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

Some pretty fun times have been had lately. And as you can see, I'm also still learning how to use my fancy new camera. I'm improving, but it's a slow process for sure. Anyhow, these photos aren't exactly in order. J and I caught the Stephen Malkmus show at The Bottletree almost two weeks ago with his brother and sister-in-law. It was a good time, even though I truly didn't know any of his music.

We also took a trip to Mississippi a couple of weekends ago and stayed with his friend Matt and then drove over to Oxford to see an Ole Miss basketball game (but not before breakfast at Big Bad Breakfast, of course). I love walking around the Square, such a great area. And this time the bonus was stopping in several restaurants and getting meet people that J was friends with and/or worked with at one point or another. One of these guys hooked us up with baseball tickets, so we basically caught a double header of a bball game and a baseball game. We ended up grabbing dinner at Ajax and heading back to Tupelo to stay in for the evening with Matt. After we were back in Bham, it was time to celebrate Nicole's birthday with Mexican food. Feliz cumpleaños Nicole!

One thing I am pretty pumped about is the fact that J bought a bike last week! I'm not really a biker, more of a runner, but I did buy a bike a longgg time ago to compete in a triathlon (thanks to peer pressure from Ashley). So I pulled it out of the basement and had Redemptive Cycles work their magic on it. We're picking it up today and taking our new toys out for a spin tonight. It's funny how quickly you forget how much fun riding a bike is. Especially when you're just out riding around town and not really looking at is as some type of a workout that you're doing. Maybe on our bike tour de Bham we'll make another stop by Paramount today and play video games again, who knows?! Stay tuned!

Life lately

It would appear that life lately has been pretty boring. But that's not entirely the case. In fact, maybe you heard about a little something called the "Snowpocalypse" that happened in the South last week?

Yeah, things got pretty crazy around here at about 10:30 am last Tuesday. There was a mass exodus of the city by almost everyone to go pick up their children and make it home before the road conditions worsened. The only problem was that it was a little too late and there were a few too many cars on the road at the same time. Oh and not to mention that any time we actually get snow here, it pretty much always turns into a layer of ice on top of the roads.

I heard many horror stories of people walking insane distances to get home or to the school/daycare to pick up their kids, or being on the road for more than 12 hours in gridlock traffic or just being stranded from all of their family members. I feel pretty good about being stuck at work for just one night and then making it to Ashley and Nick's place to stay another night. I know it could have been so much worse, and I am so very glad that I wasn't on the road. Scary road conditions and ridiculous traffic sounds like a miserable combination.

And if you're wondering (or maybe even laughing) about how it's possible that two pretty large metropolitan cities can be shut down by just a few inches of snow, I think this article should help enlighten you.

In other news, I've clearly done a terrible job of documenting my activities lately. While J & I have been trying to lay low and eat at home more these days, there have still been fun events where I have neglected to take photos, including celebrating both of our mom's birthdays in one weekend. We've also seen a couple of great movies—Captain Phillips and August: Osage County. I hosted a movie viewing of "Waiting for Guffman" for my friends this past Saturday night and there was entirely way too much junk food readily available, including indoor smores made by friend Amy. Oh and we also had a great time at J's brother's annual Super Bowl party this past Sunday night. Even though the game was lacking, the food (J's homemade chili) and company at the party certainly was not!

Anyhow, I'll try to do a better job of getting out there with my new fancy camera and taking photos of all my great adventures. Until then!

Life lately

 

As usual it's been a fun and busy couple of weeks. One of the Mountain High Outfitters locations here in town had this cool music event in the store one Tuesday night, so J and I decided to go check that out and ended up running into a couple of folks we knew. Good times!

Other than that, it seems that everything else I have done lately has revolved around (which is actually the story of my life). Joy and I finally got to have lunch one day to catch up and I eagerly chose the Lyric Hot Dog & Grill since it is shutting it's doors for forever at the end of the month. So sad about this, but it definitely had a good run!

J & I also got to spend some time with Joy and her husband Justin this past week with dinner at Slice followed by a trip to the Alabama Theatre to see It's a Wonderful Life. I love all of the film series the Alabama hosts, but the holiday series is of course my favorite.

The night with the Martucci's was a good jump start to an equally fun weekend spent in Mississippi to see several of J's friends who were home for the holidays. We headed over on Friday night to visit Hannah in her hometown at a tacky Christmas party hosted by one of her friends. The next day we all drove to Jackson, making a quick pitstop in Oxford for some Big Bad Breakfast. Totally worth the stop!

Saturday night was spent meeting several new faces that J has known pretty much his life. Yeah, you can say I was just a tad nervous! But we had a great time and I think most of them actually liked me :) The next day we had lunch with another friend who couldn't make it Saturday night. He chose this great little drug store called Brent's Drugs where The Help was filmed, and of course the greasy spoon food treated us right! Such a great weekend. I mean who knew you could have that much fun in Mississippi?! jk jk jk.

Anyhow, after a big fun-filled weekend like that, you really only want some quality rest and downtime, but it's just not happening this time of year. Just two days after we got home from MS, J and I headed up to my neck of the woods in Alabama to see my immediate family for lunch on Christmas Eve and then he also endured met my dad's side of the family later that night. 

We got home pretty late after a day of driving, eating, playing with kids and opening presents and we were up again early the next day for more of the same with his side of the family. I was pretty tired but it was so worth it watching his niece's open their gifts Christmas morning. I haven't done the Christmas morning excitement with kids since I was a kid myself, so I felt pretty lucky and special getting to crash J's family time like I did. 

The rest of Christmas day was blur with tons of great food and opening fantastic gifts and I also enjoyed a late afternoon nap :) J and I wrapped up the day with a trip to the movies with my friend Peaches who is in town from NYC. It's so good to have everyone home for the holidays! Hope you all are enjoying time spent with loved ones, too. 

Life lately

I've been really terrible at remembering to take photos lately. So that's why this post looks a little more sparse than usual. Anyhow, I had a really good Thanksgiving with family, it's always good to see my niece and nephew (and yeah, the rest of the fam too :) I ate lots of food and my brother took some outfits photos that I still haven't even had a chance to review yet. I think they are gonna be pretty good though, so stay tuned for that!

The next day I got up early on a freezing cold morning to meet Casey (in town from Portland!) for a quick run through Mountain Brook and then a brief coffee break so we could actually talk without all the huffin and puffin up the hills. I was so stinkin happy to see her (& her ring!) and squeeze her in person. Miss that girl so much!

Later in the day I got to meet one of J's best friends who lives out in Tahoe and was home for the long weekend. We all drove up to somewhere near the Ocoee River and crashed another one of their friend's family Thanksgiving weekend. I was fully prepared to be roughing it in a cabin with several people that I didn't know, but we pulled up to an incrediblly large house that sat right on the Ocoee River (or I think it was the Ocoee anyhow). It was gorgeous and we had a great time eating and laughing and playing ping pong and watching football all weekend. After dating J for about 10 months now, I was stoked to finally get to meet both Adam and Josh.

After the big Turkey Day weekend getaway, things have been pretty slow in my social life (not so much at work though!). It's rained a ton here lately, so J and I have seen a couple more movies including Thor, which I actually enjoyed, and the Hunger Games, which of course I loved. I also used this past yucky Saturday to get part of my Christmas shopping done before we watched the SEC Championship with some friends of ours. Then yesterday's rainy weather gave me a chance to even get a couple of gifts wrapped and under the tree!

And for me, cold dreary weather also brings about the desire/need for coffee. I'm really hoping my new Wednesday-after-work coffee break with the girls takes off and it becomes a time that we can all see each other and catch up hopefully once a week. But with holiday schedules and plans, who knows! It's worth a shot though :)

Life lately

Well, it's been a couple of fun-filled weeks since I last did a "life lately" post. It started with the big special event, Taste of Triumph that benefits Triumph Services, which is the non-profit whose junior board I serve on. It's always great spending time with the Martucci's, but since Joy has such a giving heart, I was truly excited for her to see more of what Triumph is all about. It was a great night with great friends, and most importantly, Triumph pretty much met their fundraising goals for the night!

Things didn't slow down much from there (as per usual). That following weekend J and I attended a surprise party for one of our friends and then the next morning I crawled out of bed early to do my first ever solo trail run at Red Mountain Park. I couldn't believe I actually found my way out of the park and also avoided a fall—huge success! Then that afternoon I went climbing at Moss Rock with Beth and a couple of guys from the gym. I was pretty stoked to make this big move at Lost Roof. Too bad I didn't finish the problem and "send." Oh well, it'll be a project I guess!

The following weekend's highlight was a Friendsgiving dinner at the Little's house with some friends of mine and J's from church. Since these are technically more J's friends than mine, I felt honored to be invited to this special occasion. The food was incredible, conversation was awesome and of course Bonnie's decor was gorgeous. It was such a great night.

Then this past weekend, I hosted the Bham Framgiving that we called "Fiesta Gracias" since we were having Mexican food instead of a traditional turkey day feast. Sadly Cassidy made it out the door before we thought to take a pic - sorry Cass! Anyhow, it was also a great night filled with food, fun and games (literally). I love these people and just don't get to see them enough these days.

The rest of my time has been spent catching up with friends over dinner and coffee and even seeing a couple of movies with J (btw, I totally recommend Gravity. It is intense, but you have to see it. It's so beautiful). One of the movies I actually dragged him to (instead of him dragging me). It was a two-part climbing film at the Reel Rock Film Fest, which was followed with a late night dinner with Beth, Phil and Justin. Good times!

Oh and J and I also got to see Carolina Story perform at the Red Cat when they came into town last week. Turns out they were also filming for a PBS show and everything was decorated and lit beautifully. And of course Ben and Emily sounded great and I'm loving their new songs. It was so good to be able to catch up and hang out with them after the show, too. Hoping to get up to Nashville at some point and hang with them on their turf sometime soon.

Whew! Well, I think that covers it! Hopefully next time I won't wait so long to update and you don't have to hear quite as many details. Hope yall have had a great couple of weeks too!

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

Believe it or not, things have actually seemed to have slowed down just a bit. I'm still out and about most nights of the week and of course I'm always planning every weekend detail, but at least things at work have slowed back down to a manageable pace, and so has the freelance work.

One recent Thursday night I made the trek to my hometown to catch one of my nephew's soccer games and even got to see him score a goal. He actually looked pretty good out there. If he continues to play, Aunt CeeCee is gonna have to brush up on her soccer knowledge! (ie. start from scratch).

J and I also made the trek to Tuscaloosa one Saturday to see the Bama vs. Ole Miss game—it was a relationship divided game for us, but we managed to tailgate with friends, have a good time and both come home in one piece without any hurt feelings over a win vs. a loss.

It turns out that October is the month of birthdays. We have already celebrated my friend Torry's bday and also J's dad's birthday and we still have three more family birthdays to go. Who knew?!

Oh and of course we've made it to a couple of shows including Gregory Alan Isakov (le sigh. soooo good!) and The Lumineers, which I talked about yesterday. All in all, it's been a solid couple of weeks!

Life lately

So life lately has been just a bit more insane than usual. Still the typical something going on every night, but day job and freelance work have both picked up recently, so I've been a super busy girl!

First of all, there seems to be at least one concert a week that I've either attended or wanted to attend. It started with Mumford & Sons a couple of Monday nights ago. Super great show and I'm so glad I actually got to see them perform live, but I struggle with really big shows like that. I'm just so used to the smaller, more intimate shows these days and I enjoy them so much more.

Like the Carolina Story show I went to the following Thursday of that same week. Such a great time! Ben and Emily sounded great and I really enjoyed hearing some of their new songs (off their upcoming album!) and it was a super good time for me and J to be able to hang with them after the show as well. Definitely looking forward to them coming back to town in November.

I also went to the FUN. concert in Tuscaloosa on the actual night of my birthday with a few friends. Again, awesome to see them in person and the lead singer has the most ridiculously amazing voice, but still...big show. I just feel so far away from the musicians! I need to be all up in the action and I just can't afford to do that at bigger shows.

In between all the concerts, there have been several birthdays, including myself, my friend Joy and J's twin nieces. And my friend Peaches' birthday is coming up! So lots of celebrating going on these days.

And of course, after all the celebrations, what does one do but take a nice Sunday afternoon backyard nap in the awesome eno hammock that J gave me as my bday present! This thing is going to be used often, I can already tell.

Life lately

In case you didn't notice, I was a little MIA on the blog over the holiday weekend. That's because J and I headed out for a long weekend trip to see some friends.

We started on Thursday in Nashville to see some friends of his and go to the Ole Miss vs. Vandy game. Other than a not so great start with trouble getting to our seats (Vanderbilt needs to get control of their student ticket situation. Welcome to the SEC Vandy.), we had a great time. The game was intense, and things got nerve wracking toward the end, but Ole Miss pulled out a win, so we were pretty stoked (side note: I am now an Ole Miss fan....only when they aren't playing my Crimson Tide).

We left out late the next morning to hit the road for a long drive up to Winston-Salem to see my friends Emily and Blake. We basically made it in time to see Blake before he left to work as the sideline doctor at a high school football game. But at least we were able to grab dinner with Emily at First Street. Afterward we sat on Emily and Blake's deck talking with them and one of their neighbors until close to midnight. Such good times with these people!

Em and I were up again early the next morning to go for a run. I miss running with that girl! The rest of the weekend was filled with football, food, more food and tons of laughter. We had such a great time with the Perry's...fingers crossed they move back this way sometime soon!

This past weekend was just a solid good weekend, nothing too crazy. Friday night me, J, Amy and Beth went to the Barons baseball game where we watched them win the second game of the playoffs that ended with a pretty good fireworks show. Saturday night we watched the Ole Miss game and cooked out, followed by a Sunday night $1.50 movie to see World War Z (which btw, if you haven't seen it yet, you should!).

Hope you all have had a great couple of weeks as well!

Life lately & Sidewalk Film Festival recap

 

Oh there has been SO much fun stuff happening lately. Which is good, because after the post-wedding high I was on a couple of weeks ago after Torry & Nicole's wedding, I definitely needed to keep the momentum going.

I've lived in Birmingham for about seven years now (I think) and for some reason I had never made it to Rickwood Field until a couple of weeks ago. It's been on my list, but it's kind of one of those things where you really need a reason or an event to go there. Luckily the real estate firm I work for played another firm in a softball game, giving me the perfect excuse to finally make my appearance to America's Oldest Ball Park.

I have to say that I was not disappointed. It truly is a beautiful, historic sight to see and I felt an excitement knowing that I was sitting in the stands and walking on a baseball field where greats like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Jackie Robinson have played. If you haven't already, be sure to check out the movie 42 about Jackie Robinson and you can catch some glimpses of Rickwood Field for yourself.

The rest of my past two weeks have been spent taking advantage of restaurant week at Cantina, Slice, Vittoria and Rojo. I also finally managed to get over to Steel City Pops with J one week night. After the not so great dinner I had made us, it was a welcomed treat :)

Then this past weekend was the long awaited Sidewalk Film Festival. I've written about Sidewalk before. It's one of my favorite things that happens in Birmingham every year. It just unfortunately happens to fall on the weekend of my niece's birthday. So I didn't get to see quite as many films this year because of course, baby girl will always come first. Even so, the films this year seemed to be better than usual. Not sure if that's because J picked most of them or if the movie options were just better general. Either way, I'm great with it.

Here's what we saw at Sidewalk and I can recommend that you see all of them—but especially see the ones with an asterisk by them:

• Lil Bub & Friendz - This was about the Internet meme and cat phenomenon, with a big focus on Lil Bub and her owner Mike.
• *Muscle Shoals* - An incredible documentary about the town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama and how it produced some of the greatest recordings in history, thanks to FAME Studios owner Rick Hall.
•  The Suspect - A narrative feature about a small town that gets hits by a bank robbery and the racial profiling that takes place during the case.
• Good Ol' Freda - A documentary about Freda Kelly, the secretary of the Beatles during their 11-year tenure as a band. *A must-see for any Beatles fan.*
• *No Place on Earth* - A documentary about a Jewish family who survived the Holocaust by living in a cave in the Ukraine for almost two years during WWII.
• *Ain't Them Bodies Saints* - Ruth and Bob enter a shoot out with the local police after a bank robbery. When a sheriff gets shot, Bob takes the rap and is sent to prison, but later escapes and comes back for Ruth and his daughter. This is their love story.

I think one of the things I love most about Sidewalk is the opportunity to stay after the movie for the Q&A session. I don't take advantage of it after every film since I am sometimes rushing off to the next one, but it's such an incredible thing to have a director or producer or actor from the film standing in front of you and giving you the chance to ask anything about the film or the process or the budget or anything!

Seriously, if you haven't been to Sidewalk and you live in Birmingham...next year is your year to attend.

Life lately

I think we all know by now that I'm pretty much always a busy girl. But here lately things have been way more busy, exciting and fun than usual. I guess life has just been handing me one heck of an end of summer party.

It started three weeks ago with a cookout at Nick and Ashley's for his birthday on Monday night. Then later that week Joy and I had dinner at the new Todd English Pub downtown followed by seeing the Red Mountain Theater Company's production of 42nd Street at the new Dorothy Jemison Day theater at the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA). Such a great time!

The next night, J and I went to the Green Seed & St. Paul and the Broken Bones show in Avondale. (oh btw, St. Paul & BB have been chosen as "the best of what's next" from Paste magazine!) Then Saturday I made german chocolate cupcakes (from scratch!) for my dad's bday and a going away cookout at Joy's house that night. Sunday J & I went home to spend some time with my fam in honor of the aforementioned bday. My nephew and I were able to coax a tiny kitten out from the storage area under my parents house. What a cutie! Not gonna lie, was tempted to keep the kitty, but I know better so I managed to leave it behind.

That following weekend was spent pretty much with J at Secret Stages, which you can read about in it's entirety here. For some crazy reason, I thought it would be a great idea to get up on Saturday am (after maybe 5 hours of sleep) and run the Peavine Falls course with Patricia. I have no idea how I survived but I did and for some other crazy reason, I want to go back soon and do it again! Sunday of this weekend was again spent at home with fam that morning for church and then I hurried back to Bham to make peach ice cream for my framily reunion later that night to welcome Peach back home.

This past week was spent seeing Peaches and Matt (along with the rest of our gang) since they were in town for Torry & Nicole's wedding. We had dance parties, long discussions and frequented some of our fav restaurants like Mugshots, Five Bar & of course, Moe's. I also went to a panel discussion at Alabama Outdoors on Thursday night to see my friend Kyle speak about running the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run, but sadly I had to leave before I got to hear about his experience.

Friday afternoon brought Emily in town, which meant the gang was finally all back together again (well, minus her husband Blake) so I ended up taking a half day and meeting them at Moe's for lunch. Later that night we met at Ashley Mac's for the rehearsal dinner (yum!) followed by karaoke at Starz. Saturday was packed with an early run, a coffee meeting/catch up sesh at O'Henry's with Lauren (of Something Blue Events) and her husband Sam and their three kids, then pedis with the girls, lunch at Urban Cookhouse, dessert at Pastry Art Shoppe and then finally, the main event—Torry & Nicole say "I do" (#foreverpattons).

The ceremony was perfect, the bride looked stunning and the reception was a redic good time. We also even managed to surprise Torry at the reception with a flash mob dance routine. My fav part is when he went to join in and dance with her and someone had to grab him and tell him 'nope, you have to watch.' It was awesome. Don't worry, when we've got the video finished, it'll be posted on the blog.

Top off this incredible weekend with some time spent at Peaches' lakehouse yesterday and you've got one happy girl sitting at her computer today. I just wish I got to see these people all the time! One day... maybe one day.

Life lately

Apparently the name of the game lately has been working out and eating. Oh wait. Who am I kidding? That is always the name of the game. So yeah, clearly things haven't been too different.

But what was different was that I finally took advantage of the free (yes, free!) aerobics classes at Railroad Park recently. Joy and I went to yoga one Thursday evening, while Ashley and I opted to get "crunk" on a Monday night. Both were enjoyable, but the Crunk class was definitely harder. I was a sweaty girl afterward and I probably definitely looked ridiculous while trying to do these dance moves, but it was fun.

A couple of weekends ago I went with J to Mississippi to see/meet some of his friends. It was a super good time, but unfortch the only pic I was able to get was the one he took of the Bell Tower at Ole Miss—which is his alma mater. I wish we had made it to Oxford earlier on Saturday so I could've seen campus in the daylight. But we did at least get there in time to drive around town and visit Rowan Oak, William Faulkner's home, before sundown. Our next priority was obviously food so we headed directly to the square and ate at Boure, which was pretty good stuff. This meant the campus walking tour had to be taken at night, but it was still a nice experience to walk around and hear his and Hannah's stories about the good ole college days.

This past holiday weekend was kind of insanely busy with visiting both of our families on the actual  Fourth of July. We ate more than our fair share of bbq, hamburgers, hotdogs and homemade ice cream. (Ok, maybe that was just me!) Friday was spent mostly with my mom as we shopped and got a few projects done around the house and then my dad came in that afternoon. I left them to hang with some of the girls from the climbing gym and we ended up grabbing food from the Off the Hook food truck...love their shrimp po boy..it's delish!

Saturday was a busy workout/errand/chore day followed by an evening Barons game in my company's suite with J and my officemate Leslie and her family. Then Sunday afternoon I went back to Regions Field for another Barons game, but this time the Triumph Services junior board was hosting a special event for the participants of Triumph. We ended up getting upgraded to a rather large suite and it was such a good time, even though the Barons ended up (barely) losing. Follow that with a "see ya later" dinner to Kyle at Slice (the 'wing and a prayer' pizza just might be my fav) and it was one exhausting, but fun filled weekend.

Life lately

It's been a while since I've last done a "life lately" post. It's probably because I seemed to have gotten in a bad habit of not taking as many photos over the past few weeks. There's actually been a decent amount of things I've done so that's kind of a bummer. But I do at least have a few pics to share.

A couple of weekends ago we got an early start with a birthday dinner celebration in honor of Heather at the J. Clyde on Thursday. So glad she appreciates and shares my love for that place. The next night I went with Katie, John and Kyle to the Alabama Outdoors Party on the Porch event that supported Ruffner Mountain. I wish I had taken a pic of my truck fries that I got from the Cantina truck. But obviously there's no time for such shenanigans when you're holding steak, queso and pico on top of garlic fries. We also even made it to Marty's to see a second band play for the night.

Since J and all my friends seemed to be out of town, I spent the next day devoted to entirely too much physical activity (11 miles of running and an hour of horizontal conditioning...who am I?!) and then promptly returned to the YMCA pool for some afternoon sun worshipping. That Sunday was Father's day so I went home and hung with the fam and played with the kiddos, and took my usual power nap, too.

This past weekend was jam packed with a whole lotta fun. Friday night was a going away dinner at Cocina for another couple from church (seriously, why is everyone leaving?!) followed by catching a few bands play at a benefit for Gip's Place, including getting to see Henry "Gip" Gipson actually play. You haven't lived til you've seen a 92-year old man play the blues on guitar. Just sayin!

Then Saturday I particpated in my first ever indoor climbing competition (more on that in another post), followed by a well deserved lunch at FIVE and then to cheer on John at the skeeball finals. Then Sunday after church, J and I hit up the afternoon showing of The Princess Bride at the Alabama Theater. Somehow I had never seen this movie and he had never been to the Alabama, so it was a win-win. Afterward we stopped for ice cream at Edgewood creamery—clearly the best way to end an already amazing weekend.

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.

Life lately

 

One of the most fun things I have done recently is to finally make it to a Birmingham Barons baseball game. I mean, I watched construction of the new stadium as it was being built. Then I heard people talk about how amazing it was. Then a month or so later, I actually attend a game. It was everything I wanted it to be. The weather couldn't have been more perfect and I was mesmorized by how cool Birmingham looked. Oh and the Barons won plus it was 50 cent hotdog night! See, best night ever.

That week I also volunteered at the Triumph Services annual "friendraiser" art show which is an event that allows the community to come into the Triumph offices and hear more about the services they provide. It's a really fun event and I was blown away by all the talent that we have in Birmingham who also were giving back to their community by allowing a portion of their proceeds to be donated to Triumph. 

There have also been a few things to celebrate including Mother's Day and Ashley's birthday. I went home of course to see mom and then naturally the icing on that cake is to also get to spend time with my niece and nephew. It's unbelievable how big they are both getting. I mean I am holding Cade and his feet are dangling somewhere around my shins. Crazy. I also made another trip back home to see Cade's last teeball game. 

Ashley wanted to keep her bday low key so I went with her and Nick to the farmer's market at Pepper Place that Saturday and then we all went to dinner at Davenport's Pizza the next week. So good to finally spend some time with framily again. These days that seems to be few and far between! 

This past weekend was pretty chill and I even managed to score some one-on-one time with Amy when we went to a local dance company's performance. I wanted to see my friend Sara from church perform with Sanspointe and Amy just loves dance, so she was game. It was a very cool and intimate performance. Certaintly not something you see or experience everyday in Bham! 

Life lately

The best of life lately seems to have included a good bit of family time. I drove up to my parents house last Tuesday and then caught a ride with them to see my nephew Cade play tee ball. It was my first time to watch him play.

I think the cutest thing was watching him in warm ups. He was more focused that I thought he would be....however that changed once he was on the field :) He was a pretty good batter though and was all about running the bases and coming across home plate. I guess that would be my second fav memory that night—watching him do a silly victory dance when he scored. He's a goofball. Which means he's soooo related to me.

My niece Callie wouldn't have too much to do with me this night. She was busy either playing in the dirt or climbing the fence. Yeah, we might have a tomboy on our hands! I did manage to get this adorable pic of her wearing my hat though. And yes, I know she looks cuter in it than I do..I'm ok with that!

More family time was spent this past Saturday at Cade's 5th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. I am still in shock that he is five years old (today, officially!). The cliche is true, time flies. I feel like I might blink and he'll be driving. I once asked him what I was going to do when he got to be so big that I couldn't pick him up anymore. His response? "Uh, I guess I'll just have to pick you up instead." I couldn't have asked for a better answer.

Otherwise, time has been spent with friend activities—a dinner at Rojo one Friday night with Joy where we had one of our famous whirlwind conversations, seeing the Red Mountain Theater performance of The Wedding Singer with Torry, Nicole, Dana and Heather, (btw, if you're in Bham, go see it! it's hilarious) and celebrating several friends' birthdays with dinners and cookouts. Throw in a good catch up veg sesh at Cassidy's new place for the ladies of the Bham Fram and it's pretty a busy, but good two weeks.

Oh and I should mention that I worked my last track meet of the season last weekend. Woohoo! Hello free Saturdays.