free night

a free movie night, that is. thank you redbox. i've been wanting to see a couple of movies but knew that i didn't want to make taylor watch them too. so after searching for a couple of free rental codes, i picked up the movies and settled in for a friday night of movies.

i actually enjoyed both of them more than i imagined i would. it was a good decision to watch them without my husband though.

i love mail.

especially when i get home from one of the longest days of work and there is a package on the doorstep. this is my second experience with modcloth and i am so glad that i found out about it from jessica.

taylor and i are leaving for vacation in less than a month and i got a few things that will be perfect.

and this skirt also will do great for auburn football kicking off next weekend.

now, just to finally find something to wear the night after we return from vacation. there is a special occasion happening. more to come on that.

taste buds

my husband knows the way to my heart...

and taste buds. he's home until wednesday. he flew into birmingham this afternoon. i arrived home from work to find two orders of lettuce wraps along with an order of honey chicken and beef with broccoli in the refrigerator. not only was i super excited about not having to decide what we are going to eat for dinner, but it also didn't take long to convince him that we needed to eat lettuce wraps right away. i love him. and i love that he knows me so well.

quality time

One thing that Taylor and I make sure we do is not take our time together for granted. Our time together is truly the meaning of quality time.

It was incredible to have him home for a few days. Monday morning once picking him up, the last thing that I wanted to do was go back to work. We went on our date to Miyako Japanese Steakhouse, of course. Going out for Japanese food is one of our favorite dates. And sitting down next to him for a meal was something that I miss more than I realize.

Tuesday morning I returned to work and left him to sleep in and rest. I made up my mind that I wanted to take off work on Wednesday to spend time with him so that's exactly what I did. I returned home from work on Tuesday excited about my little "vacation" during the middle of the week.

Wednesday morning started with my brother-in-law and his dad starting to paint the outside of our house. Taylor and I headed to breakfast at Chappy's then off to Sikes & Kohn's to get some new shoes. The rest of the day was just spent spending time together. I loved that I had the chance to take off and just be with him for the day. I did get on my computer a few times while he was home but only once he told me to since he was having to work on his.

He left this morning. And to my surprise, he'll be home again on Monday with a flight back out on Wednesday. Thank goodness it won't be another 25 days until I see him again.

home.

Taylor is currently on his way home. His flight will land in less than an hour. I could not be more excited to see him and thankful to have him home for a few days. So if you wonder where I am, I'm with him or at work waiting to get home to him. I'm even thinking about taking the day off work on Wednesday just to spend more time with him. I've promised myself to not get on my computer while I'm at home this week. No Facebook, Gmail or Blogger once I'm home from work. It's not really quality time to sit next to each other on the sofa and both be on our computers. So, that being said... I'll see you Thursday with a recap of the week.

grass

Yes. I cut the grass. With my husband being out of town, I just cut the grass for the second time since he's been out of town. Thankfully the lawnmower didn't run out of gas until right as I finished cutting the front yard. It will be waiting on him to fill it up and cut the grass again once he gets home next week! I'm off the take Miley on a walk while I'm already sweaty and in need of a shower.

Strawberry Pretzel Salad

I know that Laura requested that I post this recipe. Like I said on the post about celebrating Taylor's birthday, this was his cake. We both love it. I took it for my breakfast for the next few days after I made it because I could not just throw a lot of it away if we didn't eat it all. I hope that you enjoy this recipe as much as my family does!

Strawberry Pretzel Salad:

Ingredients-

2 cups pretzels, crushed

3/4 cup butter, melted

2 Tbsp sugar

1 8 oz package cream cheese at room temperture - (i use 2 sometimes to make the middle layer thicker)

1 cup confectioners' (powdered) sugar

1 8 oz container cool whip

1 6 oz pkg strawberry flavored jello (large box)

2 cups boiling water

2 10 oz packages frozen strawberries, thawed

Directions-

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix pretzels, butter and sugar together. Pat in 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake about 10 minutes and cool. Cream the confectioners' sugar and cream cheese together. Stir in cool whip and spread on top of pretzel layer. Combine gelatin and boiling water. Stir in strawberries and mix well. Put in freezer for a little while, until it starts getting thick. Pour over cream cheese layer. Refrigerate until top layer is congealed.

Serves 12.

a little swim

I decided to drive to Monroeville for the weekend to work for my mom. Saturday morning I didn't have anything to do and decided to take Miley for a swim at my dad's house. She loved every minute of it. And from her swimming, looks like they worked with her a little last weekend about swimming back to the steps to get out instead of trying to go to the side of the pool.

I took a little video on my phone after she had been swimming for a while.

happy birthday, taylor!

wishing i was in midland, tx with my husband today.

happy 25th, taylor! i love you.

Sandestin

Before I get started on my post about my wonderful beach weekend... here's a picture of my hair. (The quality is not great. Sometimes my iPhone takes great pictures but this is not one of them.) You can also see it further down on this post in the picture of me and my parents.

After it taking FOREVER to get my hair done, we arrived in Destin around 9:30 on Friday night. We stayed at The Grand Sandestin. Beautiful and perfect for the three of us. You will also notice that I took a total of one picture all weekend so I googled and found these other pictures.

We checked into our room and headed out to walk around the Village at Baytowne Wharf before deciding quickly to return to the room and get some sleep for our long day ahead on Saturday.

We woke up at 7:00 and ready to go. We walked to the Village to eat breakfast at one of my favorite places ever:

We didn't have to wait on a table and were able to enjoy our breakfast and get back to our room before it started to monsoon. We decided to take the shuttle to the workout room and exercise since the weather was so bad. We waited until the weather calmed down then went to rent bicycles for a few hours. We rode all over the property. In and out of the neighborhoods, around the hotels, everywhere. We returned the bikes after about two and a half hours and finally ate lunch right as the sun was peaking through the clouds. We hurried and grabbed seats at the pool and enjoyed a few hours of sun. We got cleaned up and headed to the outlets for a couple of hours before our dinner reservations.

We enjoyed ourselves at dinner. It was one of my favorite dining experiences, ever.

Seagar's is inside the Hilton at Sandestin. It was amazing. We got there at 8:15 and left around 10:30. I have never had a better homemade caesar salad. The waiter prepared it right in front of us. He used the egg, lemon juice and everything else that he needed to make it just right. The steak was incredible and cooked to perfection. We decided if we were going to have dessert, we might as well do it right. Bananas Foster cooked right in front of our eyes.

Unbelievable. All I can say about the whole experience was that it was fabulous. Definitely a treat. Thank you so much, Mom and Jack!

We went to breakfast again Sunday morning at Another Broken Egg after we went to the workout room again. We put our swimsuits on, checked out of our room and headed to the beach. It was truly a perfect morning to be laying out. Apparently everyone thought so too because it was packed!

The water looked just like this. Crystal clear with no seaweed anywhere. Little did I know that this was floating next to me in the water though.

I got stung by a jellyfish on my left side. I didn't think anything about it at first until it started turning really red. I went directly to the beach stand where they sprayed vinegar and water on it and told me to rub wet sand on it and let it sit for a least 20 minutes. Well it worked. It's already looking better this morning.

So we have a wonderful weekend at the beach! I'm looking forward to getting Taylor down there with me sometime soon!