More YouTube Fun

I didn't do much with myself today, and I'm not mad about it. I met up with Kalyn, Keifer, Tim, Kara, Cameron & their cousins for a couple of hours to play some volleyball over by Eastgate, but it soon proved to be way too hot for that, plus the courts at Veteran's Park are about as soft as a concrete wall. No diving today.

Needless to say, that didn't last long.

I did however, find the new installments of the Conversations with my 2 Year Old series. They're hilarious.




I can't help it. They're funny.. or at least I think so ;)

So yeah. My day consisted mostly of photo edits, which was just fine with me. I needed to get caught up. I cleaned the house, too, in preparation for Sydni to be here this week... which was supposed to start today, but we'll have to wait for tomorrow on that one. [Breathe in, breathe out.]

Anyway, the work week starts again tomorrow.
Here we go!

xo | cmd 

Saturday Swims | Brittany's Housewarming

Catie and I originally rough-sketched an afternoon of wedding dress shopping [for her, let me clarify], but that wasn't exactly how it happened.

Rob and I took a gracious liberty of sleeping in until mid-morning, because ... well, we could, before we finally started moving and I made breakfast. 


mmmm breakfast!

Much to my displeasure, but understandably, Rob had to head out today as opposed to tomorrow. He had a lot of stuff to take care of, so I knew it was best, but goodbyes with him always suck, and if it's all the same, I still dream about not having to do that one day. No rush, but maybe (:

So yeah.. we did the whole goodbye thing, which sucks... but I'll be headed that way in early August for Mike & Kelly's wedding, so it's not that bad. So Rob was on the road by 2pm, and I headed downtown to meet up with Catie, Andy and Adam for some time at the pool before the rainclouds started creeping in. Not a bad time!

pooooooooltime! ♥ this woman!

Once we were finished swimming, I stopped at home to clean myself up and head right back out to Brittany's housewarming party. She asked for bottles of wine instead of any other gifts, to help her fill up her racks in the basement. I thought that was an adorable idea, and it definitely didn't look like a bad time once we saw all the others start to pour in ;)

wine!

We were all so busy goofing off and having fun that we forgot to take too many pictures.. but somehow I ended up with one of Brittany and Mandy, and of course one of mama & me [aka Kalyn & me haha.. ]

mandy & the woman of the hour [aka brittany!]

best friend-o. ♥ ya, kalyn!

So good to see some familiar faces that I hadn't seen in a while [shoutout to Westy, Matty Fine, etc..]. I'm home now, and am dedicating the rest of my evening to movies, popcorn and photo edits. Don't you dare judge me and my lame-o Saturday night, haha ;)

xo | cmd  

'Twas a HAPPY Friday!

[backdated!]
My boyfriend is visiting from out of town.
He brought me Eli's BBQ at work today and hung out with me over lunch.
Have I mentioned I love this guy?!

eli's on the go. at work. this is winning at its finest. hahaha..

I finished the day at work, and headed home for the weeeeeekend! My staff and some of the other Express offices got together tonight to go to the Red's game; I wanted to go but I figured I should be a good hostess and spend time with Rob while he's here. So we headed out to Oakley to see Keith Stall's band King's Ransom play. I do not regret that decision. (:

oak tavern with my loves!

big brother nader!

he looks scared.. haha. [you should be... grrawr!]

& catie's friend bombing. perfect, all the way around ;)

ladd!

so easily my favorite picture from the entire evening. ♥♥♥.
this defines how i feel about him, in one picture.  

myself. irene. catie. this is a funny one:
we all used to work together at clearchannel.
now irene works with ladd.. & i work in the building irene's last employer vacated.
... & then we all hung out tonight (: small world.

he's mine, and i'm his. and together, we're just.... this. (:

one of my best friends in this city. no lie.

yeah, i drink bud heavy. don't judge ;)

We finally pulled ourselves together and headed out of Oakley and down into OTR. Our initial destination was Neon's or Japp's, but we made a stop at Rheinheist to find Andy, Adam & the rest of that crowd before we did so. Once we finally did get to Neon's, I found Beth!

heya, beth! [volleyball teammate & kp's bestie]

patio jenga. welcome to neon's.

a couple of my favorite guys. that one in the center, particularly ;)

he makes me happy.

So yeah... it definitely made more sense to share that in pictures. I love my friends, and I am so grateful for time we get to spend together. I'm really blessed, in so many ways. Rob has to leave sometime early tomorrow..... [sad face], but I'm not complaining at all about the time we spent together this week.

See ya in the morning!

xo | cmd

Keith Urban | Little Big Town | Dustin Lynch

It was a GOOD day for a concert! Well, maybe a little toasty outside, but a good day nonetheless!

I felt so bad for having the leave Rob at the house all day while I was working. At the end of it, I don't think he really minded though.. he seemed to have enjoyed the downtime, especially before we met up with the rest of the group for the concert at Riverbend.


light the fuse tour, stop 1: cincinnati!
little big town, dustin lynch, keith urban

Becky met up at my house around 6, and we loaded up to head down there. Kalyn & Co. met us at Riverbend, along with Brittany and her group.

Picture Time! :


beautiful sun. hot sun, but beautiful sun (:

my favorite goofy person. boyfriend. best friend. love him.

becky!!! so glad she was there.. can't even tell ya .. haha

my man ♥

cori. kalyn. kelsey. brittany | love these pretty gals!

.... don't act surprised.

well, i thought this was a random funny camo-spandex guy
until one of my other friends pointed him out.... apparently
his name is bobby. welp, thanks bobby! haha

blurry.. but yeah. love this guy.

keith. urban. yessss.

Fast forward to now... we dropped Becky off and headed to Frisch's because we were starving. We caught them just in time before their kitchens closed, scarfed down some food and took the rest home as leftovers. Now we're home, and ready to put a cap on the night.

 

Good. Stuff.

zZzzZz...

 

xo | cmd

So, Guess What...?

He's HERE!!!!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!

I can't even begin to tell ya'll how much I've anticipated this visit. Rob's been on vacation all of this week, and had taken the earlier part of it to road trip down to Florida/Louisiana with a friend of his. He made it back to Illinois Monday and took a day's break from driving before he headed this way today. He made it to the house just before we had to take off for our opening night of sand volleyball league.... but he.. is HERE.. and I am one happy little girl right now.


soooo amped!!

hellooooo, sand vb!

If you didn't believe me.. this was early proof of our overflowing excitement.. at like, 11am. (: To start the season off, our opponent didn't show... which is fine, considering it was Team Powell, and we already have one of those. Hah. We wound up on the neighboring court against another team whose opponent was a no-show, and by the time it was all said and done, we'd had ourselves a fun three rounds and then some. Beth swears up and down that we won the first game, but Kalyn and I thought for certain that we lost all three [they had that guy with a near jump serve who wasn't afraid to spike it... in our faces... haha]. Rob thought he won two of the three set, and Keifer wasn't counting. I'm still sold that we lost all three, but we decided we'd find them and ask next week just to be clear (:

To celebrate our first victory [in terms of playing together for our first time officially as a team], we thought we'd visit the brewery right across the street... which worked out fine until we heard the kitchen was closed. From there, we found ourselves at Allyn's down the road, which was just a good a time as any.


to each his [or her] own!

Gosh.. this is just the first night of what's going to be an incredible weekend, for sure.

I'm excited. Happy midweek, friends!

xo | cmd

Kat's Birthday | Volleyball Roundup

Dear Kat:

the day we decided we'd be college
roomies once you grad'd | 2004

Today would've been your 26th birthday. Instead, we were blessed enough to celebrate your 18th, but no more.. at least not with you here with us. I'm no longer mourning your absence-at least not like I was 7 years ago when it was our first time celebrating your birthday without you, but I still miss you and I rest in the fact that we'll all see you again soon. Oh, and I know, I know.. you would've told us not to cry or be sad for you, because you so rarely ever were and wouldn't want your friends to be. I love you, friend, and miss you. Happy birthday, to you up in Heaven, from us still down here (:

Love Always,

Corin

your hs graduation, 2005

your 18th birthday, and the last time i saw you..  | 7.16.05

So yeah, I miss you. Happy birthday, little K. I hope it's beautiful!! We will see you again one day... keep an eye open over us all until then, mmk? ♥

Kat Nguyen | We Miss You
16 July 1987 - 28 July 2005

Like I said, Kat definitely wouldn't have wanted anyone to be anything but happy on a day like today. So with that, I'll say that aside from wishing I could wish her a happy bday in person, all really is well. Sydni and I have spent a lot of time together being crafty this week, Rob will be here tomorrow, volleyball kicks off tomorrow night with Kalyn, Keif & Beth, Keith Urban is Thursday with Becky & co., Keith Stall's band plays Friday, and Brittany's housewarming party is Saturday. The rest of this week is gonna fly right on by.. I can feel it!

Oh, and I played volleyball tonight for the first time in nearly eight months. Kalyn, Kara, Keifer and I headed over to the Beech Acres Park by K&K's house to practice [league starts tomorrow.... so. excited!!]; both of the sand courts were already occupied, so we opted to passing some in the grass. It wasn't ten minutes before one of the guys from the courts invited us over, and we joined in with them to get the much-needed pre-conditioning for tomorrow. [Thanks, everyone!]

I pretty much can't wait for tomorrow.
Volleyball starts.
ROB WILL BE HERE.
The work week will be halfway over..
... & Rob will be here (:

Happy almost-midweek, friends!

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