Meet Maggie!

Yep, it's true. Ben and I have a puppy! And she is a cutie. She's already on her way to being spoiled. For her first Cleveland outing we met up with Amber, the Barks and Prissy at the Annual Cleveland Christmas Tree Lighting in downtown Cleveland. We had a great time with everyone drinking hot chocolate, getting pictures with Santa and taking a carriage ride - I think even Jason enjoyed the carriage a little. :)

Welcome Aboard the Polar Express!

A couple of years ago, Ben and I started a new tradition of seeing the Polar Express in 3D at the IMAX in Chattanooga. This year we continued the tradition with some of our closest friends and once again, it was amazing. If you have an IMAX near you that's showing this we highly recommend it! You can't help but feel like a kid again, sitting there with cool 3D glasses and trying to catch snow flakes as they fall right in front of you. It's absolutely one of my favorite things that we do and I look forward to it every year! And we're so glad we were able to include our friends in our tradition. It feels good to share something you love and enjoy with those close to you. What fun is it to keep all the good things to yourself?! (Thanks Jaime for the pics!)

Love at first sight.

I have a great love for Anthropologie. It's truly an amazing store. I could seriously go on and on about their adorable sweaters and dainty necklaces, their wondrous bedding collection and fabulous kitchen linens, their journals and candles and their random little knick knacks all over the store. Not to mention, they have the coolest, biggest coffee mugs with the initials on them (I have two so far, B and C, and I hope to get all 26 letters soon.) Anthropologie also has super great bags (way out of my price range, but still awesome.) These are the ones I'm currently drooling over:

Wildflower Canvas Satchel

Wild Burros Carryall

Swept Sand Tote

Stem Print Shopper

Cherry Tart Shoulder Bag

Bon Voyage Bag

It's Official!!!

Please note: Our date has been changed!

We've set a date! Yay! July 12, 2008. We are so excited. Thanks for all the wonderful congrats from everyone. Ben is wonderful and I'm truly blessed to marry the man of my dreams.

Boston in the Fall

Ben and I have a list of things we want to do - you know, like backpack through Europe, visit the Redwoods in CA, run a 5k (done!), go canyoning in the Swiss Alps, etc. One of our items was to visit Boston in the Fall, and while we weren't exactly in Boston for the most part of our trip, we took joy in marking that off our list. This post is extremely overdue, but it was such a great trip that I had to put it on here.

Thanks to Ben's family, we had the opportunity to visit Jeffrey and Heather and the kids up north this past October. We all surprised Jeffrey for his 30th birthday and just the best time. The weather was amazing, the scenery simply incredible and the food, oh so good. Jeffrey and Heather have a beautiful place there with an awesome yard and even better trails behind their house. The kids never tired of taking us back through there, probably because we hoisted them on our shoulders and trekked them around all over.

As for the food that weekend, Heather outdid herself. We spent most of Saturday at Heather and Jeffrey's house and at one point during the day a suspicious cardboard box arrived and was placed outside in the backyard. I noticed people looking inside with excitement and I got curious and took a peek myself. Live lobsters! Now I'm from Texas and the only time we see live lobster is in the little tanks and Red Lobster and occasionally at Sam's and Wal-Mart. Somehow I don't think it's quite the same as fresh lobster on the east coast. Well since this was my first up close experience with real, moving lobsters they said I could hold one. Big mistake. Those boogers are slick and right when I got little Larry the Lobster situated in my hands - BAM! He slipped right out and crashed in the grass. Not only did I drop my soon-to-be dinner, one of its claws popped off! Gosh, I felt like a punk, but he was gonna get boiled up anyways. Back to the dinner....they set up a great spread outside with baked potatoes, salad, steak and of course, beautiful, bright red lobsters. So we dug in and devoured the little creatures and while I was up refreshing my drink I came back to my seat and what do you think was on my plate??? The lone claw. :) Someone had placed it there while I was up and Ben just so happened to end up with the other half of that same lobster. Claw or no claw - it all tasted just as delicious.

Thanks Jeffrey and Heather once again! And Buddy and Mary! We had such a great time and hope to be back up there again.

Engaged!

If you haven't heard yet, Ben and I are engaged! He did a wonderful job. It was so romantic and perfect. Short story: I thought we were going camping and he surprised me with a trip to Asheville, NC (we celebrated our one-year there last year with a group of friends.) Oct 20 we went to the beautiful Biltmore estate and then took a drive up to Chimney Rock Park where we hiked and saw some amazing views and then he popped the question on the Chimney Rock overlook. It was incredible. We topped the evening off with sushi from Wasabi in downtown Asheville. I love that place; it's eclectic and quaint at the same time. And you can't beat the drive there - the trees along the Nantahala and Blue Ridge Parkway were on fire! We've got some great pictures to prove it.

So, since Ben and I are engaged now, I thought this blog might be a good way to keep our families and friends filled in on things going on in our lives. Sit back and enjoy and don't be a stranger!