Spring Shoes

Hah, I just noticed that I wrote in yesterday's post that my brother would be heading to Korea in a year. It should have read for a year as he leaves in a month.

Today's post was going to be all about flowers! Spring! Warm Sunshine! Gardening! But this was my view outside my bathroom window this morning:


I am NOT happy! Now I know that some of you hardy mid-westerners still have piles of snow but I specifically live in MD to experience ALL FOUR SEASONS.

Memo to the weather, it's spring. There are rules disallowing snow during spring and YOU ARE BREAKING THEM. grrrrr.

{Moving on}

I've done just a bit of shopping for the spring and a few special events this month. Since the weather is too harsh to let me actually wear and enjoy them outside, I have had to amuse myself by trying them all on inside (excuse the grainy-ness of the photos, I used my cellphone).


I picked up these new Kate Spade rain boots for a steal at about 25% of their original purchase price. I've been wanting these (long sold out) boots for about 2 years now. Thanks to ebay I've managed to score quite a few sweet deals on shoes lately.



Mmmmm I love the Kelly Green color and the bumble bee. Adorable preppy goodness.

Next up a simple canvas pair of canvas Toms (for those days when the glitter toms are just a bit much-yes there really are such days) to kick around in this summer, I am undecided between the navy and the black...maybe I'll keep both. These are the black.

Soooo comfortable, they will be perfect for kicking around on the weekends and activities involving lots of walking!

I also picked up these fantastic Toms wedges. Girls, I can't emphasize how cute and comfortable these are! They are the quintessential spring and summer shoe, if you buy one pair of shoes this summer, buy these! You won't regret it.


They are also available in red and white stripes, solid red and a few other colors.

Next up are the shoes for special events, though they are all such sexy shoes that I'm sure I'll be looking for excuses to wear them a lot.



Kate Spade Chase, I loved the gray flannel and sparkly bow. Reminds me a bit of the Tory Burch Revas I posted about awhile back. Another steal of a deal on ebay.

Second, I got this pair of gorgeous black glitter shoes that apparently photographed terribly. I think these will be the perfect all around evening shoe. A nice classy peep toe and lots of sparkles=perfection!


I really wish I could have gotten a better picture of these because they are so pretty! And on sale!

The last pair I just had to have after seeing this image:


While my photo isn't edited to perfection nor was it taken by a professional, they are in fact the same shoe and simply gorgeous!


It's a shame they weren't actually made in a blush pink glitter similar to how the photo was edited because I totally would have snatched those up if they did. But these are a lovely shimmery silver-gold that I have a feeling will end up being quite versatile.

What do you think? Which ones are your favorites?

Tis the Season

I've been wanting to post some recipes for quite a few days now but I can't seem to get my act together and have both pictures and the recipe on hand at the same time!

I've been a bit preoccupied with family stuff which pretty much sums up my blogging lapse. My brother just received his orders and will be heading to Korea for a year. The news was quite a surprise and wedding plans have all been thrown up into the air and come down crazy.

On top of that his fiance has decided within the span of a few days to quit her job and move over there with him. The military will not be paying to support a spouse so they will have to pay to store all their things and foot the bill to get her stuff over there. So many things to say about whats been going on but so hard to find the words to say.

I am extremely excited (sarcasm font) about moving all that stuff for the fourth time in less than a years time. That girl's got more stuff than Hubs and I combined AFTER we got married and got showered in gifts. It wouldn't bother me one bit if this wasn't the FOURTH TIME we moved it all in the last several months. There should be a rule that limits the amount of stuff frequent movers are allowed to have.

Though tis the season for moving. We just finished moving one set of friends last weekend and will be moving another set in another few weeks. I think people ask us because Hubs has the muscles and I have a weird gift for packing moving trucks. On Saturday they were talking 2-3 trips minimum and I made them unpack/repack the whole truck and we got it all in one load because we were NOT going to waste the whole day making unnecessary multiple trips.

In other non-moving related news. We're also considering the possibility of flying out to San Francisco for a week or so and road tripping up to Seattle this summer. If we go through with it, you can expect a lot of solicitation for advice!

How has everyone's week been so far?

Natural Disasters

In light of all the natural disasters occurring one right after another (did anyone see that there was a 7.0 earthquake that occurred right near Thailand 20 minutes ago?), I thought it would be good to brush up on my knowledge on what to do during/after an earthquake. While the east coast is not particularly known for it's large quakes, we have certainly experienced tremors plenty of times before. Let's review, just in case any of you are like me and a bit rusty.

Basic safety rules are as follows:

Indoors, as a rule, are much safer than outdoors. Minimize movement to get to a safe place. If indoors, get on the ground and take cover under something solid and sturdy (rather similar to tornado response). Think table or desk. If there is nothing solid and sturdy nearby, cover your face and head and find a corner to hole up in, staying away from glass, breakables, unsecured objects/furniture, outer walls and doors. Doorways aren't the best option, but if that's your only choice, pick a load-bearing doorway.

If you're outdoors when it occurs, try and stay in one place (as long as it's relatively "safe"). Avoid buildings, wires, poles and "hanging objects".

Apparently, ground movement is rarely the direct cause of injury or death. Collapsing walls and falling debris are much more likely to be the culprit.


If driving, stop as soon as safe (away from hanging objects and and sort of structure) and avoid bridges/ramps once the quake is done as these could no longer be structurally sound.

More safety tips and detail can be found here and here. Anything I missed?

Yardsale Time

Hey guys-I posted the first batch of stuff for sale over here. There will be lots more coming I'm sure. Can you'll do me a favor and spread the link around? I'd really love to get this stuff out of the house and put the money towards the car that we desperately need. Thanks!! :)

Post filled with lots of deliciousness coming later!

Car Shopping, Kitchen Cabinets and Beer Bread

Yep, that title about sums up our weekend with a few more shenanigans thrown in. It has made today quite the long drawn out day already. It's cold and rainy and a workday, a lovely combination. However, the weekend was very productive and I think I am still feeling the affects this morning.

I didn't mention this last week (probably because I didn't want to have to face the facts) that Hubs was out of town for the whole week on business. It made for a very lonely and exhausting week. I had double the work to do and none of the companionship. :( No more work trips!

I know some of you do it all the time and honestly, I don't know how you do it! We really dislike to be apart and rarely allow life interference. In our past lives, we traveled all the time and were often apart and passing each other in the airports and we HATED it. It wasn't worth the hotel or airline points or work bonuses. We are just homebodies and we really really like to be together.

Needless to say, I was VERY happy to pick Hubs up from the airport Friday!

Saturday we finally went out on our delayed car shopping trip. We came very close to buying a car but have decided to hold out for something better. We plan to get Hubs a gently used Ford Fusion (though a mustang would be fine with both of us too ;)). He wants to top 200k on his current vehicle before he switches over, so the next couple of weeks will give him ample time to hit that milestone.

Sunday the kitchen cabinets were finalized! Gah, so exciting! I mentioned last week that we were talking about getting black upper cabinets to go with the existing but impossible to perfectly match the oak lowers. A few of you asked for pictures and honestly I have no photos for our exact inspiration. We're just kind of winging it. I did google it a bit and pretty much all I could find is examples of darker lowers and lighter uppers (which is what "the experts" recommend). We will be doing the opposite! :) It will be interesting to see how it turns out. We already have black counter tops so we won't be painting the lowers. We are talking about doing a beige backsplash to tie in the oak lowers. Here are the photos I found of contrast uppers/lowers:

Photos from here, here and last two here.

I'm so excited to know that there is an end in sight! For the last year we have operated off of 2.5 cabinets, happily 98% of the time I might add. This is going to make the kitchen function soooo much better with all the cooking and baking we do.

For the last year my pantry has been in the office, I have glasses stored in a drawer, plates and bowls stacked on the counter, silverware all packed into a storage chest also on the counter, most appliances stored away, two massive utensil holders on the counters and lots of muttered curses against the storage space when trying to get things out or put them away. I also have a folding table set up in the kitchen to accommodate the fact that all the counter space is holding what should be in the uppers... :) It's been quite the process.

To top Sunday off, I went to a Tastefully Simple party and gorged on beer bread. Mmmm, now I just need to figure out how to make our grocery budget stretch even more for April so I can add several of their seasonings and oils to my grocery list! Oh, and also tackle their beer bread in a homemade form. Anyone have any good recipes to pass along? I have two to test out (buttery beer bread and cheesey beer bread) but would happily test out more!

For Our Fellow Mankind

I'm not generally a "bandwagon" type person with my blog, but to see what Japan is going through right now has been absolutely horrific and emotionally draining. I cannot even fathom what they must be experiencing. Hubs and I set aside money every month to do what we can to help in times like this. I encourage you to offer up whatever you can to help Japan as they try and recover from this disaster. You can donate here.

Kitchen Upgrades

One of the honey-to-do items on our house list is finishing up our kitchen this summer. When we last left off the house tour pictures, I showed you a picture of the kitchen with only the bottom cabinets in. As of today, not too much has changed!

We are hoping to save up enough money to put in the upper cabinets, back-splash and lighting in the next few months.

We've been talking about getting a Tiffany light for the corner above the table and possibly some recessed lighting on the other side of the kitchen. Currently all we have is a kitchen fan, which doesn't always provide the best lighting (you can see just a bit of it in the above photo).

We are also hoping to put in some lovely glass tiles and install some hardware to give the cabinets an upgraded look, maybe something from Anthropologie?

We are measuring and meeting with some cabinet people this week. What do you all think about doing contrasting cabinet colors for the upper cabinets? Maybe in black with silver hardware?

Spring Arrivals

Monday's always seem so much longer than other days and yesterday's Day Light Savings time loss hasn't made it seem any shorter.

A few emails in my inbox made my day a little brighter however. One from Gap announcing their Friends and Family 30% off sale and Ebates announcing 20% cash back on all Gap purchases. It's a pretty sweet deal, especially when used on many of the items that are already marked down! If you're not a member of Ebates yet, what are you waiting for? You can click here to sign-up and get an extra $5 back. They offer extra promos like this all the time and the extra click is more than worth it.

Here are some of the things Ive been checking out:

I think these next two tops would be perfect with the pair of white skinny jeans I picked up last summer.



And how cozy does this cardigan look for lounging around on the weekends?

Or maybe a little something for the kids? The little ruffle one-piece is only $3.50 when you calculate all the discounts in!

Or maybe something for your little man:

And I had to throw this one last one in there, the favorite sleeper looks so soft and sweet, I love it!

Anyone else checking out the Gap sale?

Friday Feature: Rosy Glitter

I've made no secret about my love for shoes, all it takes is one look at my shoe closet to figure that out. Yesterday I spotted one of the most gorgeous pairs of shoes I've ever seen and it doesn't come in my size!!!


I am crushed and can't get them out of my head. Cue me searching the internet for hours trying to find something remotely close and NOTHING! Totally came up empty. :/

I can only pray that when Joyfolie expands into womens, she'll manufacture these in my size (8.5 or a 9!!!) Pretty please Jess?

And Then I Kicked the Tires

Yesterday morning started out earlier than normal with me marching over to my mechanic quite determined to make my car "talk". Unfort, regardless of what I did, it refused to repeat Tuesday's melt-down!

Allow me to back-up.

Tuesday I was merrily on my way to work, running ever so slightly behind when I heard a thumping noise in the vicinity of my front left tire. Yeeeaaah, can we all see where this is going?

It's a noise I've heard every once in awhile over the past month or so and have ALREADY taken my car in once for this "phantom" noise. Yes, phantom noise. You see, every time I take it in to my mechanic it behaves beautifully and comes out with a glowing report card. *grumble grumble*

But back to the noise, it started up every time I would make a left-hand turn so I thought, easy, I'll just get to work with no left turns, go a little bit round about way and deal with it later. Weeeeelll that last five or so minutes and then it started up even when I was going straight. *sigh*

At this point, I am much closer to work than my mechanic so I thought, ok, I'll just get to work and have it towed from there. My car had other plans, she apparently likes to go out big.

Here I am going down the highway and the steering well starts shaking and vibrating in my hand. I slow down to about 40 on the right hand side of the highway and put my hazards on. I make it a few more miles and then the wheel starts heavily pulling to the one side. Leaving me with the impression that I am going to loose control at any point or blow a tire out.

I pull over on the shoulder, going about 20. I am TWO MILES from work. I make it another mile and my car starts LOUDLY voicing its dissatisfaction that the wheels are moving. So I gave in. One. Mile. From. Work.

If not for the 9 produce orders in my backseat for work people, I would have walked. Instead I spent the next hour and half awaiting a tow truck from my incredibly awesome mechanic whom I am incredibly fond of but wish I didn't have to see quite so often.

Quite the ordeal and I may have been tempted to shed a tear watching my baby get loaded up on the tow truck but I felt that at least I would finally get some answers on what was wrong with my car.

Think again! My mechanic called me that night and apparently my car put on quite the performance. He heard the noise for a split second when he test drove it after unloading it from the truck but then when he stopped the car to check on it, the noise stopped and refused to continue.

Yesterday morning when I picked it up? I was determined to make it happen again. Good grief, it's happened at least once a day in some small way, I thought I at least could get a small knocking noise. Nope. Nothing. Not even a peep.

I did donuts in the parking lot for 10+ minutes, took it on the bypass, drove through neighborhoods....nothing.

So today, I am driving a car that could crap out at any point. Next time I hear the noise? I am driving straight to the mechanic. And in the meantime, Hubs and I are going for a long overdue car shopping extravaganza this weekend. One of us needs to have a reliable car!

A Dancer I am Not

A few weeks ago, a local gym was offering a free Zumba session as they debuted a new instructor. I love to dance around and have always been intrigued by Zumba so I dragged my mom and sisters out to the class.

I was not about to be the only one making a fool out of myself! :)

The session started early Saturday morning (strike #1). Husband and I have something going on Friday nights that often has us out to 1am or later. Saturday is MY day to sleep in as late as I want. Getting up early morning is not my idea of a good time...but I digress.

We arrived at the session nice and early to be sure and get a good spot in the back but the place was already mobbed. A good 40 women were already in the room with nearly 100 more close on our heels. Yes, we squeezed 140+ women (and 3 males!) into a room not nearly big enough so that we could all spend an hour or so together searching for our lost hips.

The experienced dancers and zumba-ers set up in the front. Clearly they weren't worried about anyone watching them shake it.

In the back, you had all of the men, older woman still stuck in the 70s (picture unitards-neon clothes, sweat bands and scrunch socks) and pregnant gals and then in the middle you had the rest of us "regular folk".

Yes, we got stuck right in the middle. Too far back to see the instructor doing much of anything but far enough forward that a good 100 people were watching us flail around trying to mimic the moves.

The first couple of songs...weren't too bad. In face I was pretty pleased with myself. Hey this isn't so bad, maybe those early years of dance were enough. About midway through I caught sight of myself in the mirror...I looked like an awkward giraffe!

Things just went downhill after that.

By the time we were done, I was irritable and bent of shape and ready to go take a boxing class so I could punch something.

My mood wasn't helped by the fact that the class coordinator (not to be mistaken with the class instructor) obnoxiously bounced in and out of the class at least 5 times, trying different locations in the classroom each time, smiling, yelping and hollering each time she'd come back in like she was coyote.

And then... she did the unthinkable. With three more songs to go, she decided it would be a good idea to open the doors to the room and tour all the male instructors and visitors outside in the other areas to watch the class. I had had it at this point! Picture me:

Tall. Uncoordinated. Flailing. Translucent. (the lighting in there did nothing for my already pale skin)

Is it not bad enough that I already feel like an idiot?!?! Now I need to be publicly humiliated by a bouncy obnoxious female coordinator who looks like a washed up steroid-pumped girl from the cover of a body building magazine from the 80s and all of her male groupies? Any one who has taken Zumba knows that the class is spent shaking-what-yo-mama-gave-yah. Which I am perfectly fine doing with my family or my husband or my friends. I do not however, need male gawkers looking on while I flail around, it is not a pretty sight!

Needless to say, my mom, sisters and I did not fork out the $100+ for the class sign-ups at the end of the class.

I came home that day in a foul mood and crawled right back into bed. Hubs took one look at me and decided to go out for a nice long run. I didn't feel like I'd gotten much of a workout at all! Depressed with my apparent lack of coordination, cursing my parents for making me give up dance because they couldn't afford it, I decided the best option was to just go back to bed. I'm sure the sleep deprivation I was experiencing had NOTHING to do with my mood. ;)

After I'd some time to process why I'd felt like such a fool, I decided to buy a set of Zumba videos and do it at home to see if I'd like it anymore. They arrived this week but I haven't had a chance to test them out yet. If all goes well and I like it, maybe I'll upgrade to getting something for the wii or getting an xbox connect. You will not, however, be seeing me in any more Zumba classes for awhile!

The Post Where You Give Me Lots of Advice

I am finally ready to pull the trigger on the camera, the taxes came back, my Kelly Moore beautifulness is on the way and now I just need to finalize the camera deets.

I am struggling to narrow down which lens I should start out with and I know that a ton of you photographers out there could offer some sound advice in this area. So please, lay it on heavy.

I know I want to get the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 but do I just want the lens? Or the lens kit?

I'm also concerned that the 50 won't meet all my basic photography (I mean obviously it won't in the long run, but we're talking short here). There is the option to buy the camera with the lens kit or just the body by itself. I've always heard that the lens kit are horrible and totally not worth wasting your money on it. Photographers is this true? The 60d comes with the Canon EF-S 18-135mm Lens, crap or no?

My dream would be to get the 16-35mm f/2.8L II Lens but $1500 for one lens may not the best way for me to start out, Hubs might faint (or at least revoke my shopping budget for a little while)!

Should I just get the 50 and wait to save up for the 16-35? Are there other lens I should be considering instead of the 16-35 or at least in the meantime?

Also, the Canon - Speedlite, worth it or no?

If you were filling out your basic start out bag, what lens & equipment would you pick?

Money Monday

"we have so much debt in our nation that
the average person has been described
as someone driving on a bond-financed highway,
in a bank-financed car,
fueled by credit-card-financed gasoline,
going to purchase furniture on the installment plan
to put in his mortgaged-to-the-hilt home.
anonymous

In addition, he forgot to mention wearing credit-card financed clothes!

Money is a hot topic these days with the cost of gas soaring and in turn affecting just about every other item we buy.

I tweaked and tightened up our budget this year in order to make room for big purchases, payments and changes coming up. I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to stick to it and it would end up too restrictive but happily so far it's been working out just fine.

I set up several different bank accounts for various goals and have been using mint to manage all of our transactions. Both have been an incredibly helpful to me in terms of visualizing everything and where it's all going. Money that we are saving towards particular categories (travel, insurance, cars, toys, house, emergencies, medical etc) is automatically transferred into the appropriate accounts so we don't even see it and thus don't feel more flush than we actually are.

I cut our grocery spend down drastically by upping our meal plans to monthly and only making one grocery trip a month. I love love love not having to go to the grocery store as much now and not having to meal plan as often. Seriously, I don't know why I didn't do this sooner!

We've also changed up the way we've been eating a bit and that's also helped in cutting down on the grocery bill and our eating out budget.

Home inventorying our house has been quite the ordeal (how do we have so much junk!?!) but it has been eye-opening seeing how much I already had, particularly in terms of clothes and shoes.

In order to combat both the feeling of having nothing to wear and wearing the same 10 items constantly, I've taken to devoting an hour of my Sunday afternoons to setting out clothes for the week ahead. This has done wonders for me! I am constantly rediscovering favorites now that I am taking the time to peruse my closet instead of the five minute grab in the morning of whatever is closest. I have a massive closet and certainly don't "need" much of anything so it's really helped me narrow down my shopping to those special little extras without feeling like I'm suffocating from "the budget".

Gas and electricity, not much can be helped there but we do commute together to save the wear and tear on our cars and we've also kept our heat at 52 all winter except for an evening or two during the weeks when it's freeeeezing and I bump it up to 58. Our house is pretty well insulated and in the evenings I just live it up in my north face pants and LEC sweatshirt and Uggs. Sexxxy!

I'm always interested to hear how other people manage their money, so share your tips! How do you budget?

Picture It On Canvas

Ever since we moved in to our house and got the master bedroom set-up, I knew I wanted to put something above our bed. I debated a monogram decal for awhile but ultimately decided on a nice big canvas. What's the point of paying for massive sums for photos if you're not going to use them right? :)

Groupon and Living Social have both been running a lot of deals recently for various canvas printing companies and when Groupon featured a deal for a 16x20 Picture It On Canvas, I had no prior experience with the company but I was impressed with their website, options offered and reviews so I snatched a couple of those babies up!

Now some of you may remember me tweeting a few weeks ago about how I was struggling to narrow down between my two choices for a canvas to put above our bed. I'm happy to say that Hubs and I settled on a favorite and ordered it last week.

The customer service was most impressive. Megan was quick to answer all my questions and she even provided me with a finalized proof and photos of the product before shipping it out to me. Shipping and taxes were included with the deal on Groupon and in less than a week I had the canvas in hand.

The canvas came carefully wrapped in a a few layers of foam wrap with thick cardboard over the top and extra cushioning in the corners. The entire package was then wrapped in another thick cardboard package and tucked inside was a nice little thank you note!

If I was impressed before, lets just say it increased tenfold when I unwrapped the canvas from the packaging. The color and printing is amazing. The image is gorgeously crisp and sharp and captured the deep colors perfectly! The blacks are true blacks. Any worries I'd previously had about the image being washed out flew out the window.

Better yet, for every canvas purchased at retail price from Picture It On Canvas, an 8x10 canvas (or a gift certificate for the value) is donated to the charity of your choice! I love to see organizations living out their mission to the public.

Now, would you like to see it in all its gorgeous 24x36ness?

We opted to have the canvas made with two picture hangers on the back though additional options included hanging hardware, dustcover and a custom backplate. We choose the 1.5" gallery wrap and the thickness is perfect. It really makes the photo look expensive and like a piece of art!

I was so excited to hang it that I begged Husband to lend me his assistance for five minutes to get the perfect placement. Here's the canvas in all its gorgeousness hanging in our bedroom:

*Please ignore the shadows, it was evening when I took these photos

Isn't it beautiful! I get a huge smile on my face every time I walk into the room now. In fact I am already picking out a photo for another canvas I want to do! Hubs better watch out, this may have created a monster. ;)

I must admit I am also intrigued by the option to print on slate and metal, I've never seen that before but now I'm scheming up ways of incorporating into our home design.

Thank you thank you Picture It On Canvas for a quality project and a job well done!

***I was not compensated nor asked to post this about this company. This product was purchased with my own money and this review was written solely to share an awesome experience with you guys***

Weekend to Remeber

Sad that it's taken me this long to blog about such a great experience but Hubs and I came back to massive work-loads after the conference and not much time to process.

The Weekend to Remember marriage conference was amazing. The last time Hubs and I went to this conference, we were engaged and preparing for a wedding in a few months. While it was a wonderful experience then, a lot of what we learned about was what we would be heading into. This time, we went in with a couple years of marriage experiences plus several years of friendship/courtship.

We choose to go to a conference that was a little further away from home so it would feel more like a romantic weekend getaway rather than an extension of our normal weekend going-ons.

The last conference we went to, we choose to not stay at the hotel where the conference was located (we were saving for a wedding, money was budgeted to the extreme) and instead went back home each day when the sessions were done.

After staying at the Hershey Resort for an incredibly reduced rate, I must say, in the future we will always be staying on site rather than coming home! :) It is wonderful to not be met with to-do lists when we were done. It was a chance to relax and focus on each other and talk and laugh and just have fun.


Friday registration started at 5. The conference started at 7. We ended the work day early so that we could have plenty of time to enjoy the drive up and get settled in before the evening began. We were joined by three other couples from our small group that were also attending. It was wonderful to have the fellowship during breakfast each morning and going out for drinks Friday night once we were done for the night.

Friday night's session didn't end until 10 or so. The evening sessions were on building a foundation and respecting and honoring our spouses. We went out for drinks and sundaes and loaded french fries after-wards and didn't get back to our room until nearly 1am!

Breakfast the next morning came awfully early but after fresh buttermilk pancakes, hashbrowns and eggs, we were ready to start the day. Sessions went from 8:30 until 4:30 with breaks scattered liberally in between sessions and a nice break for lunch when we enjoyed a leisurely lunch at Panera.

Sessions included such topics as communication, roles within marriage, conflict resolution, what ever marriage needs and sex.

Saturday sessions conclude early so that you have lots of time to go out on a nice romantic date with your spouse. Hubs and I opted for the Chocolate Avenue Grill and enjoyed such yummies as Mozzaluna (fresh mozzarella breaded and and served with basil pesto marinara-amazing), Grilled Chicken Ceasar salad (they cut a head of lettuce in half and grill the whole thing on the grill-yum!), Tuscan Chicken and to-die-for Chocolate Ghirardelli Crème Brulee. It. was. so. good. I'm craving another round!

When we came back from date-night we ended up relaxing in front of the fire in the lounge, cuddled up in big comfy leather chairs playing cards. :) We had such a fun time!

Sunday kicked off with men and women separate sessions that focused on role specific topics and parenting. After another break, the groups joined back up for final points on leaving a legacy before the conference wrapped up around lunchtime.

Since we were already up in Hershey, we met up with the other couples from our small group and took a shuttle bus from our hotel over to Hershey park and walked around chocolate world a bit (had to pick up some snacks!).



Yes, I am a mean wife and made my husband take a picture with the candy bars!

When we took the mini tour, the guys all decided to cram into the two person seat in the front of the car and the four girls sat up front. Needless to say they were a bit squished and the two guys on the ends were falling out of the car the whole time! :) After a late lunch we all packed up and headed home.

The whole trip was a great chance to rejuvenate and focus on each other for a weekend. It's definitely an experience that we plan to do again, at a very minimum of every couple of years. :)