That Breanne...so full of surprises

Last week, I had a fun treat of a visit from my friend, Breanne. She's recently back from living the expat life and was making the rounds around Tennessee. We met about 3 years ago with a CRAZY backstory that you almost wouldn't believe and have been friends ever since. If you remember from my Ukrainian years, she was the friend I was supposed to visit Salzburg, Austria with...and then a volcano erupted. I hate volcanoes...

Anyway, she had a wonderful blog of her life and adventures across the pond. One of my favorites was this one about Wentworth puzzles. I really like puzzles, so I found this one to be very interesting. I also decided that I needed one. I started researching them and picking out ones I would buy if I could. You really should check out her blog; you'll get an incredible virtual tour of Europe.

Breanne and I talked fairly non-stop for hours (she spent the night with us), catching up on all kinds of things that we'd missed. It was buckets o' fun! She also gave me the most beautiful and delicate teapot as our wedding gift. It's absolutely lovely and authentically British. It sort of makes me wish I were British. Ever so slightly.

While we were discussing the teapot, I also mentioned how much I loved her post about the Wentworth puzzles. I told her about how I'd also researched them and drooled over them. What do you think she did next? She hands me a gift bag containing my "thanks-for-letting-me-spend-the-night" gift, which was...drum roll...THREE WENTWORTH PUZZLES! I was so excited! I'm now the proud owner of 3 40-piece puzzles, and I love them. So much. If you come to my house, I'll probably pull them out and let you work one. :)

Here's my favorite (it's a picture of Lyme Park, which is used as Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice...she knows me well!):

Here are the pieces cut as shapes from real life. The one on the far left is a carriage, then a flag, a shield, a cannon, and what I think is the London Bridge.

Done!

Thank you, Breanne! I absolutely love them and have actually done this one twice already.

Little house update

We've finally gotten around to getting our house decorated and functional. I already wrote a while back about our Lucy/Ricky bed situation, but I never updated on the rest of the house. Most of our furniture has been lent to us or given to us; there's no way we could have outfitted our house so nicely. Approximately 94% of our furnishings and decorations were not purchased by us. How fortunate are we?

Our kitchen doesn't have enough cabinet/storage space for all of our stuff, so we have to keep some of it out on the counter. Here's my attempt at storing it "artfully." Note: I'm aware that it's not nearly as "artful" as I fancy it being.

This is super blurry, but here's about as much of our kitchen as I could get into a shot. The pictures on the wall are pictures of food from our wedding. They turned out looking really good! Technically, this is a legitimate attempt at artistry.

Amiee isn't exactly a permanent fixture in the living room...actually, she's taking summer classes here, so she kind of is a permanent fixture. She would have had all her statistics stuff all over the couch with her, but I made her move it out of the shot. She's a good sport.

We have these very long, bare walls that I recently got covered up with pictures. Score for me. This is Brad's side of the hallway.

This is my side. I have more pictures. Totally coincidental...

Wall in the guest room. The painted stripes at the top were there when we moved in. We're working around them.

That's most of the house. The hall bathroom is pretty awesome, but I can't find my picture of it currently. Brad's and my bathroom is currently unphotographed. I may work on that sometime soon. We'll see.

We'll do anything for free food...

Back around Easter, Chick-Fil-A did a thing where every time you purchased a meal, they gave a plastic Easter egg that had a piece of candy OR a coupon for a free item OR 52 FREE CHICK-FIL-A MEALS (aka "Free Chick-Fil-A for a year"). Brad and I went about 4 or so times that week (we got several free sandwiches or nuggets...and one abominably annoying Gobstopper). However, we did not get the 52 free meals (a co-worker of Brad's went one time that week- not even knowing about the whole egg thing- and totally won the free for a year egg).

Anyway, a week and a half ago, CFA had their Dress Like a Cow day (wherein you dress like a cow and get a free meal), and of course, we complied. Amiee and I were totally on-board; Brad agreed to "dress up" as long as we did all of the work for him. Here's some documentation:

Moo.

Free CFA tastes even better than regular CFA. It's true. Peggy, I thought about you whilst eating my sandwich.

Brad wasn't as psyched as the rest of us, but he got free food anyway.

Additionally, we got to spin this Wheel-of-Fortune wheel thing, and each of us won a free dessert. Sweeeeeeet!

*I'm still working on getting the pictures from Williamsburg. It's just slow going.

Williamsburg, VA

For our honeymoon, we went to Williamsburg, VA. When Brad and I first started talking about possible locations, I told Brad that I'd really prefer not to go somewhere beach-y. This isn't because I don't like the beach; I just burn while wearing spf 70 and sitting under an umbrella. And then I get cranky. SUPER cranky.

Wisely, Brad decided on Williamsburg. We actually drove to Chattanooga right after the wedding and spent the night there before tackling the reallllly long drive to Virginia. It took about 2 hours to Chattanooga and then another 10 from Chattanooga to Williamsburg.

I'm really very ashamed to say that we took almost no pictures in Virginia until about two or so days before we were going to leave. We just kept forgetting the camera. Or to take the camera out of Brad's pocket and put it to use.

We stayed at a really, REALLY nice resort (Brad kept using the word "swank"- a derivative of "swanky," I'm guessing). It was beautiful and quaint, and I didn't want to leave it ever. We had a suite of a living room, dining area (with a chandelier), kitchen, two bathrooms, two bedrooms, and a laundry area. Loved it. Kind of wish I was still there.

Brad got us 7-day bounce passes between Colonial Williamsburg and Busch Gardens. It was approximately one trillion degrees Fahrenheit the whole time we were there, so we really only did things in 3-4 hour spurts before we were zapped from the heat.

Highlights:

1. The main day we spent at Busch Gardens was on a Wednesday, and it was over 100 degrees. Schools were still in session, and almost NO ONE was in the park. We literally walked right on to every ride (except for the indoor ride that had air conditioning- we had to wait in line for that one). We rode some of them several times before we got too hot and had to retreat.

2. We saw a play from the 1600's in Williamsburg. It was fun to feel ever so slightly authentic.

3. Brad scored a gift certificate to the Melting Pot, and we had one of the best dinners of our lives.

4. We got a free horse and buggy ride that took us onto the sidewalks of the College of William and Mary.

5. We ate in the cellar of one of the taverns in Williamsburg and had the most amazing dessert: Granny Smith caramel apple pie with cinnamon ice cream. Whoa. It was almost too good. We're still talking about it.

I just realized that our pictures are on Brad's camera, so I'll get those posted as soon as I can. Oi.

Wedding pictures: Outtakes!

In fairness to all of you who have stuck with ALL of the wedding pictures, I thought I'd include some of the less flattering shots that were captured. They're pretty funny, but not necessarily frame-worthy. Tomorrow, no more wedding pictures. Unless, of course, I start going through withdrawals...

Wedding pictures: Detail shots

Our photographers took some really great shots of wedding details, so I thought I'd include a few of those, as well. There just fun. I promise I'm almost done with all the wedding pictures posts!