!! THANKSGIVING !!

🍗 + 👪 + 🏈
{{IT'S HERE!!!}}

There is so much signified by this holiday, and for ALL of it I am wholly grateful.
The first thing on my agenda today: Bake a pie. Ya know, because food is like, 90% of why we all gather together at 2 in the afternoon on Thanksgiving as opposed to normal-people dinner times of like, 5 or 6....

>> 🍛 <<

And then, we loaded up the pups for the mini road trip to Mt. Vernon [Sydni's with dad this year for Thanksgiving.. she'll join in on the travelling extravaganza for Christmas!] to my parents' house.

💑 + 🐶🐶 ➡🚕➡ 🏠

Once we were there, it was only a few short hours before we all loaded up again for the short trip out to my cousins' house in Fredericktown, where the real festivities for the day would be taking place. We probably would've opted for a later dinner, but since my cousin's wife is in retail, and the world has disappointingly digressed to a place where we just... must... shop ON Thanksgiving, she had to leave earlier than originally planned.. to go to work.

Let me just take one second to say, on behalf of my family & every other family who has been interrupted by this STUPID new phenomenom of "pre-Black Friday" shopping:

 

{{NO. YOU REALLY SHOULD BE ASHAMED if SHOPPING on THANKSGIVING is a higher priority to you than spending time with your family. SURE, I get it: some of us don't have the opportunity to be with our families today, or even more unfortunately don't have families we want to be around, but really? We're diluted, admit it.
I REFUSE to shop on THANKSGIVING... because MY PRIORITIES are PEOPLE, not THINGS. }} //end rant

 

Aaaaanyway, we made the best of the day and wasted very little time digging into the meal collaboratively constructed by my family. It of course, wouldn't have been complete without a little company. Mine happened to be my cousins' 15-year old parrot, Joey. He, like a typical teenage boy, seemed fascinated with the simple fact that I was a female, and refused to perch on anyone else's shoulder for a few hours. Oh, teenagers... ;)  

🐦 💘

😏🐥

It was so nice to spend the evening with my cousins; the "younger" ones, both now in their twenties, are 6 feet tall with beards. With my birthday being tomorrow, I feel exponentially older combining that with the fact that I remember them both when they were babies. Good grief. I love my family (:

Oh, and I almost forgot... [sorry!!] our family's annual, sometimes grueling tradition of watching THIS... literally every..... year on Thanksgiving. I somehow skipped last year, so by default I was way overdue.

🎄 griswalds! 🎄

That's a wrap here, blogbots.
Happy Thanksgiving, to you and yours!

xo | cmd

Mav's Birthday | New Haircut | Pups in OTR!

So.. first,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMY!!! 

happy birthday, mav!! [even though you're not really mav anymore.. still!]

As a way to ease into a flashback Friday, here's some fond memories I had handy of Amy [& girl we're both LUCKY I couldn't get into the hard-copy collection haha]

Just a few, to celebrate this awesome girl!

one of my favorites.. mvhs circa 2003, senior year!
me. allison. amy. jena [r.i.p]

of course.. some high school dances.. whhhoa... haha

keepin' it classy for britt's bachelorette party (:

columbus runs with hilary & kylie

arley's wedding reception!

amy's wedding!!
dani. steph. amy. britt. shanda. me. nikki. arley

So... HAPPY BIIIIIIRTHDAY, MAV!!!


hope it's the best one, yet!

Oh....
... aaaaaaaaaand...
I finally cut my hair last night. I meant to mention it yesterday, but honestly I just forgot. So yeah..

before .. right before .. and after! 8" gone..

^ I think I'm still going to venture a little shorter, but I'll be consulting a professional when that time comes.. and really I'm okay taking it a little slow, too. (:

To round off the night, I ventured out with Nader & Keith into our usual stomping ground of OTR; I'm glad we did - It must've been dog night down there!

late night dogs of otr! (:

I have more pictures of the dogs than I do of my friends, but we did manage to take one or two.. haha. But hey, it's never too late to celebrate a way-belated birthday for Keith, either [which, btw, happy wayyy-belated!].

we wish we were hipsters... haha... :|
w/ keith & nader | otr, cincinnati, oh

It was one of those nights, that warranted a post-festivities stop off at Shanghai Mama's before heading home.. really though, it wasn't bad at all.

To say I'm spent is an understatement.
To say this is backdated isn't... (:

xo | cmd

IIIIIIIIT'S PARTY TIME!!

So just as I'd imagined, today was a blur. It started off with us loading up the gear for the next couple of days and me driving us up to Mt. Vernon. Rob made the off-hand comment that it was the first road trip we've taken together on which I did not need the GPS.  Ihad to laugh at that, but he's not wrong. First time for everything I guess? Hah.

We made it to good old MTV without much fuss at all. I have to stop & stress for a second just how significant today was, for many reasons. Most of my family came in for the weekend, from all over, as far out as Pennsylvania. Aunt Toni & Uncle Norman, Aunt Cindy & Uncle Gary, my cousins Steph, Mark & Tyler, my cousin Maricor & her girls Sophie & Madison, my nephew Jonathan, his sister Cynthia, her husband Brian and their girls Emmie & Hanny, and of course my parents and sister.  That's 14 adults and 4 children.. my family.. that Rob has never met...

...until today.
I felt so bad for him; he had every right to feel nervous walking into it all, even though he had no reason to. I know I would've been just as anxious if it were my first time meeting his family... in its entirety. However, just as I'd expected, my parents love him. As far as I can tell,  he's won the rest of them over, too. I know it took a lot for him to do this for me, but I wouldn't have brought him into it if I wasn't certain they'd like him. Big steps for us today, and I couldn't have been happier.

Back on track, it didn't take long at all to get started in on the birthday party preparations.  I made cake fondant for the first time ever today, and realized that.. well... I am not a baker. Haha. It wasn't awful but I definitely have some tweaks I'm mind for the next time I try this.

Fast forward to the bulk of today.. the party!!

Pictures, as usual [stay tuned for the rest of the collection!] (:

balloons

top: rob & brian [&their helper, miss sophie]
bottom: my uncle gary & my cousin mark

cousins! [madison. sydni. sophie]

cake & favors

nana & pappy ♥

candids!

my birthday girl!



the beautiful girls (:
madison. emmie. sydni

my one & only. i am heart over heeeeels for this guy.

pin the tail on rainbow dash [made by me!]

with my pretty niece cynthia 

"mr. rob, you be the birthday hat monster
& i'll be this pink pony" - sydni

in love over and over again with her...
happy birthday, my little [growing-way-too-fast] girl!!!

Today = Ahhhmazing.

Tomorrow is Syd's actual birthday. It's hard to wrap my head around it all but I'm working on it. (: What an incredible little girl I've got, and the perfect little weekend we've got going! ♡

Seeee ya tomorrow!

xo | cmd

HOME!

I'M HOME! 

mtv, ohio!

Welcome to good old Mount Vernon, Ohio (: This is the first and only place that's ever really been home to me, and now that I only live a couple hours away, it's again becoming a more frequent check-in for weekend plans. Sydni and I loaded up this morning and headed off to Nana & Pappy's for a day celebrating Dad's birthday. 

best. roadtrip buddy. ever!

We pulled up to the house, and almost immediately, I felt the stress of a long week and the disappointment of Rob not being able to join us slightly subside. This house will never disappoint me. There's a Miranda Lambert song [House That Built Me] that is beyond appropriate and applicable when it comes to me and this house.. 


home.

"Up those stairs, in that little back bedroom.. is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar... And I bet you didn't know, that under that live oak, my favorite dog is buried in the yard" - Miranda Lambert, 'House That Built Me'

*Sigh. Being home, in this house, is one of the most relaxing things I think I'll ever know in this world. This is the house my parents built, from the ground up. I grew up in this house, and for every line of that Miranda song, I truly do believe this house built me more than I ever built anything around this house. 

i can never get enough of this place! back deck sittin'.... (:

Sydni and I took a nice mid-morning/early afternoon nap before the family started showing up; we spent the afternoon together catching up, playing games and of course celebrating Dad's birthday weekend. To say I love my family is an understatement. 

the little girls - best friends!

seeester ♥

[dutch] sister. [italian] mom. [filipina] me. #ADOPTEDKIDS! haha 

badminton is bloodsport in my family :/ ha

favorite of the night.. all of us!

dad & his favorite birthday present:
hangtime with sydni!♥♥

So uhhh, yeah! We were also supposed to make an appearance at the Dan Emmett festival downtown Mt.V tonight, but we hadn't anticipated the family staying as late as they did. It worked out just as well, because if I'm being honest, I have very little interest in seeing the Osmonds. Sorry. I'm sure it would've been fun with the family and such, but I'll take my family over that any night.

Tomorrow is more of this, before I head home again.
*Yawn..

xo | cmd

And I am HOME for Christmas (:

I MADE IT!!!!!

this is my vacation. home at the one & only dren lodge for the weekend.
i'm in country heaven. parents' house = ♥

I can't even tell you how much I've missed this place. Welcome to the Dren Lodge, otherwise known as my parents' house in Mt. Vernon, also the house in which I grew up. My heart will always be dedicated to this place; Mom & Dad built it themselves when we first moved to Ohio and they're still there. [Cue Miranda Lambert song...]

So I almost lost hope in making it home for the weekend. I had every intention of leaving yesterday to start on my trek back to Ohio, but after creeping through traffic at a neutral ONE mph from my office to my house, I quickly put a nix on that. Never has it ever taken me an hour and 45 minutes to get home from work, and with the traffic moving at the pace of sap, I had lost all patience in the thought of attempting to wait that out.

That meant falling on a backup plan of going to bed early and getting up by 3am to hit the road early with hopes of being home by 1pm EST. I was gonna make it here one way or another, daggonit.

Sooooo.. I met up with Rob, Mike & Kelly for dinner, before calling it an early night. Setting the alarm for 2am was painful in and of itself, but actually getting up when it went off was another story. At least I made it to the gas station for coffee and out on the road without too much fuss... and that was that.

Fast forward five hours to Cincinnati, when I stopped in at Joe's to grab Sydni, and then another 2.5 and I fiiiinally made it!!!

Just in time, too... My cousins rolled in the driveway shortly after we did, and we proceeded to spend the evening with them. As a note, the younger of the two turns 21 in a few days... and that ... makes me feel pretty freakin' ancient. Thanks a lot, Markie. Hahaha.

Here's how that went: 



top: christmas 2007 | bottom: christmas 2012
look at those boys! lol... love them (:

cousins + mom & dad + syd!

I love my family. This was night one of two that I'll have with different parts of my family, and I can't wait. (:

Speaking of being home, I just got back from the new BDubbs in Mt. Vernon [that's another story: I come from a small town and they are just now getting one of these... you would've thought we adopted the Statue of Liberty for as much fuss as they've made over it.. haha]. I got a message from Dusty earlier asking if I was available for a few minutes to catch up, and we opted for Bdubbs.

I was instantly reminded of what it means to be raised in a small town, leave, and then come back. Basically, every fifth person, on average, is someone you know, had a class with, lived by, dated, or avoided at one point growing up. Haha.  

hey, dusty! (:
neighbors since first grade, still an awesome friend!

krystal!
friends since elementary school... and yeah we've been through it ;)
top L-R: 2003. 2007 | bottom L-R: 2009. 2012!

Of the handful of people with whom I coincidentally reunited tonight, I was definitely pleased to run into one specifically - Krystal! We've known each other since fifth grade and I still love her to pieces. I shouldn't be surprised. Familiar faces have a way of aligning themselves at the same time in the same place when that place is so condensed :)

That being said, it's an early day tomorrow... time to get munchkin to bed.

I'm out (:

xo | cmd

Celebrate Family!

my sister!

I get that this holiday weekend was built on the foundation of the holiday itself: Memorial Day.
I am in no way, shape or form trying to detract at all from the gravity of what tomorrow represents.
I am saying that because of the extended weekend, we are here, visiting family, and for that I am celebrating. I love my family, and I was given a quick reminder today that they are just as incredible as they've always been, and that it's only getting better.

For example:  My daughter alone is growing like an outta control weed - she's developing into her own faster than I can follow, and I love it. My husband has since left the Air Force and re-joined the world of auto glass. My sister's family is blooming into this band of musically and artistically talented souls who continue to impress me every time we're together. My great niece Emmie will turn four this year. My parents are remodeling their kitchen. My cousins' kids [my 2nd cousins] are in their mid-20's now. Where is time going???? Holy smokes.

emmie & sydni ... strategy meeting. haha

Anyway, these types of holidays are typically fail-proof in bringing all of us together in one spot at the same time. I say that we're all scattered; that's halfway true. I think I say it more-so just because we are now the ones living remotely. The bulk of my family is located within a 20-30 mile radius of each other. With the exception of us, and my cousins in PA, the majority of the family is back in Ohio. I said all that to say that while the drive can be a little tedious, it is totally worth it to have even just one weekend with my family.

mom outdoing herself yet again!

syd & lola

It didn't take us long at all to get right into the swing of things; Cynthia & Brian brought not just Emmie, but their little puppy Lola, too. It was about 10 whole minutes before Sydni had assessed the little fuzzball as a non-threatening situation, and for the rest of the evening made herself Lola's personal babysitter. Since they were just about the same size - we'll say proportionally-balanced - it was pretty funny watching her tote Lola around all afternoon, everywhere she went. The dinner table, water balloon fight, and campfire were no exceptions. I think she wants one. Hmm. Not gonna happen, not just yet.

water balloon prep..... the dry phase..

Oh, and we had a full blown water fight that stemmed from my mom's idea for an innocent water balloon toss. We warned her that this would spiral out of control; she didn't believe us, but I think she realized it when the water balloons started flying, then the buckets came out, then the hose itself, along with some squirt guns intended originally for just the kids. Needless to say, by the end of it, we were all soaked to the core. That's right, I love my family. :)

kiddies all dried off :)

After we'd swapped all of our sopping wet gear for dry clothes, wiped off all of our runny makeup and tied up stringy hair, we made haste with it to get the fire pit started up for some s'mores & such.. because really what is a family shindig without gooey, chocolatey marshmallow sandwiches?? Duh. :p

marshmallows. this is a science around here....

fire! 

roasting with mini :) 

It's been an incredible weekend. I love my family, and I appreciate so much having the time to come and spend with them. We head back tomorrow to IL; it's gonna be another couple of months before we're back up this way; that makes it all the more perfect to have this time when we can.

I.
AM.
SPENT. 

Time to get some sleep and put my drivin' eyes in. See ya tomorrow. 

xo | cmd