Miscellany Monday

Oh Monday...
Today I woke up feeling like I was ran over by a Mack truck.
But alas, I took some Claritin D and ran out the door.

Our mid-week was a little crazy, because we had a half snow day!
My office closed down at noon, and I made the trek home.
It only took me a little over an hour (it is usually a 35 minute commute).
We got tons of snow in a matter of a couple hours.
I'm thankful we didn't get as much ice as they were predicting.
I'll take snow over ice any day.

Did y'all have a great weekend?
Ours was really busy.


Friday night, we went out for a spontaneous movie night.

I was on the fence about this movie...I'm not really into dark/scary movies at all.
Of course, I would not say that it's a "wholesome" movie, but it was better than I expected it to be.

Saturday mid-morning, we left for a quick trip to Dallas.
Tyler's company was having a Year End Party and paid for us to go!
It was actually kinda nice...

We stayed at the Gaylord Texan.

It was such a fun hotel!

About 8 years ago, my family went to Nashville for the Supernationals Chess Tournament, which was held at the Gaylord Opryland.

Don't laugh...one, if not both of my brothers came home with a trophy.

Anyway, the Opryland hotel was amazing...

And they say, "Everything is bigger in Texas."  

This time I have to disagree.

The Opryland hotel is way bigger than the Texan.

But both have an amazing atmosphere.

It was fun to get dressed up for a night.

My handsome date really knows how to look good!!

Oh, and the food was really good.

We got back Sunday around 1 pm.

So I had plenty of time to catch up on stuff around the house.

Except...I didn't.

I was so tired, I felt like a zombie and didn't do much at all.

We did, however, get our taxes done.

I hate taxes (says the girl with the accounting degree).

Okay...

Here's some other random things that I'm super excited about:

Have you heard of the Hope Spoken Conference?

It's going to be in Dallas next March.

I'm secretly hoping that I can attend since so many of my instagram friends will be there.

I would just LOVE to meet them all.

For more information, you can check out this website.

If you are planning to attend, leave me a comment and let me know!! :)

See that pink-ish button up there that says, "A Simple Kind of Love?"

That is my very first blog advertisement!!!

You can check it out here in person.

I am praying that God will open some doors through this,

and that I can use my shop for His glory!

Oh, and did you hear?

I updated my shop on Friday!

Check it out!!

I hope ya'll have a wonderful week!

Linking up with Carissa today!

Vegas Vacation {Picture Overload}

As I'm gearing up for a very busy week, I thought I would sit down and recap our Vegas Vacation for y'all.

We were very blessed to have been gifted this trip, and it was great to spend some one-on-one time with my hubby.  He has been really busy at work, especially last month...put in lots of hours, worked late, and we didn't get to spend much time together.  Even when we were home together, we'd be chillin' and trying to wind down from work rather than focusing on each other.

We had never been to Vegas, as I had mentioned before.  I always heard there was a lot of walking involved, lots of crowds, and bright lights.

One thing we knew for sure were the shows we were going to see.  I have been dying to see a Cirque du Soleil show for a very long time.  We were staying in the MGM Grand, and KA was playing there, so we just decided to see that show.  We also wanted to see The Blue Man Group.  My hubby was is a drummer.  He had to see  that show.  Both were excellent, but incomparable.

The sites to see are incredible!  The hotels are magnificent!!  And everyone is right. LOTS of walking was done.  34 miles to be exact.  In 3.5 days.  Crazy!

If we're friends on facebook, you've already seen this pictures.  But for those of you I'm not facebook friends with, here they are! {And in no particular order...}

I love looking out the plane window...I'm fascinated by God's creation!

Yes, we just had to go find the sign!  And my eyes aren't shut...I was just squinting.  It was bright.

We went to Shark Reef in Mandalay Bay and I got to touch a sting ray!

We saw Blue Man Group...were in the 4th row even!

We at at The Buffet at the Bellagio and I tried just about everything which included but wasn't limited to:  rack of lamb, crab legs, California roll, prime rib, duck breast, cheesecake...and other choices as well.  We didn't eat all day {except breakfast} so we could just eat the buffet.  It definitely was not worth the amount of money we paid for it.

We went down to Fremont Street one evening...

We saw a guy spray painting art while we were there!

Isn't it incredible?

The light show was interesting...felt like a hippie. :)

We went to M&M World one night! 

I was very impressed with all the escalators.  That city definitely caters to pedestrians.

Fountains at Caesar's Palace

We even won a little bit of money on the slots...the first night we were there! :)

My attempt at using the panoramic setting to take a picture of the fountains at the Bellagio while they were going off...

The swanky curved elevator at the Wynn...I had never seen one like it!

We had a really good time.  It was definitely a city to experience.  Honestly, being a Southwest Missouri girl, it was like Branson on crack.  LOTS more people, lots of shows, lots of lights.  We aren't rushing to plan a trip back to Vegas, but we'll see.

Sightseeing

One more post about our anniversary trip.

This time I'll share more photos.

We met up with my aunt Kristie on Saturday evening.

She took us to eat at a local diner near her super-cute house.

Then she took us to see her campus, where she works.

It was absolutely gorgeous...all the architecture and flowers.

I wish I would have taken pictures of it, but I didn't.

Then she took us to see Minnehaha Falls.

We called my Granny, because it's one of her favorite places in Minnesota.

{yes, I'm sharing this one again}

Call us lame, but we went to IKEA the next day.

We had never been....

Here are our faces to show our excitement of going.

And here's a project for my daddy when we finally buy a house.

I absolutely love this dining room set-up.

Gorgeous!

I seriously could have spent allllll day in that store.

Too bad the closest one is 5 hours away.

We went back to the Mall of America and went to the Sea Life Aquarium.

It was nothing like I remembered it.

{They took the moving sidewalk out!}

We did some other shopping at Goodwill.

We found a gun store {of course}.

It was a relaxing weekend. 

I loved it.

It feels good to cross Bucket List items off!

Family Weekend Getaway

Monday has come and gone.  I hate Mondays.  They're awful!  Especially coming off of a really great weekend.  I was really tired yesterday, but let's hope that it won't be a week long thing...I don't know when I'll be catching up on my sleep any time soon.


My family came up to St. Louis on Friday afternoon.  They haven't been up here since we moved, and I was really excited to show them around.  Our joke was that it wasn't going to be until Thanksgiving that they would be able to come up since Dad and the boys are so heavily involved in farming right now.  However, they took a little break and made it up early!  We were excited to see them!


On Friday night, we ordered pizza and just hung out at our apartment.  It was a nice relaxing, low-key night.  We hit up our pool, and it was actually really cool...a little too cool.


It's so awesome to have a couch that [most] everyone can sit on!  They loved it, and some of them even took a nap on it! 

On Saturday morning, Tyler and Ben went to see the new Batman movie.  I'm glad Tyler had someone to go with, because I didn't want to go see it.  The rest of us headed to the zoo.  We saw the sea lions (I want to see the show sometime), and the elephants, and a whole lot more.

We rode the train around the park...super fun!  We even rode on the carousel!  I really wanted to ride on the caterpillar, because butterflies are my favorite.  But my family was way ahead of that one, so I rode on an ostrich instead.  Dad rode the lion...fitting. :]

We met up with Tyler and Ben, ate a super late lunch (around 2:30) at Subway, decided that we were gonna go to the Cardinals' game the next day, ordered tickets, and then headed out to the cemetery.  Mom wanted to visit her grandparents because she hadn't been there since they had passed away.

Later that evening, we headed downtown via the Metrolink.  Tyler and I are huge fans of the public transportation because we don't have to deal with game traffic or even having to pay to park downtown.  

We got off at the Arch and were hoping to go up in it, but it was all sold out.  Bummer.  

Instead, we walked around the Arch museum, and headed to go find supper.  And yes, it was a late supper...about 9:00. :]  But it was at this quaint little restaurant and we got to sit outside near the street.

We got to see fireworks from where we were sitting.  They were pretty sweet. 

By the time we got our food, the people from the game were coming down to party it up.  We sat around for a little bit before we decided to head back to our cars.  


         I had the Crab Cake Sandwich...but really, I just ate the crab cake.

There was a Nelly concert that night, and a ton of college aged kids crammed into the Metro.  It was ridiculous!  It was so hot and loud.

By the time we got back, we were exhausted.  I checked my pedometer, and I had a reason to be tired.  I met my daily step goal by an excessive 6,000 steps.  I had also walked over 7 miles.  Whew!

On Sunday morning, we headed to the early service at church.  We ate a quick bite at the Galleria Mall before we got back on the Metro to head to the baseball game.  We were so excited to go with the family!  Ben had gotten us super awesome seats (even if it was nose-bleed section).  We had the perfect view of the game!

On the way to the game, we saw these girls with these shirts!  I just had a take a picture!  

Ben took this picture, so he's not in it.  Brian and Hailey had gotten seats in section 101, so they didn't sit with us.  

Brian and Hailey are sitting in the 7th row.

This guy in front of us got this huge helmet full of nachos!  Took 4 people to eat them all!

Ben wanted to show off his guns. :]

After the game was over, we all went to IHOP to eat.  I got some lovely Red Velvet pancakes.  They were delicious!!!  Two of my mom's brothers came up for the game.  We also called my cousins to come meet us for supper.  There were lots of people, but I wouldn't have it any other way. :]

From there, my family had to leave.  It was really hard to say goodbye because we had such a wonderful weekend!  Hopefully, they'll get to come up again sometime.  But it really might be Thanksgiving before they come again.