2009 in review

2009 was a great year.

i saw some of the most amazing women get married:

traveled to a few interesting places:

saw these precious children get another year older:

bought this house:

and married this stud:

all in all, pretty good year. blessed.

music city bowl roundup 2

we made it home after night one. somehow we managed to catch the madhouse that was breakfast at our hotel and prepared for our long day.

we made our way to 2nd street to grab some grub. nothing caught our eye so we kept walking to broadway. that is until i saw a sign for a bloody mary bar. soulmate. we walked into the bar and i realized i ate lunch there when training a group in nashville 2 or 3 years ago. i remembered the food was good, so we stayed. the name of this gem? past perfect.

here’s my make your own bloody mary complete with house distilled green olive vodka. yum-0.

past perfect spelicized in house-infused liquors and old-school drinks so of course i had to try their speciality, the perfect mule. an adult root beer. check out the drink menu/ingredients in the background.

five hours, and two meals, later we decided to make our way to the stadium for game time.  this is the view of 2nd street from the bridge that takes you to the stadium.

there were quite a bit of kentucky fans. they were surprisingly friendly folks. this fella was rather spirited until he passed out in the second half. it was such a great experience, frozen toes and all. i knew we were up for good when the kentucky fans started talking about basketball. 🙂

i purchsed this fab hat right before the game. this is the best 5 dollars i’ve ever spent. well, that and the hot chocolate in the 4th quarter.

katie and stephen

the post game celebration

we’ll miss you cj! mvp of the music city bowl!

what a fabulous trip! check out ashlee’s account of the events here.

on the way back home ashlee and i stopped in clemson for our somewhat annual ornament swap luncheon. the 608 berkeley place girls have had the opportunity to meet up a lot this year and i’m in a slight depression without seeing these girls so often. we’re trying to come up with a girls trip next summer but we’re a little stumped. any ideas? chicago is out. that’s all we’ve got. 🙂

music city bowl part one

ashlee and i arrive in nashville saturday a little exhausted but excited to be there. we’re thinking of going to bed early so that we’re bright and cherry for the bowl game. ha. we should know better.

we get a call from a friend encouraging us to come out. we think we’ll just head out for a beer and call it an early night. ha. we should really know better. bar number 1 with hot pink cords rocker girl. she was pretty good.

ashlee wasn’t brave enough to take a picture with her. that’s okay, her courage increased greatly as the night wore on.

the next thing i know ash is asking why the bars don’t close at 2. yikes. and for all those folks who don’t travel to nashville very often, nashville is a ridiculously good-looking city. half way through the night ashlee declares she is moving there.

bar number 2. the sign reads no food, booze only

we had the best time listening to bands and dancing the night away.

and again

and the tv in the bathroom stall. wow.

and i had to get a picture of this fashion don’t. please don’t ladies.

stay tuned for the game day rundown.

home for the holidays

ahhh home. and i mean generically greenville. specifically, mom’s and now the butlers.

again, i am so thankful we share the same hometown. i was able to drive back and forth to both houses all week-long. what a treat. we decided to spend christmas morning with my family, we have the only child, and christmas afternoon with the butlers. then we packed up and spent the day after christmas with the extended butler family. alex and i celebrated christmas four times in one week. tough life folks.

christmas morning with the hunter’s:

dad is our official gift distributer

audrey did not take off this dress all day

chloe found a way to rest her tired little head

mom opening her can opener or book. can’t really tell but i promise she’s excited. really.

uncle thomson was pretty psyched about his carolina snuggie

i have no idea what alex is advertising but chloe sure looks cute!

three generations of hunter women

i was a bad photographer and forgot to take official photos of the present opening at the butlers, but here are a few of alex and the butlers puppy jezzabelle as well as rachel and the puppy. and i mean puppy figuratively.

and the extended butler/wallace gathering in columbia:

mr. b opening up his dirty crossword puzzle book. scandalous.

jezzebelle checking out abby

alex’s aunt gerrie with her gorgeous bouquet of flickers. yes, there’s a story. 🙂 this photo cracks me up and i think it perfectly captures his aunt’s spirit!

whew. i’m tired.

about an hour after these last photos were taken i made the trip to nashville. photos from the trip to come. i’m thinking of doing absolutely nothing for new years. no car. no plane. nothing but me, my dog, my husband maybe a bottle of veuve clicquot  and the couch.

greetings from nashville

my buddy ashlee and i made the drive to nashville for clemson’s bowl game tomorrow. we’re pretty excited. it’s about a 6.5 hour trip from columbia to nashville and we had to entertain ourselves. i just wish i could have captured all the fireworks places along the way.

need a lawyer?

ashlee’s eyes are open!

tomorrow we’ll be cheering our tigers on in the cold. at least this time i’ve brought a jacket. go tigers!

words can not describe

how excited i am about this! you can read more about SATC 2 here.

i liked the first installment. alex tried to watch it with me last week and he said i looked like someone kicked my dog. no way, i never cry. crying is for babies. super excited for round 2 next may. we’re planning an anniversary getaway about that time. think alex will go to the theater with me for that one? 🙂

merry christmas

it’s now official

i’m a butler. a registered georgia voter. a georgia resident. and a dmv/ss office/bank survivor. in one day. i feel like i should get some kind of medal.

i won’t bother you with the terrible lines at the dmv or screaming babies at the social security office, but just know it wasn’t the way one should spend their first vacation day of the holidays. just imagine getting half way through line before you realize you don’t have your wallet. oops.

after the all day marathon i came home and did this:

well deserved i think. and thanks husband for taking creepy sleeping photos of me. 🙂

christmas cheer

i work with some fabulous women. i had a few of these women over to my house on saturday night for dinner.  i made this lasagna recipe and it was fantastic. i’ve never made lasagna from scratch (and was tempted to pick up stouffer’s about half way through my grocery store run) but there was not a lot of kitchen labor. maybe 10 or so more minutes than spaghetti for prep. i stayed pretty true to the recipe this time but i’ll confess, i didn’t grate fresh nutmeg into my ricotta as recommended. but i think it was still a success. here are a few pictures:

shawnta, alex, and tanyika. alex is showing off my peppermint bark. i guess she liked it?

i’m wearing turquoise tights in this picture and i wish you could see them. tights are my absolute favorite part of winter and i wish colored tights were in style every year.

and then there were curtains

house update!

last week i decided that our curtains were going up. due to our giganto windows i gave up on the idea of one large curtain rod and planned to settle for two smaller rods. we headed over to our neighborhood lowe’s to make our purchase thanks to a wedding gift card.

while looking at our options (by the way, i think this is alex’s personal hell) i noticed a lady grabbing several of the super long wooden rods and matching hardware. i ran up to this lady and asked her if it was possible to attach two of these rods and she told me . . . of course!

we tracked down a lowe’s attendant and she directed us to the hardware aisle to get the connector. seriously? that easy? the last trip to lowe’s the attendant shut us down and told us we had to have custom rods. butthead.

after lunch, alex ran back to the house while i played santa’s elf and ran a few last-minute errands. when i came home my hubby already had them installed. he would be super embarrassed if his friends knew that he is a pro curtain rod installer. 🙂

so here’s the before:

and here are the after’s:

and the big window:

all i need now are my roman shades for the window over the sink. fingers crossed those will be up shortly.

about two years ago i started collecting oyster plates. i heart them. a lot. family would give them to me at showers, birthdays or christmas and until now they’ve been sitting in storage in bubble wrap. while alex was on his curtain hanging kick i had him hang my plates as well.

and up close:

and there’s plenty of room for more!