Washington D.C.

This year for our vacation we went to Washington D.C. I had never been and Chad had only been for a few days when he was younger. We knew that it would not be a luxury vacation and we would be hot, tired, and have very long days. It turned out to be everything we expected and more! We were HOT, TIRED, and my FEET HURT from all the walking. It was all worth it though to see this beautiful place and learn so much about our nation's history. Here are a few pictures we have to share:

Lincoln Memorial

U.S. Capitol

World War II Memorial

Washington Monument

White House

Our days were jam packed so we could see as much as possible. Of course, I had a strict schedule for us to follow including where we would eat lunch and dinner each day. We did pretty well sticking to our schedule and got to see everything we wanted to, but had to cut some things short because of time. It was pretty impressive overall and Chad and I both LOVED all the beautiful architecture of the buildings and all the natural stone that was used. I had many favorites including the Washington Monument, National Archives, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. Chad love Mount Vernon and the U.S. Capitol. We are looking forward to going back one day to see more, but we are planning on going in the spring instead of summer. :)

Time Flies

Every time I see someone that reads our blog they ask why I have not updated it in a while or when I'm going to update it again. I guess I'm just not as good at this as I would like to be.

We are out of school for the summer and LOVE spending our days together. Everyone always asks us if it is nice having our summer off together and we always respond the same way...Absolutely! It is so nice not to have any worries or stress at least for a short span of time.

We went to Hilton Head with Chad's side of the family in the beginning of June and it was so nice as always. For a few days, the weather was beautiful and not as hot and humid as usual. It is always fun spending time with them! Gramps...you are one reason for this post.

The last few weeks we have been home and it has been REALLY nice! We celebrated our 3 year anniversary at home this year. We traveled on our first 2 anniversaries so we have never celebrated in Birmingham. It was such a nice day just spending every minute together. We woke up early and ran that morning. Actually, Chad ran with Aaron Bishop who lives back in town and I ran by myself, but we ran at the same time at least. Then, we had brunch at a quaint new brunch restaurant in town. I was going to buy Chad some Keen's for our anniversary so we went shopping, but he could not decide on any. We did some furniture shopping for several hours that afternoon...more to come on that later. Then, we had dinner at my favorite restaurant, Cocina Superior. Yum, yum, yum! We never ate the top layer of our wedding cake, so we had some that night and it was actually very good, especially since it was 3 years old.

On to the furniture story. I have been wanting a new sofa for about 5 years now, but we just didn't want to spend the money on it. So, we decided that would be our next large purchase. On our anniversary we went to a cute little home furnishings store in Homewood called At Home. I had been in there before, but it had been a LONG time. Let's just say that 6 days later we walked out of there after ordering a sofa, chair, and new bedroom furniture!! We chose a sofa we liked right away, but went back and forth on the fabric and trying really hard to compromise. Before we even looked at sofas, Chad found some bedroom furniture that he LOVED and once I saw it I did too. We had looked at some bedroom furniture at Pier 1, but Chad didn't love it so we decided to look some more. Well, we found something we both loved for sure! The chair was a complete splurge, but it will be nice to have more seating in our living room that is comfortable. We are so excited because we have not bought much furniture together as a couple and this is something that we picked out and purchased together. The bedroomm furniture will be in by the beginning of August and the sofa and chair will be in around the end of August so look for pictures later.

I also have to give a shout out to Aaron Bishop and Shana Ely Pardue. We had lunch with them last Monday and had such a good time. Aaron lives here in Birmingham and he and Chad have been running together and really enjoying hanging out. Shana has been in town some lately for cancer treatments at UAB. She has Hodgkin's Lymphoma for the 3rd time and is such a trooper. I admire her for her faith, courage, determination, and so many other things. She is such a positive person and always concerned about others that you would never know she has cancer. I'm so thankful for such a wonderful, selfless, and caring friend.

Maybe next time I will have pictures of our furniture!