Vampires, babies and ice cream

This has been a good weekend. Pretty lazy, and good. Friday night I was so lazy and didn't do anything on my to-do list. I fell asleep on the couch at 9:45. Nice. Woke up Saturday at 9am (in bed.. had climbed in bed at 12:30am) andddddd proceeded to sit on the couch again :) Lazy-d around most of Saturday except I did wash a mountain of dishes. Then Chrissy and I saw the new Twilight movie, New Moon, on Saturday evening. Oh my gosh it was good!! Much better than the first. And the funniest thing was listening to the tween girls freaking out over seeing the guys without their shirts on and stuff. Then Chrissy came over to our house and we had some bbq for dinner and hung out. So good to see her! (Sorry we missed you in the afternoon Lindsey!!).

Last night I successfully fell asleep on the couch again probably around 10:30 and then climbed in bed about an hour later. This morning Matt and I helped out the young adults at church and we served and sold some coffee. We are doing this Land of 1000 Hills coffee at church, Fair Trade coffee, that benefits victims of genocide in Rwanda. It's pretty cool, you can read about it here.

This afternoon we drove around Atlanta visiting two new babies! John Tate Holvey and Will Vasell. John Tate lives in Douglasville with his lovely parents Jaime and Joe. Jaime and I worked together at Bluelinx and formed a close relationship over going shopping every day during "lunch." It was mostly just looking - not buying, but we definitely went to Target and Cost Plus World Market a lot! Matt and I drove back from Douglasville and headed over to Buckhead where Will lives with his parents Peter and Angel who are our friends from church. We met them probably a year ago and have really enjoyed getting to know them over the past year! John Tate is 6 weeks old and somewhere around 11.5 pounds and Will is 3 weeks old and somewhere around 10 pounds. Both very beautiful boys!! I had not been around a boy baby in soo long. We were very happy to see all the babies and parents today. No pictures though :(

And on the way home we stopped at the [interesting] Food Depot to get some mint chocolate chip ice cream which I just ate for "dinner." Yum :) (We had Shane's for lunch and have been overly stuffed and I had a craving for ice cream so I can call that dinner, right?)

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

One day I'll be a better blogger.. maybe

I think I am not such a good blogger! But if you are still reading I guess that's a good thing. Let's see.. latest house projects: I finally painted our front room which took me probably 15 hours. It looks so much better! Still no furniture in it but I think that Matt and I are buying a rug for in there for our Christmas presents to each other. I guess that will mean still no furniture but we'll have a rug! We also now have electricity in our basement!! One step closer to Matt being able to have band practice down there. Now he just needs a PA system. Props to Matt for wiring the whole basement and all we had to do was call the electrician to hook it up to the house power (we didn't want to risk the danger of doing it ourselves). Sad news though is that the electrician found some work that needs to be done due to the awful way the remodelers wired our house (surprise, surprise).

I have been busy busy with finishing up our Christmas shopping. I would say we are about 90% finished! This is a first for me. Now I just need motivation to finish the last 10%. And speaking of Christmas, I have already started to decorate our house. I know it's early but I bought all these decorations last year and am very excited about them. No lights or tree yet, just some fun things around the house. Tonight I will be watching Merry Madagascar at 8pm. I am very excited about it :) Oh man I just looked it up and it is only 30 minutes. I thought it might be an hour, oh well.

I want to mention these new workout videos I bought. I bought some new videos when I knew I wouldn't want to run for a while after my marathon. I got two videos by Jillian from the biggest loser. Oh My Gosh! If you are looking for a good workout, this is it! I got 30day Shred and something about trouble spots. The 30day Shred is really good and only 20 minute sections. The trouble spot one is 50 minutes and I totally stopped it about 30 minutes in. You can tell if you do it all, and often, you will look incredible. I just use them a few times a week though. So there's a little advertisement from me.

I think that's it for tonight.. I need to do some cleaning, having people over on Thursday night :) Hope you all are enjoying this Thanksgiving time! I am very thankful for my wonderful husband, puppy and house!!!

Finally some pictures!

Ready to run! The thing on my left shoe kept our time and the thing on my right was to eat :)

Emili and I before the race

Our names, so people can cheer us on!

Burt #4.. or 5? Our pumpkin this year

Crystal and I after we carved our pumpkins

Halloween - Matt was the Operation guy and I was Julia Child

Crystal, Andy & Thomas on Halloween

Molly got to borrow the angel wings :)

Finally spray painted those lamps. Nowhere to put them though! And I bought that lamp shade but it is way too small.. gotta return it.

The end to couponing?

My streak of erratic posting will continue for tonight. I do have some pictures to post but don't feel like hooking my camera up right now. So just some thoughts for tonight.

Firstly, I think I am going to stop couponing. Oddly enough, I seem to be spending more money now than I did before I began. I do realize that I am getting more for my money but I am just getting frustrated with it. I used to spend $60 a week on our groceries which included food and items like paper towels, toothpaste, etc. After couponing, I was spending probably $70 on everything plus buying a newspaper for $2 every Sunday plus I was doing the Grocery Game which was costing me $15 every 8 weeks. I know that's not a lot but it adds up. As does the time spent on the couponing. A few weeks ago I decided to ditch the Grocery Game in favor of Southern Savers. Still did not have a lot of luck and the time and frustration was wearing me down. I used to cook meals for us at least 3 times a week and have definitely not been doing that! So for now, I will quit couponing and go back to what I was doing before of buying things that are on sale. However, I will still probably check southern savers for any printout coupons I can still take advantage of (turns out a lot of the ones I used can be printed offline anyway). Maybe I was doing something wrong, I have no idea, but I'm going to give a trial run to my old ways and see if it makes life better.

Second, we joined Netflix! So far we have watched one movie and watched it in several 20 minute increments. (Adventureland - definitely recommend it! Coincidentally it was filmed at Kennywood which is where I rode my first roller coaster - The Jack Rabbit.) We put the movie in the mail yesterday morning and had another DVD back today. I have no idea how they do that. Maybe the mailman sends them a message saying it's on the way?? haha. Anyway I have disc 1 of season 3 of Curb Your Enthusiasm waiting for me - yey!

Third, babies. My friends' lives continue to be consumed by babies. Jonathan Knox Tate Holvey was born about 4 weeks ago, 10+ pounds! John William "Will" Vasell was born on Sunday at 9+ pounds. Also on Sunday I attended a baby shower for my friend Alice who is expecting twin boys in February (if she goes full term). So excited for everyone!!

Fourth, I am halfway done with my Christmas shopping! It's a good feeling. And I think I may have just found some good deals at one of my favorite stores so I hope that will help me cross a few more people off my list :) What do you want from me for Christmas??

Fifth, speaking of Christmas, I am dying to put up all of the items I bought after Christmas last year! Is it too soon?? Maybe as soon as we eat the rest of our Halloween candy then it will be time.

I will try to put up pictures soon. I have a few from the marathon and some from Halloween - including one of Molly wearing angel wings!

Weekend in DC

You may have already read my marathon update, now here is an update of everything else. Emili and I flew to DC on Friday night and stayed with Emili's friend from college, Renee. I had met Renee before and she is a sweetheart. Friday we stayed up later than my normal bedtime and probably went to bed around 1am.

Saturday morning we slept in (10am!) and then headed to lunch and met up with another one of Emili's friends from Augusta. After lunch we headed over to the race expo to pick up our bib number and see everything they had there. They had a ton of running clothes, running food, etc, and some really cool "Marine Corp Marathon" clothing items that were way too expensive. I didn't buy anything but it was neat to see everything. After the expo we relaxed at Renee's apartment until we went to meet up with some of my family for dinner. I have an aunt, uncle and 3 cousins that live in Reston, VA so we met up with my aunt, uncle and one cousin for dinner that night in the city - so fun! I hadn't seen them since my wedding so it was so great to see them and I'm sad I forgot to take a picture with them :(

Saturday night we got our things ready for the morning and went to bed pretty early. For a Sunday recap, see previous post. One thing I forgot to mention was the Marines that were everywhere for the race. They were all of the volunteers: water, cleanup, hand out medals, etc. It was so cool to see them all serving that way. Also, Emili and I wore our names on our shirts and people would shout out our names and cheer us on which was really cool! Sunday after the race Renee made us a delicious lasagna dinner with some veggies. So in case she reads this, thank you thank you!! She was an amazing hostess.

I knew I would forget some things in my marathon post, also forgot to mention race day weather. It was chilly in the morning but in the low 60s throughout the race and so beautiful, blue skies! We even got a little sun burned.

Monday morning we woke up and headed out for a massage!! It was fantastic :) Followed by lunch at Cosi (yum!) and a tiny bit of shopping. Then it was back to Renee's apartment to gather our things and head to the airport. Emili and I had the same flight back to Atlanta and then she caught another flight to Minneapolis after having dinner with Matt and I. It was a perfect weekend!

Now I can get back to a routine of not running, haha. Time to keep up our house and get things done around here. This weekend is of course Halloween. I think I am going to be Julia Child. I'll have to post some pictures next week :) What are you going to be for Halloween?

Marathon recap

Although it felt like it would never come, our marathon has now come and gone. After 18 weeks of training I was ready for it to be over with and very excited at the same time. [Note 18 weeks of training = 15 weeks ending with a 20 mile run and then running 2 or 3 times in the next 3 weeks after that before the race.. oops] One concern I had the whole time was that my knee(s) wouldn't hold up through 26.2 miles (yes it's 26.2.. I had someone ask me if it was 7?? haha). Want to know how my knees did? Here is a recap for you from what I remember correctly:

5:30am - wake up, it's race day!

6:20am - out the door to walk to the metro

6:45am - walk out of the metro right in front of the Pentagon and walk 1 mile to starting area

7:20am - drop off bag and wait in line for porta-potties

8:00am - cannons go off and the race has started!

8:20am - Emili and I finally cross the start line

Miles 1-8: running (on the roads) through beautiful forests / trees all changing colors. Also, scenery is dotted by men and women *ahem* relieving themselves on the side of the road into the forests. I guess they didn't want to wait in the lines. Emili and I are running 4 minutes, walking 1 minute, over and over. We also started by Arlington Cemetery.

Miles 8-10: Running past Georgetown University and through Georgetown - it was so cute! Still going.. been through a few water stops and eaten a few things.

Mile 11: We found Renee, our awesome cheerleader!! Took a picture with her and her sign (see facebook profile pic). Running by Potomac and Jefferson memorial.

Miles 12-15: Running through Hains Point. Everything is flat from here on out (although the hills before weren't bad at all). We made 13.1 miles in under 3 hours (I think we might finish in under 6!)

Miles 15 - 20: Running around the Mall. We pass Washington Monument, White House, the Capital, etc. We have to "beat the bridge" and get to mile 20 by 1:15pm in order to be allowed to finish the race. It's probably about 12:30 so we're fine. We find Renee's roommate Meryl who walks with us for about a mile and then we find Renee again right before the bridge.

Mile 20: We "beat the bridge"! Now, we have been going slower.. Emili has been power walking while I jog slowly.. on and off. by mile 20, my knees are done.

Miles 20-26.2: Walking. Slowly. The whole time. (along with everyone around us, haha).

Mile 26: Almost there!

Mile 26.1999: Ok time to pretend to jog again because you are 10 feet from the finish line

Mile 26.2: Done!! Done!! we did it!! Oh and our time was 6:29. So much for finishing in under 6 hours, blame that on my knees which were in so much pain.

It was an amazing experience and I'm so glad I did it. I will never do it again thanks to my knees but it was awesome. A fantastic way to 'celebrate' me and Emili's 20 years of friendship. I may do a half marathon sometime though.. :) And Emili ran after having been 'diagnosed' with bronchitis last week so way to go Emili!

You can check out some pictures here. No laughing - you didn't run a marathon. It was great how many photographers they had out there!

Marathon update again

How has my training been going? Well, after my 20 miles, I didn't run for 9 days until today! oops. I took a few days off for my legs to heal and then "blame it on the rain" didn't run for a few more. I ran 4 miles today which went ok but I took Molly with me and that always makes the run more difficult.

In other news, I wanted to let you know that you can track me while I run my marathon! Aren't you excited? I tracked Emili when she did her first marathon (and maybe her second, I can't remember) and it was really cool to know how far she had gone throughout the day. First you go here and sign up. You can receive email notifications or text messages. It will take Emili and I about 6 hours to run the marathon so if it starts at 8am (I don't even know.. probably 8) then we will finish around 2pm.

In non-marathon related news, anyone watching Biggest Loser? Did you see how they did not vote Tracey off tonight? What the heck! This is one of my least favorite seasons so far.. hopefully it will get better.

A few pictures

Having trouble getting these in a decent order so here they are anyway:

These are the lamps and mirror I am going to spray paint for our house. And Molly checking things out. (I'll post After pictures whenever I actually do this)

Our new light fixture in our front room! We took down the ceiling fan that didn't work and barely gave off any light and put this one up. I love it!

View from the top of the Strand theatre in Marietta Square, we went exploring tonight

Little M sleeping in the sunlight

A few of my coworkers and I after our Ekiden relay race in Piedmont Park

Finally we have guest bedding!

Randomness

It's been a while so I guess this might get lengthy! Stick with it if you wish :) So you know how they say that dogs and children are a lot alike? I've thought Molly has been pretty easy so far until one incident last week. We woke up in the middle of the night, around 3am, to Molly crying so Matt went to check out the situation since she had been having an upset stomach. The next thing I know Matt is getting me up to come help him because Molly has made a "mess" .. all over the crate.. on our wall.. on the carpet.. keep in mind she was in the crate the whole time. So Matt gave her a bath at 3am while I tied a shirt around my nose so I could breath and went to work. I don't think I'll mind it as much when it's my child.. that was a lot of work for a dog but it had to be done so oh well.

I don't really know how to transition out of that story. How about, speaking of cleaning the sheets Molly sleeps on, I finally got bedding for our guest room!! And thanks to Ikea, it is not the one I originally wanted. After 6 months, Ikea is still out of that bedding. So I picked a different one finally and made the bed all pretty. I will post some pictures soon. Speaking of new things..

I got my new car! Thanks to my sister for letting us drive her Jetta around for the last month, we now have two cars again. On Saturday I got a 2009 silver Honda Fit and it is so cute :) I feel like it is very 'me.' Pictures to come. Speaking of me..

I ran 20 miles yesterday. Yes, 20. That was the big week for marathon training and it ramps down quickly now until the marathon which is less than 3 weeks away!! I tried a run/walk method and ended up finishing the 20 miles in 4 hours 13 minutes which was fast for me and I enjoyed every minute of it! I am in pain now (and yesterday afterwards) but that will go away.. I'll just take a few days off to recuperate. Speaking of not running for a few days..

This week John, Stephanie, Arabelle and Parker are coming into town! We haven't met our niece Arabelle yet so we are looking forward to that (she is almost 3 months) and Molly hasn't met her dog cousin Parker so that should be fun to watch! We keep wanting to socialize her with lots of dogs but haven't made it to the dog park yet. Speaking of traveling..

I was in Augusta this weekend to get my car and my mom has sold her house! She and my sister will be moving into my grandmother's old house where she grew up. It's super cute but small so that will make Christmas fun and cozy when we're all there. Speaking of seasonal times of the year..

The HoneyCrisp apples are in the stores!! You MUST try them. I know they are way more expensive than other apples. I paid $2.99/lb today for 5 huge apples which cost me I think $9.39. And it will be worth every cent. I am so looking forward to eating one tomorrow. They are seasonal in the fall down here and not in every store but I located them in the Publix by me today. Go buy them - trust me!! Speaking of me liking to eat apples straight from the cold refrigerator..

It's 67 in our house! Quite chilly for me but we'll try to keep the heat off as long as possible. Not that I would turn the heat up much more than that, but just to take off the edge.

I guess this wasn't as long as I thought, just turned out more of a long train of thought, with no pictures :)

Marathon update

I realized I haven't updated on my progress on the marathon in a while. I believe we are five weeks away from marathon day. My running has been going well and I have been doing probably about 75% of the runs that I had originally planned. My current distances are something like 5 miles on Tuesdays and 9 on Wednesday. Then I am supposed to run 5 on Thursday but can never seem to motivate myself to run on Thursdays so that is usually the 25% that I skip. The farthest I have gone so far is 16 miles, although I was supposed to go 18 this past Saturday. I ran the 16 with Emili (who I am running the actual marathon with) when she was in town over Labor Day weekend. It was so great having her there running it with me to see how it will be on the actual day and I think we both motivated each other. We also run at the same [slow] speed which is perfect. Our time for the 16 was 3 hours 40 minutes.

I didn't run the 18 miles on Saturday due to all this rain, but I did run 9 miles in the rain last Wednesday so I'd know what it's like to run in the rain, as it's always a possibility that it will rain on marathon day. I am taking Friday off of work in hopes that it won't rain and I can get in a long run since I have another activity on Saturday keeping me from running Saturday.

Actually since the 16, the farthest I've run is 9.5 so hopefully I'll be ready for my 20 mile run in 2 weeks :-/ Once you get going though it's pretty easy to just keep going. As long as my knee holds out!! I am still glad I'm doing this and still enjoying it but I'm ready for it to be over with so I can have my time back. I want to work on my house!

In other small news, I saw Julie and Julia last night and it was an absolute must-see!! I laughed so hard all the way through. I'll update on other things soon I hope..

Have a great week!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world"

This past weekend was very fun and quite a flashback, as well as very touching. Friday night the Virginia Tech band, 300+ Hokies, travelled to Augusta, GA to play their show at my high school as a tribute to my friend Ryan who was killed in the Virginia Tech massacre. Our stadium was overflowing with love for Ryan and with too many people to fit. Before the game, the Hokies, my high school band, and our opponent's band all took the field to play the Star Spangled Banner. Then during halftime my high school band (which my sister is part of) played part of their show followed by the Virginia Tech band's performance, including the "Hokie Pokey"!

I also got to see a few old faces from high school as well as my high school band director. It felt really surreal to have everyone in that space together, especially to celebrate Ryan. "Be the change you wish to see in the world" encompasses everything Ryan stood for. I have some pictures down below of the evening.

On Saturday, Matt and I went to test drive a Honda Fit in replacement of my poor car. We have word from insurance that it is totaled but are still waiting on the final call. And waiting to find out how much they are going to give us for it. We are planning on getting a used Honda Fit. I *love* them!

Yesterday I got to spend the day with my bff Emili and we ran 16 miles!! It was really fun to have her here since we have been training separately for the marathon. I can't believe the marathon is almost here.. less than 2 months. Emili and I have been friends for 20 years so it's a pretty cool thing to do for our 20th anniversary ;-) And sadly we didn't take any pictures together this weekend, what's up with that?

Here are some pictures from the football game:

VT & Lakeside on the field for the Star Spangled Banner

My sister Erin in the band! Can you see her smiling at the camera in the middle?Lakeside & VT together, Lakeside is the dark corner and VT is all the whiteMy mom with a VT freshman band member. Everyone was so nice!

Lakeside band halftime showVT band halftime show. They're huge!

VT doing the Hokie Pokey. I wish I had taken a video. See the huge sousaphone section?

Thankful

As you can see we have had an eventful weekend. Last night we headed to Athens for Matt's friend's wedding rehearsal & rehearsal dinner (and wedding today of course). Matt was the soloist for the wedding. We had a great time last night and stayed in the Hampton Inn which was actually a really great stay. Until this morning when we tried to go across the street to the Walgreens. We went to turn left across two lanes of traffic. First lane stopped for us to get by so Matt went.. car coming very fast in the second lane. We both saw it, I screamed very loudly. The most terrifying thing ever. We are both fine and walked away without a scratch. I can't believe it. I am so thankful for our safe car that saved my life and probably Matt's as well (I was in the passenger seat). You can see the 3 airbags that deployed and saved my life. Windshield cracked, passenger windows shattered. So thankful. Thankful for my husband. That was about 11:30 this morning. We spent the next two hours getting the car towed and being picked up by Matt's friend Steven who drove us around town as needed until Matt's parents arrived around 2 to take us to the church so Matt could sing in the wedding at 3. So we are down to one car for the week.. debating on getting a rental. The car will take a few weeks to repair (IF it's not totaled) but in the mean time my sister is letting us borrow her car when we go to Augusta next weekend and bring it back with us. Thank you Erin!!!

Us at the wedding

Also thanks to Matt's parents we made it back to Atlanta in time to see a live show with Alton Brown from Good Eats. It was so awesome! A little too long for us though.. after 3 hours we finally left b/c we are so exhausted. Looks like it's time for bed now.. please learn from our mistake not to turn like that when someone lets you go!! (of course we have heard that too but who pays attention to the warnings?)

How to clean your house in 30 minutes a day

I feel like there is an article with this title in every women's magazine I read. And rightfully so since we are always searching for the magic answer to keeping the house clean. I have come up with a new way for our household. I'm on week 1 and so far so good.. but we'll see how it's going in a few weeks :) So I split my house into 5 chores.

Empty trashcans
Laundry
Family room & dust the house
Kitchen
Bathrooms and floors

Sunday through Thursday I tackle 1 chore each night, then I get to stop. So anyway that's my plan and I'll let you know how it goes. It doesn't keep the house 100% clean all the time but it keeps it clean enough and enough so that I could clean up the rest pretty quickly if someone was coming over.

In other news, there were terrible storms around here last night. The power in our guest room and office was knocked out. It didn't trip any circuits in our breaker so we are kind of at a loss for what to do. We tried some stuff with the breaker today to no avail so we are going to call an electrician in the next few days. Hopefully it will be an easy fix. The list of things we have fixed gets longer and longer...

Tomorrow morning I am supposed to run 15 miles. I have new socks and new shoes that I am really excited about. However, it's supposed to rain tomorrow morning, all morning :-/ And my left knee has a nice case of runner's knee. I'm reading up on it online as to what to do but ultimately I'm sure the best thing is to take a break from running, which isn't an option. Either way I have tomorrow off of work :)

Happy almost Friday!

Nothing too exciting to report

Hmm.. Saturday evening at 6:45. Looks like I'm not doing a whole lot! This week was pretty uneventful, but I did get my haircut which I always love. Every 4 months I get it chopped off and then let it grow until I can't stand it anymore and then chop it off again. I prefer it short like this but it's far too expensive to keep it this way. Also went and saw Bobby Lee Rodgers again.. I think it's the 11th or 12th time we have gone to see him but the last time was probably a year ago. He was amazing as always but since he didn't go on until around 11 and it was Thursday night, we had to leave before he was done. I got in bed at 1am and up again at 5:30am for work on Friday.

Last night we took it pretty easy since Saturday mornings are my long runs. 13 miles this morning! That's half the marathon!! I think I actually went 12.9 and it took me 2 hours 52 minutes. I am an incredibly slow runner (that's 13.3 min/mile) but today felt great and I really enjoyed the run. This week I added in Chastain Park in my route which I loved. Matt rides his bike along with me to keep me hydrated.. he'll go buy gatorade when we run out of water.

Then we came home and took short naps.. short because my dad came into town and hung out with us for a few hours. We just ran some errands to get some things I needed and then he took us to Gabriel's for dinner! SO yummy. Especially the mint brownie. So now I am stuffed. Oh and speaking of dessert I made peanut butter cookies last night.. definitely had 5 of those today. It's a recipe that I have made my whole life with my mom and they are yummy.

We don't really have any plans for tonight.. personally I want to fall asleep right now. Might go see a movie but then I'd probably fall asleep. Ahh exciting married life, haha. But I am perfectly content staying home most nights, I'm very much a homebody. So here's to another night of relaxing.

Blogging shortage

I think I need to be more diligent in my blogging. At least I haven't stopped but since I'm not writing as often my entries become way too long! But if you are still reading I guess that is a good sign :) Let's see.. past two weeks..

Matt has been out of school between semesters (he starts back tomorrow). He has been working on the basement and also on his applications for Kennesaw and Georgia State to start on his bachelor's degree in January. He'll be graduating with his associates degree in December!

Two Fridays ago we had our annual Gas South Family Fun Day. This year it was held at Piedmont Park (was last year too) and basically my work day consisted of Matt and I hanging out with my coworkers and their family's from 10-2. Greatest work day ever.

We had a good number of friends over here last Saturday night for a potluck dinner. I don't have any pictures but I think Scott was taking some so maybe he'll post them over here. It was great seeing everyone and lively having two babies around the house! Mary, Tammie and the Mackowski's stayed later and we played a game called Acquire which was really cool if you are in the need of a new board game ;-)

And last night was the coolest thing of all. We saw Paul McCartney live in concert in Piedmont Park!!! Definitely the best concert I have ever been to. We weren't supposed to take cameras in, so we didn't, but of course a lot of people there had them. So these aren't my pictures but below are some of what we saw. He played for 2.5 hours which included 3 encores. (I really hate encores by the way.. just keep playing the music!) The song I enjoyed the most was Live or Let Die.

We were closer than this :)

And a video of Live or Let Die. I realize it's completely poor quality but you get kind of an idea of how exciting it was. (I didn't take this video). They also had fireworks above / behind the [HUGE] stage for this song that you can kind of see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcjVnl1Kxq4 <-- I don't know how to embed the video in my blog!

Not quite as exciting as Paul McCartney, but today Matt and I went to Patagonia to get me a new winter coat! I only really like one of my coats and none of them are very warm. I realize you don't need too warm of a jacket here in the south, but if you are me then you do. They are having a huge sale so this was 50% off!! Thanks to Crystal for telling me about the sale!

This should keep me nice and toasty all winter :)

Our First Anniversary!

This weekend Matt and I have been celebrating our first anniversary. We both agree it was a perfect first year to start out our marriage. Sunday, August 2nd was our anniversary and we started it off by sleeping in! We woke up ready to go exercise, ate breakfast.. and then went back to bed, haha. We woke back up around 10:30 and got ready for the day. After dropping Molly off over at Matt's parents house, we began our day with Taco Bell for lunch. Sounds funny I know but we both love Taco Bell and never eat it so we had that on our anniversary.

After Taco Bell we headed downtown to go to the aquarium. I used to go to the aquarium all the time when it opened and it was fantastic, I would always go when it wasn't crowded. One time that it used to not be crowded was Sunday afternoons. Apparently that isn't the case anymore. It was ridiculously crowded. And we ended up spending more money than we could have. I found out too late that if you buy a combo ticket (aquarium + Titanic exhibit) online it is $31.50. If you buy the ticket at the aquarium it is $34. If you buy the aquarium ticket outside and the Titanic ticket inside, it is $35 (which is what we did). What the heck? The Titanic exhibit was great but the rest of the aquarium was really too crowded to enjoy.

Us at the aquarium
This is awful, this is one of those obligatory photos they make you take to try to get you to buy them. Now you can view them online. This is us on the Titanic! We try to skip these but sometimes they just make you.

After the aquarium we walked across the street and checked into our hotel, Hilton Garden Inn Downtown Atlanta. As I opened the door to our room I was overwhelmed with the smell of cigarette smoke - ew!! I called downstairs and we got a new room right away, thank goodness. It was a really nice room and I'm glad we stayed down there. We relaxed for a while and then got ready for our dinner out at Lola. Lola is a restaurant I found online in Buckhead that specializes in bellinis and tapas. I loved it! I really can't wait to go back! We also had a couple on their first date sitting directly next to us so it was kind of funny to listen (I couldn't help it). "What's your favorite food? Seen any good movies lately? How many siblings do you have?" hehe. One thing I really liked about the dinner was that it lasted 2 hours and usually we are in and out way too quickly. After dinner we ate the top of our wedding cake! It was actually delicious!!

Ready for dinner!

Getting ready to eat the cakeYear old cake!Yum!!
What the cake looked like last year

This morning we slept in and then went and did some shopping. We found some great deals at Atlantic Station including a super cute pair of shoes for $2.99 :) After shopping we headed over to Matt's parents house to pick up Molly. Apparently she spent the whole time looking for us and whimpered a lot. Poor girl, we were so excited to see her. Now it's back to semi-reality. I have one more day off then it's back to work on Wednesday.

$2.99 shoes :)

Oh and for our anniversary Matt got me two gifts, one was a wall clock, pictured below. Apparently that is the 'new' traditional first year anniversary gift. He also had one of my grandfather's paintings framed but it is still at the framers so I can't take a picture yet.

We also went to Amicalola Falls on Saturday:

Molly also made the trip up and down the 400+ stairs

And last but not least, one year ago..