merry birthday

I have an awesome family and set of friends!

My birthday came and we celebrated and it was so fun.  To start off a fun weekend, my new beautiful little niece joined our family on March 8 (day before me!) and she is a bundle of sweetness.  My birthday was filled with breakfast and spending the day with my favorite guy, going to eat dinner with great friends (and my little bro who was in town from sunny LA), a grizz game with a win (and getting to sit on the floor for a quarter), and lots a fun family time and memories thinking about my last year.  It was full of blessings and growth.

 

(my little snotty face Jules is a little cutie big sis!)

I'm so thankful for this life.  Our little family is so blessed and my heart is so full every day.  I can't wait to see what this next year has in store for me!

they're back!

It's September 2012 and it's been 2 years since some of our best friends left America to live in Italy.  At the time it seemed like so far away that they would be back, and I feel like it's gone by so quickly and here they are, back in the states!  Welcome back Stephens!!

We can't wait to see them and I know they will continue to long for loving people and living for other people as they have done for the past 2 years.

Laura sent over this cute desktop for the month of September.  Fall is coming soon (I hope) and maybe I'll start sharing more life stories here.. life is happening and I continue to try to live in the present.

Go over here to find the September desktop calendar!

july comin' at ya

We had a fun & splendid weekend celebrating our family's 2nd christmas-like holiday of the year--4th of July!  The Long Leaf/Pidgeon Estates parade was a success and our annual kickball/fireworks show was super fun over at Tarbet Cove.  Team Watermelons won the kickball match and I'm so glad my brother was able to come this year to join in on the fun.  He had a good time laughing at all those cute kids and their funny shenanigans.

My man made some awesome baked beans all by himself and he did a superb job.  They were SO very delicious!  See how well he did (pre-oven)?!

So, I'm about to be an aunt pretty soon and I can't wait!  Little Juliette is closer to arrival and we are all patiently (and eagerly) awaiting to see her precious face.  I helped my sis clean up the nursery and put away all her tiny little clothes.  Some people sure make some hilarious baby clothes, and I think this is silly and she will never wear it (although what it says is a true statement).  I'll just show her the picture and we can laugh at it together. :)

I've also helped my sister with some burp cloths for little Juliette, and they have turned out super cute.  She found the tutorial via Sabbespot.  This is my favorite one we've done so far...

It's funny most of the photos taken lately have me in them because Leslie doesn't want any photos taken of her.... normally I don't post only solo shots. Oops.

And I hope you all have been waiting for this because the July desktop is special.  My bff Laura who lives in Italy right now has taught herself to paint and she does some awesome things.  She painted this and I wanted to use it here.  I think it's so cheery and love it!  Thanks Laura!  You can read about her adventures here.

Things within blogger have changed for some reason so I no longer post separate links.  I think if you just click on the picture you should then be able to right click and save as desktop image.  Hope it works for everyone!  Stay cool in this hot summer weather!

italia: firenze

Bear with me... this will be a long post because we spent the bulk of our italian days in firenze, and boy was it amazing.

As you saw in the arrival photo on the previous post, Laura and I were super stoked to see each other, and the boys, I guess they were excited, too. :)  We got to experience their daily bus ride to their cute little apartment, and she fixed us some delicious pasta (her famous pancetta & panna pasta) when we arrived.  We caught up for hours and just enjoyed being back with our buddies.  Oh, and we played this monopoly card game that is lots of fun, and I'm not sure if Dudley and I ever won the whole 5 days we were there?

On Wednesday of the trip, Laura planned for us to do a bike tour with Tuscany Bike Tours.  She had seen an ad about it and thought it looked like fun, so she reserved four spots on their Wednesday tour.  Best. Decision. She. Ever. Made!!!  It was by far the best day we had in Italy, and it was even more fun that neither of them had done it either.  So you go into the city to meet at their office, then they drive you out to a castle in Poppiano -- Castello di Poppiano.  They make wine and olive oil, so right when you arrive, you are taken on a tour of the winery, and they also show you how the olive oil is made.  It is the most beautiful, green olive oil you've ever seen.  So you get to tour all around the castle, and go to the top and see the most beautiful view of tuscany you'll ever experience.

After the tour is over, you of course get to sample their amazing wine and olive oil.  We definitely came home with both.  You then load up on bikes (every bike has a name), and bike 13 miles through tuscany stopping for lunch at a cute little ristorante.  There are stops along the way to take some photos, and there was this RIDICULOUS hill that you can opt out of doing.  T was the smart one and opted out in the beginning, but Laura, Ryan and I had to at least give it a shot.  Laura and I backed out after oh 100 yards of it, and Ryan did the WHOLE thing.  He's a beast.  There was no room in the van to ride up the hill, so at least we walked it, right?

We ended back at the castle, and then rode back into the city on the van.  The four of us asked to be dropped off at the Piazzale Michelangelo to show Dudley the best view of the city.  We snapped the typical photos, and Laura and I explored the Iris garden, which was beautiful!

It was time to make our way back into the city for our dinner at Sostanza.  Best. Chicken. I've. Ever. Had.   Period.  It was a jam packed first day, but the rest of the time we'd get to leisurely follow them around and explore.

The rest of our days in Firenze were spent enjoying the following things:
San Lorenzo Market shopping
Academia
Zaza's for dinner
Fiesole
Cooking School
Laughing
Auto-stitching everything
Artisan man
Santo Spirito
Alessandro
Duomo -- Dudley and Ryan climbed to the top of the bell tower
Gelato
Church
Espresso
Wine
Monopoly
Pizza Man
Bus rides
More gelato
Seeing Dudley's hair twin
.. and more things I'm sure. :)

Now you can enjoy our days in Firenze by photos... Starting with our Tuscany Bike Tour.

 courtyard of the castle

wine

 view from the top

 clint eastwood & james bond

 minnie mouse & batman

 that's castello di poppiano

 besties in elmos

 such a beautiful scene (the whole day looked like this)

 cute little lunch spot

 the leaders - loved dudley and his hair.  they are naming one of their vespas after him.

 bikes - hence the names above

here's a very short clip Ryan got as we biked down the hill at the very end:

 the end.

 perfect day.

 iris garden was beautiful, and she didn't think I was serious when I said, "smile!"

Is that a mirror behind us?  No, it's dudley's italian hair twin.  he walked on the bus and we all looked at him, and then looked at dudley, and he said, "that guy has hair like mine!" hahahahah. we laughed the rest of the bus ride.

 zaza's 

 this is the kind of thing the artisan man makes

santo spirito

 oops!

 that's the view of florence from fiesole -- loved it there!

 duomo

 helping out at their american cooking school for their italian students

 

laura and I went to see this band and had fun! yes, that's ace of base they're playing... :)

 dudley climbed up 400 something stairs to see this view...

 it tasted as good as it looks, i promise.

 crossword puzzles on ryan's gadget

several attempts to get this shot.... best trip ever, tdud!

 nightly monopoly game and tdud's new style

we got to attend their church Sunday morning, and I'm so glad.  the sermon was wonderful and was actually in english translated into italian!  I loved getting to meet some of their church family.

We went back to Rome to fly out the next day, and enjoyed just the two of us wandering through Roman streets at night finding a yummy restaurant and gelato.  No such luck on the gelato, but just enjoyed walking around aimlessly on our last night.

It truly was a trip of a lifetime, and I'm so glad we got to enjoy some time off together in a beautiful country.  Oh, and an added bonus of seeing some of our best friends in their interim home.  Here so ends the story of our italian adventures.  Thanks for hanging in through the end (for those who did)!

Ciao!

summa time ...

June is here and it's already hot hot hot!  We enjoyed a nice kick-off to the summer for our annual Memorial Day weekend with the Lotts.  Pool-time was thoroughly enjoyed in their awesome pool, and we might have even done some photo shoots?  T and I love this tradition because we know for sure we will see them every year (and hope it's not the only time)!  Love you two!

I spy 2 cutie dogs in this one... and maybe even the gib twice?

They both loved the auto-stitch and we might have done this for hours....

Margie and I also picked some blueberries on Saturday morning, which was a blast.  We came back with lots of good berry loot.  4.5 lbs to be exact!

Gibson and Biscotti continued to love each other and played and followed each other around all weekend...

Margie called us once we were home and said Biscotti kept going to our room looking for us/Gibson.  Come visit us soon, Scotti!

Aaron and T did some night swimming, and we critiqued their strokes from the side.  T actually had some good form, and we asked him where that came from... his response was, "I do watch Michael Phelps."

We love their pool so much and talked about how it'd be so nice to have.... instead, I think I'll go buy myself an inflatable kids pool to sit in this year.  Yep, you betta believe it.

Gib also got some good practice for riding in the car... I think he's coming around to being more ok with it....  He looks cute (and ready to get out of the car).

And, because I had a few people say how they would be sad when May was over and they had a different desktop, I decided to be completely crazy (joking) and change the colors of May for June desktop.  Enjoy!

June 2011 1600 x 1200
June 2011 1024 x 768
June 2011 1680 x 1050