Raleighwood! Raleighwood!

For the past three years Derrick and I have played on an ultimate team called wHagonweel and we loved it! We practice really hard and we were really competitive. I think we both got a lot better in those three years and it's something that we have loved doing together. Well, this  year, wHagonweel ceased to exist. The same two people had captained the team for 3 years and were burned out which is very understandable. It takes a lot of hard work to run a team like that. 

This didn't mean we didn't want to play frisbee though! We love it and we'll always love it so a new team has formed called Raleighwood! The entire premise of this team is to have fun with people we like and the sport we love. We are only doing one practice per week which is a far cry from what was required with wHagonweel. It's a much more laid back season this year. I wasn't completely on board with it at first. Change is always hard and Derrick and I are just so used to devoting our summers through October to ultimate that I feared I was going to miss it. But, now that we're into it I think it was the best choice for both of us. This is my first summer in real estate and it can be really unpredictable. Derrick has also had to increase his hours at work so the fact that we don't have practice during the week has been a huge help to us. 

This past weekend we had our first tournament up in Axton, VA. Derrick and I came up Sunday since we had the wedding on Saturday. The team went 3 and 1 on Saturday only losing to Cahoots (out of Asheville) 10-13. On Sunday, Jack also came with us. We were a little short on numbers for this tournament and we figured the guys could use some extra legs on the second day of our first tournament.  

Jack.was.awesome! Holy cow! He was cutting all over the place, skying people, and being very patient with the disc. I was so proud and it was so cool for him to be on my team. The best part was that the rest of the team loved him too.  They completely accepted him onto the team and trusted him on the field. No one thought twice about throwing it to the rookie from Wilmington and he ended up throwing our game winning goal to win the tournament for us! It was a very tight game against Cahoots and I put him in on double game point. He cut in for a huge gain and then sent it into the endzone to Dave to win! It was so awesome. 

The best news is that the team has asked him to join the team for good! I am so proud and so excited to get to play with him in the competitive club atmosphere. I think he will be a great addition to the team and I also think the team will teach him a lot. 

I am so excited for Raleighwood. I think it's the perfect team for Derrick and I this year and the people on the team are fantastic! The picture below is after we won the tournament. It was sponsored by Savage Ultimate so I stole this off their facebook page. We are the team in green at the bottom. The top team is from the other division. 

Wedding Time!!

This time last year Derrick and I were in the middle of a crazy wedding season. I think we had 5 total, 3 of which we were involved in. This year is much slower with only one wedding on the calendar at this point and that wedding took place this past weekend. I love weddings so I was so excited to get at least one in this year.

I lived with Madeline for 1.5 years in college. She is hilarious, spontaneous, and full of life and energy. We got along magically and I was so thrilled for her when she found her now husband John! They went through quite a lot during their relationship that really tested their will to be together. Most of their relationship was long distance (very long distance.....overseas long distance) but they persevered and celebrated their love on Saturday. It was beautiful!

Derrick and I drove to Hickory on Friday night since the wedding was in Charlotte the next day. Derrick hadn't been back since Christmas and my parents really wanted to see him. I love that they love him so much :) I thought this picture of Bear I snapped was hilarious!

My parents house is under major renovation and I'm so excited to blog the before and afters. Right now it's in that messy middle stage so I'll save that post for later. Since the inside was under construction we spent a lot of time on their deck enjoying the lakes views and Mom took this pic for us before we headed off for the wedding.

Courtney and I had the honor of welcoming people to the wedding so Derrick and I met Courtney and Jeff at their hotel to change and leave for the wedding. That way Courtney and I could go ahead early and Jeff and Derrick could hang out and watch TV instead of having to sit in the sanctuary an hour before hand.
Here we are heading out of the hotel! This picture was harder to get then it looks...

Madi's dress was stunning and the ceremony was beautiful. It was very vintage. Her dress was form fitted GOLD! lace and her bridesmaids wore a grey-ish khaki color. I don't feel like my description sounds very pretty of the bridesmaids dresses but they looked great! The reception was outside and tented on her neighbors land. It was right next to a pond and was really nice!

Jeff and Courtney! So cute and I saw Jeff and told Derrick he needed a bow tie!

The bride!! And that is Laura-Nelle in blue. She is an incredible singer and sang at the wedding. It was beautiful!

Here is a bad picture of the bridesmaids dresses. Madi has two sisters who were both MOH and John has two brothers who were both best men. It's was so fun to watch these two families come together. All of the siblings get a long and were dancing with each other through the night.

Table settings.

 Cut the cake! I loved that John wore a gold vest and tie to match the gold is Madi's dress.

My pile o cake

They had a live band. It was so fun and Derrick even danced quite a bit with me :) He does not enjoy it but he knows I do so he's very sweet to humor me when we go to weddings. I think I help by not asking him to take me out dancing any other time.

Madi and John's first dance choreographed of course. Madi used to be a professional ballet dancer and knows how to move so she had to live up to high expectations.

Congratulations Madi and John! The wedding was wonderful and you both deserve a lifetime of happiness together! I know you will get it!

S.L.A.B Day 2 and Day 3

I'm going to consolidate this into one post because I have a lot to catch up on here and we did a whole lot more on Day 1 than we did on Day 2 and 3 combined. I think we went crazy on the first day we were there and were in recovery mode for the rest of the weekend. On Sunday we slept in until 11:00! It was crazy. Poor Alison was still recovering from major jet lag. She flew in from a month in Australia just a few days before and her sleep schedule was all whacked out. I don't know what the rest of our excuses were.

Sunday was Father's Day so we all called our dads when we woke up and then headed over the Shannon's cousin's house for a Father's Day cookout. Shannon'a family is huge and it was really nice to get to meet so many of them. They were so welcoming and invited us right in. We felt like part of the family. I wish I had more pictures of her family but we were too busy eating, playing soccer, listening to the bonano (piano in 4 year old speak) and eating oversized portions of desert. Here's a picture of the cute house though!

After lunch we headed off the Anheuser-Busch Brewery tour. It was so cool to be in such a well known brewery. The best part was they had the Clydesdales!!!

This the inside of their barn. It was absolutely amazing!

This is Bruce!

This is the front of the barn...so pretty! The horses stay here for a while and then every week or so they are taken off to a farm about 20 minutes away to enjoy green pastures for a while. These are the same Clydesdales from the commercials. It was so awesome.

This clock tower is the 2nd most photographed thing in in St. Louis next to the arch. Talk about iconic!

I forget what these tanks are...they are the first part of the brewing process though and are freezing cold.

Trolly ride back to the two free glasses of beer. Blue was sick of pictures.

After the tour we headed back to Shannon's apartment to rest up before dinner. We went to Rosalita's which was a mexican restaurant right next to Shannon's apartment. We had margaritas and I had the best fajitas ever! It was so delicious. We went to this little hole in the wall bar to round out the night and Blue fended off male predators for us.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the weekend and the timing was perfect! Long story short, Shannon and Alison were in an iphone race to look something up and Shannon won. Picture perfect!

The next day was our last day in St. Louis and we had three more things on our list. The Zoo, Pappy's BBQ, and a Cardinals game.

The zoo was awesome. It is totally free and it's the 2nd best zoo next to San Diego. The habitats are all natural and it really wasn't too crowded. The animals were pretty active too which was a nice surprise!

This guy totally surprised us when we came around the corner. We had just seen a bear scratching his head and we thought that was good...

A little weird? Probably...

Poor lady gorilla. He boyfriend was being really bossy and she was over it.

Photo credit: Alison

National Geographic worthy

This was probably my favorite. Usually the big cats are never awake but we saw this guy swimming!

As we were walking past the Hyenas, Shannon called up Pappy's BBQ and ordered our lunch to pick up on the way home. She hadn't eaten there before but heard it was amazing...she was right. Thank goodness we called ahead. The line was wrapped out the door and into the back of the building. We were in and out of there in 10 minutes and the line had barely moved. And the BBQ was delicious! If you are ever in St. Louis I totally recommend it. Get there early though because they start serving for lunch and just serve til they run out.

That night was the Cardinals vs. Cubs game. The whole city is crazy about this team so it was fun to see a game. It was pouring rain at 5:30 and the game was scheduled to start at 6:00 so we called a cab and went to Paddy O's which is a bar right next to the stadium. We were able to stay there until about 7:00 and the game started around 8:00.

Outside the stadium after getting out of the cab:

At Paddy O's waiting for the rain to stop! Thanks for letting me borrow your jersey Shannon!

Our seats were awesome. We were in the first row on the third level right along the first base line and our seats were covered so if it did sprinkle during the game, we didn't even know it! Check out the arch in the background!

The field was really cool. They had the arch mowed into the outfield. 

And the sunset just got better and better as the sun went down. 

This weekend was so refreshing! I love all of these ladies so much and I was so glad to get to spend some quality time with them. Shannon was so great to welcome us into her home and show us around all weekend. I can't wait until next years reunion!

S.L.A.B 1, Part 1

I've been a little absent from the blog this month....I've been busy vacationing :) We started out the month with our week long beach trip and then I left the following Thursday for SLAB 1!  SLAB stands for Shannon, Laurie, Alison, Blue. We decided to have an annual SLAB reunion, starting this year. Shannon moved to St. Louis, MO last November so that was where we decided on for our destination.  It was so great to be with these three again. I hadn't seen Blue since the wedding and Shannon since before she moved. We were there for three days so I'm going to break this up into three posts...I have lots of pictures to share.

Alison and I arrived in St. Louis around 1:30 on Friday and took a cab into the city to Shannon's work. Shannon had to work until 5:00 so Alison and I got lunch and mani/pedis to kill the time.  We picked Blue up from the airport around 5:30 and headed to Shannon's grandparents house. Shannon has a lot of family in St. Louis and they treated us just like family! Her grandma made us a feast of fried chicken, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes. It was sooo delicious.  Here's there house...isn't it adorable?

Shannon and her grandparents...she's the tall one for this side of the family :)

After dinner we headed to Shannon's flat. She has this amazing apartment! It's an apartment exclusively for artists. Shannon is a graphic designer so she fits right in. Her loft is amazing....exposed brick, cement floors, exposed pipes, updated fixtures. Alison, Blue, and I were all in love with it! 

We were pretty tired after our travel day so we figured out sleeping arrangements and hit the sack. I somehow managed to share Shannon's amazingly comfortable bed for the entire weekend. It was awesome. The next day was jam packed with touristy things. 

Shannon took us to this amazing breakfast place called Rooster. We all had delicious crepes and the wait wasn't long even though it was packed! 

A round of mimosas before starting the day.

The great thing was that everything we went to on Saturday was within walking distance of Shannon's apartment. She really hit the jackpot with that place.  Next stop was the famous Arch! The Gateway to the Midwest!

Shannon: tourguide

It was here that I took my most famous picture of the weekend:

I got made fun of the entire weekend for that instagram...I'll admit, the ones they took had a bit more face and a bit more light but come on....this is art!

Shannon and I in our frisbee numbered baseball seats we found on the sidewalk.

This is where Shannon got the title for her car...

We also stopped by the library on our way home. I wish I had a picture of this place. It is truly incredible! They have completely renovated it and it's gorgeous and modern on the inside, and old/elegant on the outside. There were conference rooms for book clubs, an amazing kids room where Shannon whooped me at Checkers. The design of the place was just incredible! I think I would go there just to hang out if I lived in St. Louis.

After cooling down back at Shannon's place we walked down to Schlafly's tap room. Schlafly's is a famous brewery in St. Louis so we had to check it out. The best part was that our first round came in glasses that mirrored our height in relation to one another.

Shannon, Laurie/Blue, Alison

Afterwards we headed to a MAD house! Seriously...this place was crazy! It's called the City Museum and this guy just built this absolutely crazy jungle gym out of everything imaginable. We spent an hour here and then booked it home. It was exhausting and just plain crazy!! Plus we didn't really fit in a lot of it...it was extremely claustrophobic and there were kids popping out of tunnels and holes everywhere!

Here's the museum. Yes...that's a school bus hanging off the roof.

No words

This was a hole in the ground that you had to fall through. It ended in a slide and you found yourself trapped under ground and the only way out was a tiny crack in the wall that none of us could fit through or a tunnel we had to squeeze through on our hands and knees.

Shannon working on her physique.

 What is that?? You could climb on everything you see in this picture. Everything you see is part of the jungle gym.

Same here.

Here's Shannon driving the bus off the roof of the building.

Alison getting coached across the stepping stones.

Alison and I rode the Ferris Wheel. It was on top of the roof and you could see the whole city! It was fun but we asked the operator to let us off first and he did. It was rickety and high and there was a storm coming in....we did not want to be stuck at the top of a metal Ferris Wheel in a lightning storm!

And this is how you got down from the Ferris Wheel level.

That night a huge storm came in so we skipped the piano bar and stayed in instead. After the long day we had, it was much needed!

More to come on Day 2 of Slab Reunion: St Louis!