The Last Six Months

So I can admit that my aspirations of becoming a regular blogger this year were a complete fail.  I had the idea in my head and thought about it often but like other things just didn't follow through.  I've decided to do a [super] long post with a recap of the last six months.  I thought it was only right to catch myself up before trying to start writing regularly. Here goes...

JANUARY



For New Years this year a group of my friends decided it would be fun to do a murder mystery party! Our theme was 30s Hollywood.  We all dressed up and each had our own part.  It was so much fun!










 On my Mom's side of the family there are 10 kids including me and my sister (I'm the oldest). We are all so close and love spending time together as most families do.  One weekend in January we decided to have a "Cousin Night" sleepover at my Aunt & Uncles house.  We ate dinner, played games, and all slept in the basement like we were kids. As we've gotten older it's been more difficult to see eachother all together with our busy schedules but we make a conscious effort to stay close and spend time together.

 













On my Dad's side of the family we try and get together every new years day for fondue.  It has become a tradition of ours but has evolved into "January Fondue" rather than "New Years Fondue".  I have always loved fondue and look forward to it every year.  It's so much fun to all get together and stand around the fondue spread talking, laughing and sharing New Years Resolutions.  This is the only picture I found from this year...







January 2013 also brought me some new ink! The two tattoos I got were an anchor on my left wrist and roman numarals on the inside of my right foot.  I am a true believer in getting tattoos that have personal meaning to you.  The anchor is something that I've thought about for a long time (I drew it on myself in sharpie for almost a year before committing).  The reasons for this tattoo are first because my dad was in the Navy and because of my favorite Bible verse, Hebrews 6:19 (We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, stroung & secure).  To me, this tattoo represents my connection and attachment to my family.  Where ever I go in life I will always be connected to those I love and know where I came from.  An added bonus to this is that I have a strong love for nautical style :)

The roman numerals on the inside of my foot are my sisters birthdate.  She has a tattoo of my birthday in the same place.  This means a lot to us because we have a very strong relationship and wanted to get a tattoo for one another that was simple but showed our connection.

FEBRUARY

One weekend in February we had a snow storm.  BHB & I were just hanging out by ourselves relaxing and decided to stay up really late and go play in the snow at 3AM.  Our golden retriever, Teddy, is obsessed with the snow!  We all played outside, had a snowball fight (or 5) and decided to build a snowman.  It was such a fun night!



   In February I got a new job!  My second to last day of work happened to be Valentine's Day and to my surprise this giant bouquet of roses was delivered to my work. You may not be able to tell from the picture but they were HEAVY.  I had to ask someone to carry them to my desk for me!  These roses were so beautiful. I'm a lucky girl.







MARCH

For St. Patrick's day we had a bunch of "the guys" over for drinking fun. Before they arrived, BHB and I got festive and picked up my most favorite lunch in the world - Chipotle.

 

BHB couldn't be more excited that his best friend DFH (far right) was "home" from Pittsburgh.  And lucky enough for me, I got to see LBP the following weekend for her SURPRISE bridal shower <3 They get hitched this October and BHB is the best man.

 

 I can't believe I don't have a picture of LBP & I that day but here is a picture of me with some of our friends. The shower was amazing! We had beautiful weather and everything was perfect, especially the bloody mary bar! ;)

Easter 2013 was spent at my grandparents house.






APRIL

In April, my cousins & I drove up to see my sister's dorm room at Kean University in Union and then spent the evening at Jersey Garden's which is a huge mall in Elizabeth, NJ.

 


Froyo date with my great-grandmother aka my hero <3 She's 100 years old :)

I think it's safe to say that pretty much every girl I know is obsessed with Pinterest.  My girlfriends & I decided that we wanted to start getting together for a "Craft Day" where we would do an activity from Pinterest that we were all interested in making.  April 2013 brought the first craft day (of hopefully many). Below is a picture of all of us with our finished Paint Swatch Calendars which we found here. A more detailed post of our day to follow!

First Craft day! (Can you notice the mispelling we all saw after we took this picture?)

In April, BHB & I celebrated the wedding of my Mr. & Mrs. Ben Hoagland!  Court & I met our senior year of college, had almost every class together and have remained in touch since graduation.  I felt so blessed to get to share her amazing day with her & her new hubs.



The new husband & wife <3

My super handsome date, BHB.



MAY

May was a busy month for us!  It started, of course, with Cinco de Mayo!

As someone who is completely obsessed with margaritas, Cinco de Mayo may be one of my favorite holidays.  My sister had to work so BHB, my sister's bf, my cousin Roo and I visited her at work for some Chili's margaritas. Mine had jalapenos in it!

On May 11, BHB & I went to the Washington Crossing Brewfest with some of our friends.  The night before, my friend Alaina and I made pretzel necklaces for the whole group! We saw the idea last year at the beer fest and thought it was an excellent idea- especially because we were drinking strong craft beer all afternoon.

Pretzel necklace workshop



BHB & Me with our awesome necklaces!

Cheers to great friends!

Me with our friends Cait & Jamie



The whole crew! BHB and I were so lucky to have them as neighbors at our first apartment together!

 

This was our second year going to brewfest and had such a great time both years.  BHB is a HUGE craft beer fan and I'm following in his footsteps.  I know this is going to become our yearly routine.  The following day was Mother's day at my Aunt's house.  We also celebrated the 50th birthday of my Uncle and a few of the "spring birthdays" in the family.

Here is my sister (in yellow) and I with all the girl cousins on my Mom's side.

The weekend after Mother's day, BHB and I went to our first Polo Match with a few friends!  It was at Tinicum Park Polo Club in Bucks County P.A.  We had such a great time despite the rain!  Definitely something I'd love to see again.

Now I've finally caught up on the first half of my year.  I of course had to leave some out but hopefully now I'll keep up with it!  I want to write separate posts about the craft days I've done with my girlfriends and about the things I've done so far this month because I'm almost postive that this will be the longest post I ever write.  I'm glad I decided to back track and catch up on my year so far rather than pretend like I didn't have the goal in mind. I'm so happy it's finally warm and I have so many more things to look forward to this summer.

xo, Jess