Europe Part 1: Brussels & Antwerp

Jesse and I just got back from our fabulous trip to see the Hamburgers in Europe.  We had an absolutely amazing time.  Our adventures began in Brussels, where Tiffany and Wesley met us to walk around gorgeous Brussels.

We were pretty impressed with the dinosaur exhibit at the Museum of Natural Sciences, and Dave joined us there to explore the museum.   

This year, Jesse spent his second consecutive birthday in Europe, and we celebrated with mussels and beer once we got back to Antwerp!

The next day we went to church with them and watched Dave preach.  We also went to Antwerp's MAS museum.

We definitely had a lot of good food in Antwerp.  We found some delicious waffles for a snack, purchased Belgian chocolates, and then went down into a cool underground restaurant where Dave and Jesse had some good Belgian beer. 

Overall, Belgium was such a treat!

Never Stop Improving

It's been a while since we have had a home improvement post, so get excited!  In the past couple months we replaced the stove and microwave that came with the house after the stove literally stopped working and the microwave had bouts of randomly turning on its fan (I mean really randomly, like hours after dinner while we're watching a movie) and refusing to allow us to turn the fan back off.  We'll miss you phantom fan . . . or not.  We now have these fancy smancy stainless steel appliances -- much better!

Jesse's grandfather gifted us with his lovely dining room set, which has come in handy a couple times since then.  It fits perfectly in our dining room and looks great.  I am toying with the idea of replacing the upholstery with dark red fabric to match our drapes.  Thoughts? 

The new dining set was a perfect excuse for us to fill that massive hutch with some china, crystal, and silver plate.  Yay for fancy dinner parties!  And it's a good thing that we have some nice wine glasses, because something tells me we're going to pick us more than a couple bottles of Riesling real soon. 

Follow Your Heart

I need to catch up on my scrapbooking from events in 2012, but I couldn't help creating this layout from our 10 year anniversary dinner.  I used My Mind's Eye's Follow Your Heart collection (how appropriate!) 

I used My Mind's Eye's September sketch for both this layout and this card.

New Layouts

It has been quite a while since I scrapped, but I had some time these last couple weeks so I wanted to share some layouts that I created combining Teresa Collins' Vintage Finds and Giving Thanks lines, which were perfect for some guy layouts.  

I created this layout of Jesse's first run/swim races using a sketch from Scrap-a-doodle-doo.  

This layout of Jesse's family's impromptu visit is inspired by Scrap Around the World's sketch and mood board.  

My third layout displays some pictures from Jesse's summer soccer team based on Kristi's challenge.

Finally, I created a card based on a sketch from Scrapbook Express.  

When I added these layouts to my album I realized that the album is completely full of layouts made with my favorite Teresa Collins collections: Tell Your Story, Christmas Cottage, Vintage Finds, and Giving Thanks!

Labor Day Weekend

We had a fun over the Labor Day weekend.  Jesse competed in his first triathlon (!) which began with an 800m open water swim in Cochiti Lake,

continued with a 12.4 mile hilly bike ride,

and ending with a 5 mile run.

Jesse did amazing, and finished in 9th place.  My only accomplishment over the weekend (other than successfully getting up at 4:30am to go with Jesse to his triathlon), was turning 32.  We celebrated with a very nice dinner at the Corn Maiden (see the Happy Birthday on my dessert?).  Yum!

Who are We?

No, this is not going to be a deep post.  But if you know us at all, you will come to realize that aside from our exotic travels, we typically stay home and run (Jesse) or scrapbook (me).  We certainly don't do things like go to concerts.  The last concert we had been to before this past week was over five years ago.  But this week, it all changed because we went to not one, but two concerts in less than a week!  We began our music binge with Better Than Ezra, a band that happens to play "our" song.  They were doing a little free concert and we decided that all we wanted to do was stay up early in the morning (oh I love you baby).  We had a lot of fun, and they put on a pretty great concert.

Just a few days later, Jason Mraz played at the Sandia Casino Amphitheater, which is a pretty nice venue.  We actually planned on attending the concert with my sister, but she has moved on to bigger and better things (just kidding?).  We really enjoyed ourselves at this concert too, and I decided that I'm so lucky to be in love with my best friend.

So that was our musically adventurous week.  More about our Labor Day weekend in a bit . . . 

Birthdays Galore

Over the past month there have been tons of birthdays in our family (happy birthday everyone -- we love you!)  I haven't had any time to scrapbook, but I did make some cards in the nick of time!

 I created these first two cards based on challenges from A Cherry on Top.

Finally, I create this card based on the card sketch from Scrapbook Express.

13.1

Jesse ran another half marathon last weekend and made his second best time!    

He finished 51st out 272 runners. 

He also finished 7th in his age group (he joked that he finished 7 out of 9 in his age group, because that was the results when he first looked at it, but an additional 10 people finished after he checked!) 

 And he did all of this before church (overachiever!)

I, on the other hand, barely woke up in time to catch him at the finish line (underachiever).

Jesse's New BFF

I have been MIA for the past week (who am I kidding -- really, the past month) because I have been working 'round the clock for an administrative proceeding.  In the meantime, my poor husband has been neglected.  Things have gotten so bad that he sought the company of this alarming creature he found out in our patio:

Bleh!