ADIOS, 2014!

It's been a long time since I've participated in any real partying for New Year's Eve [as defined in the traditional sense, that is]. I've thoroughly enjoyed and not-at-all regretted the past several years of laid back, under-the-radar celebrations, complete with a small circle of friends and/or family, and calling it a night.

But not this year. I am 30 after all. Why not?!
Rob and I as usual were on the same page with wanting to celebrate New Years in a big way: We are after all engaged, and depending on our settling a date, we might be sharing the same last name come this time 2015. That's still up for debate, but for the moment at hand, it was a matter of ushering in 2015 with great friends in Illinois.

I was off work today, which afforded me just enough time to run some last minute errands, clean the house and get everything packed up for a 5-day trip to IL. Rob worked until noon, and joined me to wrap up, stuff the car to the brim and load up the pups [yes, they came, too!] for the all-too-familiar 5-hour jaunt to Dillon's house.

We arrived with just enough time to unload the car, order a pizza [because classy, that's why....] & doll up to join Matt & Courtney down in STL for the night's festivities to really begin.

So we arrived at the hotel directly across the street from Harry's, where Courtney & Matt were waiting. We finished getting ready and made our final decent into the chaos that was NYE celebration on the other side of the street.

harry's | st. louis, mo 

And that being said,

HERE WE GO!

ready to get this started! 

The plan to do the night to the extreme:

yes, we had a table. [thanks, matt!] 

And there were photos galore...

rob. cori. matt

this guy ♥

matt & courtney [aw♥!]

The clock struck midnight and we officially welcomed in the start of a brand new year! I have zero complaints about the entire experience & am excited to see how 2015 dares top 2014! 

love, love, love you! ♥♥

See you on the other side! 

farewell, '14, & hello, '15! 

I hope you and yours have ushered in the new year safely and joyously! I know that for us, 2015 is going to have to step it up in big, big ways to top 2014, and I'm pretty excited to see where the next year takes us.

Love love & more love to you & yours - HAPPY 2015!!

xo | cmd

Boats, BBQ & Block Parties

[backdated entry, woo!]

Yiieee! Breakfast with Ali!
Living two states away from one of my best friends isn't the worst thing in the world, but it certainly is inconvenient more often than not. I was so happy that we were able to set aside some time to get together for breakfast - well, brunch if you're getting technical - in Caseyville before the day got started.

love this girl!

After breakfast, we made a couple of shopping stops before parting ways for the afternoon. I was due out to Grafton with Rob, Kenny & Dillon.

Kenny just bought a Baja a month or two back [these boys & their forever cycle of toys.. hah], so it was an outing on the lake. Dillon scored a coule of stand-up jetskis [di-no-saurs!!] from a friend's boss, and brought one of them out to play for the afternoon, also.

will the old girl float?

We weren't entirely sure if she'd stay afloat, let alone run, but she still had some spirit in her, and eventually got going strong as the hours wore on.

Back on the boat, we took some mental notes of what we did and didn't care for aboard the Baja, because obviously Rob will be investing in a replacement as soon as he finds the right deal.

pretty little baja

The rain started coming down, and we decided it'd been long enough on the river; we headed back and loaded up for the trip back south. I dropped Rob off at Dillon's house and continued on to get ready and meet up with Ali & DeShawn for dinner.

Mongolian BBQ at HuHot? Yes, please!

a lot of eating was done today, clearly.. hah.
huhot mongolian bbq | st. louis, mo



After dinner, I happily obliged the invite to be taken to Strange Donuts, this fun little [and I do mean little] donut shop somewhere in St. Louis. Apparently, it's a big enough deal that people line the street outside of the place at even the latest hours [in this case, 11:45pm]... for donuts.

Ya can't keep people from their donuts, mmkay?

i'll have one of ... the whole case, please&thanks.
strange donuts | st. louis, mo

Oh, it was well worth the trip. Thank you A&D for the experience!!

strange donuts | st. louis, mo

Back at DeShawn's [new!] apartment, we settled in and landed on Mean Girls [Netflix for the win!] to await the arrival of Tim, who was juuust returning from an extended visit to Germany.

trying to work off some of the food i've eaten today! :\

I'm the jerk that didn't get a picture of all of us including Tim, however we did manage a shot of our spoils from Tim's trip. German chocolate for Ali and me... and a light bulb for Damanji.

sorry, damanji.. haha ;)

We visited for a short while before it was time to part ways again,... for now. I headed back to Alton to rendezvous with Rob, Dillon & Kenny at the Alton Block Party, where we stayed until they closed the place down and we were back en route to Jesse's place in Granite.

alton block party!

Good night, Illinois! We'll see you again for a short while tomorrow before we head home.

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

♥ Happy Birthday, Boyfriend!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TO YOU ♥
[my best friend turns 27 today!]

♥.

Today's his birthday (: He's currently en route back from FL / LA with one of his friends, and if I'm right, I'll see him halfway through this week on Wednesday. To say I'm excited is an understatement.

Since I love posting photos and all that jazz, here are some of my favorites with this incredible guy of mine... Sure, it's not been that long so far, but we've been friends for far longer than photo history cares to document. The funny part is, that as obsessed as I am with pictures, we're usually having too good a time together to stop and take any. I'm thinking that's not a bad problem to have... but of the rare few we do have, they are ours, and I think that's pretty cool ღ

⑩ | Our first picture together, after what... 1+years of being friends? May sound dumb to most, but I usually have pictures of all my friends right away, in some fashion. This one was at The Old Rock House in St. Louis, for a concert we went to with some of his friends. Yes, I look scraggly. No, I didn't care....

old rock house | st. louis, mo

⑨ | Bindy's. You can't see any of that place behind us, but Rob introduced me to this place and now I make it a point to visit whenever I'm back. It's one of those local dives that everyone in town knows, and you always run into someone you know there, if you're a local yourself. In a weird way, it kinda makes me miss Mt. Vernon. In a weirder way, I just said ... that I miss Mt. Vernon. Whoa.

bindy's | granite city, il

⑧ | Rob finds Cincinnati! I finally persuaded Rob to come back to my stomping grounds with me for a weekend. This is the first time he accompanied me back; we found Catie and some others and made a night of it. Who really knows where we were here or what we were doing, but I know myself well enough to know that's a real smile on my face and it was there because of this guy.

rob in the 'nati.. uh oh.. haha

⑦ | Kyle's 30th birthday! In the spirit of birthdays, I thought I'd post this one, because 1) I love birthdays, and 2) I love this picture. Simple as that.


at kramden's for kyle's 30th

⑥ | Supercross in Indianapolis. This was back in March this year, St. Patrick's Day weekend to be exact. This night did not turn out the way we'd expected, but this is still a good picture. The weekend? Not so much, but hey... life happens, we all survived, and downtown Indy can bite it. Hrmmph!

lucas oil stadium | indianapolis, in

⑤ | Just us. We were lazing around one night and one of us pulled out a cell phone. There's nothing particularly special about this one other than it's just us, not being fancy [not that either of us really are in the first place, but still..]... but really just hanging out and being simple. Probably some of my favorite time.

couch potatoes. completely ok with that.

④ | Mudbash 2013. This was pretty much awesome... mainly because I was surrounded for an entire day with other people who enjoy sloppy mud, huge trucks and tailgating just as much I do. I'm not sure how I managed to get clean within 24 hours after this, but it was totally worth it.


mudbash 2013 | buchanan's mudpark, mo

③ | My going-away party. So this whole process still stings a little, but Rob made sure he came to the tiny shindig we had for my farewell back to Ohio. My office team set up a dinner at Edison's in Edwardsville and we spent the entire evening goofing off and telling some of our favorite stories about the people and events we encounter at work. As small as it all was, I was so thankful for my friends from work and for Rob coming to be a part of that.

edison's | edwardsville, il

② | Styx. Ted Nugent. REO Speedwagon. This was from just a couple of months back, at the VZW Amphitheater in STL. Rob's mom bought tickets for us for this show back in February, and held onto them all the way up until this show. We went with his mom and stepdad, and had an amazing night. I went back to IL for the weekend just for this, and I'm glad I did.


vzw amphitheater | st. louis, mo

① | And duh. Ya'll are probably sick of this picture, but I don't think I'll ever be tired of it. This is the most recent, from Rob's last visit here and our day trip down to Findlay Market & Washington Park. There's nothing to say about this that I haven't already said... other than, "girls it's okay if you're jealous... he's pretty awesome." - I'm joking, not about him being awesome, but about being catty over it. I just love the guy, and I can't... freakin'.. help it.

♥♥♥♥♥. | findlay market | cincinnati, oh

So happy birthday, lumberjack.
Love you, & can't wait to see you this week.

xo | cmd

& A Few [More] of My Favorite People (:

Today was definitely an improvement from yesterday (;

1 | Breakfast with two great friends from here [Ali & DeShawn] at Crackerbarrel. We met them mid-morning for a table full of food like we usually do, and some little gifts for Ali since she's switching jobs here within the next couple of weeks:


except for the wooden carved turtle, this was our gift...
... sydni did most of the picking.. pretty good job! ;)

Oh, and DeShawn [Damanji] got a small taste of Sydni's favorite pasttime... and no, it's not checkers. It's the "I WIN" game, and today she granted herself 12 trophies and Damanji got... a sticker. Womp womp womp...

"i win!" - sydni

We finished breakfast and decided that with all of the rain and storming from late yesterday, we'd bypass the zoo. Instead, we headed off to the Magic House in St. Louis, a place where Sydni has always had fun, and definitely did again today. It was a little chilly when we arrived, but it worked out to be a beautiful day by the time we were back outside to play in the sand pit.

Something funny Rob pointed out:


this is true. this is so true.

Some other documentation for the day...


fun @ the magic house! | st. louis, mo

& of course, she just had to have Mr. Rob help her with everything. Well, correction, she insisted on helping him... with everything.


who's helping who? who knows...

Oh, and sand sculptor Dan Belcher was here, too! Check it out...

amazing!

We had a great time. Sydni played herself out so thoroughly that she was out before we even left the parking lot. Before she did that though, she found a piece of 3M tape and was toying with that. I didn't notice until she'd gone quiet that she'd taped it over her face and then passed out [not because of the tape... haha]. It was pretty funny though.


hahahahahaha. she'll love seeing this one day....

Hilarious. She's somethin' else.

From there, we headed to Shiloh again to meet up with Dawne and pass off a very groggy Sydni. I'd promised Dawne she would get to see her some while we were visiting; I'm not sure who was more excited about it: Sydni or Dawne. Either way, we dropped her off, then made our way back to Granite to go to Rob's parents' for a minute. We took the meatballs, aka Stella & Sasha with us, which may have been more of an adventure than we'd thought... they did well, all things considered. Haha.

Once we were wrapped up with some things at his parents, we opted for some sushi and (shhhhh,) a date over in St. Louis at the Drunken Fish [Rob's decision - gooood call!]. Neither of us had been, but heard it was great so we tried it out. Delicious.


suuuuuushiiiiiiiiiii. win.

You can rarely go wrong with good sushi. Add the perfect company and you've just built the perfect night. All around, today was a great day and I'm left again feeling that overwhelming sense of gratitude for these people in my life.

Amen? Amen.
G'Nite (:

xo | cmd

& A Wednesday to You!

One thing I did appreciate about my commute to and from work in Illinois was that even on the major highways, there really wasn't that much congestion. Maybe there was, but I definitely didn't notice it. Today I realized that's because I'd been accustomed to driving around CINCINNATI, where the highways are always bogged down during prime drive times and it's brakelights for miles. I noticed today that it was more stuffy than usual; I know they're doing a bypass expansion project on part of 75, but the real reason for the empty southbound lanes and flashing police lights was this:


yikes.

... & in a weird way, assuming nobody was injured, you have to admit that's kind of funny. Certainly not the way I'm sure that driver had anticipated his morning going, but I haven't heard of any serious injuries from it, so that's a good thing.

Work today went at about the same lightspeed pace that it has for the past few days; we're doing our initial ramp-up and it's pretty much been a blur this week. Between a full schedule of interviews and payroll, it was certainly a burst of a day.

I was so excited when I got theeeeeese finally [not that I waited long, at all..] in the mail. I'm pretty excited - THANK YOU to Danny & the team at BeOhioProud for being so quick to send these. I'll send ya'll a picture per your request as soon as possible!


Ohio (:

I decided today also that with everything that's going on and a small hiccup with the move I was scheduled to make this weekend into the new digs, that Syd and I will be taking a road trip out to IL/STL this weekend. That means.... DAWN....... ALI...... ROB....... THE [#amazingandalsofree]STL ZOOOOOO.... can we say EXCITED??!

Countdown's on.


= dawne. = ali. = rob. = stl zoo.
'nuff said....

I just got back from Milford, it's super late, and I'm going to bed.
..........So there. (:

xo | cmd

REO Speedwagon | Styx | Ted Nugent

breakfast with ali...
i already miss her... always ♥ her!!!! 

I made it to Illinois in one piece yesterday, with some time to spare. I know this is no longer my home, but since I've only been back in Cincinnati for a week now, after two solid years of being gone, it really did feel like home when I drove in yesterday. Call me crazy, I know.

Anyway, first thing on the agenda today was breakfast at The Egg & I with Ali. She'd never been, I hadn't been in a while, we both wanted breakfast, and the wait wasn't that long at all. Sooooo, yeah. Everybody wins!

We followed breakfast with some light retail therapy, and spent that time catching up on all things of the last week: work, social lives, deep-seeded things, and of course, laughing. There was much laughing done in the first few hours of my day, and reminded me how grateful I should be [& am] to have a friend like her. Love you, Ali!

Oh, and speaking of Ali, she's got a blog, too. She updated it in the past day or so, to include a few others and myself, individually. I cried a little reading it. I'm blessed with incredible friends, even states away. :)

Back in Granite, Rob came back from work and we started out our weekend hang-out with a nap. You call that a waste of time spent together, we call it.... catching up right where we should be with Saturday tradition ;). Haha. Just kidding; we're not lazy, but it's been one heck of a week for both of us, and we wanted to be of the right energy for the evening.

yeahhhhhh buddy...

... And when that came around, Rob's mom & stepdad came by the house and we all piled into the truck for the short jaunt over to STL. It's concert season! This was my first of the season, originally a Valentines Day present from his mom & stepdad to us. It was a blast (:

As is usually the case, we'll go with pictures instead of me trying to tell you how much fun it was.....

beautiful day out! 

rob & his pretty madre!

we had... a blast (: (: 

[[ I've got the full set from the evening on fb... go find them there if you really want to :) .. ]]

...... and yes, this is lightly backdated. I was certainly in no condition to sit down and start blogging when we got back to the house. It was a great time, though, and deeeeefinitely worth the trip out. Thanks again to Rob's amazing parents for the tickets and for showing us a great time!

love. you.

First run of concerts for the season? Success (:

xo | cmd