Chuck Turned 30

A couple weeks ago on February 17th, Chuck turned 30.

I tried to make his entrance into a new decade special and memorable, starting the night before his birthday when after everything he did I would say something like "ohhhhh it's the last teeth-brushing of your 20s!" which may have been more annoying to him than memorable but, it was fun for me! But in all seriousness, I did try to make it as fun and memorable as I could because he deserves a memorable goodbye to one decade (which was pretty amazing for him) and a big welcome to the next decade (which will probably be even more amazing.) Also, he's just pretty great and I really like him and planning celebrations for people is my love language.

On his birthday, he had to go into work for a little bit that morning but I got him to leave by lunchtime and we met up with his sister Shannon and 2 of our nieces to start the weekend of celebrations.

With a couple of hours to kill before our dinner plans, we weren't sure what to do so we ended up at a bowling alley where I obviously let him beat me 3 games in a row since it was his birthday. :)

That evening, we met up with our family at a Hibachi grill, where we surprised Chuck with our group gift of a ping pong table that was not only already purchased, but already set up and ready to play on in our basement because our awesome dads snuck in and set it up that morning while Chuck was at work!

As you can tell, he was pretty excited.

Then it was on to the next surprise location, Great Flood Brewery where a bunch of our family and friends were waiting with beer, cake, balloons, and some I Heart Chuckie stickers- a throwback from when Chuck ran for Class President as a freshman in high school and handed out stickers with that slogan on them for his campaign. (Yes of course he won the election, and stickers were soon banned from Eastern High School because those things were on EVERYTHING in the building.)

Henry got to stay out late and party, too!

Of course the celebrations didn't stop there, because there's always a party after the after party! A bunch of friends came back to our house from Great Flood to help us break in the new ping pong table. We played from about 10:30pm until 3am so I'd say the table got broken in pretty well. We created a bracket and held the very first tournament on the table. And because our basement is still mostly empty because we need a lot of furniture in our house and furniture is expensive, all our friends got to sit on the floor when they weren't playing! (sorry, friends)

The tournament came down to the final 2....

and the birthday boy emerged victorious! (Please pay close attention to the region names and ignore the fact that we don't know really how to draw a bracket for 13 people.)

Even though his birthday was technically over, I had one more surprise for him on Saturday which was to go to Breakout Louisville with some of our friends I had convinced to celebrate Chuck's birthday for a second day in a row. Breakout Louisville was SO. MUCH. FUN. and we all wanted to go do another one as soon as we were done. We broke out of our room but with only 4 minutes to spare. It was way harder than I anticipated and also way more fun. We felt just like Nicolas Cage in National Treasure.

And that pretty much sums up his birthday weekend! I'd say it was definitely one to remember.

Oh and if you're wondering if I spent all of his birthday reminding him of things like "awwww, first french fries of your 30s!" the answer is DUH.

A Post About Cookies

This blogpost is all about cookies.

On Friday, I hosted my 4th annual Holiday Cookie Swap Party. I hosted my first Cookie Swap in Boston with some of my girlfriends there, and it was so much fun that I've continued it every year since. The idea is this- you bake one kind of cookie. Invite your family and friends to make one type of cookie and bring it to your house. Everyone swaps cookies and then gets to go home with a variety of cookies after only having to make one! Whoever came up with this idea is genius.

Of course, you also have to test all of the cookies during the party and then vote on them too. Or is that just us?

This year we made everyone go around and say which cookie they brought and what it was. People got really into it this year as far as trying new and more difficult recipes. Some turned out really well, and some... not so much. Whether their cookie turned out great or not so great, everyone seemed very stressed by the whole process this year. I have a feeling people may not be as adventurous next year.

Baby Henry got to join us at the party even though he didn't get to try any of the cookies. :( Maybe next year, Henry!

And while we're on the subject, can we talk about how freakin' cute Henry is ALL THE TIME?!?!

After we ate entirely too many cookies, it was time to vote. This year we voted on Best Looking cookie, Best Tasting cookie, and a booby prize for "Aw, at least you tried. Maybe baking isn't your thing."

Of course there were prizes.

And the winners were.... Jennifer for best tasting- SHE MADE HER OWN CARAMEL. WHAT?- Anna for Best Looking -she made the polar bear cookies - and Laura for "aw at least you tried" because her cookies somehow became one giant cookie that was kinda collapsed in the middle and may or may not have fallen apart if taken out of the pan. It's ok. She owned it.

We had such a good time, and even though I was awake with a stomachache most of the night from too many sweets and felt like I had a hangover the next day, it was totally worth it. I can't wait to do it again next year!

(The group minus one- Pat had left already when someone said "hey we should take a group picture!" If I knew how to photoshop I would put her in but just imagine her standing to my right.)

Summerness

Remember when I said the blog would now mostly contain cute pics of our nieces and friends' babies? Well. I'm about to deliver on that promise. 

We've spent the last month enjoying our summer, spending time with friends and family, and traveling. Here's a summary of July in pictures. 

We spent 4th of July in Virginia Beach with Chuck's sister and family. It rained most the time we were there so we made the most of it anytime the sun was out!

Colonial Williamsburg

Fireworks on the bay!

I love how their dog sleeps on the steps.

We've been trying to utilize our apartment complex pool this summer more than we did last summer. We've spent a lot of Saturdays at the pool and a super fun Friday night pool cookout with friends.

Chuck's other sister (who lives in Louisville) got a new puppy and he is ADORABLE.

The whole family got together to celebrate my Grandma's birthday!

We went to the lake with friends to celebrate Jen's son Brendan turning 13!

And last but not least, we hung out with this little dude a lot. I CAN'T STAND THE CUTENESS!

That's all for now. An update on the house hunting process coming soon......

My Mom Took a Skull on an Airplane

In April our family took a trip to Denver to see Sami and Austin where they moved this past August. It was the first time we've all been on a trip together since Myrtle Beach in 2009! Sami planned out our entire trip and made sure we saw all the best parts of Denver, and also took us outside the city to Rocky Mountain National Park, Boulder, and Golden. We had perfect weather the entire trip and we ran our butts off. While the parks and restaurants and sites were all glorious and unforgettable, perhaps more memorable were some of the things that happened just in our Air B&B or in the rented minivan that we all 7 rode around in for the long weekend. (Shout out to Dad who drove the entire time and endured the opinions of 6 backseat drivers!)

First of all, on Day 1 of the trip, we were exploring the Red Rocks Amphitheatre when my mom got a news alert on her phone. "Prince died!" she told us. We were shocked! You see, the last time we were all on vacation together in the summer of 2009, Michael Jackson died. Our entire beach trip became unintentionally Michael Jackson themed as every radio station played his songs, stores put up tributes to him, TV stations played his videos and movies about him... Well, sure enough, our Denver trip quickly became Prince themed. The minivan bumped "Kiss" and "Party Like it's 1999" that week more times than I want to remember. Now we are worried to go on another vacation all together because it seems every time we do, a pop star dies. And we can't lose Justin Timberlake!

Another memorable event was on Day 1 when we noticed that the spice cabinet in our Air B&B was meticulously organized, labeled and ALPHABETIZED. The owner of the Air B&B was a 30-40 something year old single male. We became convinced we had a Dexter situation on our hands. Who else is that anal and organized besides a trained, skilled serial killer?

And speaking of creepy things, I should tell you about the skull. You see, Sami is in Denver to get her Masters in Anthropology. She is an archaeology nerd, so naturally we often buy her things like Laura's most recent Christmas gift, a skull painted with chalkboard paint that is also a piggy bank! When Sami flew back to Denver after Christmas, she didn't have room to take all of her gifts, so my mom made sure to pack the skull with her to bring to Denver. But instead of packing it in her suitcase like most people do when they travel with skulls, she brought it in her carry-on. Imagine the look on the TSA guy's face when he saw this thing go through the scanner at the airport.

Because Denver is spread out and we visited places outside the city, we spent a LOT of time in the car together. (We flew to Denver, just FYI. That would have been a serious road trip to drive from Louisville.) The time in the car gave lots of great conversations. We learned about how Laura's friends supposedly led "an uprising" against her in the 4th grade and she's still not over it. We discussed Sami's fear of boats and Mom scared her by saying she thinks her fear of water comes from when she was "submerged in ice water as a baby" before her heart surgery, which led Sami to believe she was killed and brought back to life until Dad chimed in with the important detail that just her body was put in the ice water, not her head/face. On the last day, I had an outburst in the backseat when my sisters were trying to convince my dad to stop for restrooms 20 minutes from home. I was arguing that we should not stop so close to home and when they kept trying to overrule me I shouted "I NEVER GOT SWIM LESSONS AS A KID AND YOU TWO DID!" I have no idea how stopping for the bathroom and swim lessons are related, but for some reason I had a middle child moment and needed to know why I was never taught to swim and only taught to float. And now that I'm thinking about it, like Sami I should probably ALSO have a fear of boats because if one I'm on ever sinks, everyone else will swim to safety and I'll just have to float until someone rescues me.

Austin and Chuck are brave men.

Besides sight-seeing and riding in the van, we did a lot of other things too. We played a lot of games in bars. (Side note: if you have never played the card game "Exploding Kittens," do yourself a favor and order it on Amazon NOW and play it ASAP.) We walked a LOT and Austin lied to us constantly about how close certain destinations were to keep us from getting discouraged. We ate a ton of good food. We toured a whiskey distillery (because, duh). We climbed a mountain, sort of. We looked for Peyton Manning. We debated the origin of elk (are they a mix between donkey and deer?). We went from place to place with a schedule but also with no real agenda at the same time.

Of course the mountains were breathtaking and the elk everywhere in the park were amazing and the food was great and getting to see Sami and Austin's new 'hood was fun... but the best thing about the vacation was knowing that our family could go literally anywhere in the world together and have a good time.

But, unfortunately we'll never get that chance, you know- because of the whole pop star thing.

Life happened

Well. It's been 3 months since my last blog post and I have no other excuse besides I've been busy living life. Not that I wasn't living life the past two years, but I at least had 30 minutes every now and then to sit down and write a blog post. It may sound crazy and you may be thinking "yeah right" when I say this- but I honestly have not had a free 30 minutes to sit and blog since my last post. Our lives amped up that weekend and have only just begun to slow down a little.

Here is a recap of what we've been up to since May 17th.
- My cousin's wedding in Louisville
- Elizabeth and Shane's wedding shower and bachelor/bachelorette parties
- Final celebrations and end of school events at MIT
- We hosted our entire families in Boston
- Chuck graduated (I don't think he and I slept more than 4 hours a night the entire week of his graduation)
- Chuck was in a wedding for our friends Clayton and Christen on the Cape
- We road tripped to Louisville with our UHAUL, Chuck's parents and my sisters
- My BFF Elizabeth and Shane got hitched and we were both in the wedding
- I flew to Minnesota for my best friend Lauren's bachelorette weekend (and made $1800 in Delta travel vouchers from taking later flights both on the way there and the way home. Cha-ching!)
- We drove to West Virginia for Chuck's classmate's wedding and stayed at a resort all weekend
- We spent 4th of July with family and at the Lake
- We drove to Minnesota for Lauren's wedding, which I was in
- We took a vacation to Playa del Carmen for our delayed honeymoon/yay Chuck graduated/we better take a vacation before we start working again
- We finally moved into our new apartment and got settled
- Chuck started work at Amazon
- I interviewed for jobs and recently accepted an offer

Add on top of all those things: cookouts with family, dinner dates with friends, church, church meetings, shopping for things for our apartment, setting up insurance, cable and electric, Gamenight friends events, and probably a bunch of other stuff, and that's been our summer.

I begin work on Monday and hopefully we will FINALLY have our new routine in place. As a person who thrives off itineraries and lists, I am pretty excited to get into a routine again. Not to take away from our summer of craziness though- it was the best summer ever.

Hopefully over time I can share some pictures with you of all of our summer fun. For now, I will leave you with a few pictures from our resort in Mexico, where I daydream about at least once a day.