Lake With the Dogs

To add to the exciting trip to Atlanta on Friday night, the dogs and I packed up on Saturday and headed to Clarks Hill to hang out with some of our closest friends. Abby was so nice to invite us to her parent's lake house to hang out on Saturday. We had a great time hanging out in the boat and swimming in the water! Thank you, Abby for letting us come hang out! It was so fun!!!

Abby and Rowdy-Roo

Bella in her life-jacket

The dogs at the beach

The girls

Clyde was very tired from all the swimming.

Bella was also very tired from the swimming.

Me and the bubbas - love these dogs!

Bruiser - so stinkin' cute!

Me and Jess

Ticket to the Game - $45; Drinks - $4-$7/drink; Hotdog - $5; Peanuts - $5; Hearing Carrie ask, "Who Won??" - PRICELESS

Growing up in Georgia my entire life, I have always loved the Braves. I can remember exactly where I was in 5th grade when the Braves won the 1995 World Series. Jason and I watch nearly every game on T.V. But, in our entire 5 years of marriage (and 10 years together), we have never been to a Braves game together...until Friday! On Friday, we packed up the Tahoe with our dear friends Kevin, Carrie, Ryan and April and traveled to Atlanta to watch the Braves play the Milwaukee Brewers. We had such a great time at the game!

In order to save time, money and frustration on parking, we decided to take Marta. For those of you that have never riden on Marta, it is quite an experience. You never know who you are going to encounter on the Marta train. On the way to the game, there was a guy wearing purple latex gloves explaining to everyone how to break into a house without the cops knowing who it was...hmmm....nice. Needless to say, it took some coaxing for Jason to get me to ride the Marta back.

I love everything about going to baseball games....the atmostphere is so amazing to me. The loyalty of the fans, even when loss seems inevitable, the smell of the fresh cut grass, the sound of the concession workers yelling, "Beer, peanuts, cotton candy!" These are some of my favorite things about baseball games. There were two things about this game that were especially awesome (besides the company of great friends). The first was the usher in our section. His name was Herman, and he was probably 80 years old. Herman made sure to tell the girls in our group that we were so pretty. He was so into the Braves spirit, he would motivate the fans to keep cheering on the team even in the face of defeat. At one point during the game, he pulled out a picture of his 11 day old grandchildren to show off to the crowd. The girls in our group literally could not get enough of this sweet man!

My other favorite thing about this game was when, at the end of the game, Kevin's sweet girlfriend asked, "Who won??" We thought this was so funny! Carrie is not a huge sports fan, but she's such a good sport about watching baseball, football, golf, etc. with Kevin. And she came to the game to hang out with us. It was seriously one of my favorite moments of the evening! She's so great! (I should mention here that the Braves lost - 9-3).

Here are some pictures from our great trip to Turner Field:

Discipline

Jason and I recently implemented two things in our lives that have required significant discipline on our parts: P90X and a budget.

We are failing miserably with the P90X workouts. We started out doing really well. We were even waking up at 4:50 (yes, 4:50 A.M) to do our workout before Jason had to get ready for work. But, when Jason started putting the hardwoods down, we didn't have enough space upstairs for both of us to do the videos, so we held off while construction was in progress. Excuses, excuses, excuses...but, I think we are finally back on the wagon and will be re-starting the P90X workout program TODAY. For any of you that have not tried this program, it is awesome! Its pretty difficult, but if you have *discipline* (key-word for the day), then the results are great. You should expect to gain a good bit of muscle and also burn some fat. Highly recommend it.

As far as the budget goes, we are doing pretty well. We implemented a budget in order to try to pay off Jason's student loans as quickly as possible and also start saving for a new house (obviously a long-term goal since the loans may take some time). Its AMAZING to me how much money we wasted before implementing the budget. Just totally wasteful purchases. So, now we have a better grasp of where money is being spent, and we have been able to cut out unnecessary or frivilous purchases from the budget (for the most part - there are some things that we cannot live without, such as DVR - I'm pretty sure anyone who has ever had DVR can sympathize). But, we really feel that this is going to allow us to be more intentional with our finances and the gifts that God has provided. If anyone's interested in a pretty cool money-managing tool, we are using http://www.mint.com/ - its from the makers of Quicken, and its totally free. Mint allows you to link with your bank accounts, credit cards, loans, etc. and categorizes all of your expenses. You can also set up budgets and review monthly budget to actual comparisons to see if you were within target. Pretty cool stuff (oh my gosh, yes, I am a CPA). But, really its a very useful website if you want to check it out!

Hardwoods and Furniture

When Jason and I got married 5 years ago, we had next to nothing. The only furniture to our name was my bedroom furniture that my mother had given me for my 10th birthday. This furniture is beautiful, and we still use in our guest bedroom. But, when we got married and moved into our 900 sq. ft. two bedroom apartment on Wesleyan Drive in Macon, it was all we had. So, we felt very blessed to have Jason's parents give us some beautiful furniture that they had in their formal living room. They also were so sweet to pay to have it covered for us in the fabric of our choosing. I absolutely LOVE this furniture. It's bright and colorful. But, recently, Jason's brother, Derrick bought a home down the street from us, and, much like us, he also had only a bedroom furniture set. So, when Derrick bought his house, we felt that it was only fair that we help him out since Jason and Derrick's parents were so willing to help us out.

So, we set out to get new furniture. As you all know, our dogs, Bruiser and Bella, are shedders, so we decided to go with leather, which seems to not show dirt and hair nearly as much as our bright, cloth-covered furniture. After getting the furniture in the house, we decided to lay hardwoods down. Jason did such a good job on the floors! I'm forever amazed at his ability to pick up a project and run with it. He is such a hard worker, and I am so blessed to have such an amazing husband!