The 4th

Last weekend Luke and I headed back down to Savannah for a weekend at the beach. We invited my brother and his family to come along too. I don't have pictures from the entire weekend yet, and will probably post a just pics blog later since I'm sure there will be a bunch of really cute ones with my two nieces. 

Saturday and Sunday we loaded up the boat and drove out to Wassaw Island. The weather could not have been more perfect all weekend long. Saturday was also Luke's 28th birthday, so we went out to dinner and ate cake to celebrate. Sunday after a day on the beach we went over to friends house to watch the fireworks from their dock, and celebrate our freedom!  

Boats anchored up at Wassaw

Happy 4th

Our Set Up

 Cute

Uncle Luke and The Bear with an oreo mouth!!

Pizza Party

So...not this past weekend, but the one before I threw my own housewarming party weekend.
Friday night I had my sister and Prem come down for dinner, and my friend Lisa G. and her boyfriend Tyler (who is also my 1st cousin) drove down from Charlotte for the weekend. By the time Lisa and Tyler arrived Friday night... we'd eaten dinner, consumed some wine, played the globe game (I'll post on that later in life), and were watching The Notebook.  By the time Lisa arrived both Jenna and Prem were already snoring on my couch. I guess we are officially OLD.
Saturday morning we were joined by Rachel and Brad from ATL. The boys left to play golf while the ladies hit the pool.
Saturday evening I threw my build your own pizza party (inspired by a Southern Living article I read). I will say they make it seem very easy. My personal opinion is they need a side note saying there is a definite learning curve to throwing a build your own pizza party. I had the pizza stone, the pizza board or whatever you call it, and all supplies. However...what you really need is...a HUGE oven and multiple pizza boards. If you don't have these items then I suggest you set things up the way we figured out best for us. Pair off everyone into groups of two (I suggest couples because it's super cute to watch people be all flirty...which happens every time). Yes I'm cheesy!!!
Have two people building while two pizza's are cooking. Instead of putting pizza's on the stone and not being able to remove them easily, we covered the stone with aluminum foil and sprayed pam. This made removing the cooked pizza super easy.  I think another important note is not everyone will be eating at the same time (which some people might not like). Staggered worked out well for us because we had heavy snacks while getting ready, and I didn't own a table large enough for everyone to fit around. The pizza's all turned out really yummy... and I was happy overall.
After dinner we played Catch Phrase and Mad Gab. Girls verse Guys always makes things feisty and fun. I will report that the ladies won the overall count!!
I had a wonderful weekend and LOVE being so close to friends for easy visits. Tomorrow I'll be back to cover our 4th. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend celebrating our freedom!

My BIL Prem

Of course Lisa and Tyler got in a food fight with the flour!

Award for cutest couple pizzas

Finished Pizza---Luke had the big guy on the left 

Stephanie and Jenna's Pizzas (Steph drove down for dinner and games)

Rob (Lisa's little brother) came to visit from Auburn

Thank goodness Rachel and Brad brought their massive blow up bed! 

Home Sweet New Home

So...the weekend was a success with definite lessons learned. I'll post later about my housewarming party and all that entailed.
Here are the pics of the new place. Minus the kitchen, laundry room, hall, guest bathroom, and mini room that we are going to call our wine cellar soon.

Oh...and of course I've got some pics of my newly painted DIY items. Nothing fancy, but they are fun  pops of color that help create more flow throughout. Luke and I are hand me down furniture people with 8 million different colors of wood going on, so I think the items painted help tie things together better. Upon looking at these pictures I feel like I forgot so many things. I guess I'll take more pictures later to showcase all of the missing items. Hope everyone had a WONDERFUL WEEKEND and Happy Monday!

The Beginning

Sanded and Primed

Painted Stools with the pillow I drew the color from

I had Luke add 3 sides to hide cords and painted red to match pillow above

Your view upon entry--kitchen is on the right
and my new painted red table far back right 

Your view looking back at the entry way

Guest Bedroom

The Living Room/Den 

The office nook

Our Bedroom 

Between the lanterns we are hoping to purchase a bedroom TV

The master bathroom and closet beyond

Sneak Peek

I'm hosting a get together at the new pad this weekend with a million and one things to do before people arrive on Friday evening.
I do recommend having a party close after your move in date...it forces you to get your house in 100% condition. It always seems to take longer than I think to unpack and find a place for everything. Especially the whole hanging picture part which requires Luke, who only has x number of hours a night he can dedicate to hanging pics.
So...the house is coming along, and crazy me went ahead and threw in some Dorman DIY.
Here is a sneak peek at the pieces I am working to finish today! I'll post the new pieces along with pics of the new pad maybe tomorrow, but definitely next week latest. This way I can spend Friday morning getting every little thing put away and cleaned.
 WISH ME LUCK!!

To Come...and I heart swimming!

 I headed down to Saint Simon's Island for a weekend of fun in the the sun/wild fire smoke. I'll do an official post with more pics once I gather some good ones up from everyone.

To hold you over I wanted to show you the pic I got from my SIL at my adorable nieces swim meet, and talk about my love for swimming!

The Cheer Squad

My childhood was consumed with swim meets. My dad was the buzzer man and also a stroke and turn judge, mom worked at the score table putting in the tallies for each team, and all of my siblings and I swam every summer. I even went on to swim year round for the Augusta Swim League. Swimming is one of my favorite things to do, and probably my favorite sport to watch in the summer Olympics.

 A couple of years ago I was able to swim one mile in the Miami Triathlon Race I did as a relay with friends. I went out via boat to this little island off the coast of Miami and swam my heart out back to the Miami shore. The hardest part was not the distance, but the large heats of people. With so many people taking off at the same time, you can't help but kick someone, be kicked by someone or have someone accidentally push you under the water. It was by far the most intense swim I've ever completed with the people and the current/waves adding yet another factor. However, the feeling after you've completed something like that was amazing!! So...I'm going to look into making the swim definitely happen again.

The Dream Team

Bombs Away!!

So...we are officially Newnan, GA residents as of this weekend. I'll say our stay has started on a pretty rough note, but seems to be getting better as of now.
The first mishap was the U-Haul rental truck arrangement. Luke and I decided that since our stuff was already packaged and in a storage unit, that renting a U-Haul and driving ourselves would be better (not a great idea apparently). The company did provide labor to load and unload our stuff, but we happen to move on the same weekend as everyone else on the planet, and got stuck driving a full hour away just to pick up our truck. Augusta is not that small of a place....seriously...but apparently 26ft. trucks are a rare bread, and 26ft. trucks with air conditioning even rarer. Poor Luke suffered the 1 hour ride back to Augusta and the 3 hour ride to Newnan with no AC. As if that wasn't enough...when turning in the U-Haul they noted our contract read to receive 36 moving pads with the truck. We only got 6 of the 36 pads and the lady on the receiving side basically told Luke it looks like he stole 30 moving pads. YIKES! NOT GOOD! So...that issue is still getting resolved, but thankfully out of our hands at this point. On a happy side of things; guy who gave us the truck has been really great and extremely nice/helpful.
Mishap number two is the real whammy!! We arrived to sign our lease and move in Saturday morning. When checking out the apartment we noticed a strange (chain smoker lived here/not good smell), but it didn't seem that bad. I thought we could light some candles and move on. Apparently I was really wrong! After having the guys move everything in and shut the doors...the smell began to overtake. So...to move this story along I'll just tell you Luke and I opened windows and doors to air out things, lit candles, sliced and laid out apples, sprayed Febreeze all over, dumped Arm & Hammer in the carpets (which turned out to be new), vinegared the walls, and basically tried everything in our power to rid the smell. We called the apartment and told them our story (the smell really did improve a ton with all of our tricks by the way) and they brought over THE BOMB!! I blew that puppy up this afternoon and think we are FINALLY good to go forward with the unpacking, aka: removing plastic cover our couch has been forced to wear this entire process! The apartment complex has also been very responsive to every little request I've called in, so another silver lining to note in all of the headache.
There have been other little unfortunate things here and there like dropping and breaking one of my wine glasses, but I'll spare everyone the details.

 Happy Notes:

• Clint and Catherine came to visit us on their way back to Savannah from Atlanta this past weekend.
• My SIL Stacie and my two amazing nieces also came to visit on their way back to ATL from Gump Town.  
• Our location really has been AWESOME for running all of the moving errands. I can walk to Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby, and Lowes! 
• Luke and I were able to drive up to ATL to see my little niece get first place in her event at her swim meet last night (I'll post a pic later...going to steal one from Stacie).
• Seriously...my favorite flower is right outside of my back door (so I've been snipping away and making bouquets around the house for FREE.

Gardenias are my FAVORITE!

Lovely Flowers from Stacie and the girls!

The BOMB

Poor Couch

Yes it's still at mess, but we're working on it!

Kitchen Progress

TV is mounted (yikes that was harder than I thought). Now to tackle the cords!

Memorial weekend was a blast (yes I do realize I've fallen off the bandwagon getting this posting in on time). We packed up the car and headed to Savannah for some much needed beach time. Luke and I have been craving the beach since we left New Mexico, but haven't had the chance to get down there until now.
The weather was beautiful and HOT!! We all applied sun screen pretty religiously, but still fell victim to burning. This past week I've spent many moments peeling off dead skin.
Our Savannah itinerary was pretty laid back:
Saturday morning we loaded up the boat and drove out to Williamson Island. I don't think there is a better way to spend a day than anchoring up on an island with friends and having a beach picnic.
Saturday night we saw a glimpse of D.C. friends Kathryn and Tyler(and will one day have a picture to prove it) at Bonna Bella. Bonna Bella is a fun water side restaurant that you can drive the boat to.
Sunday we had to head back to Augusta (yes we worked on Memorial Day), but not before we took the boat out cruising around the inter coastal waterways.

Phone pics are a no no I've decided. A blurry pic of Luke and our American flag on the beach!

Me Driving....scary for some!

Cousin Tyler

Charles Way Reporting for Duty

A very blurry pic on the way to Bonna Bella

Our future home!! 

Today our couch and new chair arrive, and our room is all packed up and ready to roll for early Saturday. Once we move I plan on being a better blogger. The wifi back on this end of my parent's house just doesn't make blogging easy, so that's my excuse for the last couple of months. Once we move it's game....Promise!