A Weekend in Chicago

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Do you remember when I told you about how Princeton was protesting the month of October?  If not, you can read about it here.  Well, November came in with a big bang and a trip to Chicago.  Princeton was not a happy camper...

The good news is that he had a good time visiting with Grandmama and Super Pops (my mom and dad) and when we returned, he hadn't destroyed anything else out of anger.  It was a win-win situation!

Stephen and I had been looking forward to our trip for the longest time, and were thankful for a reason to get away.  We had friends who were tying the knot in Chicago, and we couldn't wait to get there!

As soon as we drove into the city, we headed to one of our most favorite restaurants, Joy Yee.  Joy Yees is a pan Asian restaurant located in Chinatown (I wrote about it here when my sister and her husband visited).  For the past couple of months every time Stephen and I go out to eat, Stephen has shared his craving for Joy Yees.  Thankfully we were able to satisfy this craving on this trip.  It was a night of a double win, as our good friend, Shea, joined us on our Joy Yee extravaganza!  Unfortunately, we have no pictures to document this :-/

Joy Yee, we love you!

Stephen proudly showing us what he's going to order :)

Our meal: Coconut Curry Chicken and Chicken & Shrimp Pad Thai

Stephen double fisting our Bubble Tea choices.  Mine was on the left: a Mango Freeze.  Stephen's is on the right: a Berry Freeze.

On Saturday we enjoyed time with our good friends, Matt and Amy before heading off to Carnivale (a great Brazilian restaurant in downtown Chicago) to enjoy a wonderful wedding!

It's such a fun and beautiful atmosphere, with DELICIOUS food!

They served our table family style with food that was out of this world!  

 Stephen and I are blessed to have such good friends.  Here are our good friends, Debbie and Stephen - both were in our small groups in Chicago. 

The Bride and Groom

After the wedding, Stephen and I headed to our dear friends, Mike and Amanda's apartment (Princeton's previous owners) to hang out with them and our other dear friends, Matt and Amy.  We enjoyed a great night of food (more food?!) and Balderdash.  You can never go wrong with Balderdash and this crowd!  We laughed until we cried!

On Sunday, we were privileged to worship at The Moody Church before we spent the rest of the day hanging out with friends and loving our home away from home even more. 

We even got a chance to drive past our old apartment...

 We love Chicago and miss it daily.  The people make the place, and God definitely blessed us with an amazing Chicago Family that we'll have for the rest of our lives. 

Have you ever been to this great city?  If so, what's your favorite thing to do there?

A Great and Crazy Week!

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I got ahead of myself last week when I told you how much I loved my dog....good thing love is unconditional.  Someone is protesting how busy we've been:

I had to tell my sweet students that MY dog ATE their homework...yup - you just read that correctly.  Apparently it does really happen and it happens to teachers, not necessarily just students.  This week he has "eaten" some reading logs, some scholastic book orders, as well as our checkbook.  He knows what he's doing is wrong because he'll immediately go and put himself into his bed.  He's silently protesting the month of October, which happens to have been the busiest month for us.  

In other news, we had a pretty eventful week.  Every Monday we enjoy dinner with my family (including my 1 year old nephew), as well as Bible Study on Tuesdays and Young Life College Fellowship on Wednesdays.  This Thursday was extra busy, as we had the Louisville Young Life Banquet and then I packed up my stuff and headed to Lexington to celebrate one of my favorite friend's  wedding.  My best friend, Laura got married!  I didn't take a single picture, so I had to go and steal borrow from my other best friend's uploading FB pics.  The pictures below will show you some of the highlights (or just what was available to me from my friend's album :) )

On Friday night, after the rehearsal dinner, I spent the night with my BFF, Donielle.  This picture documented our slumber party :)

Donielle is fabulous at doing hair.  Here you can see the fantastic up-dos she did for me and my friend, Elisha

Here is a picture of the wedding in action - if you look to the bottom left, you can see me at the end of the bridesmaids.

Here's the gorgeous bride and handsome groom after the wedding and on our way to the reception (Donielle did her hair also)

Here's a picture of Donielle and I right before they announced the bridal party into the reception.  Because Don-Don is so handy at doing hair and she's also a friend of the bride, she was behind the scenes a lot at the wedding, making sure us bridesmaids (and bride!) looked fantastic at all times.

These next pictures document our love for dancing and acting crazy.  Enjoy!

(my other bestie, Katie, enjoying the act of crazy with us)

Roomies reunited!

Stephen with a weird red-eye reduction mishap ;)

Last picture of the night - what a great time celebrating love and friendship!

Now it's time for me to embrace reality and do some lesson planning and paper grading.  I hope you have an enjoyable week!

Memorial Day Weekend

Stephen and I headed off to Pittsburgh, PA which happens to be the American home of his people :).  His dad's cousin's daughter (did you get that?) got married this weekend in the 'burgh and we never miss a good opportunity to hang with family!  Thankfully, Stephen got a half-day off of work on Friday (and yet he still worked 7 hours - half day?  go figure) and we split town at noon.  Getting to Pittsburgh from Chicago is kinda tricky.  At first glance of a map, you can see that Pitt sits just east of Chi-town...however, at closer examination you will notice a huge body of water (a.k.a. Lake Michigan) that must be navigated around in order to get from point A. to point B.  The first time Stephen and I scooted to his homeland from our apt we took off on the National Turnpike.  We laughed carelessly in the wind until we arrived at our destination and added up all the money we had spent on tolls...$39 and some change...that's ONE WAY people!  Because we aren't heading to Pittsburgh and staying, we'd be paying somewhere in the ballpark of $80 (not to mention gas) just to get there on this pike.  So, we wised up (some may not see it that way) and we added a measly 30-45 min onto our trip each way to change our grand total spent to (wait for it...) $0 (of course gas is not included in that).  With that *new* navigation comes back roads, less traveled routes and great scenery - needless to say that that's our kind of travel!

Unfortunately I did what I do best and succeeded at taking very minimal pictures to document the fun that we had.  The only pictures I did take were of Stephen's parents tearing up the dance floor in the DJ provided hats to wear in accompaniment to the Village People's "YMCA".  I don't think they would appreciate me sharing those on my blog :).  My favorite part of the night was when Stephen and I were outside talking with some of his cousins when his mom throws open the door (hat still on, blow-up microphone in hand <--that was another prop given out) and says, "KARI!  Your song is on!  We need you on the dance floor - NOBODY knows what they're doing!!!"  For all my friends who have fallen victim to watching me "dance" to FloRida's Low, you will know exactly what she was referring to....

Leading up to the wedding, I was itching for a good project and I couldn't shake the fact that I had a perfectly good piece of wood from Hobby Lobby in our closet that I had picked up about 2 years ago in hopes to make a Fall sign for our apartment.  I snagged this sucker for 1/2 off $2.99 and my good intentions got left to the wayside...the sign was never made. I decided I was going to use it to make a personalized wedding gift for Stephen's cousin and her new husband.

I used the same technique that I had used to make our Count Your Blessings sign by printing off what I was wanting to put on my sign and then shading the back of it with pencil to trace it onto the piece of wood...I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Here's the wooden sign already spray painted with the same paint that I had bought and used for our Count Your Blessings sign...

I printed off my S and shaded the back

 I then traced the S onto the piece of wood...

Here's the painted S

I then did the same thing with their last name and painted in my tracings (sorry the picture is crooked - silly blogger!)

Here's the finished painted sign...

I then sanded the pants off of it for a vintage-y look....

2 steps that I do not have pictures for (you're not missing much) is when I took the sign and sprayed it with a clear, glossy spray paint to seal it off.

I then measured the back of it to find the middle of the wood and hammered in a hanging metal strip to the back of it so that they can hang it on their walls.

Total cost of this project:

Wood Sign: $1.50

Metal Hanging Strip: $1.99 for 2 (I only used 1 so that's $1)

I had all the paint...

that's right - I paid a whopping $2.50 for this personalized wedding gift :)

Have you finished any cool projects lately?  I'm always looking for inspiration!

I'm linking up to these parties this week (also: Between Naps on the Porch, Today's Creative Blog, Savvy Southern Style, The Thrifty Home).

An Exciting Weekend

Stephen and I ventured back home to Louisville this weekend for exciting and memorable celebrations!  My sister, Melissa got hitched!  She married her looooooooong time :) boyfriend, whom we've kinda already thought of as family, David.  It was really funny whenever Stephen and I would tell people that my sister was getting married they would make comments and ask about it as if it were a traditional, every day kinda wedding - "Are you going to be able to make it to the Rehearsal Dinner?" "Are you a bridesmaid?" "Where's the reception?"  These are normal questions and I don't blame people for asking them, but they obviously don't know my sister.  We always knew she'd get married and we always knew that it would be her type of wedding - "no big deal".  Well, guess what Melissa?  It WAS a big deal and there's nothing you can do about that!  HA! ;).  They had a very short and small (14 others in attendance) wedding performed by my father, the Reverend....here are some pictures of the fun filled day!

 Look at that good-lookin' family!  Someone tell my dad to smile!

oh the stories we could tell....

Do you see that smile on my mom's face?  I don't think anyone was happier - maybe not even Melissa - than my mom! :)

Congratulations Melissa and David!  We couldn't be happier for you! :)

DIY Wedding Fun - Part 6

Salt Covenant

Instead of lighting unity candles, Stephen and I did a salt covenant in our wedding.  Our friends, Matt and Mandy had done one in their wedding in 2002 and I loved it when I first saw it.  Instead of our mom's coming in and lighting a candle, they walked in carrying salt from their kitchens.  They set them next to the main salt container and then Stephen and I poured them into the container during the ceremony.  There are different ideas behind it: the Biblical idea that we're called to be the salt of the earth was a main idea that we wanted to encompass in our wedding and in our marriage.  Another idea was the symbol of our families joining together into a new family.  While all the grains were joining together, we would never be able to pull out "his grains" and mine - we were joined for forever.  The coolest thing about this is that we have this main salt container and it's sitting on our mantel.  We will have this container of salt from our wedding day forever to remind us of the covenant we made with each other before God for the rest of our lives.  While I didn't etch this container, I realize now that I could've easily done so.  This is a cheater "DIY Wedding Fun" post because I didn't actually make this container, but if you were interested in making one yourself, it could easily be done.  If you'd like to see a tutorial on how to etch a glass surface, just click here.

DIY Wedding Fun - Part 7

Yummy Desserts/Favors

The spring before our wedding, I had attended the wedding of a friend who had heart shaped, monogrammed cookies as favors.  I loved the idea of them but didn't love the idea of how costly this would probably be.  I quickly learned that their mom's had gotten together and made the cookies super cheaper than they would've paid for them had they bought them from a bakery.  I was ALL about this idea, although I know I stressed out my mother-in-law and my mom with this courageous effort!  

My mom got to work making the sugar cookie dough a few weeks out and freezing it until we were ready to work with it.  We got together (my mom, mother-in-law, sister, sister-in-law and best friend) a week before the wedding and baked the cookies in the desired leaf shapes (oak and maple).  This process took a good 2-3 days to completely roll, cut and bake all the cookies that we would need.  We then got together and iced the cookies using royal icing from a recipe I found online.  This process took a good 1-2 days as we had an assembly line going of piping and flooding and moving the cookies where they could dry.  Once this was all finished, I piped the "C" on each individual cookie and bagged them the Thursday before the wedding.  While I didn't get to taste any of the official cookies, I heard they were quite yummy!

Here is the "C" that I got from The Knot as our cake topper.  The only problem that I had with it was that it was silver and I really wanted it to be a soft shade of gold to match with our warm, natural colors in the wedding.  So, I spray painted it - simple enough!  

My husband has QUITE the sweet tooth...to him, sugar is in the bottom portion of his nutritious pyramid!  Because of this, we incorporated all the things that he loves into the wedding: the sugar cookies, the cake with 3 different flavors (Italian Wedding, Strawberry and White Chocolate) as well as homemade pumpkin pies (made by my incredibly sweet friend, Anessa!), candy corn AND a groom's cake (Cinnamon Swirl with EXTRA cinnamon per the groom's request).  Needless to say, our guests fell into a pile of granulated sugar as they left our reception!

The Roman Numerals on the side of the cake are all the different Super Bowls that the Steelers have won.  My husband's cousin, a devout Cleveland Browns, fan did not really care for this cake :).

The Groom's cake was a huge success with Stephen and his family!  Stephen was born a Steeler's fan as his whole family lives in Pittsburgh (and this is where he was born).  I was so happy to incorporate things that Stephen loves into our big day!

DIY Wedding Fun - Part 5

Guestbook

By no means is this a new idea, but I figured I'd share it anyways.  For our guest book, I had decided that I wanted to make a more personalized book that I could have sitting out and people would enjoy looking at.  Many of my friends had done the same thing at their weddings and I loved the idea of it.  I took our engagement pictures (you could use any pictures you'd like) and I designed a book through apple as our guest book.  I made sure that I had plenty of room around the pictures so that people had enough room to sign around them.  We sat the book out with regular, thin-tipped sharpies and people signed away.  I have the book sitting out at our apartment and I even find myself look through it from time-to-time.  

DIY Wedding Fun - Part 4

Table Centerpieces

I was engaged for a year and a half...I had a lot of time on my hands!  So, what I did to pass time was I made my own table centerpieces.  The picture above shows just one of the two different centerpieces that I used on the tables (the others were lanterns).  I went to Michael's and bought a bunch of wooden frames for $1.  I also purchased a pack of fall themed scrapbook paper and I Mod Podged all the different fall designed paper onto the frames.  I then took baby and little kid pictures of Stephen and I and I filled the frames with these pictures.  The frames were accompanied by Mason Jars that a lady at church let us borrow and we filled them with coffee beans and a votive candle.  With the candle lit, the hot wax dripped down into the beans and really filled the tent with the wonderful aroma of coffee and vanilla (the scent of the votives).  We simply finished off the jar with left over ribbon from the invitations...those to come soon!  All centerpieces were surrounded by fall leaves around them (and a menu of the meal served) to add some more color to the table.  The picture frames could be made for ANY occasion, as I've given them and seen them be given for birthdays.  The mason jars could be made for any special occasion that you have coming up to help create an intimate setting in your own home.

DIY Wedding Fun - Part 3

Pumpkin Tea Lights

Do you see the little pumpkins on the table?  I know you can't really tell but I made tea light holders out of these pumpkins to enhance different tables throughout the reception.  They were on the guest book table (see above) as well as on the food and dessert serving tables.  

I don't have a great picture of them, so I've shown you a picture from a blog I found recently.  You can visit this blog to see how to make these easy pumpkin tea lights yourself.  

These would make a great addition to your thanksgiving decorations to really add a soft, festive touch to your serving tables.