Finally Friday.

This week was the looooongest week! And if I can just get through invoicing today at work then I am home free. I'm scootin' out early and unwinding with some twilight yoga + then a super hot date with my hubby {which includes some yummy dinner and Avatar on blue ray...my kind of date!} Tomorrow I have a wedding so we are pretty low key tonight.

Book club is officially started!! woohoo! Our first book is Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. It's a really good read and I'm liking it a lot so far. I have to admit I was biased when I put this on our 'to read' list because they are making it into a film later this year, and guess who is the main star? If you know me, you probably guessed right. Yep, Robert Pattinson will be gracing his face on screen for this one-and he'll play the perfect part. Oh and did I mention Reese Witherspoon is his castmate? Yep, it's sure to be a fantastic film.

Happy reading to all my book club ladies!! Can't wait for our first get together!

Thoughts on Thursdays

Hello dear friends! For this weeks Thoughts on Thursdays I have a little surprise for you....my first guest blogger! I've asked my blog friend Krysten from After I Do to share her thoughts on marriage. She married her husband Dustin a few months after I got married.

Hello all! My name is Krysten and I actually went to the same high school as Abbey (but we've never met). Small world huh? So when she asked me to do a guest spot for Thoughts on Thursdays I almost immediately had an idea for what I wanted to say. Enjoy!

Getting Away From It All
My husband, Dustin, and I often find that we get really caught up in the hustle and bustle of everything that goes on in our married life. Sometimes we don't even realize how stressed we are until we get away from it all.

We're lucky that my parents live in Northern Wisconsin and it is the perfect place to get away. We ditch our cell phones, which don't even work at my parents' house, and our computers and for a weekend we'll forget about the things that are stressing us out. We eat my mom's home cooking, go for walks with the dogs and if it's the summer we go out on the boat and spend time in the sunshine. And by the end of the weekend the stress has melted away and we feel that much closer to each other.

I've found that in marriage it's really easy to fall into the rut of working too hard, playing too hard and stressing too much. But I've always found that if you take a little time to unplug that technology and hide away you can make your marriage that much stronger.

The Emerald City

Seattle was a blast! We were blessed with beautiful weather and safe travels. Spending the weekend shopping, eating and relaxing with Jenni was so amazing. We stayed with our friend Andy on Thursday night before checking into our hotel on Friday. He was nice enough to let us borrow his car the entire weekend! And he took us out for to the best sushi dinner. Thanks Andy!! We also were able to see Anna, an old friend of mine who now lives in Seattle. I am so bummed I forgot to get a picture with her, but we had a nice visit at a cute little Italian bistro where they made the most delicious crepes.

The highlight of our trip was Pike's market. It was so cool. It is like the farmers market but 10 times bigger, and a permanent structure throughout the year. They had everything from fresh seafood, fruits, veggies, and flowers to souveniers and gifts. I stopped at a lavendar stand to bring some fresh lavendar home for my Mom. Jenni bought some organic body products. We stayed at the Maxwell Hotel in downtown Seattle. The space needle was directly outside our window and was so pretty lit up at night (although the needle is deceiving small compared to pictures I've seen) It was still cool. If you visit Seattle make sure to stop at Beecher's cheese. Beecher's is a cute little shop where they make handmade cheese. It is so delicious. We stopped a few times there to buy cheese and then ran over to the market to get some fresh bread and grapes for a picnic lunch/snack. Shopping in Belltown is also fun and they have trendy unique little stores where you can find one of a kind items. The Endless Knot was my favorite, and I brought home a few cute summer essentials. Here are a few pictures to share.

Book Club.

Jenni and I decided to start a book club!! If anyone is interested in joining get in contact with me in the next couple of days so we can get you on the e-mail list. It will involve getting together for drinks/appetizers/girl time once a month and I'm sure we won't always stick to book talk. I am a super super nerd and very excited for this. The more the merrier =)

p.s. Seattle was awesome. More to come on that.

So long, farewell.

This morning we woke up to my favorite thing: a good ol' thunderstorm! It was awesome. It woke me up a little early but I didn't mind snuggling in our warm bed and sleeping a little longer, I only wished I could have stayed there all day!

I almost forgot to share with you one of my favorite parts of the weekend-friday night! Jenni and I headed over to Robyn's with the intentions of whipping up some delicious appetizers together. But I jumped on Robyn's massage table for an hour long {amazing-thanks Robyn!!} massage, and Jenni was the cook in the kitchen. The table was set up in the area that connected the kitchen to the rest of the house so we were in close proximity and still able to chat during my relaxation. Poor Jenni ended up preparing everything though because we were so hungry and wanted to eat right away. We had margarita pizza, buffalo chicken dip, taco dip, and fruit pizza...YUM! We put in Harry Potter and enjoyed our food+wine. {Bonus score because we watched the Goblet of Fire so we got to see some Rob too!} It was the perfect evening and I really enjoy hanging out with those two!

Tomorrow were having an office outing to the new Target Field to watch the 12:10 Twins game and then I'm off to Seattle. I know, life is rough ;) So until next week.......goodbye Minneapolis, Hello Seattle! xxoo

Happy Monday!

This weekend was like summer....hot, sunny, glorious summer. It was so amazingly beautiful and exactly the re-charge I needed. We spent the entire weekend outdoors and I now have a nice little sun-kissed body. I love the touch of summer, especially in Minnesota. I can't wait to get to the cabin and out on the lake. Oh and get to the fair!!!

Saturday we cleaned out the entire garage {like, every single little inch of it} We got rid of boxes of 'stuff' and listed more on our craigslist postings to go. We had a few people stop by and purchase some from our last list and almost everything is now gone from that one. In the afternoon we went to my Mom's for some bean bags and a bbq. It was so yummy to eat cheeseburgers fresh off the grill, our first cookout this year! We spent a total of $1 that day, to rent a redbox for movie night -so our budget was loving us. Sunday we went to a great Church service and then headed home to re-finish our craigslist item while watching the Twins/Masters in the garage. Once we get it put back together I'll do a little 'reveal' with before and after pictures, it turned out so great. Then we grilled at home and ate dinner together outside...a perfect spring evening. We were so exhausted last night!!

I am feeling very re-freshed because I have felt the light at the end of the tunnel...winter is officially over and spring is here. This summer is going to be one of the best ones yet. I'll barely be working. In the end of June we'll be heading to the cabin for a week with my family, and then we'll return and have one day at home before we leave for France for two weeks. After returning from France, we'll have a couple weeks at home and then we'll be driving my sister down to Florida for college, so that will take about a week too. I love family road trips. Basically I'll have about 4 paid weeks off and it is sounding heavenly. I am so excited.

To make my week even better, I'm leaving for Seattle for a girls trip with Jenni. I am so so lucky! I am feeling a little guilty since money is recently very tight for us, but we planned this trip months ago and thankfully, it's pre-paid. All I'll have to pay for is the 'extras' and I can {and will} be very careful with that. We'll be staying at a brand new hotel that just opened in late March so we got a great promotional deal and it will be a lot of fun. I can't wait to eat lots of seafood, visit some wineries, and catch up with some friends that live in the area! I don't care if is pouring rain the whole trip, we are going to have a fantastic time!!!

To add to all of that exciting-ness, today is opening day for my Twins and downtown is buzzing with excitement......let's go boys!!!

Thoughts on Thursdays

Just be.

Sometimes you don't have to do big fancy things to show your love.

Sometimes extravagant+bigger is not always better.

Sometimes even words aren't needed.

Sometimes just being together on the couch is enough.

Sometimes {almost always for us} simpler is better.

Sometimes just a glance can spark a thousand feelings.

Sometimes it's good not to have much, so you know exactly what you aren't missing.

Setback.

Sooooo remember just last week when I said we were finally at a place where we were not financially struggling, etc.? Yep, Jay's student loans kicked in this week and it's not a pretty sight. It will set us back each month and the budget will be even tighter, but that's life right? Just when you are feeling secure something knocks you off your feet! We're planning on putting big chunks of my wedding photography money towards it so that we can pay it down and get the monthly payment to a manageable amount, but that won't be until mid-summer when wedding season is in full swing. So the next couple months will be cutting it close. We're not going to let it stop us from having fun though, it will just mean coming up with creative ideas for inexpensive dates. Let the brainstorming begin.....this could actually be a lot of fun! When life gives you lemons, make some darn good lemonade right?

I hope everyone had a great Easter!

Happy Monday.

And this is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life. 1 John 2:25

He is risen!! What a monumentous celebration of our Father. We had a wonderful long Easter weekend with family, complete with TWO filled easter baskets for hubby+I. The easter bunny loved up on us this year ;) Saturday was beautiful and we headed outside for some wiffle ball baseball+a ladder golf tournament. We dyed eggs and mama+I hooked {explanation later} and spent time as a family.

Jay+I had Friday off, so we slept in and then got in a workout before heading to Bunny's. We made a pit stop on the way to check out a craiglist item we'd been drooling over. It's always so exciting on the way to find your craigslist item, you never know if the item will be what you pictured when you see it in person....we always wonder will it be trash? or treasure? This time it was definetly treasure!! We scoured an awesome piece that we will be sharing later.

We spent the afternoon catching up on what we had missed over the week and visiting with Bunny + Papa. Later we saw The Last Song+ as expected the book was much better. Aren't they always? It was still entertaining though. {I may be biased because Miley Cyrus is one celebrity I'd like to punch in the face. Her acting is horrible, although I like her voice!}

On Sunday we went to an amazing Easter service and then headed to Jay's dad's for Easter lunch. It was another beautiful day so we sat outside in the sun while the boys played polish horseshoes. Sunday evening was movie night!! It was a fun weekend and this week has a lot in store for us....many projects to do!! I need to post images so I'll make sure to do that later. Happy Monday! xxoo

Thoughts on Thursdays

Today is day 7 away from my hubby, so I thought I would list a few things that I noticed I miss about him when he's away.

-I miss coming home to the smell of dinner cooking

and hearing his happy voice, waiting to greet me.
-I miss him telling me it's bedtime. I've been getting lost in a book or on my mac and I don't realize I'm tired until I finally

realize it's past 11:30. That doesn't fly when he's home =)

-I miss finding my pillow in his spot when I climb into bed at night {I get up before him in the mornings, and every morning he takes my pillow and sleeps with it until he has to get up. He swears mine is more comfortable...we have the same pillows people. It's super cute}
-I miss having the mail hand-delivered to me!
-I miss stealing his socks. It's no fun to steal when he's not home to notice ;)
-I miss having him around all the time...

I thank my God every time I remember you Philippians 1:3