All in the Family

I believe the most valuable thing we all posses is time. And it's easy to see where your heart is if you just look to see where you spend your time. And the amazing thing about it - none of us know how much time we actually have. We know there are 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and we assume we'll wake up day after day and go about our business, but we all know for a fact the next day is never guaranteed. 

So with that said, Asha and I ventured down to spend time with some family and celebrate my grandfather's 79th birthday. It was a surprise party with just about all of his children in attendance. My brother and I hadn't seen him in a while and Asha had never met him before, along with some of my aunts and uncles, so this was going to be a big celebration.

The surprise celebration took place at Red Lobster. I have to admit, it was pretty special seeing the shock and happiness on his face once he arrived and saw everyone there to see him. I was also impressed he pretty much remembered everything about my brother and I especially considering we hadn't seen him in quite some time.

It turned out to be a great time spent with family which is always good. It was one of those moments that was just pure joy and happiness and a memory I'm sure everyone there will cherish.

Say Yes to the Dress: BRIDESMAIDS Edition

If you didn't already know, my bestie, Sairy, is getting married this November! This past January, I happily accepted her request to be a bridesmaid. I literally did a happy dance in my living room upon receiving the invitation. Needless to say, Sairy is on top of things and knocking things off of her Bridal To Do List, one after the other. She reserved a day for Katie (another friend and bridesmaid) and I, to try on dresses and narrow down the choices that will stand beside her stunning wedding gown on her big day.

I don't know what it is but whenever Sairy and I go dress shopping together, something....interesting...always happens. Luckily, we always have a camera on hand to get a photo of it.

Let's rewind to 11 years ago to our junior prom. Ahhhhh, ELEVEN?!!?! Holy heck. We were dress shopping for our first ever prom dresses and ended up cracking up on the dressing room floor when Sairy got stuck trying to take off her prom dress. My case in point:

And for a little flashback, here are some photos from Junior Prom:

Fast forward 7 years later, and you will find the situation reversed when I had a similar situation trying to take off my wedding dress in the dressing room. Again, we ended up laughing on the floor with a picture to prove it.

And now we come full cirlce to a few weekends ago. As we were searching for the perfect bridesmaid dress, we somehow accidentally picked out some type of gaucho pant jumper dress. You should have seen me in the dressing room as I was so very confused on why this dress wasn't fitting over my hips. It turns out, I was trying to get my entire waistline into one pant leg. After taking the dress off, giving it a second look, and reevaluating the entire situation, I called Sairy in to get reassurance. Was this dress PANTS?!!?! Yep. She confirmed it. There was no backing down and I put both legs in the pants and came out laughing, nonetheless.

Sairy, Katie and I spent the entire day trying on dresses. I never thought my fingers would hurt from zipping zippers all day but it was totally worth it to spend the day with those two. Sairy has the best interest in all of her bridesmaids and is sure to pick something we all feel beautiful in. Stay tuned for November to see her beautiful wedding!

Ain't No Party Like An Umizoomi Party

Umizoomi. I had never even heard of the term until a month ago when I started to help my sister plan for my nephews 2nd birthday party. Yes, SECOND. He's two. TWO! When did that happen?

Evidently the kid is obsessed with Umizoomi and I quickly learned all things Milli, Geo and Bot. Keegan has a lot of friends for only being two years old and I had a blast meeting everyone and sharing his big day. Here are some of my favorite pictures from Keegan's 2nd birthday party!!

We love it!

You probably haven't noticed but the past two years, Jeremy and I have each written 5 things we were loving at the moment. February is the month of love, hence the focus of this particular topic. Well folks, February is almost over and I have managed to pester Jeremy to no end to think of 5 things. If we're going to keep up with this tradition, we've got to get on the ball! So, here it is. 5 things I'm loving and 5 things he's loving.

5 Things Asha is loving:

1. Nike Plus Runnning App (Coach). 
A month ago, my dear friend Chelsea asked me to run a 10K. Not just any 10K...the famous South Carolina Cooper River Bridge Run 10K. I was excited to sign up for my first ever 10K and experience the fun and excitement I've wanted to do for years. One problem. I hadn't run since THANKSGIVING. Luckily, my running partner in crime, Sairy, told me that our Nike Plus (Running) app had a new coaching feature added to it. I looked into it and programmed myself for and an 8 week training program to prepare me for the race come April. I'm in my 3rd week and LOVE it. Well, I love everythig except those long runs. It's been a great help and I can't wait to experience Charleston with a great group of women.

2. Divergent. 
I got on a reading kick once again and got sucked into all things Divergent. This book series is a must-read and I am happy, happy, happy to see the book come to life in theaters in March. I just finished reading the series and the book had tears streaming down my face. I'm gonna be a mess in the theatre...especially when it comes to Allegiance.

3. 5 Dinners in 1 Hour. 
As you all know, I work way too far away from our home. I have also been working out after work. This makes for a dinner time of 9pm and we all know that isn't good for our bodies. About a year ago, I stumbled across 5 meals in 1 hour, a site where you subscribe to get a months worth of weekly meals that you can prepare quickly and efficiently. The best part is how organized it is. All meals are divided into instructions, grocery list and preparation. The idea is to make your meals over the weekend so when the week comes, all you have to do is pop it in the oven or do whatever necessary. It's done wonders for our grocery bill since we're more organized in what to buy and most of the recipes have been great hits in our household! Here's a link if you want the deets: 5 Dinners in 1 Hour

4. Bandsintown App. 
As if I don't go to enough shows already, Bandsintown has got me wanting to go to more. It's a great app where it alerts you when your favorite artists are coming to town. I literally squeeled with excitement when I got an alert that Eric Hutchinson was going on tour and stopping in Charlotte on April 17th...MY BIRTHDAY!!! Concerts on your birthday are simply the best. The last time that happened, I met Jason Mraz :)

My most recent show with Andrew Ripp!

5. Pure Appiness 2012.
Yes, it's 2014 but I was a little late to the game when it came to publishing our blog posts from 2012. 175 pages later, I clicked purchase and a few weeks after, our precious memories arrived on our doorstep. I could flip through those pages over and over again and never tire of it.

5 Things Jeremy is loving:
1. Coaching basketball
This season, I was lucky enough to help coach at Carmel Christian School. I was primarily the JV assistant coach and it was way more fun than I originally anticipated. Carmel is a very small program still in the beginning stages and Nathan (the head coach) and I were able to surpass EVERYONE'S expectations and reached our conference championship game. We unfortunately lost, but making it that far was still an awesome finale to the season. I seriously enjoyed the season with everything from the support from parents, to the relationships built with the players. It was tons of fun and I hope we have continued success next season.

2. Guitar
As some of you know, I'm slowly becoming a guitar player. I'd say I've gotten good enough with some chords to at the very least make strangers think I can actually play some. Anyway, I think I'm starting to finally to possibly find my "style" of play. Since I've gotten an electric guitar, it's like my musical soul keeps gravitating toward a rhythmic, funky, blues-like fusion of sound. Like many people, I've got an eclectic taste in music and I'm inspired by plenty of different genres. So it makes sense that this "style" of music I like is a big mash up of styles. So yeah, all of that leads me to my next thing...

3. Arctic Monkeys & Gary Clark Jr.
"AM" - Arctic Monkeys and "Blak and Blu" - Gary Clark Jr. These 2 albums have been in HEAVY rotation for me lately. I was just recently introduced to both of them and I swear it's like they had me in mind when recording. The Arctic Monkeys... I don't even know how to describe them, just get the album. As soon as I listed to the first track, I immediately wanted to learn to play it. The album is just... bold. A lot of the music is loud and catchy and over the top and in your face, but at the same time it just flows and feels so effortless. I don't even know if that made sense.

Gary Clark Jr. (He will now be referred to as 'GCJ') won a well deserved Grammy this year. He is a really, really, really, really, really good soloist on guitar. He's got some serious skills and a whole lotta soul to go along with it. I think one thing I really like about his songs is that his guitar playing features lots of gain. You can quickly tell he's got a lot of blues influence too. This year he performed at the NBA All-Star game and it was great to see him on national television, especially since I hadn't heard of him until the Grammy Awards. (side note: the NBA did a great job with music entertainment this year for the All-Star game. First of all, Pharrell should just always be there. Secondly, their halftime show with GCJ, Trombone Shorty, Janelle Monae, some native New Orleans guy, and Earth, Wind and Fire - awesome sauce.) One last thing, I think GCJ is almost making cool again for black guys to rock out on guitar. Thanks, GCJ!

4. Work
Not many people can say they love their job/where they work. Thankfully, I can. (and I'm not lying!) Anyway, there have been some big changes happening, but I love it and I'm excited for where things will go. It feels like, at the Y, we're getting ready to really start making some moves for the better and this makes me really happy. I think, at times, I work best when the surroundings are a bit hectic. I'm a pretty laid back, calm guy and I usually don't get worked up for some chaos. So when it does get crazy, I tend to start working harder to at least stabilize my immediate surroundings. So yeah... I'll be working hard here soon. Sorry, Asha.

5. Not the Bachelor
If you haven't noticed by now, I stopped blogging on the Bachelor. Honestly, it doesn't seem like anyone is really missing it. It's not so much about people grew tired of reading it (it was super long... I wouldn't have read the entire thing), but more about how boring the season was. It's hard enough for Asha to get me to watch that show AND blog so back-to-back boring seasons (Desiree and now Juan Pablo) really killed it. The show is now down to the final 2. I'm not sure who will "win". I also find it funny he's had ladies leaving instead of being sent home this late into the season. But in the immortal words of Juan Pablo, "It' OK!"

SNOW DAY!

As we all know, if there's a chance of snowfall in the south, go ahead and shut down everything. Because we don't have much snow, nor do we have many tools and plans to deal with the snow (see Atlanta, Ga.), it's just better we cancel and close everything and enjoy the white stuff.

And ya know what, I'm A-OK with that. Snow days give us a mini "stay-cation" and force many of us to just be. Day after day, week after week we're all so concentrated on doing things - work, school, errands - but when everything in the city is shut down, that to-do list suddenly becomes super short. Thanks to this blizzard, I've seen and talked to more neighbors today than I have in at least 6 months.

So with that said, I tried my hardest to enjoy the blizzard of 2014. Once work (and everything else) had been cancelled, it was time to relax.

After watching some daytime TV and discovering my spirit animal, I was done relaxing. It didn't take long for that to just get boring.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Komondor/the Jeremy.

Asha and I decided to venture out into the snow for a quick walk around the neighborhood. This was when I found out how much of a baby Apollo is. We were playing in the snow all happy-go-lucky, Apollo and I semi wrestling. Good times. Then, while playing, I toss some snow in Apollo's face. If Apollo could talk, I swear he would've said,

"I don't wanna play no more."

That punk dog started to cry. The same 140 lb dog that was eating the snow moments earlier, got some snow thrown in his face and began to cry. Like... for real cry. Asha and I thought he was physically hurt, but no... just his feelings.

We laughed and made fun of him for the rest of the day.

This is when he started crying. Big baby.

The next day is when things got REAL.

The day started the same way the previous one ended - laughing at Apollo. He was so unsure of everything once he stepped outside and realized it was ice and not the same snow as the day before. He was so confused.  He didn't know where to pee. 20 minutes later, he ended up peeing in the street.

Asha and I went for another walk, this time to check out a little more of the area. As we guessed... everything was white and covered with snow. We also witnessed a huge branch breaking and falling from a tree. Luckily no one's car was under it.

Once we returned home, I wasn't ready to go inside and let boredom set in, so I decided to build a snowman. There was plenty of snow to make a legit snowman, so I went for it.

Somewhere between building a base and realizing I didn't feel like building a snowman anymore, I decided to build an ice cave/igloo type thing. Not sure why... but I did. And I was so determined to finish it. Anyway, I was proud of my work. I wish I built it bigger, but I got tired and I probably looked silly out there building it by myself. I had a couple of admirers though so... mission complete.

The blizzard of 2014 was fun. It's always nice to take some time and just enjoy everything. Thankfully, our power never went out and we still had food (minus bread and milk though...). Hope you all enjoyed the snow and filled everyone's Facebook and Instagram timelines with pictures of snow!