It's official

We have been house hunting the past couple weekends and have actually found a lot of houses that we like AND that are in our price range! I am a total city girl and would rather stay in our condo the rest of my life than move out of the city! That is a small exaggeration b/c we have totally run out of space in our place but non the less, I would never move to a surrounding city of Nashville! Nope, not this girl!! So when we actually found houses here in our price range with LOTS of space, we were ecstatic! Brent felt the same way about staying in Nashville so he was pumped too!

So the official part is that we are going to put our condo up for lease. We don't know how it will go but we are going to try! Our place is a 2 bed/2 bath w/over 1000 sqft. It's plenty big enough for 2 people so hopefully someone will be looking for that! When and if we get a tenant, then we will proceed with buying the house that we have our eyes on!! Our Realtor has done a great job showing us places that we have actually loved and we have had a fun time riding around with her the past couple Sundays.  

 This is Laura Scott w/Pilkerton Realtors. She is so funny and I always have fun riding around with her while looking for houses. She helped me buy the condo that we are currently living in 3 years ago. Here are a few pics of our condo that we are about to put up for lease...

                                           Master bedroom

                        new master bath with brand new tile (below)

                                            our dining room

 See, it's a cute place!! Surely someone needs a place to rent! haha. I'm not going to put a pic of the house that we really are hoping to buy on here in case it's gone by the time we are ready to buy buuutttt here is the deck and back yard!

           Hopefully we will have inside pics to show...if we get this place!!

        

Almost Done!

 I started making a scrapbook of our wedding back in October and I am almost done. I probably have about 10 more sheets to make. I have already crafted about 30 sheets! It takes a lot of creativity( to make a good one! ) and I feel like I have done quite a good job...this IS my first scrapbook so I have been learning about everything that goes into a scrapbook! The last time that I went in to Michael's to get one sheet of alphabet letters, I ended up spending about an hour looking at stickers and scrapbook sheets that I didn't really need. You never can have too many sheets! They are all so cute!

This is the pattern on the scrapbook. Very elegant like the pictures that will be inside! I actually started the scrapbook with our engagement and went all the way through our honeymoon. So it's the whole process!

It's been so much fun but kind of pricey! That's why I am just now finishing it up...I have worked a little at a time so that I could just spend a little at a time and use coupons! haha

There are pictures of Bridal Portraits. I had my Bridal Portraits at a friend of my mom's house. She lives right down the road from me in Belle Meade and had the most gorgeous yard ever! Full of beautiful plants and the greenest yard I have ever seen. 

Many pictures of showers and the invitations to each shower. This was the oh so much fun shower at Mary Bradley's. It was a Kitchen Shower! You just have to see the other shower pages...they're really cute!

         Of course there are Chicago pics from the fabulous Bach Party!

We received many beautiful cards so I used a lot of those in the scrapbook as well.

And then of course there are pictures of St Thomas! A beautiful place and so many beautiful pics! I am hoping to have this done by tonight! We will see!!


                                         - Rachel -

In 1 week!!!!

Yes Yes, Thanksgiving is in one week but so is the Boulevard Bolt!!I Love Thanksgiving for several reasons and besides everyone else's food and family reasons(which I do love), it's the day of the Boulevard Bolt.

The Boulevard Bolt(if you don't know) is a 5 mile run/walk( run for me and Brent!) up one side of Belle Meade Blvd and back down the other. I really couldn't imagine my Thanksgiving day without it! It is truly the perfect start to a perfect day! I can hardly sleep the night before and wake up the morning of just so excited! There are thousands of people and everyone has this cheery, upbeat attitude. It's awesome to smile and fellowship w/people that you don't even know!  The Blvd is definitely the place to be Thanksgiving Day morning! Brent and I are so excited and we're ready to get our run on(and then get our eat on)!!

This is a picture from I believe last year! This is at the start of the race so obviously it thins out after mile one or so! If you register( the money that's collected through registration goes to the homeless) you get a longsleeve t-shirt. The design of this years shirt is actually the first pic above. It's cute! My favorite shirt is from the year 2001 and I wear it every year...I guess it's a tradition for me! Brent and I run it and my parents walk it every year. I think Brent's mom, Becky, is doing it this year and that's so exciting! My best friends, Beth and Robin, will be there and other friends that Brent and I know. Like I said it's just so fun and a great way to start Thanksgiving Day morning!!

We made it onto a London blog?!

The Wedding Colletion // Brent & Rachel

Our photographer emailed us and told us that our wedding was featured on a blog in London! Pretty cool! You can read about it on the website above!

Neon Neon and I'm not talking about John Mayer

So our friends and us are always trying to think of different things to do on the weekends. Saturday night we went bOwLiNg! Our friends, Sachin and Shannon, suggested the idea of bowling and they rounded up a group! It was Sachin, Shannon, Frank, Brent, and myself..Oh yea! We headed over to Lucky Strikes for cosmic bowling. I love bowling so I was pretty excited and I loved that it was cosmic. It was dark over the lanes and they had all kinds of neon lights everywhere.

They had a deal where you could bowl for an hour for $25 dollars per lane. So we just split that price since we were all going to play together and had a fun hour!! I took a few pics with one of my hipstamatic lens's on my phone...

Brent getting ready with.his.girl.ball! (I'll say more about that later in a min!)

Shannon..that's looking pretty good!

Sachin

Me! haha

This was suppose to be Frank! Sorry Frank!

Anyways, it was a lot of fun! We will definitely have to do it again soon!! I think Brent and Frank had the highest scores. I say Brent used a girl ball b/c he did!.. he used a 10lb-er which was the exact same one that I used! Maybe that's why he got 5 or 6 STRIKES! It was a fun time friends!

Oh no they didn't!...

 Oh yes we did! I sat at work on Friday and was just itching to put up Christmas decorations that night. Growing up, we had always put up our Christmas tree and decorated the house the day after Thanksgiving. I have done that still until this year! Brent and I were feeling very "holiday=ish" Friday night so we decided to listen to Christmas music from one of our On Demand t.v. stations and pull all of the Christmas decorations out. We also went to Target and got some new ornaments. We have mostly a RED and GOLD theme going on throughout our place. From the tree ornaments to the wreaths to the garland, everything is festive and sparkly!! 

                                     Getting everything out...

                                  Leo in the Christmas Tree box!

and both of the cats in the garland...hmmm wondering if the tree will survive!

The tree that we have already has the lights on it. I love that every year we can just leave the lights on and fold it up. I think unravelling the lights off of those plastic holders is a pain! Soooo I'm glad that the lights just stay on the tree. We found this ornament @ Target and had to get it!

My eyes always catch sparkly/glittery things!(ask any of my girlfriends and they can tell you all you need to know about my love of a sparkle! ) I love Brent for MANY reasons... I picked this up and he told me that I had to have it! Love him!


The BIGGEST holiday ball ever!

                                It's hanging in the dining room :)

                                                 Our Tree!

       Ginormous glass bowl on our dining room table filled with ornaments

This is in the living room along with another one just like it. I made this wreath and the other one like it last year. 

I didn't know what to do with an extra strand of garland...this is what I decided on! It's in the hall bathroom.

A view from the dining room looking into the living room...

We hope everyone has a fun time decorating like we did!! And on a finishing note...one of our favorite desserts and my favorite ornament  :)

        

Veterans in the Family

USA :)  I love anything/any day that is Patriotic. The 4th of July is a close close second to Christmas for me! Most will think that's crazy but I love this warm fuzzy feeling I get on that day. I had that feeling today. Even though I was crammed behind a computer and sitting at a desk all day I was thinking of what the world outside of my window was doing. If I hadn't had to go to work today( like Brent! ), I would have loved to be at a Veteran's Day Parade! 

                                       Downtown Nashville


I thought about both of my grandpa's today. They both served in different wars.One in the Korean War and the other in World War 2. One grandpa was in the Navy and one in the Air Force. I emailed my granny in West Virginia to get some more details of when my grandpa served in the Air Force.

 He served in the Korean War. He was stationed at Goose Bay Labrador in Canada. He enlisted in December of 1952 and his job was an aircraft & engine mechanic. 

This is the only picture of me and my Grandpa Perry that I have on the computer! This was when I was?? 1 or 2...


My Papa Simons( my dad's dad ) was in World War 2 and I don't have as much info on where he was stationed but I do have a great picture of him in his uniform with my granny( who was really pretty! ) that I will have to upload soon!

And once again, this is the only picture that I have on my computer of me and my Papa Simons!


                                         God Bless America.