So, it appears that despite my best efforts I am failing at one of the things on my list. I am not doing a very good job at keeping up with this blog (#29) and what I am writing is boring. In my self defense I do lead a fairly boring life though. I get up and go to work, come home and often continue to complete paperwork, go to sleep and the cycle repeats the next day – does not leave much time for excitement or anything good to write about. I do manage to socialize some on the weekends. Last weekend we had everyone over for a “Basement Reveal” party. It was a lot of fun and nice to have everyone at our place. We had a few drinks, ate a ton of food, and had a few dance offs with the Kinect. Overall, I think the basement looks great and I love that we worked on it together. It will be a nice place to hang out in the future – a cooler place to hang out during the summer months as well. We went to my first lacrosse game last night. Still not sure if I understand the rules, but I did like the view.

 The Hubby and I have been working on planning our trip to New York (#1) in the Fall. We are planning on going the second weekend in October and just need to get the rest of the details worked out. I have also made some progress on Decorating a Fancy Cake (#2) as I have signed up for a Basics in Cake Decorating class at Michael’s. The lady at the check out was very encouraging as she told me that there have been people to attend the classes having never decorated a cake and they know own businesses doing just that. I don’t have high hopes for my own skills, but I know that I will have fun and that is what is important to me. With all of these babies being born around here, maybe I will get a chance to make a cake for a shower to show off my mad skills. I don't forsee myself making anything like this, but wouldn't it be nice?!?!
 I plan to set up my scrapbook stuff and just leave it out so that I can get that caught up. I did make it to the gym once this week for a short run so I can get back on track with those fitness goals and hopefully losing a little weight along the way as well. I know that I owe a few pictures from our trip, so here goes...
 
Owen, the cutest godson ever. 

 
Two of my favorite men, The Hubby and Payton

 
 My sister and her little man.

Back on Track

Basically I have been terrible at writing lately. I wish I had a good excuse, but I got nothin’ other than I have been busy and I have not had the time/ambition to write. I have made some (minimal) progress on the list during my hiatus from writing. We recently traveled back to Illinois for a baptism, a graduation, and everything in between. We got to play with many babies and visit friends – check out the Hubby’s blog here http://spacecowboy11.blogspot.com/ for much better details and pictures of the trip. He is much better than I at adding pictures to his writing. We spent roughly 30 hours (if not more) in the car together over 11 days and for those of you that don’t know the Hubby he is not much of a talker. I spent much of my time reading (50 Shades of Grey – wow!) and also did some crochet (#18). I attempted to teach myself using the book on the way to Illinois. It was not pretty and I could not get the hang of going back on the row and ended up with a giant chain. My wonderful and beautiful grandmother was able to teach me better in 10 minutes than I managed to accomplish on my own in the car. The trip back to North Carolina was much more productive with crochet but I still do not have anything to show for it – except maybe an eighth of a potholder. Technically, I have learned to crochet I am just not very good at it nor have I actually made anything of substance. Overall I did find the act of crochet to be somewhat relaxing and plan to continue. Also in the car I managed to play a few games of Chess (#16) against the Nook. Surprise, Surprise – I did not win. I do now have a much better grasp of the game and the other night I played again and the game took about 20 minutes compared to the 3 minute games in the car so I am sensing some improvement. I plan to knock that one off the list this week after the Hubby and I sit down and play a game together. We are also very close to accomplishing #22 after taking some pictures in my hometown and are now only short an R and an L to complete our name. We also finally got the pictures printed before we left and they look fabulous hanging on the wall. As the Hubby pointed out tonight, we have been able to accomplish something for basically free that people pay big money for - a bonus as everything else on the list is costing money.