JUST ADD A "LAN"

This weekend I went home to Florida and was a bridesmaid in my friend Jackie's wedding... Jackie Mas is now Jackie Maslan. Relatively easy name transition if you ask me! The weekend was so much fun! I flew in to Jax on Thursday night - hung out with my family and Josh's family a little bit and then after a lunch with some old Haskell friends on Friday, Paula and I headed down to Ormand Beach for the rehearsal. The rehearsal was followed by a dinner hosted by Billy's parents - they both have very big families and the dinner turned out to be almost as big as the wedding! They said that as a whole all of the guests for the wedding took up over 40 rooms at the hotel. Very fun. On Friday night we spent the night with Jackie at her parents house - just the girls. It was so good to catch up and be with Jackie before her big day :)


The morning of the wedding Jackie had some girls come to the house to do our hair and makeup there - we all got ready and then rode in the limo to the church. The ceremony was absolutely beautiful and all of Jackie's 7 nieces and nephews made it down the aisle just fine. The reception was at the country club in her parents neighborhood. Liz was my date at dinner as Josh could not make it to the wedding this weekend - we got to catch up which was good! We had such a great time - the dinner and cake were amazing and there was plenty of dancing to be had by all. Check out more of the pictures on facebook.

Congratulations Jackie and Billy - I am so happy for you guys! I hope you have a wonderful time in Costa Rica!
Much love,

GOING TO THE CHAPEL

I finally get to return the favor as a bridesmaid to one of my very best friends...This Thursday I leave for Jacksonville to go to Jackie's wedding. I am so excited to be able to be a part of the wedding party and be there as she and Billy get married. I can't believe that it has been 5 years since Jackie and I have become friends... although we went through all of interior design school together at Florida, it was not until our Junior year that we began to have all of our classes together and really became good friends... Jackie informed me a couple of weekends ago that one of the first times that we really talked was when she beat me out at the end of our sophomore year as the president-elect for the student chapter of ASID/IIDA. We definitely did not let that ruin our friendship. :) Here are a few pics from a the past few years of some really good memories... ENJOY!

St. Patrick's Day in Nashville - Interiors 06 ASID Conference

Senior Chicago Trip - One of my favorite pics :)

Chicago - On top of the John Hancock Bldg.

Riverboat cruise in Chicago - complaining about the rain & cold!

Halloween 2006

Christmas 2006 - ASID/IIDA Student Officers

Our beautiful snow flakes!

Our awesome Senior FINAL project - The Seafoam Bar & Lounge

ASID/IIDA End of the year dinner 2007

End of the year Senior class dinner :)

GRADUATION DAY!! We thought this day would never come!

The Girls minus Vivi... with Paula oddly squatting?

At my wedding... October 2007

Vivi's Wedding - January 2008

Savannah March 2010

Dinner in Savannah - WE LOVE YOU :)

To Jackie - I am so incredibly excited for you and Billy as you are about to start your lives together as a married couple. Josh and I will be praying for you both as you learn to love each other more and more and give God the glory in your marriage. I love you and I am so incredibly excited about your big day on Saturday!! Thank you for letting me be a part of your wedding - I am so honored.

BIRMINGHAM BARONS

Jacksonville has the Suns... Birmingham has the Barons. Josh and I thought it would be fun to go to the opening Barons game last Friday night and so we did. We went with a few of his friends from school and had a really good time. We ended up talking most of the time instead of watching the game... isn't that what you are supposed to do at Baseball games? I must admit that the stadium is significantly smaller than the Suns' stadium - but we were trying not to judge. The game was good - the home team lost (something we are used to with the Suns) and it ended with fire works - what more could we ask for?!?

We are looking forward to many more games this summer... The Barons are actually in the same league as the Suns and so we are planning on sporting some Suns game day attire when they play here just to be a little obnoxious to the Ham residents :)

NEW ACCESSORIES

Josh and I have been on the lookout lately for some reasonably priced accessories that would spruce up the apartment a bit. Here are some of the nice finds we have made... Accessories #1 are the beauties that you see to the left. These floor vases were half-price at one of our favorite Birmingham shops - IO Metro. I really like the large scale of these vases and how they seem to fill the space in the dead corner next to our TV stand. Very nice. We filled them with some decorative grass from Pier 1 - very inexpensive as well.

New accessory #2 are the new throw pillows that you see below. Funny thing is that you would think that since I work in a fabric store, I would be able to find fabric there that I could use and take advantage of my awesome employee discount - what can I say?!? I guess I am just too picky - not for lack of trying though... I can assure you. We also found these at IO Metro. I love the colors in them - with the red wall behind I thought it would be nice to find a pattern that picked up the red but had some other colors to tie in as well - hence the brown and aqua. (Another big plus to these wonderful pillows is that they were already made... into pillows. No sewing for me!) Very nice.
Accessory #3 that we have acquired as of late are 2 new bar stools for the counter. We found these great looking additions to our apartment at TJ Maxx. I never would have thought to look there for furniture but leave to my deal seeking husband to find the exact same stools as the ones at a boutique here in the Ham that we love for a 1/3 of the price at TJ Maxx. He's good. We have been looking for stools since we moved in last August. We can now officially seat 6 for a meal!

I love it how a few new additions can really spruce up the place and make it seem new and interesting. Hope everyone is having a good week!

HOME TO JAX & SAVANNAH

This past weekend Josh and I were able to take a long 4-day weekend and go home to Jacksonville. Josh has spring break this week and so he did not have class on Monday. It worked out perfectly so that we could go home to see our family and so that I could spend time with my friend Jackie at her shower and bachelorette party. Josh and I left Thursday afternoon and got in around midnight. We tried something new... listening to a book on CD. It actually made the 8 hour drive fly by and put Molly right to sleep in the back seat. It was nice.

We spent Friday with my Mom, sister and my sister's boyfriend Dan - who we got to meet for the first time. On Friday night my mom's family all came to her house for an early dinner. It was so good to see everyone. Later that night I headed over to Paula's house for Jackie's Bridal shower. it was really nice and relaxing and Jackie got lots of good stuff. It was nice to finally be able to meet all of her sister-in-laws. She has such a great close family.

Jackie & her Bridesmaids (minus 2 who were not at this shower)

On Saturday morning we woke up and then Paula, Jackie, Jackie's friend Jessica and I carpooled to Savannah. We went straight to check into the hotel - as we drove through downtown we realized how crowded it was going to be with the St. Patrick's Day festivities going on. Everyone in the city was wearing green except the four of us... we missed the memo I guess. As we were checking into our rooms the hotel manager informed us that the original rooms we reserved with 2 double beds in each were now booked and they could give us 2 rooms with 1 king bed in each. We knew this would not work and Jackie promptly said "We have 7 WOMEN staying here." They ended up upgrading both rooms at no cost and it was great. We ended up with a suite and a room with a balcony - sweet! It was great to get there in the afternoon and be able to walk around and do some shopping or looking. We found so many cute little shops... A candy shop, a Knoll Home Boutique, the best consignment shop ever. On Saturday night we found a great place for dinner called Rocks on the Roof. It was wonderful - Jackie and I split a pizza and got something called grit cakes as an appetizer. Here are some of the pictures from the weekend... you can view the rest on facebook.

Paula at the Knoll Home Boutique

Green Pralines for St. Patty's Day

The girls on the balcony in our upgraded room

Me, Jackie & Paula at dinner

On Sunday morning Paula and I drove back to Jacksonville and I went straight to meet Josh and his family for lunch at Times Grille where I promptly ordered SWEET POTATO FRIES - YUM! It was good to see all of Josh's family. We got to sit near his cousin John who told us all about how he is going to hike the Appalachian Trail this summer - very cool. Later that evening we got to hang out with some of our good friends the Capertons and the Acrees for dinner at Barbara Jean's in Ponte Vedra. I am so glad that we got to see Emily and Spencer - they are moving back to Texas in a couple of weeks and so we may not see them for a while. Plus, they just found out that they are having identical twin boys - HOW COOL IS THAT?!?! So exciting. It was so good to see Winnie, Alan and Miss Clara too - She is getting so big so fast.

Emily, Me & Winnie

The group at dinner - after the 3 in the back took a huge bite!

Josh and I made it back to Birmingham on Monday evening after another 8 hour trip. I am so glad that we were able to make this trip home this week. Next major trip I am on will be back to Jax and then to Ormand Beach on the weekend of April 24 for Jackie and Billy's wedding - can't wait!!

TRIP TO CORPORATE

Last week I went to Philidelphia for training with work. It was a long week but it was nice to get out of the store for a bit and meet people all over the country who are doing the same thing I am doing. I decided to include Calico's spring flyer here to show everyone more of the kinds of things I do at work - I think we can say officially now - I DO WINDOW TREATMENTS! My training last week was mainly on sales techniques with lots of role playing. It was not as nerve racking as I thought it would be, so that was good. The headquarters for Calico Corners is actually about an hour outside of Philidelphia in a little town called Kennett Square. It was a cute little place that was out in the middle of a bunch of mushroom fields - all of which we were not able to see due to the massive amounts of snow on the ground as seen below...
Overall it was a good trip - everyone was extremely nice. I am glad that we all made it out of there last Thursday night before the snow storm hit the northeast. Glad to be home... for just a few days. Next weekend Josh and I are going home to Jax to see family and so that I can be there for my friend Jackie's bridal shower and bachelorette weekend to Savannah. (I will also be going back at the end of April to be a bridesmaid in her wedding in Ormand Beach - can't wait!) I am so excited to see everyone, I almost can't stand it :)

VALENTINE'S DAY: RED ROSES & THE PASSOVER

(Weird subject title I know...let me explain) Valentine's day was great. We slept in that morning and Josh woke up and went to get us some lunch/breakfast. He brought me back these beautiful flowers. I love the deep red color - very pretty. (Didn't he do such a great job?!?) Also, I love these occasions where I am ablet o get flowers as I get to enjoy having them around for several days after.

The rest of the day was very relaxing... later that afternoon we went up to church to finish our final new member class and went to the evening service. (Our church has the same service in the morning and at night so that you can choose which one you would like to attend.) It was amazing as usual - this week as we are reading through the bible as a congregation we were in Exodus and were learning about Moses and the passover. (In a way I was wondering if the sermon was going to tie a little bit more into Valentine's... maybe a sermon on love or marriage or God's love?) In a way I guess is was. God loved his people in Exodus so much that he provided a way for them to be saved from the Plaque of killing the first born son throughout Egypt. He told Moses to instruct each Israelite family to kill a spotless lamb and place the blood on the frame of their doors in order to be "passed over." The blood that was used by the sacrificial lambs by the Israelites to save their first born son's was a forshadowing to the New Testament where the blood of Christ is shed for our sins to be the passover of God's judgment on us. I am constantly reminded and in awe of Christ and the awesome sacrifice he made for us. I guess God knew the sermon that we needed to hear on Valentine's Day... the story of his love and ultimate sacrifice for us.


On another note - It is time for a change... sometimes I can become too comfortable with my surroundings and then one day I look around and decide - it's time to update! That time has come with the blog - this is what I have come up with for a new backdrop. Hope you like and I hope everyone is having a good week!