You Say Stuck 168/365

Last night, before I started to get ready for bed, I gave Tyler a kiss and told him I love him a lot. Before I tell you his response, let me just say that those special 3 words are some of my favorites. I heard a great line on a tv show that I watch, where a mother was telling her daughter that sometimes men need to be hit over the head with things. She said sometimes it's frying pans, but mostly it's love. Well, I am definitely a true believer of this...the love part anyway. My husband can definitely defend the fact that I hit him over the head with love. I tell him all the time, because every time he looks at me and smiles or makes me laugh or even just puts his arms around me, I am genuinely overcome with love. Some people may think its too much, but I'm grateful to have so much of it flowing through me. Now, as a result of me saying I love you everytime it comes to mind...which is often, my clever husband likes to mix up his responses. While an 'I love you' of his own usually follows the quick witted remark, I do appreciate that he keeps me on my toes!

Back to last night...after I told him I love him a lot...he responded with, "Well that's good, because you're stuck with me." Now, I try to keep up with Tyler's witt but if you've met him, you know he is fast on his feet! So my failed attempt went something like this..."You say stuck, but I say..." and then I went blank. SO many words I could have used, yet nothing seemed perfect. So, I decided to fill in the blank today with my favorites:

You say stuck, but I say HAPPY.

You say stuck, but I say LUCKY.

You say stuck, but I say BLESSED.

You say stuck, but I say LOVED.

If I'm stuck...I can only hope it's with you. XO

Oh...a picture. I was trying to look for something that made me think of being stuck. This is what I got. It kind of reminds me of a cage. And I am just LOVING the blur...this is straight out of my camera :)

It's a Bird 167/365

Monday was a long day! Because of this, my wonderful husband took on the task of taking our daily picture. My new UGGS came in the mail (Thanks mom for the Valentine!), so he was going to snap some pictures of those. I got ready for bed and layed down. Suddenly, Tyler came into our room with a huge smile on his face. He showed me the picture below and said, "Look, it's a Bird!"

There were pictures of UGGS as well and he explained that his goal with the shadow hand had been to take a picture of the sign for "I love you." We use this sign frequently...when one of us is on the phone and the other walks in the door, or if we drive by eachother on the way to work, or if Tyler is brushing his teeth and sees me sleepily start to doze off. But, when he started taking pictures of the sign, he realized it was starting to look like a bird! Naturally, the intentional bird had to be the daily picture. But, the shadow of I love you definitely makes me smile. 

What's to Come 166/365

A cool thing happened on Saturday night at the engagement party. One of my friends came up to me and said she was dying to know what kinds of things are inside our box. This hadn't even dawned on me! I told you about the box, I showed you the box...but I never told you what we put INSIDE the box, the most important part! The thing that made me smile when she said it was that it made me feel warm and fuzzy to know that we really have true followers. So, before I share the contents of the box, I just want to say thank you! Thank you family and friends and friends of friends for following this unique year long journey that we are on. You help make this project relevant and that is very special.

I grabbed this picture on Sunday when we got home. As for the details...we have 3 different colors to help sort our activities. Blue is for things we could pick out of the box for a night during the week when we don't have plans but are hoping to get out of the house. Things like going to an i-max movie, catching a minor league ball game or having a picnic dinner at a park. Green is for things we could pick out of the box in hopes of planning something fun for our weekend. We've included visiting a museum exhibit, going camping, touring a North Carolina vineyard or driving for the day to a destination unknown. Pink is for special things and places we would love to visit this year. Making plans to see the Atlanta Aquarium and traveling to Las Vegas are two of the things we threw in there. We have no idea where this little idea will take us and we doubt we will get through everything, because we are already adding new activities when we think of them. But we are so excited to push ourselves to try some new things and to hold ourselves accountable for doing things we've been talking about doing for a while. I hope this helps give you some insight into our box and we look forward to sharing all of our journeys with you as we experience them.

The Perfect Puppy 165/365

Saturday was such a great day. We got up in the morning and drove over to Greensboro to spend some time with my family before our plans on Saturday night. I let Sophie out to play when we first got in town and followed her out to take some pictures. It was a beautiful day and Sophie took full advantage by running around outside with this massive piece of bark.  

This picture below came in a close second place for my picture of the day selection but those big brown eyes up there ultimately won out.

We grabbed lunch with my parents and my grandma's cousins who were in town and then went back to the house to cook for the evening. Tyler and I were heading to an engagement party with White Chicken Chili and homemade guac on the menu...and mom was making dinner for 8. My grandma's cousin Charlotte reminds me of my grandma Rosalie so much. I loved every minute of spending the afternoon in the kitchen with her and my mom. It definitely made me miss my Ma, but I smiled for the rest of the weekend because of the warm memories that came flooding back.

Later in the afternoon we were off to Apex for a rescheduled engagement party for our friends Maggie and George. We had a great night celebrating with their friends and families as we enjoyed the mexican spread and photobooth with props. Here's a peek at some of the fun...

Let's Go Cats 164/365

On Friday, we met at the house after work and waited for our friends Matt and Carrie to come in from Greensboro. They recently finished their Master's degrees and we took them to the Bobcats vs. Cavs basketball game to celebrate! After a little car trouble and traffic on 85...they finally made it and we headed down into the city. We had fun at the game and enjoyed watching the Bobcats take down King James and the Cavs. (I guess only half of us really enjoyed it as Matt and Carrie felt the need to cover their Cavs shirts for the rest of the night.) We headed out for a little after the game and were so happy to catch up with our good friends.

Well Hello Gorgeous 163/365

Since starting Project 365, my camera has found many homes in my different bags. Gone are my small purses, because my camera is carried with me almost everyday and almost everywhere. I get so nervous about its safety in the bottom of my purse, but so far we haven't had any issues. I have been on the lookout for a bag that would keep my camera safe and double as a purse for me to carry everyday. And then I found her....Lola. :) Lola is an Epiphanie bag and she FINALLY arrived on Thursday! I ordered her before the holidays and have been anxiously waiting for her to get here. Now that she is here, I couldn't love her more! She is beautiful and red and spacious and smart and I think she will be the perfect home for my Canon.

Street Art 162/365

On Wednesday, we had a Charlotte Seminole Club board meeting. So, while Tyler went up to let Tess out, I headed over to our meeting spot early to walk around and snap some pictures before the sun went down. My fingers froze but it was fun to soak up that last bit of fresh air and sunshine. I love being able to find art in the mundane and couldn't be happier with the way this picture turned out. I cropped it to be more square but other than that, this is straight out of my camera.

Rowdy with Rufus 161/365

Tyler sent me an email at work on Tuesday because he had been offered 4 tickets to the Bobcats game that night. We decided we would go if we could find friends to take with us. We were really excited when Lisa and Andy said they'd love to join us. So, we headed home from work and jumped right back into the car and drove into the city. We got our tickets, grabbed our little beers (it was Ticketmaster Tuesday) and found our seats. Unfortunately, the Bobcats couldn't pull it together and lost to the Nets...the worst team in the NBA right now. However, we had a great night with friends, Tyler showed off his dance skills while trying to get on the jumbo-tron and I got my picture taken with Rufus. :) Not bad for a Tuesday!

Something Smells Good 160/365

In addition to making dinner on Monday night, I threw a pork roast in the crock pot to make pulled pork for the week. It turned out REALLY good! The house smelled delicious and it gave us 2 lunches each during the week :)

True Love 159/365

We woke up on Sunday morning and headed to our favorite brunch at Upstream. It was incredible as always...so good in fact, that Tyler asked me if I could find a wheel chair when it was time to get up and leave. It was the best ending to our Valentine's weekend stay-cation. After brunch, we went home and napped, :) and then went to the grocery store and made dinner. We watched the first episode of The Amazing Race for this season and fell asleep watching the NBA All-Star Game. We also filled our box with fun things to do during weeknights and weekends with no plans. We were sure to include a few special things in there that we want to try to do this year as well. Before bed, I convinced Tyler to do a "be mine" photo shoot with me. This sparkly heart is just a preview of what's to come next weekend when we set up a photo booth at Maggie and George's engagement party. I'm already looking forward to the crazy pictures! For now, here are a few to tide you over...

I asked Tyler to sit with the heart so I could get the camera settings right. This makes me smile SO big. He wouldn't let it be the picture of the day, but you better believe I got him to let me blog my favorite! Talk about True Love...

I had to share my valentine with Tess...


...so did Tyler :)

Sunburst Love 158/365

We woke up Saturday morning and went outside to play in the snow! It was gorgeous out so I had a great time taking pictures of sunshine and snow :) The picture below turned out to be our favorite of the day.

This is how much snow we got...SO soft and fluffy!

I love the sunlight mixed with snow...makes our yard look so pretty.

Tyler playing in the snow...

...Tess taking a break after eating all the snow she could handle.

And that was just our morning! Around 2:30, we packed up some things and headed down into Charlotte. We checked into our hotel and headed to see Valentine's Day at the theater in the Epicentre. After the cute movie, it was back to the hotel to change for dinner. We had reservations at Ruth's Chris, where we enjoyed a tasty dinner and a fabulous bottle of wine! We exchanged gifts and cards and called it a night. (I always get Tyler 2 cards...1 funny and 1 sweet. I think I owe this to my mom. We decided to get creative and do gifts for $10 or less this year and part of our deal was one card each on top of our $10 spending limit. So as tough as it was...I stuck to the rules. And Tyler did too. But he did use part of his $10 to get me a second card, a funny one in addition to the sweet one, which really made me smile.) It was the perfect way to spend the first half of our Valentine's day getaway :)

Snowman Love 157/365

We headed home from work on Friday, and settled into the start of our Valentine's weekend. We had big plans ahead, so we stayed in on Friday night...enjoyed "awesome chicken" for dinner...and watched a movie, while the snow covered our yard yet again. The last snow was very icy and not great snowman building snow. This snow was very soft and not great snowman building snow. But Tyler really wanted to build a snowman. I'm glad he was able to put this little guy together. His poor snowman didn't live long though. Once Tyler put him on the floor to take his picture, Tess came over and ate his head and belly in one bite! Luckily, Tyler was able to document his existence before the tragic accident :)

Cabo Love 156/365

We stayed the night in Greensboro on Wednesday because the game in Chapel Hill was a late one. So on Thursday, we grabbed breakfast with my mom before heading back to Charlotte to work a half day. We came home to let Tess out and give her dinner, then drove down into the city to grab dinner ourselves. We met up with our friends Tyler and Brent at Cabo Fish Taco and enjoyed catching up and great food!

Tarheel Love 155/365

On Wednesday, we got a special treat. Tyler's friend from childhood, Daniel, was able to get us tickets to see UNC play Duke in the Dean Dome. After work, we drove straight to Chapel Hill to watch the Heels play hard against the Blue Devils. They came up short, but we really enjoyed being there. We were able to cross the rivalry game off of Tyler's sports fan bucket list and we had the bonus of being there for the retirement of Tyler Hansborough's jersey. Number 50 joined the front row of jerseys hanging in the Dome, and the amount of love that was pouring from the stands was immeasurable.

Festive Pajama Love 154/365

On Tuesday, we both put on festive pajamas. Well, Tyler's I "heart" Animals t-shirt may be a stretch for festive...but we made it work :) I tried a new recipe for dinner and made lamb chops which turned out GREAT!

Much Love 153/365

If you know me well, it's probably no secret that I love...LOVE :) I love that I'm hopelessly in love and I love seeing other people smitten with love. While I believe that we should show love everyday, I thought it would be fun to take pictures about love for the week leading up to Valentine's Day. So, Monday was the first day.

Superbowl Sunday 152/365

Sunday was extra special...it was Superbowl Sunday! Tyler and I watched pre game shows all day and even though I went into the day just hoping for a good game, I fell in love with the New Orleans Saints and decided they had to win...it just needed to happen. The Lange's and Patterson's came over for the game and we dug into tasty treats while we watched. The Saints pulled through for the win in the end, and we wrapped up a great weekend and prepared for the week ahead.

Trapped 151/365

Tyler flew back into Charlotte on Saturday morning, and picked up Ethan on his way home. We had a quick lunch and got started on putting together Mouse Trap. We went through all of the building instructions and put together the entire board. Then, we started reading the game instructions and realized that part of the game...is building the board. OOPS! At least we taught Ethan that you should always read all of the directions before you get started :) My mouse flew around the board and collected enough cheese for me to forcefully trap Tyler. But then Ethan came back from behind and trapped me to win the game. The picture below is Ethan's mouse taunting our mice after he won. The boys played some more games before Ethan had to go home, and then Tyler took me out for dinner and a movie.

Staying Warm 150/365

Tyler was still out of town on Friday, so I headed out to dinner Andrea, Jeremy and Lincoln. Sweet Lincoln gazed at me from across the table as we all enjoyed a great meal at 131 Main. Then it was home to bundle up with Tess. We weren't getting any snow, but the cold and rainy weather was enough to get us snuggled up in bed early! I figured I have given Tess a nice break from modeling, so I tried to get a picture of her in my scarf and Uggs. My carrot bribe went a long way, but she was not happy about the shoes. I do think she is quite adorable in a scarf :)

Just A Girl 149/365

Tyler left for Pittsburgh on Thursday morning, so after work I came home to spend the evening with Tess. We had lasagna leftovers for dinner (well, she had dog food) and anxiously waited to see if we would get more snow. I realized that I haven't yet grabbed a staple self portrait with my camera, so I took this one before bed.

Tempting Our Tastebuds 148/365

I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this Christmas gift...and on Wednesday my first Food Network magazine came in the mail! I read it cover to cover and already looked forward to trying some avacado hummus for the Superbowl. Thank you Amy and Laz for one of my favorite gifts!! We had lasagna for dinner and enjoyed a night in, before Tyler left for his business trip on Thursday morning.

Wonders of Wine 147/365

On Tuesday, Tyler headed home for a night in with Tess, and I went straight from work to a girl's wine night. Ashley had a bunch of girls over to her condo for a wine tasting. We had great nibbles and learned a lot...not to mention the good wine we drank. It was a fun treat for the middle of the work week and something we definitely need to repeat again soon!

Bless His Heart 146/365

I have an incredible husband. And I always let him know that I think that :) On Monday, he headed to the gym and I went to the grocery store. We had decided on lasagna for dinner one night and had some leftovers for another night. There was one night in limbo and I had the whole grocery store to choose something. Leave it to me...the only thing I could get in the mood for was steaks on the grill. So, Tyler got home from the gym and when I told him what I had grabbed for dinner he thought I was joking...bless his heart :) He seemed shocked that it hadn't even occurred to me that choosing steaks would mean him standing on our deck, which was covered in snow, cooking in freezing temperatures. But, after a sweet smile and a promise that despite how silly it sounded, the snow really hadn't crossed my mind, he threw on sweats and headed out to make our dinner. I don't think I could ever say it enough...what a GEM!

Box of Excitement 145/365

Tyler and I have been talking about this box since before the holidays. We have been working on our list for about that long too. Our goal with the box is to put activities inside for when we have a free night or a weekend in town with no plans (doesn't happen often...but it does happen). It looks like we will have a couple of different colors, which will represent different categories of activities. Our January objective...buy the box! So on Saturday, after we played in the snow, we walked to Target and found this perfect box.

On Sunday, we had a very productive day around the house. After we cleaned and straightened, we found a place for our box. Now to fill it...

My Snow Angel 144/365

We woke up Saturday morning to a yard full of snow! We made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and enjoyed a lazy morning around the house before layering up and heading out to play. I managed to grab a few shots, but then I put the camera back in the house so I could run around and play with Tyler and Tess. Tyler's first order of snow business...making a snow angel :)

Tess' first order of snow business...bring back the snow day army crawl. Tyler and I couldn't get enough! She just loves the snow on her tummy.

Away she goes...leaving army crawl tracks all over the yard :)

We had a great time in the snow and enjoyed another "perfect for being snowed in" dinner that night...white chicken chili. We watched movies all afternoon and loved every minute of being stuck in our house :)

All Snowed In 143/365

We had big weekend plans...and then the snow came. We had't seen my parents since before the holidays and were really looking forward to having dinner with them on Friday night...and then the snow came. We were co-hosting an engagement party on Saturday night for our good friends...and then the snow came. It REALLY came! After our initial disappointment in missing scheduled events of the weekend, we happily enjoyed being snowed in.

Tyler grabbed this shot on Friday night, which is when we got the bulk of the storm. We made cheese soup and enjoyed a cozy night in :)