Fireflies

I'm not trying to be annoying or attempting to make our life seem bad day-less, but from the moment Miles came home Saturday afternoon, until we went to sleep Sunday night, I was beside myself with happiness and in love-ness. We really didn't even do anything special. We used an old gift card to Olive Garden--where Miles asked if the salad that came with his meal was a caesar. At Olive Garden. I guess its been a while? We watched 15 minutes of a DVD that we had been super excited about (zombies v. vampires, hello!), until we realized it was possibly the worst thing we've ever seen, as in, so bad even I couldn't make fun of it. So bad that it just makes you mad? We caught up on Parks and Rec, clapped after Leslie's speech, went to bed and talked for hours.

Sunday, we woke up at went to church, had a wonderful lunch with Miles' mom and sister, and showed up so late to see a movie that they were no longer selling tickets for it. Oops. So we went home and did all the chores that we had been putting off forever. I also collected all my current reads and stacked them up by the bed. Another oops.

But what really makes me feel bad is that I really just want to go to the used book store and buy some more to start reading... We listened to Fleet Foxes, sang, folded, put away, washed, dried, made up, wiped down and then wanted to pass out. Miles so wisely commented on how much more fun and quickly done these chores were when we did them together. Uh, chyah dude. 

We finished the evening by walking up to Brown's Diner (recognized and spoken of in my head at "Fred's" for some reason) to hear one of Miles' co-workers play bossa nova jazz. We sat in the small, hot, retired train car, shared some salty, delicious fries, drank beer and enjoyed the remaining moments of our weekend. 

As we were walking home, kind of sad that our day and a half of full on togetherness was over, a little floating light appeared and disappeared right in front of us. We stopped in our tracks, threw our hands up in the air, and cheered for our first firefly sighting of the year. Miles even danced. Right there on the 21st Avenue sidewalk with people staring at us as they drove by. We walked the rest of the way home, attached at the hip, with the biggest grins plastered on our face.

So I'm not trying to say that we don't have moments or days where we feel bummed or completely drained, or totally boring...But it just seems like lately, we've been given other moments and days that are filled with the absolute best things where we're reminded of how blessed we are to have each other and everything else in our lives.

Weekend Getaway

Our Chattanooga weekend was so incredibly wonderful. Miles and I kind of had a hunch that we needed some time away for just the two of us, but we had no idea how refreshing it would actually be. It was the first time we've been away together, alone, without friends or family as company. Except our honeymoon, dur. We rested, we had great conversations, we were carefree, we spent way too much money (I guess I was wrong about thinking we'd be safe from that), we ate delicious foods, walked around forever, went to the aquarium, took our time...it was beyond perfect. And I couldn't have wished for more beautiful weather. I even took a screenshot of the weather on my phone to remember exactly how perfect it felt. The best 63 degrees of your life.

Miles has decided that we need to go on weekend trips every weekend. We'll have to find a more reasonable/affordable alternative, but we will definitely plan to get away more often. We took a ton of pictures, so I'll have to weed through them and spread them out over a few posts. Expect the aquarium post to have an obnoxious amount of fishy pics.

I ended up having to work last Friday morning instead of having the whole day off, so we didn't get into Chattanooga until around 4. Just in time to check in... and take a nap. I love naps. Have I shared this before? Naps are the best. And I've started to rub off on Miles when it comes to loving them. We stayed at The Chattanoogan and really liked it. Our room was, unfortunately, on the way to the pool, and surrounded by rooms full of happy, loud kiddos on either side. But that was the only thing we would've changed. And it was kind of out of our hands. Well, Miles would've wanted there to be robes in the closet and for the actual hotel building to be from the 30s. But you can't have it all, bud. I love the blackout curtains that most (all?) hotels have now. You know what they're perfect for? Naps. 

The bathroom was lit in such a way that would make anyone look red carpet fabulously gorgeous. Which was so amazing while I was getting ready, and a rude awakening when I passed my first reality check mirror. I went from "I'm simply glowing!", to "oh, nope".

We ate at Tony's in the art district, per a new blogging/we've met in real life a million years ago friend's suggestion. And it was delicious. And in such a fun area. We walked around forever after dinner and loved everything about the sculptures, the houses, the little hilly streets... Then later on, we walked a block or two over to Urban Stack, where we ate last time we were in Chattanooga, for drinks and late night conversations. Twas a wonderful start to our weekend.

Healthy Weekend

This weekend was delightfully opposite from last weekend. Miles wasn't sick, and even got off work early on Saturday! So we made the whole afternoon a big ole date, afternoon naps included! Saturdays!! Husband dating!! And I actually did my hair (once I found a super easy way to do it)

Boo, still waking up from our nap

I love it when we hang out. Also, I love that we love our neighborhood. We'll miss it terribly when we buy a house and move across the river. Why can't we just be loaded so we can afford to stay over here?

The rest of the weekend, not captured in pictures, was full of college friend reunions, surprise bday dinners, Hunger Games and a lot more food. I don't think Miles was 100% awake last night when he rolled over to mumble, "I guess the Hunger Games wasn't that bad..." Because he would never confess that in his right mind. And will probably demand I delete this confession as soon as he reads it.

Weekend, Beautiful Weekend

I choose to spend this Monday morning daydreaming about the wonderful weekend that we just had. Miles only had to go into work for an hour or so on Saturday, and other than that, he was all mine! One of the benefits of us both having jobs that require early rising during the week, is that while our bodies get to sleep in on the weekends, they still tend to automatically wake up around 7:30/8:00 anyways and we still have the whole day to have fun! (I'm also choosing to view that as a benefit)(And to also ignore that we can't seem to stay awake past 10:30 no matter how hard we try).

So we rose, still somewhat early, went to a wonderful breakfast at West End Cafe, I grocery shopped while he dropped by work for a hot second, we finished errand running and then went for a walk around Radnor Lake until we realized it was 4 and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. We wound up eating delicious TexMex with Miles' mom and then heading over to her house to help install a new washing machine, where we promptly tested her new machine with our dirty laundry. Ah, Saturday. 

The next day, we went to the early service at our church, met our friend Matty, and went house hunting with our Realtor! We ended up making an offer on a house that I would live in forever if our offer went through. But I'm highly doubtful that our bid will be picked, since a million people looked at it over the weekend and probably could afford a higher bid. But we at least put ours out there! And that alone is exciting. I'm not ashamed (but kind of am) to say that we went back to our new favorite burger restaurant, seven days after we first ate there. I mean, The Pharmacy is ridic. And Matt was visiting! We also found at least four other houses that we liked enough to have to choose between if this offer doesn't pan out. Which is amazing! And also stressful. Ah, Sunday decision making.

(aaand by this point in the weekend I was pooped. Just looking at my face here makes me feel tired all over again)

Valentine's Pt. 1

I don't think/can't remember if Miles and I have ever made a big deal on Valentine's day. We surely acknowledge it, he's been sweet and I'm sure I've tried something nice... So of course we kept that tradition up this year. I began the day with a plan to make a wonderful dinner for us that evening (we've never try to brave the Valentine's restaurant crowd) but by lunchtime I was too tired from watching three kiddos under the age of three (if you're not good at math, thats two more than usual). Keeping up with two two-year old boys who wander off (around the house) and don't answer when you call for them, and a baby girl who will get into/pull up on anything and everything did not help me get into the dinner making mood. I reasoned with Miles that, despite spending so much money in Chicago, we could surely order Thai take-out and cuddle on the couch whilst watching a lovey-dovey movie.

When I got home, 30 minutes later than I was supposed to, Miles was still trying to call our favorite Thai restaurant a to place and order. They never picked up! Still trying to save the evening, we hopped in the car, still in our guitar building, baby snotted work clothes to place an order in person. When we finally parked and tried to order, they said it'd be 45 minutes. Wompwomp. And of course we had no plan b for dinner. We commiserated, tried not to get too annoyed at our evening, and ended up at at our favorite cheapo Mexican restaurant where every other group of single ladies in their 60s, families with little kids, and loud college friends (not generalizing, I recognized them from past classes. The kind where I was a senior and they were freshmen. Electives!) were dining during happy hour. But you know what? It was actually perfect. We sat in our guitar building, baby snotted work clothes, ate our chips and queso and talked about when we first started dating, future baby names, and everything in between.

We also promised ourselves a fancy date night in the near future (Valentine's pt. 2)

Best Day EVAR

On Friday afternoon, Miles called me to tell me that he surprisingly didn't have to work the next day! When Miles gets a Saturday off that we were planning on him having to work (which is most Saturdays) I feel like I've won a million bucks. But its actually better than that, I've won a Saturday morning with the love of my life! Ok. Winning millions would be nice too, but lets not linger on that analogy.

We slept in (to 7:30) made breakfast together, sang along to Christmas songs on Pandora as we got ready together, went grocery shopping together, made several returns together, bought a Christmas tree stand, bought poinsettias, bought White Christmas...Basically the first half of our morning was just me running all the errands I needed to run while Miles was at work--but Miles was with me! Its so much more fun that way. 

Then we went to the Porter Flea Market and went nuts trying not to buy a million amazing things from each stall we passed by. We somewhat succeeded. We walked around East Nashy and fell in love with it all over like we always do whenever we cross the river for a visit (which is weekly), ate lunch at our favorite East Nashy bar and walked across the street to pick out our first little Christmas tree!

Once we decided which was the tree that needed the most love, we took it home and began making our paper chains, paper snowflakes and popcorn strings. The popcorn string making proved to be somewhat more tedious than anticipated. 

We filled our bellies with our drinks (draanks) of choice and our takeout from our favorite Italian restaurant, and sang along as we watched our newly purchased copy of White Christmas. And once White Christmas was over, we stayed up uncharacteristically late and indulged in our (very, extremely, embarrassingly late) obsession with Lost--as in we're only in the middle of season 1. 

But oh, what a wonderful, perfect Saturday! Definitely would rank in my list of top five most favorite days, if such a list existed. Also I took a few pictures. With my actual camera..that I haven't remembered to bring along anywhere in about 12 months. Shame. 

Handsome Boy

Miles was off this whole weekend, which hasn't happened since the wedding (we think/can't remember otherwise..) So I meant to take a million pictures to celebrate having two whole days together, but surprise, surprise, I failed. Looking through the [few] pictures yesterday I realized that I really only took pictures of Miles, with very few exceptions. He's just so cute. Good thing I married him.

Making sure we pick out the coolest/best matchbox cars for the Operation Christmas Child box we were putting together. It took a while. And we were totally lost/overwhelmed in the toy section of Target.

Being adorably patient while I got ready to go out Saturday night.

Being my hot date.

I wish I could say that I didn't eat my entire pizza after I snapped this picture. But that would be a lie.

This alley makes me happy and we would've eaten out here if it weren't so windy all weekend (and if they had their tables set up...)

And home time. With my million apple cinnamon candles and with my boo. 

Already Forgetting

Last night as Miles and I were eating dinner, I realized that we had forgotten our four month anniversary (November 2). Yeah, okay, its not that big of a deal. We both forgot, so that worked out well. But how are we already failing at remembering anniversaries? I can't tell if I'm really upset that we forgot, or if I just feel like I should be. I'm going to say...just feel like I should be. Everything is so wonderful, its not like we forgot because we don't remember that time we got married only four months ago...we're just busy looking forward to weekends and evenings together, talking about house buying (yeah, I know last week I said that wasn't happening soon...but it might if we find something good), watching terrible, awful movies from redbox, failing at dinner-making and not making messes in the kitchen, and having husbands be employee of the month and winning a new Les Paul. Our loves are wonderful, we are in love, I'm okay with forgetting a teensy anniversary. 

The rest of November is going to be so fabulous. I am off next week, glory hallelujer! A whole week to myself to clean and actually have time to cook and bake and organize and read without baby interruptions. That being said, I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss the nanny babe like crazy come Monday afternoon. Then my birthday is coming up, and a week later my brother and sister are flying down from Chicago. We get to spend the whole day in Nashy hanging out, being awesome siblings, and then when Miles gets off work we're piling into the car and headed to our aunt's house for Thanksgiving weekend. I l-o-v-e thanksgiving weekend with my aunt and her family. And this year is going to be the best yet with both of my siblings and my lovely new husband. My cousins have already talked about watching Elf after our thanksgiving feast. Bring it on.

We're headed down to a friend's farm tomorrow afternoon and evening and I got a little too excited when I saw "s'mores items" on the list of things people could offer to bring. I offered. duh. I can't wait to be outside in the beautiful weather tomorrow even though I'm not 100% sure what the hang times will look like or consist of since we're tagging along with a few new friends and a lot of people we don't know. And I'm sure we won't have a giant bonfire. But there will be s'mores. There will be s'mores...

found on pintrest, here

Mini-golf and Tea Parties

I bought a Groupon for mini-golf and go-karting a while back but we only got around to using it yesterday. Well, half of it at least. The go-kart track was shut down for repairs and I tried not to be too upset since thats really all I had wanted to do out of the two activities. But we still had so much fun playing our round of mini-golf. It took me fifteen swings on the first hole, but after that I wasn't too shabby--I was the only one to get a hole in one! And Miles was sweet enough to gracefully give me a score of just five for that first hole embarrassment. 

Yesterday was almost a perfect day. Miles made us a beautiful breakfast with syrup that has changed my life, the weather was amazing, mini-golf was so enjoyable, our go-kart tickets are good for a year...Our weekly grocery shopping trip was one of the most fun we've ever had-and really, there wasn't anything that was all that different about this particular trip. We were just in wonderful moods, Kroger played all my jams, Miles only stood five-feet away from me as I sang loudly along to Groby (I can't find a post to link to, but we all know how much I love unexpected Josh Groban songs), Lara Fabian and LFO, as opposed to heading to the opposite end of the store and pretending like he isn't married to me. 

However, we went to a "rally" that was supposed to be in support of Miles' company, which is tied up in a confusing customs/wildlife/state politics thing. As Miles put it, we were going so that he could "shake babies and kiss hands" (joke?) with all the right people. But soon after we got there we realized that it was  really just a big ole Tea Party rally. I went from the emotional equivalent of eye rolling, to the emotional equivalent of "oh, dear God", then to the emotional equivalent of feeling every possible negative emotion at once, resulting in tears and sobbing on my part. Stupid t-shirts and obscenely large American flags being waved around is one thing, but the crowds of people cheering at a song with the bottom-line of "when you're in my country, you'd better speak my language" and general rhetoric along the lines of God giving America to white people, is something entirely too much for me.

Needless to say, we left. Miles incredibly mad, but totally level headed, whilst I am bawling my eyes out and the opposite of level headed (in those moments, is it a good thing or a bad thing that I am terrified of confrontation). I mean, how is that real life? I'm still processing everything that happened during the short time we were there. But I know that somehow it has changed and inspired me in a way that reading about/watching on television/hearing on the radio these rallies and ideals could have never changed me. Which I guess made yesterday still a pretty good day. Just not as I would have planned it to be.  

All that to say, here are some pictures from our day. The fun parts. 

Impression of PGA golfers

I know it looks like it, but I didn't make that putt..