French Dip Disaster

I tried to make french dip sandwiches in the crock pot last night.  They were dry as saw dust.  We ate baked potatoes instead...here's to next time!

Family Weekend in Wilmington!

This past weekend the entire family met in Wilmington to visit Jack for family weekend and to celebrate his birthday.  It was an awesome whirlwind of a weekend.  Derrick and I had practice from 9:00-12:30 on Saturday morning and left straight from there for Wilmington.  A frisbee teammate took Crosby for us so we didn't have to waste time backtracking to drop her off. We went straight to the hotel for a shower and met up with the rest of the family Saturday afternoon.  

Making the 2 hour trip to Wilmington

I love having our entire family together. We have a unique sense of humor, are all very bonded, and the six of us just get each other. We hung out in the hotel room for a while and then headed to campus for a guided tour by Jack!  Derrick and I had never been past the IM fields so it was really great to see the rest of campus.  Jack seems to fit in really well with the atmosphere there. 

Starting the tour!

Jack being a good sport. I wanted a picture of him with something that said UNCW

Brotherly Love

Jack's minoring in cello-here's his locker in the music building

To end the tour we check out Jack's dorm room. He's rooming with his best friend since 2nd grade. 

That night we went to a local restaurant called Flaming Amy's. Derrick and I used to eat here after the ultimate tournaments. It's delicious! 

Afterwards we headed back to the hotel for cake and presents! My family has this awesome tradition for birthdays.  Every birthday we go around and each person says what they love about the birthday person. We've kept up with it even through college via speaker phone and Facetime.  It was great being able to continue the tradition in person for Jack's first college birthday. Derrick has to join in now too! 

Cake! Beach themed...obviously

The next morning we enjoyed the continental breakfast offered by the hotel.  We got to meet Jack's...friend? Lady-friend? close-lady friend? Lilly.  We planned all sorts of ways to make it awkward...and then chickened out when she got there.  She's very cool though.  Jack...I approve.  Sorry if this is awkward Lilly :) To end the morning we hit the IM fields to toss the frisbee around. Jack's trying out for the Wilmington men's team so we had to test his skills. Lilly and I threw the disk for the boys to play 500.  Jay won...at least he claimed the win...therefore it had to be true. 

Jack and Lilly

After that, we said our goodbyes and Derrick and I sped back to Raleigh for another practice.  It was an awesome weekend and I'm so glad we were able to go! Jack is doing great and it was so nice to have the whole family together.  Next time won't be til Thanksgiving!

Recently

A few of my favorite things recently:

*A successful albeit rocky-topped batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins

*A fun scrimmage in the rain on Monday night

*Very successful meeting with the manager at the local Coldwell Banker. I'm excited to join their agency after I am licensed in November!

*Pedicure date with Nikki :)

*Purchasing some fun new work clothes. I modeled for Derrick and he said he'd by 3 houses from me!

*Updating Crosby's bed from frumpy to comfy!

*Roller blading with Crosby in beautiful weather on my day off!

*Last but not least, being graded an "A" on tonight's dinner of Honey Pork Cashew Stirfry and Derrick eating my leftovers :) 

Looking forward to a fun weekend full of family and Frisbee!

Shooting for an A+

With a little inspiration from my friend Courtney I have decided to start putting a little more time into meal planning for Derrick and I.  I've always thought about it and have always wanted to be more conscious about what we're eating but it's been really hard for a couple of reasons.  First...I'm not a good cook!  Seriously...I need practice.  On the very rare occasion that I do cook, Derrick will grade my recipes and I'm lucky if I get above a B (and most of the time I think he grades me higher then I deserve!)

It's also hard because of our schedules...especially this time of year. We both work full time and 2-3 evenings a week we have frisbee practice until about 8:00 at night.  On weekends we're also traveling a lot for frisbee. I also feel like cooking always means a trip to the store which adds time and means a later meal.  Not to mention...I'm not a good cook! The "15 Minute" meal I've heard myths about usually takes me 30-45.

Prime Example for all you "you can't be that bad" people out there: Once, Derrick came over I and I was determined to have dinner on the table by 6:45. I think I started at 5:00.  I was making this spinach chicken florintine that sounded good in theory.  The timer goes off at 7:00 (only 15 minutes off schedule!) and I open the oven to realize I had forgotten to turn the oven on. So...we ate at 8:00 and it wasn't even good.  Gross actually...I think we ended up ordering out.

Because of our busy schedules and my lack of cooking ability, we generally rotate through a couple basic and easy meals.  And they aren't all that healthy or well rounded I'm sure.  To save face, I'm not even going to say what it is we eat...just think right out of college single people...except we're married....wife fail.

So..I'm turning a new leaf! Derrick doesn't even know this yet! And I'm proclaiming it out loud on the internet so I have some accountability. I like the idea of having a set menu for the week and picking one day to shop. I think we'll save money that way and avoid buying food we think we'll eat when in reality it just goes bad. I can also plan ahead for those late frisbee nights and having something ready made the night before that we can just heat up.  I'm not committing to 7 nights a week. Let's be real...that's not going to happen, but I think 3-4 nights a week is a good goal for now.  .

I've even printed out these nifty meal plan/grocery list print outs! I'm all about staying organized and list making! So anyways...starting Sunday meal planning is on! I'll document all the times the fire alarm goes off and the meals are bland right here on the blog! I'm shooting for an A+ grade from Derrick one of these days!

Sectionals

Today our Frisbee Team wHagonweel competed in the first tournament of the series. Derrick and I play for an awesome Ultimate Frisbee team called wHagonweel. We commit to about 3 practices a week and several tournaments up and down the east coast. The season runs from June to October and it keeps us very busy! The entire season comes down to the series. This is the most important group of tournaments. They are elimination tournaments and you have to do well enough at each one to advance to the next one.

The first tournament of the series is called Sectionals.  Our Section consists of North Carolina and we play all of the other mixed teams in North Carolina. There were only 4 mixed teams in North Carolina and we got 3 bids so it was a fairly easy road to Regionals (the next tournament of the series). We are a very competitive team and we have a lot of talent.  We also have high expectations.  Our first game was against a Triangle team called Boxcar. We were able to beat them 15-7 and end the game fairly quickly.  Our second game was against the local High Schoolers. This is always a fun game because it's nice to see Ultimate spreading to the younger generations.  It's still a pretty new sport and pretty recently has gotten into the high school level.  We shut them out 15-0.  Our final game was against Cahoots. This is an Asheville team and they were the number 2 seed in the tournament. We knew coming into today that Cahoots would give us the most competition out of the teams there. We beat them in finals of the last tournament we saw them so they came seeking revenge.  We traded points for the first 3-4 points but then Cahoots broke us 3 times and ended up taking half 8-5. They then started on offense and were able to put that in for another point. Even though our offense line didn't get broken again, we weren't able to recover from the 3 breaks in the first half and ended up losing 15-11.  It was not fun.

Our goal is go to Nationals. Nationals is the most elite club tournament and you have to qualify as one of the top 16 teams in the nation.  Our Region consists of 10 teams from North Carolina down to Florida and over to Louisiana.  Regionals will be in Orlando, FL on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30.  Our region only gets 1 bid to Nationals and it is anyone's for the taking. The two most competitive sections (Our and the Atlanta teams) both had 1 seed upsets.  With only 1 bid we are going to have to buckle down and work really hard in these next 2 weeks. We've been to Nationals on our first year with wHw 2 years ago but missed out last year. We all want to get back there but we're going to have to fight for it.  Hopefully a disappointing finish as Sectionals will light the fire and we'll be ready to fight down in Orlando!

Here's a picture of our team from our last tournament when we won the Championship! Hopefully I can post a similarly happy picture after Regionals in 3 weeks!

Dog Olympics!

Today we met up with Nikki, Courtney, and Jeff and headed to the Dog Olympics! It was awesome!! There were literally dogs everywhere and it was fun to check out all the dogs and events that were going on.  Crosby had a great time and even won Silver in Musical Sit!

Here's the view heading up from the parking lot. There were vendors under tents all around the walk-ways and the event rings were in the center of the entire thing.

We met up with Nikki who brought her dog Roxy and her parent's dog Fletch! She competed with Fletch in musical sit and he just missed the podium with 4th place. It could have gone to anyone...the dogs were pretty distracted!

Jeff and Courtney brought Lucy too. She didn't compete in any events...the excitement of being there was more then enough for her!

Here's Crosby and Fletch in the arena for musical sit! There were about 8 dogs entered.  We had to walk around in a circle until the music stopped and the last one to sit was eliminated.

And Crosby took home the Silver!!!

This the best attempt of a photo of all four dogs we could get:

They also had a ring set up with a jump! We took the dogs in to see how they would do. Fletch was signed up for the high jump later that afternoon but he ended up being more into walking under the jumps then soaring over them, plus it was getting hot and the pups were tired, so we headed out a bit early.  Here's Fletch showing his limbo skills and Crosby flying high!

All in all it was an awesome day! We really enjoyed hanging out with our other dog-loving friends and being outside on a gorgeous day! Here's a few more pictures just cause I took way too many!!

And this is what Crosby looks like at home after winning her medal. Being an Olympian is exhausting!

Love, 

L, D, and C

Taking the Leap

Well....I did it. I've been needing a work change for a while. Summers in the apartment business are killer and this last one was even crazier then normal. I've enjoyed this industry (for the most part) but after this summer I really needed to make a change.  Derrick was very patient with me throughout the summer as I bounced ideas off of him, complained about residents, and had more then a few grumpy evenings.

But...I've officially started the wheels turning in a new direction.  After lots of talking and encouragement from my parents and encouragement and support from my husband, I had a talk with my boss yesterday and officially put in my notice.  It was not an easy talk- I've really enjoyed all of my co-workers and it's nerve-wracking to leave a solid paying job with benefits when I have bills to pay.  But...I also have an incredibly supporting husband who wants me to be happy.  So..together, we are making an investment in our future.  I start classes to get my real estate license on October 2 and I am super excited for this new adventure.  My mom is a real estate agent in Hickory and she is going to be an incredible resource for this new step in my life. She has brought Hickory real estate into the technological era and has really made a name for herself! I'm excited to follow in her footsteps..and have a brain to pick whenever I need it!

I'll probably still be working part time with the apartments while I'm in classes...but I haven't been able to stop smiling today! Change is good :)

Hello World!

Derrick and I are hopping on the blog bandwagon! Well...let's be real...it will probably mostly be me with Derrick patiently rolling his eyes next to me.  We're hoping this will be a good way to document our adventures and keep our friends and families updated!!

Derrick and I were trying to come up with a title for our first post.  I got a little shy once we actually got started.  I didn't know it, but Derrick was actually thinking "Hello World" before I even said it.  Apparently when you are in computer programmer training, on of the first programs they make you write is "Hello World".  He thought I'd call him a nerd but I love that I thought of it too without knowing what it meant.  We're meant to be :)

Currently we've got our feet up watching the VT/GA Tech game. GO Hokies! Crosby is in her corner fast asleep!

Next post will be more exciting!

Love,
L, D, and C

PS: And just cause posts are more exciting with pictures, here's our devoted Crosby Crosby.