
- 479324082 points for us caring as much as we do.

In lieu of all the MC hype, I thought I'd enlighten us on some things that are happening outside the world of MTV... ya know, things that may actually impact us in a way that's healthy for our brain cells.

Here we go.

unicef, for syrian relief

1. Syria. The country is facing political warfare that has produced a still-climbing death toll now of over 100k people. Many of these people are children, who have been caught defenseless in the midst of something they didn't understand, and lost their lives by simply existing in the wrong place. That breaks my heart. I realized today that if I were to name a family or friend for every one MC post I saw today, that I would soon run out of names but wouldn't even scratch the surface of what too many people in Syria have lost. This has been going on for more than two years now, with no tangible end in sight, still. Children and families continue to die daily for this.  Unicef, one of the world's leading relief agencies, is reaching their available limits and dangerously close to being forced to withdraw support. It reminds me how blessed we are not to face this kind of horror, but saddens me that others do. I'm not sorry that I believe this is more legitimate than dear Miley.

my kony2012 shirt

2. KONY. Many people thought that was just a publicity stunt, a big bandwagon on which the flavor-of-the-week philanthropists could ride for a little while. Welp, hate to burst that bubble, but it's real. As a parent, I don't want to sit in fear of something like this happening to my child, but I look at the faces of stolen youth, the victims of this, and my heart breaks for them. The bright side of it? Sevenly has partnered now with InvisibleChildren to counsel and provide support to child-soldiers and their families traumatized by the war. These types of things sadly are becoming a fad to follow and then drop when something else starts trending, but that's far from meaning it's gone. This is real, and there IS hope.

christopher lane

3. Christopher Lane is dead. Don't know who that is? He was an Australian baseball player living in Oklahoma, who was gunned down by 3 kids who had nothing better to do than wait around for someone to kill. This begs the question... REALLY?! What are we doing as a collective group of people to engage our youth in things that will enhance them? Where are sports, or volunteer opportunities... or a community entertainment event... something.. anything... that we could encourage our kids to do? That makes me sad. I typically don't involve myself on a public level in voicing my political stances, but it is in fact disappointing to me that our national leadership [we'll leave it at that] has been far less showy about making appearances over this young man... but when it was Trayvon Martin....... I'm just saying. A life is a life, regardless of who it is; I can't help but wonder where our motives really lie though, when things like this happen so similarly but the coverage is so very different.

love!

4. Good news? Okay. [For you anti-Walmart folks, you'll doubly enjoy this] An abandoned Wal-Mart in Texas was recently renovated with the help of a grant [read it HERE!], and transformed into a library. A LIBRARY! I love that. I hate to think that places like this are slowly becoming an obsolete pasttime for the world; I know I loved going to the library as a kid and will take my children there, so this warmed my heart a little bit knowing that when one monopoly falls, there is something beautiful that can grow in its place. [C'mon, who doesn't remember those awesome, old school library cards with all the stamps?!] (:

hannah taylor

5. Good news, take 2! There is plenty of negative headline reel to last us for the rest of our lives, with more and more popping up every day. What keeps me going is the reminder that humanity does still exist, along with chivalry, compassion and the general ability for us as a species to not only amicably coexist, but to extend ourselves to help someone we don't know. For me, it's even better to hear about it from the least of these, meaning the youngest hearts around the world. I think it's fabulous when movie stars and famous athletes give their resources to charitable causes, but the real magic for me is when it's an average, every day person like you and me, paving the way as a pioneer of another kind to leave a mark on this world bigger than themselves. Remember Hannah Taylor? Probably not.. but when I was in 6th grade, she was in 1st grade in Manitoba. I don't know her; I've never met her, but she is the founder of the Ladybug Foundation, an organization built to aid the homeless and provide networks to get them back on their feet. She saw a homeless man digging in the trash for food, and just couldn't accept that being okay. She was 5. Hannah is 17 now and has taken her mission across the world to the eyes of over thousands of people. She's written books, and continues to fight against homelessness and for those who fall victim to it. Could you imagine this world if every nubile spirit with a human conviction had this type of determination?? I'm amazed.

 So yeah. Sorry for the rants, but honestly, I've had such a hard time wrapping my head around the insane amount of hype over Miley.. freaking.. Cyrus since last night. I think this post was more for myself than for any of you [no offense]; I need sometimes to be reminded that this life I live can be so much more than just myself and those close to me. I can make a difference if I put my mind to it, and I can teach Sydni and any future children I have to do the same. I may be standing alone in my opinion on how ridiculous this is, but at the same time, I'm a firm believer that standing firm for your beliefs, even if you are standing alone, is always the best road to take anyway.

In other, less-important news, I donated blood today at the Queen City Blood drive, and was pleased to notice that Filipinos have officially made the checklist of available options on the paperwork. I proudly checked it. Haha.

yep! that's me! (:

Unfortunately, I apparently didn't eat enough today, because I had to stop at 333 [halfway] while I was in the chair. Becky was originally scheduled to go with me, but her iron levels were too low and so it'll be a few weeks before she can go again. All around, just an off day for both of us.. haha. The silver lining though? My friend Eric from Hoxworth expressed to me that he'd like to do a blood drive at Findlay Market, so I'm setting him up with Becky to coordinate that, and to celebrate our double failures, Becky & I headed straight to Eli's BBQ afterwards before heading our separate ways.

not mad at eli's ... nope, not mad (:

*Phew. I'm whooped.
Skype date with the boyfriend and then an early night for this critter.

Mission for Tomorrow: Love someone you don't know, even if it's with just a smile in passing. (:

xo | cmd

Back In The 'Nati : DAY ONE :)

QUESTION: Would I bleed for a friend?
ANSWER: YES! 

congratulations, eric & becky!

Here's the scoop on that one: I got a mass LinkedIn email from an old colleague of mine back in Cincinnati requesting the presence of all friends and family at a blood drive. Well, not just any blood drive; this particular friend, Eric, is part of the marketing team for Hoxworth Blood Centers in Cinci, and is slated to get married[!!!!!] not this, but next weekend. [[CON-GRAT-ULATIONSSSSS!!!!!!!]] They got creative and arranged a blood drive challenge in honor of their wedding, and as it so happened, I was both eligible and available to donate today, so that.. is.. what I did. Congrats, again to my friend Eric and his bride-to-be! xo!

******************

QUESTION: Who suggested lunch at Ban Thai today?
ANSWER: Ladd :).

ladd.

I've known this kid for ages now, and while that is sometimes both a bad and a good thing [usually dependent upon the day and/or topic of conversation, lol], he is a friend for whom I am deeply grateful on many levels. It was a great day to catch up; Becky and I stopped for lunch in Eastgate, and the three of us chowed down on some thai food before heading out our separate ways. I truly do revel  in catching up with old friends, and sometimes there are none better than the best.

******************

QUESTION: How on EARTH did I fail to get a picture of Becky [and not the above-mentioned Becky - just to clarify] & me?! My favorite [and only] college RA, with whom I'm still very close, hung out for a larger part of today and I didn't get one single stinkin' picture of us - HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?!
ANSWER: Oh, that's right, because we were too consumed with squealing and rummaging like wild coyotes through the new REI in Rookwood.


hello, new rei!

Becky and I decided to take a jaunt out to Rookwood [neighboring the old stomping grounds of Norwood, aka NorHOOD, aka the Village of the Fantastic Fifteen-or-so of us that ran that place like the playground it was...hah]. The brand new REI is among a handful of business that have ventured into regions I used to call home, after I left there. Naturally. Haha. There's now a Jungle Jim's over in Eastgate, too, and that both excites and infuriates me for that very reason. Haha. So anyway, I witnessed my dear friend Becky audibly squeal in a way that made her resemble the girly-girl that she so clearly is NOT, for just a split second or so. She cracks me up. We spent plenty of time browsing, even trying on some potential wish-list items, but left empty-handed. Oh well. Probably better that way, for the sake of my closet. Anyway, it was amazing, and mark my words, I'll be back.

******************

QUESTION: What's the best way to combine watching one friend's band play while celebrating another's going-away?

ANSWER: Silverton Cafe. Duh. (:



brother bear!
[good luck, nader, on your next adventures...
... in jordan ... with grueter! we'll miss you!!]

Nader is packing his bags and heading to Jordan [as in, the country] to work alongside our other friend Jamie. Hard to believe, but super-cool opportunity, and even cooler that I was able to see him on his last weekend in the states for a while. Nader & Jamie comprise half of what we affectionately coined as The Twigs [Jamie, Nader, Matt, & Nalom], so it is with some sadness that I watch them disband and pursue this whole life thing. Love those fellers.

singin' the niiiiiiight away...
[ladd & keith]

Keith's band was slated to play tonight at Silverton Cafe, so I agreed to rendezvous with Nader, Matt, Melissa, Keith, Laura and some others for an evening of unwinding and celebrating some next steps and some downright fun music. I opted out of Midpoint tonight, but perhaps I'll head that-a-way at some juncture tomorrow. We'll see.

Major, major thanks to my amazing mother-in-law for keeping Syd for the day - it is so good to be home to see you, too. We've MISSED you, Mamaw.... ♥

[Backdated entry]. Oh, dear Cincinnati.
It's still home.

xo | cmd

Snips of a Saturday

I've not yet become gutsy enough to go through with as drastic a change as I did a couple years back. the last time I donated my hair, I gave 14 inches of my mane and was left with the expected short hair - only problem was that I wasn' t thrilled in the least with the execution by the stylist versus what I'd requested. It was a cute bob look, but certainly not my style. I was going to be much more conservative this time around, if nothing else than to at least test out the stylist.

I had the recommendation from Cathie for her current stylist, and while Cathie keeps her hair much shorter than mine, it always looks great, especially right after a visit to the salon. I thought I'd give it a whirl. 

6 inches.. see ya later :)

hunger games!

I love it, so far, even though it is exactly as conservative as I thought it would be. I'm still conflicted a bit on whether or not I really even want short hair at this point, so this for the time being at least gives me the liberty of options while dropping those dead split ends. Pretty silly when the stylist holds up a measured 6-inch chunk of hair she's just snipped, when in looking at it now, it still seems long. Haha. I'm satisfied, and I will definitely be making a trip back to see the gal who did this when I'm due up for a snip again. Not a bad way to start the day! 

my doodlebug ♥

I made a stop off at Target after the 8:30AM hair appointment to grab some groceries, and ended up also walking out with a copy of The Hunger Games. Don't judge me, haha. I am completely excited for Mo coming by to watch this with me. 

Back home, it didn't take long for us to decide we would head right back out the door for some breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Sydni loves this place especially for its artistic provisions; I don't know why it is, but she spends more time coloring and doodling when we're here than any other restaurant it seems. Today she even bragged about her left-handedness. Great. haha. 

Back at home, Sydni and I went down for a short snooze while the boys took off for a run; Eric's got an Ironman coming up next weekend, for which he's been training since about this time last year. Pretty impressive, I'd say. It's too bad we won't be able to go and watch him race, but there's no doubt he'll do an awesome job and have some good stories from it all.

The boys headed off to drop Eric at the airport a few minutes ago; I hear Sydni starting to wake up in her room, so I .. am.. outta here :)

xo | cmd

Salad & A Movie

Well I just feel like quite the DIY-er today, after having finished off the fourth of four in my first round of jarred lunches. I will never know why I'd not gone this route sooner, but after catching drift of a very similiar idea from Jess, I scaled back what she had displayed as more of a gift-esque presented version of the jar salad into something I could do for lunch every day.

yum. :)

Funny enough, I set out with the final picture as my goal; I was met with my first hurdle when I realized that good old Target didn't carry the "regular sized" mason jars; the tall, slender ones I automatically think of when I think of mason jars. Instead, I found two smaller sizes and one impractically huge size in the canning section of Target kitchenwares. I picked up one set of each of the two smaller sizes: 1 pint and 1/2 pint. They come in sets of 4, and run less than $6 per set. After comparing them to some salsa jars, I quickly realized that they were the of the same capacity and would be plenty big enough for what I needed.

Correct! I toted them home and filled each with some greens, carrots, hard boiled eggs, chick peas, and parmesan cheese. My advice at this point: do NOT add dressing until you are ready to eat it. Anyhow, they turned out nice and pretty; I was still a little leary about how they'd hold up for 4-5 days in the fridge, fearful I might crack open the last one and be faced with soggy lettuce, mushy garbonzo beans, etc. Happy to report, that was not the case! :) It's Friday, and the salad I'd assembled on Sunday of this week was just as fresh as it was when I put it in the jar. Add some dressing, do a little shaking [whoa, flashback to high school caf salads in the plastic containers? haha..], and presto! Delish. Inexpensive, quick, and I would say highly-recommended. Yums :)

the campaign

Oh, and Eric's still in town! We had dinner with the Prescotts at the house last night, and tonight, since Dawne is hosting another sleepover for Sydni, we were kiddo-free for the evening. In efforts to take full advantage of that, we immediately sprung plans for dinner and a movie. Dinner was the locally-acclaimed Lotawata Creek, and movie was, by unanimous vote, The Campaign. As it so unfortunately goes sometimes with movies like this, there were definitely some funny moments, but in hindsight I could've waited to Redbox this one. Oh well. The company was great and that's all that mattered. :) Eric heads out tomorrow afternoon, and we'll wrap up the evening with some long-overdue catching up on chores and such. Can't wait.. Womp womp womp....

Happy weekend!!

xo | cmd

Happy Birthday, KIM!!

From Illinois back to Ohio.... oh dear KIMBERLY...

!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!!!

love you darling friend!!!!!

kim's bday 2010 .. because it was 5:00 somewhere..
.. yeah, we found that somewhere :)

Ohhhhhh man, oh man. I can't even tell ya how much I adore this girl and all that she is. There were a couple summers in particular that found us more often than not having the times of our lives and throwing caution to the wind [no, not in a dangerous way, but more in that youthful sense], untethered by the responsibilities of the grown up lives we both are now pursuing. That's the generous way to put it, haha. She's definitely one of those guaranteed spur-of-the-moment good times girls, with a huge heart, even bigger personality, and somehow fitting all of that awesome into her tiny little self. Happy birthday, Kimberlyyyyy - I love you dearly, and can't wait to see you again soon, friend!
---------------
Tonight's agenda: dinner with Eric, Joe, & the Prescotts, and then some good old relaxing. (: That's my kind of night!


To the rest of you - Happy ALMOST Friday!!

xo | cmd

Irony.

To read, or not to read???

hrm...

I haven't read it yet... Question is... should I? I'm almost a little worried, since it was written by Express.. haha. Just kidding. I found this in the small stack of hand-me-downs left behind on my desk when Christine left earlier in the week. I'm hanging on to it, just in case I feel the need one day to crack it open and absorb whatever magic it holds.. haha.

Eric is here!
I got home from work tonight to find him and Joe, already hard at work on their little project together. I let them to it and attempted to do some damage of my own to the unfinished project demanding my attention at this point. The New Member Booklet project for Towerview has been my baby for the last month or so; I'm slowly chipping away at it as I get the input from the right people. I'm hoping to have this done soon.. and I'll gladly share that with you all when it's finished. Say a little prayer for me; this is for distribution to the entire congregation; I need to get it right! :)

Happy midweek, friends!

xo | cmd

Colors of Today :)

Today was quite the colorful day. After all of the ruckus from yesterday, it was a nice change of pace [and a welcomed surprise] to see some bright pops of orange and yellow, complete with the simple but elegant grass decorations which I'm totally hacking.... :) Plus, Nancy brought in some itty bitty onesie kimonos that she still has as part of her online shop inventory. It kiiiind of made me want to have a small human again to wiggle into this thing for the sake of pure cute overload. We shall see....

flowers from diana (:

baby kimonos. cuteness.over.load.

Work ended in its usual fashion; I headed straight for Fairview Heights to grab Sydni and stop at Target before our evening dwell at the Relay for Life Wrap-Up Celebration potluck. It was wonderful to see some of those familiar faces again, but more importantly a great night of recognition for the ACS and Team Towerview!! We officially get to trade in our Silver Level fundraising sign for Gold Level, because we have, at this point, surpassed the $5000 mark. NOT a bad way to kick off our first year of participation in Relay! (:

relay for life wrap-up!

Oh, and we [Team Towerview] earned the award for the Heaviest RFL Fundraiser [aka, the TIRE!] for this year. Christine decorated it with the shot of Mo, Becky and me "sleeping" in and on it during relay. Pretty funny stuff - very thoughtful!! 

Joe's back in town. That means Eric will be here tomorrow through the weekend. Never a dull moment in the Dills' house! 

xo | cmd

We Are STAFF! [&Welcome Home, Syd!]

Another LOADED Sunday! I'm allllll for it!

with joe | with sydni | with cori
- the dills love you, eric!

.: ONE :.

Happy birthday, Eric!! 

This is Joe's best friend from years ago and still now. He has been a great friend not only to Joe, but to me as well, especially during the time that Joe was gone for military training. I knew if we needed anything, we could count on him. He's Sydni's "Uncle Eric," and we wish him the very very best birthday today! 

It looks like we're headed to see Eric in September in Colorado - looking forward to it :) 

.: TWO :.

It's baptism time! This is the third Sunday in a row [amen? AMEN!] Over the course of VBS, I worked alongside the Burden girls Kirsten & Kaitlyn. Their little brother Tanner went into the baptismal today, followed by Maia! I still remember my baptism; it was an incredible feeling and I love that there are youth in our church getting to experience that same emotion. God is GOOD! 

tanner & maia | congratulations!!!

.: THREE :.

posting on the towerview fb page after church! :)

Today was my Sunday downstairs in the nursery, so I wasn't present for the final verdict in what was a church-wide vote determining whether or not Joe would become an assistant pastor intern at Towerview. I came up at the end of the service to find that he'd been voted in with a 95%, so we are officially STAFF at Towerview! Joe now continues on under the mentorship of our senior pastor Ron and assistant pastor Mike, and will serve in the role of an intern until the time comes to grow into an associate or assistant pastor title. By default, that adds me to the collection of staff wives, where I'm blessed and honored to be among other outstanding women in our church. Thank you again, Towerview!!

.: FOUR :.

My first order of business as a "staff wife" at Towerview?
-- Skipping choir practice!

Haha. well, it wasn't by plan; unfortunately this was the only opportunity we had over the weekend to rendezvous with my parents in Indianapolis [halfway, oy...] to trade off a monster. Sydni's been with my family for the past week, on a mini vacation [for both her and for us!] with the grandparents. This time worked out particularly well, since my family was here last weekend to visit, and took her during the hectic week that was RFL prep time. Funny how that works out.

little sassy pants.... ;) 

It's crazy how I can miss this little bug so much just over the course of one week, but I'm so glad she's home. We're home too, and thoroughly spent. I'm gonna go pretend I don't have to work tomorrow :p. 

xo | cmd

Eckert's with Eric

The boys texted me at work today asking,

"Dinner tonight. Eckert's, or Lotawata Creek?"

winner!

Oh man. Tough decision. Seriously. After much consideration, we collectively decided on Eckert's. It didn't really matter to Eric, since he's not been to either one, but the way we had it figured, Eckert's is both closer to us, but also holds the tiny advantage in that its farm and market atmosphere and fried biscuits are very hard to turn down. :)



fried biscuits. magic.



So Eckert's it was, and it wasn't even in the slight a bad call. I learned during dinner that their round of competitions had absolutely extended into today, over everything from chugging rootbeer to conditional consequences off missed basketball free-throws. I wasn't surprised, but honestly it was a welcomed comical break in the other repeated tedious nature of my work day.

Eric leaves in the morning; we're praying now for travel mercies.

Oh, and tomorrow night, we've got a cooking class to attend, compliments of my bosses. This was our original arrangement for our 'company' Christmas party. I've never been to a cooking class, let alone with Joe. This should be fun :).

Better get your chef face on.... 8=:-]

xo | cmd

First Snow | Eric Visiting

our backyard this morning = first snow

Well we survived the bustle of Christmas visitors, and spent the day yesterday in full-on recovery mode. Today, it was back to work, and quite the malicious first day back, just as a note. This was my Monday, and boy, am I glad that the 8-5 portion of it is loooong gone :).

I am happy and simultaneously a bit bummed that we saw our first snow today. I don't care much for driving in snow, but I do love to play in it; seeing as how it would seem seasonally appropriate, I felt like this delayed first snowfall should've been more than an inch of dust. Plahhhh. :P.

Anyway, sometime earlier this afternoon, Joe texted to let me know that Eric would be en route to our house later in the day for a few days visiting. It was short notice, but definitely good news. Eric is Joe's best friend, and was one of his best men in both our original marriage ceremony and our big, fancy vow renewal. He made it in early evening just in time for dinner, and then it was off to the Joe & Eric races.


eric & joe | earlier this year @ the slopes



By that, for anyone who doesn't know them well enough to assume what would inevitably transpire, I'll fill you in. My husband and his best friend are probably in the top 2% of people in the world when it comes to a spirit of competition. These two have a naturally inborn acceleration that forces them to accomplish a goal no matter what. And I do mean, no. matter. what. I've never seen two people so bent on succeeding at any one thing before in my life. If a goal gets planted, watch out. That being said, the two of them together transforms scenarios of everyday living into a marathon of mini-races.

For example: Following dinner tonight, I left them to their own devices in our still-spacious basement, only to be called down an hour later to find every available object arranged into part of an obstacle course. They'd planned out an instructed course of jumping, rolling, football-catching, hopping, and darting around the basement, and were timing each other through it. Hilarious.

So yeah. Eric's here, and so the visiting company continues. Good times, good times!

See ya, tomorrow....

xo | cmd