Worship & Winter Walks

First things first, WELCOME BACK, Josh!!

We've been waiting anxiously for weeks for Josh to be well enough to return and take up his spot on the praise team. While we'd adjusted to his absence, having him back today was the best way we could've started the service. Oh, and we brought out the instruments to celebrate :)

we're all here! ♥

rehearsal time :) 

We headed home after church, where I threw in a load of laundry, made a couple eggs and did a quick change to head out for a quick hike with Jess & Bumper.

stella didn't feel like going.. 

i was hungry?

let's go, bumper! 

East Fork was pleasantly quiet today, with the exception of a few mountain bikers and one couple hiking with their dog. Jess, Bump and I took to the Harsha Lake circuit - today was the perfect day for it.

hi jess!

william harsha lake | east fork state park | ohio

(and the masses ((and I)) said yes.)

all the while knowing full well i wasn't going anywhere..

cold but happy ♥

Earlier this morning at church, Chad emphasized the idea that in walking with someone, we have the opportunity to find true transparency. He referenced the amount of time Jesus spent walking - physically - with His disciples. With strangers. With the outcast. With everyone. They walked and talked with each other. Some of the Bible's most iconic characters became such as a result of the relationships they developed while literally walking.

I was reminded today how thankful I was to be present in that moment, with one of my close friends. I'm thankful for her insight, conversation and what she has already given me as a friend. We talked at length about what 2018 looks like for us individually, and agreed that we've both put self-love on the list of things we intend to pursue this year. Self-love. Self-care. Self-inspection. More investing into the things that really fuel us, rather than the things that deplete us.

It's something I'll build on as the year gets underway, but today was a secluded eye-opener as we marched through the woods alongside the frozen stream bed and sunlight. Today though, I'm grateful for the praise team and church family who continue to walk through life with each other, and for my beautiful friend Jess, who walked with me today and obliged real, life talk. I really do have much more than I've earned.

Oh, and I made some banana bread that's Whole30 APPROVED, so if y'all would like the recipe, well.. it's the easiest thing you'll make this week, so just ask :)

It's back to work tomorrow, and I think I'm ready.
January, you're lookin' okay so far. :)

xo | cms

Ali's 25th, Day 2: Tattoos & Other Chicagoland Things

Waking up in the rises above Chicago really wasn't a bad way to start the morning:

good morning, chicago  ♥

Our Saturday adventuring started with a brunch at The Chicken Shop, this adorable 2nd floor cafe in the Fulton Market District:

get outta here, that's adorable. 

georgia peach rooibos + chicken&waffles
the chicken shop | chicago, il

Nom nom NOM. 

Across the street from our brunch place was this: 

next time! 

We were cutting it close on time, so we didn't get to stop in, but it - along with about 400 other places - are on the bucket list for next time. 

The big ticket item on our agenda today was the pitstop at Dream City! 

dream city | chicago, il 

Part of my birthday present to Ali was getting a tattoo together, one of the things we've surprisingly not done yet. We agreed on the design, and the rest was up to the artists at DC Tattoos. Thanks to Leo the steady-handed artist, it was the quickest tattoo session I've ever been in, and in no time we were done! :)  

ali on the left, cori on the right 

thank you, leo! 

We headed back to the hotel afterwards, where the pictures of tattoos continued into the afternoon/evening, even as we were getting ready for the rest of the night: 

"God is greater than the mountains & the valleys" 

twin tattoos... and that stupid strand of my hair the just. never. listens! 

ali's new ink

damanji is clearly enjoying this moment.. haha

So the rest of the night was laid out to us in the form of The Apartment, which is not an actual apartment, but rather an upper level clubhouse of cool people, because I mean.. we were there, right? [insert post-corny joke rimshot here...]

ANYWAY, we had a handful of Chicagoland friends out for the night as well, which made for a fun night of music, spirits, dancing and of course, Snapchat: 

"social anxiety face." 

look at all the snapchats i stole from ali! 

chicago friends!

snapchataholism

blue lights flatter nobody... obviously. 

happy people... happy birthday, ali!

And then, what happens to be my favorite picture of today, was a random photo opp in the hotel elevator on the way home:

31st floor, please!

And we owned our night. Ali, I hope your birthday weekend has been everything you've hoped for, and then some. We love you to the moon & back!

Tomorrow we leave the city behind, and head back home. *Yawn. Can't wait [dull face]. Haha. 

G'Nite! 

xo | cmd

Yard Work & Bonfires

Rob and I got breakfast moving early this morning, as we anticipated a day full of yard and boat work. We chowed down and headed outdoor for a day of weed-pulling, grass-mowing, boat-buffing and other miscellaneous meanderings around the house.

i'm insanely in love

See ya later, weeds...

pre-weeding..

At some juncture in the day, I received a text from Chris, inviting us over for a bonfire later that evening, as one of their friends from Cleveland was in town visiting for the weekend. We happily obliged, and after the afternoon wore on, we cleaned up and made our way over for a relaxing evening of friends, loom bands, bonfires and smores.

The sun went down, and the sparks went higher! 

We sure have had a happy Saturday, and we hope you have too!

xo | cmd

TOUGH MUDDER 2012!

After months of preparation, training, blood, sweat and dieting [do you hear the drums rolling in the background?  haha], TOUGH MUDDER 2012 fiiiinally graced us with its impending presence. Yay, mud!

We started the day off by agreeing beforehand that we would all rendezvous at the Tower at 5:00AM [oh.my.earlybird.]. That being said, we took all measures to have everything as ready as possible last night in efforts to get out the door as quickly as possible this morning. I woke up already dressed for the day and plugged a half-conscious Sydni into the carseat to drop her off at Jarod's. Becky couldn't make the trip out to Poplar Bluff, so she opted to stay back with Lyla & Sydni [thank you thank you!!]. All was going swimmingly until I got pulled over on the way to Jarod's. Here's kinda how that went, in a nutshell:

Cop: "Where ya headed at 4:30 in the morning with a kid in the backseat?"

Me: "Tough Mudder."

Seriously. I wanted to tell him I'd just returned from the casino and was acting as the DD for the 3-year-old in the backseat who'd had oooone too many apple juices. Oh, and thanks for giving me a warning only. I really do appreciate it :), and I was just kidding about the apple juice thing. Hah.

SO, I made it to and from Jarod's in decent time, and soon enough found myself buckled in with Joe and Jarod in the back of Jimmy & Mo's car en route out to Poplar Bluff to the offroad park that served as the grounds for Mudder.


ninja photog mode... commence.

Jason set me up with a killer getup for the day, with which I had more than enough fun throughout the day: L lense and all. I don't need to tell you I had fun with it ;)
Mudder was about as magical as it usually is: loaded up with hilarious moments, great costumes, and of course, pictures galore. There's a full set available online if you feel like perusing the entire day via photo-documentation. You'll have to excuse any gaps you see; we did spend about 2 hours lost on the course due to excellent mapping [that's a joke] by the mudder teams, but it's cool. We got the shots and we had fun doing it. Congrats to The Fighting Cocks for a day well spent!!

Fighting Cocks | Tough Mudder 2012

the ladies of mudder this year... that one front & center won't be so
clean this time next year... #participant!

To celebrate survival of the Mudder, we headed out to Lambert's, which, if you haven't visited, is absolutely amazing and now has my solid seal of endorsement. That, and the servers throw bread at you while you're eating. What more could you want? Haha.

We're exhausted, as you could guess. It's been a good day, but we're callin' it.

Tough Mudder 2012 = SUCCESS!

xo | cmd

Hi, Again, St. Louis :)

ah, the arch....

Joe's manager from Atlanta is still in town helping out at the St. Louis store. The two of them were up and out early to slay another day's worth of work. I stayed back in efforts to clean the house up and get some chores done. I timed it right; they rolled back in just as I was finishing up. After showers and a rescue call to Kallie & Sandy to come and watch Sydni for the evening [thankyouxmillions, girls!!!], we were off to St. Louis.

the dubliner

Since Josh hadn't ever been to St. Louis, our first stop, naturally, was the arch. We parked up by Laclede's Landing and spent the next few hours just roaming our way around downtown: Past the packed stadium [Josh thankfully left his Braves shirt for another day ;), haha], all the way up 8th, and halfway down Washington until we found ourselves at The Dubliner.

hangin' out downtown
the arch | the city | the stadium

josh & joe outside the dubliner

We laughed our way through dinner and spent some time getting to know Josh a little better before we picked our way through the sidewalk crowds for two blocks to the Gelateria. Until tonight, Josh had never tasted gelato, so we were all in for a treat :).

mmm.. gelato!

Once we had some tasty gelato on our tongues, we meandered up to the City Museum, if nothing else than to just show Josh the lobby and the outdoor mazes that comprise just a portion of what that crazy place has to offer. Next time you're here, Josh, we'll take you for a visit.

strange little statue..

The walk back to the car was much quicker than the walk up from the garage; of course we realized once we'd made it all the way back through our self-devised labyrinth trail that Washington was a straight shot. Hah. Oh well.

Joe dropped into a snooze on the way back, leaving Josh and I to discuss the undeniable levels of talent of musical artists [Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas.... Reba? haha..] and face the standstill traffic mess that was 64, down to one lane. As psychotic as that was, we finally made it back. I got the sitters back home and now I'm calling it for now..

Mother's Day is just around the clock ;)
[sorry 'bout the minor backdating.. hah]

xo | cmd 

*TIRED OF CANCER!* [Towerview Style]

As we dig deeper and deeper into our fundraising efforts as a church whole, I have to say that I'm quite proud of my Towerview family.

* I am this year's appointed team captain for the First [hopefully annual!] Towerview Baptist organized team for the American Cancer Society's trademark event: Relay for Life 2012. I feel almost sheepish sometimes holding such a prestigious sounding title, since the team Co-Captain, Lara, is really the superstar here; she drives so much of this that it kinda makes my head spin. I would be at a loss without everything she's contributed and the time she's invested into tracking down the right people, creating fliers, and just overall proliferation of response and enthusiasm from everyone we need, when we need it. Thanksxmillions, LB :).

Anyway, last night at the church, a small group of us rallied together to discuss current progression of our team in all areas: fundraising, fundraising ideas, event decorations, even utilization of the ACS-provided web tools. During that time, we decided and set in motion two of the handful of fundraising opportunities we dreamt up in the earlier stages of planning:

1. Sunday morning breakfast at the church, pre-Sunday School. [May 20th!!!, fellowship hall.. free plug yeah!]
2. The 400-lb tire that Alex, Joe, and now Jason play with like it's a toy, flipping it around the track on base like it's no big deal. Our thought was to paint that puppy up and drop it off in someone's yard. That person or those people then donate $25 to get it removed asap and sent off to another yard of their bidding.

We brought that idea to fruition with mad quickness after the meeting; the Babots went home and Alex proceeded to paint it up in the token RFL [Relay for Lif--c'mon, you know...] purple, with huge white letters exclaiming the ironic phase: TIRED OF CANCER.

Can't visualize that? Let me help you:

team towerview: the tire....
- makin' a pitstop at the woods' :) 

A W E S O M E . I love everything about it, and I'm almost a little excited about this puppy making its way to our house for a day or two. Should be fun. Team Towerview is an absolute blast. These are the things we love :)

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So the rest of today was pretty tame; it marked the end of our first full week sans Meagan; I realized I need to do some serious adjustment on something: time management, shortened lunches, ruthless increase of speed.. something to balance out the work. Hah. It's a good thing with the burst of business we're seeing, but man alive, we are swamped. I love it.

joe & josh: windshield maniacs

Joe's store manager from Atlanta is in town for the insane influx of business they've had in St. Louis post-hail storm; since he's out of his element here, we were more than willing to open up the Dills' hotel once again for an out of town visitor :). He's staying for a couple nights before he heads back to GA. It wouldn't be a real party with the glass boys unless we got to observe them in their natural habitat: They transformed our garage into a temporary bay for Mo & Jimmy's car; it was a seamless operation that ended just about as quickly as it started.

Cooooool. That's a wrap on Friday, folks....

Heeeeeey, it's the freakin' weekend.....

xo | cmd