What we've been up to...

Last weekend was so fun! We had a great time with friends on Friday night and Saturday the movie was awesome! We saw the Dark Knight and it was worth every penney and mile we had to drive to see it in IMAX. Speaking of IMAX, Greenville is getting one on Woodruff road at the movie theaters. Another reason why we love Greenville :)
On Sunday I headed home for Cameron's monogram shower. She racked up on awesome stuff! Her hubby to be is probably going to think his entire home has his monogram on it :) I think Josh thought that after ours. It was also great to see Aly, Courtney, and a couple other home friends.
Monday, mom and I woke up early because she wanted to go to the zoo. It was SO blasted hot. The only reason I agreed to go (I'm not much of a zoo person) was because the lion had baby cubs and they were getting too big to stay in a particular exhibit where you could see them up close. We also saw baby flamingos. They were cute...but I think mom got more enjoyment out of it than I did. I enjoyed spending time with her, none the less.
Monday afternoon, I was able to have lunch with Nan and Liz at DiPratos. Reminded me of graduate school days...feels like a lifetime ago! It was great to semi-catch up with both of them!
Mom and I went to my Granny's home to pick up her old sewing machine. Let me tell you...it is OLD. Ancient old. but it works and it was free! I am twittering around with it and run some stitches everyday. Mrs. Rogers (Katie's mom) gave me a lesson today on threading the bobbin and what the different buttons do and then she showed me the beginning of a pattern. I am not very good at it, but I am determined to not give up. In fact, I am really terrible. I have a LOT to learn. But it is fun and something to do. Maybe by the time we have babies, I will be able to sew something easy for them. I will have to post a picture of my sewing machine set up in the office. It was cute and quaint.
Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in my classroom at Greenbrier getting furniture in place and my supplies put where I want them. I am re-arranging this year and excited about a little change. This is always my favorite time of the school year...when I'm excited about the upcoming year. It will probably come to a dead hault when my alarm wakes me up at 6:00 AM come August 13th!
I have an old gift certificate from Christmas to Urban Nirvana so I'm redeeming it tomorrow on a facial! Looking forward to that.
Friday morning we are headed to Savannah for a weekend to celebrate our anniversary. Can you believe it's already been a year? Crazy! I will have pictures to post when we return!

The past two days...

have been GREAT! I have gotten a lot accomplished and had an opportunity to spend time with friends! Yesterday Katie and I ate at a sushi restaurant off of Pleasantburg. Glad she took me there...it was yummy! We had a great time catching up! Hopefully the next time I see her won't we won't have gone that long without seeing one another!

I also found a sewing class in Greenville. We'll see how that goes...I'm starting off with smocking. I will keep you posted :)

I have come across a new way to control Gracie's barking. Spanking her with with a rolled up magazine. It works wonders. We'll see how well she continues to be scared of it.

Today I had lunch with Hannah and Baby James. Surprisingly, I didnt' forget to take a picture! Isn't he a CUTIE? I love him...he's the most precious baby. Also the longest baby! He's going to be towering over me in no time at all!

Tonight, Kelli and Trey are coming into town. One week until they are moving here! We're going to dinner at Smoke on the Water and then check out their new house!

Tomorrow Josh and I are headed to Mall of Georgia to see the new Batman movie at the IMAX Theater. Hope it's not too scary :)

Why we love Greenville...

I was thinking today how lucky we are for the opportunity to live in Greenville. Here are our top 10 reasons...
10. We are really close to Clemson, therefore much less of a drive during football season!
9. We live off of Woodruff road...literally 5 minutes from everything I need!
8. There are really cool festivals/events downtown.
7. Reedy Falls Park. When we go down there, it feels like we are somewhere else completely...it is beautiful!
6. Spill the Beans. It is the most delicous ice cream/yogurt in the world!
5. Luna Rosa Gelato. It is the most delicous gelato in the world! :) (Ooops...we really love dessert!)
4. August Road. It has the neatest little shops to go in. It is very quaint.
3. Sportsclub. Who would know we would love a gym so much?
2. We have a PotteryBarn and a J. Crew in our mall!
1. And last but not least, there are some incredible restaurants in the WestEnd--Smoke on the Water, Mellow Mushroom, High Cotton, the list could go on and on and on!

Does anyone know...?

Does anyone know where to take a good sewing class in Greenville? I've seen the ones they offer at Hancock but I'm thinking someone a little more personal that I would get more one on one attention. I have a "to do" list that I want to complete before August 13th (this is the day I go back to school...so sad!) and this is the one thing I'm unsure of!
Tomorrow I am going to have lunch with Katie (Murphy) Watts who is driving through Greenville to get to Clemson. I am so excited...haven't seen her maybe since our wedding. It's been way too long!! On Friday I am having lunch with Hannah and baby James. I'm really looking forward to spending some girl time with both of them...and boy time too, James!!

Family Portrait

Josh and I went out for a relaxed dinner at Liberty's in the West End on Friday night and we decided to just come home and relax, watch tv, and read. Once we got in our pj's, I decided to get out the camera and put our self-timer to use! We set this picture up on one of our chairs...Gracie didn't really want to cooperate. We really need to get someone to take our picture so it might be a little more focused and centered :)

Gracie looks a little demon posessed...

I set up the self timer, just as it was about to flash Gracie ran to the other side of the room...so Josh and I just looked at the camera and made this face...hilarious!!!!!

We spent Saturday in Charlotte roaming around and doing some shopping. It's always good to take a day trip and get away from the everyday life of Greenville. We went to SouthPark, ate a yummy lunch, and enjoyed spending some time together.
Yesterday, oddly enough...I didn't have to work at the Loft! We went to church, ate lunch at Midtown, and then Josh headed out to a day of golf with Jon. Katie and Matt were in town so I met them at Spill the Beans to catch up...it had been way too long! I spent the rest of the day reading, cooking dinner, and cleaning up the house.
With only a couple of weeks before school begins :(, I was thinking of things I still want to get accomplished during the summer. I need to really clean out some closets and re-organize them. They are jam-packed with things and I seem to continue shoving more without re-organizing for the additional clutter. I also need to finish up my scrapbook...I am nearly done with the showers, then I will just have the wedding. I want to organize my pictures and get them in order and make sure I have each of the pictures in my album that I took out for my scrapbook. I also want to find somewhere where I can take sewing lessons. Not necessarily start them yet...I just need to find a good place. I don't really care about being an expert sewer, but I would like to know how to sew a button on or make some curtains if the need arises.
Gracie is currently staring at me and continually barking...she does this several times throughout the day for no reason at all. I don't know why she does this and I don't know what to do to fix it. It's not like she doesn't get all the attention in the world! Anyone have any ideas?

What in the world do you DO all summer?

As a person who works in the school system, I get asked this question ALL the time during the summer months! I'm here to tell you, I never get bored!! To answer your question, I gets lots more sleep! I don't waste the day away eating bon bons in bed...but I do take advantage of the fact I don't have to wake up at 6 am which is the norm from August through the end of May. I sleep in until around 8:30 or 9ish, make a fresh cup of coffee (without being in a rush!), curl up on the couch and watch a little of the Today show. (This is a treat because I LOVE the Today show!) Then, I head to the gym for a class, come home and take a shower, and then go run errands around town. I'm not sure how these errands become accomplished during the school year because it seems a lot of times that's all I do. By the time I get home, I will usually scrapbook a couple of pages, read a chapter or two in a book I'm reading, and then get dinner started so that's it's ready by the time Josh gets home from work. It's a rough life, but someone's gotta do it, right? Seriously though...teachers/SLPs/whoever works with children work REALLY hard for nine months and if we didn't get a couple months off, I don't think anyone would stay in the profession because it is tough work. Regardless...it's a great perk and I'm loving every minute of the summer months!

A busy weekend!

This weekend was extremely busy with things going on--but we had a great time! Josh and I have been trying to try out new restaurants when we go out to dinner rather than just going back to the same ones over and over. On Friday we decided to try "The Lazy Goat" in the west end downtown. I had looked over the menu before we decided to go and I was hesitant due to the description of the foods, but Josh talked me into it and I'm really glad he did! It was wonderful--it was kind of a tapas style menu and it was delicious. While the wording on the menu was foreign, the taste of the food itself was very familiar flavors. On a sillier note, Josh and I have an inside of joke of calling each other billy goat and baby goat. I'm not even sure where it came about, but we do it on a daily basis. The following picture was taken at the entrance of the men's bathroom...too hilarious not to take!!

On Saturday, I had a baby shower brunch for one of my co-workers, Elizabeth. She is having a baby boy in August and it was a lovely morning and I had an opportunity to meet some new friends. Unfortunately, I didn't capture any pictures! :( Saturday night, my cousin Christy got married in Greenwood. Christy and her groom both graduated from PC so Josh even knew some people there. We had a fun time visiting with family and seeing people we haven't seen in a while. She had her reception at an art gallery and it was a really neat setting for a reception. They had hamburgers as well, which Josh was excited about!

On Friday, Mary Alice called and said she had an extra ticket to the Kenny Chesney concert in Atlanta and she asked if I wanted to go. I had to go to Ann Taylor to re-arrange my schedule at work but I was so excited that I was able to go. We had some sketchy weather in the beginning of the day but by the time LeAnn Rimes was finished singing, the weather cleared and wet rats that we were, we spent the majority of the day listening to great music! It was a fun, summery concert and I was so glad I had an opportunity to spend time with MAP and meet some new people along the way!
Tori, me, MAP, Tina, Darlene, and Melissa!the foreboding weather in the background...EEK!!!looking like a wet rat...but fun anyway!

The Fourth!

We had an awesome fourth of July! Josh was glad to have a day off from work and I was glad for him to be able to spend the day with me! My cousin has a lake house in Bateburg so we headed there for a day with family from my mom's side. We ate BBQ, enjoyed fellowship, and even got on the lake and went tubing and jet skiing. I think it has been since middle school when I would get out on the lake with the Porter family that I've done that! I couldn't believe how sore my body was from hanging on to that intertube! It was fun though and now added to the wish list is a boat :)
Other than that, our weekend was pretty relaxing. On Saturday we had to run some errands and we tried a new restaurant downtown called Pomegranite on Main. It was Persian food...who knew? but it was great! Yesterday I had to work at Loft (the first time since May!) and then we headed to Anderson to see Josh's aunt and have dinner with his parents. It was a great, relaxing weekend!
This week I actually have things on my calander here in Greenville--I am taking two short classes on Tuesday and Wednesday for speech. I've got about 5 weeks left of summer so I'm trying to soak it all in now!

It's JULY!!!

I can't believe it! Time FLIES when you don't have to work! July 4th is pretty much the "half-way" marker to going back to school...so I'm trying to soak up all of summer that I can get with about a month and a half left of freedom.

My vacations are over and now I have time to hang around Greenville and get a couple of projects completed. Several friends have offered their neighborhood pools with me, so I'm looking forward to doing that as well.

My posts have been pretty boring lately with no pictures...I'll work on that! Josh and I are looking forward to the 4th--him especially for a day off! We are going on Lake Murray with some of my cousins and mom and grandmother. Looking forward to a relaxed day with family!

On a funnier note, I received the most perfect birthday present yesterday from Susie, one of my speech co-horts! Since I was a little tot ALL I ever asked for was a cash register ( a toy one that goes beep!) and an Easy Baked Oven. I have never understood why my mother didn't fill this on my wish list! Anyway, half of my dreams came true yesterday because Susie gave me my very own CASH register!!! She has heard this story fifty million times and I guess she wanted to end it! :)

My very own cash register!! 25 years late!! (Better late than never!)