Weekend Highlights.

This weekend was jam packed with activities and lots of celebrating! I'm looking forward to a low key holiday weekend coming up and then relaxing on our babymoon the following weekend! 

-I co-hosted a shower for one of my longest friends, Caroline! It was a woodlands themed shower, which goes along with Baby Ben's nursery. I'll do a separate post on it, but it all turned out really cute! 

-We celebrated Cameron's birthday with his parents with dinner at Indaco followed by cocktails (and mocktails) at 492. 

Appetizer: Burrata with shaved asparagus, pickled bluberries, and asparagus aioli

Recommend?: Yes! 

My Entree: Tonnarelli with lump crab meat, saffron, mint, breadcrumbs and paremesan

Recommend?: No. While the crab meat itself was tasty, there was no real flavor to this dish. 

Cameron's Entree: Garganelli with braised lamb, ricotta, herbs, and breadcrumbs

Recommend?: YES! I had major food envy with Cameron's dinner. It was much more flavorful that mine. 

Dessert: Espresso tart with chocolate ganache, biscotti, and espresso cream

Recommend?: Yes, how could you go wrong??

-Gus announced on his Instagram page that he was going to be a big brother x2!

That's a 3D pic of the babes!

-Cameron painted the nursery (yay!!!) while I did super fun stuff like laundry, de-cluttering, etc. 

-We celebrated June birthdays for my family, which are my sister, Cameron, my grandaddy, and my mom! My mom made the most amazing Kahlua cake with white russian icing! Reminded me of one of the layers of our wedding cake! 

Hope you all had a great weekend! Another Twin Tuesday post coming tomorrow! 

Introducing Gus The Golden!

Both Cameron and I grew up with golden retrievers so the next dog that was going to be part of our lives was a no brainer. We did our research on breeders and the different types of goldens (did you know there were two??) and decided we wanted an English Cream Golden Retriever. From what we read online, ECGRs have a longer life expectancy on average and are less likely to get cancer than American Golden Retrievers. Who know if this is all true, but it sounded good to us! Plus, ECGRs aren't as common as regular golden retrievers.  

Three months after our sweet Brady passed away, we picked up our tiny white ball of fur from a breeder in a small town called Troy, SC. He has provided us with lots of laughter to replace our sadness of losing Brady. And it's a good thing he is so cute, because he has also provided us many, many hours of frustration (aka potty training). 

You can follow Gus on Instagram - @gus.thegolden

And now for cute puppy photo overload.....

The day we decided we wanted the "grey collar" dog to be ours! 
He was the perfect combination of cuddly and playful, which still remains true. 

And the day we brought him home at 7 weeks!

Couch cuddles when Dad wasn't looking

First Halloween costume: Gus the mouse from Cinderella

The time I dressed him up as a baby

Gus' First Christmas

(This photo was re-grammed from Southern Living Magazine!)

Family pic

My sister got a puppy about the same time as we did! 

His name is Cooper. 

He's OBSESSED with sticks. 

I grew a lot in six months!

Thursday's [Quick] Thoughts.

-Saturday we had our first official Sandbar Sunday of 2016! Not quite warm enough to take those cover ups off, but sunny enough to need 30 SPF! This was Gus' second time on the boat, but first full day and he did great! Loving the pic below that my friend Caroline took. 

-Somehow I rallied Sunday night and stayed up way past my bedtime to see Will Hoge at the Pour House. This show was different than the other shows I've seen of his. This one was an all acoustic show! While I prefer to see him with his full band, this was a nice change. 

-This weekend we'll spend cleaning the house and getting the yard ready for our 4th annual Mother's Day brunch! 

-Also around the house, Cameron is determined to give our screened porch a face lift prior to Mother's Day. We've ordered new patio furniture, and he is in the process of re-screening and painting the porch. After that, he wants to put outdoor tile down over the concrete floor. He's got a lot of work to do!

-This post was pretty lame and short, but that's all I've got for now!

Some Life Updates..

Well, hello! It's me, your long lost friend. I'm still alive. A lot has happened in the past 7+ months, so let's play a quick game of catch up. Actually, it's a pretty long post. Sorry about that. 

You may or may not know, but Cameron and I had to say goodbye unexpectedly to our sweet, sweet Brady back in July. Hence the super long blog break. It hit me like a tornado and I was in a serious funk for quite a while. The blog got put on the back burner as I had nothing to talk about and didn't want to come on here and be a Debbie downer. I will do a separate post on Brady later, mostly so I can remember that awful day (why?!? I don't know.). 

We had our annual Edisto trip in September. Had to expand to two houses with all of the cute little additions we've been adding. Always such a good time (what vacation isn't?) and we had a sprinkle for Baby Jack while we were there, as well. 

About three very quiet and hair-free months since we said goodbye to Brady, we said hello to a little nugget named Gus! He has brought laughter back into our everyday lives and we tell him about his big brother Brady all the time. I'll also do a separate post on Gus because, as you can imagine, there have been a lot of photos taken and a lot of memories made already in his 8 months. 

South Carolina's football team did not fair so well last season, but that didn't stop me from going to Columbia to cheer them on! Cameron was, of course, happy that Clemson made it to the national championship last year. I was (a little) happy that he was so happy about that...

In October, our family had something very scary happen. Cameron's oldest brother, David, suffered from a major stroke. He spent almost six weeks in the hospital and rehabilitation, and still continues rehab multiple times a week. From day one he made significant progress in a short amount of time, even the nurses and doctors were amazed. Every day we went to visit him we would see progress being made. A funny story that I'm sure we'll never forget - one day while Cameron and I were visiting David, we were asking him questions to help stimulate his memory. I asked him what my name was and he said "bad sandwich" but then immediately knew he was wrong and we all started laughing. My nieces love to call me that now. :) Every time I think back on those weeks that he was in the hospital, and even afterwards, I think about how amazing it was that the family and their friends all came together to support David and his family. I really think it made everyone closer as a result and taught us all to appreciate each other, and every moment spent together. 

The day David came home from the hospital!

My best friend gave birth to her second son, Jack, in December. He is the sweetest little thing and his brother, Lane, loves being a big brother! 

Our good friends, Scott and Jane, got engaged! I also had the pleasure of going wedding dress shopping with her! 

In February we saw Garth Brooks and it was, as you can imagine, AMAZING! Three hours of non-stop singing my heart out. 

We celebrated my 32nd birthday in my most favorite way - good friends and yummy oysters! A few days later my nieces came over and spoiled me with a foot, hand, and back massage!

Our niece, Arden, turned one! 

FOUR of our supper club girls are pregnant and are all due in August! On the way are two boys and two girls. We have had such fun celebrating finding out their genders and can't wait to meet them all! 

We just recently celebrated our three year wedding anniversary! On our actual anniversary we ate dinner at Fat Hen and the following weekend we spent the afternoon riding bikes on Kiawah! Very low key, very perfect. 

I'll be back soon!