Hibernation

That's right we are calling this weekend Hibernation... because we accomplished nothing but sleeping :)

Friday night we both came home from work, watched a couple of our dvr'd shows and went to bed around 10:00. We woke up Saturday morning around 10:30 (that is 12.5 hours) to rain outside which made us want to do nothing but watch more tv. Around 1:00 we finally got dressed and went shopping to REI. Our goal this weekend was to buy a pack for me for our trip in August... and we did it! I was fitted for a pack, and after trying on a couple picked out which one I thought would be the lightest and most comfortable... an Osprey! I am so excited about this one... woo hoo!

It has a suspension system that helps distribute the weight and since it's mesh it keeps a constant air flow going to my back!
After shopping we came home, cooked some dinner (had sloppy joes for the first time!) then decided to go to the $1.75 theater down the road. I think it's so cool and I couldn't wait to bring Kyle there. I found out it's only $0.75 on tuesdays, what a deal! Anyways we went and saw Revolutionary Road with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. We both knew it was really sad and depressing before hand, so maybe that's why we thought it was good?! Their acting was unreal, but it's a very sad story and we spent the whole ride home talking about what we can do to never get in those situations in our marriage :) haha THEN we went to bed that's right again at 10:30.

We had been planning on skipping church and going hiking, since it was going to be the first sunny day in a while AND since Kyle had a group project meeting at 1:30 so we wouldn't have been able to go in the afternoon. Well we didn't set an alarm because we always wake up at 9:00 at the latest. Turns out we didn't wake up until 11:30... which is a grande total so far of 25.5 hours. Kyle woke up feeling very sick (we think it's sinus' but not sure) and I had a pretty sore throat so we ate some chicken noodle soup and then he was off to his group meeting. I was feeling pretty tired still so guess what I did? Went back to bed for 2.5 more hours! So I slept a total of 28 hours this weekend!!! He came home from his group meeting, and we went to our Newlyweds Biblestudy. We had a great time like always, and there was such a big crowd this time-- 34 people!

After newlyweds we decided to try out our Orikaso fold flat table wear that we had ordered a couple weeks ago!
This will be great to bring with us as well... I have a pink set and Kyle ordered an orange one. It comes with:
A MUG
A PLATE:

okay here is the finished plate... AFTER he read the directions:

and A BOWL:
And that was our boring but relaxing weekend. We were supposed to go to Boone but since it was going to rain there the whole time we decided to just stay here. It was a nice break from traveling though for sure!

Kate's First Annual Chili Cookoff!

Yes that is right, as if our company wasn't already identical to "the office" (we do have a party planning committee!) we had our first annual chili cookoff today! It was really fun! We started by all trying the 7 different chili's they had layed out:
and then we voted by putting poker chips in those red cups. Whichever one got the most chips won! It was fun as they all had different tastes: cinnamon, spicy, meaty, stew-ish, oily, etc. After you voted then you actually got a bowl of whichever kind you liked and then put all the toppings on it:

We all ate for a while then they announced the winners!

The winning team was Pat's! And they gave them aprons and hats... absolutely hilarious.
Her whole team:
One of the writers at our company made them (after much thought the MMIX means 2009) haha
Then they also gave 2 more aprons out to the 2nd and third place winning cooks. Here is Pat, Kevin and Laura:
Fun way to spend our Friday lunch I think!

Orlando Trip!

WHAT A FUN WEEKEND WE HAD!!!! We all headed down to Orlando, Florida! Kyle and Nick flew there and arrived into West Palm Beach Thursday night to visit with Mark and go fishing with him all day Friday! They woke up super early and headed out to sea! They have some hilarious stories from the day, and now I do believe all 3 are officially attached at the hip :) It was neat for my dad to see his son (Nick) and his son-in-law (Kyle) go fishing with his best man's (Van) son (Mark). They are already planning the next trip where the "kids" can compete against the "dads" in a fishing contest, and see who gets more!

Here's one of Nick's catches of the day.... a dolphin fish! Took both of them to hold it for the picture, once it's eyes saw the water again :)

The also caught some King Mackerel!

Kyle helped Mark fillet and clean the fish up, learning a ton about how much meat you can actually get off of a fish! Then they came home and cooked some up for us for dinner! (And for the record I now officially like fish... but only if it comes from Mark's cooking!)
With all the flying costs we've had this month, I ended up taking a half day to drive to FL, getting to Orlando around 8:00 that night, just in time for dinner! We all crashed after stuffing ourselves full for the night!

Saturday morning we got up and had a wonderful breakfast cooked by Aunt Debby. Then Nick, Kyle and I headed to Orlando WaterSports Complex... a place we had seen on the side of the highway a couple times and always wanted to try :)

Ky & Nick. We finally have Nick back from his recent sailing/camping trip in the British Virgin Islands! (see how tan he is!)It's actually a huge lake with cables that pull you through the water and off jumps! It's insane but so cool to watch. We watched for about 2 hours and then Kyle's like "I'm going"... big surprise right?! So he gets all strapped in, and goes for an hour. It's pretty tiring, but there were some 7 year olds out there going off huge jumps... incredible.Go Kyle Go! He had no problem jumping off the dock and immediately getting pulled at 20 mph. I would have face planted without a doubt! I enjoyed getting to sunbathe as Kyle did his thing!

Next was going back to the house to get ready for the wedding! Sarah has truly met the man of her dreams, and he could not be any better for her. We all love David and are so thrilled he's joined the family!

The ceremony was very fast, but my favorite part was their kiss and dancing out after it was over. Here is a video of him spinning her down the aisle :)

The reception was held at The Elks Lodge.
Her colors of purple and yellow were so pretty!

Cousin picture! Nick, Ben and Mark!

Aunt JoAnne and Aunt Debby:

My Great Aunt CC (G-ma's sister) with Nick & Mark.

Mark, Aunt Debby, Van and Grandma:

All having one drink for Sarah & David!

Grandma & I: (She represented all the grandparents for the weekend! I'm so glad she was able to come-- a huge thank you to my mom for watching grandpa!!)

After Sarah & David had left, we all helped pick up and then got talked into going out downtown with Ben and his girlfriend. Unfortunately my camera died half way through the reception so I didn't get any pictures of it. It was HILARIOUS as we all now call Ben "the Mayor" since he knew EVERYONE: all the bouncers, all the bartenders, all the people down there! None of us had to pay for ANYTHING or show ids... "oh you are Ben's cousin? Come right in" hahaha. We had a great time, but by 3:30 I could not keep my eyes open anymore and it was time for bed!

The next morning we woke up and headed over to Johnny and JoAnne's house for brunch with the rest of the family. We got to see Sarah & David open all their gifts and visit with Addison (their beautiful baby girl!). We headed out late around 2:00 and rushed home to get Tyson from Chris & Kathleen (thank you guys SO much for watching him!). It was a long weekend but we had an absolute BALL!!!

Leave you with my 2 favorite pics of the night... Here is my cousin Ben (7'1") with my grandma (5'4") dancing the night away...

And then I saw the backside... Grandma's hand straight on Ben's tushy!!! hahaha it's as high as she could reach!

Jen's Shower and Date Night!

On Saturday afternoon I went to a wedding shower for my good friend from work, Jen! She's getting married June 27th and her colors are tiffany blue and hot pink! Her cake at the shower looked just like a tiffany's box, how cute!!

A bunch of other work girls came as well! (Me, Christina, Amanda, Laura, Jen, Gina, Andrea, and my boss Donna!) Andrea, Amanda, Christina and Gina!

They made us play a hilarious game where they passed out paper plates and pencils and we had to put the plate on our head and draw Jen in her wedding dress. Obviously all of ours just looked like chicken scratch! Here is Jen trying to decide who won the contest!

I LOVED the favors from this shower! Cute little keychains monogrammed with all of our names!
After the shower I came home and picked up Kyle then we went to go get Lacey and drop her off at the airport. She left yesterday to fly over to Italy and France with a trip from some of her fellow alum from high school!
Kyle and I then headed for our date night. Kyle had planned the entire night first starting off at the Atlanta Fish Market, a local restaurant that everyone said we HAD to go to. It was very cool inside since he had made reservations we got to skip ahead the LONG line and get a table!Kyle actually chose this restaurant because he is so thoughtful. He knew how much I was craving Clam Chowder last weekend when I went to Boston. But since we never went to a real "Boston" restaurant, it didn't happen. SO that was the first thing he ordered for me here and it was DELICIOUS!
We actually just had appetizers here and then left since he had booked dinner and a movie at Fork and Screen in Buckhead!

It's a movie theater with waiters who you can order meals from! We ended up getting a milkshake, candy and chips since we were so full from the Fish Market! We saw "Taken" which was VERY good, but soooo suspenseful. We had a great date night, and I'm thrilled that we've started dedicating at least 1 night a month to completely surprise each other with fun outtings and explore Atlanta! I dropped off Kyle this morning for Vegas where he will be all week, so I'm grateful for our night together!This past week I also got the chance to skype with Sara... look at this belly, does it not look like a basketball is under that shirt?!

We also got to go to an ACC game with Chris and Kathleen on Thursday night (Chris got free tickets for us from work!) We watched the State vs. Maryland game and unfortunately Maryland one... Sara I was rooting for State!!