#cmafest & #cabrewing

first and foremost... lola bella turned 5 this month! i am so glad to have her with me and am loving introducing her to my friends here. she makes me feel at home.

{her dog walker brought her this princess crown!}

{birthday treats}

{stop working and love me}

two weekends ago, i got to experience cma fest for the first time! we headed downtown around 1pm and spent the afternoon at the river stage listening to all sorts of artists play... for free. that's the best part about cma fest. all the daytime concerts are free and the only thing you need tickets to are the big name artists that play at LP field each night.

this stage is floating on the river - awesome!

after a torrential downpour, and 10 hours at the honkey tonks, we decided to head home. it was such a fun day!

this past sunday, a whole gang of us headed about 45 minutes down south to duck river.  we packed the coolers in the canoes and set out on our 5 mile journey. IT WAS SO FUN! there were 16 of us in 8 canoes. it took us about 5 hours to make it down due to the fact canoeing wasn't actually the first priority. it was a beautiful day and i couldn't be more thankful to have found a great group of friends here already. i am blessed. 

nashville: part 2.

5.16: south carolina baseball comes to vandy.

5.17: skylar & cole come to nashville!

5.16: gamecocks living in nashville aka #nashcocks

5.22: hike at radnor and a beautiful sunset.

5.24: east side hootenanny!

5.25: night out in east nasty!

5.30: mae's birthday followed by santa's pub!

5.31: lola girl is finally a tennessean! 

i love this town.

welcome to tennessee.

whirlwind doesn't even begin to cover it. i last posted on april 2nd that i was moving to nashville. it's been a crazy 6 weeks since then. and i'm still internet-less in my apartment, so this little iPhone post will have to do for now.

i am now in week 4 of living in nashville. i have been home twice since i got here to stand next to two dear friends while they said "i do." i have checked in and out of more hotel rooms than i care to count, and am finally getting settled into my apartment. but through all the crazy - it has been awesome. my job rocks. my coworkers are incredible. i love my tiny apartment. things are going so well.

here are a few pics of my life the last month and a half. i will update more once i have internet again on saturday!

took my mom out on broadway! 

whiskey jam! love and theft. 

this is where i now work. 

wedding number one! mrs. wiggins! 

new apartment! 

wedding number two!

EXCITING NEWS: i'm moving to nashville!

after several months of interviewing, i've accepted a new job with a great company and will be moving in just a few weeks! i'm sad to leave my friends and family in charlotte, but super excited about the opportunity to do life in nashville. let me know if you have any friends in nashville because i hardly know anyone! cheers to a new life adventure!

#kattsbach {asheville, nc}

back when katt's moh/sister-in-law, sutton, & i started planning her bachelorette party, sutton decided it would be fun to make her bach a surprise. so until thursday evening when she hopped in the car, she had no idea what any of the plans were for her special weekend!

sutton & i headed up to asheville around 3pm on thursday to get checked into our house & get things ready for katt's arrival. i made katt the booklet below to let her know where we were going. britt gave it to her when they left charlotte around 6pm and turns out she actually had no idea where we were going! i thought for sure someone had spilled the beans at some point over the past few months.

the cabin i rented was AWESOME. there were 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a total of 16 places to sleep including the futon. there were also 3 couches and plenty of room for air mattresses - i'm convinced at least another 10 people could have comfortably fit in that house. there was a triple decker porch that had the most beautiful views of the mountains. it was perfect. i rented through vacation in asheville, and they were also extremely helpful and nice!

{sunset on thursday night}

the rest of the thursday night gang got in around 8:30pm and sutton made us cheese, meat & crackers for an app. we ordered pizza, played cards of humanity, drank beer, and hung out around the cabin for the rest of the evening!

{party favors: more on these awesome but simple gifts soon}

friday morning we slept in and hung around the house before heading into town for lunch. we ended up at wicked weed brewery after hearing some awesome things about it. it did not dissapoint! the beer was creative and delicious and so were all the menu items. my favorite beer was the v saison - it was dark in color, but not in flavor, and had a raspberry taste. i ordered the black bean burger that was served with pimento cheese and crunchy okra on top - it was amazing. the weather was beautiful - we could have stayed there all day!

we headed back to the cabin to meet the rest of the girls & get ready for friday night. i made a taco bar for dinner at the house, and once everyone else arrived, we headed back into town for the pub cycle! it is seriously worth the trip to asheville just to do this. the company we used was asheville amazing pubcycle and they are true to their name. our guide, chase, who played "becky" all night, was absolutely hysterical. i think he was born to do that job. we cycled up and down the streets of asheville, stopped at a few bars, and drank along the way. it was SO FUN. apologies to anyone who heared us screaming kilo ali lyrics around 10pm...

saturday morning we woke up and got ready for katt's shower. sutton made us delicious quiches & we had plenty of bottles of the yummiest champagne, asti, from trader joe's. we love you, andre, but there is a newer (and cheaper) champagne in town.

after the shower, we all did our own thing for the afternoon. some of my college pals & i headed back downtown to walk around and do some shopping. we ended up back at wicked weed for a snack and a brew. saturday night we drove to west asheville for dinner at isis. sutton's friend owns this new restaurant/music hall and they set up a special dinner just for us! we had a lovely 3 course meal and loved all the unique things on their menu.

after dinner, we hopped around to a few bars downtown. after we forced katt to chug way too many beers, we ended the night in our pajamas eating katt's famous nachos - just like old times!

i hope it was a perfect weekend, katt! we had a great time celebrating you and i hope you know that you are so loved. 52 days until you are mrs. smits!

march 1-10, 2014.

somehow it's already march 10th. how does this keep happening?

march 1st weekend i worked all day saturday, and then headed to the ballantyne for the annual march forth with hope foundation gala. i look forward to this night ever year and am so glad to be a part of it! this year's theme was "welcome to the jungle" and it was decorated beautifully!

shout out to katie for doing my hair and make up since i am not girly enough to do either one of those things on my own! we also took uber for the first time and it was a great experience! we will definilty be using that more in the future. after the gala, we met up with some friends at selwyn. it was a great night!

sunday morning we met up for breakfast & then i did some much needed vegging the rest of the day!

monday, the 3rd, was my sister leigh's 29th birthday! we went to PF changs with momma & b and it was delicious as usual. the week carried on and i was glad when friday rolled around again. 

friday night i stayed in with leigh, derrick and baby. saturday morning i stood in line for charlotte knights opening night at the new stadium tickets for 2.5 hours and they sold out before we even got close to the ticket counter. that was a bummer! i went on a bike ride with mom, took a nap, did some crafting and ended the night out with the boys.




sunday i woke up, had breakfast with momma, watched dallas buyers club, took a 3 hour nap, and had dinner at ruth's chris for my sisters' birthdays! court's is on wednesday, so we just did a big joint dinner for the both of them with dad & mary ann. it was a great way to end a super relaxing and fun weekend!

this weekend is kathleen's bachelorette! her sis-in-law and i have been planning for months & i am so excited that it's finally here! she still doesn't know where we're going, so it's all a big surprise. cheers to the beginning of wedding season - it's gonna be a busy one!

february 2014.

a recap of the entire month of february is about to happen in one post.

weekend 1 (jan 31- feb 2): i was home for the only weekend of 2014 and got the stomach flu. how special. 

weekend 2 (feb 7th - feb 9): i traveled to the good ol' "city" of hartsville, sc. two of my very best friends from college are from hartsville and they were throwing our pal laura a bridal shower there, so we made a weekend of it. and i sure am glad we did!

there are two bars hartsville, and one is a double wide trailer called j. michaels. an in j. michaels, you can go to the bar and order a PITCHER OF SHOTS FOR $25, which of course we did. and because i've been good friends with these girls for so long, i seriously knew half the people in the bar on friday night. it was amazing. the shower was adorable and i actually really loved their small town. we did every single "must do" hartsville thing and had a wonderful weekend!

and then the great snow storm happened. it was crazy for us southerners! it was the most snow i can ever remember seeing in charlotte. we couldn't drive anywhere for days. luckily, we live in a great spot and can walk to the grocery and more importantly, the bars.

weekend 3 (feb 14 - feb 17): CHEERSPORT! read more here. because of the snow, my flight to atlanta got cancelled and i didn't get down there until friday night. but i hit the ground running as soon as we got there, and i slept less this year than ever before. when i headed home on monday, i had slept for a total of 9 hours over the 3 nights i was in atlanta. but as usual, it's totally worth the work to see all of my cheer friends & spend the weekend doing what i love with my daddy!

weekend 4 (feb 21 - feb 23): murrells inlet, sc. rachel turned the big 26 so a gang of us headed down to her beach house for the weekend. we have spent so many weeks & weekends here over the years that it truly feels like a home away from home. i love everything about the inlet & love it best when i'm surrounded by 16 great friends. saturday was gorgeous and i spent a few hours on the beach relaxing with laura. saturday night we got a limo and went out in myrtle beach (disclaimer: we don't normally go out in myrtle beach) and it was a goooood time. maybe a little too good.

february has been full of fun! this weekend i'll be staying in charlotte for only the 2nd time since christmas. i'm really looking forward to it, even though i have to be at work at 6:45am on saturday... yuck! saturday night is the annual march forth with hope gala and sunday will be spent doing a whole lot of nothing.

bring it on, march!