Happy Thanksgiving!

{via}

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Isn't this photo the best?  Love it.

I hope you all are spending the long holiday weekend with your families

and taking a moment to stop and think of all the things you are thankful for.

I know I am.

And I must say...

life is good, really good.

Boxes & Boxes & More Boxes

{This is our old house on moving day}

{Hopefully photos of our new house coming soon!}

All of our stuff is officially in our new house!  And I officially have no time for anything other than.... work, unpacking, organizing, and sleeping (just a little bit).  If I disappear, chances are I am buried beneath five bazillion boxes.  Chances are good.  

If I do manage to escape the boxes, Brett and I will be heading to Erie on Wednesday night to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Hehers & run in the 10K Turkey Trot race Thanksgiving morning!  I've been running my little heart out lately, so hopefully I do well.  I'm just praying it's not raining/snowing/freezing on race morning.  Here's to hoping.  Then, it's back to Pittsburgh to celebrate Thanksgiving again on Saturday with my side of the family.  Yes, Brett and I eat TWO Thanksgiving dinners every year... hence the running.

Anyone else celebrate the holidays multiple times with different families?

Or are we the only crazy ones?!

We are officially HOMEOWNERS!

It's official, we are HOMEOWNERS!!

On Monday night, we had our closing and got the keys!

We raced over to our new spankin' house,

popped champagne, and drank it on the empty kitchen floor

while smiling at each other with the biggest, cheesiest grins.

It was a moment I will never forget. :)

...

Now, comes the actual moving part...

 here we go!

(Sorry for the bad quality iPhone photo...)

Hazelnut Coffee & Christmas Music (Shh!)

Shh, don't tell Brett...*

but I started listening to Christmas music in my car this morning!!

It was so chilly outside...
I went to Panera and got a hazelnut coffee,

then got back in my car,

and just couldn't control myself...

I mean, the coffee cup was basically telling me to!

I put on a Pandora Christmas station

and cruised down the road,

sipping my warm coffee and humming along.

It was a woooonderful drive to work :)

 

(*Brett claims that it is illegal to listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. PSHH!)

Happy Birthday Ju!!

Happy Birthday to my bestest friend, Ju!!

I am so lucky to be able to call my best friend also my sister-in-law.

Ju, I hope you are having a PERFECT day!!

Can't wait to see you over Thanksgiving!!

:)

(Photo - Jess & I on my wedding day - Ju (Jess) was my Maid of Honor)

Updates

So it's been a little quite 'round these parts lately.  I haven't had much time to blog, but for good reason!  Actually for a couple good reasons...

1.  I got a new job!  I left my previous position of 2 1/2 years as an Accountant at the University of Pittsburgh and took a new similar job as an Accountant with UPMC.  I still do similar things and work with a lot of the same offices since Pitt and UPMC work together, I'm just in a new department.  I was feeling uninspired with my old position and decided that some change would be good, so I started applying to other positions.  Within about a month, I was being offered a new position with a nice salary increase and an office with windows!  Windows excite me.  It's the little things, people...  I've now been at my new position for a little over 2 weeks.  So far, so good!  

2.  We're buying a house!  Yes, yes, yes.  You may recall long ago, when I mentioned that Brett and I were starting to look into the house buying process.  Well, after looking for over a year, we finally found a house we adore!  Yes, we were very picky.  It's a 2 story home with 4 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths.  It's in a great area, on a cute little dead-end street.  We are scheduled to close Mid-November (so close!) and seriously cannot wait.  We’ve been renting for the past 5 years, so this will be our very first purchased home and we’re so excited to make it our own.  And we’ll be all moved in for just in time for the Christmas season.  Ahh, I can't wait.

So now you understand what has been stealing all of my blogging time!  Some pretty big (but AWESOME) life changes.  Things are falling nicely into place.  Slowly but surely I will be getting back into my blogging routine.  But please bare with me until then!  I can't wait to be blogging from our very own HOME! :)

Life is good.

"Adventure is out there!"

I can't believe it's already been over a month since our Southern California vacation.  I was looking through my drafts of posts and realized I never finished blogging about it.  We had such a great little getaway and we're already dreaming about our next adventure.  But until then, some more California vacation photos will have to do... :)

 First day in California - Stopped at the Bruery for some tastings.

San Clemente is a great surf spot.

Brett surfed every day, all day.

And for being from Pennsylvania, he was damn good!

 I attempted surfing once...

but mostly just relaxed on the beach and took a billion pictures :)

 We are beer geeks (Brett made me that way).

So we made sure to go to Stone Brewery...

which was AWESOME (separate blog post coming for this place!)

Spent a looooot of time hanging out at the beach.

No plans, no worries, no work = heaven

 We stayed in the cutest little beach rental.
It had a grill & full kitchen, which we definitely took advantage of.

 Walking down to the pier...
San Clemente at night is beautiful.

View from out on the pier in the ocean.

 There was froyo...ohhh, there was froyo!

San Clemente... gorgeous when the sun comes out!

 One of my favorite days.
Exploring the coast of California...

 Overlook in Dana Point

We packed a little picnic and ate it right here.
We had the place to ourselves :)

 California is beautiful.

 I love him :)

 Strolling along the pier in San Clemente before dinner

 Happy hour on the pier in San Clemente!
Watching the sunset and all the surfers below us.

 Bagels & coffee from the Bagel Shack.
I still dream about this bagel, YUM.

 Headed into the desert and mountains for some exploring...
and I found Bigfoot!!

 Amazing views...

And sooo windy!

 :)

What a skyline...

 The desert was beautiful...
but so so hot.

Moments before Brett got completely attacked by a cactus...

 I am not a red meat kind of person...
but I'm pretty sure we ate In & Out burgers at least 3 times on this vacation
and they were DELICIOUS.

 Biking along the beach in Santa Monica on our last day of vacation.

 I like him a lot :)

 Oh, hiiii!

 Gorgeous sunset on the last day of vacation.

Studly husband :)

Bye bye California.
You were fun, as always!

Ahh, putting this post together makes me miss this trip so much.  One of my favorite things in the entire world is traveling and going on adventures with Brett.  Being able to explore and discover this big world together makes me so giddy.  I think no matter, throughout our lives together, we will always find ways and make time to travel.  And of course, we're already dreaming of our next exploration...

"Adventure is out there!"

Quail Man & Patti Mayonnaise

So... new job = no time to blog!

I just started last Monday, so I'm still trying to get into my own groove.  Soon enough, I'll find my routine and be back to regular blogging! :)  Anyways...

On Saturday, Brett and I went to a Halloween party.  We dressed up as Quail Man and Patti Mayonnaise from the Nickelodeon show 'Doug'.  If you were born in the mid 80's, then I expect you to know the show!  We weren't sure if people would get our costumes, but they ended up being a huge hit!

Our inspiration...

And here are our costumes!

We had so much fun dressing up.  We haven't really dressed up in the past couple years, so this was extra fun!  Minus the fact that it took me about 2 hours to get all the hair spray, bobby pins, and curls out of my hair the next day...

Happy Halloween!!*

Our Festive Fall Weekend

This weekend we celebrated Fall to the max!  The weather was chilly but so beautifully sunny.  It was the perfect Fall weather.  It was so nice to have a weekend at home with no set plans.  We just flew by the seat of our pants all weekend, doing whatever we felt like, and boy did it feel good!

Row 1:

Celebrating my new job with beers at Rock Bottom (more on that later!)

Pumpkin spice pancakes to welcome the weekend

Row 2:

Simmons Farm to go pumpkin pickin'

Loads and loads of pumpkins

Row 3:

This guy was heavy

This farm was beautiful & the weather matched

Row 4:

A couple gourds I picked out -- my favorite is the yellow & green one

Festive Fall place settings

Row 5:

Brett posing with our mini pumpkin before he chopped it up to make soup

Our attempt at pumpkin soup... it looks pretty, but it wasn't very good...

Row 6:

Homemade pumpkin curry & rice -- now this recipe did turn out good! 

My cute hubby

Ahh, so in love with Fall right now...

Having a great week so far, hope you are too!*

Santa Monica Sunset

What is it about sunsets that give you such clarity?  I feel like when I'm standing there staring at this magnificent sight that everything just becomes clear in my mind.  Like there is a calm in the air and everything just makes sense in life.  Like all the answers are suddenly laid out so simply, right there, while staring at the colors go from blue to orange to pink.

On the last night of our California vacation, we witnessed this beautiful sunset.  It was the best sunset we saw during our whole trip, sitting there on the sands of Santa Monica.  It was beautiful.  The perfect moment to peacefully reflect on the great adventure we just had.  The perfect moment to dream about all our future adventures yet to come...