Aloha!

Just got an email from my brother that he will be off the Navy ship tomorrow or Thursday and will be in Hawaii before I land.....so, the trip is "A GO!" Yeah!!! Now I can really get excited - and also need to finish packing! Look for pics upon my return over 4th of July :)

Weekend.....

We were able to get the Acadia out on the open road this weekend by taking a trip to Wilmington to visit with friends Anna and Chad. The weather didn't cooperate and allow us to go to the beach, but we still had a good time. We rode around Wilmington and Wrightsville in Anna's Acadia (we were twins!) and restaurant/bar hopped since there wasn't much else to do. We enjoyed some cold ones at one of their favorite places in Wrightsville on the water, so at least we got to "boat/people watch" which was fun! And Saturday night we headed to downtown Wilmington for some more cold ones, people watching and just hanging out and catching up. We are looking forward to hanging out with them again and the rest of the Wilkesboro gang in just a few months for their wedding!! On the way home today, I drove so I could enjoy my new car, and Brandon hunkered down in the back seat and watched a movie - we were a sight to behold, I am sure!! :)

Now just getting caught up on laundry so I can start to pack for Hawaii (final word should come on Tues from my bro hopefully on if the trip is A GO or NOT - hoping for 'A GO!'), and enjoying the much needed rain!!

Goodbye CR-V :( ......Hello Acadia!! :)

We just got back from taking the CR-V to the new owners and transferring the title, etc. It was kind of sad to say goodbye, but the sixteen year old girl who is getting it is so excited! Since they didn't have the license plate yet, I just parked it in their driveway and she was looking forward to just sitting in it and letting the feeling of having her first car sink in. When we left, she was sitting in it, and after Brandon and I drove around their neighborhood some (nice houses!), we drove back by on our way out and her mom and her were still sitting in it :) It was cute. I am so glad that my reliable car is going to someone who will really enjoy it! I hope she will be able to drive it for another 10 years and make some memories of her own. I told her the first job she had was to personalize it :) But, I don't think anything will top the Lime Green floor mats I had in it :) Anyway, even though it was sad to say goodbye.......

.......I came home to this!!!!

How do I look in it?

Now off to pack and get ready for a weekend at the beach with friends! We will really get to break it in ;)

It's Here!

My Acadia is finally here, and is being delivered to me at work today by the dealership!! They have a car to pick up in Kernersville, so said they would be happy to bring the car to us, which I thought was awesome!! So, waiting on my friend Jess to pick me up and take me to work, and then I get to drive the new car home tonight!! Of course pictures will be posted later - I am so excited!! At the same time, going to be a little hard to say goodbye to the good ol' CR-V - it has been a good car! We are taking it over to the new owners' house tonight after work.

Friends

I finally organized some more of my pics, and realized I never posted the pictures my friend, Michele sent me from our get together over Memorial Day weekend. Here are a couple of good ones of us hanging out at the Rinaldi's. Baby Cloe is so cute!!! Hard to believe she is already 8 months old!

The Boys: Brandon, Tony & Richard

AOII Legacy ;) Jess, Michele, baby Cloe & Ginny

The Weekend!

I love the weekends!! Especially weekends when I don't have much planned, and can just do whatever I want. This weekend started out great! Last night was "Sex & the City" and Cosmo's with the Circle 8 girls. I laughed so hard I cried - both at the movie and while at Village Tavern with the girls afterwards. It was so much fun!! I love these girls!!! After having two drinks, I wasn't ready to call it quits, so I called Brandon on the way home to see if we had beer in the house. We talked and enjoyed a beer out on the back patio, which was nice. He worked a lot of overtime the last few weeks, so we hadn't had many opportunities just to talk and catch up. And it was so nice outside - that was until the BIG spider came out from under some pine needles and came towards me. Being the bug phobic I am, I screamed for Brandon to step on it. Well, when he did, it turned out to be a preggo spider and what seemed to be about a million babies came running out everywhere!! Brandon did his best to hold Chelsi back, while I stomped away at the babies......all the while apologizing for ending their short life so abruptly.....but come on now, I couldn't have all of these spiders coming into my house, now could I?!? And so, that also ended our evening outdoors, because of course all I could imagine was that one of the babies I didn't stomp the life out of was crawling up my leg! So, we came inside and turned on the TV and watched Jay Leno. Larry the Cable guy was on, and we love him, so we laughed some more. The beer started to make me sleepy (well that, and it was past my bedtime), so I stretched out on the couch with the pup while Brandon enjoyed some leftover hush puppies (he made a run to Stamey's for his dinner of course). Well, next thing I know it is 2am, and I am asleep on the couch, and finally motivate up to bed. So much for a evening of catching up with the hubby! So, we have set tonight as a date night. Not sure of the plans today yet, but I know I want to get some pool time in, and then probably work on my closets (hard to figure out what to wear in the hot temperatures outside when you are still surrounded by winter clothes). Later we will probably run some errands - need to get a Father's Day gift for my father-n-law and something for our nephew's 5th birthday (Wow, can't believe he will be 5!). I also may want to pick up a few things that actually fit (yeah for weight loss!) JUST IN CASE I actually go to Hawaii (more on that later - waiting to get confirmation from my bro). Then tonight will probably grill steaks and watch a netflix movie and just chill with the hubby - no better place to be than home with the hubby ;) Of course I would love to be cruising the town in my Acadia tonight, but looks like it might be another week before I get it :( Oh well. My previous post was full of excitement about my car being built and a free trip to Hawaii, and now this one is about a delay on getting the car and a possible cancellation of the Hawaii trip :( bummer. That is why the Girls Night Out and chillin' with the hubby are a perfect way to spend the weekend!!

It's been a good day!

Reasons why today has been good:

1) It's FRIDAY!

2) I got a sweet hug & kiss from my hubby this morning before he left for work.

3) I got to wear jeans and tennis shoes to work since it is casual Friday.

4) I got to work on time.

5) I got out of the office at lunch and spent some time with my friend, Michele.

6) I had Chick-fila nuggets for lunch.....mmmmmm!

7) Work wasn't stressful today.

8) I get to do my favorite hobby tonight with some girls at church.....SCRAPBOOKING!

9) I came home to a message on my machine that my ACADIA has been built and is in route to the dealership!!! So, hopefully I will be enjoying my sunroof by next weekend!!

10) And most exciting......I am going to HAWAII......for FREE!!! My brother is going to Hawaii on business, and has tons of extra Skymiles, and has offered to use them so that I can fly to Hawaii and join him there for about 6 days!!! The hotel and rental car will be expensed through his work, so all I have to do is pay a small fee of $100 for my flight, and my food and entertainment. Unfortunately, the hubby is not going with, but it will be an awesome bonding time with my bro! And Brandon said I can just check out all the sights so that when he and I go back together some day (because he definitely wants to make it to Hawaii in his lifetime) that I can show him around :) I have lots of "base tanning" to do, because I leave in just over two weeks!! This is short notice for the planner in me, but I am really looking forward to it!

Ten!!!

Ok, so one would think after being on vacation where I wasn't in control of what I was eating as much as I would like, that I would have gained weight since my last weigh-in, and that is what the scales a home lead me to believe, but at my WW weigh-in today, I was down 2 pounds!! Now I am at a total loss so far of 10.6 pounds!!! I am so excited!!! I have an appt with my Endocrinologist on Monday to check on how things are going and review some results of some blood work I had done today, so I am sure she will be pleased with my progress. Only 5.4 to go until I reach my initial goal of 10%!! I am off to celebrate by getting a pizza. Domino's is having customer appreciation with $5 Large one-topping pizzas, and I have been craving Pizza!!! Just have to make sure not to stuff myself and pair it with a healthy salad......with ice cream for dessert, of course!! :)

Happy 90th Birthday, Grandma!!

We headed to Connecticut this past weekend to celebrate my Grandmother's 90th Birthday!! It was so much fun to be with family and hard to say goodbye on Sunday ;(

The Birthday Girl

Brandon and I flew into Hartford on Thursday afternoon, and my parents and brother (who had flown in two hours earlier) picked us up in the Cadillac Escalade!! Mom and Dad had to be sure to rent a big enough car to tote everyone around.

After arriving at my grandmother's retirement village in Chester, CT, we took our bags inside, caught up with Grandma a little, and then decided we wanted to get out and enjoy the GORGEOUS weather. So, we headed to the Ferry and took it over to Gillette's Castle. Even though it was just a ferry, it was so nice to be on water!! Brandon even asked me when we were going to own our own boat!! Wow, hadn't even thought about owning one - wouldn't know the first thing about upkeep, but it would be fun :) Gillette's Castle was really neat - Mr. Gillette was an actor whose major role back in the early 1900's was playing Sherlock Holmes.

Dinner Thurs night was at this really neat restaurant - picnic tables outside, gourmet food and on the water!! We got there early, but when we left, the place was packed! You order inside off of a black board, and then take a seat at a brightly colored picnic table. It is BYOB, but we didn't know, so we just enjoyed the selection of soft drinks and juices. People were arriving to eat with their coolers and bottles of wine. It was really cool. When it came time to choose one of their awesome desserts, I opted for a Diet Cream Soda instead (trying to do my best on Weight Watchers, but it was so hard!!), so I at least took a few bites of everyone else's dessert for just a taste ;) Sailboats were being loaded into the water for the season while we were eating, so that was really fun to see, as the restaurant was right by the loading dock.

On Friday, Brandon, Andrew and I headed out for a long walk - Andrew was really good about pushing me along and motivating me - as he said, "No Pain, No Gain!" - how about "No Pain, No Weight Loss! - come on now, I don't want to "Gain" ;) After showers and relaxing, we headed to the Essex Yacht Club for lunch and to walk around downtown Essex. My lobster salad was amazing, and I always love walking around Essex - such a quaint town.

Friday night was dinner at Chester Village West - where my grandmother's "boyfriend" John joined us. He isn't the same since his strokes, but was still good to see him. He is such a great companion and friend to my grandmother.

My aunt, uncle and younger cousin arrived around 9:30pm from Maine, and then my older cousin and her boyfriend arrived about 10pm from Boston. I can assure you the quiet halls of Chester Village were awakened by all our "squeals" and greetings ;) We have been pretty lucky to see this side of the family about every two years - but we still get super excited with our initial greetings. And my mom and her sister are known for their "squealing"!!

Saturday morning some of us headed to breakfast in Deep River where I avoided the temptation of stuffed French Toast and opted for the Omelet instead. Then it was off to play Golf! It was a Par 3 course, and not that nice of one, but we still had fun. I was the official score keeper and picture taker, and Brandon, Andrew, Nicki, Adam and Uncle Kyle showed off their puttin' skills. The funniest thing was the check-in for the golf course was at the Yarn Shop :) That tells you how fancy of a place it was.

Then it was back to Chester Village to change and get ready for the party. Cocktails downstairs at 5pm with more family that drove in, and 11 of my grandmother's close friends at the Retirement home (people John and her have cocktails with every night before dinner) - a total of about 28 people. Then dinner at 6pm where we toasted my grandmother and enjoyed her favorite meal cooked by the fabulous head chef at Chester Village.

Mom, Grandma and Aunt Diane

Andrew, Ginny, Brandon, Nicki, Adam and Amanda

After dinner we headed back up to Grandma's apartment so she could open presents. My aunt's family and ours chipped in and bought my grandmother one of those digital frames in which my mom collected and loaded about 600 pictures chronologically started with my great-grandparents all the way through to the first of this year. It took 45 minutes to watch. Brandon sat away from us, and said the best part was watching all of our faces as we watched the slide show together. My brother helped my mom make copies of the pictures and slide show so we all had a copy to bring home and enjoy. My mom put a lot of work into it by scanning all of my grandpa's old slides - he had reels and reels of them!!

My Great Uncle, Cliff - such a funny guy!

Me and Mom

We had an early afternoon flight home on Sunday, so we said our goodbyes that morning and hopped in the Escalade and headed to the airport. Hope it won't be too too long before we can all be together again!!