No more blog neglect!
Since I’ve been keeping up on the new blog (ittybittysmitty.jaredandginny.com) I’ve totally been neglecting this blog. I realized there’s other cool stuff happening in our life on a regular basis…and I should be keeping up on that. This weekend was really great. Jared and Steven hooked up electricity to our storage room in the basement…so now there’s light and outlets in there. Yay! Having a light in there makes it much less creepy. We also headed home for memorial day and hung out my parents house for a night and a cook-out. It was great to see a lot of family that we haven’t seen in awhile. And there were some that we hadn’t seen in so long…that we got to share the news about the baby with them, too.
Looking forward to a “short” 4-day week in the office (thanks to a day off from memorial day). We’re leaving for vacation this coming weekend…so anything to get that here faster is great! We’re going to be heading out for a week in Gatlinburg…which is obviously one of our favorite places to go. This time it’s extra special because it’ll be our last “big” vacation as a family of 2 and it’s also to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. Can’t wait! More to come from there.
In the meantime, we keep ourselves busy plans for the baby and all that entails. We’re really pumped and can’t wait until November so we can finally meet her/him! (We’ll be finding out what we’re having in the next month.) Yay!
More to come…
Where’d I go?!
So if you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been posting here lately…it’s because I’ve been posting over here…
ittybittysmitty.jaredandginny.com
Why is it still cold outside?!
So last weekend the weather was amazing…and I totally thought that spring was here to stay. Sadly, somewhere in the middle of last Sunday night…the temperature here in Greenville dropped back down to the 30’s. Luckily we’re back to the 50’s today…but I’m totally craving 70 degree days again! I’m actually excited to do some work in the yard…and to have the windows opened up again. All in good time I suppose.
So this week I went to see “Confessions of a Shopaholic” with a friend…and it was super cute. It was pretty cheesy…and definitely a chick flick…but every girl needs one of those from time to time. It made me want to go out shopping…but I stopped myself. (Like I could afford anything on that movie anyway!) Last night Jared and I headed over to the city to get some BBQ at 17th Street. We haven’t been out just by ourselves in quite awhile…and figured we should. So we stuffed ourselves with yummy food and then went shopping for a bit. I got a few home things at Gordman’s and Jared did some looking at Guitar Center. We did some browsing and worked on our ever growing wish list at Lowe’s as well. We finished up the night with some Krispy Kreme…always tasty.
So today we slept in a bit…which we haven’t done in a LONG time. It was so great! When we finally rolled out of bed we headed in to Vandalia to Hosick’s to look at some new cars. We’ve somehow got it in our head that we need to buy a new car. The Grand Prix just hasn’t been the same since it was in the accident over a year ago. So needless to say…we went car shopping and decided to test drive a few things today. In the midst of test driving the Dodge Journey…we had an experience. We were merging onto the interstate, and it totally ran out of gas. The sales guy thought there was enough in there…but apparently there wasn’t. So we called back and let him know that we were stuck on the side of the road…and he laughed and came to put more gas in the car. Which should have been fine…but then the car still wouldn’t start. So we road back to the dealership with him and they had to tow the car back. He said that was the first time he’d ever had that happen. Really, we had a good laugh about it. So we crunched some numbers…and may or may not be getting something new…we’ll see!
Ready for Spring
So not a lot going on in the Smith household right now. We managed to take a weekend away for Valentine’s Day, which was great. We went to our church’s yearly marriage retreat on Friday/Saturday and had a great meal out with friends for Valentine’s Day. It’s always fun to stay over in the city…and to get out of Greenville for a bit. Since then we’ve been homebodies…which is always fun. We’ve been catching up on lots of Tivo’d goodness and just cleaning up around the house. (Being a homebody = messy house.) We’ve managed to slack off on working in the basement…and we really need to get that finished. So if you’re bored….and like to fix-up basements…just let us know! This week I’m also finishing up 2 more classes for grad. school. As long as everything goes as planned…I’ll be done this summer. Yay! I’m so ready to not have to worry about homework again. I’ll just be happy that it’s done…and that I’ll actually have a master’s degree. Anywho…I’m gonna close this now. We have Mario’s pizza on the way and an episode of American Idol to watch. Adios!
Rainy Day….
So it seems as if for a moment…Spring is here in Greenville. Sadly…it’s also brought with it freakish amounts of rain! We’re praying that the basement holds tight and that our work down there was beneficial. It was a little damp this morning…so we’ll see how it goes.
Other than that, we’ve been pretty busy lately. This weekend we cleaned the house…and I may or may not have taken down the Christmas tree on Saturday. (whoops!) It’s fake though…and it was just too pretty! Either way….the house is back to normal. (Expect for the guest bedroom…it still needs some love.) We had Steve and Nicole over for baked potato soup and games on Saturday night…which actually turned into baked potato soup and about 10 episodes of How I Met Your Mother. (We’re all quite addicted.) Church went well on Sunday…and was again a great reminder of how thankful we are for our church family. God has really blessed us with some amazing people in our lives because of Metro…and I know it’s the perfect place for us. Sunday evening we headed into the city for supper at Maggiano’s with the office. If you haven’t been there…and you love Italian food…you should probably go. It’s family style…it’s a humongous amount of food….and it’s just down-right awesome. So we stuffed ourselves silly and headed back home. Monday night I made about 60 sugar cookies and some neon colored frosting for a birthday party for my friend’s 2 year old daughter. I helped her and her little buddies frost cookies…and it was so much fun! They did such a good job…and it melted my heart to watch their eyes light up at the site of my sugar cookies and frosting. Good times! Last night we headed back for our 2nd show at the Fox this year…Spring Awakening. It was definitely interesting…that’s for sure. Not my favorite…but the music was really good and it was definitely an experience. The night was made complete by a huge breakfast for dinner at Cracker Barrel. Yum!
And now…today…I’m finishing up a lot of busy work at the office. It’s just one of those days. I’m looking forward to making a pot roast for dinner and just relaxing. Should be a nice night!
Too much food…
So we ate way too much food this weekend! Friday night we headed over to Highland to meet up with Steve and Katie for a game night. We made the trip to Cracker Barrel first, where I proceeded to stuff myself completely with their uber-delicious breakfast creations. (My current favorite is “eggs in a basket…sourdough grilled up with an egg in the middle…it’s super yummy.) We had a great time playing games and finally headed back to Greenville around 12:30.
The next morning I had a haircut (well multiple hairs actually)…and Jared and I were still hankerin’ for breakfast food…so we stopped by Kelly’s Cafe up on the square and had some more! It turned out to be really good…and a we’ll definitely be heading back again. We then went back home to find 2 snuggly kitties on our bed…so we curled up with them…and somehow managed to sleep until about 2:30 that afternoon. Whoops! I worked on some homework and we headed over to O’Fallon to get some groceries…and met up with a friend for even more food. This time the target was 17th Street (one of our favorite BBQ joints). It was super packed…but the wait was worth it…as always. We were stuffed…but then somehow convinced ourselves that we needed to get some ice cream from Maggie Moo’s. Since it’s close to Valentine’s Day…they have my favorite ice cream right now….red velvet. It’s soooo good!
Sunday we were up early for church, and it was a really good service. We talked a lot about living your life 100% for God…not 95%…not even 99.9%….but a full 100%. A good reminder for me! I had homework to finish up in the afternoon, so we decided to stay at home for the Superbowl. We made a nice night of it. I finished my homework before the game started and even got some laundry done. I made up way too much food for the two of us (potato skins, nacho’s, pizza-rolls, cupcakes…etc.)…but it was fun. I was more interested in the commercials and watching an hour of The Office afterwords…but it was a good game.
And now I’m back to work….but it should be a relatively calm week. Yay!
Great weekend and SNOW!
So I’m a little late updating about our weekend. New students for spring semester moved in on Monday and my life has been pretty consumed with that. However…they’re all moved in now…and spring semester officially started up today!
So back to the weekend…and it was great! Friday night we drove up to Emden to stay over at my parent’s house. On the way we made a pit stop at Cracker Barrel for some breakfast for dinner. I got my favorite breakfast treat….Eggs in a Basket. (Sourdough bread…grilled…a hole cut in the middle…and fill with fried egg…served with hashbrown casserole and bacon.) It was so yummy…and just what we needed! We stayed up late hanging out with my mom and got up early to help dad load some new songs on to his Ipod. Saturday we headed into Bloomington, grabbed a quick bite at DQ, and I dropped Jared off to hang out with his brother before I headed over to my good friend Amy’s baby shower. The shower was great and I totally ruled at the shower games! (I won 2 out of 3.) After the shower we headed up to El Paso to spend the night at my brother’s house. We had so much fun catching with Geof and Lauri and playing with our niece, Aubrey. Aubrey seemed to think that Aunt “Gingy” was pretty cool…which definitely made me smile…a lot! Jared got to play a lot of Guitar Hero with Geof…and Lauri and I just chatted. Sunday we headed back to Bloomington and met up with my parents for lunch and I shopped for a bit with my mom. Before we left town we stopped at Meatheads…a new burger joint….because we had heard that is was mighty yummy. We were not disappointed! Best burger I’ve had in quite a while. So if you love burgers…and are in Bloomington….stop by and try it out. They also have fresh cut french fries with ultra-yummy dipping sauces. (This only helped with the yumminess of the whole experience!) We got home early so that I could finish up my homework (oh joy) and have some time to relax. Once again…a great weekend that made me want to move back “home”.
Now…the snow! It started snowing at some point on Sunday…stopped for a bit…and then started up again last night. Now we have like 6 inches of beautiful…sparkly snow on the ground! It’s so pretty! Granted…I don’t want to be outside running around in it…but it’s so nice to look at. Maybe if it compacts a little bit…we’ll be able to make a snowman or something. We shall see!
Pretty Pumped…
So this year Jared agreed to get season tickets to the broadway series at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis. We bought them back in August…and we finally get to see the first show tonight! We get 6 shows all-together…and tonight starts with Legally Blonde: The Musical. Jared’s not super pumped about this one…but I sure am. Any excuse to go to the theatre is good for me. The other shows we’re checking out are: Spring Awakening, Mary Poppins, A Chorus Line, Cirque, and Stomp. So if you haven’t been to the Fox…you need to check it out. I’ve been to a lot of musicals…and the Fox is still by far my favorite place to see a show. It’s bigger and better than any theatre I’ve been to in Chicago. Our friends, Jen and Mac, have the season tickets for the seats next to us…so it’ll be nice to have people we know sitting next to us.
In other news…Jared and I are now totally addicted to the show “How I Met Your Mother”. It’s hilarious…and we can’t seem to stop watching it. I’ve been pretty hooked on other shows before…but this one seems to be taking the cake. What’s better…is that we both love it. The problem though…is that we just sit around watching DVD’s of this tv show…when we should be doing work around the house. We’re both so hooked on it…that there’s nobody to say “hey…we need to clean up the kitchen” or “hey…come help me paint in the basement”. Oh well…we’ll get to it at some point!
Yay for Shopping!
So I really don’t do much shopping any more. Not that I don’t absolutely love shopping…because I do…I just try to limit myself. So one of my favorite places to shop these days is Kohl’s. I never really liked Kohl’s…but over the past few years…it’s slowly risen to the top of my “must shop” list. This is partially due to the fact that I now have a home that I like to fill with decorations (which Kohl’s has). This is also due to the fact that Vera Wang came out with a line of clothes there. Regularly priced…they’re still way out of my budget. (Seriously…this is Kohl’s…nobody wants to pay $200 for a dress here!) Either way…fortunately Kohl’s always has great sales and great Clearance racks. So my new mission is to find great Vera Wang pieces for my wardrobe this way. I’ve gotten several tops and dresses recently that were all priced under $10 a piece….some under $5! Now that’s a bargain! I also made a stop at Target last night…and picked up a few things there off the wonderful land of clearance racks. The best purchase of the night…a new winter coat and matching scarf and hat. It’s super cute…and thanks so some uber clearance deals…I got the coat and hat and scarf for well under $50. So I was pumped to pick up a few new things so I could spruce up the ol’ wardrobe a bit. Now I just need to clean out my closet a bit more. I had a major clean out session this past summer….but I know there’s still more stuff in there that needs to go. It’s all getting stashed up for a yard sale this spring. So far…3 tubs of clothes are ready to go! (Yes…I know that’s a lot of clothes…but I’ve been wearing basically the same size since early high school…and I have issues with getting rid of things!) So anyway…moral of the story is to go check out the clearance racks at Target and Kohl’s…you might find some super-great deals!
Jimmy John’s….
So Jared and I are suffering from a not-so-mild addiction to Jimmy John’s and their oh-so-delicious sub sandwiches. We have been twice this week…which might not seem too crazy…however…the closest Jimmy John’s is about 35 minutes from our house. We tried telling ourselves that we could not go last night…but alas….we caved…and made the drive. It was nice though…and definitely delicious. I got a slim 2 with cheese…as usual…with chips and a cherry coke. Not enough restaurants serve cherry coke…which is another major plus for Jimmy John’s! It is in fact my favorite soda.
We used the fact that we were in Edwardsville to make a trip to Best Buy and Target. We’ve been keeping an eye out for things for the basement. We got the 2nd season of 30 Rock (Jared got me the first one for Christmas…which we watched in just a few days time). We’re not watching it yet though…it’s to bribe ourselves to get more done on the basement. The basement’s coming along. We broke everything down into stages last night….6 more “stages” to go…and then we’ll be able to enjoy all of that space again! I’m pumped to have the big tv and surround sound hooked back up…but I’m even more pumped to have extra storage shelves down there now. I can finally clean out my kitchen and put things that I don’t use a lot down in the basement.
Anyway…better get back to work…it’s been a busy week!