My New Kitchen Walls!

I am SO excited to post these pictures! Not only because they look good, but because my wonderful husband did it!! Well, with the major help of his Dad, but I am still completely impressed! It was also so fun to have his Dad spending so much time with us. I know B really enjoyed that part of it.

We had always said we wanted to continue the beadboard throughout the breakfast area since it came under the breakfast bar. We were thinking it would be a next-year project since we had already done several things to our home since we both moved in and well, renos can get pricey! But, we found the materials on sale at Lowe's one day and B's Dad offered to help teach B how to do it, so it was actually not as expensive as we thought!

*I will warn you, I still need to get the shelves up beside the china hutch and I still need to find the perfect curtains to hang from the ceiling to the floor along the windows, but those will come. Even though it doesn't seem like it, I've been very patient to wait to buy things that fit perfectly with the house than just buying something I kind of like. I'm proud of that! ha!

{the beadboard that was already there from the builders}
{Before}
{AFTER! Still need the shelves!}
{AFTER! Still need curtains, but I love the way it frames the windows!}
{Before}
{After!}

{Brian and his Dad working!}


Hope you likey! :) This past week was absolutely busy/crazy. We worked on the kitchen every night till late, we had Life Group one night, Book club another, and a very busy weekend...which I can't wait to share in other posts! I think this coming week will be my catch-up week, I hope!

Chic-Fil-A to my Heart

Happy 7 Months to US! :)
Today my sweet hubby surprised me at work with some yummy Chic-Fil-A and a very sweet card hidden in the bag. I love that he remembers every month without any reminders. It makes me feel so special to him.

My husband gets an award of some type for the past 8 days. We decided we wanted to go ahead with our kitchen project last Sunday. He started on the project Wednesday, and just finished tonight at 8:30. WOW. All because I wanted it complete before my Book Club tomorrow. He's been working during the day and on the house at night, been sick, and still he completed it on time.

Now that's true love ;).

Can't wait to share pictures of the kitchen! But for now, I've got to keep up with being a bad blogger this week and work more on that Book Club I'm having tomorrow. I should get an award for having it on a work day! haha Hopefully the girls won't judge me too harshly!

Hope your week has been good. I've had lots of praises this week to Him!

New Blog to Stalk

I ran across this little gem and had to share. If you scroll down through her older posts, this lady has some super cute stuff! I haven't checked out her Etsy site yet, but you can order from her blog, too. It looks a lot like some websites I love, but it's cheaper! Wish I would have seen this earlier for some upcoming shower gifts!!

Enjoy!
The Preppy Paper Girl
or
http://preppypapergirl.blogspot.com/

Ned and Stella

I got 2 new students today.
Ned and Stella.

These two students were pretty crazy today. Neither would sit still. Both were jumping off of things. And all the kids were WAY more interested in Ned and Stella than anything I had to say.



How fun, right? Now, I'm not opposed to having pets, but I do not like to clean them, feed them, pay for them, etc. Two of my very sweet students wrote me a pretty convincing letter as to why we should get a class pet. They even held a class meeting to try and raise money. Well it just so happened that the day my kids earned their "10 :)'s", another teacher at my school needed to find a new home for her family turtles. HELLO, YES PLEASE. So, thanks to Kelly, we got the tank, the filter, the turtles, and the cleaning stuff all for free! It worked out great! The kids are working on making a learning web about red-eared slider turtles to be the 'backdrop' of the tank. I'll let you know how that goes!

Visit my friend Katharine's blog. She got a class pet today, too!

Oh, and PS- My students originally asked for a hamster. I cringed at the thought. So I lied. I had to. No choice. I lied and said a student was allergic and if I told them which student was allergic than it might make that student feel badly so I just couldn't tell.
:) I know, I know....

Baby News!

:) No, not me.

Colby is going to have a brother...very, very soon!

Most of you already knew Kelli was pregnant, but my sister is a very private person so I didn't want to share the news too soon! However, she posted the baby room on Facebook; so of course everything is official now! ;)



Isn't the room so cute?! Cameron will be here right before Christmas! Boy has the Giles Family Christmas changed in the last 3 years! All good changes, of course!

Can't wait to meet my new little nephew! xoxo

Apparently it's not like that

I'm wrong about a lot of things ~ especially when it comes to marriage, knowing how to be a wife, and so on.

But here's something I was TOTALLY wrong about!

Let's just say... I always used to say I never knew why people said women would gain weight after they married. To me, I thought that would be the last thing to happen since of course you'd be running around in your, a-hem, birthday suit.

Well, there are 2 lies to that statement.
#1~there's no running around in a birthday suit
#2~nobody does that...what was I thinking?!?!

SO that is to say this:
I cook my husband lots of yummy high-starched meals.
I'd rather sit with him at night than be next to a large sweaty man on a treadmill.
I know he's going to love me whether I gain a pound or two; but of course I'm not gonna get too crazy.

And lastly....
I ran today. I am so proud of myself. :)

18th's a Charm:)

It may have taken 18 tries, but UK beat USC this weekend...and much to my husband's liking, we were there!! {in lower seats with backs...much to my likey!}

We had a fun-packed Saturday. It started out with Georgetown College Homecoming. Neither of us had been back in a while, and we'd never been there together. My friend Amanda Scheller was coming in with her new little one so we decided to go to see her and my friend Jen who was in from SC.

Both the Sigma Kappa and the Kappa Alpha houses looked sooo different since we were there; but definitely in a good way! It was fun to see my group of girls and sad to remember how easy college life was...oh the days! :)
Here are a few snap shots from the morning:
{a few Sigma girls}
{a few cute KA's~B, Adam, Tripp, and future KA, Braeden (2 of these boys were smart enough to marry Sigma's...let's hope the 3rd one is too, haha!)}
{me, baby Trenton, and baby-daddy David}
Unfortunately me and B didn't get a photo at GC ~ I've not been on my game with the camera lately! {I'll tell you the story of the first time me and B met at GC sometime soon ~ it's hilarious to see how that story ended with us getting married in the future!}
**************************************
Now, on to the main event! We tailgated at Jordan and Nick's and once again my Dad scored us great seats! I'm telling you, he literally made Brian's day (or week!).
{tailgating with Jordan and Alison}


{so when this happened...}

{...this happened!}




Next, the boys decided to have a celebratory dance party during the post-game tailgate. I wish I had this stuff on video, pictures do not do these moves justice!




Hope you had a good weekend, too!

*I love that I've been finding out so many fun friends are reading my blog! I'd love it if you'd click on the 'follow' button to the right (if you haven't already) just so I know who I'm sharing our life with! :)

Asheville Get-Away

Southern Living Magazine stated Asheville, N.C. one of the top 10 places to visit. After we decided Chicago wasn't going to work out on the weekend we had planned, we decided to travel only 4 1/2 hours away here. It was fantastic! We could not have planned for better weather!

We left around noon on Friday and were able to get to Asheville in plenty of time to walk around Downtown. Our awesome hotel, Crown Plaza, {thanks to Priceline} even offered $5 round trip shuttles to Downtown anytime between 8am-11pm. Yes, Please! We lived for that shuttle!

{...it's so hard to take pictures when you are on your own! disregard all the self-timer photos!}

Their Downtown is so much fun. Little shops everywhere, fun places to eat, open-air bars, and they even had a local drums concert going on!
We took in the sights and ate and drank the local food, wine, and beer.
Here are a few pics from Friday night:
{Patio at Mayfel's ~ SUCH yummy food! We ordered an extra plate of sweet potato fries here b/c they were so good!}
{local drummers and dancers right in our view from the patio}
{local beers from The Thirsty Monk ~ so fun!}
{Senior Photo shoot b/c no one here ever asked us for our i.d.'s :(}

{re-enacting some awkward moments that happened to us that night!}

On Saturday we woke up with no plans ahead! That feels so good, doesn't it? Although we got a little late start to the day {we are so not 21 anymore ~ ha!} we decided to drive out to the Biltmore Estates to see what that was all about. UM, excuse me, who knew it was sooo expensive?! Well, we did not. After some contemplation, we decided to go ahead and visit. It was actually more fun than I had anticipated! We walked through the gardens, around the estate, and then headed to their Winery for wine tasting. That was fun ~ neither of us had ever done that before!

{The Biltmore Estates}
{on one of the patios of the Biltmore}
{The Biltmore}
{tasting Biltmore Wine}
{Outside Antler Hill Winery, gotta love self-timers!}
{The Garden's at Biltmore}






Next we headed to our hotel to grab the shuttle and went back downtown to Oktoberfest. It was super crazy. People were everywhere dressed as Germans with live German music! We only hung around there for a bit, and decided to walk around to Park Place and Battery Park where some local arts fairs were going on. We also hit up some major people watching. Asheville is like nothing I've ever seen. Here in Lexington, you pretty much see the same type of people everywhere. In Asheville; you can't turn around without seeing someone 'unique'. I mean, these locals were OOC! Hippie capital of the world!
{Oktoberfest}
{I don't know the story behind this, but both nights downtown this funny looking nun would ride around on this large bike and everyone would yell and wave! It was hilarious!}
Then came the best part of the night...in true Burton fashion...we decided to hit up all the local bars and restaurants we'd read about and get an appetizer and drink from each of them! HA! Here are a few we hit up that night:
{The Southern}
{L.A.B. brewery}
{TallGary's where the people were, um, interesting!}
{This place was called the Bier Garden. It was the only bar downtown with TV's! We caught part of the sorry UK game.}

We decided to not be as fun as we were on Friday night since Saturday we had done a LOT of walking, and ended the night after our bellies were full! Loved calling the shuttle to come pick us up!

On Sunday we decided to hike at the NC Arboretum through the Blue Ridge Parkway. The scene was so pretty! My dinky camera did not even grasp how fun and pretty the trail looked ~ but here's a try:







Next we drove around to 3 different places hoping to eat lunch. The first one wasn't open on Sundays, the second one {with the great view} was too long of a wait, so we found a fun little Tavern that ended up having TV's everywhere and ALL the NFL games on. So B was in heaven watching the Packers game! {too bad every team we root for lost this weekend!}

All in all we loved Asheville. It was super different than we had expected, but in a fun and crazy way. You know what else was fun? Going on a vacay where we really didn't have anything planned, we just went and found things to do. I really liked it that way. Hopefully we can continue this non-planned fun for a while!

I'm so glad my hubby and I make time to get away and celebrate the 'little' things in life! Although, six months being married is the biggest anniversary we have to date!