My Brothers Engaged!!

 The Nugget showing off her ring!

 I'm soooo excited! Bryan and Erin got engaged!  They were on top of the black diamond slopes at Vail Mountain and Bryan proposed!!  

I wanted to be out there to celebrate with them so bad.  Bryan completely surprised all of us.  He kept it such a great secret.  Matt and I and my Mom were supposed to be out in Vail with them, but because of all of our wedding stuff we had going on, we decided to skip the ski trip this year.  Boy, was I sad we missed it. 

 

The two of them headed to Kelly Liken in Vail Village to celebrate that night for dinner.

 

Since we couldn't be in Vail to celebrate with them, we had to celebrate in their honor back in Pensacola.  Me, Matt, my Dad and Amy were all having brunch at 5 Sisters on Devilliers St. when I went to take out my phone and I had about 8 missed calls and text messages.  I opened up my phone and read Erin's text and started screaming and crying at the same time to the rest of the table.  I swore I had had a dream the night before thinking it was going to happen on this trip.  It was supposed to be a group trip and then slowly as it got closer to trip time, it ended up just being Bryan and Erin.  

After we finished brunch, my Mom joined us and we all headed back to Matt and I's back porch and opened several bottles of delicious champagne to celebrate the big engagement.  It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and we took advantage of the celebration.  

 

The result of the long afternoon :)

 

I truly could not be more happy for the two of them and am so excited to call Erin my sister in law soon!  She has been such a huge part of our family all ready over the last 5 years and I can't wait to make it official.  Cheers to Bryan and Erin and I am so excited to keep the festivities rolling after Matt and I tie the knot in a few short weeks!!!!!!!

Happy Mardi GRAS

We celebrated Mardi Gras this weekend in Pensacola with the Adams Homes crew. It was a bit rainy but we still managed to have a great time!

Happy Valentine's Day

These are the only photos I have from Valentines Day, but we had a wonderful evening in Destin at a wine tasting and pre-fix dinner.

The wine was yummy. One of Matt's favorite Chiantis... Banfi.

And he picked out the most beautiful hydrangea arrangement. One of my absolute favorite flowers :)

The New Pad

Matt and I found a place to live!  We moved in about 2 weeks ago.  Here are a few iPhone shots of the new place.   I will take some more pictures when I get the rest of the house set up.  Matt is in absolute heaven, as am I, because we have a back deck with a beautiful view! A picture of our view is below.  We love it!  I can't wait to get the rest of the place put together.  

Our Family Room

Family Room

Our View...

We have a Fireplace!!! 

We're excited to be settled in and we are already loving being back home.  We have a guest room all set up too, so come visit us!! 

The New Year

We spent New Years Eve celebrating in ATL this year.  My brother, Bryan, and his girlfriend Erin were headed up there for a wedding on Dec 30th and convinced us to come party with them there for NYE.  It didn't take much convincing for me because I love any excuse to get back to my old stomping grounds.  When we decided to go, we had to convince our friends Mike and Tiff to come too because it was now becoming a tradition to travel and celebrate NYE together.  So we rang in the new year celebrating with friends and family and had a great time. 

Friday Night at 10High in the Highlands

 NYE dinner at Genki 

The new year brought new changes for Matt and I.  Right before the new year we had made the decision that we were headed back to Florida and moving to our home town of Pensacola.  It was a bitter sweet decision (for me at least).  Matt was jumping for joy.  Of course I was excited to get back home and be back in Florida, but I was extremely sad to leave my job in MS and our few friends we had made there over the last 2 years.  It is always difficult to close one chapter and start a new...even if you know the new will be great.  

So when we returned from our NYE celebration in Atlanta, I had the daunting task of telling my sales team and office staff in our Monday morning sales meeting that I would no longer be working with them.  It was such a tough meeting for me, but I knew they would all wish me well and be very happy for me.  And just as I thought, they could not have helped make the transition any smoother.  They threw Matt and I an awesome bonfire going away party and we laughed, partied, cried, danced and told stories around the fire.  It was a perfect ending to our time in Ocean Springs.  Thank you to everyone involved for making it so special for us!

My incredible new replacement :)

Cheers to the new chapter in our lives as we make Pensacola our new home together! 

Christmas Decorations 2011

Merry Christmas 2011

Wishing You Merry Christmas Card

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Thanksgiving Supper Club

The Stathams hosted a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner for our November supper club. We had a fabulous time with great friends, good drinks, delicious food and football!Hayden is so talented and had the perfect Thanksgiving table set for us.  Isn't that artichoke arrangement amazing??

 

I was in charge of bringing the signature cocktail for the evening, so I pulled out my favorite book of drinks and found "The Bradshaw."  It was delicious and deadly.  I pretty much never drink tequila, but for some reason this recipe just looked too fun to pass up.  I was sad I didn't have the hot pink sugar rim, but otherwise, the drink was perfect.  We usually don't get to have supper club on a weekend night, so this was a special occasion for us to enjoy some yummy cocktails.

 

Here is the recipe plus a picture of the pretty cocktail.

 

Another view of the beautiful table

 

Baked Brie with 1/4c  pecans, 1/4c brown sugar, and 1 tbsp bourbon.

 

The ladies of the night! The boys were too busy watching football to take time to pose for a picture with us!

 

This was a perfect evening to get us all ready for Thanksgiving day with our families.  I am looking forward to spending a long weekend with my family in New Orleans.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!!

1/2 Marathon Training Starts TODAY!

I have signed up for my first Half Marathon on March 4th, 2012. It is the New Orleans Rock N Roll Marathon Series! I am so excited. I have recruited a few friends to run it with me too.

So today started my first day towards training. I am starting with trying to do 2-3 runs per week for around 30-35min. I am using the Couch to 5k podcast by Robert Ullrey. You can download it for free from iTunes. I will use this for the month of November to build a running basis. I have some knee problems, so I am trying to slowly work through that. I will be doing weight training twice a week to try and keep my knee healthy.

At the beginning of December, I would like to start the Hal Higdon Novice Half Marathon Training guide.

I also downloaded the Couch to 10K app on my iPhone and I love it. It is great when I want a good 50-65 min run/walk training. It alternates running and walking and really helps build up your stamina.

I hope to keep the blog updated with my progress because it definitely helps to keep me accountable.

Today's Run:
5 min warm-up
8 min jog
4min walk
8 min jog
5 min cool down
Total: 30 min

This was the view on my jog tonight. It was perfect and the weather was AMAZING!

Halloween on Government St.- O.S, MS

It is not often that all the couples of supper club (all 3 couples) are home in Ocean Springs on a weekend, but this past weekend we were all home and ready to celebrate Halloween!!

We put on our costumes, ordered pizza and then hit Government St. To bar hop. It was a great outing!