Life lately

Well, despite the yucky weather we seem to be encountering a good bit these days, we've still managed to get in a few fun activities over the past couple of weeks. Our friends Ben & Emily of Carolina Story came in town to play a show back in March and we were stoked to get to see them perform at Workplay. AND we found out they are expecting their first child! Super exciting. They opened for another Nasvhille band/friends of their, The Vespers, who were super fun and entertaining. I totally recommend checking out both of these bands.

The day after their show, J and I hit the road for a climbing camping trip to Rocktown. We eventually met up with Beth and Phil and climbed pretty hard all day Saturday. Such a good time! We will definitely be back in the fall, when hopefully the weather will be less rainy.

More recently, I was lucky enough to have my friend Casey in town from Portland. She came in for a wedding for a friend of hers and we were also able to sneak in a bridal shower for her while she was here. Her soon-to-be sister-in-law hosted the most beautiful luncheon outside in her front yard for Casey. It was positively lovely and all of the food was delicious. But most importantly I got some good ole quality time with Case and she got some good gifts! I absolutely cannot wait to go to her Portland wedding in less than two months!

Later that same weekend we also celebrated Amy's birthday with some classic bbq at Jim N' Nicks. It was just low key good food, good friends and a really good time. And sadly, the very next night we all got together to watch the How I Met Your Mother series finale. UGH. a) I'm sad it's over and b) I was SO not okay with the ending. I've had time to process it now and I am better with the ending than when I first saw it, but ultimately, I think the writers could have written the entire last season better if that's the ending they were going for. Anyone else feelin me on this? Anyhow, the cherry on top was that we FaceTimed our friend Peach in NYC to watch it with us.

Oh and as per usual, J and I are always checking out any new restaurant in town and we finally went to Post Office Pies (POPs) in Avondale, which is located in the old Post Office building. Love it. Good food, great location. If you're a B'hamian, go try it out soon. Supposedly they also have a great salads, but you know I didn't venture near anything green :) My only complaint/suggestion is that they need to have a BBQ pizza on the menu, seeing as it's the same owner as Saw's. Just sayin!

Life lately

I feel like the small amount of photos shown here in this post doesn't even begin to paint a picture of how crazy the past few weeks have been. But maybe the lack of my posts all last week illustrate that instead? Sorry about being MIA, btw.

Anyhow, things have been hectic, but fun. I think we've just been to one show in the past 3 weeks, which was to see Rayland Baxter, as I mentioned in this post. That same weekend, J and I met up with some friends in Chattanooga, Tennessee so that Shannon and I could run the 4 Bridges Half Marathon. It was a pretty good race for the both of us, ending in a PR of 1:57 for me and a PR of 2:00 for Shannon. I've never hit a sub 2 hour half marathon, so I was pretty psyched and celebrated with a killer breakfast from Food Works.

And of course we had to stop and "See Rock City" on the way up. It was a pretty touristy thing to do, but somehow I had never been and neither had J, so it had to be done. It turned out to be the most beautiful day with perfect weather so it was nice to be outside and we also saw a pretty amazing view from up top.

I guess since I talked J into Rock City, I let him talk me into going to Atrox Factory, which is a local haunted house near Bham. I am so NOT into scary things whether it be movies, haunted houses, anything like that. But I took one for the team and we ended up having a really good time with my friends Joy and Justin. I just made sure to keep my eyes closed and hang on for dear life while walking through the attraction. It turned out to be a good strategy since I am currently still sleeping at night! :)

We've also managed to take excellent advantage of the incredible weather and we've been out into the great outdoors a lot over the past couple of weekends. I did a trail run and cookout with the BUTS group (Birmingham Ultra Trail Running Society) at Oak Mountain, plus we've climbed with Beth at Moss Rock and Horse Pens 40 and also took a camping trip up to Desoto State Park last weekend. It's clearly been a great fall so far and I expect many more camping and climbing trips in the future. Stay tuned!

Life lately

I wish every weekend was a three day weekend —don't you?! And apparently by my lack of a post yesterday I must still be in the three day weekend mode!

Since I can't actually have another long weekend yet, I guess I'll just tell you guys about how great my Memorial Day weekend was instead. J and I got the invite to go camping at the Ocoee with some friends of mine that I met through the climbing gym. We've been hanging with them a good bit doing trivia nights and what not, so we knew it'd be a good time.

We got extremely lucky that John and Katie went up a day earlier and checked out a couple of campsites. They ended up snagging the six of us a prime spot about 15 feet away from the Ocoee. Nights were spend around the campfire listening to the river and grilling amazing food, while mornings were spent sitting on a rock, drinking coffee and heckling watching the rafters and kayakers coming over the rapids. I also managed to get in a run one morning with everyone. Well, if you call mostly walking straight up a mountain and then running back down a "run" :) We also floated the Toccoa River one day and then rafted the Hiwasee the next. It was good times all around.

J and I decided to split from the group a little early and spent the day in Chattanooga on the way home. We had an amazing breakfast at Aretha Frankensteins and then walked by the river and eventually ended up visiting the Hunter Museum of American Art. We saw this incredible special exhibition by Whitfield Lovell called Deep River. Seriously, it was amazing. I've never seen portrait drawings so beautiful like this. If you're in that area, you should check it out.

That weekend has definitely been the highlight of life lately. I've also been to another Barons game, attended a crawfish boil going away party for a couple at church and the baby shower of a mutual friend of mine and Shannon's. Oh and I managed to squeeze in a little bit of pool time with Ashley on Sunday afternoon. Working towards that tan! Hopefully you guys will be able to see it first hand in some pics soon.