Weekend Guests

This past weekend was another exciting one! We got to stay put & still see several of our friends from the Upstate. Greg & Suzy, two of our great friends from church had a wedding in Columbia on Saturday, so we got the privilege of hanging out with this cool baby all weekend.

Greg & Suzy were around a good bit and our sweet friend, Cathleen also came down all day Saturday to hang out, so we had ourselves a grand ol' time. I somehow managed to almost permanently blind myself with only God knows what. I called the optomatrist 3 times and the final time told her I had fixed my own eye. She giggled, but was probaly scared for me. Then, Josh & Jamie swung by on their way to the beach (teachers=punks). But, they did bring one of my favorite babies - Pierce. Check him out in his hammock at the beach!

After Josh & Jamie headed off to Edisto (and I took a 2-hour nap), Cathleen & I decided to do some shopping. We headed to Forever 21 (which is now Forever 26 to me, and will continue to increase in number as I increase in age until someone forces me to stop shopping there). We had a blast seeing everyone on Friday & Saturday and cannot wait until Greg & Suzy have to attend another wedding!

Here are a couple of more pictures from the weekend. It makes my heart melt to see this man with a baby!

On a side note - I did finally pick curtains for the living room. I decided on the solid ones because I'm bringing in some other exciting patterns! Clearly, J-Lo doesn't approve, but what do I care? She married Marc Anthony. We obviously have different tastes.

Shealy's BBQ

Have you ever been introduced to something and you knew you’d never be the same? I have these heavenly moments with food. I had one the first time I went to Olive Garden and the first time I had a Bo-berry biscuit (I’m not exactly a high-end foodie).

This will be Ryan & me one day with our giant box of bo-berry biscuits.

I had another one of those moments last week when we were invited to eat at Shealy’s BBQ in Leesville, SC. The only thing I knew about Leesville, SC was the fact that it was connected to a town called Batesburg and their high school football team always kicked our butts. If I’m honest, most teams usually did.

Ryan was unusually excited to eat here and even called his Dad on the way to brag about it. I had no idea why, but I’d soon find out. John and Kelly White, who also own a State Farm close by, and have a son that played baseball in college with Ryan, invited us to eat with them Lucky for us, Shealy’s was half way between, so we decided to meet there.

Holy awesomeness. The gods of BBQ rained down that Thursday night and I found myself knuckle deep in sawmill gravy. My first trip to the buffet resulted in a plate piled way too high for me, but I wanted to try out everything. My second trip produced an entire plate of rice & the most incredible gravy I’d ever tasted. I’m debating taking Tupperware next time & sneaking some out.

We topped off our gluttony feast with banana pudding and other delectable desserts. Enough said. I need a nap just rehashing this.

Weekend in Review

Hang tight with me. We had a fantastic weekend & I wanted to make sure you were able to enjoy it as much as we did! We found out a couple of weeks ago that neither of my parents had ever seen "The Sandlot." Crazy, right? We thought so, so when we arrived at my parents' Saturday morning at 10:00, we popped it right in. Dad watched most of it, but it was interrupted by the normal family time & Mom trying to make lunch for all of us. I guess Jake enjoyed the parts he saw b/c he wanted to play with this bat the whole time. I don't think he enjoyed it at all...

Clearly...

Here's one of my sweet sister & me.

Mom made some delicious chicken fingers (recipe to come later), mashed potatoes & other stuff for lunch. Katie & I would always split the beaters once Mom had the potatoes made, but Jake & I started our own tradition!

Even Poly tried to get in on the action! Napoleon (Poly) is the dog/child that replaced my sister & I when we both got married.

Saturday night we got to go to Calhoun Falls, SC for the most beautiful wedding I've ever been to. This wedding looked like something straight out of Pinterest. I'll do a whole post on it when her photographer posts her pictures, but for now, here's what you get!

My best friend, Jamie.

And because we can never have enough pictures together...

Here's a sneak peak of the wedding. The bride & her parents collected old church pews for months before the wedding. All of the guests sat on old church pews or old vintage chairs. Look for more breath taking pictures to come!

Update

We have been incredibly busy this past week, so here's just a sneak preview of what's to come. II think I'll be able to tell you about our super awesome weekend tomorrow, but for now, here's what you get...

Side Table Makeover

We were working in Ryan's office this past weekend when I spotted this little gem. It's a really nice, heavy piece by Lane, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. It holds the coffee & coffee supplies in the office so it's front and center when clients come into the office.


After we spruced up the office I headed to Home Depot (I could easily spend my life savings here) and made a b-line to the paint department. I swear by Behr paint + primer to paint furniture. This stuff covers in one coat every time. Don't tell the elders, but I worked on this table last Sunday afternoon... with the garage door open. I'm sure someone called me a heathen.

I used 220 grit sandpaper to take off the top coat of polyurethane.

I chose Behr's Classic Silver for the color to give it a French grey with a modern twist. Once it was dry and I realized it wouldn't need another coat, I first did a happy dance, then I took a piece of leftover sandpaper & distressed the edges & legs a little bit.

Here's a close-up of the distressing.

Here's the finished product. Who wouldn't want to have coffee on this baby?

I'll make sure to take a picture of the table in the office soon.

Jake

Have I mentioned that I'm absolutely head-over-heals in love with my nephew? Some days you'll get the most beautiful, blonde baby boy in a gingham john john and other days you get this...

I totally prefer this. Jake is all boy, all the time and will be 2 years old in July. I cannot believe how fast time has flown and I know I'm only going to love him more as he grows!

By the way - he was headed out to chase ducks at a local park when this was taken. I doubt the ducks ever saw it coming.

Ryan's Office

I recently realized I hadn't blogged about the most consuming thing in our lives right now - the true reason we moved to Lexington. Ryan is opening a State Farm agency! Well, technically, he's taking over an existing agency because the previous agent moved into a corporate position, but none the less, my husband is Lexington's newest insurance agent (and he's darn good too!)


Ryan's parents came up for the weekend to help us with some projects in the office (stay tuned for those!) We couldn't have done it without them! Here's a pic of Ryan & his dad getting ready to paint.

I am so proud of this guy and excited about this new adventure. It's going to be such a crazy ride, but I wouldn't want to experience it with anyone else!

Notice the orange? I wear more Clemson gear here than I ever did in the Upstate! I just want to make sure there's no mistaking who I love.