Morgan's First Bday Paw-ty!

We celebrated Morgan's first birthday today with a paw-ty at the Dog Bar in NoDa. The Dog Bar is just that, a place where you can go drink and hangout with your dog at the same time. Great concept. We decided to have her party there since the idea of having multiple dogs in our backyard at one time kind of scares me. Especially because if it rains, there really is no back up plan since there is no way I would let that many dogs run around the house. So we celebrated here. Thankfully for all the guys they also have the NFL network so everyone could watch football at the same time.

A few weeks ago, I took Morgan to the local dog bakery to pick out her cake. She chose peanut butter and banana (yes, they had a tasting) and I think it was a hit.

For the adults, I made puppy chow and pupcakes.

Used junior mints and york peppermint patties to make the paw

I also picked up some treats from the dog bakery for the other pups to take home in a "doggy bag" Cute? I thought these things were great.


I wanted to try and get all the dogs in one picture with their hats, but I quickly realized that was a ridiculous idea, it was hard enough to try and get all 3 of us in one picture. The one below turned out best, but a dog jumped up right in the middle. oh well, it pretty much sums up the afternoon. After that, I decided to get individual pictures of all the dogs that came, they are below too.




And here is Morgan with her cake, and me feeding the dogs some leftovers.

Weekend in San Diego!

This past weekend, we traveled to San Diego for Amy and Bill’s wedding. As an added bonus, we got to see my friends Courtney and Harlan and stay with them for a few days.

We left after work on Thursday. I love flying west! We left Charlotte at 6:30 and landed in San Diego at 8:30, not bad! On Friday morning we got up and met John’s Uncle Walt and Aunt Judy for breakfast. They live in Escondido so we met them there, had breakfast at a diner and went back to their house to visit a bit before we had to go.

On the way out, we discovered the best beverage store ever, BevMo. In NC, all the liquor stores are state run and only sell liquor, so basically if you are having a party, you need to go to the grocery store for wine and beer and the ABC store for liquor. Well in California, if you are having a party, all you need to do is go to BevMo! They had quite an extensive selection of beer and all kinds of liquor and wine too. The best part was that they also stocked anything you would need for a party from paper plates to caviar and imported cheeses. We bought some champagne and some different beers for John to try.

Then we headed back to meet Courtney and went for a hike in Torrey Pines. It was so nice to see water and the 80 degree weather wasn’t so bad either. We had been having rainy and gloomy weather in Charlotte so it was nice to escape that for a bit. And of course I was anxious to get a workout in after flying 5 hours the day before.

Last time we were in California, I introduced John to In-N-Out so this time it was a must for lunch. Gotta love the menu, so simple and cheap!

I get the cheeseburger protein style so you get 2 wedges of lettuce for the bun instead of the bread. Yum! After that, we went to Courtney’s office to eat lunch and were planning on laying out in the afternoon at her pool. Until I got a text that there was a cocktail party for the wedding that I didn’t know anything about, so a quick change of plans and we were headed down to Hillcrest area for a cocktail party given by Amy’s mom. I really hate surprises, I have to have everything planned out, so this really threw me off, but I recovered and was glad we went.


For dinner, we had plans to go to Fidel’s Little Mexico with Courtney and Harlan, so we headed back north on “the 5” (sorry John) and ate yummy Mexican food. With all that driving around, it’s a good thing we had this trusty vehicle to get us around!
Seriously, what is the classification of this? Not an SUV, not a wagon, but not a crossover either? Hmmm... maybe a 4 door hatchback? I’ll stick with that for now.

Courtney put us up in her adorable guest house, isn't it cute?

And I had to get some pictures of the flowers around her yard too.

Saturday, Michigan State was playing Northwestern (Court’s alma mater) so we had plans to watch the game together. The game came on at 9 am pacific time so mimosas were in order. John quickly got into his element


and I quickly got into mine


After the game, it was time to say bye to Courtney and Harlan and head to Hillcrest to get ready for Amy’s wedding. On the way, we stopped by Pinkberry. It was as delicious as I imagined it to be. Once John discovered that they had Cap'n Crunch as a topping option, he decided to get some too.


Amy had a small wedding, only 1 bridesmaid (her sister) but she asked a few of us to be there when the photographer was coming at 3:30, so I took my camera along and snapped some pics of the gorgeous bride before she walked down the aisle.

The wedding was so fun! Got to see some old friends and enjoyed celebrating with everyone! Allison and I even managed to find some real wedding crashers and get them kicked out. I can’t believe that people actually do that! They have probably never had to pay for a wedding before and realize how much it is per person to buy a drink package, but we weren’t going to let it happen to our girl! Enjoy the pics, and take note of the fog in the background of the second picture. Should have been a clue that we might have travel problems in the morning, but no. We were up at 4:30, for our 6:00 am flight out, only to realize that no planes could land the previous night because of the fog. There were no planes at the airport! So we had to wait until 9 to get out, and made it home after 7. Spent 12 hours either flying or at airports on Sunday, no wonder I am feeling a little sickly

Fall is HERE!

It is finally starting to feel like fall in Charlotte and I am loving it. We had a very nice weekend and for the first time in a long time, I could wear jeans outside without feeling miserable from the heat. Saturday, we had the pleasure of watching football with not one but TWO adorable little ones. Ben and Beth brought their daughter Lexi over that just turned one, and Luke and Heather brought their 6 mo old daughter Abby over. Morgan did not know what to think since she was not the center of my attention anymore; I was too busy playing with the babies (and taking pictures of them)!

Lexi

Lexi loved Morgan!

Abby- she was so fun to photograph- really hams it up for the camera!

Since we are busy the next 2 weekends, I decided that Sunday, I was going to just relax and have a little me time. My day started with a decaf pumpkin spice latte, then I did a some browsing at B&N, went shopping and bought an awesome candle from bath and body works- ginger vanilla scent. The house is full of pumpkin candles now which I love, but this ginger vanilla is really nice.

Then, I started up our tradition of “soup on Sunday” again. Last year, I made a different soup (ok I repeated a few that were really good) every Sunday and then we would always have some leftovers for lunches for the week. I love soup, so we started it off this year with corn chowder.

I have had the fall decorations up since mid- August, but since it’s finally feeling like fall, I thought I should share a few pics.

Jack-o-lantern made out of a gourd