Pints & Pixels

Friday night was date night for us this week, and we decided to check out a new place in Huntsville, Pints & Pixels. It has old school video games, and most important to me, a long row of Pinball Machines. Oh, how I love Pinball. 

It reminds me of when I was younger, and they had a little arcade in the movie theater, which I loved to play pinball on, before and after the show. 

The bar is uber cute and full of geektastic decorations. It has a statue of Han Solo in Carbonate, murals of video games, and those piranha plants from Super Mario Brothers as table decorations.

I think we may have gone a little overboard, as we purchased 96 tokens. And we played for something like 3 hours (which included dinner). I have learned that I am much better than Adam at Pinball. But he takes the award on the arcade games. He even managed to get the 4th high score on Tapper! I was so proud of my nerd.

Our other favorites were Paperboy, Pacman, Donkey Kong Jr, and Mortal Kombat. 

I think this is a great addition to the area, and I can't wait to take our friends when they come to visit!

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Favorite Thing: Keep Collective Bracelet

A few weeks ago, some one I didn't know tried to add me on facebook. I will not add strangers on facebook, but I saw she was "facebook friends" with my best friend, Jana. Through a string of texts with Jana, I quickly ascertained she was someone who was just getting into running, and just wanted some advice.

Her goal is to run the Princess Half Marathon as her first ever half. Since that was my dream, that started it all for me, I have loved talking to her. She recently started a keep collective business to raise money for the trip, and I was eager to support her.

I was so overwhelmed with the choices, and I did not know what I wanted to design. But this is what I came up with. It is a very simple design. But I paired the "All Things are Possible" charm with a small one that says, "26.2".

It is a daily reminder of how far I've come and that "All Dreams are Possible." It is a perfect mixture of my faith, motivation, and a little bit (lot of) running. 

I really like the design as well. The cream cuff and the espresso band, with the mixture gold and silver charms.

It is a simple and subtle piece, and it goes with most outfits, and lately I've been wearing it almost daily.

I really, really love it.

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Project Life 2016: Week 13 & Week 14

My project life spread is full of soft pinks and simplicity. I'm digging it.

This side includes a picture of Linky & me post run, my new work-out pants (that say marathoner), a gummy bear break, and a commute to work snap shot. I also wrote up a quote from a conversation Adam and I had recently.  

On this side, I featured a funny text conversation with my mother and our two new bird houses. Adam and I had gone out for yogurt one day, and I thought it would be fun to document the toppings. 

Week 14 covered the time with spent in Arkansas and Texas visiting the family.

I really loved the snap I took of us in the car, so I blew that up to 6 X 8. And I included a fabulous picture of our breakfast from Root. 

Side 2 is mostly about the family time. Hanging with "the kids," and playing bean boozled. I also shared my first taste of bubble tea and visiting our wedding venue for our anniversary. 

I included an insert of our time at the Clinton Library.  I purchased some post cards from the library. So I used one up top. In the circle on the left hand, middle card is my "admission" sticker they gave us to prove we purchased tickets. And I loved the picture of us outside the library, in which I added the digital stamp, "time with you is time well spent."

The top photo is Clinton's limo and the bottom picture is another post card (we couldn't take photos in the oval office, so this was a good compromise). 

Materials Used:

Kelly Purkey: Spring Break Kit
Studio Calico Various Kits
More of This Digital Stamps/Kellie Stamps

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The Weekend Report

We had a nice weekend at the Marten Manor. It was the perfect mix of activity and rest for me. For Adam, it was mostly just rest as he did absolutely nothing but play video games on Saturday & Sunday. Which was perfect from him, as we have been doing lots of yard work, chores, and errands lately.

Sometime last week I had caught one of those videos on facebook where they feature a recipe. And it was an Oreo Bundt Cake. That really appealed to me, so I decided to whip it up Friday afternoon. This was my first ever Bundt cake, and flipping that thing  made me so nervous. But I was able to pull it off, and the cake was really, really good. 

That same evening we met up with my friend Lark from college, whom we recently learned move to our town, for the first Summer Food Truck Meet-up in Huntsville. It was busy and crowded, and we waited over an hour to eat at the Rollin Lobstah Food truck. So worth it. Not only was the food great, we really just stood in line and chatted like crazy, so the time went by fast. We also enjoyed some Piper & Leaf Tea and a Whiskey Vanilla Cupcake from Sugerbelle. Yummy!

Saturday, I went to see Jungle Book with mom, which was fun because we used to watch Jungle Book all the time together when we were growing up. Jungle Book exceeded my expectations ten fold. It was soooo good. Go see it now.

In between all this, there was some cleaning, scrapbooking, playing with Linky, and naps. Oh the wondrous naps. I also went on a run and managed to couch potato pretty darn hard. 

And I'm only excited to get back to work tomorrow because that means we are just one step closer to our Europe trip.

Just can't wait.

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7 Year Anniversary Trip

Monday was our seven year anniversary! 7 Flippin Years! That is so crazy to me, I can't even begin to believe it. We usually try to take a small trip each year around that date, and we decided to keep it simple this year (we are going to Europe in 5 weeks after all), and we drove to Texas to spend the weekend with our nieces and nephew-in-law.

Man oh man, we love them. 

We had planned to get on the road at 3:30 on Friday, stopping for the night in Little Rock, Arkansas.  However, Adam's job kept him working till 5:30, and we didn't end up getting in till midnight. Not that I can complain much, I just slept the whole ride.

When we got up the next morning, we headed off to a place I had found online, that supposedly has one of the best brunches in Little Rock, Root.  It is a hip, little, eclectic place. Oh my gosh, my internet food research skills were spot on. If there is a better brunch place in Arkansas, that would blow my mind. Even Adam was impressed, and he is the pickiest eater ever. I took home some of their canned blueberry lime jam as a gift for my mother. 

Our next stop was the William Clinton Presidential Library. Touring presidential libraries/sites is just one of the niche history things that I just love. I've been to a few over the years (Reagan/Nixon/Truman), and I was happy to mark this one off the list. Libraries are rarely about politics and more about American history. And I loved how this one was a snapshot of American life in the 90s. Adam and I actually became tearful listening to Clinton's speech honoring the Little Rock 9. So touching. We really enjoyed our morning at the museum. 

We got into Texarkana that afternoon and the rest of the weekend was low-key but wonderful family time. There was lots of video games (and one gross round of bean boozled). Kayla cooked us a fabulous dinner, and we laughed a lot. Adam and I spoiled the girls and Andy like crazy, as every Aunt and Uncle loves to do!

The morning before we left was our actually anniversary, so before hitting the road we swung by our wedding venue. We spent a few minutes eating breakfast there and reminiscing about our wedding day, and all the changes that have occurred in the last 7 years. What a wonderful way to end a wonderful weekend trip.

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