Summer Travel Plans: Part I

Is it weird that Mark and I have already started making plans for this summer?

Because we definitely have.

And they're BIG. Like gigantic, things we've never done before, kind of plans.

So for Part I: Girl's Trip!!! (Mark doesn't get to come on this one)

In May I'm going to be traveling with my aunt, grandma and two cousins to Prince Edward Island. You know that Island where Anne lived? The Anne of Green Gables / Anne of Avonlea, Anne??? I'M GOING THERE!!! I know this may seem random... I mean, why am I taking a girls trip to Prince Edward Island now? Why summer plans without my husband? But there's a story behind this...

You see, my mom has 3 sisters. (Well actually 6, but 3 were adopted when they were much older, and we love them and are close to them, but the 3 biological sisters happen to be extra close...) The oldest of this biological group is Linda. She has remained single through out her life and has spent the majority of it spoiling her nieces and nephews.

My mom and her other 2 sisters spent about 15 years of their lives having babies side by side, one after the other, bringing the grand total from the 3 moms to 22 children. And I'm incredibly grateful that they thought things through by having babies at the same time. Because they did that, we all had "partners" growing up. We would always split off in to our "groups" to play whenever we would get together.

My Aunt Linda decided that when each girl group of cousins reached a certain age she would take them on a special trip. My sister and her "partner" cousin joined my Aunt Linda on a cruise... there was only one issue with taking my group on a trip....

This was my group. 

My boys. My best friends growing up. They were my knights in shining armors... and they are still so dear to my heart. This picture is from my wedding rehearsal dinner. But can you see the problem? It's a little difficult to take a co-ed group on a special trip.

BUT Lucky for me. I also had another group...

My Emma. And my Anna. I'm a little older then they are, but we also had a blast growing up. When it came to girl time, these were my girls. So my Aunt Linda said that it would be us three that she took on a trip when it became our turn. And she said she would take us to Prince Edward Island because we LOVED Anne of Green Gables! We also promised our grandma that she would come with us because she loves to travel! Unfortunately since there were age differences between us 3 girls we never really reached a milestone at the same time. (Like Sweet 16, Graduation, etc.) Not to mention our Aunt also moved from Virginia to Texas and then to Massachusetts over the last 8 years.

So things were a bit busy for a few years there. Not much time for special trips. 

But you know what?

Things have started to settle down. And we have finally picked a date for our special trip! The trip we've been waiting for, for oooohhh, about 8 years. 

When we go Anna will have just graduated from nursing school, Emma will be finished with her junior year of college and I will have just celebrated my 1 year wedding anniversary. So you see, we are still all at very different stages of life, but we are still beautifully close friends, and we still make family and special trips together a priority. And my aunt has never forgotten her promise. You couldn't even contain the excitement that the three of us are feeling right now if you TRIED.  

We're going to be taking our trip May 23rd-May30th. 

Thats only 3 months away!!

Get ready for frequent Prince Edward Island updates over the next 90 days or so.

Also...

Stay tuned for Summer Travel Plans: Part II

It's even better. And Mark is totally included in this one! : ) 

Wedding Shadow Box

There isn't much going on here this Sunday at the Poindexter house. It's pretty cold outside and about the only thing we've done is taken the day of rest literally today. (Which we should do more often because I've gotta tell you, its been nice.)

But I did have an empty frame laying on my recliner that I bought last weekend so I decided to do a little something with it in between my naps. :)

The shadow box frame from Michaels and my wedding memory box.
I'm pretty proud of myself that I was able to sort through some wedding memorabilia without one sentimental tear falling! 

I added a piece of scrapbook paper as the back ground - Blue to match our wedding colors.
My original plan was to put my bouquet in there, but it didn't quite fit. So I settled for Mark's boutonniere.

I put in our rehearsal dinner invitations, our wedding invitations, our wedding program, Mark's boutonniere, my garter and the little flower piece that I wore in my hair. 

And then I hung it above our dresser. I'm not sure if I want to keep it there, especially since I've been wanting to buy a mirror to put over the dresser.
But there was already a nail in the wall right there so that's where its at for now. :)
I'm telling you, I'm really keeping the work to a minimum today.

Just another view of the dresser.
Our Master Bedroom is the next thing on my list to make-over.
I just can't decide on a color scheme!

I hope you are enjoying a restful Sunday as well!

Happy Valentines!

Just a few shots of Mark and I's Valentines together.

 I did a pretty poor job of taking pictures so there are only a few, and none of us!

Mark had the day off on Friday so I left him some of his favorite treats to keep him company until I came home. Along with some sweet notes of love.
(Hence the reason for the purposeful blurry picture...I don't need to share every detail right???)
I also left a Valentine's bone for Piper. :)

The dinner I came home too. Thats right people. We drink orange cream soda from wine glasses. : )

Flowers from my husband. Favorite flowers to be exact.
I'm so excited about the Lilies that haven't bloomed yet. 

I definitely ate BOTH of those slices of cheese cake. It's probably definitely my most favorite dessert. Delicious.

                

My present.
My husband knows the easiest way to my heart is through giant Reese Cups.
(If I don't lose as much weight as I wanted to this month- I'll blame it on this night specifically!) 

 Why we chose to stay at home?

When we were dating we made a commitment to never be truly alone together. We were either at one of our families homes or out in public where there was always some level of accountability. 

(Except for the drive time in the car.)

Now that we are married, and celebrating our first married Valentine's Day, we decided to enjoy a relaxing evening at home. 

Where it was really just the two of us. 

It was delightful.

Just another shot of my flowers that I took today.
Those Lilies will bring me so much happiness over the next week.

Pre-Valentines

Happy Valentines Day!

Mark and I will be spending our Valentines evening celebrating my brothers 22nd birthday!

We've never celebrated Valentines day ON Valentines because my brothers birthday falls on this day. But that doesn't mean it stops us from celebrating all together...

Tomorrow night we'll spend time enjoying our first Valentines as a married couple. Mark has the day off tomorrow so I've collected lots of his favorite goodies to hide around the house for him to enjoy until I get off work and he is planning a romantic dinner at home. Which just happens to be our very favorite place to spend time together.

In the meantime...I still needed a little valentine sweetness to hold me over until tomorrow's celebration...

Hence the chocolatey goodness combined with the classic rice Krispy treat. :) yum!

Sunday Morning

John 9:1-11

The text for church this frosty morning.

Praying for my eyes to be opened today.

Breakfast Egg Sandwiches: Pinterest

Remember those fresh eggs I received? I decided that I would use the extra dozen eggs to try out a Pinterest "recipe" that I pinned in my early days of pinning but have never gotten around to trying out. I put quotations around recipe because it doesn't really require mixing multiple ingredients, it's just cracking an egg into a muffin pan - not too hard right?

Here is the original picture from pinterest that I pinned from THIS website. 

Looks simple enough right???

 My fresh eggs all cracked, in the lightly greased pan, and ready to go. 

Don't ask about that egg in the bottom corner. It was just overall not a fan of being cracked...

I popped them in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

This is what they looked like about 5 minutes in...

I was pretty excited, they looked like they were going to turn out great!

Until I checked back in at the 10 minute mark... this is what I found...

I think my eyes probably got as big as these eggs! What had happened??? I tried poking the yoke to see if that would help...I don't know, I thought maybe it had air trapped in it or something??? But when I poked it I got the, ummm, erupted look. The one in the middle of the pan. So I nixed that idea and decided I'd just let them finish baking to see what happened...

Thankfully they didn't completely overflow in the next 5 minutes.... but they didn't return to normal like the picture from Pinterest. I don't understand why some of them turned out fine (the third one in the bottom row!) but most of them turned into mutant eggs?!?!

Why, in the picture from Pinterest, do all the little yolks stay little yolks?! 

Why, in my life, do all the little yolks bulge into giant eyeballs?!?!

*sigh*   

I used the normal ones to finish the baking project. 

A bagel thin and a slice of cheese completed the sandwich.

After I sandwiched them up, I put them back into the bag that the bagel thins had come in and placed them back into the freezer. Apparently the original source of this idea says to let them freeze 1 hour in the freezer uncovered before wrapping them up to avoid condensation... I definitely didn't read that until after I wrapped them up and I didn't want to unwrap them so I just left them alone...

Overall, the ones that didn't mutate on me (about half of them) turned out well, and the sandwich tastes pretty good. I had one this morning, after I warmed it up on our handy dandy pizza pizzaz. (It is not recommended to us a microwave because it gets soggy...)
 Mark is a big McDonalds Egg and Cheese McMuffin fan so I'm hoping these will keep him  out of the drive thru for a while : )

On a slightly different note...

Have you seen those Pinterest fail pictures on Pinterest?? 
 Even though mine wasn't a complete fail, I thought it would be pretty funny. : )

Getting Back In Shape: February Update

Nope. You don't have to go back and check my last post  to make sure your eyes aren't deceiving you. 

There's only a 2 pound difference between now and then.

Let's see... what words can I use to describe how I feel about this?

Frustrated. Annoyed. Defeated. Confused. Upset. Disappointed. Disheartened. 

I've been exercising, granted, I haven't been sticking to the p90x every day, but I'm sure exercising way more than I was in December so I figured I'd see a big initial drop in weight.

I've cut back on the soda. I've only been drinking it on the weekend. I thought for sure that would help me get rid of some of this belly bulge I've been carrying around.

But nope, nothing. 2 pounds is basically nothing! I can't even honestly say its a solid 2 pounds lost because there are days that I'm back to 156. 

Definitely frustrated by this. But I'll keep going.

My plan for this month to try and achieve better results?

1.) Get back to running. Cardio brings great weight loss results and it's about that time to start training for my triathlon this summer. Time to RUN. RUN. RUN.

2.) Drink more water! Not only am I going to hold off on soda during the week, I'm going to avoid drinking sweet tea, lemonade, sugary juices etc. The only exception? Milk for breakfast! The weekends I'll allow myself to splurge a little bit.

3.) Eat more fruits/veggies for snacks. I bought a head of lettuce to start using in place of bread for lunch sandwiches. 

Hopefully my March update will be more inspiring. 

Fresh Eggs

A sweet friend from church owns hens and had too many eggs for her family this week so she offered to share. They are a family of 8 - so if they had too many eggs....well, that is a A LOT of eggs!

 I'm so grateful for the sharing. I can't say I've eaten fresh, "straight from the hen" eggs very much in my life. I don't really anticipate them tasting any different, but I do imagine healthy nutrients flooding my body as I devour eggs produced by hens that consume only natural food.

Now I just need to find some creative egg recipes to make sure I eat them while they are still fresh!

Snow 2013

Just felt like posting some pictures of our snow "storm"!

People who live in Hampton Roads but aren't from here, make fun of people like me, who grew up here, because we get excited over 3 inches of snow. They call us crazy for letting our whole city shut down for such a small amount, when apparently {where ever they lived before coming here} they would still go to work and school in 3 feet of snow.

I used to act all cool and pretend I totally agreed with them... but no more!

Because you know what? If we're lucky it snows ONCE maaaayyybbeee TWICE a year!

So yes. Let us get excited. Let us shut down schools and work. Let us take the day off. Let us try to build a snow man out of 3 inches of snow that usually ends up looking creepy because its got grass and leaves poking out of it. We love our one snow storm of the year and we don't care that people in other parts of the country scoff at our excitement.

Can we just have our one day? Please? Because thanks to our crazy weather, our snow will be melted and we'll be wearing shorts and T-shirts only 2 days later! : )

Puppy's First Snow Paw Prints - Mark sent me this picture since I was still at work when the snow started falling.

Getting ready to leave work.
My normal 8 min drive took me almost 2 hours to get home.
Crazy Hampton Roads drivers...
 don't know how to drive in the snow! ; )

Finally made it home and took Piper out right away to play in the snow with her!

Not sure what to think about it...

Mark and Piper :)

I just love her.

"Mom...What's all this white stuff???"
I like to pretend she can talk to me :)

The next morning... Chasing Snow Balls!

:)

Enjoying our beautiful neighborhood before the snow melted.