July in Review - A Summer Vacation

This past July was the first time since I've started working that truly felt like a "summer vacation."

My sister, cousin and dad all met in Raleigh for the Rolling Stones concert. My sister and I got my dad's ticket as a Father's Day present since he's been asking to go to a Rolling Stones concert for years.

The concert was held at Carter-Finley Stadium, my alma mater's football stadium. We tailgated in true NC State style then went into the concert. We had an absolute blast at the concert - it was by far the best concert I've ever been to!

The next day, my cousin had to head to work but my sister, dad and I had some extra time and enjoyed a southern lunch at Big Ed's in Raleigh - we were STUFFED afterwards! 

Next up, was our annual trip to Kentucky for Tyler to play in the Rolling Hills Invitational. Tyler has played in this tournament the past 12 years and really enjoys this trip back to his hometown each year.

Best friends at the golf tournament 

Tyler and his group at the Rolling Hills Invitational

Dry Ground Brewery with my love

This year was a little different since we had Muggsy with us. He was a really fun addition to walking the golf course and let out a cute little bark every time his dad hit the golf ball teeing off.

Love my little family! 

The final part of my summer vacation was our trip to Scotland and Denmark, which I'll recap in a different post soon!

All in all, July was extremely fun and memorable but exhausting. We've spent August and September a little more low key and plan to travel more this fall.

Life Lately

Hi There!

I can't believe it's already June and been over six months since I've written anything in this little space!

Life lately has been a little hectic... Although I hate to describe things as "busy" but work really has been really taking a big chunk of our time lately. We are both excelling in our careers and feel like now is the time to focus on getting ahead in that aspects of our life before priorities shift.

Let's take a look at where we've been and what we've been up to in 2015.

In January, I took a half day off of work to head to Raleigh to celebrate my sorority's 10th year at our university. It was so fun to meet up with friends I rarely get to see and spend some quality time together!

In February, we headed to the beach to visit my sister and unfortunately, I got really sick on the way home... so let's move right along...

In March, we picked up our pace with working out and started going to the gym consistently in the mornings and spent a lot of time with our Muggsy man.

Spring also started to show itself in uptown Charlotte...

In April, we headed to one of my childhood favorite places... Litchfield Beach! The weather wasn't great but the company and time away from work was unbeatable. (Sidenote: this was also the first time we left Muggsy at home with a local kennel and thankfully, we all made it through with minimal tears!)

In May, we celebrated our moms birthdays and hosted T's family for a weekend in Charlotte and a golf tournament.

We also debuted Muggsy's new patriotic bow tie for Memorial day... I'd say, he looks pretty cool in it!

Thus far, June has been filled with weekends around Charlotte, preparing for our upcoming trip to Europe and T enjoying some rounds of golf with his friends. We've also been trying to keep the pup active and have found he loves going to the dog park and dog bar. 

I've also enjoyed a few girls nights, including a great night with these perfectly sized prosecco bottles for our gals! 

The first half of the year has been exhausting... T & I combined have taken two vacation days total... needless to say, we are super excited for our upcoming trip and the rest of the year (and many more vacations to come!) 

Christmas Card - 2014

As I mentioned in the Christmas Cards - 2013 post, our 2014 card of course had to include Muggsy!

We were planning to have some first anniversary with Melissa after our anniversary trip to California so it was perfect timing to include Muggsy when he was only 12 weeks old and about 11 pounds in our family session. Our photos turned out perfectly and Muggsy was absolutely adorable. I hope to do a whole post on this shoot since there were so many cute photos I'd like to remember.

We decided to go with Tiny Print's Sugar Vine design in red this year. I loved this design and how the red balanced out the amount of navy and green in our photos. 

This year, we kept it simple on the back with no photos. We still upgraded to kraft envelopes and used a custom address stamp that I ordered earlier this year instead of purchasing matching return addresses. 

Overall, I'm so pleased with the way our cards turned out - I hope to continue the Christmas card trend into 2015! :)

Christmas Cards - 2013

Since we just sent out our 2014 Christtmas cards yesterday, I thought I'd share our 2013 Christmas card design today. I'll share our 2014 card after its recipients get it sometime next week. 

We of course used some of our wedding photos for our Christmas card since it was only a few months after our August 2013 wedding.

Wedding Photos are all Melissa Joy Photography

Tiny prints has been our go-to site for creating cards - I love all of their options and styles of cards they offer each year. I decided on the "Our First Noel" design in "Blaze" for our first official Christmas card together and T approved as well! :)

Wedding Photos are all Melissa Joy Photography

We had so many favorite photos so I also chose to use some of our wedding photos for the back of the card. I upgraded to some fun silver envelopes and ordered matching return address labels too.

I'm so excited to share our 2014 card - Muggsy makes his debut and he is adorable! 

Meet the Morgans: New Addition

On Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014, T and I drove to Gaffney, SC to "look" at a precious 9 week year old Boston Terrier puppy.

Boston Terrier Puppy

We didn't have any intentions on bringing him home with us and I was looking to T to tell me no, this wasn't the time for us to get a puppy before I bonded with him too much while we visited with him... but my sweet hubby couldn't resist this adorable little guy either and we became the proud pup parents of Muggsy Morgan!

First family photo with our new pup at the farm in Gaffney!

Meet Muggsy Morgan!

In this first week, Muggsy has already stolen our hearts! We are spending a lot of extra time at home, training him and loving on him.

Muggsy on the car ride home!

He is so playful but also loves to cuddle up on our laps for a nap. He loves playing with the other dogs in the neighborhood and is friendly to everyone he meets! We plan to enroll him in puppy preschool so we can train him properly when it comes to housebreaking, socialization and basic commands.

He is already a great car passenger!

We are so excited for this next phase of our lives... and we can't wait to watch our little puppy grow into our best friend for years to come!

More nights like this are in our future... :)

I have a feeling that Muggsy will be making lots of regular appearances on the blog as well so check back for your puppy picture fill! :)

Mimi's 80th Birthday Celebration

The last weekend in June, the mister and I headed to Chattanooga, TN to celebrate his maternal grandmother's 80th birthday. I was fighting a terrible summer cold and T a terribly long work week but we were determined to get to Tennessee to celebrate Mimi!

Mimi is unlike any grandmother you've ever met - the sweetest, most endearing, and thoughtful southern lady who travels the globe at the drop of a hat. Example: Two years ago she went zip lining in Costa Rica and this past May she traveled to Prague and Budapest then less than a week later, she jetsetted to California and Las Vegas!

My grandparents are no longer with us and Mimi has taken me in as one of her very own, treating me as she treats all of her grandchildren. I treasure all of my time with her and love spending time getting to know her better as family.

The mister planned to play golf with his brother during the day on Saturday and I was to hang out with Mimi. About a week before, I called Mimi and suggested she get a few of her friends together so we could go to brunch with them. Mimi loved this idea and quickly pulled together a catchy invitation to be sent to her friends for our brunch at Tupelo Honey Cafe. I was thinking 2-3... but Mimi is a popular lady and 13 of us met to celebrate her birthday! It's a true testament to her character that so many of her friends would stop everything and attend a brunch with less than a week notice!

Later that night, we met the rest of the family for a fancy dinner at Ruth Chris - Mimi said that all she wanted for her birthday was a big dinner with all of her immediate family so that's just what we gave her! We had people traveling from all over - some were in Nashville, Lexington, and even Chile! T's cousin was studying abroad and took the redeye to get back to celebrate!

From top right to bottom left: T & E, T & Mimi, T & Mimi with their June birthday treats, T, Mimi & me

The whole group at dinner!

Mimi is truly one of a kind and I am so thankful to have married into her wonderful family! We had a great time celebrating this great milestone - I hope we can all live a life like Mimi - we will be truly blessed if we do!

Our Relationship Timeline

The mister and I met on May 26, 2011 at Speed Street (a festival in uptown Charlotte with free concerts and no, we are not huge Nascar fans!). I gave him the run around for a few weeks, finally got my act together when I realized he was much different from any other guy I've ever met and we "officially" started dating on July 16, 2011.

We spent our days walking home from work together (at the time, we both walked to work and happened to have the same route), going on trips across the southeast together and spent a lot of time talking and getting to know one another. 

We talked about our lives, interests, and future goals... and of course that included marriage. Things were going great and we decided to plan a trip abroad. He had never been and I'm always itching to travel so to Europe for Oktoberfest we went! 

We traveled to Munich, Zurich, Paris, London and Brussels. On our second stop, Zurich, Tyler proposed in the most beautiful spot I've ever been to - on top of a mountain overlooking Lake Zurich and the Swiss Alps. 

Celebration champagne moments after getting engaged!

I love our love story so much... we decided to use our story as our wedding "save the date."

Melissa Joy Photography

Family Mission Statement

Since we got married in my hometown, not our current city, we thought about who we would want to marry us. It was important to both of us to choose someone who was important to our family and who would make our wedding ceremony meaningful and special to us.

The mister's grandmother's church has rotating pastors and as it turned out, one of her favorite pastors was living in about an hour away from our wedding location, in Abingdon, Virginia. We called and asked her if she was available for our wedding, and when she confirmed that she was, we decided to make a "pre-martial counseling" trip to Abingdon to talk to her about our relationship and wedding.

During this trip, we got some of the best advice we could have received as a couple getting ready to make the next big step in our relationship. She recommended we establish a "Family Mission Statement." Yes, like a company's mission statement!

She made the point that companies use their mission statements as a backbone of their core values and how families can use the same concept to go back to when making family decisions and resolving conflicts. We absolutely loved this idea and spent a lot of time thinking about what ours would be.

We finally established our "Family Mission Statement" one night after dinner on our honeymoon. While I won't share ours here right now, I will say we have already used it to help us make big decisions and resolve conflicts within and outside of our marriage and I know we will continue to do so.

Side note: the hubs and I also went to pre-martial counseling at our church, Forest Hill, in Charlotte. Couldn't recommend this enough! We were able discuss what was important to us and ensure we were on the same page prior to our trip down the aisle... but that's another post for another day! :)

Us with Pastor Sherry Boles
Melissa Joy Photography

Welcome!

I wanted to start this blog as a way to remember all of our adventures as we begin to build our lives together. I hope this blog will include topics like travel, culinary ventures and everyday happenings in our day to day lives and today seemed like a good day to start a blog of our lives since it's our 3 year dating anniversary. :) 

A little about us....

We both work in the corporate world for a large bank, on totally opposite ends of the spectrum. The hubs uses his finance degree everyday and I use my communication degree everyday - we have yet to cross paths in our careers but never say never! 

While the mister enjoys all things craft beer, playing and watching sports (more specifically, Tennessee sports and golf); I enjoy cooking, wine tastings and trying all sorts of classes at the gym. We both enjoy traveling, hosting get togethers and spending time with our family and friends. 

Melissa Joy Photography

So, Welcome! 

Welcome to our little spot on the Internet. I'm excited to get started and hope you are too! 

I'll leave with one of my favorite "getting started" quotes... 

"Today is your day

You're off to great places!

You're off and away"

From "Oh! The Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Seuss