Couples Retreat | Kiawah Island, SC

Most of my recent posts have started out with "a few weekends ago". Time is precious nowadays, but I still want to make a point to blog about these fun trips, experiences, and projects, even if they do come a few weeks after the fact. So here I go again...

A few weekends ago, James and I headed east to Kiawah Island, SC with my best friend Sara and her boyfriend Nick.  Sara's parents have a house on Kiawah and they were so sweet to allow us to visit for a long weekend couples retreat, if you will.   We each had a bike while we were there, so we took advantage of the many bike paths on the island.  We even packed up our baskets with our sunscreen, towels, and reading materials, strapped our backpack chairs on and biked to the beach one day.

James all packed up and ready to go

We had two full days on the beach and had great weather both days.  While we were there, we wanted to spend as much time on the beach as possible. We got out there around 11am each day and stayed until about 5pm in the evening. In the evenings we went out to eat and enjoyed fresh seafood.  Sara's parents treated us to dinner at The Beach Club on Friday night.

The boys waiting on Sara and I to get ready

Sara and I before heading to dinner

At The Beach Club

Beautiful sunset before dinner

 On the second night, we headed to Bohicket Marina for dinner and drinks at Reds.  There was a Billfish competition that evening, so there were a ton of yachts docked and a live band.

Sara and Nick at dinner

James and I at dinner

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend. We enjoyed relaxing and spending time with good friends.  I am already looking forward to the next Kiawah trip.  We will be heading back for a girls trip over Labor Day weekend. 

Twilight Weekend

A couple of weekends ago, James and I and our friends Sara and Nick headed up to Athens for one of our favorite weekends: Twilight.  The Twilight Criterium is an evening bike race through the streets of downtown Athens. We have great memories of Twilight weekend from our college days at Georgia.

As soon as we parked and got checked into our hotel, we made a bee line for Last Resort, our favorite restaurant in Athens in the world. Crab Cakes and mimosas definitely made me a happy girl.

After lunch, we spent the afternoon in downtown Athens.  It was fun catching up with friends who were also in town for the weekend. After dinner at Speakeasy, a tapas restaurant, we headed out to get a good spot to watch the race. The total race is 80 km (almost 50 miles) so it lasted a few hours. This was the first year we actually watched the majority of the race.  

All in all, it was a fun weekend of good friends, good food and pretending like we were in college again.

Chattanooga Engagement Party

Last Saturday, we headed up to Chattanooga for Aidan & Jinna Anne's engagement party. As soon as we arrived, we headed straight to Blue Water Grill downtown for a food tasting.  My parents will be hosting the rehearsal dinner at the Tennessee Aquarium and the food will be catered by Blue Water Grill.  After the delicious tasting, we headed to the chapel to see where my brother will be getting married.  The wedding will take place at the Patten Chapel on the UT Chattanooga campus.  The chapel was absolutely beautiful-- stained glass and detailed wood work throughout.  I can't believe that James and I will be standing up at the altar with Aidan and Jinna Anne, witnessing their vows in 3 short months! After taking a quick tour of the chapel, we headed to the Tennessee Aquarium to see the location where the rehearsal dinner will take place.  After looking at the space, we walked around the aquarium to check out the fishies:

As soon as Aidan and James saw the tank where you can pet the sting rays, their sleeves were rolled up and their hands were in the water...Such big kids.

Aidan and Jinna Anne in one of the exhibits...clearly JAT was excited

I found an alligator! Those of you who know my obsession with the show Swamp People will understand and appreciate this...

Later that evening James and I, my parents, Aidan & Jinna Anne, and Jinna Anne's parents went out to dinner before the engagement party.  

The engagement party was hosted by a good family friend of Jinna Anne's. There were all kinds of delicious deserts, good wine and toasts by Aidan and Jinna Anne's friends & family.  My toasts to the happy couple always seem to start out with "I was never a huge fan of any of the girls Aidan dated until he met you..." (which is so true by the way). It was really fun hearing all of the other toasts and the overwhelming support everyone has for the engaged couple.  

Aidan & Jinna Anne listening to the toasts

Some of the girls at the engagement party

Aidan, Jinne Anne, James and I

Such a fun weekend! We are looking forward to spending more family time this weekend with both my side of the family and James'.  James' sister, Julia, will be delivering her baby either sometime in the middle of the night tonight or tomorrow morning (please keep her in your prayers).  We are so excited to have a new niece or nephew for Christmas! 

Big Brother Is Getting Married!

Last weekend we headed down to St. George Island for a very special weekend.  About a month ago, my brother let our family know that he was planning on proposing to his girlfriend, Jinna Anne.  Awhile back, we had planned a family trip to St. George Island for this fall.  Once Aidan made the decision to ask Jinna Anne for her hand in marriage, he figured the beach would be the perfect setting.  After talking to her parents and getting their blessing, he asked them to make the trip down to Florida to surprise Jinna Anne after he popped the question.

Saturday afternoon Aidan and James went to play golf, and Jinna Anne, my mom and I did girly things all afternoon- brunch, shopping, laying out by the pool.  I'm pretty sure Jinna Anne was clueless that she was about to be an engaged woman.  It was so funny, when we were at the grocery store, someone asked us if we were sisters, and I responded saying "Hopefully one day!"-- little did she know that day would be sooner than later!

Aidan originally planned to pop the question at sunset, but as soon as he and James returned from golf, he couldn't wait.  As soon as they set off down the beach, we called Jinna Anne's parents and they came over.

She said yes! Once we saw them heading back towards the house, we all went out on the back porch to cheer.

After the love birds got showered and cleaned up, we celebrated with a champaign toast. 

After the champaign toast, we did a low country boil for dinner and enjoyed hearing the soon-to-be newly weds wedding ideas and plans.  After dinner we had a bon fire on the beach complete with smores.  Sunday morning, we had a chance to take a few pictures on the beach of our new family of six!

Aidan and Jinna Anne will be married on April 7th in Chattanooga, TN.  Congrats you two! James and I  can't wait to be a part of your big day.  We know you two are the perfect match for each other, and we can't wait to watch your marriage flourish.  Oh, and we can't wait for nieces and nephews one day!  

Tyler & Julie's Wedding

On Saturday morning, after our Friday adventure in NYC, we headed to New Jersey for our friends' Tyler and Julie's wedding.  James and Tyler went to grad school together at The University of Virginia and both still work for Ernst & Young. The wedding was in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.  We took a train out of New York and then drove for about 30 miles (?) possibly... am I the only one who doesn't pay attention to how far things are on vacation?

We checked into our hotel  around 1 on Saturday and Tyler and Julie's wedding ceremony was at 2:30pm.  The ceremony was beautiful and the bride and groom had a receiving line after the wedding to visit with all of their guests.  To be honest, going into this weekend, James and I kept wondering if a Northern wedding would be different than a Southern wedding, as neither of us had ever attended a wedding up north.  The receiving line was different, as well as the break between the ceremony and reception, but it seemed to work out well.  Shuttles picked all of the guests up from the hotel at 5:00 to bus us to the reception site.  The reception was at Natirar, a mansion set on a hill that looked out over sprawling hills and beautiful scenery.  Apparently, the mansion used to be owned by the King of Morocco.

There was a cocktail hour, while the guests enjoyed the sunset, and then a plated dinner.  The wedding decor was beautiful.

Tyler and Julie had a wishing tree where guests could leave comments and well wishes

Before dinner, we headed back outside to take a few more pictures.

James with his friends from UVA

Ahna and I, the only girls in the group for the weekend.  Ahna is engaged to James' friend Anthony

The dinner was amazing.  In true married people fashion, James and I ordered one of each-- chicken & steak, so we could try both. Tyler and Julie were announced during dinner, and then the speeches and dancing ensued.

The wedding was so much fun! Especially when the DJ started playing rap music and all of the old people got up to dance (definitely a polar difference from a Southern wedding... key words...DJ... and Rap Music). All in all, it was a successful weekend! We had a blast!  

New York City

Last weekend, James and I traveled to The Big Apple.  We were heading up North to attend the wedding of one of James' grad school friends.  I have so much to say about both New York and Tyler and Julie's wedding, so I plan on separating out the two blog posts.

We took Friday off work, and to take full advantage of our time in New York, we booked a flight leaving Atlanta at 6:30am.  We set our alarms for 3am so that we could shower and get out the door by 4:30.  Needless to say, I was falling asleep a little exhausted by the time 9 o'clock rolled around Friday evening. Our flight landed in NYC around 9:30 Friday morning, and the adventure began.  We were staying at our friend Brent's apartment in the West Village but as soon as we got off the flight it dawned on us, we had no plan and didn't know how we would actually get to Brent's place.  Keep in mind I had never been to New York and James went once... in 7th grade.... on a safety patrol trip... with chaperones.  Yeah.

So we ended up getting an airport shuttle to Grand Central Station and then navigated the subway to Brent's apartment to drop off our bags.  By the time we got to Brent's we were starving (hello, we ate breakfast at 6:00am) and sweating. New York was unseasonably hot and muggy, as it had been sprinkling on and off.  This girl only packed jeans, boots and sweaters.  Needless to say, after we ate lunch we had to go shopping.  Those of you who know me well may think that I planned that little coincidence, but I promise I didn't!  James was very patient while I stopped off in a store and bought a dress really quick.

After we ate lunch, we headed down to the World Trade Center.  We didn't buy tickets beforehand, so we couldn't go on the official tour of ground zero, but we were able to see the construction of the new Twin Towers.  It was a bit eerie to be down there, and think that  just a little over ten years ago that whole area was covered in dust, chaos and fear.

After ground zero, we headed towards Wall Street.  We were hoping that we would see the Occupy Wall Street protesters so that we could take pictures and heckle them, but they were at a private park somewhere else in the city.

Of course, I had to get a picture outside Tiffany & Co. It's a girl thing...

After Wall Street, we headed down to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty.  Unfortunately, they weren't offering crown tours that afternoon, so we couldn't go up into the statue, but we did hang in Battery Park for a bit to take it all in.  We happened to sit down at a bench that had this carved into it:

I swear we didn't carve that ourselves.  Such a coincidence though...

We left Battery Park around 4pm when some of James' friends were starting to arrive in town.  We ended up going to get pizza with friends and hanging out Friday night.  Saturday morning we were up early to head over to New Jersey for Tyler and Julie's wedding.  More to come on that next...