DR - Day 3 Sunday

The girls and I usually hung out at the pool. They had lounge chair in the water which was awesome and we had no problems getting chairs. It was so nice. Here is the gang (minus Brandon and Chelsea!)

Steve and Todd talked about their America tank tops from Walmart and decided to flaunt them.....and with Todd's mustache...yeah, we were all thinking 'white trash'.

We had the rehearsal Sunday afternoon, which was quick and easy. It was funny to see all the guys standing there with drinks in their hands during this.

 Baby Hudson...so cute and such a good baby!!

The main area had some live music that started playin Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis, so Steve asked me to dance since that was our wedding song. Randi had the camera and got some pictures of us! :)

 That night we all ate at Zen which was really good and a lot of fun!

 Angi was a bit intoxicated this night and Corey thought it was so funny....and it really was!

Eric, Todd and Ryan all turn 40 this year in January (I think) so we secretly had told the restaurant that we wanted to do a cake and happy birthday for them. It was actually really cool, each guy got to blow our the candles and then all 3 of them at the same time.

We did end up at our normal bar for a while but Brandon and some others were doing karaoke at the Disco so we decided to go there and join them.

Even Steve sang.....it was funny and it was awesome to sing along with everyone who was singing. Eventually they stopped the karaoke….we aren't sure why but we are thinking that not everyone loved the Americans taking over the Disco! :)

DR - Day 2 Saturday

We actually were up pretty early (for us) and got some carb breakfast....I had a pancake with peanut butter and syrup and Danish every day :) Once we ate we headed to the beach to find some chairs under one of the little huts, I read my book and Steve did some walking along the beach. So relaxing!

You can have you picture taken with a monkey!.....for only $10. That is why I took this picture from afar.

Brandon and Chelsea decided to try the ocean out. The waves were strong and rough. Chelsea got knocked down before she even got too deep! It was pretty funny to watch!

 We took our Nerf football b/c we are that prepared and the boys played catch for a long time!

 We went back to our room to get ready for the night. We actually brought our own Red Bull in our suitcase and then with the Diamond Club we each got a free bottle of liquor, so we got vodka! The perfect pre-dinner drink!

I have rec'd so many compliments on this one piece jumpsuit. I got it from Stitchfix about 6 months ago and I love it!

We had decided that Saturday night was our night for a mini-bachelorette party for Chelsea. None of knew her that well but we wanted to do something for her with just us girls so this was the perfect time! We all ate at Hunter, the steakhouse, which was really good. Not the best service but it made for good entertainment. The 'show' that night was the Michael Jackson show, they were walking around telling everyone to come check it out (which we never did make it there)

While us girls were waiting for Chelsea to join after her dinner, the boys got a caricature done...to give to Brandon as a wedding gift of course! It was so fun to watch him draw it and have the whole picture come together. 

Steve, Ryan, Todd, Corey, Eric and Nick 

 Then us girls were off to have our own fun with no boys allowed.

We went back to the beach bar that we had been at the night before and our bartenders were there again to take care of us and entertain us!

Brandon had told Chelsea to not let any Jamaicans spank her ass....well we weren't in Jamaica so we had the Dominicans do it instead! :)

When their bar closed at 11 pm, we headed back to find the boys and continued talking and drinking before we all were too tired and needed sleep!

SO far behind....... DR Day 1

I am so far behind on posting and my friend Lyndsi told me I needed to update it and prepared herself for a large photo dump! She might be the only one who reads this so here you go Lyndsi! :)

Way back on Thursday, December 6th we packed up the girls, did an early dinner and then dropped them off at my parents house for 6 days. Friday morning we got up at the butt crack of dawn and headed to the airport to leave for the Dominican Republic for Brandon's wedding! It was nice that so many of Steve's high school friends were going, so we were excited and knew it was going to be a good time. After a little delay leaving Des Moines, changing our connecting flight before we landed, we finally got to our resort, The Royalton Punta Cana about 4 pm that afternoon. We had all upgraded to the Diamond Club, so we got appetizers and drinks when we arrived as they got our rooms and luggage ready, almost all of us arrived within an hour or so from each other, so we were able to visit and then got the tour of the resort on the way to each of our rooms.  We had a view of the ocean and pool area, the room was nice and big. It was awesome!

For dinner we just did the buffet which was actually pretty good compared to the one we were used to in Mexico.

Steve and I had been off of carbs for the most part for 2 months. So I totally carbed up while we were there. It was so good.

After that we all just hung out together and talked. We were all exhausted but while everyone did a later dinner Steve and I walked around the resort.

We strolled over to one of the other bars. It was so nice b/c it was so open to the outside and the bartenders, who we came to know very well over the next 5 days were awesome! Oliver (who we ended up calling Nuggie) and Papi Papi.

 We met some people from Maryland, so Steve gave them a hard time about football.

Then the stragglers came over and met us there.

Then for some reason we actually went to the Disco and there was dancing. Yes, almost all of us 40 yr olds were dancing to mostly Hispanic music.

We made it until midnight....which was really only 10 pm Iowa time! But we had got up at 3 that morning! We all went to bed and got some sleep to enjoy the sunny 85 degree weather on Saturday!

Random

 - So we have been doing Keto since the beginning of October.....I got to my lowest weight the morning of Thanksgiving, down 13.4.....well now I'm down 11.8 (damn Thanksgiving weekend!) but I'll take it! I know I could've done better but I am so much happier than where I was before.
Steve however has lost 24 lbs!! So proud of him! and we have had our cheat meals and such so it hasn't been THAT hard! But believe me, I would love pizza or a jelly-filled donut right now! And I will probably gain it all back on vacation.

- I haven't done Christmas cards in a couple years. I feel guilty. It was just too much to try to get them done in time and then I just didn't want to spend another $50 this time of year. I just hope that people continue sending us their Christmas cards even though they aren't getting one from us!

- Work. I do not like it. I know I have probably mentioned this before but it is bad. I am hoping by January I will actually have work to do b/c I have hardly worked all year. I should be thankful that I'm getting a paycheck for reading, talking and walking all day!

- Kids. I do not want my kids to drive. Knowing the distractions and attention spans of kids, I can't imagine putting them behind the wheel of a car. And I believe car crashes are the #1 cause of death for teenagers! Scary!

- Kids. I do not want my kids to have social media. I know I can't keep this from them forever, but man social media is hard for everyone and as a teenager when you question everything, judge everyone, worry about everything. It's just another layer of crap that I don't want to deal with. When/if they get social media accounts, I will have complete access to it! No question about it.

Catching up

Last week gymnastics on Monday, watching Piper in her class is so fun. She hangs in there with girls that are 1-5 yrs older than her!

Thursday I had some extra time before wine making so Amy met me at Eatery A for dinner and drinks beforehand. Then I made wine and was home in time to help put the girls to bed!

Friday Steve went to go watch Iowa basketball so Samantha and the boys came over. They all just played and laughed and it is so fun to watch them play.

Presley and Boston were wrestling which was really funny, they were very even during this match! Sam and I were talking that it is sad that in a couple years they aren't going to even want to touch each other. Sucks they have to grow up!

Saturday Steve had to work and the girls and I went to lunch with the family for Holly's birthday! I was good and had a cheeseburger, no bun and a side of cottage cheese....but then I did have a piece of cookie cake and it was SO good!
We got home and decided to decorate the Christmas tree! The girls are always so excited to open up their box of ornaments to hang up! Then we headed to the library for their holiday party. We made reindeer snacks, they got to decorate cookies. We looked at the gingerbread houses that were in the contest (which are VERY impressive!) and looked at Santa from afar! No talking to Santa for my children. After that we headed to Barntown Brewing for dinner b/c we really like that place. We had a good dinner and then once we got home the girls and I headed over to Sarah's to hang out! The kids played really well, Sarah and I talked and talked......and I have no pictures from anything.

Sunday we had another day of nothing. Steve worked on a project in the garage, I did laundry, worked out and read my book. The girls played and fought and played and fought. :)

THIS week has been busy just preparing for our vacation! More to come on that later! No kids for 5 whole days, but I am going to miss them!

Two weeks gone by......

I can't believe that I haven't posted in over 2 weeks! And I really don't have a good reason why!

The Wednesday of Thanksgiving we all met at Reclaimed Rails for our 3rd annual sisters family get together. We drink, talk, the kids play and play and it is just a nice relaxing time to catch up.

Thursday we got up and went to my parents house for Thanksgiving lunch. Since Steve and I have been doing the keto diet, this was our weekend to splurge and enjoy and we did! Oh MY, carbs are SO good!!!!! We hung out there until about 5 and then headed home.

Friday we decided to go to The Hall to watch the Iowa Hawkeye football game. We brought everything we needed to keep the girls occupied plus they have games there too. They were just whiney and annoying. We drank and ate a little, the girls colored, ate candy and had some ipad time and fought. We decided we didn't want to listen to them all night, so I texted Brittney to see if she was home for break and looking for something to do! She was more than happy to come babysit! We got home about 2:30 and she came over at 4!
Since we had no real plans we headed to The Boat House, had a couple drinks and played a couple games of pool and then went to El Mariachi so I could indulge on cheese dip. And it was good!  After that we headed to Fletchers in Ankeny. Royce Johns was playing there and my friend Amy met us there too. A good spur of the moment night out!

Saturday we didn't do much in the morning and then got ready preparing food to take to Earlham for the Goodrich Thanksgiving. Again we ate too much and felt like crap but all the food was so good! It was actually a very laid back night, it was almost like everyone was tired. There was a lot of talking, drinking and eating, the kids played well but no pool tournament this year.

Sunday I'm pretty sure I didn't leave the house. We put up some of the Christmas decorations but not the tree. Steve ran a couple errands and other than that, just chilled out!
Of course, I have random pictures from some of these things but I have been slacking on pictures too! What is wrong with me? #addictingtoreading