Four months in...

April 30th is upon us! I don't even know where April went! Can you believe it??? Soooo... for those of you who don't remember I gave myself a list of 30 goals to complete before the year. You can read that blog here if you want. But see below to see how we're doing here!

Honestly, I think April was a pretty pivotal month on completing items on this list!

1. Start a blog (check) AND write a post at least once per month (January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December)

2. Visit three or more new places - Ha! I visited 7 new STATES nevermind places!

3. Lose at least 15 pounds (I would love to lose 30, but I want to make a realistic goal) 

4. Get back in shape or at least become more active by doing some form of exercise frequently - I have gone on a few walks here, AND did a 5k

5. Be specific about doing something kind for someone at least once per month 

• January  - I brought my older neighbor's recycling bin out to the curb for her 
• February - I sent a card/gift card to a family who is going through a rough time and needed some encouragement
• March - Went with my friend to go hang out with her mom, and brought dessert!
• April - Helped one of my friends out by emptying her dishwasher for her when she wasn't feeling well :(
• May 
• June 
• July
• August
• September 
• October
• November 
• December

6. Try six new recipes (Who saw the blog posts about Chicken Delicious, Turkey Breast & Turkey Tetrazzini?, Creamy Italian Chicken - Thing 5, 4 down, 2 to go!)

7. Make a new friend

8. Watch the sun rise

9. Enjoy a sunset - Totally saw the sunset on our road trip!

10. Swim in the ocean

11. Do a charity run or walk - April 6 the SCAN 5k See my Blog Post!

12. Raise money for a charity (Can be combined with number 11)

13. Donate to a new charity - I did actually donate to the organization for Sharon to go help orphans in China

14. Get a facial

15. Take a dancing lesson of some sort (salsa, country line, etc.)

16. Go to more than two Flying Squirrels games

17. Go to at LEAST one Hokie football game

18. Participate in a murder mystery dinner - Murder at the Juice Joint was AWESOME!

19. Try to re-finance my house for lower interest and a conventional loan (so I can get rid of that darn PMI. And obviously this goal is only going to be applicable if the rates stay where they are) -I don't think this is actually going to happen this year, so I'm going to update my goal here soon enough

20. Pay off my car?!?! Or at least come close (Used some of my tax refund to pay down the car, it will definitely be paid off before the end of the year!)

21. Ride my bicycle more than once

22. Read a non-fiction book (I know this might not be a big deal, but I 100% stick to fiction books)I read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand I would SERIOUSLY suggest it!

23. Build something

24. Go through my house and get rid of things/clothes/etc that I haven't used in the last year (This is partially complete. I went through my closets and got rid of 6 paper grocery bags full of clothes & shoes. I still have more things to get rid of but that is definitely a start!)

25. Organize my basement (especially the workroom)

26. Hang the rest of the pictures, art, and shelves that I haven't hung

27. FINISH UNPACKING from when I moved (yup, that's right folks, there are still boxes in my attic)

28. Volunteer for something I helped with Laura's Church (West End Pres) at their annual Stop Hunger Now event and we packaged 80,000 meals for kids in Haiti

29. Spend some serious time in my backyard weeding, killing weeds, and planting pretty things that don't take much effort to keep up

30. Have the BEST 30th Birthday party EVER!!! :) (Especially since Laura is planning it!) - Holla! This was REALLY fun! Laura's party planning was A-MAZING! Check out my Birthday Blog!

Day 10

Holy Moly is it really the last day? Yes... haha traveling has been VERY tiring but sooo fun!

Today we actually slept ALMOST until the alarm went off, which is pretty much a miracle. We got up, got ready and then headed to the St. Louis Zoo, which happens to be one of the top FREE zoos in the country! That was really awesome!

Then we drove downtown to the arch. We really wanted to ride the tram up to the top, but we would have had to wait a few hours, and we really just didn't have that time! Sooo we took our pictures and left (guess we will have to come back here again!!)

We ordered the dish St. Louis is know for... toasted ravioli (not my favorite) then headed back to Kansas city. Our very last state to visit was Kansas so we found the Gates bar-b-cue that was in Kansas and had our dinner there. When we arrived in Kansas City one local person suggested Gates so we thought we'd check it out. It was pretty good!

Headed to the hotel and now we are trying to pack our luggage and get ready for our early morning flight back to Richmond!

Day 9

Breakfast with Courtney and her sister. Then off we went on our way to St. Louis. We stopped outside Chicago somewhere to fill up on gas then give the tires some air... one of them was low and the car was nice enough to tell me.

After that we headed on to Springfield where the corn dog was created. After lunch we drove the rest of the way to St. Louis, showered and then met one of Laura's friends for dinner.

We then walked down to the City Museum, which was a really neat museum that is made completely of recycled material. We saw the largest pencil in the world which has a working eraser that weighs 250lbs along with lots of other things. We got pretty tired so we went home in preparation of our last day on the road before flying back.

Day 8

The only driving we had to do yesterday (day 8) was driving from O'Hare to Courtney's apartment. Yay!!!

We hopped on the brown line and went to Navy Pier where the Ferris Wheel is located. Took a ride on it then walked back toward the magnificent mile for lunch.

Then we took a 90 min architectural boat tour of the rivers in Chicago! Then headed back to Courtney's and went out for GOOD Mexican for dinner!

Today we are back in the car on the way to St. Louis.

Day 7

CHICAGO!!! Aka the Windy City! We got up in Portage, Indiana and drove the 50 miles to Chicago, took the CTA into the city and started our adventure. Shedd aquarium first, the bean, Willis Tower sky deck, Magnificent Mile then back out of the city to get to our hotel.

Finally a day with lots of walking and not so much travelling!!!

Day 6

Today we got up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin drove downtown to walk around a little. Afterwards headed south for some cheese and the tour of the jellybelly factory!

Then we continued on THROUGH Chicago on to Indiana and Michigan. That's right folks... instead of 11 states in 10 days we now upped it to 13 states in 10 days... plus we ended up driving in three different time zones. See below for JellyBelly and sunset photos.

Day 5

Got up to about 5 or 6 inches of snow, but when I went to go clear off the car it was nearly 45 degrees out. The roads were fine so we headed out towards Madison, Wisconsin. Yup another state!!!

On the way we stopped by a cheese factory and had some amazing 10 years aged cheddar cheese. Then we headed to Madison where we went to the FREE zoo! It was pretty awesome for being free!! No worries we both donated!

Drove around Madison then headed a little farther to Milwaukee. Finally we found a good restaurant on this trip. We ate at Water Buffalo in downtown Milwaukee. Yummmmmy!

Day 4

Yup... we are supposed to get snow tonight... we are hunkered down outside of Minneapolis for the night hoping to not have the high end of the snow.

We shall see!

Day 3

Nearly 1400 miles have already been travelled on this trip! According to our original "plan", tomorrow we were supposed to be at Devil's Tower monument in Wyoming, but instead we will be on our way to Minneapolis.

Why the change? Well there was going to potentially be snow in North Dakota... neither of us wanted to deal with that, so we powered through and made it to Fargo today.

Another long day... and Nothing nothing nothing to see or do on a Sunday in North Dakota, but we made it back to the central time zone and tomorrow will be a "short" drive!!!

South Dakota - Day 2

Day 2 was a success!! Check out Laura's blog for more info.

Day 1

3:15 Am eastern time (et) wake up
5:20 am et flight
9:20 central time (ct) arrive in Kansas city
10:15 am ct leave rental car place - Missouri check
1 pm ct arrive in Omaha - Nebraska check
2 pm ct leave Omaha
3:45 pm ct arrive in Sioux city - Iowa check
5:15 pm ct arrive in Sioux falls - south Dakota check
7 pm ct arrive in Mitchell SD...

Sooooo tired!

We made it!!!

Destination 1 - Kansas city!

Things 29 & 30

Who is ready for this to be done?!?! <~~~ This girl!

Ok I did actually finish the 30 things in 30 days before my 30th birthday, I'm just slow to blog on them. The final two things

Thing 29: Get my car washed - SUCCESS!!! (Then it rained on Monday)
Thing 30: Do a Tequila shot - SUCCESS!!! Salt, Lime and all!

Glee-tastic! Helloooooo 30!

I had an AMAZING birthday party! I mean, seriously, it was SO GREAT. If you know me, you know I love to have people over, I love to hang out, and I love to have any reason to get all my favorite people together for food, drinks and FUN!

So this year I asked my friend Laura to plan a birthday party for me. I figured I was turning 30, so I might as well party it out! Her first question to me was, what do you want the theme to be? Well, I'm not very good with things like this, so I went back and forth, talked through a lot of different themes but nothing stuck out to me. Then my friend Anna suggested GLEE... and I thought - That is PERFECT. I love the show, I love bright colors and fun things, so why not have a Glee themed party? Unfortunately for Laura, she is not actually a fan of the show. But she is a CHAMP! She found all sorts of great ideas, thought of the decorations, thought of food, helped plan some party favors, ordered the cupcakes, set up and invited people to the party AND decorated my house!

Laura AND Erica's handiwork!

Look how pretty that is!
Laura did most of this, but
Kathryn had a hand in it, too!

Erica's Handiwork!

Thank you Sam's Club for making
really yummy cupcakes! (And thank you,
Laura, for cute cupcake toppers)

Yummmmmy food... oh and a little
Sue Sylvester for you, too!

I LOVED every minute of it! I loved the decorations, I loved the theme, I loved the karaoke that was happening in the basement, I loved the friends that came from near and far! Old friends, new friends, and friends of friends came... that's my kind of party!

Thank you so much to everyone who came, and an especially BIG thank you to Laura for planning and executing a wonderful party. Thanks to Meredith and Amanda and Sam who came from far away. Thanks to Kathryn for a lot of setup and help with crafts. Thanks to Lila for help with crafts and lending me a second microphone for karaoke. Thanks to Erica for coming down from DC and helping us on party day with set up and take-down! Thanks to Anna for posting so many fun Glee YouTube videos in the party event! And thanks to everyone else who came and partied with us! You guys are AWESOME! If I missed an individual shout out, please let me know!

One of the other ideas we had for the party, was a photo booth. Let me tell you, photo booths are pretty funny if you don't take all the photos.  See below for just a little taste of the happenings of my Gleetastic 30th birthday party!

It's my birthday!

Erica and me

Laura, Erica, Anna and Kathryn 

Elaine and Sharon

Not the Slushie!

Patrick and Lila

Kathryn and Sarah

Shannon and Elaine (green was in that night)

Laura (party planner extraordinaire)  and me

Laura, me and Kathryn

Raggedy Ann?!?!

Paul and Kathryn

Jane, Terry and me

Shannon, Elizabeth and me

Amanda and Sam

Amanda (Sam in the back) and me

Lee, Christine, me, Amanda and Sam

Lee and Christine

Mike and Kristi

I don't think I've ever seen Meredith look so serious!

What?!?!?! Aubrey, I had no idea!

Amanda, Sam and Meredith! 

Erica, Sara and Laura (All roomies from college)

Kathryn and Aubrey - not sure what's going on here

Kathryn and Aubrey!

Aubrey, Meghan, Brittney, and Courtney 

Aaron and Michael

Anna and me!

Amanda, me and Meredith!

Laura, me and Emily - we fit in the doorway!

Kathryn, Laura, and me!

Erica, me and Laura

Things 24-28

30 things, in 30 days, before my 30th birthday...

Thing 24: Bake 18 muffins and burn 14 of them - SUCCESS!!! (Sorry kids, no photos, but my smoke detector did go off for like 20 minutes solid!)

Thing 25: Cheer on people as they run a race - SUCCESS!!!

Here is the group of us with our sign!

Kristi and Elaine

Thing 26: Wear a tutu - SUCCESS!!!

Laura, Me, Elaine and Kristi rocking the tutus... my fav thing about this photo
is Lila unknowingly photo-bombing it!

Thing 27: Grill out - SUCCESS!!! (no photo but I did grill us burgers last night)

Thing 28: Brunch at a new place?!?! - SUCCESS!!! 

I really would suggest you going to the Mill for brunch. YUMMY!!!!