A few more from our big day

Bruce (center) with his step-brother (left) and bro-in-law (right)

Allie with her stepdad (lol, sometimes, she actually just calls him Stepdad

My handsome Daddy!

L-R My gorgeous grandma, me, my Allie, and my Mama

Bruce telling my sister to put her hand over her mouth the next time she
felt like complainng (she was a little lot lol) I'm telling him to be nice!

Finish This...Week X

Linking up with Nicole at Three 31, Jen at The Arizona Russums, Lisa at COASTLINED, and Becky at The Java Mama....

On Saturday morning, I usually-try to sleep in as late as possible or at least lay around in bed as long as possible, and then cook a big breakfast in my pajamas before getting ready to start our day. 


I feel beautiful whenever- I'm around Bruce. He is super affectionate and open with his thoughts about this, and he always makes me feel attractive and beautiful. It's one of the twenty gazillion reasons why I love him so much.

I wake up every morning-wishing I didn't have to get out of bed. Granted, I don't actually have to get out of bed on a workday until at least 6:30, and I can push it back to 7 if I don't really want to style my hair. I just really dislike mornings. I really want to like them; I want to be able to get up and do about a half hour of cardio on my elliptical before getting ready and have some quite time to read my Bible and to eat breakfast and not always be saying, "Allie baby, please hurry" as we're getting ready. I'm really going to work on this...

A happy home-is one of the most important goals in my life; something that I want to work hard to create for my husband and my daughter. It is filled with Jesus and love and laughter and fun and people who are adaptable and flexible and forgiving and who also share in my goal of creating a happy home. 

Roasting marshmallows over our fire pit Saturday night

Allie wore cat ears to the nursing home Sunday to visit
 her great-great-grandmother

When I have down time, I-Down time is a bit of a foreign concept in my life right now; and when I do have it, I want to try and cram about a million things into the couple hours free time I have. Yesterday when I got off work, Bruce was at work and Allie was with her dad, so I had about 4 free hours to myself, for the first time in forever. I ran in Aldi and Walmart for a few quick things we needed (I didn't dare let Allie come home without having milk and the Hershey's chocolate powder-and it must be the powder, she's picky), I went to an hour long spin class at the gym (oh the soreness in my lower body today...), I fixed a huge pot of white chicken chili for supper and for Bruce to eat on today, and I sat on my couch and read a book I've had my eye on forever. I'd always rather have Bruce and Allie with me, but even so, it was a pretty awesome night.

Trendy Tot Tuesday

I'm a huge fan of the Nike Free tennis shoes. This time a year ago, I bought myself my first new pair of tennis shoes in a couple of years, and then Allie ended up having to have a pair that matched mine. 

Now, Allie is about to outgrow her shoes, and we're looking to buy her a new pair. In the warmer months, Allie lives in cute athletic shorts, t-shirts, and her tennis shoes. They are also somewhat expensive for kid's shoes. Since she wears them so much, I don't mind, but it's a purchase we put a lot of thought into. I'm hoping to get Allie a new pair soon, but I just can't decide which ones I like best. I love that Nike offers the ability to customize your shoe, so I think that might be the route we go. But there are so very cute styles already available as is on the website. 

Our Honeymoon-New Orleans Part II

On Saturday we ate crawfish fritters for lunch at a little place on Royal Street whose name escapes me, but the fritters were fantastic! Then, we took a walking tour with Witches Brew tours through the French Quarter, Louis Armstrong Park/Congo Square, and St. Louis Cemetary #1. It was a lot of walking, but the weather was gorgeous and our tour guide, Nate, was amazing. He was a New Orleans native who knew so much history and insider information about the city-he really made our tour great.

Statue in Louis Armstrong Park, near Congo Square

Louis Armstrong Park

Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau's tomb

That afternoon, we stood in line for a half hour to get beignets at Cafe du Monde, which Bruce immediatly deemed well worth the wait, then we walked around the French Market for awhile. We ate gator on a stick, bought Allie a Mardi Gra mask and a t-shirt, and just took in the sights. I could  have spent days there though, it was such a cool place. 

That night we had dinner at The Gumbo Pot, and it was literally the best seafood gumbo I have ever had in my life. 

Other things I discovered while in the city that made my trip awesome: 

The Ramos Gin Fizz-apparently developed by Henry Ramos in New Orleans 1888 and a local favorite. Bruce and I discovered it at the Carousel Bar, as we watched a bartender break open an egg and add the whites to a drink he was mixing. We asked another couple we'd befriended at the bar beside us, and they encouraged us to go to The Old Absinthe House to try the Ramos gin fizz. We did, and I know, know...egg whites in a drink?! But really, it was amazing...light, frothy, slightly citric....it's a new favorite of mine and I can't wait to try to reproduce it. I'll share a recipe soon if we can create a good replica. 

Pralines-Now, my mama makes pralines around the holidays, but it's nothing like these....pure sugar with some butter and pecans thrown in, and just amazing. I sampled one then bought a whole box at The New Orleans School of Cooking General Store and wow....

All in all, we had a wonderful trip, and got to spend a ton of quality time, just the two of us, which is very rare on daily basis. I count myself as a very blessed girl to be married to such a wonderful man, to be able to spend time with him in such a cool city. 

Our Honeymoom-New Orleans Part I

We knew imediatly once we got engaged that we wanted our honeymoon to be in New Orleans. We'd been to Savannah, GA in September of last year, and really loved it, so we thought we'd love New Orleans too.

We began looking for a place to stay shortly after we got engaged, however March is apparently a peak travel time for the city, and there was a convention going on there the weekend we were traveling also. So by mid-February, all of the places that we were interested in staying were already booked. Location was very important, and we initially wanted a bed-and-breakfast inside the French Quarter; however none were available.

We ended up selecting Royal St. Charles Hotel, which I knew when I booked wasn't exactly what we wanted, but we were out of options. It actually turned out to be worse than I could have imagined, but more on that later.

We had planned on taking the Amtrak train there, but waited around on booking, and by Tuesday night before we were supposed to leave on Thursday, as we're sitting at my parent's kitchen table, borrowing their wifi, we realized we couldn't get seats on the train. We decided then to just drive-a very easy 6 hr drive and an hour and half shorter than the train ride-and that we would go ahead and leave Wednesday afternoon., giving us another full day in New Orleans. I'm actually very glad things worked out this way for us; because it ended up being a really good thing.

We found a hotel about 40 minutes outside of the city Wednesday night, since ours wasn't available until Thursday afternoon, and honestly, the hotel was terrifying. The location and price were exactly what we were looking for, but it was filthy and we both slept in our clothes on top of the covers. I suppose that's just what you get for $52 a night. I couldn't wait to get out of there Thursday morning.

We got into New Orleans on Thursday, and got checked into our hotel. I will give it this, it was a clean hotel-wonderful in comparison to the super sketchy place we stayed the night before. And the location was perfect-just one block off Canal Street and from the French Quarter, and on the corner of a St. Charles Avenue streetcar stop. But, our room was tiny, with an even tinier bathroom, and it had no window, microwave, or mini-fridge. We requested a mini-fridge, but after much run-around, were told on the 2nd day that it would come with a $25 charge-um, no thanks. The staff, with the exception of one or two nice employees, were mostly very, very rude. The hotel charged a mandatory $10 per night fee, on top of the crazy high price we were already paying, for use of the fitness center, wifi, and long distance calling-none of which we used at all during our entire stay. Needless to stay, if we could have found any other options, we would not have stayed there, and never will again.

But, our trip....
*Please excuse the poor quality of any photos as all were taken with my over 2 year-old iPhone 4s. 

Our first night there, we had drinks at The Carousel Bar at Hotel Monteleone. 

We walked around Jackson Square and went down to see the Mississippi River. 

For supper, we ate shrimp po-boys at NOLA's Po-boys on a tiny balcony overlooking Bourbon Street, and it was a wonderful dinner.

The following day, we took the St. Charles streetcar to the Garden District. We toured Lafayette Cemetery #1, and it was so eerily beautiful and at times wonderfully creepy. It was overcast and drizzling and there weren't very many other people there that day. We loved it! 

After that, we did a self-guided tour of the gorgeous homes in the Garden District in the rain. It was nice at first, but the rain come down harder, we got wetter, and then we decided to forgo the rest of our tour for a roof over our heads and some amazing gumbo at a little table outside a little local owned shop on Magazine Street. 

Friday night, we got dressed up and listened to some great music on Frenchman Street and shopped at a local street arts and crafts fair, and bought a really cool print for our home. 

Stay tuned for scenes from the next two days we spent in the Big Easy....

Finish This...Week IV

After having missed last week due to our honeymoon(!!!) I'm back for this week's Finish This... linkup, hosted by Nicole ~Three 31~, Jen ~The Arizona Russums~, Lisa ~COASTLINED~,  and Becky ~The Java Mama~. 

I don’t get enough-time! This week, with all the recent changes, everything going on and us just trying to get settled in, has been a little rough on my mental health. I feel like I don't have enough time to love on Allie, or to just hang out and snuggle with Bruce, much less do things like read books I've been dying to read forever or go to the gym. Hopefully in the coming weeks things will settle down and we'll figure out our routine, but until then, I could use just a few more hours.

My favorite indulgence-is taking a couple of hours to get my nails done, or go to the gym, or sit down and read a good book. All of these things are very good for my mental health. 

I made a major change in my life when-I went through my divorce, then again when I met Bruce. The period leading up to and shortly after the divorce were dark times, but I learned so much about the kind of life I wanted, and the kind of person I wanted to be. I vowed that I would never settle for anything less again. Meeting Bruce has only made me more confident that I can be the kind of person I want to be, and he has opened my eyes to so many things. He's made the life I always wanted possible. I've changed so much over the past 3 years, and it's all been for the better, and I'm so happy about that fact. 

You should read-The Fever series by Karen Marie Moning, or the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, or the Black Dagger Brotherhood by JR Ward....all pure guilty pleasure, escapist reading; great story-telling and wonderful fun! Also, Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.....wonderful book! 

____ is my secret ingredient in-I probably have tons of random secret ingredients in everything I make as I'm not really a cook-by-the-recipe kinda girl. I'll find one I think will be good, then I'll add things or take away depending on what sounds good to me or my family likes or what ingredients I have on hand. So, most of the time, nothing tastes exactly the same two times in a row if I make it. 

Trendy Tot Tuesday/School Picture Day!

Trendy Tot Tuesday is here again, and it coincided perfectly with School Picture Day! I can't wait to see how the actual pictures turn out, but here's what she wore...

Dress is Kelly's Kids (bought secondhand from a friend for $10 and it looks brand new)
Shoes are Keds, bought new at Shoe Dept for around $30, but literally worn nearly out, so worth it