Colorado Adventures

    Last weekend DFH and I traveled west to Colorado for my cousin's wedding. As I mentioned before I have family on both my mom and dad's side of the family in Colorado so it was so great to visit with so many family members. 

On Thursday we arrived and DFH and I enjoyed lunch with my uncle and then spent the day exploring downtown Denver.  

DFH was so excited for the Denver craft beer scene so naturally we immediately hit up Great Divide, a Denver brewery. It certainly did not disappoint.  

I decided to get a beer flight with three beers that I had never tried before. 

   After we finished exploring downtown we headed to my aunt and uncle's house where we met up with my parents, sister, her boyfriend, and my cousins. My aunt and uncle had an amazing dinner spread and we had the best time catching up. 

    It is rare that our family is all together so Friday morning we took a few family photos before going to the infamous Red Rocks. 

If you have never been to Red Rocks add it to your bucket list it is one of the most gorgeous sites I've seen. The red rocks against the blue Colorado sky is breathtaking. 

Naturally I took 1000 pictures at Red Rocks. 

Sister JLP posing by the rocks. 

Mom loving on my cousin's son Brody. 

An encounter with some locals. 

On top of the world. 

JLP and I 

I would love to one day attend a concert here. 

All the local band poster of bands that have played here. 

After our visit we traveled to Golden, CO for the wedding. 

Golden is the cutest western town with an unbelievable mountain backdrop.  

We had a great time at the rehearsal dinner.  ( I didn't take any pictures).  On Saturday before the wedding we hit up the Coors Brewing Company for a tour. 

We enjoyed the freshest Coors Lite tapped right from the Rockies. 

Coors is my Dad's favorite beer so he was especially excited for the tour and tasting. 

Before the wedding we took a few more family photos. 

DFH and I 

 

 

My cousin preformed the wedding for his brother and did a fantastic job. The ceremony was beautiful. 

Girl cousins after the wedding (minus one)

All the Cousins (minus two) with the bride and groom 

We had such a great time celebrating Bethany and Scott. It was an awesome wedding. 

I have always wanted a pair of authentic cowboy boots and I finally picked up a pair at a local shop in Golden, CO.  I can't wait to wear these bad boys with skinnies and an oversized sweater come fall. 

Nautical by Nature: Nautical Outfit of the Week

   

   We have made it to Wednesday and luckily for me it is my Friday.  Tomorrow I am headed to Colorado for a long weekend to see my cousin tie the knot.  We have family in Colorado on both my mom and dad's side of the family so it will be nice to catch up with most of our family who we don't get to see nearly enough. 

   Today I am honored to be featured on Kate's blog Nautical By Nature as her nautical outfit of the week.  Kate's blog always features the cutest nautical clothes, accessories, home goods, and party ideas and she has such a classic preppy style!  Please go and check out her blog!

  I will return on Monday with a recap from my Colorado weekend!

Happy early weekend!

Wedding Wednesday: Bachelor Gift Idea

     DFH and I had planned for our bachelor and bachelorette parties to be the same weekend.  Mine was in Atlantic City and Long Beach Island and DFH was having all of his friends come to him for a weekend in Pittsburgh.

   I knew I wanted to get DFH a little something for his bachelor weekend so I decided to put together a box of goodies for DFH and his friends for the big night out and morning after.  Knowing boys, I knew they would probably forget to bring snacks and Gatorades, etc. to the hotel.  I took a crate and split it into two sides with cardboard. One side read "For Your Big Night Out". The other side read, "For Your Hangover."  

On the "Night Out: side of the crate I included:

1.Airplane bottles of alcohol

2.Playing cards

3.Energy drinks

4.Chips and candy

5.Gum

6.Shot glasses 

7.And lastly I included $3 in an envelope and labeled it "Stripper Money" as a joke 

 

On the "For Your Hangover" side of the crate I included: 

1. Ingredients for Bloody Marys

a.Vodka

                    b.Bloody Mary mix 

2. Arizona Green Tea

3.A bottle of Aleve

4.Emergen-C 

5.And a bottle of Pepto

    Before I left for my bachelorette party I dropped the crate off at the hotel the boys were staying at and the hotel was nice enough to offer to bring the box to the room when the guys arrived the next day.  The crate was a huge hit!
 



Charlotte

            Back in June I flew to Charlotte to celebrate one of my college bffs 30th birthday.  

        I was nervous I wouldn't make it onto my flight to Charlotte because I had booked my flight in my married last name thinking I would have my license changed by the date of my flight, however on the day of my flight I still hadn't received my social security card so I couldn't change anything.  I had called the airline and explained the situation, but they refused to change my name on the ticket and just told me to bring my marriage license. 

   After showing TSA my marriage license and several proofs of identification I had to undergo a bag and full body search and then FINALLY they let me on the plane. Phew! 

     I couldn't wait to get to Charlotte, it is one of my favorite cities mostly because so many of my close college friends live there.  The same weekend My friend Jenna was flying in from Chicago and my friend Keegan was flying in from Los Angeles to celebrate the birthday girl. 

     On Friday night my flight was delayed so once I landed in Charlotte I headed directly to dinner to meet the girls for a Mexican feast at La Paz. I couldn't wait to devour some white queso dip. I still cannot understand why white queso dip is only sold in southern Mexican restaurants. Does anyone know the answer? 

     The rest of the night was low key and spent catching up over a few bottles of wine back at Falon's apartment. 

    Saturday was Falon's big 30th birthday celebration at VBGB a local beer garden. The place was so neat with a great outdoor area and of course great beer selection 

 

Jenna, Falon, me and Keegan before the party. 

I love that Charlotte is full of Elon alumni so it was so wonderful to catch up with so many friends from college. 

Elon girls. 

With the birthday girl. 

After leaving VBGB the birthday girl wanted to dance and that is just what we did. We headed to a local bar/club and danced the night away before calling it a night.

Sunday we recovered and  enjoyed a long delicious BBQ brunch at Midwood Smokehouse, before I knew it, it was already time to go to the airport.

And of course I couldn't leave NC without some Bojangles. 

Some Bubbly, Some Wallpaper, and New Couches

  I haven't talked much about our new home on the blog, I promise there will be lots of posts about all of our renovations.  We love the new house, but to be honest the process has been a lot slower then I thought.  As always things take longer then you think.  DFH and I always say we are going to come home and work on the house every night after work, yet many nights we get lazy and by the time we get home and workout and eat or run errands it is already after 9:00pm and nothing gets done.  So as soon as I have completed work to show you I will, I just don't think you want posts on all of our half completed work. 

   This past weekend however was one of the first weekends we were both in town since we moved so it was nice to have a full weekend to work on the house. 

 Our friend LES was so kind to come over and help us rip down wallpaper.  All day Saturday was spent tearing down this very 90's floral print in one of the bedrooms.

 While LES and I tackled the bedroom DFH was hard at work on the landscaping.  I don't have a before picture, but I will say that I am sure our house was the embarrassment of the neighborhood before DFH cleaned up the yard and added fresh mulch and planted flowers.  The front yard was completely overgrown with tall grass and leaves and three foot weeds, it needed a major makeover.  We finally purchased a lawnmower this weekend and I am sure our neighbors are grateful.  Luckily our next door neighbor had been kind enough to mow our lawn while we got situated in the house, I am sure he didn't enjoy looking at weeds and overgrown grass either. 

   Please ignore the porch and the stairs that is a whole other project. 

LES was so sweet and brought us some craft beer and champagne as a house warming gift.  Saturday also happened to be our nine month wedding anniversary so Saturday night we popped the bubbly and sat on our back deck enjoying each other's company and our new home. 

     On Sunday we ran errands to get some things for the house.  We also found some new couches which I am super psyched about.

  I have had plaid hand me down couches from my parents since law school, and have never wanted to invest in new ones until we had a house and knew what type of space we would have for furniture so we could buy a complete set.    If you have been following the blog for awhile or follow me on Instagram I am sure you have seen them, you can't miss the outdated green and maroon plaid. 

    Although I have been ready for new couches for years, I am going to miss these just a bit.  I have so many memories on these couches studying for law school, late night convos drinking wine with friends, friends from out of town sleeping over and lazy weekends watching movies and eating in front of the TV.  The stains of highlighter, pen, wine, and body indents show that they were well loved and used. 

  

RIP Plaid couches.   

 

 

We are home again this weekend so as long as we are productive I am hopeful I will have some home updates for you soon. 

Delfest

One of my favorite summer activities in the summer is listening to live music, even better is a whole weekend of live music.   Over Memorial Day weekend we attended Delfest our favorite annual blue grass musical festival in Maryland.  DFH, LES and I hopped in our car on Friday after work and headed down to Maryland.  

We got in later then planned and set up our campsite for the weekend and then caught some live music at one of the stages. 

 

LES and I jamming out. 

( Sorry for the blur)

Our camp for the weekend 

On Saturday we woke up and took some Selfies while DFH cooked us breakfast. 

 

Our personal chef. 

Saturday was gorgeous and was hot enough to finally start wearing our summer dresses.  

DFH and I 

Delfest featured three stages with live music and vendors.  We spent both Saturday and Sunday at the main stage listing to some great music 

And catching some rays. 

Can't wait for next year.