GAMEDAY! GO PACK!!

August has flown by so fast..... We have been out of town visiting family and staying busy every weekend! But, we are so excited for today because it is GAMEDAY!! We have long awaited football season, and it is finally here!  What a great way to kickoff Labor Day weekend. We are also excited about spending Labor Day weekend in one of Ryan's favorite places with his family!!  It's going to be a great long weekend!!  More updates soon, but in the meantime GO PACK!!!  We will be watching with friends tonight and cheering on our Wolfpack!!  Looking for a WIN!!!

Happy Friday Y'all! :)

Happy Birthday and Happy Wedding!

Wow, this has been such a fun August so far!!  It started off with a wonderful surprise from Ryan for my 27th birthday.  He took me away for the weekend to the Ritz Carlton in Palm Beach!  I had no idea where we were going, even as he was driving there, and I was so surprised when we pulled up to the Ritz.  It is just gorgeous inside and out, and it has beautiful views of the Atlantic Ocean! We spent the day Saturday and Sunday at the pool just relaxing.  Saturday night Ryan took me to dinner at one of their restaurants, and it was amazing.  What was also really neat was that we were able to have a sushi chef make us hand rolled sushi on the spot in the lobby before dinner.  It was so yummy.  What a wonderful experience!  Needless to say I had one of the best birthdays, and it was so nice to get way just the two of us together.  We vowed that we will do much more of that!! So far 27 has been a great year.  Last weekend I was able to be in North Carolina to celebrate the marriage of my cousin Chris and his now wife Amanda.  I enjoyed being apart of all of the events and festivities and it was so wonderful to be able to spend that time with my extended family and also to see some friends I had not seen in a while. Ryan was with his best friend Andrew in SC for his bachelor weekend, and he enjoyed fishing, and hanging out with the guys.  I know he wishes he could have been in two places at one time, but I am so glad he was able to make the trip up to celebrate with Andrew. Here are some pictures from both of the trips in August!  I will post more soon!  Have a great week everyone!

What a WONDERFUL trip home to NC!!

We are back!!  Our trip was so nice, but WAY too short for our liking. We would have loved to have had longer so we could have seen more people like Ryan's parents, and our other family and friends! We do feel so fortunate to have been able to see so many of y'all though!  We arrived Thursday and immediately we were served "real Bojangles sweet tea". We were able to go to Pastabilites, my favorite childhood restaurant and one of Ryan's favorites too for dinner that night and celebrate family with my parents, my cousin Chris, his fiance Amanda, and Scott's better half and fiance Jenn! YAY for a yummy family dinner.  Ryan and I then met Amanda and Grant at Green Valley Grill for drinks.  It was wonderful to catch up with the Marshalls and to hear about their furry new addition (puppy Hoss).  Friday was a fun day in Raleigh for Ryan and me and we enjoyed eating at one of our favorite places in Cameron Village with our friend Andrew and shopping at Baileys, and some other Raleigh favorites ( Ryan had "fun", but not quite as much as I did haha).  That night in Greensboro two of my closest friends Heather and Morgan and their husbands Jimmy and Andrew met us for dinner at Green Valley Grill to celebrate my upcoming birthday and just reunite! In one word.... WOW!  We had such a blast!  Whenever these boys get together it is a crazy time, and we all enjoyed catching up and planning our next vacation together. I was so thankful that I got to see every member of the "Steel Magnolias" and their wonderful hubbies on our visit home.  Saturday we attended a Greek wedding for my childhood friend Katie.  It was so nice to be in the audience this time and we had a great time visiting with all of the Greeks, and cutting a rug on the dance floor. My parents really enjoyed having us with them too, and we even got Momma Gwen up and working out two mornings in a row, and she held her own with us!! All in all the trip was wonderful.  Now, we are back and it's my birthday week!! Ryan has some surprises he's planning, so I am excited to see what he has in store for us this weekend!  We have really enjoyed watching the Olympics this week!!  Go Team USA!!  Hope everyone else is having a good week, and I will make sure to update you all again soon! :)

Two Days Until North Carolina

We are so excited to go to North Carolina to visit with some of our family and friends.  Wish we could see more people, but glad to have the opportunity to see some!! I appreciate being home in NC so much more now that I don't live there.  It will be a nice break from our hot Florida summer.  Nothing too new here on the home front for us.  We had a nice relaxing weekend, and didn't do much! I will have much more updates next week!! Have a great week everyone! :)

A weekend with the family!

This past weekend was so much fun!  We arrived in Oviedo Friday after work and spent the weekend with "The Leiss Family"! We really enjoyed seeing most of the nieces and nephews, and getting a chance to relax a little bit. I helped Jenna go back-to-school shopping Saturday, and looking at all the cute "little girl" clothes made me want a little girl.  I came home and informed Ryan that Morgan Dog needed a sibling haha! No, no... I can wait to have kids, but I am very excited to one day have children with Ryan, and for now I am blessed to be able to enjoy our nieces and nephews. We are getting excited about going home to NC in less than two weeks and seeing my side of the family, our friends, and all of the close Greek friends that are like family! It will be an awesome trip and kickoff my birthday week! :) I cannot believe I am turning 27 this year! Tonight I went to my first JLT Fundraising Committee meeting, and I am really excited about this year and my new committee.  I really like the ladies, and I think it'll be a great year! Hope everyone had a great weekend and start to the work week today!

Happy Birthday Morgan Dog and Happy July 4th

Morgan Dog turned three on July 3rd!  He enjoyed a special present that Grandma Gwen bought him and Ryan and I spoiled him with lots of yummy treats from Downtown Dogs.  They have birthday cakes, and so much yummy stuff for dogs there.  I always enjoy going in and picking something out for Morgan.  Our dog is sooo spoiled, but he's the best so I am okay with that! :) I cannot believe that it has been almost 3 years since we got Morgan Dog.  I remember that day well. Ryan and I had only been dating for 5 months, and we had talked about maybe getting a dog at some point among some other serious topics. :) I had left my house to go grab our parking pass for that weekends NC State game on campus. I was in my sweat clothes with my hair on my head and my glasses on.... Ryan calls me on my way to campus and lets me know "he has found our dog" and he is going to Smithfield in 30 minutes to go get him. He asked if I would like to come, and of course I was not going to miss this special first meeting, so I hurried to Ryan's and we headed to Smithfield.  When we pulled up to meet the lady I saw this little 20 pound ball of blonde fur and he came straight to me. I have always wanted and had little dogs, but oh my goodness in that moment I fell in love.  I joke with Ryan that that is how he hooked me, because of course I was never leaving this dog! :) "Captain Morgan" rode in my lap back home that day, and I was such a happy girl.  He has just been the best dog for us, and we are so lucky that he is such a good dog and so sweet. He's our little puppy son, and he still curls up in my lap at 42 pounds like he's that little puppy. Words cannot describe how much our puppy man means to us. We love our Golden Spaniel so much!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful July 4th holiday.  It was weird for us this year for a few reasons.  Ryan and I have now spent four July 4th holidays together, and this was the first year that we were not at Wrightsville Beach with my whole east coast family.  With July 4th on a Wednesday, it through us off a little bit.  We had a very low key celebration, grilling out here with our friends who live on the water and some of their friends, and then taking the boat out to watch fireworks.  It was neat to be on a boat watching the fireworks! Ryan and I really missed being with the family this year and being at Wrightsville, so we decided we will plan ahead and make sure to be at Wrightsville next year!  So all of you Wilmington people, get ready for us! :)

We are just enjoying a relaxing weekend this weekend. It is nice to live at the water, because you can see it anytime you want to.  That is one thing I love about my ride home everyday! I will update everyone again soon! Have a wonderful weekend! :)

Anniversary, Engagement, Birthday, Wedding, and then a Storm! :)

Hello Everyone!  I cannot believe that June is almost over!  My half year resolution is to become better about blogging and keeping everyone up to date on The Rindones!  Since I last blogged several fun things have happened:

We had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend celebrating our ONE YEAR anniversary.  We went to the Animal Kingdom Villas and enjoyed lots of good meals, animal watching, EPCOT, and some pool time, thanks to Bonnie and Richard!  It was a nice weekend away for us. Mom was nice enough to ship down the top of our wedding cake from NC, and so on our actual anniversary (Monday) we opened up a nice bottle of champagne and enjoyed eating what was still surprisingly good cake!! Shout out to Delicious Bakery in Greensboro! YUMMY after even a year and lots of traveling to get to us! June has proven to be an exciting wedding month too.... We have made so many wonderful friends and couple friends since moving to Tampa and we feel so blessed to be able to share in some of their exciting times.  Two weeks ago my friend Mary and her then boyfriend Chris got engaged, and Ryan and I got to go out with them that evening and celebrate! We then had the pleasure that next weekend of watching two of our great friends, Britt and Tye, get married.  Ryan was a groomsman in their wedding and we enjoyed all of the weekend festivities at The Vinoy and the Museum of Art in St. Pete.  In addition to all of that excitement, Momma Gwen came to Tampa to visit for her birthday, and we enjoyed treating her to Berns for her birthday! She of course loved it!  Ryan was in Texas this past week for work, so I enjoyed taking mom around to the beach and showing her more about Tampa.  We had fun bonding over girl time.  Morgan Dog was so sad to see his grandma leave, but it was a great visit! 

So that is what we have been up to recently. Hurricane Season has now started with this beautiful tropical storm here in Tampa, so Ryan, Morgan Dog, and I are staying in and enjoying some family time.  I am really hoping we do not have a hurricane.  We are doing fine right now, but not to worry, Ryan has stocked up on rice and some other yummy things along with matches and some sort of light that is "neat" and will help if we lose power.  Leave it to my manly husband to think of all of these great things.

Look forward to filling you all in again soon.... It really will be soon!! :)