My New Phone Cover!

I just got a new phone cover and it is so cute, I just had to share!

A friend posted a link to this etsy store on facebook one day, and they were doing a giveaway. I entered the giveaway but didn't win :( But the cases were so cute that I still had to buy one! (Their marketing plan worked!!) This was the example I based mine off of, but didn't want it monogrammed, so instead I got my name on it.

And I upgraded to have a "tough case" of an inside soft layer then the outer hard layer for more protection.

It finally came in and I'm so excited. With my old case, I couldn't connect it to the cord in my car that plays my ipod through my stereo without taking the case off, but I can on this one!

Look how cute:

An Exciting Weekend Ahead!

It's going to be a great weekend this weekend!! Today is an early release day at school (only the students get out early, but still I don't have to see them as long - exciting!) then tonight is PROM! This should be a fun, interesting night. I'm excited to get dressed up and bring Trey to chaperone with all of my friends while also being entertained by high schoolers.

Then Saturday morning we are getting up to head to Asheville. My parents are going to be up there, taking my grandmother to the Biltmore House so we will have a place to stay Saturday night. Asheville is full of great craft breweries, many of which are going to be at the Best Firkin Beer Festival that we are going to! We love good beer. We should get plenty of that tomorrow :)

Stir Fry for Dinner!

One of my favorite meals that my personal chef husband makes for dinner is stir fry! We made it for dinner earlier this week and it was amazing! I bought fresh veggies that day and chopped them all up - it was a ton! Trey cooks the meat on the grill, we have found cooking it in the wok makes it tougher and he just loves grilling. Then we cook all the veggies in the wok, cut up the meat and throw it all together in the end. A lot of times Trey even makes his own stir fry sauce, or sometimes I buy it at the store to be quicker and easier. When I buy it, I get the Kikoman brand.

When we made it this week I had SO MANY veggies! We throw it on top of some rice and boom you have a well balanced meal. It was amazing. It was enough for about 6 meals: dinner that night, a delicious lunch the next day and leftovers later in the week!


That makes my mouth water!!


I love stir fry and my wonderful husband who does such a good job cooking it.

Wordless Wednesday: Sleepy doggies



What I woke up to this morning



My New Vac-then-Steam!

I hate cleaning my floors. But more than I hate cleaning, I hate dirty floors. And with 2 dogs and a doggie door and a backyard that has been lacking in grass and full of dirt our hardwood floors get dirty FAST. My awesome in-laws gave us this Shark Vac-then-Steam for our anniversary, I posted about here.

I finally had the time to clean yesterday and decided to bust out the new tool. You start by vacuuming the floor, then once it is clean you can steam mop. You could sweep instead of use the vacuum but I don't really like sweeping and the vacuum works really well.



Dirty floor to begin with



After you vacuum you add water to the back and turn it on to get hot, them steam mop! It dries quickly and cleans pretty well! It was also pretty fun since it's a new "toy"... I'm sure that will get old fast though.



Filled with water



The mop pad that attaches to the bottom



Look at all that steam!!! How exciting

Maybe I'll be on a cleaning kick for a while :)

Anniversary Gifts

I thought I would share what I made for Trey for our first anniversary. I came up with the idea from a few different blogs that I have seen.

We rarely go on "dates" these days and even more rarely do I make the decision of what to do/where to go eat, so I thought I would take on BOTH of those for a YEAR in my gift :) I made a year's worth of dates for the two of us.

I got big manila envelopes and put a letter in each explaining the date, some more detailed than others, along with gift cards, games, etc -- whatever we may need for that date.

I made one for each month - we will open the envelope at the beginning of the month and schedule in the date. Some of them are daytime, some night time, some are going out (gift cards already included) and some are staying home doing things on a cheaper scale.

We didn't open our gifts until after dinner, so the April one wasn't quite as exciting as if we had opened them before, but he did like the gift and is excited to open May's in just over a week!

 I included a gift card, that I actually recieved from a student a couple of months back, that paid for a portion of it, but we splurged and treated ourselves!

I will post about each month's surprise after our dates, they are still a secret until he opens each envelope!

Trey gave me the sweetest card with sock monkeys on it! (We love sock monkeys)

Inside were tickets to Cirque de Soleil in August, when it comes to the PNC Center! We have been talking about wanting to go to a show again (we saw one in Vegas a few years back) and he surprised me with these tickets, I had no idea it was even coming to Raleigh! Can't wait for a fun evening out.

A Wonderful Anniversary Celebration

We were finally able to celebrate our anniversary Wednesday night! We had dinner at the Angus Barn! Trey had never been there before and we have been wanting to go for a couple of years, so we decided our anniversary would be a perfect excuse to splurge!

It was delicious. We started with ribs for an appetizer, Trey's boss told him that they were the best thing they make, so we had to try them. He was right, and they fall right off the bone! 

I ordered the ribeye with mashed potatoes and Trey got the filet with stuffed potatoes. Both were great cuts of meat and cooked well. I must say though, that I think Trey cooks a better ribeye :) After crackers and cheese, salads and our meals we were getting pretty full so we were able to take half of our meal home -- I know what dinner will be tonight!


My dinner



Trey's dinner

Since we were celebrating our anniversary, they brought us out a free cake! We put that in a box to go, but it did smell good!

Our wedding cake was made by Swank Cake, who tells you not to save the top of your cake, because they make you an anniversary cake! I remembered to email them at the last minute and although they normally prefer a 2 week notice, to fit it in their schedule, they had it ready in a few days. I went to pick it up yesterday afternoon and was so excited to find this:

After we got home we continued the celebration. We exchanged gifts, which I will post all about tomorrow and enjoyed our anniversary cake and drinks. I loved drinking out of our beautiful champange flutes that my aunt and uncle gave us for our wedding! I need to find more reasons to use them throughout the year.

Our delicious red velvet dessert!

Attempting a self picture

It was really a great night celebrating our amazing first year of marriage. We talked about how lucky we are and how happy we have been together. I can honestly say that over the last year I can't recall a time period that I was not happy, there may be little things here and there in life that are frustrating or trying, but coming home to my amazing husband makes it all better. We are each other's rocks. I have the best partner in life anyone could ask for.

Truck Race in Rockingham

Rockingham Speedway opened back up this weekend for the first time. It shut down years ago, someone else bought it and is trying to get things re-established. The Nascar Sprint Cup Series hasn't returned there yet, but that is the goal, they started this weekend with the truck series. We were there making history!

When my parents heard about it opening back up, and the ability to take the RV they decided to go, and since it was on our anniversary weekend they took us and invited Trey's parents to go and take their RV and park right next to us. The grandstands on the back stretch were taken out and RVs can park right up next to the fence (there is space between, then the track/safety fence). We were very close to the action!

Friday after work we headed to mom & dads and hit the road in their new RV. They traded in the old one after we got back from Disney, so this was the first trip in it! It was pretty fun to explore the new one but we definitely had a few "how do you use this" moments!



Vegas loves to be the driver


The dash board isn't as big on this one as it was in the last (because it is a diesel, so the engine is in the back) but the dogs still somewhat fit up there:

After a bit of a fiasco Friday evening, we were finally able to get in to our parking spot. The "credentials office" aka the check in for RVs was closed by 6pm on Friday, when they were supposed to be open 24/7. Luckily we had written down our confirmation information and half of our party (Trey's parents) were already inside with their "credentials" aka wristbands.


Our two "campsites"





You can already see paint on the wall where someone rubbed the wall during qualifying


Friday the 13th continued to be interesting... as we put a pipe on the generator exhaust (so we didn't blow it all over our neighbors -- you are packed in there tight and there are no plug ins yet, you run on your generator or just leave the windows open) and dad had to go to the top of the RV... coming back down the ladder a piece of plastic on the side got caught in his ring and jammed both into his finger pretty bad -it was swollen to about 3 times it's size and our neighbors (who had seemingly every tool in their truck) ended up having to cut his ring off!! After icing it for a while it all ended up okay and we are getting his ring put back together :)

Saturday morning Trey made breakfast on the grill and we enjoyed it outside in the beautiful weather.

During the day Saturday there was practice for the truck drivers, a UARA race (smaller scale, local racers) and then old school cars racing. Both of those races were 75 miles - my length race!! Fun, entertaining but doesn't go on and on and on.

Wreck in turn 2



Dogs in the window during the races on Saturday



Time to relax

Sleepy head

Enjoying sunbathing

We grilled out for dinner and just had a nice relaxing night watching the Sprint Cup Race on TV!


Grilling and watching the race




Begging dogs


Sunday morning my chef made breakfast again and then the race started at 1:00. The trucks were much louder than the other cars so we put the dogs inside the RV. The windows were open so we didn't have to run the generator and then fireworks went off to start the race. Right. Behind. The. RV. So loud that I felt the boom in my body. The poor dogs of course heard it too, I looked back and Ty was running around frantically, so I went in and he was running around trying to figure out how to get safe, while Vegas was in the back under the bed shaking. She was scared but got over it after about 20 minutes. Tyson, however, was still freaking out for about an hour. The race started and I came in to comfort him and watched the first part of it in the RV, out the front windshield -- still a good view. Trey came in and took over doggie duty and I went up top to watch part of the race.


Parachuting in for the start of the race!



They landed on the track!



Blowing smoke on the way down!



Watching the race from on top of the RV

About halfway through we all came in and had a lunch break, and Tyson was finally calming down.



Veggie spread at lunch


It wasn't a very eventful race, but it was good -- Kasey Kahne started in the back of the pack (because he wasn't there for qualifying, since he was driving in Texas in the Sprint Cup Series on Saturday) and ended up winning!

It was a wonderful weekend. I am so glad that our families get along so well, we can even vacation together! It was so nice to spend our anniversary weekend with the people who made it all possible.


Well, grandma, I want to ride with you



I just love you sooo much, grandma. You're my fave.

Yep, all the way home



Just a little spoiled