Thursday's Are My Favorite

I have always loved Thursdays.  They are my favorite day of the week.  I'm not exactly sure why I love them so much, but I always have.  Today was no exception to my love.  Yesterday was my friends birthday but she was traveling for work so, we did her birthday celebration today.  Natalie and I used to work together and boy did we have fun.  We went to Kuby's today for lunch, one of our classic lunch spots.

So many stories in these pictures.

After work I met Preston at his job and we consolidated cars.  We had reservations at 6:15pm at The Mansion so we had about an hour to spare.  Best way to waste time is with pre dinner drinks.  We went ahead and headed on over to the restaurant.  The hostess directed us to the bar and we made our way to the front.  The bartender was immediately my favorite bartender thus far during this pregnancy. 

He saw us walking up and said loudly, "Tequila shots for EVERONE!".  It was just us and about 3 other people in the entire place, it was hilarious in my opinion.  And the first bartender/waiter to acknowledge that I clearly can not drink.  I get the whole concept of not wanting to say something because you aren't sure, but offering me a glass a wine is almost just as annoying.  He smiled at me and asked what I would like to drink.  I told him to make me something fun and non-alcoholic.  The result was an awesome refreshing cucumber, orange, cranberry thing.  He then turned to Preston and he requested the dealers choice! Another good drink was prepared, but his was with scotch and such.  It was a sassafras old fashion or something.  Paired it with some olives and candied walnuts with a touch of cayenne pepper.

 

After enjoying our cocktails and my mocktail, we headed to our table.  Since it was restaurant week we decided to go with their special menu.  Now, normally I don't like to take pictures of my food at the table, especially at fine dinning places.  However, if the food exceptional colorful or unique OR we are on vacation, I will go for it.  Tonight was one of those nights.  Here are our appetizers:

 

Chilled Pea Soup with Crab and touch of mint.  The black specs are actually part of the bowl, not garnishment.

Smoked Salmon with Tomatoes and Horseradish



I didn't take any pictures of the main course.  I had chicken and Preston had fish. Nothing fancy.  Then it was dessert time!

Hazelnut Chocolate thingy with coffee ice cream. Mmmmmm

Corn Panna Cotta. Surprisingly good!

The evening has ended with us back at home and surfing Netflix till be found a scary movie.  We love watching a good scary movie.  But this one isn't scary....it's just...odd.  Literally, it's called Odd Thomas.

I'm officially 28 weeks today and tomorrow is another doctors appointment.  That isn't until the afternoon, then...our 3 day weekend begins! Happy Labor Day people.

It was as Fantasy Surprise Ice Bucket of a weekend! That is, If I Stay.....

I was really looking forward to this weekend! We knew it was going to be busy, but all exciting stuff. 

Almost a year ago a group of my friends realized we were all reading the same types of books and some of them at the same time.  It wasn't long before we made a book club! It's not your traditional book club though.  We don't meet once a month or anything and there is not designated book that is to be read by a certain time.  We basically read a book then post on our FB club page, "this book was so good! read it."  Then we do.  A lot of them over the past year are being made into movies this year and we just kicked it off with If I Stay.  Friday night Kacie, Stephanie and I went to iPic theater to check it out on opening night.  Followed the book really good and I found it enjoyable.  However, if I hadn't read the book I would have had no interest in seeing the movie.  Totally made for teens movie. 

Stephanie was very cozy.

Kacie and me!

 Saturday morning it was off to the new house for a 10am walk through with the speaker guy.  He marked up all over the house of places for our speakers and TV's.  More fun than I thought it would be.  That took about an hour.  They (construction team) had installed the electrical outlets so there was a little more to the skeleton.  After looking at our building notebook today I realized we are halfway through! We are on phase 8 of 16.  Getting closer!

 

After that we did regular people stuff. Grocery store, nap, lunch, etc.  Then.....it was time. Fantasy Football Draft! (ESPN League)  I'm in 2 leagues, one that is an ESPN PPR league and the other a Yahoo standard league.  Our ESPN draft is held live, in person, offline.  No exceptions. You have to be there.  Draft started at 3pm, but we had to have our keeper on the board before 2:30pm.  To make sure we didn't mess it up we set our goal to be there at 2pm! Arrived around 2:10, whew. Made it.  This is our 2nd year with this league.  Love the group and love the banter. 

 

 

Draft ended a little after 5pm.  I changed clothes and we headed straight to Northpark mall.  Preston's Mom's birthday dinner was that night at Maggiano's.  It was a surprise dinner so we needed to get there a little early to make sure everything was set.  It worked out perfectly!  She was surprised and it was great to have a large group of friends and family to celebrate together.  I spent the dinner enjoying the dinner, but did breakdown and take some pictures of the cake.  I'm not a dessert person, but this was an amazing chocolate cake! Oh my goodness.  So good.

 

Needless to say, we slept great Saturday night.  So exhausted from a day of running around and mentally having to think....a lot.  The draft probably took the most of out me.  You really have to focus on that stuff!  We slept in until almost 10am today which is really late for us.  I felt like I lost my morning, but needed the rest. 

We have decided to go ahead and purchase the pack 'n-play from our baby registry.  Since we won't have our house until the baby is almost 2 months, he will have to sleep in there until we can get him his own room.  We went to Buy Buy Baby and made our purchase.  It was then time to put it together.  That was fun! Said no one EVER.  Ugh.  It's together and camped out in our bedroom now.  We also want Ashe to get used to it and know he is not allowed in it.  Cat's don't like tape so the whole top is covered in packing tape.  Not going to lie, I'm kind of hoping he makes a jump for it just to see him freak out when he lands on a field of stickiness. 

His little "bedroom".  So cute and small...perfect for our cat.....

The weekend wouldn't be complete without my husband being nominated to do the ALS ice bucket challenge.  We filled up our playmate cooler with ice.  Used all the ice in our freezer! I've seen tons of these videos on FB the past week, but there is something about watching someone do it in person.  OMG!!  It is the funniest thing.  I fully understand it is for charity and awareness, but when you see a person pick up a bucket of water and purposely dump it on themselves you can't help but laugh.

 

 

After Preston got dried off and warm he did go online and donate to ALS.  He has now past the torch on to 3 of his friends to do the challenge!  That was our weekend.  Neither one of us are looking forward to going to work tomorrow.  Not sure we are ever excited about going to work though.  This weekend we have the OSU/FSU game on Saturday and our Yahoo draft. 

 

Enjoy your week friends. 

Aloha! and more house......

I kept meaning to post last Sunday, then Monday, and things just kept coming up.  life.  Last weekend was our good friend Kacie's 30th birthday party.  It was Hawaiian themed and was so much fun.  Several months ago our other friends organized having Kacie's yard "flocked" the day of her party.  I had almost forgotten about it till she text me that morning with the pictures.  Best service EVER!

 

It was perfect for the Luau planned for later that night.  When you are going to a Luau you need to dress the part, right?  Several months ago I found this awesome pineapple headpiece on Pinterest.  I "pinned" it in hopes I would remember and make it for Kacie's party.  I remembered!

You need green posterboard, headband, toilet paper roll, and hot glue gun.  Cut the green poster board in to leafy strips of different lengths.   Glue them around the toilet paper roll, then glue the toilet paper roll to the headband. 

Tada! You're a Pineapple!  It was a little heavy, but was easy and fun.  Plus I think people liked it. 



I paired the head piece with a pineapple shirt and black maxi skirt.  Slim pickings for costumes while you are 6 months pregnant. I thought about wearing a yellow shirt and being one big pineapple, but yellow just doesn't look good on me.  Here are some pictures from the party with the photo backdrop.  I should have gotten more, especially of the cake! It was so pretty. 

Kacie, Summer, and myself (note I'm holding a baby monkey)

Pretty sure my belly is all up in Kacie's backside.  Sorry birthday girl.  Oh' and you can see my pineapple head piece pretty good in this picture.

The next day we woke to thunder around 7am.  It rained on and off pretty much all day long.  The thunder though lasted till about noon and was a nice rumble.  We turned on Hook to watch and I fell back asleep right away.  It was so comfy to listen to thunder rumble and Robin Williams at the same time (RIP).  That afternoon we went to the movie.  There are no less than 5 movies coming out right now that are books I have read.  I've hit the book to movie jackpot!  I love reading the book and then seeing the movie.  This past Sunday the book/movie of choice was The Giver.  I read this book in 1993 when I was 13 and loved it.  Over the years I have read it dozens of time.  Never gets old. 

It was everything I hoped it would be! I think there is a lot in the movie that you would miss or not understand if you hadn't read the book.  Preston hasn't read it, but still enjoyed the story line.  I don't feel like they left anything out.  There were lots of things implied that I picked up on due to the book and that was cool for me.  Next movie is If I Stay tonight with Kacie and Steph.  I cried reading the book so I'm pretty sure I will cry at the movie.

We didn't have much time to go by the house this week.  I had dinner with friends, Bunco, and just flat didn't feel like moving.  Last night we went over there and were SUPER excited.  Did a walk through picturing more things and picking out spots for TV's.  We meet with the surround sound guy on Saturday morning and we need to tell him where we want the wiring.  It's so permanent!  For this house trip my favorite part was that our fireplace was there.  Yippee.

We've got shingles!

A fireplace, kind of.  I was happy about it.  This will be my first gas fireplace.  I personally am a fan of a wood burning, but you can't win it all.  I have years to figure out the whole Santa thing with the chimney.

Middle bar will be the island in the kitchen, opening up to the family room.  You can see Preston in the background standing in the master bedroom.

Standing where the oven will be'ish, looking towards the breakfast nook and back patio door.

More of the kitchen/family room.

"and we can put the grill here...." Back patio!

Hard to get a picture of the upstairs media/game room.  There is a bathroom and closet up there too.  We have great designs on this room.
 

That is the latest on the house and what I did this past weekend.  We have a lot planned for this weekend too, so I'm sure I will have an opinion on everything soon.  To kick off my weekend I'm going to lunch with a bunch of my friends at Perry's for Pork Chop Friday!!! One of the best days ever.

House Update

They have started the building phase of our house.  We bought the lot and signed the paperwork to start the building back in May.  It feels like it has taken forever for them to get going, but there was a lot of steps we had to do first.  Us being gone out of the country in June didn't help.  They poured the foundation a week ago and they have already started with the walls on the first floor!  I have been trying to take pictures as it comes together.  Here is what we have so far.

Sold! Our Lot.

Doing something I don't know, probably leveling it? Makes the most sense.

Pipes in the ground.......

Foundation Poured! Woohooo

Start of the framing for the first floor. (taken on a Friday)

More framing of first floor! (taken on a Sunday)

We are thinking about driving by tonight (Tuesday).  I feel like it's moving pretty fast, but still have to remember it won't be ready until end of December, beginning of January.  We picked out the exterior and interior in July.  Here are those selections.

Our Brick

Our Stone

It's a bad picture, but here is a layout of all the exterior.  Bricks, picture of stone, brown square is the garage door and wooden rectangle is trim for some sections of the front.

Hand scrapped hardwood floors throughout the downstairs.  The stone and granite on the left make up our kitchen.  Granite counter tops (top)  Backsplash (middle) Tile design for above the stove top (bottom)

Kitchen cabinets, paired with countertops

Master Bath - granite counter tops and slate floor

The whole selection together, including the half bath upstairs on the lower left hand corner.

That is all we have so far.  I didn't take any pictures of our fixtures, door, or appliances.  That visit to the design gallery was exhausting and I was ready for it to be over.  It was a, "sure...that looks good".  So who knows what kind of microwave we will have! I'm going to make a Shutterfly book with all the pictures and construction when this is complete.  It's starting to get exciting.  We will be like, real adults and stuff when this is down.  Went from living in a Townhome in the down/uptown area with no kids to living in the 'burbs with a house and a baby.  ::blink::

WE WENT TO THE HOUSE!  It was so exciting coming around the corner to seeeeeee THIS:

The second story has been added.

There she is, although it looks like a pile of match sticks.

I got really excited for some reason when I saw the stairs.  Made it seem even more real.

Here is the view standing in the middle of the family room looking out towards the street.

Well that's really it for tonight.  At this rate we will have walls up by the weekend!  I think our new thing might be, "let's go drive by the house".  I wonder if we can bring a picnic dinner to eat inside....

Exploring Our New 'Hood

This weekend we decided to explore some new spots.  We aren't in this area for a little while, we live here now.  We can't just go a mile away to State & Allen or The Common Table.  For dinner on Friday we headed down the street to Beltline.  There are tons of restaurants! Some of them we have been to, but not in years and others we have never even heard of.  After doing a drive by we circled back and took a chance with a place called SOHO.  They had live music and the atmosphere seemed inviting.  We were sat right away and given the menus.  Oooooo tapas.  There were so many to chose from!  And the entrees looked amazing too.  Here is a sample of what they offered. 



It was hard to decide what we wanted so we did a little of everything.  We started with the Black Truffle Hummus.  This was the best hummus I have ever had! It was so smooth and creamy.  The bread they served it with was toasted slices of French baguette with melted cheese.  It was the right ratio and paired perfectly.  Preston ordered the Mussels tapas.  I ate one, couldn't resist.  I love and miss mussels.  We each ordered off the entrée menu for our main dish.  Preston got the glazed ribs with creamed corn.  It came with an order of fries too, didn't realize that.  I ordered the Ancho glazed chicken with corn risotto.  So yummy!  We finished it off with their fried Cheesecake.  Now before you wrinkle your nose at fried cheesecake, we saw the order at another table and it didn't look bad.  It was 2 flauta looking things with cheesecake filling inside.  Flaky crust and not greasy at all.  They were surrounded by chopped strawberries with sauce and then sprinkled with powdered sugar.  We will be going back there for sure.

Saturday we drove all around the area where our house is being built and found the perfect park!  It's in the neighborhood behind ours and we could easily ride our bikes/walk.  However getting there is a downward hill so coming back is....upward hill.  Not sure how much we will bike.  The play area was pretty awesome and filled with kids.  It has a trail around the place too so it will be perfect when I'm off work and want to get some exercise.  I can take the little guy for a stroll.  We went further east and made our way into downtown Carrolton.  Cute!  Apparently we didn't look like we lived there as a man sitting outside an antique store asked how we liked his town.  I found it both funny and bothersome.  We then made our way back home and drove by some golf courses.  Pretty sure we will joining something somewhere in about a year. 

We had a couple of hours to spare before we were going to a surprise birthday party!  One of the books for our book club is called Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn.  It is the same author as Gone Girl, which was a great book.  I ended up reading all afternoon and today finishing it up!  Another great book. 

 

Today we tried a new brunch spot called Buttons with some friends for brunch.  It is down the street and features a soul food buffet with live jazz band at 1pm.  The food selection was really large and we all enjoyed the offerings.  We will be going back there also.  Probably a little later in the morning/noon so we can get the full effect.  More people were showing up as we were leaving and the band was getting started.  I would like to go back for dinner too to try their regular menu.  Any place that has an item on their menu listed as Chicken Wangs is going to be good. 

 

Now this is random.  I like Pinterest and use it often.  Not super often, but about once a week if that.  I rarely pin my own stuff.  It's typically someone else's pin that I just repin.  About 10 months ago I pinned a chowder recipe that I wanted to try.  Still haven't made it, but it's out there.  Well...all of a sudden I was getting notification of people repining my pin.  Finally I logged in to see what was all these random people repining that I pinned?!  It is the chowder! and it's not even mine!!!  As of today it has over 60 repins, which I'm sure is nothing for some people that do their own pins, but this was just something I repined in passing.  Didn't even think about it.  So strange, but fun.  Here is what it looks like so you can get the full effect of how random this is.  PLUS it's not even winter time people.  Why do you need a chowder recipe in July/August.

 

That was our weekend.  Still have several hours left of our Sunday.  It will more than likely be spent doing a load of laundry and trying to be productive.  Next weekend is a trip to the lake, yippee!