Doggie Park Date

Today was a great day for both Roadie and I. I got to spend the morning with my dear friend, Katie and he fell in love with his new girlfriend, Isabelle or Izzy.

Katie arrived around 9am with Izzy and a present in hand.  She found this tennis ball at the pet store and had to get it for me, since it said HB <-- my nickname.

I love this!  Although it was perfect for the dog park, I didn't take it with us because I didn't want to risk it getting dirty.  Understandable? I think so.

We let the dogs get to know each other at home while we had a quick breakfast at First Watch.  I'm no longer serving there, but I have been craving this Greek Fetish Omelet for a week now, so we stopped in to say hello.

It's an omelet, yes...but I chose to make it a sandwich with an English muffin, a tomato slice and cut the eggs into thirds. :)

After breakfast we headed over to Dr. Phillips Community Park.  I love coming here and I know Roadie does too.  What's not to love?

There's beautiful ladies.

Digging.

Small Talk.

Trampling me with high fives (on my TOMS). #fail

Security Duties.

Running (too fast for cameras)...seriously they were lightning fast! and... Last but not least, lots of hugs from Mom.

For the rest of the day Roadie has been tuckered out...poor guy.  Dreaming of his new loves, I'm sure.  

 Hope you are getting to enjoy the Holidays with friends 

(and doggie park dates).

Happy Thursday!

Merry Christmas!

The funniest thing happened this morning...

It started snowing in Orlando.  Not really Really.  When we woke up this Christmas, a miracle happened: a complete Winter Wonderland!  The temperature outside went from 80 degrees down to 30, and Scott and I couldn't wait to take the entire family downstairs to play in the snow.

What started out as innocently building snowmen quickly turned into an intense snowball fight...us vs. them.  Our clothes turned into Elf costumes and we were ready to rock and roll! There were a few good hits from both teams, but I'll let you be the judge of who won this one:



*REALITY CHECK: If you're lucky enough to actually be surrounded in snow today, go outside and take advantage of it!  Maybe you picked up a pointer or two on how to throw a good snowball... ;)

Merry Christmas!

Playing Catch-up

After a complete whirlwind of a weekend (including yesterday)...this girl is ready for a break!  As I'm transitioning between jobs, performing in The Singing Christmas Trees, working on side projects and keeping up with this blog it's been a crazy ride for a few weeks.

Today Scott left for Okinawa, Japan to go on a military tour to perform for our troops.  He will be traveling with a group of NFL cheerleaders and has an opportunity to show some of our men and women overseas support through entertainment shows, which you can read more about here.

What will be be doing exactly? Lots of skits...and will be wearing something like this:

No, not really.  But he will be dressed up and ready to entertain.  And that mustache?  Yup...he's still got it from Movember.  I thought I would be in the clear by December 1st, but I was wrong.  Apparently if you're going on a trip to Japan you HAVE to go with a fu manchu.

My mistake.

Since he's gone I will have a chance to catch up on my mile-long TO-DO list that keeps getting pushed aside.  I'm going to miss him terribly, but it will feel good to get some things done around here.  Besides getting some much needed R&R, I'm looking forward to being productive around the house but I'm even more excited about playing catch-up.

You know...the usual:
Laundry, clean out my closet, catch up on some organizing, spend some QT with these girls:

and go on a run or two with this guy:

Speaking of Roadie, look what we saw on our way in for dinner at Texas Roadhouse last night :

Apparently, there looking for dogs like him.  Even though we found him wandering aimlessly in our condo's parking lot, you guys had your chances to claim him last year....we're keeping him, Thank you! :)

We've already got our Christmas Decor and our Christmas Tree up this year, but I'm just now getting around to rummaging through our Christmas music.  Between the two of us, Scott and I have collected quite a variety, and I'm determined to find Mannheim Steamroller.  I absolutely LOVE them and it all started with my mom playing it as we decorated our tree each year growing up.

They're coming to Universal this year and shows have already started.

Photo courtesy of the Orlando Informer

I'm keeping my fingers crossed we can go when Scott gets back.
Speaking of music, PLEASE tell me I'm not alone on this one...

I just can't get enough of Linus & Lucy this year! I've always loved the song, but some reason when hearing it this year in particular it makes me stop whatever I'm doing and dance like this:



Personally, my style is like the two twin girls in the purple dresses bouncing side to side.  Besides that, the guy in orange shuffling is my second favorite.  It's just SO good and hearing the song or seeing this video puts me in the best mood.

Beyond Christmas music, I'll be playing catch-up on my blog posting.  Since Scott took the camera this week I upload allllll of the pictures I've been wanting to write about.  I've made a goal for myself to also upload all of the pictures I've been meaning to on Facebook.

No excuses...I'm doing it!

Although I don't have an iPhone right now (you would probably roll on the floor if I told you about my bad luck with them)...I have my beloved MacBook and I'm putting her to good use this week.

Off to barre I go.  See you a lot this week! :)

O Christmas Tree

It's tradition in my family to decorate the Christmas Tree on Black Friday, and this year Scott and I were inspired to keep it going.  Although I had to work all day, I was excited to come home, put up  our Christmas decorations and start on the tree.

Scott and I have decided to use an artificial tree until we move into a house.  Since we live on the 8th floor of a condo (thank God for elevators!) it's a bit of a hassle getting a live tree in and out.  That, and we don't have the luxury of sweeping all of the fallen needles out into the backyard.  They could be swept onto and over our balcony, so I think we're doing our downstairs neighbors a favor.

An artificial tree it was, and believe it or not we got this one two Christmas's ago at K-Mart.  We waited until the day after Christmas when everything was 75% off and got this pre-lighted beauty for around $50!  On top of that, this was the year we got our ornaments, garland, and lights from Target also at a huge discount. 

 *TIP: If you're wanting to get a completely new look and/or a new tree, the day after Christmas sales are totally worth the wait.

We set a similar type of tree up last year, but this year is the start of a new tradition where we are only putting new ornaments up that we've purchased together. 

Without any more babbling, I present to you our very first Hesington Family Christmas Tree:

Just like our other decorations, we kept the fun & funky colors and prints theme going.  I told Scott it everything together looked a little like Whoville, but it's finally grown on me and this year I love it.

Let's start the tree breakdown with my favorite part: the live animal decor.

I don't care if you're a cat person or not...that's stinking adorable.

Next, the lights.  Our Christmas tree came pre-lit, but Scott had a great idea of adding more.  We have the pre-lit multi-colored strands, but then added 3 colored to white dimming sets.  I like how it changes and gives the tree movement.

After the lights, came the garland, again purchased from Target.

More COLORS!

After garland comes ornaments and we stuck to the basics.  Part of our After-Christmas purchasing was a small medium and large ornament set.  All three came in bright colors, funky patterns, and a variety of shiny, matte and sparkles from Target:

To offset the brightness we added a few matte white ornaments:

From there, we are now only allowing ourselves to add ornaments we purchase together.  This ballerina is from our trip to ICE at Gaylord Palms two years ago:

We have also started a tradition of giving each other Christmas ornaments on our dating anniversary, which is New Years Day.  The rule is you have to get it after Christmas on sale, and last year Scott got me this adorable fish ornament from Pier 1 Imports:

And last, but certainly not least another highlight is our Christmas Pickle.  It's been a tradition in my family for years to play "find the pickle ornament" on the tree every Christmas Eve. 

 Whoever finds it first (after it's re-hidden...of course) gets to open a present on Christmas Eve.  It's a great game for a family of all ages, even one like ours that just constists of me, Scott, the cats and this guy:

Roadie's great at games, when he's not distracted by Christmas Tree toys...

(which by the way, has already been destroyed).

Let's finish off our Christmas Tree Breakdown with my favorite part of decorating: the star.

We had it lit up last year, but the base of it that carried the light disappeared over the year.  Somehow, Scott rigged it to stay up so at least we have something up there.

I really want to find a better tree-topper, or even make one of my own.  I have some ideas for a DIY project, but don't want to give too much away just yet.

So that's our first official Hesington Christmas Tree. 

I hope you like it! :)

Off to try to figure the topper out and get more ideas inspired by Pinterest...

Questions:

• Have you started decorating or gotten your tree yet?
• Do any of you play the "find the pickle ornament" game?

Birthday Picnic

This year was different in celebrating Scott's birthday...a day we both planned to have "off" turned into a window of 2 hours to celebrate and we had to use it wisely.

Plan A: We were going to cash-in on our Half Off Depot deal: Snorkeling with Manatees in Crystal River.  Scott is a HUGE animal lover, (hence his degree in Zoology) so I knew he would enjoy an outing like this for his birthday.  When I called to book our day a week before hand I didn't get a response back and when we called again they were all booked up...so we'll have to save SWM for another special day.

Plan B: I really really wanted to take Scott to Epcot's Food & Wine Festival.  We go annualy, but decided we weren't going to spend the extra money "just to go" this year.  I knew taking him there would be a complete surprise and something he would love to do on his birthday.

Enter problems:

• Scott has been working on Dwight Howard's Orlando All-Star Celebrity Weekend (more info on this coming soon!) bringing in acts and producing the events.  I am SO proud of him for getting this project and he has been working really hard to pull it together.
• Since this project is HUGE for us...he had some work to do on his birthday and had 2 last minute meetings, one at 10:30am and one at 4:30pm.
• I also had a 6:30pm dress rehearsal run for a show I'm performing in at First Baptist Orlando on Sunday night.

So you can see timing for F&W festival, or anything big was not ideal.  This is when I knew I needed to get creative.

Plan C: When I found out he had meetings during the day, my first thought was..."I'm going to bring the Food & Wine Festival to us!" Right there, as Scott left for his first meeting I started going through our fridge and pantry and pulled together what I thought was an impressive impromptu picnic for us.

The weather outside looked beautiful and even better than going to Epcot, we could have a picnic lunch that included Roadie!  I prepared lunch (you'll see the menu below) and finished up by getting Roadie's toys and "lunch" together.

And we were off! 

The HBSH bag was a wedding gift to me us. Isn't it adorable?!  It holds more than you think and is perfect for bringing groceries up to a condo.  I'll have to find out where our friends got it from and share the info :)

We were on our way to the park and decided to start vlogging (video blogging) again. Here's a short little video diddy just for fun...



When we got to Dr. Phillips Community Park I told Scott to take Roadie to the Dog Park while I set up camp.  Two minutes later (come back guys!) I was ready to surprise Scott with my "internationally themed" Food & Wine Picnic.

First, we had to entertain Roadie with his lunch bone.

Hey, that sun is bright!

Now on to the good stuff.  Our International Food & Wine themed menu included:

A quick cup of coffee (before we left) from the cloudforest of Monteverde from our Costa Rican Honeymoon.

Pita Chips + Roasted Red Pepper Hummus from Greece.

*I forgot to take a picture of this one...I got this offline from dailyveggie.wordpress.com.

Barbossa Chianti wine I brought home from my recent trip to Rome, Italy.

Cucumber + Tomato Greek Salad (minus the feta cheese).

Tropical Fruit + Yogurt Salad topped with Granola from somewhere tropical.

Banana + Pumpkin Peanut Butter Sandwich Triangles, Scott's American favorite.

And for dessert, of course German Chocolate Cake + Coconut Pecan frosting.

For putting the menu together listed above from what we had at the house already and not being able to go to a grocery store first, I thought I did pretty good.

After lunch, I wanted to read some passages from a wedding gift we got: Married for Life.

It's a cute little book filled with quotes and advice from couples that have been married for over 50 years!  We read a few entries and learned a thing or two already...

When we finished reading, we took Roadie into the Dog Park area for a little bit, followed by a family walk around the park.  Dr. Phillips has a beautiful facility and the best part is it's free. 

Scott was pleasantly surprised on how we celebrated his birthday with such a little time frame. 

 We had a few more outings as the weekend progressed, so stay tuned for more birthday posts coming soon...

Question:
What's on your favorite picnic menu?