Adventures in Valentine's Day 2015

Our lives are so crazy that weekends without events, activities, house work and other stuff to occupy our days are very seldom. So I love it when Husband and I can spend good time together, without stuff to do and places to be! This weekend, he decided to make a whole day of plans without telling me where we were going, or what we were doing. I hate surprises but secretly love them! He loves holding the secrets over me too. ;)

So he planned the whole day, starting with a great Valentine's Day card (the first of a few during the day). Apparently there were a bunch of these on a Buzzfeed article and he printed just a few of them... I won't show you the rest because this is a family blog!

Our first stop after Starbucks was the Botanical Garden, even though it was crazy cold and snowing just a bit. We got our tickets and took our time in the Orchid Show... what a way to get my floral quota in for this holiday!

Lots of people were there for the Orchid Show, so after a trip around the garden, we went onto our next stop. Urban Chestnut Brewing Company is just down the street and we were the first ones there when they opened at 11 am. Pretzels, oysters plus fries with dipping sauces and of course, beer! I asked for a syrup in my sour beer and didn't even realize it made my drink more festive! The bartender even wanted to take a picture for their marketing purposes for later. Hah!

Our next stop was the Art Museum for a wander around the permanent collection, then a special exhibit of American prints. Husband knows the museum really well and likes to see anything new that they bring in.

Husband was telling me all day that we had multiple stops, with one absolute time that we had to make. It was 3:30 pm and for the whole day, I couldn't quite figure out what we were doing!

The St. Louis Science Center has the Planetarium across the highway and I haven't been in years. That was our next stop, with a showing of Live Sky Tonight - an interactive show that tells you what stars will be in the sky tonight and how to pick out the different stars and constellations.

While they do have some chairs in the Planetarium, they have most of the space cleared out so you can grab a mat and lay down to see the stars all above you. So much fun!

It was the best time to snuggle up and really enjoy his new cologne - Calvin Klein's Reveal*. They say that it's got notes of crystallized ginger with vintage vanilla bean and golden amber. I never quite get all the notes that they say, but this one definitely was yummy when Husband wore it for our day out. We got to try it out and I thought Valentine's Day was the perfect time! The free sample we got came just in time.

After the Science Center, it was time for dinner. We've been meaning to try Peacemaker in Benton Park for MONTHS, ever since we saw that it had opened.

Never seems like we had the time, or the money. But when we finally got the chance to sit at the bar and enjoy our hurricane slushie (me) and scazerac (him) while waiting for our yummy lobster rolls, it was worth it.

While not quite as amazing as the lobster rolls we got to try in Boston, the hush puppies and the rolls were pretty darn good for St. Louis. Even if we did have to contend with all the crazies leaving Mardi Gras.
 

The final stop of the day was Ted Drewes - they always open around Valentine's Day. While we don't live near the shop anymore, we don't get frozen custard as often as we did a few years ago which is a bummer. So any opportunity, snowing or freezing temperatures or no, we have to take it! Husband got his standard chocolate shake and I got the special chocolate covered cherry special. Such a perfect way to end my day with my amazing husband, heart-shaped marshmallow whip cream and all.

How did you spend your Valentine's Day? 

*Disclosure: I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.

Adventures in Concert-Going

I absolutely love a capella music. Back in college at SLU, I worked with the a capella group on campus as a Street Team member. I even designed lights for one of their concerts and stage managed that concert. I think I adore music without musical accompaniment because it is the farthest thing from what I can do. I cannot even carry a tune in a bucket. I do sing in church, but that’s only because God said make a joyful noise, not only to sing when we’re good at it. I enjoy singing but as my friends and family would tell you, it’s awful.

So of course when the Sing Off came on TV, I watched every single episode. I loved it. And when Pentatonix was in the third season, I fell in love. They’re from Arlington, TX, which is near where I went to high school for two years, so they felt like hometown kids to me. And there were simply incredible. The link above is their YouTube channel – if you don’t know who they are, you must watch some of their videos. The musical talent is stunning. My favorite video is their Evolution of Music.

Flash forward to when I had tickets to their concert at a small venue here in St. Louis. Something came up and we had to go out of town for the weekend and couldn’t attend the concert. The next time they were in town, same thing. So when they announced their concert at the Peabody Opera House for a date in March when I was available, I HAD TO GET TICKETS.

I put the time the tickets would go on sale (early for AmEx holders) and set an appointment with myself. I was even late to a meeting because the purchase wasn’t going through!

That is how I ended up in Orchestra Center, row R with one of my favorite ladies, M.

Selfie before the concert started!

The Peabody Opera House is simply stunning.

 

The 90 minute concert was so wonderful, so many fun songs.

 

And the lights just set a gorgeous backdrop for a capella singing.

 

Just these five singers, and no back up. It was amazing.

Time flies when you’re having fun!

So the past few months have been fun. Here’s what’s been going on, thank you Project Life for my daily photo…

 

February…

I had dinner with the most amazing St. Louis bloggers at the beginning of February. There’s quite a few who are expecting and one who has since delivered since this picture! Yay for babies!

I’m in love with my Jamberry Nails. It takes a few times of putting them on to really get it figured out but I’m getting there! It’s cheaper than a manicure and I can do it while watching the Bachelor. All around a good time.

  

Meet Minnie the Mazda. She came home with us in January and by mid-February already had 500 miles. I put way too many miles on cars way too fast.

Dates with my husband are the best. Dates at the beautiful Powell Hall are even better.

It’s sad times when I drop one of the most expensive toys I own.

 

March…

My mama had a big birthday. She came to celebrate here in St. Louis. I took off three days in a row to play and had a blast.

Verdi’s Requiem at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra was wonderful.

 

The snow is (almost) gone and it’s pretty enough to open up the sunroof in Minnie! YAY for sunshine!

Three times at the gym in the past week is some kind of record. I’m starting to actually like working out, but my inner thighs may protest too much. But I’m having fun lifting weights with Husband and attending Zumba class.

 

******

 

What have you been up to the past two months?

A Crazy Fortnight

Today begins a bit of a crazy fortnight.

Tomorrow is the internment of Husband's grandpa and grandma who passed 7 years ago and 3 years ago respectively. They were cremated and never interned. My MIL secured a site for them at Jefferson Barracks in South County, as Peepaw served in the military for many years. The Husband's cousins are coming in for Thanksgiving and it was a good time to have the ceremony when most everyone is here.

We have a luncheon scheduled afterwards so we can spend some time with his extended family since we won't be here for the holiday.

Because after the luncheon, we head to the airport for a flight to DFW! I am so excited to see my family for Thanksgiving even if we may end up eating out instead of cooking a big fancy dinner. I still want to stuff my face with desserts when I get the opportunity.

Not sure about the Black Friday shopping - lounging on the couch in my PJs with a hot cider and shopping via my iPad sounds like it might be more my speed this year for some reason. {Side note: who AM I that I'm not psyched for shopping?! I am getting old.}

We come back home on Sunday evening and spend three days doing laundry, cleaning my house, setting up Christmas decorations (I hope) and then head to Walt Disney World on Thursday morning!

Yup, it's another trip to the House of the Mouse with only me and Husband. We're staying in one of our favorite resorts, Port Orleans French Quarter and have tickets for the Christmas party and the Candlelight Processional, neither of which we've done before. It's five days and four nights of a vacation that we've been looking forward to since April - he passed the bar and we decided this would be our celebration.

So for those keeping score, that's December 10 when we are finally back in town and ready for Christmas. We are hosting our first holiday in the house - with my mom and brother and his family - and there's some major decorating, tree buying and setting up, plus menu planning and executing to do.

How's your next fortnight shaping up?

Adventures in House Tours, part one

Welcome to our new home!

Since we closed on our first house back in July, we've been slowly getting the place in order. Unpacking boxes, moving furniture around, hanging pictures and slowly removing every single decorative flower in the house. The woman who owned the house before us had a thing for pink tulips and they manifest themselves everywhere - in the sidelights next to the pink front door, wallpaper and its borders in multiple rooms, window dressings, shower curtains and even toilet seat covers. It's quite impressive, actually. I have a whole collection of soft goods in the basement if you're interested!

I promised a house tour and I finally had part of the house clean enough to take pictures last weekend.

I can see lots of fun decorations on our front door in the coming seasons! However, that mauve pink on the door and the shutters will be going away next spring, I hope. Now, to choose a color!

When you walk in, the dining room is on the right hand side. The painting of Paris has been with us since our rental house a few years ago and we love it. It makes us want to go back every time we see it!

The dining room has a cut through into the kitchen. The wall with the painting on the right has the garage on the other side of it.

The dining room table and chairs, with the cabinet, came from my in-laws. That has been their dining room set for years and now its ours! Lots of memories with this furniture. The china in the hutch is also from my in-laws - so excited to have service for 12 now! I loved the Noritake pattern we chose for our wedding but we only have service for 5 in that one, and not nearly all the pieces. I hope that we can grow that pattern over the next few years because it would be great to have two! The blue china from our wedding would be amazing for Christmas, with blues and silver.

So when you walk in with the dining room on the right, this is the stairs to the second floor and the hallway to the back of the house, with the sitting room, powder bath and master suite.

If you turn left instead of right, that's our living room.

Complete with our family shrine - I am pretty sure that between the pictures displayed on the cabinet on the left and the table on the right, we might have everyone represented.

This is a good look from the corner of the living room across the whole front of the house. We love the double windows in both rooms and the great light it gets. We installed black out blinds in the living room so we can close 'em up and get it nice and dark for movies on the couch. It's the best.

One thing the old homeowner left behind (besides the window treatments and pink tulips everywhere) was this picture. It's an ink drawing of the house when it was about 10 years old. We absolutely love it! It's hanging in the main hallway and I think we'll leave it there until it's time for us to sell the place. Then, it will be there for the next owner. It's a really nice touch.

At the end of the main hallway, we have a small cabinet and more pictures. There's a castle cutout with the quote "To all who come to this happy place, WELCOME!" My in-laws presented me with this at our housewarming. I definitely cried.

Around the corner from the cabinet above, and in the back of the house is our yellow sitting room. I'm in love with our white fireplace that was like that when we moved in! We left the window treatments and decorated around them.

This is where our books live and the chairs from Weekends Only makes it a perfect nook for hanging out. It also opens into our kitchen which is exactly what we wanted.

Not quite as much counter space or cabinets as we would have hoped for but with those stainless steel appliances that were bought for the house before we put our offer in, how can I complain?!

The kitchen also has an eat-in kitchen. Love!

The door to the left is a double French door that leads out to the back patio.

We haven't done a lot to the outside, other than our small patio furniture and Hubs' new grill, but we will.

We've noticed that there are a ton of leaves that gather due to that big tree in the middle. It was so beautiful when the leaves turned but they fell so fast I couldn't get pictures. There's always next year!

There is plenty of space back here for expanding the patio or installing some kind of garden. We are really excited about the space!

The bedrooms and bathrooms are next!

Adventures in New iDevices

It's been a week without my iDevices and I'm going through withdrawal.

I mean, it's only a phone, right? It's only an iPad? What's the big deal?

It's a major #firstworldproblem and then some, I understand. But every time I come back to my desk and reach for my <fill in the blank iDevice> I am reminded all over again that someone came into my space and took something that wasn't theirs.

I spent the week updating the new phone, changing passwords, answering questions from the police and providing them with serial numbers, and borrowing my husband's iPad so I can watch Drop Dead Diva on Netflix from the comfort of my own bed.

Even with the office's new security policy and the increased awareness, it's still like someone broke into my home. And now I'm back at the desk every day and wonder who in the world could have stolen from me.

The police have used the word "victim" a few times when referring to me and my co-worker. I realize that that word technically does describe me now - a victim of petty theft. But it just seems that they're talking about someone else when they use that word. It almost makes me cringe. I never really thought of myself as a victim and I don't want to be.

Whatever they call, whether they find the stolen property or not, we're moving on. Nothing to be done - no Find My Phone feature to be activated - so we are pressing forward. We're working on the house, I'm running my events and getting excited about the fall and all the holidays. Life does go on, with or without iDevices.

Adventures in Stolen iDevices

With such a great weekend with my cousin and his wife in town, I was feeling pretty good on a Monday morning. I started the day with a good physical therapy session for my strained sacroilic (SI) pain that I've been experiencing in my lower back for the past few months and even was able to get coffee on the way into the office. Meetings went well, and then lunch at Pappy's Smokehouse with my cousin on their way out of town. All in all, good stuff.

I was back in the office for an event debriefing and was feeling pretty good about the productivity level of the day. Had even texted with the husband and confirmed some fun house shopping items for the evening - namely, a programmable thermostat and light switch plates! Awesome stuff, really.

When I got back to my desk, I noticed that my iPhone 3 in its pink silicone case was missing. It wasn't plugged into the headphones that were still lying on the desk where I had dropped them an hour before, pausing my music and headed into my 2 pm meeting.

I thought that was strange and started looking around. It was then that I noticed my iPhone 5 in its green and white polka dot case wasn't on the stand where I had left it. So I called it from my office phone but it rang and rang and went to voicemail, without me hearing the familiar "In the big, blue world!" from Finding Nemo the Musical at Disney World.

Huh. Maybe I left it in my cousin's car? I found his number via Google contacts and gave him a call from the landline. He and his wife looked throughout the car and it wasn't there. I called the smokehouse and no one had a lost phone there either.

I started to panic a bit. I opened every drawer around and enlisted my intern for help. Was it in the board room where I just was? The coffee closet? My car? The downstairs bathroom for some reason? Did anyone turn it into the front desk? No, no, no, no, no.

It was when I was describing to a co-worker what to look for when I realized my iPad in its purple stand up case wasn't on the carnival tickets I had purchased for this weekend's event and dropped on my desk this morning.

Three iDevices were sitting on my desk and all three were GONE. I called my phone number again and now it went straight to voicemail. Someone had taken it and turned it off, tired of the ringing.

Losing your phone is awful. Having it stolen truly is a violation. I feel like my arm has been cut off. I've lost about 500 photos since the last time I backed up and I've been working all afternoon to change every password I can think of.

We suspended the number and went to the AT&T store this evening to get a replacement. The store manager was able to approve a new phone for me, even thought I have a year left from being eligible for an upgrade. I had to sign up for the Next program, but even thought it's more per month, I can get a new phone in 12 months and go back to the 2 year contract if we want. But I have *MY* phone number. That's what I was most worried about. I've had this number for over 10 years and so many friends, family and event planning vendors have that number! When the customer service lady on the phone said I couldn't get it back without the physical phone, I freaked. Thank goodness for the store rep who set me straight and got everything set up.

Now I have to go back it up and reinstall things... so how's your Monday going?

Snowpocalypse

Today,  the office closed down at noon. Except I left around 10:30 am. In the half hour it took me to drive home, another email went out to the staff saying that they were moving up the closing to 11 am since the roads were getting so bad.

So here I am, having a glass of wine for lunch and now officially out of wine, organized my tax documents and done some things for this new blog, waiting for a conference call this afternoon.

In my line of work, we don’t usually get snow days, so this is really exciting!

But honestly? By 2 pm? I was already getting a bit of cabin fever.

And craving French Toast.

What a weird world we live in.