Little touches

I've been adding some stuff around the house recently and I wanted to share! I love integrating colors and textures to the house because the beige walls really detract from the overall character. 

I love burlap and I think it adds to the beachy decor. Our table always looks so blah and this spices it up. 

My new frames- I'm obsessed!!! They were 5-7 dollars each from Michaels!

Love my new surf city sign! I bought it from the consignment shop down the road! 

My ten dollar Salvation Army coffee table needed some love! I tried to jazz it up. The flowers are from the landscaping at the condo. They were dying so I took them! 

We blew up Drew's phone photo of the pier and hung it. I'm not sold on the lay out... The will need to change

Thank god for friends and family!

Memorial Day weekend has alway been spent doing our traditional get together! Normally we rent a beach house on Angola beach. This year, however, we had everyone come to us and visit Topsail beach everyday. It was gorgeous the entire time and had SO much fun. I think you could blame it on the group of people and not the location. We laughed, like belly laughed, all day everyday! Here are some of my favorite moments! 

Found all this amazing hermit crabs, fish and soft shell crabs! They were in the tide pools and we were like children digging them up.

The gorgeous soft shell crab ( all sea life was rehabilitated)

Going to Wilmington together ( the sun had burnt us to a crisp!)

We were acting like real southerner in our 6 passenger pickup 

The beach shops here are amazing! Although I did refrain from buying!

Finished our day of shopping by going to Boubon Street for drinks and Copper Penny for dinner! 

Graduation/ Mother's Day/ Chloe gets visitors

Drew and I got to spend the 8th to the 12th back home in Buffalo! We were celebrating my graduation with my masters in School Psychology, Mother's Day, and a visit to see mom/dad/Dana/Sammy/Jen/Jenny/Nicole! My graduation was wonderful (minus the 180 degree gym temperature). I can't explain the sense of pride I felt for my hard work and how grateful I was the I had gained 9 amazing colleagues and more importantly friends! I was unaware of it until actual graduation but I was awarded Niagara University's College of Education Outstanding Graduate Student in SchoolPsychology  Award.   I was so shocked/honored/excited!!! Of course my mom cried which caused her to take 30 of the most blurry photos I've ever seen! That's ok....we got some professional ones!

The next day I insisted my sister have a date with her amazing husband so that I could watch my nephew!!! I miss him so much!!!! Every time I see him it feels like years have passed because he looks do big and he's learned so much!! Dana joined us later and we were laughing so hard because he is literally funny!! 

After that it was Mother's Day which is a huge holiday in our house because we are firm believers we have the best mom on earth!!!  We took her to Rizottos. It's a new, unbelievably delicious, Italian restaurant in East Amherst! We ate so much! We even got to see Nannie too, which is great because I've missed her and because I wanted to see her new apartment! 

(Moms Mother's Day gift!)

While we were in Buffalo, one of my favorite families in the world stayed at our condo! They used to live in the unit next door in 2008! I was so happy the could stay at our place! They mean so much to me... I began watching Samantha in 2010 and stayed until 2012 when her adorable brother Andrew was born. They are the most kind, selfless, loving family you could ever hope to meet and I'm so happy they were able to enjoy a much deserved vacation! 

I left some adult goodies and some kiddo stuff too!!

And they left us stuff too...

They even sent me photos of the goings on at Surf City! Her is my favorite Sassy and Chloe-

Makes me so happy!!

They left just as we arrived! It was great to be back in the south so we had a southern style dinner then passed out!

Beach Exploring!

I spent today enjoying the beautiful weather and taking a nice beach walk. Honestly my job is very stressful. It's nonstop, fast paced, with lots of expectations and because I am who I am...that really gets to me. Walks help me so much just to clear my mind and feel god. Some times I am so disconnected from what is going on around me-between my phone, computer, ipad, and tablet. I forget that just sitting and connecting is so important. Here is what I found on my exploration today. Oddly, I've lived her for 9 months and didn't even know this part of the island existed lol.

 Around 6pm...still gorgeous out! The waves weren't too crazy and there was a lovely breeze! 

 Washed up Crabby Friend! Poor guy :( but I thought his coloring was really cool! 

I was just walking along and all of a sudden I saw this huge jelly fish! Clearly I screamed and got instant goosebumps...I love nature, but I do not often handle it well!!

Cinco de weekend!

Drew and I had a wonderful and busy weekend! As you may know this is pretty rare for the two of us, so were kind of relishing in it. Friday we decided to go food shopping and do some cleaning. We have our wonderful friends using our condo starting Wednesday and I prefer it to not be the ugliest place on earth! However, whoever built our condo was a sadist and decided to put WHITE carpet in a rental. Now were hardly messy people but you know were not perfect. So my wonderful boyfriend volunteered to rug doctor the entire thing. This consumed our entire friday lol...we're super cool! But it worked wonders and now I don't have to be embarrassed! 

 On Saturday I decided not to spend all day cleaning and went yard sale shopping (and some boutiques, I couldn't help myself) Below is my yard sale findings! I got a shelf (25 dollars at target, babycakes-cake pop maker-$25, Margarita set-40, and a cute basket) I spend 20 dollars on everything!! I can't believe it. Nothing was used and I took everything about of the bags and boxes!

You can see my new "treasure chest" as I have been calling it! I love it and it was 2 dollars!

I also couldn't help myself at one of my FAVORITE stores "Decorate you Soul" It has all the best beachie stuff! I bought this Williams-Sonoma book and a beautiful beach towel. It was more then all my yard sale stuff-but totally worth it!

Afterwords Drew and I got ready to go enjoy Wilmington. We had a couple drinks and then took the Ghosts of Wilmington tour! It is so fun! (we've already done it). But this time there were new stories that we didn't hear last time! Unfortunately It started to rain at the end...which made my already enlarged hair (humidity) even bigger...yay lol. After the tour was done, Drew and I went and bought a slice of pizza. On our way our, Drew casually says to me "hey look who it is" ummm Dan Akroyd was just walking the streets of Wilmington! So I needed to get a photo! Sadly I look awful but it's still cool! Fun Fact-Dan stayed in one of the haunted houses (Emma's house) in Wilmington...and that is where he came up with the idea for Ghost Busters! 

And to finish all the weekend fun...we celebrated Cinco de Drinko (mayo) with some delicious Skinny Girl White Peach Margaritas! SO yummy!! Wish the weekend didn't have to end, but at least I get to leave on Wednesday for Graduation!