30 Days of Thanks: Day 23

Day 23: I am thankful for the St Louis Cardinals. I wasn't really a baseball fan until Alan and I got married but we have had so much fun watching games together. When we were dating, Alan taught me how to keep score to keep me occupied and then I started really being interested in the game. Since then, I have really enjoyed keeping up with the players (Yadier Molina is my fave) and learning more about the game. When living in St. Louis we loved going to the games, and we still try to go back to visit when we can. Go Cards!

Spring Break...Catch Up!

After an embarrassingly long blog hiatus I am back and promise to try to be better about keeping up with this. I really don't know what hit me, I guess just the busyness of life, but that is a lame excuse I know. Before I catch you up on what we have most recently been up to, I thought I would do my best to summarize what happened this spring:

My 29th Birthday

I celebrated my last birthday in my twenties with Alan at one of our favorite restaurants, Foothills Milling Company. If you haven't been there before, I would highly recommend it! My family celebrated my birthday and my dad's together since they're only 5 days apart. I must say that some pretty wonderful things have happened in my twenties but I'm really not that apprehensive about my thirties... I say that now while that still seems a long way off!

UT Young Alumni Orange and White Game Event

Alan and I attended this year's Orange and White game with the UT Young Alumni. We had so much fun visiting the locker room before the game and then hearing some of the football players speak about the upcoming season. We then got to watch the game from the skybox which was a fun experience.

Proud Wife Comment: Alan was actually selected this spring to be part of the UT Young Alumni Council which is a two year commitment where he will work with others to execute and promote the University of Tennessee through young alumni events!

Junior League Rose Gala

At the end of each Junior League year we have our annual gala on the eve of the Kentucky Derby and the theme is "Big Hats, Bigger Hearts". Alan and I dressed in our derby attire and made a night of it! It's really fun coming together with women I've worked alongside all year and just have a night of fun and festivities. I also may or may not really enjoy getting to dress up!

Memorial Day

This year my mom's sister Claire and her husband Peter came in town from Connecticut. It was so great spending this holiday with them and the rest of our families.

Learn Something New Everyday Moment: I have always wanted to know how to steam live lobsters and then shell them so for the holiday, we got our lobsters and then Claire taught everyone the entire process start to finish. It wasn't as hard as I thought and did I mention delicious?!

Brittany & Paul's Wedding
In June, Alan's family congregated at a lodge on the Nantahala River for his cousin Brittany's wedding. Brittany and Paul met in college at Furman and truly make each other so happy. Despite ALL the rain we've gotten this spring, it was a beautiful day with much celebration!

4th of July

We started our holiday with lunch at Frussie's Deli in south Knoxville which was a real treat! Definitely one of the best sandwiches in Knoxville. Alan's parents had a neighborhood party which we went to that afternoon with some friends of ours which was so much fun! Also, two of my mom's brother's and their families came in town from Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, and Colorado. It was so much fun spending time with everyone which is something that unfortunately doesn't happen as often as we'd like with so many people trying to coordinate schedules. We had a great time hanging out together, eating wonderful food, and shooting off tons of fireworks! 

Cardinals vs. Braves Game

While we didn't make it to St. Louis this year, we did just recently go to a Cardinals game when they played the Braves in Atlanta. We've enjoyed this little post-season rivalry between these two teams and getting to see the Cardinals play is always a good time. Hopefully, we'll make it to St. Louis next year!

Stay tuned for our anniversary trip to Kiawah! 

Labor Day Road-Trip Weekend

For the long Labor Day weekend we decided to go to St. Louis via Memphis in order to pick up Nonnie so she could come along too! We arrived in Memphis late Thursday night. The next day we were able to sleep in (P.S. I love being on central time!) take a long walk in the afternoon, and watch the first UT football game of the season that night. Go Vols!

On Saturday we headed to St. Louis. We stopped on the way for lunch at...

 Lambert's was a great stop. It reminds us a lot of Cracker Barrel (and may be even better in some ways!)

 We all ate way to much, I felt like I might pop if you poked me with a pin, yikes!

We arrived in St. Louis around 5pm and checking into our hotel. The room had a balcony with a fantastic view! We had some fun taking pictures of the Arch.

So glad we're here! That night, Alan and I went over to our sweet friends, Laura & Mike's house where we also saw Lacy, Ben, and their precious baby, Kate. Laura had prepared a delicious meal and it was so wonderful catching up on life. Oh, how I have missed them!

Sunday morning, we took the whole family to Kirk of the Hills which is the church we went to when we lived in St. Louis. Here we are with Mike and Laura!

That afternoon we went to see Disney's 'The Lion King' at the fabulous Fox theater. It was amazing! The songs gave me goose bumps and brought back so many memories. It was great!

That night we went to dinner at Pi, one of our favorite pizzerias in Kirkwood and then of course a trip to St. Louis isn't complete without a visit to Ted Drewes so we went there afterwards, it was delish!

 Monday began bright and early with a 5K run that Alan signed up for in...

We even ran into one our our good friends, Lauren, who we had missed seeing at church the day before! I was so glad we got a chance to see her! Small world!

Alan ran one of his best 5K times ever! So proud of my hubby!

Later that afternoon we headed to Busch Stadium for a Cardinals game!

Love this place!

The Cardinals won which was fun and we had a wonderful time! Such a great way to end a fabulous weekend with the family! We are blessed.

2011 World Series Champs

Last night the Saint Louis Cardinals became the 2011 World Series Champions! It was such a fun and exciting night for Alan and I because we love that team and city so much! I was telling Alan it's too bad we lived there last year instead of this year! I will say though, having been there last year and having grown to love that place, made it all the more special now. WooHoo!

So proud of the Cards and their amazing journey to this moment!

Red is the Color of the Day

I say that because earlier today I finally got up enough courage to purchase bright red lipstick. This has been something I've been thinking about for a while now and until now I have talked myself out of. Every time I see someone wearing it (in the appropriate setting of course!) I fall in love with this color so today, I got Laura Mercier Truly Red, it is gorgeous! Now, I just have to find a time for myself to make my debut (in the appropriate setting of course!)

I also say that because the Saint Louis Cardinals just advanced to the playoffs!!! My husband is one happy guy right now. It was a very exciting race to become the Wild Card for the National League but the Cards pulled it off by winning their last game of the season, ...and getting lucky with the Atlanta Braves losing their last game of the season. Whew! So excited we've come this far and looking forward to October!

STL Weekend

Last Saturday was the only weekend that the Vols were not scheduled to play so as soon as I saw their schedule the wheels in my head started turning as I began planning a weekend road-trip to Saint Louis to visit friends and watch the Cardinals once more this season. It was not hard to convince Alan that we really needed to take this trip...especially since the Cards were playing the Cubs! We left Friday morning and arrived in Saint Louis around 5:30pm. Our sweet friends, Laura and Mike, invited us to stay with them so we got to their house, unpacked, and then went to One 19 North for dinner. It is a delicious tapas bar in downtown Kirkwood and the perfect place to catch up with friends!

Saturday morning we woke up, had a yummy breakfast that Laura made for us, and then headed downtown to the Cardinals vs. Cubs game. It was a beautiful day!

view from our seats

I definitely see lots more of this in our future...

The Cards are only 2 games out from being the Wild Card this year, hears hoping to another World Championship!

It was kinda of (okay so it was really) cold in our seats since they were in the shade so at the end of the 6th inning Alan agreed to move around to the other side to watch the rest of the game in the sun!

Much better (AKA warmer!)

That night after an exciting WIN at Busch Stadium, we went to Anthonino's which is a delicious Italian spot on The Hill and one of our all-time favorite restaurants in Saint Louis!

Our very best friends all came out and met us there which was so great and meant so much to us!

left to right:

Lauren, me, Laura, Allison, and Lacy

Laura took such great care of us all weekend long, she is the best and I miss her already!

The Whole Crew

left to right:

Guys: Ben, Randy, Zach, Mike, and Alan

Gals: Allison, Lacy, Lauren, Laura, and me!

Such a fun and perfect weekend, I can't wait until we can do it again!

Sign of the Arrow

While Alan and I were in Saint Louis, one of my friends there, Lauren Graham, got me interested in needlepoint after seeing several of her husband, Randy's, belts that his mother had made for him. Lauren explained how her mother-in-law, Susie, taught her to needlepoint and told me of a cute little shop in Clayton that had everything you could possibly need for any needlepoint project. It was then that I learned about Sign of the Arrow. It really is the sweetest craft shop you've ever seen and after going in to look around I decided that I wanted to learn how to needlepoint. I went in one day and sat down with a precious lady who works there and who patiently showed me the basic stitch. She also gave me this in case I forgot :)

After learning how easy it really is I decided I was up for a project of my own. I had the best time looking through all the fun patterns and all of the beautiful threads.

I finally chose a Saint Louis Cardinals ornament. I decided that this would be a fun project and Alan and I would be reminded of our year in Saint Louis each time we hung this on our Christmas tree.

There were several colors included in the pattern and it didn't look like anything too hard which was perfect for me as I was just getting started.

I was so excited to begin! I began with the lightest color (white obviously) as instructed and sat down as soon as I got home to begin. This is what I accomplished that first day:

Slowly but surely the canvas began to fill up...

There was a lot of white!

The day my flight to Nashville got cancelled in April I sat down and finished it (not having anything better to do that day!)

So proud of my completed project, well almost that is... once I got done I had to take it back to Sign of the Arrow to have them send it off to the "finishers"

Today in the mail I received the finished product! I absolutely love it and it means so much to Alan and I who both now love Saint Louis so much. Only 6 more months until Christmas when this will go on our tree!