What we've been up to...

Wow, it has been a long time since our last post. Since some of you have asked what we've been up to (since we are usually faithful bloggers), I thought I would take some time to share. We have been very busy around the house. We took up all of our flooring downstairs and replaced it with hardwood floors. This may be easier said than done. haha Brian and Matt worked extremely long hours pulling all of the floor up and making sure everything was ready for the hardwoods. We lived on plywood floors for about 3 weeks, which actually wasn't all that bad. Everything in our house was sandy and dusty! Luckily, we knew a contractor who actually installed the floors for us. He and Brian worked very long hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday 2 weeks ago and got everything finished. They look so good and Brian learned a lot along the way as well. The weekend before that, our good friends Lauren and Daniel Edwards were in town and Daniel helped Brian put ceramic tile flooring in the laundry room. It turned out great! Surprisingly, I haven't taken any pictures yet. I need to do that and post them on the blog. The day we were supposed to start installing the hardwoods, our AC went out. Perfect timing! We are going to have to replace the unit tomorrow. This wasn't a cheap investment, but we have needed a new AC unit for a while. Other than home projects, we have been in town. We went to the Duke/JMU game 2 weekends ago, but the rain had other plans and we didn't stay very long. Duke won though, which was hard for the James Madison fans! We have some things coming up soon and will start posting pictures again!

Kelly's Bridal Shower

We threw a bridal shower for our good friend Kelly yesterday. The bridesmaids hosted the shower at my mom's house. She loves to entertain. It was good to see friends who came in from out of town and to meet Jonathan's family. We had heard a lot about them, but never had the chance to meet them until yesterday. Kelly got a lot of great gifts and she is getting excited for the wedding in 2 months! Time has flown by! We even got a Barbie cake just for Kelly since we know she loves these. Here are some pictures from the fun day!

The Barbie cake!

The bride with her cake

Sweet Jen and Shou

Shou and Lauren

The whole group (I always end up in the front doing a weird pose)

Kelly was excited to get her everyday china

Birthdays and Such

This past week we celebrated several birthdays and enjoyed time at the beach with my Dad's side of the family in Wrightsville Beach. Brian and I went down on Thursday (my birthday) and stayed through Sunday. We also celebrated my Uncle Hoot's birthday as well. We had such a good time chasing the little ones around and enjoying the beach and pool. We did manage to go out to a nice dinner one night and got some cute family pictures. Our goal was to get large group pictures, but the group kept separating and we couldn't seem to get everyone together at once. We stayed up late laughing and talking, and just enjoyed the time together. We definitely should make this an annual event since we only get to see some of them once a year during holidays! I think the little ones definitely had a good time, but I think my parents will need to baby-proof the house a little better next time. I guess only having one thing broken isn't too bad!

Baby Dean, Laura and Derek

Brian and I

Chad, Elizabeth, Chloe and Ella

Chloe, Laura, Derek and Dean

Sisterly love

Baby Dean loves his musical toys!

Anniversary Celebration

So our anniversary was pretty low key this year. We are planning to go to a nice dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse this weekend, so we didn't really want to do too much last night. We ended up eating at one of our favorite places, Panera Bread, for dinner last night. haha I love this place and could eat there everyday, Brian has a little different opinion! But, he was still a good sport about it. Brian gave me a gift certificate for a massage for our anniversary, so I am hoping to relax and enjoy that this weekend as well. Since the traditional theme this year was leather, I put a note in a leather case saying that he could pick out new sunglasses. This isn't the most romantic gift in the world but something that he really needed and wanted. All in all it was a great 3 year anniversary and we can't wait to spend many more years together! We look forward to seeing what the 4th year of marriage has in store for us!

On another note, we are getting ready to install hardwood floors downstairs in our house. We have been wanting to do this since we moved in over a year ago and have been saving our money. We have picked out the floors we like and are ordering them tomorrow. We can't wait to get this done! We were very lucky to come across someone we know who happens to be a contractor and has installed lots of hardwood floors. Looks like we will be having our own episode of "Weekend Warriors" very soon!

Happy Anniversary!

Today we celebrate 3 wonderful years of marriage! I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by. Seems like just yesterday we were preparing for the big day with all of our family and friends. We have made memories over the past 3 years that will last a lifetime and we have many more years to come! Here are some pictures from our wedding day. They aren't very good quality because I had to take pictures of the pictures in our wedding album, but you get the idea :-)

I love you Brian!

Sarah's Birthday Celebration and Cookout

We celebrated Sarah's birthday last night and had a cookout at Travis and Wendy's house. We started off the night with water balloons. I don't think these ever get old for guys, no matter how old they are! Needless to say, I just took pictures and let the guys and the birthday girl have fun throwing the balloons and getting soaked. Travis and Wendy got a Nintendo Wii for their wedding so we played that for a while. I had heard that Wendy was pretty good at bowling and she and I had to have a face-off. I did pretty good with no practice. haha We ate dinner and hung out for the night. It was a lot of fun. I think Sarah enjoyed her birthday!

The twins goofing off with water balloons

You can tell that Travis had been hit a few times

The birthday girl getting in on the action

How cute are the cupcakes Wendy made? Sarah had her own GIANT cupcake!

Sarah had a hard time eating her cupcake. Tim was trying to help!

Fun Weekend

This past weekend we went to Wrightsville Beach with my mom's side of the family. I drove down on Thursday night and we went to Longhorn for dinner. On Friday, the girls went to the pool for the whole day and then we all had pizza that night. Brian was able to join us on Friday night. On Saturday, the weather was awful so we just went shopping for most of the day. That night we went to Macaroni Grill for dinner. My cousins, my dad and Brian and I had to leave on Sunday. We were not ready to leave! My mom, her sister and her mom were able to stay all of this week. I am sure they will have a good time together full of laughs! Unfortunately, my camera died the first day we were there so I didn't get very many pictures. But, I managed to get 2 cute ones of Kinsley. She is at such a fun age where she talks all the time and cracks us up!

Mom and Kinsley in her cute sunglasses

Kinsley didn't like to swim all that much, but she sure loved her ladybug float!