Sarah Playing Dress Up

How cute is this?

Steve visits the Big House

As an early birthday present, Steve made his first trip to The Big House on Saturday to watch Notre Dame take on Michigan. The outcome certainly made for a long car ride home, but he had a good time regardless and enjoyed seeing a good game.



Steve & Garett at The Big House

Happy Birthday Steve!

Steve turned the big 36 yesterday and while I'm a day late with this post, I wanted to be sure to say Happy Birthday to the best husband in the world! Sarah & I are so lucky to have you in our lives! We love you!!


The Birthday Boy!


Helping Daddy blow out the candles!

Happy Mother's Day

Last Sunday, Steve & Sarah surprised me with a two day trip to Chicago. It was actually a belated Mother's Day gift complete with gift cards to a few of my favorite stores! What a wonderful surprise! Our friends Sam & Kathy got married over Mother's Day weekend this year so Steve had been saving this trip as a way for the three of us to get away for some time together. I had so much fun shopping, eating out, and spending a fun couple of days with my two favorite people! :-) I'm so lucky to have such an incredibly thoughtful husband and an adorable little girl! I love you both so much!

Here are a few pictures from our weekend. We took Sarah to the Rain Forest Cafe for dinner on Sunday and she did great! We sat at a table right by the elephants and had the best time!






How cute is this?

Football Saturday...Go Hokies!

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Happy Football Saturday!

Go Hokies!

At the Playground

Here are a couple quick pictures from our outing to the playground yesterday. Sarah usually tries to hide when I take out the camera, but I was able to get a few pictures nonetheless. :-)


A forced smile for mom.


Pouting Sarah


There's the smile I love! :-)


With her friend Audrey.

Bristol 2009

Many of you probably don't know this, but Steve is a pretty big NASCAR fan and has had the night race at Bristol on his "bucket list" for awhile now. This love of racing has intensified lately too with NIBCO's recent sponsorship of the Menard's racing car. Needless to say, Steve was very excited when my mom gave him tickets to the Sharpie 500 at the Bristol Motor Speedway as an early birthday present.

Our good fortune continued as we were able to secure some pit passes through NIBCO that gave us unlimited access to the pits for the entire weekend. It was so much fun to go "behind the scenes" and see so many of the cars & drivers up close. We both had a great time and I even think I might have been bitten by the racing bug. :-)

I should also explain quickly about our "lodging" for the weekend. My original plan was that we would simply drive from Blacksburg the day of the race since it's not too far. The pit passes however through a little monkey wrench into our plans since we wanted to be there for the entire weekend. Finding a hotel in Bristol a month before the race was impossible so we turned to the next best option...Camping!! You know what they say...when in Rome! :-) Camping is apparently big at Bristol so we ended up staying at a campground right across the street from the track complete with a shuttle that would take you back & forth all weekend. It was great!

Here are a couple pics of our weekend, but you can check out the slideshow on the right for more! Enjoy!




In the pits during the race

No, Sarah didn't make the trip with us, but she had a great weekend too. She had her first weekend long sleep over with Grams & Grandpa (Steve's mom & dad) and had a ball. In fact, whenever we would call to check on her, she was always too busy to come to the phone. :-) A big THANK YOU to Grams & Grandpa for taking her for us so we could enjoy our weekend. Here are a couple pictures of their time together. More pictures of Sarah's weekend can be found in the August 2009 slideshow.


Playing dress-up for Grandma


Her first roller coaster...Winkie the Whale