Pan Fry Chicken - Easter recap (very belated)

I realize this is extremely belated, but I was getting pictures off of my phone and realized I had some old photos from our Easter trip to Missouri that I hadn't posted. I didn't take very many, but thought it was worth sharing the few I took.

Here's sweet Bailey sleeping in the back of the car on the way to Missouri.

What's Easter without baby chicks and ducks??? One night, we took Grandma Kiehl out for dinner and stopped by Orchelen's (a local farm store similar to Tractor Supply) for their annual "Chick Days".

Aren't they cute?

Though, we found it quite disturbing that one variety was called "Pan Fry Special".

Last, but not least, I thought it was very important to note that my parent's road actually has a name now! Because they are now getting 911 service in their area, the county had to name all of the gravel roads so they could be identified for 911 calls. My entire life, the road just had "311" on the stop sign. It wasn't an address, just a number. Our address had always been Rt. 1. For the first time ever, my parents have an actual street address. I think it's funny that they live on Boxelder Avenue...nothing like a gravel road named after a bug!

Memorable Memorial Day weekend

A couple of days before the Memorial Day weekend holiday, I get a call from my sister, Jenna, asking "what are you doing this weekend?" Although this is fairly inocuous question, it had a twinge of devious curiosity behind it. I soon learn the reason she asked - she and Jeremy wanted to come visit. We told them we'd love to have them. The next day, I talked to my Mom and it turns out that she and my Grandma Kiehl wanted to come along! So, we had a house full of guests for the holiday weekend.

When my family arrived, they showed up with a huge bucket of flowers from my Mom and two grandmothers! I was thrilled! I quickly whipped out all of my vases (that never get used, ahem, Garth!) so we could arrange them and place throughout the house. Since I couldn't keep them forever, I took pictures so I could always remember how great they looked.

I was especially excited to get these gorgeous, fragrant peonies. Garth and I got married four years ago during Memorial Day weekend and we had peonies at our wedding. I love them! They are beautiful and smell fantastic. It was such a treat to have some fresh blooms in our house for a few days.

Pretty pink roses from Grandma Kiehl in a crystal vase from Grandma Tieman (which was a wedding shower gift - it came from Germany and is something she's had for years).

Petit roses from Grandma Kiehl in a charming vase from Garth's mom, Linda. It was darling on our kitchen window sill.

The irises came from my Mom and both Grandmothers. They looked lovely on top of my piano!

I didn't get many pictures of the family, but here's one of my Grandma Kiehl, Mom, Jenna and me. On that Saturday, we had a great trip to the farmer's market. Since my Grandma has such a green thumb, she loved inspecting the fruits and veggies and talking to all the vendors. After that, we headed to Zackie's Hot Dogs in Germantown for lunch. This is us sitting outside of the restaurant. After lunch, we hit the flea market that was in town. Busy day!

Jenna and Jeremy at Zackie's.

Garth and me outside of Zackie's.

Bailey also enjoyed seeing my family. She loved all of the attention (and the food!). She did one of her favorite things and climbed up in my Mom's lap. She loves her Grandma Marj!

We had a great weekend and enjoyed having everyone come visit!

Girls Weekend!

Last month (yes, I realize I'm a bit behind), my gal pals and I decided to have a good ole fashioned girls weekend and slumber party! We started out with brunch and mimosas at Marche. I had their French toast croissant - it was delicious and a perfect way to start the day.

From there, we headed to Signature to get pedicures. Here's Cara, Katie and Jan sipping (free) wine while we get our pedicures. Our toes looked so pretty!

After we got pampered, we went shopping with our resident fashionista, Cara. We went to My Sister's Closet, a fantastic consignment store, and scored some serious deals.

When it was time for dinner, we headed to Rosepepper for some Mexican and the BEST margaritas in town.

After a whirlwind day, we headed back to Katie's to hang and spend the night. Addison, Cara's blue tick coon hound, and Frodo Baggins, Katie's French mastiff, played all night. We got a kick out of watching them.

Peek-a-boo! Addison looks out from underneath Frodo's legs. Can you tell there's about a 100-pound size difference?

Here's Addison and Frodo on Katie's bed. We're convinced they are now in love. Don't they look like they are spooning?




And now, they are kissing. It was just too cute.

Okay, clearly we were entertained by the dogs. It doesn't take much with us! Anyway, we all had a fabulous time. Thanks for hosting us, Katie! We're all looking forward to the next slumber party!

VGEG in town!

My roommate from freshman year in college and fellow 6-Pak member, Virginia Goodin (aka VGEG), came to Nashville for a wedding a couple of weeks ago. While she was in town, we were able to get together for dinner at Cabana, one of our favorite places in town. We had fun catching up!

Here's Garth with John Douglas, Virginia's fiance. We're excited to head to Charleston, Mo., for their wedding in August!

Bailey's strange habits

We haven't posted about Bailey in a while, so we thought we'd share one of her strange habits. For some reason, Bailey LOVES to run between our legs. I guess she does it because it means it's hard for us to move and we HAVE to pay attention to her. Whatever the reason, we find it funny and snapped a couple of photos of her doing it recently. Silly Bailey!

Back to normal - FINALLY!

After several weeks of craziness, we finally have our house (mostly) back to normal. It's taken a lot of patience and a lot of work. Here are some final pictures of the process.

With everything tore up, we took the opportunity to repaint. And we did a LOT of painting. The biggest hassle was the kitchen - we ended up painting it THREE times. Unfortunately, we ended up with some bad paint from Sherwin Williams and it didn't go on very smoothly. After putting on two coats of the bad stuff, we realized we needed another type of paint. It was nice of Sherwin Williams to give us a free gallon of something else, but it still didn't make up for the countless hours we spent going around all of the nooks and crannies in our kitchen. It's still not perfect, but after three coats, it will just have to do!

Once the painting was done, it was finally time to get the floors in. Our contractor started in the kitchen, so everything had to go into the living room. We had all of our furniture put in a P.O.D., but we left the appliances in the house.

So, here's our stove and washer/dryer hanging out in the living room (along with everything from our pantry).

The refrigerator was moved into the living room too. I'm impressed he moved all of the appliances by himself!

Here's the tile as it's going into the kitchen.

And, here's the process of the wood flooring going in.

And, here's the finished tile - hooray! I think the porcelain tile makes a big difference in the kitchen. I'm glad we were able to upgrade!

Here's what it looks like in our kitchen.

Here's a closeup of our new wood flooring. It's hickory and I think it turned out beautifully!

Here's what it looks like in the living room. We also got a new floor lamp. We've had some money left over from insurance, so we've been able to get some other new things.

Another view of the living room. Now we just need to get a coffee table and area rug and we'll be all set!

We also got a lamp for the top of the piano. I love having lots of light, so I'm thrilled about my new lamps!

So, there you have it - our house is finally put back together again! We're so thrilled. Thanks to everyone who helped out along the way - Garth's parents, Blair, Kyle, Jason, Jan and Dan. We appreciate your help with painting and moving furniture around. We're blessed to have friends and family like you!

Reliving old times

A few weeks ago, we got the wild idea revisit an old Haunt of ours - Silverado's. Garth and I used to go to this place with his group of friends even before we were dating, which was almost seven years ago!

This place is a TRUE honky tonk. It's off the beaten path and has very serious group of line dancers who come on a regular basis. The reason we went (and used to go) was for the wonderful beer special. So, after watching Mizzou get beat by UConn, we decided to take our group on this wonderful adventure.

Here's Garth and I cheesing once we get there - we really can't believe we went along with the idea to go!

Here are the guys trying to act tough or re-enact a college frat boy look. I think they did well, don't you think?

Me and the girls. And yes, that's a boxing game behind us. It was really classy. It was a game where a boxing glove drops down and you hit it as hard as you can. We watched MANY macho guys try and prove how strong they are by punching this thing. We were very impressed. ;)

Blair and Jan take a turn on the dance floor. They were actually brave enough to two step. The rest of us just watched. Did you check out that cowboy hat? There were plenty of those...and big belt buckles to go along with it. I think this is the only place in Nashville where the people wearing cowboy hats and such are NOT tourists.

At the end of the night, we stopped at Waffle House for a late night snack. It's been a LONG time since we have done anything like that. It made for a very college-like evening, but it was a fun time!