Being the wine connoisseur that I am, particularly for cheap wines, this article really struck my fancy. A wine panel at the NY Times tested 25 red wines, all under $25 to determine the winners. If you are wine drinker on a budget like me, or even if you're not on a budget, you need to check out this article!

Happiness for $10 or Less

The top 10 contenders are already added to my grocery list! =o)

Currently listening to :: "Caring is Creepy" by the Shins

Been A While....

Things have been CRAZY busy for us lately, thus why no posting in such a long time. I will try to get better about that. =o) Since October, I have had to travel to Seattle, WA for work. As hard as it was to leave my boys yet again, Seattle is an absolutely gorgeous city and I cannot wait to go back. Although I was only there for a few days, I managed to see quite a bit of the city.

The gorgeous space needle.
View of downtown Seattle at night from the Space Needle..

Pike Place Fish Market:

After returning home from Seattle, things are finally starting to go back to normal for us. We have spent a lot of weekends with friends.... up in Wisconsin visiting Andrew & Stacey, tailgaiting at the Hawks games, and of course spending much of our time with Guinness. He is getting so big now!!! 15 pounds at his last vet visit.

Here we are tailgating at the Magic Bus:

And here is Brian with the Miller High Life dude that we met:

And us girls getting ready to go out:

This past weekend we of course celebrated Thanksgiving. We had a lovely time visiting with family and eating loads of turkey. And keeping with our Day-After Thanksgiving tradition we got our Christmas tree on Friday and set out all of our Christmas decor. We got most of the lights done outside too, we just have a few to finish up! So we are definitely in the Christmas mood now!

We also added a new member to the family over the weekend. Yes you heard right.... our new 50 inch plasma tv, that is!! Yes it is ginormous! We have wanted to get a new tv since the wedding with the gift card that the groomsmen gave us, but were waiting for a good deal. So now we have it. Complete with all the bells & whistles... PS3, HD, and I'm sure many other acronyms. And since we had the new tv all hooked up on Saturday and everyone was in town for Thanksgiving, we had to have a get-together at the house. Don't ask me how the girls managed to get the new plasma to play Scene It and the boys were watching the football game on the tiny tv in the kitchen!! Works for me. =o)

Hopefully I can charge the camera tonight and get some new pictures posted of the tv and of course our Christmas decorations ASAP!

Currently listening to: "Fidelity" - Regina Spektor :: courtesy of Stacey =o) ::

Happy Halloween!!

Trick or Treat!

"In The Land of Women"

An additional note...

As an addmitted OC-Addict, I have to plug the new movie releasing today with Adam Brody, "In The Land of Women." I *dragged* Brian to this in the theather months ago when it first came out, and he was even surprised at how much he liked it. Not your typical love story, it's even better. Not predictable at all and beyond hilarious- well, how can it not be with Adam Brody??? Sigh.

P.S. Did I mention there's an English Bulldog in it?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

GO SEE IT! You won't regret it.

::Currently logging off PC, running to Target to pick up my copy....::

Happy 50th Birthday Dad!

We had yet another eventful weekend as my Dad turned 50! Although I'm sure he's not as excited about it as I am. To celebrate, he loaded all of is close friends into the Hawkmobile and wouldn't tell anyone where we going. As we neared the Wisconsin bridge, I think everyone got the idea since my Dad is the hugest Matt Kenseth fan known to man. What they weren't counting on, was having to wear "17" shirts that my Dad happily supplied upon arrival to Matt's hometown & fan club store, but who were they to argue with the birthday boy?

After spending the afternoon in Matt's hometown at various Matt Kenseth hangouts, the Hawkmobile ventured back toward home, stopping at nearly every bar on the way to open some presents & get some MORE drinks.. as if there weren't enough on the Hawkmobile.

Here is my Dad sporting his new Cowboys jacket & Lucky underwear, "Rocky-style"
I am tempted to post the video of the "Rocky" entourage, but I think my Dad will pleasantly surprised by the photo enough.

Sunday we spent the day at my mom & dad's house for my Dad's actual birthday. Guinness now has free reign of their house, which if you know my parents means, they LOVE him.

Here he is playing in the leaves....

After running around in the leaves with aunt Kirby, he decided to take an afternoon snooze on Grandpa. What a life. :)

Been too long...

Sorry, sorry, sorry. Things have been crazy busy lately! With bringing Guinness home & getting him settled and then having to travel to Atlanta for work- I haven't had much time for blogging. But I'm back & with pictures and be prepared for most of them to be of our new baby Guinness. He is just a doll. He is really adjusting to his new life well and loves it very much-- his $200 worth of toys might help with that!! Don't get me wrong- he is still a puppy and housetraining is not all it's cracked up to be- but we love him to death nonetheless.

Here he is getting ready to go on his walk...

Although this is usually what his "walks" look like...

Sleeping with daddy...

It's funny how mom, dad & the girls stop over almost every night now for some reason.... I think I know what that reason is!

Here he is with aunt Kirby...

My week in Atlanta was good. For my first business trip alone I think I handled myself pretty well. I missed home a lot, but I acutally surprised myself at how well I did on my own. I was even able to see a bit of the city and try some new things. I am proud to say that I am no longer a sushi virgin thanks to some awesome co-workers of mine!

Here is our sushi plate at Genki in Atlanta:

And me with my Japanese beer. Too bad we didn't get a picture of the Sashi-Bombs!

Guinness & Company saying 'Buh Bye' for now!
(Yes, this is what he does when he's scared.)

Eventful weekend...

We had a very busy and event-filled weekend in our family. Friday night was Kirby's birthday party... so we loaded up 5 of her friends in the Hawkmobile and headed to Chuckee Cheese... that was an adventure!!

Then on Saturday, we headed to Six Flags' Fright Fest with Andrew, Jennifer, Kris & Katie.... what an awesome time!! Although we only made it on 2 rides- it was still a great day and we did a lot of catching up, and scaring the shit out of ourselves.

Here is us girls on the Raging Bull....
And the boys.... how the heck did they know where the camera was?!?!
We had a great time with our great friends and made some new memories.

Hubby and I in front of scary guy!

And then of course on Sunday we drove 14 hours to pick up GUINNESS and bring him home. A long day, but worth every second. He has been unbelievably well behaved and is enjoying his new pad and family.

Here he is with Brian during the drive home.... "are we there yet dad?"

And sleeping the day away..... "squishy face!"

Welcome home Guinness!

Constructing our oasis....

Now that wedding planning is done with... working on the house is again a priority! YaY. Or at least we will be once we get Guinness home & get settled in. First on our list... the bedroom. Luckily there is no drywalling, etc. or anything major to be done... mainly painting, new furniture, and possibly ripping up the carpet to hopefully find some hardwood underneath and refinish it. There is already a wood wainscotting in the room which I LOVE, but we are for sure going to paint that white and brighten up the room. And then the plan is the paint the walls a light blue.... Just this morning I found a bedroom set that I am IN LOVE WITH and am now drooling over.......




(I am currently printing out this photo to take to my hubby on my lunch break and plead to him how badly we need it..) =) So, we are hoping that the bedroom can be our "winter project" and have it finished by January/Februrary-- since it is mostly painting, furnishing, etc. I'm thinking that shouldn't be a problem.

Another huge task that we are jumping on next month is getting our basement organized. It was bad enough moving into the house 3 months before the wedding- therefore stacking tons of things in the basement instead of putting them away because we just didn't have time- but add 2 wedding showers & a wedding worth of gifts to that pile and we are on overload! We will be putting up some shelves, storage units, etc. in the basement in am attempt to create a place for everything. Since this is not as fun of a project as the bedroom- this will probably come after the bedroom. =)

Of course once Spring rolls around we will have many outdoor projects to work on. The house needs either a new coat of paint or new siding all together so that is the biggie. Lots of landscaping, new railing, porch decor, etc. But I can't even think about taking on that much right now. We will slowly EASE our way back into the thouse renovation projects.

Sounds like a lot of work, but it is always worth it. I spend almost every waking minute in our kitchen now because I know how hard we worked on it- thus enjoying it's beauty more than I can explain. It will be nice when we can finally retreat to our bedroom and not stare at the Navy Seal blue that the previous owner of our house chose for the bedroom. =)

Anyway, I'm off to drool over the bedroom set some more..... pathetic, I know.

The Time Has Come...

....for us to finally settle down into our marred life. No more wedding-related activities or parties to attend. No more food or songs to pick out for the recpetion. As much as I would like to say that things are exactly as they were before we were married- they truly aren't. Yes, we are living in the same house and working the same jobs- but there is just something special about going home to your husband or wife after a long day of work that makes things seem different-- a tad more special. Or being introduced to people as a wife or a husband- definitely has a bit of spark to it, at least more than what I'm used to. Although I'm sure that with time that too will fade, although I hope it never does. I have dreamt about my wedding and being someone's wife since I was a little girl.... really, what girl hasn't? But in all those years of fantasizing, I truly never thought about how much love I would feel, not only for someone else, but for our relationship and the family that we have created. I get giddy about just thinking how entirely happy I am with my life. =)

In addition to the family that we created together on September 15th, this weekend we will add a new member! We will bring home our English Bulldog puppy Guinness on Sunday! We are so happy to be finally bringing him home and beginning our new married life with him in it. If you know Brian and I, we have wanted an English Bulldog for some time now.... but there was always a reason why we could not have one- apartment wouldn't allow one, the wedding was too soon, etc., etc. But the time has finally come to add Guinness to our lives and we could not be happier with the timing of it. Especially for me... I am hoping that it will help ease my post-wedding blues....

We are pleased to introduce you to our new baby, Guinness. Isn't he a cutie?!?!

Currently listening to: "A Movie Script Ending" - Death Cab For Cutie

Luna de Miel

In case you didn't know.... thats "honeymoon" in Spanish. I thought it only appropriate since we recently returned home from our beyond-fabulous honeymoon in the Riviera Maya, Mexico. It was hard to come home from such an amazing honeymoon and to have to settle in our routine lives.... but the pictures help to take us back to those wonderful beach-filled days.

The entrance of the resort. We felt like we were in a movie the entire time because was set up so perfectly.

This was our incredible room with the most unbelievable view, jucuzzi with an ocean view-- just amazing.

Obligatory ring shot.

A bed on the beach- it was truly heaven on earth. This is where we spent a lot of our time.

Here we are visiting the ancient Mayan city of Tulum. It was incredible.

And here we are getting ready to snorkel at Xel-Ha.

Headed to our Candle Light Dinner on the Beach. Words can't even describe how beautiful that night was.

Currently listening to: "The Story" - Brandi Carlile ::listen::

Our New Beginning

Brian and I met during our freshman year of high school through mutual friends and have been together ever since. We got engaged after dating 6 years and were married a year and a half later. I still can't believe that we are finally married, but we are absolutely loving married life!

That gorgeous day in September was the best day of our lives. We are truly blessed with family and friends that mean the world to us and helped to make our day so special. We will never forget it.

**Photos courtesy of A Fleeting Moment Photography**

Currently listening to: "Blue Eyes" - Cary Brothers ::listen::