Take Me Out To The Ball Game

This past Sunday Collin and I took my parents up to Waldorf to go see the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs! For those that don't know they are our local minor league baseball team. And I'm very fortunate to work for a company who purchases a skybox each season and gives tickets out to the employees for free! So wonderful! Anyway, we took advantage of it this past week and took my parents with us! So much fun!!

Our skybox this year is right behind home plate!

Yes, I know this is very washed out but I like it regardless. =)

Soft serve ice cream is one of my favorites. I love going to games mainly so I can get some. ; )

I really enjoyed sitting next to my mom during the game. And we even had on almost identical sunglasses!

I must say though, my favorite part of the whole afternoon was the fruit race. They put those fruit costumes on little kids and had them run around the bases. hahaha! It was ADORABLE! And of course the "grapes" was the smallest one so he was the slowest. But it was precious.

What a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I really like going to the games on a Friday or Saturday night though because then you get fireworks after the game! Maybe we'll get the chance to go once more this season.

Cindy

(Semi) Wordless Wednesday

Every morning so far of our trip Collin and I will sit at the breakfast bar and eat breakfast while filling out all the puzzles in the USA Today paper. Love it. =)

Cindy

P.S. If you wanna see up to date pictures from our trip, or if you wanna just see all my photos, follow me on Instagram! My username is iwanttobeaham.

Super Bowl!

Yesterday we had a fun time watching the Super Bowl. We watched it with Collin's parents and the neighbor from across the street because his wife is out of town. I was rooting for the Giants and was so excited that they won! That was one intense 4th quarter, too! Honestly though, I didn't pay much attention to the game until the 4th quarter when it got intense. =) I'm not much a football fan but I do enjoy the Super Bowl. And I do get excited and into it when good things are happening. But I enjoyed the commercials. My favorites were the one with the dog who exercised to go chase a Volkswagen and the one for the new Acura with Jerry Seinfeld. And I don't know about you but I loved the half time show! I thought Madonna did a great job! I've always like her music and I was very impressed that she wasn't dressed trashy and that her overall show was more about the music then it was about her flaunting herself! What did you think of the game? Were you happy with the result? Did you watch it just for the commercials or are you into football?

Super spicy hot wings made for the Super Bowl My sweet boy laying on my chest while I played on my phone/watched the Super Bowl My two boys during the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl. And one more of my Stanky laying at my feet.

All photos taken via Instagram on my iPhone

Cindy

Instagram Weekend

This weekend was quite delightful! I had Friday off from work so my weekend started Thursday night! And Collin took me on a date to Outback courtesy of a gift card from his manager! We had a delightful date night and the food was sooo yummy! Friday was a good and gorgeous day. It got up into the mid 60's! I got to go by church and change the decorations in our worship space from Christmas to winter which was pretty fun. It's neat being able to decorate our worship space and make it beautiful for everyone. And I went to Target and printed out a bunch of photos from my phone. Then Collin and I had a nice lazy evening at home and it was delightful!

Saturday was even more gorgeous than Friday was!!

I want to move somewhere where it's always like it was this weekend. It was perfect! It actually hit 70 (according to my car) on Saturday. I spent the afternoon on Saturday with my sister. We hung out at her apartment since both our husbands work on Saturdays and we watched a movie (Morning Glory, so good!) and a half (we started From Prada to Nada but never finished it because Kaity thought it was boring) and we made ice cream sundaes. Which included needing a trip to the store for all the stuff to make them, including the ice cream! I so wish I had of gotten a picture of our fun afternoon but I just didn't snap any. =(

Saturday night Collin and I went over to our friends Butch and Donna's house. We spent some time chatting and we played a game of Words of Wizdom. So fun. We had a great time with them but we stayed over too late and we were all running a little late for church the next morning. Oops!

Sunday consisted of church which was great! Then afterwards Collin and I got to go to the thrift store and I got a new brown courdoroy skirt from Old Navy for 5 dollars, a cute Christmas tin for 10 cents and a photo album for my iPhone photos for only 50 cents! I would say we had a successful trip to the thrift store! We then went home and had lunch then snuggled on the couch and planned games for youth group.

Then we took a nice nap on the couch. Apparently I was snoring? haha I don't snore so it must have been how I was laying. The best part was Collin waking up and needing to go to the bathroom but his left leg was asleep so he literally crawled to the bathroom dragging his leg along. So funny!

After our nap we decided we wanted to go frisbee golfing before youth group and we had a great time! We didn't play the full course because it was nearing dusk but we played 8 holes. 1-4, 7-9 and 17. So random but the way the course is set up it worked for us to skip 5 and 6. And they changed where hole 17 is (it was very out of kilter and didn't make sense where it was before now it's great!) so we wanted to try out the new 17 layout!

The sunset while we were at the park was so neat! There were lots of colors and I love the way it looked on the horizon behind all the trees. And I especially love the silhouette that the trees make with the sun behind them!

We had a good time at youth group and we played a game with the kids called Pictionary Down the Lane (or Telephone Pictionary) which is something we used to play in college all the time (SO MUCH FUN!) and Collin facilitated and I actually got to play to make the numbers even. It was fantastic. The group I was with came up with some fun phrases and the drawings were so funny! The kids really seemed to enjoy themselves. I love our group of middle schoolers and fifth graders. They are such a fun group and I am so glad and blessed to be one of their leaders!

After we got home from youth group we caught the last little bit of the Steelers vs. Broncos game and I must admit, I was glad the Broncos won! It was a close game. We started watching right after the Steelers tied it up. I'm not a football fan and I don't watch it regularly at all, like I watch the Super Bowl and that's it but Collin's dad had it on and we were interested in watching the Steelers potentially lose so we were happy when they did! While watching I got to eat a very delicious box of chocolates that Collin's boss gave me for Christmas!

Anyway, it was a wonderful weekend! Sorry I haven't yet posted my recap of 2011 post yet. I keep making empty promises about posting it so I'm not going to promise I'll post it this week but I sure do hope to have it posted this week! So keep your eyes out for it! I hope you had a wonderful weekend like I did! May your week be filled with lots of fun and blessings!

Cindy

The Gratitude Challenge - Day 3

1 Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness.
Let the whole world know what he has done.
2 Sing to him; yes, sing his praises.
Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.
3 Exult in his holy name;
rejoice, you who worship the Lord.
Psalm 105 (NLT)

Today I am grateful for frisbee golf. Collin got into it back in April and shortly after, I joined in the sport. It is so much fun! We are very fortunate that we have a park with a frisbee golf course nearby so we can play often. We definitely don't play as much as we'd like but we do enjoy going to the course together. I really enjoy being out at the park with Collin, I'm so grateful for the time we get to spend together playing frisbee golf. I think it's very relaxing and fun to share this hobby with my hubby. I'm not very good yet, but I am improving each time we go out! Something really fun is that whenever we go out of the county we find parks near where we're going and we play if we have time. So far we've been to 2 others than the one here at home, but we look forward to exploring and playing many more!

Have you guys ever played frisbee golf? If so, what do you think of it? If not, you should definitely try it. It's lots of fun and quite relaxing. Plus, it gets you outside and enjoying nature!

If you're interested in finding out about frisbee golf courses in your local area this link is the one Collin and I use to find courses in other areas. We find it really helpful and they've got pictures and reviews on there, too!

Cindy

Simple Pleasures

Over the weekend some family friends were up visiting from Virginia Beach. They used to live here but moved down there probably about 7 or 8 years ago or something like that but we've kept in touch all this time. The youngest girl, Allie (who's 15 now!) really wanted to play Scrabble so she, my mom, her mom, and I played a game. I was SO super excited when I realized I had a Bingo I could play. So as seen in the picture above, I play acquired and got 90, yes 90!!, points for it. I was literally squealing!! So much fun. =)

Collin and I are house sitting for my parents this week while they are away on a cruise. My parent's still have 3 cats, all of which I had growing up. Well, I've at least had Mitzi since I was about 5 or 6! The others came along while I was in high school. Anyway, Jake (the cat pictured above) is my baby boy. He wandered into our garage one summer morning and I begged my parents to let us keep him. I am SO glad I did because he is such a beautiful and (most of the time) sweet cat. He loves to be in the sun room and especially on the couch when the light is shining on it. I love him so much so I just had to snap some photos of him since I get to be with him for a whole week.

Isn't he just a beautiful cat?
Cindy

Goodness-Filled Weekend

This past weekend was pretty good! It all began Friday evening with having some friends over and playing a couple board games. We started off with Mall Madness (I was the only girl, mind you) and then laughed our butts off playing Words of Wizdom (it's a lot like Loaded Questions). We had a BLAST and laughed so hard I was afraid we were going to wake the neighbors. lol

Blast from the past!

Saturday I had to wake up early because I was accompanying a girl from church for her State Solo and Ensemble adjudication. We had to drive two hours to Towson. I had a nice time though in the car chatting with her mom and the mom of the other girl who went with us. Even though it was early the conversations made it a fun and enjoyable day! And both girls got 1's on their pieces! I was so proud of Annie and Morgan!

Sunday we had church and then my aunt and uncle were hosting a barbecue celebration at their house in honor of my uncle receiving his Bachelor's degree on Saturday! What a great accomplishment for him! We enjoyed sitting and around and chatting with family and friends and eating yummy food, too! After we left their house we made a stop at Target so I could spend the gift card I received as a thank you for accompanying Annie. I ended up finally buying myself a digital video camera. I posted here about how I wanted a Flip camera. However, I never bought one for myself because I wasn't completely thrilled with the specs or the price. While I was printing out a gift registry Collin looked at the Target flyer and he saw that Kodak's version of the Flip was on sale. We walked back to electronics and it was JUST what I wanted! I'm so excited with my purchase and I can't wait to play with it! It's a Kodak Play*full. It records in 1080p HD and it has an external memory card slot so you can have up to a 32GB card in there. It also has an internal rechargeable battery which is what I wanted. It's also much tinier than the Flip. I LOVE it!

*love!*

I also bought a memory card for it and a pretty blue case that has flowers on it. I can't wait to take some videos and be able to post them on the blog!

After we left Target we headed over to church for the Tweeners meeting. Tweeners is a youth group for 4th-7th graders and Collin and I are leaders for the group. Yesterday was a "fun" day and we went bowling instead of having a regular lesson. We had a blast and the kids did, too! Everyone was laughing and having fun! Some of the kids even bowled better than I did! What a great time of fellowship and fun with a great group of kids! I'm so excited to be working with the youth and I can't wait for the fall when the meetings will pick back up again (we take a break for the summer starting in June).

Did you guys do anything fun and exciting this weekend? Make any big purchases?

Cindy

What Could Be Sweeter Than Chocolate World?!

Sorry for the delay in the post for today. I don't usually post on weekends or holidays (and yesterday was technically both, thus no post yesterday) and when I got back to work today I was SWAMPED thus the lateness of today's post.

This weekend after our Tastefully Simple party (which was a blast and a huge success!) and after Collin got off work on Saturday we drove up to Pennsylvania to visit with my best friend, Tiff, her husband, Andrew and their adorable son, Josiah! We got there pretty late on Saturday night (about 10ish) but we ended up staying up until after midnight talking and catching up. Sunday morning when Tiff came downstairs to leave for church I had already gotten dressed and we looked at each other and realized we matched. We both had on green cowl neck sweaters and dark wash jeans! Of course we didn't plan it and she had no idea what I had packed. It made us laugh for a few minutes! We went to church with them and it was a different church experience but really good. I loved the pastor's sermon and the worship band was quite good! It's always such a neat experience to attend a church different than your own every once in a while. After church we headed back to their house and Josiah went down for his nap during which we ate pizza and played Monopoly. It was a fun game in which I was unfortunately the first to be bankrupt, by Collin none-the-less. Andrew was purposefully doing things though to help Tiff out since he knew he was going to be bankrupt sometime soon and he wanted her to be a worthy adversary for Collin. She ended up going bankrupt too, but not without putting on a good fight! I like it when Monopoly is fun and not too competitive or annoying. We all just had a blast with it instead of being bored or annoyed with losing. Once Josiah woke from his nap we hurried out to Hershey to go to the Chocolate Factory. We wanted to do the fun factory tour ride and get some ice cream! We had done this the last time we were in town visiting them so I suppose it's kinda like a new tradition with us. It was so much fun and it smelled wonderful! I love all the chocolate and the way they display everything in the shops around the building. But there's not much involving chocolate I don't like. =) The rest of the weekend we spent at their house just talking, playing games, playing with Josiah and watching a little Firefly. I'm so glad we were able to spend some time with them and especially to see Josiah. Kids grow up way too fast and it makes me sad that we don't live closer so I can be around him for his milestones. At least there's online to give me glimpses into his growing up.

Anyway, enough chat. I took a bunch of pictures and I'm going to share some with you all!

Tiff, Andrew and Josiah on the factory tour ride.

Collin and I on the factory tour ride.

That's a lot of chocolate!

My favorite!

Delicious milkshakes!

That's a lot of Reese's! Two 1/2 pound cups!





Josiah in all his cuteness

Playing ball with Collin


I love this picture so much.

The best picture of all three of us I could get.

A fun attempt at another picture.

Definitely an awesome weekend! What did you get to do? Anything as awesome and fun as us? Did any of you get snow/ice? We got some ice last night that turned into rain... Probably better that way so I wouldn't have to worry about the roads being bad for work this morning. Here's hoping winter won't last too long!

Cindy

Friday Favorites - week 3

This week was my first full week back to work after all the holiday festivities.  I did work during the holiday weeks but never a full week.  It was so glorious having 3 days weeks.  Granted, I have today off, but only because it's my normal Friday off (we get every other Friday off by working 9 hour days, it's called CWS - Compressed Work Schedule for those who may not know).  Anyway... when I get home from work in the evenings if I've nothing else to do I love to just sit and relax and watch a TV show.  And my new absolute favorite way of doing so is through Netflix streaming.

I love having a PS3 because we can stream through it and we have great high quality picture. But my favorite thing is the variety of stuff you can watch via streaming. It amazes me how almost everything that I want to watch is on Netflix streaming (not everything, but most). Currently I've been watching Psych. It's a show that I would watch if my parent's had it on and I was home and I thought it was quite funny, but I didn't watch it myself. But now I'm already on season 3 and I just love watching it! And I can watch Desperate Housewives on there. I started watching regularly about half way through season 2 or so back in '06 and we're currently watching through season 2 now. But once season 2 is over I'll refresh my memory until we're caught up, though we did already watch seasons 4 and 5 on there. Anyway... there's also been plenty of other shows (and movies too, of course) that we've watched on there as well that we probably would not have thought to watch otherwise. But I do love the Netflix Streaming. It's definitely a favorite. I don't know what I'll do when I finish all the episodes of all the shows I want to watch!

Something else I'm obsessed with right now is Peggle on my iPod.

I think Peggle can be played on a variety of different platforms but I have an iPod Touch so that's what I play on. I LOVE that game. It's kinda like Plinko in the sense that you drop a ball from the top of the screen and it bounces through little Pegs until it gets to the bottom. However, the goal of the game is to hit all orange pegs and as many blue ones as you can, too. Once you've removed all the orange pegs from the screen (the pegs disappear once they've been lit up) the level is over and you get your score. It's so addicting.

I am in love with the HGTV 2011 Dream House. The house this year is GORGEOUS! It's set in the beautiful mountains of Vermont and this place is huge and amazing. I seriously want to win the giveaway just so I can have that beautiful of a house to at least visit if I didn't live in it. It's two floors but the rooms are huge and beautiful. And it has my dream kitchen I mentioned a couple weeks ago!

You can go here to find out more information on the home and to look at all the pictures of the inside and of each and every room. Maybe you'll fall in love and want to win the sweepstakes, too. But don't enter so I can increase my chances of winning. ; )

What are you loving this beautiful Friday? Is there anything that I should be aware of so I can fall in love with more things?

Cindy