We have arrived!

We are HOME!

Yep I actually said it, I called Roanoke, VA... HOME!

A pic of the first time I saw our home, yes it was 10p.

After having a little too much fun in Nashville and staying a little longer than planned,

we finally set out on the remainder of our drive to Roanoke... all 7hrs, a little hung over.

Nashville has definitely been on my list of places to visit, especially after the tv show stole my number one spot (LOVE IT!) We had an absolute BLAST!

For our first night in Nashville, some friends suggested a place called Whiskey Kitchen for dinner/drinks. Amazing!!

*I might have LOVED it more simply for the signage ;)

Apparently Nashville is famous for their "Hot Chicken" (as in spicy), so of course I tried it with a side of Jalapeno Mac & Cheese.

I will never make Mac & Cheese without grating some J's in there EVER AGAIN,

it was pure cheesy, spicy HEAVEN!

I don't normally take pics of my food, but the presentation was too cute. I told Michael I want to get little urns to serve my side dishes from now on ;)

They had over 150 different whiskeys to choose from and nearly that many different concoctions. We also took part in a whiskey flight! Four roses.

After dinner we made our way on over to Downtown, our first stop the World Famous Tootsies Orchid Lounge, among another few...

I'm all about going to see live bands, but these people were straight up ENTERTAINING. They ran all up and down the bar, rockin out with the fiddle & getting up close and personal with everyone. Serious talent here!

If you know me, then you know my biggest fear with moving is not knowing ANYONE and having to make new friends. Which after this weekend I don't know why, the hubby and I are a BLAST! ha. We made all sorts of friends... we were just sad that we had to leave the next day :(

10:30a the next morning...

we opened those wonderful black out blinds that all hotels have, which can be a blessing or a curse... We were supposed to get our butts up and make it by the Country Music Hall of Fame. Seriously disappointed, I was calling around PetsMart & doggy daycares' to see if anyone would take Dakota... nothing! grrr. LUCKILY, happen to be staying at the best new hotel chain EVER!

Shout out to Lowes Hotels for not only being pet friendly, but offering a goodie bag and a 3pm checkout so we could leave Dakota in the room, while we toured Nashville daytime ;)

Ryman Auditorium, home of the Grand Ole Opry.

The Country Music Hall of Fame was awesome, definitely a must see...

Reba McEnitre

George Strait

Tim McGraw & Faith Hill

Last but not least, Carrie Underwood & Taylor Swift

Before we left, I promised Mike that we would try the BBQ. So being from Texas, I searched all over to try "the best place in the city," which brought us to Jacks.

Consensus says: Texas still wins!! But Jacks is a pretty good alternative.

Enough about Nashville, but I'm definitely going back..

Now that the movers have arrived to our home in Roanoke (and taken up the whole street) I guess it's time to get to work. It will all be worth it to not have to sleep on this for the third night in a row.

Wish me luck!

NOLA baby!!!

Well folks, we're on the road again...

Just can't wait to get on the road again!

NOT!

I'm over it!

We're halfway to Nashville and its taking FOREVER!

We have Dakota with us on this trip, so we had to seek out all the pet friendly hotels, which is not so fun! 

Lucky for us, Mr.Sheraton loves him some 4 legged companions. Did we get looks going through the lobby where D strutted her stuff through all the convention attending suits?! You bet ya!
But I prefer to think its because she's the cutest freaking dog they've ever seen! Mmmka?! ;)
She's been pretty good on the road trip, other than when we were 5 mins from the hotel and she threw up in my cup holder. Michael let her eat his fries! And I know it's not the safest way for her to travel, but she loves her little makeshift crows nest/perch we made her between our seats.

Have a mentioned I despise being in the car?! I'm a 5hr road tripper and that's a max!
This 20hr b.s. is not cool! Luckily my hubs agreed to break it up a little. We spent our first night in NOLA!

Dakota enjoying the skyline... 35 stories up!

I love New Orleans, everyone is in great mood and ready to party.
Not to mention the awesome people watching!

Last night we went to our favorite restaurant, Oceana Grill. If you are ever in New Orleans, GO! It's not too pricy, you don't have to wait forever to get in and the portions are huge! We originally went for the grilled redfish with a creamy seafood sauce, but our appetizers stuffed us so unfortunately we had to pass. The crab cakes are out of this world, the gator was good but chewy, but the oysters... AMAZEBALLS! Garlicy, parmasean goodness!!! Yumm!!!

  Ok stop drooling...

We decided we needed to get a good nights sleep in order to make the 8hr drive to Nashville doable, so we only had one hurricane and one hand grenade ;)

That was enough! Ha.

Although the streets were absolutely dead, I guess due to the holidays, we still had fun seeing the random marching bands and human sculptures.

 

Up next, the country music capital of the world (and my new favorite tv show)...

Nashville!

Fredericksburg Shopping Trip

I really look forward to our annual girl’s trip to Fredericksburg, TX. My mom, aunts, cousin (Taryn) and I scour the shops of the little ole town until we drop, quite literally.

  

We curse the shops that have tape across the big comfy chairs when our feet are pounding… how am I supposed to test out and see if I want to pay $2K for your cow hide chair if I can’t sit in it?! JOKING! But not at the prices… place has gotten PRICEY! I’m usually very much a Forever 21, H&M, Target kind of girl; but something about these little boutiques makes my heart pitter patter. Plus it’s nice to NOT have the same clothes as every other “trendy” girl in town.



Taryn & I

We were all so excited for our shopping weekend, not to mention the below 90 degree temps we were expecting! Mr. Weatherman said we were going to have beautiful sunny days, high around 68. WRONG! No way, weathermen don’t lie! The high was 56, BIG DIFFERENCE to this Texas girl. What’s a girl to do?

                                                       Drink up, until you warm up!

They had Pink Margaritas too, to promote Breast Cancer Awareness… of course, we HAD to get one!

There are always "characters" in the town and it never fails, you will always see something picture-worthy. This guy had EVERYONE talkin..

The best part, the Food and Wine Festival was in town. Needless to say, we ate AND drank, A LOT. I swear I gained 10lbs. You try leaving Fiesta Winery without buying 3 bottles of vino after trying nearly every wine on the list! Impossible! But I always say… PROMOTE small businesses!

The décor is always so beautiful and I always get great ideas for decorating and DIY. Look for these upcoming pinterest-worthy projects:



LOVED this unique chandelier!

"Hello Sexy" ha.

 

Spray branches, add mirror... easy enough.

I see a headboard in my future.



AND.... THE most swoon-worthy item of the trip… the zebra stenciled acid stained cowhide WITH gold accents!!!!!!! Ahhhhh.. she can be yours for $750.



Anniversary Recap

So this definitely happened a month ago, but bear with me I'm still getting use to this whole blogger thing... This trip is actually one of the reasons that I wanted to start blogging. Mike and I will be moving somewhere where we know NO ONE, other than the people in his office, so I see many side trips in our future, “exploring” if you will. I want to document all of the fun things that we do in Virginia and the surrounding areas so that everyone will want to come visit us!! Until then, our one year wedding anniversary recap in Virginia Beach, VA.

My friend Alissa, whom I know from high school and college moved to Virginia Beach when she was in the NAVY, her husband is still a Chief in the Navy so the lucky ducks live life on the beach! Mike and I wanted to go somewhere beachy/relaxing and not too pricy, so I hit Alissa up one night for her "reviews" on VA Beach. We ended up staying a few nights with Alissa & George, and a couple of nights in a suite in the VA Beach town center. We had a blast meeting all of their friends, (NAVY people are awesome/crazy!) we hung out at the local hot spots and even got to go out on a friends boat for a day!

Alissa & George

One of our favorite bands, O.A.R. was playing at the American Music Festival which is held right on the beach, no shoes allowed! We’ve seen this band a dozen times; from Texas to Louisiana, now in Virginia. Every show is better than the last! They are such a fun, rock out, reggae, “I’m feeling good” band. A must see!

 

We had a boat day on Alissa’s friends AWESOME boat!!! We went to an “island” with an outdoor bar called the Tiki Hut. Pretty popular place apparently. We all eventually swam ashore, had some drinks, played corn hole, and listened to a band… great day in my book! Our sunset drive back to the mainland included MULTIPLE dolphin sightings!

 

Chief George took us to the Navy base one day. IT WAS AWESOME! I’ve never been to any sort of military base, so I was truly surprised to see that it’s basically a little city within a city. The HUGE Navy ships are everywhere; it’s just like the movies! Ha. We got to get up close and personal with the spy planes that George is in charge of, personal items weren’t allowed, so no pics, sorry!

Monday, our actual anniversary we hung out at a local beach and just lounged… it was nice and relaxing. Our dinner that night at Mahi Mah’s, was probably the 5th time we ate crab on our trip, but we never got sick of it! Mike and I are huge foodies; and when I say foodies, I mean WE LIKE TO EAT! Everywhere we go we try the local cuisine and end of gorging ourselves. Needless to say our anniversary dinner was delish! 

For dessert, of course, we ate the top of our 1 year old red velvet cake. Now, I had several people warn me that this was going to be bad, disgusting actually... Including everyone that asked me about the cake as I CARRIED IT THROUGH TWO AIRPORTS, sent it through the metal detector and sat it on my lap the entire way to Virginia! We were gonna eat our dang cake on our anniversary! Well I’m here to say, it wasn’t terrible, but it was definitely very sugary! 

yep, I'm the dork that took one of my table numbers to take our 1 year anniversary photos!

Now, PRESENTS!!!!!!! The paper anniversary. I put a lot of thought into this gift, I scoured pinterest for ideas, and even Etsy… nothing! I was super frustrated, until I remembered that Pastor Larry asked Mike and I to provide him with 5-8 words describing what we loved about one another and he would present them to us during his sermon. Words + paper = perfect gift! My gift to Michael was a canvas covered in newspaper with the words we used to describe one another. The newspaper was from our wedding day that my dad saved for us, so it had special meaning. I loved how it turned out! 

Michael, being the good listener that he is, got me tickets to the Lion King, I’d been talking about it nonstop for months!!! And don’t worry, there is a tutorial coming for the Paper Anniversary Plaque. Until next time...