Monday, September 30, 2013

Another Good Weekend...and a Cold

Our weekend wasn't too exciting, but it was good.  On Friday night Kevin and I caught up on our shows on the DVR.  Since most of our fall shows started last week, we had lots to catch up on!  

On Saturday I took my cousin to her soccer game and watched her play.  Her team didn't win, but they did good!  And it was a beautiful day to sit out at a soccer game.  Temps near 80 degrees and sunny.


After the soccer game, Kevin and I helped our friends move in to the house they just bought.  We were super tired by the time we got home, so we just sat around for the rest of the night.  I snacked on chips and salsa and had a couple beers while we watched football.  It was great.


Kevin and I both woke up a little sore on Sunday and I woke up with a cold.  I was so mad because I had a lot I wanted to get done, but didn't feel like doing anything.  I did a few loads of laundry and mowed the lawn, so at least I felt a little accomplished.

I'm hoping this cold goes away quickly and doesn't get any worse this week.  We have a fun weekend planned this weekend and I don't want to feel sick for any of it!

Did you do anything fun this weekend?





Sami's Shenanigans

Friday, September 27, 2013

5 on Friday

Another weekend is almost here!  I'm linking up with some great girls for 5 on Friday and you should too.

ONE.  I started decorating our house for fall, and hope to finish this weekend.  I plan to do a full post of our fall decor, but I thought I'd share this super cute printable that I plan on putting in our living room. (If you go to the website of the pin, there are other colors too.)


TWO.  I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm pretty much addicted to deal sites like GroopDealz and Jane.  They have different daily boutique deals that are so hard to pass up!  Deals for you, your little one, your pet, and your home.  I've purchased items from both sites and have had zero problems, so go check out all of their cute stuff at discounted prices!  You can thank me later.

THREE.  I've been listening to the new Justin Timberlake album The 20/20 Experience - 2 of 2 on itunes this week and I'm loving it!  You can listen to it for free right now!  It comes out on Monday, and you better believe I'll be at Target to get my copy.  Speaking of Justin, Have you seen the clips that he and Jimmy Fallon have done recently?  They did an Evolution of End Zone Dancing skit that was great, but the most recent one is #hashtag and it is hillarious!  If you haven't seen it yet, you need to watch the video below.  If you have seen it, you know you want to watch it again.



FOUR.  Since I've been running more, I've been thinking about getting new headphones.  I'd love to have some wireless headphones when I'm running.  The cord just drives me nuts.  Anyone have any suggestions on good headphones for running?

FIVE.  I'm taking a break from wedding posts for a bit, and I'm co-hosting The Blogger's Digest linkup on Wednesdays for the next few weeks.  It's a great way to find new blogs and get your blog out there for others to see.  Make sure you come link up with us next Wednesday!

That's it for today....a very random 5 on Friday.  Our plans for the weekend include my little cousin's soccer game, helping friends move, and football.  What are you up to this weekend?

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

The Blogger's Digest #7

I'm co-hosting this fun blog hop for the next few weeks.  Check it out and find some great new blogs!

Hi and welcome to The Blogger's Digest!
The Blogger's Digest is a place for bloggers to share their latest {or greatest} posts and build connections with other bloggers. You can also share your blog's social media links so we can all follow along! To get the most out of a blog hop, it's encouraged to stop by and visit others' blogs and let them know you were there. 

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  Our Co-Hosts This Week:
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The Diary of a Real Housewife
Hi, I'm Jennie, wife, mom, and child of God. I invite you to join me through life's ups and downs (with lots of laughs) of being a real housewife.


This Crazy Thing Called Life
Hi, I'm Ericka - I'm a 20 something newlywed, first-time homebuyer. Join me as I live married life, learn about home owning, and everything else in This Crazy Thing Called Life.

piganddac {at} live {dot} com

- Last Week's Highlights -
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  1. Pardon My French - My Outing Must Haves
  2. Food Corner - Honey Lime Tea
  3. The Princess & Her Cowboys - DIY Antiqued Quote Board
  4. The Adorned Life - Orange Creamsicle Smoothie
  5. Spoonful of Flour - Pumpkin Pie Poptart Cupcakes
Thank you so much to everyone who participated last week, so many great posts - it was hard to choose just a few!

How to join along:
  • Submit a post from your blog. It can be about anything!
  • Share your social media links so we can follow along with your blog
  • Connect with other bloggers and follow those who follow you!
  • If you "like" someone's Facebook page, leave them a message with the link to your page if you'd like a follow back, otherwise they won't be able to find your fan page.
  • Link back to the blog hop in whatever way you feel most comfortable - the more people who join along, the better for all of us!



Monday, September 23, 2013

Weekend Recap: Food & Golf

I had a great weekend filled with food, jewelry, friends, and golf.  On Friday, I walked around ArtPrize with some friends/co-workers and we grabbed lunch from a food truck.  It was my first time eating from a food truck and it was DELICIOUS.  I wish we had these all the time!





Friday night I was extremely lazy and didn't do anything except make dinner and watch TV.  On Saturday, Kevin and I went to the mall to drop our wedding rings off.  He needed his resized and I needed mine soldered together.  It's going to be a couple weeks before we get the rings back and I feel so weird without mine!  I picked up a super cheap super fake ring to wear until I get it back.  On our way to the mall, we picked up some super yummy donuts from Marge's Donut Den.  They have the BEST donuts.



I had a Premier Designs Jewelry show at my house a couple weeks ago and all of my jewelry came this weekend!  I'm can't wait to wear it all!!!


On Sunday morning, Kevin and I went golfing with some friends.  I actually did pretty decent for not golfing at all this year, and only going once last year.  We had fun, but it was pretty cold!  We spent the rest of Sunday doing laundry and watching football.  I also started putting up our fall decorations, but still have more to do.

Hope you had a great weekend!





Sami's Shenanigans

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Sunshine Award

Thank you to Ashley from Cup of Ash Tea for nominating me for the Sunshine Award!  The Sunshine Award is for bloggers whose posts brighten your day, so I'm honored that Ashley nominated me for this :)


Rules:
1.  Include the award logo in your post.
2.  Link to the person who nominated you.
3.  Answer10 questions about yourself.
4.  Nominate 10 bloggers to receive the award.

Ashley's Questions for Me:
1) What is the best book you've read recently?

I just finished all three Hunger Games books recently and I really loved them.  I wasn't sure I'd like them, but they were such an easy read and I didn't want to put them down.  Now I'm currently reading The 12th of Never by James Patterson and I'm liking it so far!

2) What's something that you do every day?
Brush my teeth.  I've had so many dental issues in my life, that I try really hard to brush twice a day and floss every day...it super important to me.  And I can't go to bed at night without brushing my teeth first...just can't do it.

3) What are you most looking forward to this fall?
Decorating my house for fall and carving pumpkins so I can eat the seeds :)  I LOVE pumpkins seeds!

4) Share a link to your favorite post you have ever written. 
Since I'm a newlywed, I'm loving all of our wedding posts, but this one is probably my favorite: Wedding Beach Pictures.


5) If you had to live in a decade other than the current one, which would you choose?
Hmmm probably the 80's.  I was born in '87 so I don't really a remember a whole lot about the 80's, but my parents listened to a lot of 80's music and I love it!

6) Starting with the oldest picture on your phone, what is the 6th photo you have saved?
It's a picture of Admiral sleeping on the bathroom floor while I try to get ready in the morning.

7) If you could travel anywhere and money was no option, where would you go?
Hawaii.  Definitely.  I love warm weather and the beach so I think Hawaii would be perfect.  I'm all about visiting places in the U.S. and I'd love to check Hawaii off my list some day.


8) If you had to choose one food to eat the rest of your life, what would you pick?
My mom's home made sloppy joes and home made mac n cheese.  I know that's technically two things, but they go together, so I'm counting it :)  I just love her sloppy joes and mac n cheese...I could eat them every day!

9) What was your favorite toy when you were a child?

I had a few...legos, matchbox cars, and barbies.

10) Tell me something that you like about yourself. (:
I like that I am (for the most part) an organized person.  I think this helps not only with my job, but also with my life in general.  It's a good quality to have, but sometimes it can stress me out a little if things aren't just how I want them.

I Nominate:
My Questions For You:
1.  Do you have any pets?  What kind?  Names?
2.  What is your favorite season and why?
3.  What is your favorite drink?  Alcohol or not, doesn't matter.
4.  Why did you start blogging?
5.  What is your dream job?
6.  If you could only clothes shop at one store for the rest of your life, which store would it be?
7.  Starting with the oldest photo on your phone, what is the 7th picture?
8.  What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
9.  What is your "go-to" outfit?
10.  What is something not many people know about you?

I can't wait to read everyone's answers to these!


Friday, September 20, 2013

My First 5k

I signed up for my first 5k!  It's October 26.  I'm pretty excited!  I've never done a race before and I've been wanting to run more, so I'm hoping this gives me the motivation to keep at it.  My goal is to run the entire time and not walk.  I'm not worried about time, just completing it will make me happy.

In order to prepare, I've been using the C25Kfree app on my phone for the past couple of weeks and I love it.  It's super easy to use and has a great plan to help beginners like me.


I'm also going to start doing little things...they may be small, but they can't hurt!  I'm going to start taking the stairs more at work instead of using the elevator.  I'm also going to try and make smarter/healthier eating choices.  I stopped drinking pop a couple of months ago, so now I need to make better choices when it comes to my food.  I know I won't be perfect, but I'm going to try to be a little better.

I'm a little more motivated to run now that I get to wear my new Adidas running shoes that I got from the outlet mall a couple weeks ago.  I fell in love with the colors as soon as I saw them, and they are super light and have been great for running so far!


Do any of you runners have any tips for beginner runners?

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Wedding Wednesday: The Honeymoon (pt 2)

You can read part one here.

We arrived in Atlantic City around 8:00 p.m. on Monday night and checked in to the Trump Taj Mahal.  We were very happy with our choice to stay there.  The room was really nice and big and it was located right on the main boardwalk, so we just walked out of the casino/hotel and we were on the boardwalk.  We also had a view of the ocean from our room!




The view from our hotel room....not bad!
Since we were tired from driving by the time we arrived on Monday night, we decided to eat dinner (there were tons of restaurants in our casino/hotel) and hang out at the casino in our hotel that night.  We had some drinks and did some gambling before heading to bed.

Lobster Spring Roll Appetizer-delicious!
On Tuesday we got up and explored the boardwalk.  Tip: wear comfortable shoes!  The boardwalk is much larger than we thought and we both wore sandals and our feet were killing us by the time we got back.  I think the total length of the board was like 5 or 8 miles...and then you have to walk back.



It was a little rainy that morning, so we decided to go to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum that was located on the boardwalk.  It was fun going in there and seeing all of the cool stuff they had.  By the time we were done in the museum, the rain had stopped and we kept walking along the boardwalk.




We decided to play mini golf before lunch.


We went to Nathan's Hot Dogs for lunch and it hit the spot!


After our walk, we went to check out hour hotel's pool.  It was indoors and filled with kids, so we stayed in the pool for about five minutes before decided to go sit on the sun deck.  Much more relaxing!  Kevin hates laying out, so he decided to go gamble while I soaked up some sun.  


We met back at the room a little while later to go get ice cream.  We ended up getting ice cream AND deep friend oreos.  Also, on our walk to to get ice cream...we BOTH got pooped on by seagulls!  How gross is that?  There are tons of seagulls on the boardwalk because there are people and food vendors everywhere.  I'm actually amazed it only happened once to each of us the entire time.

Deep friend oreos
Tuesday night we gambled and went to the "light show" that takes place every night on the boardwalk.  I thought it was just going to be some laser lights set to music, but it was so much more awesome!  They had a music "show" that was projected on to a building set to music.  It was all different eras of music.  It's hard to capture just how neat it really was in pictures, but trust me, it's definitely something to check out if you ever in Atlantic City.







Wednesday morning we went to breakfast and then decided to spend the day at the beach.  Every day we were in Atlantic City, it was really foggy in the morning and then it would clear up.









 


Wednesday night we had reservations at Bobby Flay's Steakhouse.  This wasn't on the boardwalk, so we took a cab.  It was the best dinner ever.  I had shrimp scampi (I'm not a big steak person) and Kevin had a Kobe Beef steak.  We had mashed potatoes and asparagus as our sides and baked Alaska for dessert.





When we got back from dinner, we walked the boardwalk and we decided to grab some pretzels on the way back to snack on later.  The sign outside the pretzel shop said 20 pretzels for $5.  We figured they were bite size ones and decided to get that.  Imagine our surprise when they loaded up a bag with 20 FULL SIZE PRETZELS for $5!!!


On Thursday we took a cab to an aquarium we had heard about that wasn't too far away.  We had fun, but it was really small and was geared more toward little kids.  We had fun anyway and there were some great views from the top of the aquarium, so it wasn't a total loss!













The tall buildings in the fog are on the boardwalk where we stayed.
Thursday night was the 4th of July, so we went out on the beach to enjoy some fireworks.  They had three spots where they were launching fireworks along the boardwalk, so no matter where you were, you had a great view!  I didn't take any pictures of the actual fireworks, but it was a great display!






Friday morning we ate breakfast and then got in the car and drove back home.  Our plan was to drive half-way and stop for the night and drive the rest of the way on Saturday, but we decided to just drive the whole way on Friday so we had two full days at home before we had to go back to work.

Our honeymoon was the perfect get away for us, and a place that I wouldn't mind going back to in the future  I'm just glad I was able to share such a great experience with my husband.

-Ericka

Chits and Giggles