Foolish Weekend

Derrick and I are hitting the road for a 3 day ultimate tournament called Fool's Fest. We're leaving this sweet face behind.

Thankfully she has an awesome Aunt Nikki who she loves almost more then she loves us. She'll have a great weekend.

Hopefully I'll be finalizing some negotiations over the weekend as well :)

L.A.U.R.I.E.

That's my name.


I was warned by the other Marcey ladies that confusion would occur. Maybe I should start signing my emails in all caps. I've gotten 4-5 reply emails this week that start:

Dear Marcey,

That's not even how you spell Marcie as a first name

That's it. I have nothing else to complain about. Life is good :)

Definitely Some Wine in this Design!

Friday night I had a fun girls night with Holly, Meredith, and Rebecca. I love these ladies. Derrick has been best friends with the same three guys (and Holly) since at least high school. We are all the ladies that ended up with these guys and we all get along very well. It's awesome!

Friday we decided to join the Wine and Design trend. Have you seen all those pictures on Facebook of groups of girls holding up the same painting? Yeah...that's this. You paint and you drink wine (or in Holly and my case: Mike's Hard Lemonade :)  We went on college night and painted the NC State bell tower. There were some serious artists in that room.  Us? well....they put us at the back table.  Enough said...

Just kidding! Ours look great from a distance of at least 15 feet! 

Here's some pictures of the night!

They outline what you are going to paint. That's why everybody's looks the same.  Here is ours before hand.

Our group before we started. 

From left to right: Meredith, Holly, Me, Rebecca

 Start with the sky! Then add the bushes!

 Rebecca had an interesting technique. 

 

I want to come back on the night they do this cow! They have open studios where you can pick your own painting and I'd pick this. I also want to do a paint your pet one.

Here are our finished works of art!

Mom...I'm pretty sure you would love this because you're such an artist! Come visit so we can go!

Delicious Stuffed Shells!

I have finally mastered a recipe that I'm confident enough to share on here! This is one of Derrick's favorites and I've made both a meat version and a vegetarian version. I've also changed things up and you really can't mess it up. That's probably why I like it :)

Here's the link to the recipe. This girl does a great job of explaining it with pictures and also providing substitution options.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/10/three-cheese-stuffed-shells-with-meaty-tomato-sauce/  

I have used the red wine in the sauce and I have also substituted beef broth. Both worked great. Additionally, I've cut the recipe in half for just Derrick and I and that has worked just fine as well.

Go cook and enjoy! Don't forget to invite Derrick and I though!

Color Run

Holy cow what a weekend!! We already knew this weekend was going to be busy but it turned even crazier then we first planned for. We started out the weekend by driving to Winston Salem to run in the Color Run!  Derrick's Aunt Mel has turned into a running superstar and does lots of 5K runs. She convinced  Leanna and I to run this one with her a while back. I realized last Wednesday that I hadn't trained at all for this so I was a little bit nervous for the run but I guess once a week Frisbee kept me in better shape then I thought.

The color run is basically a 5 kilometer race with 4 color stations. At these stations you run through a tunnel of color (colored corn starch) and come out the other side completely covered in color. By the end of the race you are tie dyed in 4-5 different colors all over your body. It was definitely a cool experience and made the 3 miles fly by.

There were sooo many people there and everybody was dressed in white shirts.

Unfortunately dogs weren't allowed to run in the race but Crosby still wore a white T-shirt in hopes of catching a little color.

Here we are pre-race and pre-color. Crosby and Derrick were my biggest fans :)

Kevin was there to support Leanna in her first ever 5K. She did awesome!

Here's everybody pre-race on team Piggly Wiggly with pig tails and all. See my sweet tat?

My only complaint about the race was the start time organization. The race supposedly started at 10 but there were so many people, they released everybody in waves. We didn't know this and ended up being in the last wave. That meant we didn't even start running til 10:45. We just stood in this giant crowd of runners for 45 minutes. By the time we got started there were tons of people already finished. I think they should have had you sign up for a specific wave so that not everybody showed up at 10:00 ready to race. Here we are at the back of the line!  Look behind the random children..I'm not sure who they are...

Here is an awesome shot of the color festival after the race. That stuff sticks to you and makes you  look crazy!

We finished!! Here we are all colored up!

And releasing our color packets!

Cros even got a little color!

It was an awesome time and I'm glad I got to run it with such awesome ladies. Thanks to our fan club! It was fun to run across the finish line and see Derrick, his mom, and Kevin cheering us on.

We didn't get to stay for the color festival. We had to immediately run to the car and book it home for our frisbee game at 1:00 and that was just a start to this whirlwind weekend!

A Real Realtor

I'm finally starting to feel like a real Realtor and it feels great! I knew as soon as I turned in my notice as Property Manager in September that I had made a good decision. I immediately felt a wave of relief and I know that I have been less grumpy, and a better wife, daughter, and friend. That job was bringing me down!

What I didn't know for sure yet was if going into Real Estate was a good move. On paper it all made sense. It felt like a natural transition from Property Management and I was familiar with it since my mom is an agent in Hickory. It was, however, a choice to leave a well-paying job and put more pressure on Derrick to support us. I think he would agree that it has turned out to be a change for the better though.

Well, this past week was really great! In Real Estate, one source of leads is referred to as your Sphere of Influence or SOI. My SOI is fantastic. I got four leads from my SOI last week and I am actively working with three of them now. My dream would be to have a referral based business from my SOI and I feel like I'm on the right track! Additionally, my other two current clients are moving right along. One is under contract and the other one had a very educational week and we have narrowed down exactly what he is looking for. I learn how to deal with something new everyday and I'm really enjoying it.

Final peice of the puzzle came from a mentor at work. He asked me to team up with him on his website generated leads. It's a huge opportunity and I am very flattered that he selected me out of the many options he had.

Anyways...this is just a brain dump so I can remember that day I really started feeling like I'm doing well! I hope this high sticks around. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive in my change and thanks to my awesome SOI! It means a lot that you trust me with your house hunt and with recommending me to friends and family!!

OMG Derek Fisher!!

This past Friday night Derrick and I got to have a quick little get-a-way to Charlotte. I got him Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Charlotte Bobcats tickets for Christmas and it was finally here! Derrick's favorite NBA team is the OKC Thunder ever since Kevin Durant joined the team. His favorite player, however, is James Harden aka Beard-Face [Beard-Fa-Say]. Who wants to take a guess at how mad I was when they traded Beard-Face the DAY after I got those tickets!!! Ugggggh

It was OK though because Derrick was still pumped on Christmas morning to open two matching Thunder t-shirts and a note announcing our upcoming trip. 

Derrick took a half day at work and we were on our way. We dropped Crobs at Grandma's house (aka Derrick's Mom's house) and headed to Charlotte. It was a good thing we left early...traffic was not fun around Lake Norman.

But we made it!!

Our hotel was only a few blocks from the arena so we ditched the car, dumped our bags, shined up our OKC logos and headed to the arena!

We were immediately greeted with a good omen. It was Rufus' birthday so all of his mascot friends were there to celebrate...including this pretty lady!

Our seats were awesome! They were almost exactly center court and ended up being around 8 rows up from the floor. I was counting on row F being row 6 but they don't account for some of the first couple rows I guess.  Here's a pictures taken from even farther away from the court then our seats were. It was awesome!

And that's when we saw him!

Bulldog...Bulldog Fisher...D Fisher...Fish....Fish Face...Fish-tastic....Fish Dog...Old Man Fish...

Derek  Fisher!!!

He is my favorite NBA player and just got picked up by the Thunder about 2 weeks ago. I literally screamed in our apartment when Derrick paused ESPN for me to read the bottom scrolley-bar announcement.  Derrick even tricked me into saying he was my favorite Derrick. Not true...he's my favorite Derek...but nowhere near my favorite Derrick :)  Did you follow that?

Proof:

Ok..enough proof. Needless to say...it was awesome! And he went on to have a great game against the Bobcats.

Ok..funny moment of the night. There were these little leaguers playing basketball on the court before tip off. Lets size up the coaches shall we?

vs

Who do you want to play for?

There's Durantula!! I'm not going to say he was a little bit whiny that night. Don't want to hurt his feelings when he reads this. He was moving so fast I couldn't get a focused picture of him. Must be those mile long legs of his.

Mascot Party!

Here is a picture of the tip off. I've already sold the rights to the Charlotte Observer so you'll need to contact them to get your own copy of this shot. 

Ok..We were trying to figure out if this was Michael Jordan. Khaki Jacket, Coral shirt.  He owns the Bobcats you know. It's possible he was too embarrassed to show his face so he gave his tickets to this doppelganger.

The Thunder ended up crushing the Bobcats and removed their starters by the beginning of the 4th quarter. It would have been nice to see a closer game, but it did leave lots of playing time for Fish Dog!

After the game Derrick and I stopped for a delicious meal of BBQ at a local place called the City Smoke. 

It was an awesome trip. I haven't been to Charlotte in years...lots and lots of years and I was impressed by the size of the city. They always say Charlotte is a big city but you think...no way...it's in NC. It actually is and I can see it as a cool place to visit for a bit longer next time. We headed home the next morning to catch our first Spring League frisbee game but it was definitely a fun adventure and a nice little getaway to celebrate Derrick's Christmas and 10 month's of marriage....whoa....