NYC

this past weekend, my friend Emily and I flew up to NYC for a quick girls weekend. we had so much fun once we got there! (which was after United cancelled our flight from Richmond to Dulles and us getting in the car to bust it up to Dulles to catch our flight to Newark...NOT a good way to start the trip. the good news? it usually takes about 2 hours and 10 min to get there (it's pretty far west of DC and 95) and we made it in a hour and 20. thank you psychotic drivers on 95 for setting the pace:)). the flights in general were just terrible this trip. never ever ever flying USAir and United again. ever.

once we got up there, we brunched, shopped, went to dinner and to the Hotel Chantalle, shopped some more, brunched some more....you get the idea. i hadn't spent tons of time in Chelsea, Soho, and the West Village (we usually stay on the upper east side and hang there and in midtown), so it was super fun to explore those neighborhoods!

here's some pics of the weekend....

brunch of champions

Em + I at brunch with Sarah + Derek...ignore the sweaty faces. we'd just come from a long walk in hot temps. not exactly the cute dewy look we were attempting to achieve.

cute little park in the West Village

the Freedom Tower under construction

some plans wrote United We Stand in the sky...crazy cool

it was our friend, Sarah's, birthday last week so we got to celebrate with her Saturday night. we went to dinner at Co-op on the lower east side then on to Hotel Chantalle (which was so crowded, even though we got bottle service, that you couldn't even move your arms...much less take pics).

Em + I at Co-op

the birthday dessert

the ladies at Co-op

sunday, before we headed home, I got to meet up with my cousin who lives in the West Village-so jealous-and I hadn't seen him since my sister's wedding. um..not okay. we met up at his place then went to eat at Dos Caminas-which was out of this world amazing. maybe the best brunch I've ever had. i'm so bummed that I didn't get any pics...we literally attacked our food as soon as it was on the table. yikes. i'm sure everyone around was like ummm, have these people not eaten? like ever? oh well:) 

Mike + I at Dos Caminos (also please ignore the baggy sweatshirt that was 2 sizes too big. we'd had a late night the night before and this girl wasn't up to dressing cute. it was alll about comfort on sunday)

Next up, CHICAGO! Let the jetsetting fall begin! 

#London2012

okay, I know I'm about a week and 2 days late on this post, but I am obsessed with the Olympics. my favs are swimming, track+field, beach volleyball, and the love of my life, gymnastics.  it brings back so many memories of the happiest days of my life. the 25-30 hours a week in the gym practicing with the dream that I'd be an olympian one day (clearly we all know how that turned out). it did bring back memories of meets and new leos/warm ups, the competitiveness between teammates who were my best friends, the intense training and russian coaches yelling at me to "point feet! point feet!"...ahhh the good ole' days. since I never got there, here's some of my fav highlights from the 2012 games...

• the fact that it was in London, my favorite city (I'm choosing to forget the travesty that was the opening ceremony...i can describe it in two words. Epic fail.)
• my future husband, Ryan Lochte, beating Michael Phelps in his first race...which btw, all of y'all will be invited to the wedding
• Phelps breaking the record most medals won and becoming the most decorated olympian of all time
• Misty May and Kerri going out on top. they look like they would be so much fun to hang out with!
• Usain Bolt striking all gold again...he's not human, I tell ya
• Allyson Felix + Sonya Richards-Ross getting the golds they deserve...and the relay team (yay Carmelita Jeter!!) breaking the world record
• Missy Franklin for just being her and hopefully becoming the future face of USA swimming...how can you not just love her?! and all her accomplishments at her first Olympics!
• seeing USA basketball back on top, and in a respectable fashion
• the spice girls
• and last, but not least, of course the #FIERCE FIVE! we swept the competition. and how can anyone's jaw not drop at McKayla Maroney's vault in the team comp??? i have to say, while I love Gabby and am beyond excited for her, all respect goes to Jordyn Wieber. i've been following her for a couple years now and she is just an amazing talent who got robbed. her scores were not reflective of her routines (just ask Bela). all five of these girls should be beyond proud of themselves for their performance, but most of all for their conduct. they acted as a team on and off the floor and deserve the utmost respect. 

i do wish they'd worn these leos in the team finals

i'm so bummed they are over (and that the closing ceremony wasn't the opening ceremony. it was much better).  and we have 4 years to wait for Rio...which I'm not so excited about after watching their portion of the closing ceremony. however, I can finally clean up my dvr and go to bed again at a decent hour. 

all in all, London was no Beijing, but the Americans rocked it. and who didn't love seeing Wills and Kate everywhere?!

Vacay

So I've been back from our annual vacation to the beach for 3 weeks. Thanks to the Olympics (which will be it's own post later) and a couple hospital visits/labor scares, I'm just now thinking about this post.

This is my 29th year heading to the Carolina beaches and it was as relaxing and fun as it always is. We did our typical outings to the golf courses, restaurants and shops. We aren't huge go.out.every.night vacay people. More of like 9-5 beachers then come back out on the beach after dinner;)

Below are a few pics that I got which are TERRIBLE. I really need to get better photog skills....

girlfriend loves some chick-fil-a yogurt

allie & i at dinner 

my new golf shoes

that's us wayyy down by the water...not the pile to the right

humans aren't the only ones who like to get their tan on...

Wow, it's hard to believe summer is almost over. I'm not going to lie...I'm ready for fall and of course, football, but since it's summer in VA 'til October typically, there's still some time to get some more boat trips in! Happy weekend!

Life as of late...

It's been a little while since a life update post. It's been so busy over here that I'm still waiting for summer to get here;)

It's still been pretty busy at work, but we got to have a little fun with our clients a few weeks ago at Colonial Downs. Seems a little inapprop-a financial advisor supporting a night of gamblimg-but hey, you gotta have some fun in life, right?!

with Music of Arabia, the winner of our sponsored race (and the trainer was the daughter of an acquaintance of ours!)

Still spending the weekends here...

Two weekends ago, we packed up the cars and headed down to Pinehurst for FCA's golf camp. It was quite possibly the best 48 hours I've had so far in 2012. Obviously, Pinehurst is known for it's beautiful golf courses and old Southern tradition, so we we're pretty excited because it sounded right up our alley (Mom & Dad were the only ones who had been there, so they knew what to expect). 

I was shocked at how much I absolutely loved it. It is such a quaint town that it didn't almost seem real. Who knew places like this really DID exist?! All the huge porches with fans, adorable boutique shopping, cute restaurants, and of course, everyone was so pleasant. Us girls are already talking about another weekend trip to get away and shop;)

I'm going to go ahead and apologize for the following iphone pics...I was a terrible picture taker that weekend...

the guys imitating Payne Stewart

my cute mom & dad

the beautiful golf course

The camp was amazing as well. It was so cool to see all the middle and high schoolers eager to learn how to better their game, encourage each other, and just be incredible testimonies to their beliefs and the game in general. I love everything FCA stands for, so this was incredibly exciting for me to be in on the action. Front row seat baby. 

I didn't get any pics of the campers (it always seemed to be an inconvenient time to try to snap a pic w/o being obvious), but Tobymac put on a concert that night, not only for the campers, but for the whole town, and I did get some pics of that! He's such an amazing guy...he didn't take a dime from ticket sales, but had all sales go towards FCA. 

all the campers sitting up front

Just got back from vacation, so I'll be working on that post very soon!