These are a few of my favorite things....

Last week Kelly from Keeping up with Kelly tagged me to do a little survey about my favorite things!

I thought this was a great way for some of my newer followers to get to know me [if your new, please let me know by leaving a comment and tell me something about you, or something that you love!! I love to getting to know my followers :)]

[1.] My family

I think its safe to say that even though my family is not a "thing" they mean the world to me! I think your family gives you a foundation of who you are, and you make yourself out of the foundation. I have come to realize that over the years, I am VERY fortunate to have such a strong relationship with my family. I look forward to getting together every Sunday, its a way for us all to stay connected, and I thoroughly enjoy the company.

Although Alli and I have not always had the most "my sister is my best friend" type of a relationship, I believe through the past few years we have become much closer, and I can think we can attribute this to the boys! Somehow Justin and Doug, make us appreciate each other more! ha! and to that i'm very thankful to as well. The boys have come into our family and have pretty much made our family of 4 now 6 and I LOVE it!!


[2.] My phone

I hate that this is my 2nd most favorite item, but honestly it is my lifeline! I have an iPhone - and I would be lost without it. I obviously use it for a phone, text, and email, but it seriously keeps me connected with the world. Between a game of Words With Friends, Twitter, Angry Birds, Sky Burger, updates on the latest sports scores, keeping track of my runs, an ipod... seriously - what is not to love about her??? And yes, it is a her, and her name is Bella, which is short of Isabella the iPhone. [I'm still a little jealous of a co-worker who came up with the name Fiona, as in Fiona Apple, for her phone! 10 pts for creativity goes to MaryBeth!]

[3.] My T-Shirt Quilt

My great grandma and grandma make amazing quilts. I had always wanted to make a quilt with them but never really needed one. However, when i graduated college, rather than making a t-shirt blanket with all of my sorority shirts, I thought I would make a quilt, and ask my great grandma to help me. I thoroughly enjoyed going over every Tuesday evening one summer and quilting with her. Every time I look at the quilt it brings back both college memories and the time we spent together during the summer making this masterpiece.

[4.] Hint of Lime Tositos and Sour Patch Watermelons
It is a good trip to the grocery store if I can get out of there without treating myself to 1 of these two items. I honestly eat very healthy, however these 2 items are seriously my weakness! its horrible!

via

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[5.] The Ohio State Buckeyes

I think its more of a religion than a team here in Columbus, Ohio, to love the buckeyes. I'm a little anxious about this season, however, I'm still looking forward to fall, and the anticipation of another great season from our beloved buckeyes!

[6.] Restaurant Ranch Dressing

I don't know what it is about restaurant ranch dressing, but its SO much better than anything you can buy at the grocery store. My friend Jaci and I will debate where we go to dinner at times based off of the salad dressings. Its a toss up between Red Robin and Texas Roadhouse for the best ranch dressing. Do you have a favorite?!?

[7.] Snowboarding

I love snowboarding, it is something that we can do as a family and its something I hope to do one day with my family as well.

Dropping into the half pipe at Buttermilk in Aspen last year
[this is the one used for the XGames]
[and no, i'm not that good, I just went down the middle of it and screamed like a little girl with excitement!]

[8.] Diet Coke

I would be lost without diet coke. But I'll lay it all out there for you, a fountain diet coke, in a Styrofoam cup with chipped ice, is my ABSOLUTE favorite! its honestly heaven in a cup to me! It is a special treat when I drive by a Sonic and pick myself up a Route 44 Diet Coke with EZ ice.

[9.] Christmas

There is just something about Christmas that just makes me absolutely giddy 24/7. I love the season. People are filled with cheer, there is music on specifically for this holiday, houses are decorated to look more like homes, families gather together, and you get to give lots of presents. I just LOVE it! I wish it could be Christmas ALL year round!

[10.] Baby Names

I love thinking up baby names. I love unique names, however I don't want them to be so far out in left field that my child will be looked at funny when his name is called on the first day of school, however I want them to be a one of a kind in their classroom! My list is constantly changing, but I have names right now that I'm pretty much OVER the moon excited about!

[11.] Vacations

After getting back from our cruise, I think Justin and I both realized that we may need to plan more vacations. it was SO nice to just be the two of us, and not have a care in the world, just relaxing. I'm ready to go back!? Who's coming with us!
[12.] Running

Although I mainly dread going to the gym, or hitting the pavement, and I really hate going for a run when I'm out there, the sense of accomplishment once I finish a long run/race is totally worth it all. We are signed up for the 1/2 marathon on Saturday and I'm so ready to start the race and more importantly ready to finish it. I just want to beat my time from last year!
[13.] Blogging Friends

I LOVE my blogging friends. Its amazing how supportive everyone is to one another. I think its amazing that here we are, all over the US, and we have gotten to know one another through our daily chronicles that we share via an electronic diary. I think there is a sense of community that we get as a blogger, that others don't understand unless they are into blogging as well. I appreciate the friendships that I have made/built over the last year and a half more than I ever thought I would. I originally started blogging just to link up to Kelly's Korner SUYL series, and it has become so much more! and for that I am forever thankful!


So now that you know a few things that I love, I want to hear what you LOVE!

Jess First Comes Love
Anna A Pair of Kings
Caroline Simply Smithwick
Shannon Life After I "Dew"
Brittany Sweet and Sassy and Oh So Classy
Sonja For the Love of Stilettos
Emily The Simple Frills
Stephanie The Professors Wife
Jenny Life, Love and Marathons
Holly Running in Stilettos

Happy Thursday Blog Friends!!!

Holiday Valley

Anyone who knows me pretty well, knows that I love a good routine, or a tradition.

The tradition of going up to New York to Holiday Valley with our next door neighbors is one that I look forward to every year. This trip started out with our family [Brad, Laura, Alli and myself] and the next door neighbors [Mr. B, Mrs. B, Rachel, Jen and Erica] and now the group of 9 has grown to 14 [which include 2 husbands, 1 fiance, 1 boyfriend, and a kid]

It has been more than fun incorporating the new additions to our large group along the way.
If you are new to the blog here is last years post

Most of us before our first run of the trip
[minus rachel, mike and madison who were all over on the bunny hill for madison's first ski lesson]
this picture is also on the Holiday Valley home page currently as well - were kinda famous!
I love how we all line our boots up in the hallway after we come in from a day out on the slopes - i'm sure the people who we shared a hallway with appreciated it too - ha!
While we were out on the slopes Saturday I went over to help my sister's fiance with learning how to snowboard [well I thought I could tell him how I taught myself how to] well during my trip over to visit him I somehow got the courage to go on the bunny hill terrain park. I am here to tell you that I am a decent snowboarder when its just going down hill or going in the woods - however I have never been one to do jumps/tricks/half pipes.... ect

So here is how it all went down [and I promise its worth reading because at the end I went down a few times]

Attempt #1
Hit a mini table top heading down hill - dismount perfectly - FUN!
Attempt #2
Successfully hit the same jump - feeling VERY confident - I COULD GET USED TO THIS!
Attempt #3
Decided to get fancy and square up on the table top - rode the entire thing [fine it was only about 7-8' long - but still] and Andrew [who was encouraging me to do this] forgot to tell me to re-position myself down hill before i dismounted - EPIC FAIL - landed hard off of a 3' jump - yes i know it doesn't seem possible
Attempt #4
To show off for my sister's fiance I thought I would show him what I had been doing... and in the attempt to get myself situated in the 15' between the orange fence [remember I was on the bunny hill - and its pretty smart of HV to put up a barrier so a newbie doesn't hurt themselves] and the jumps I couldn't turn myself around causing me to nearly hit 2 barrel jumps and 2 flags... EPIC FAIL #2
Attempt #5 [my final attempt]
I regained my composure and tried the table top again - heading in facing down, square up and got a little too fancy and ended up rotating 270 degrees causing my board to go off of the table top and my, you know what, to land right on the edge of the table top - EPIC FAIL #3

I decided at that point that there was a reason that I had 3 epic fails in a row and I decided to pick up my pride and head in for lunch, never returning to the mini terrain park again!

That night I decided to evaluate the damage I had done to myself - sure I saw a small bruise on my hip and I thought that was it... oh no - clearly I forgot how hard that I had landed - and forgot to check my complete backside - HOLY EFF there is a bruise the size of a grapefruit and in a pretty dark blue/purplish color... [i'm just worried about the dr asking how this happened tomorrow and me having to tell her that "Yes, I'm 27 and I tried to hit a jump on a snowboard story"] [and if my pride being crushed on vacation wasn't nearly enough-trying to run with a huge bruise on your backside hurts even worse!]

okay - i digress about my attempt to be Hannah Teter for the day...

Oh well - its not a complete ski vacation without one little minor bump and bruise

Saturday night we went out after dinner to our favorite place, Madigans [and clearly I needed a drink or two to rid me of the pain on my ass].
Alli, Erica, and myself
Erica somehow convinced the bartender to allow her to ride the dummy waiter [that just transports ice and beer upstairs and downstairs!]
Justin and I
We headed back out on the slopes on Sunday before we headed home for Ohio.
Everything was going pretty smoothly until we tried to back out of parking spot, and because of the warm weather we had on Sunday - or truck had sunk a little bit since the night before... so the boys got out and pushed.
It was a fun and adventurous vacation - like always.

Its a trip I look forward to every year and I can't wait for next year :)

Thanks again mom and dad for another fun ski/boarding vacation!

Vacation... all I ever wanted...

This past weekend my family spent time in Vail. It was a much needed vacation for the 4 of us. We had a wonderful time!

Our trip started out with a little bit of humor when we went to pick up our rental car in Denver. My parents went in to get our car and they upgraded us to a new suburban... we packed up all of our luggage [snowboards, skis, 2 bootbags, & 4 carry on pieces of luggage] and went to head out of the gate when the guy told us that we had the wrong car.. how in the world could that happen? well, apparently we were supposed to get in the car [which they have all the keys in the cars] to the left of the one we got into... so we had to UNPACK the entire car, REPACK the new car and try again... only us! Word to the wise silver and taupe look very similar when its dark out and you are supposed to pick out your car! [don't mind the fact that we were supposed to grab the car in slot A16 instead of A17... we were just excited to be on vacation!]

When we got to our condo we were beyond impressed! It was gorgeous and the view of the town was awesome... but not as awesome as our pet/mascot of the week that we affectionately called Gerald but Jerry for short
[this thing is was HUGE!]
We hadn't seen the view from our room because we got there so late but this is what we woke up to in the morning

It was nice to go back to a resort that we have been to before so we aren't relearning our way around the mountain. We hit the slopes early on Friday morning and by Friday afternoon we finally had blue skies


We came back after boarding for about 7 hours to have a relaxing drink on our patio... and I may have been a little mean and sent J this picture and said - Happy Hour?!


Saturday a family friend who lives about a 1/2 hour a away from Vail came to meet us for the day. The conditions on the slopes were HORRIBLE! they closed the back bowls because there was 65 mph winds... and visibility was very low. We decided to ski/board the trees a majority of the time so we could see where we were going... the trees made it challenging but fun!

I realized the only thing worse than nearly crashing into a tree is to nearly crash into a tree, and have all the snow from the bottom branches fall on top of you AND THEN have someone call you out - "hey girl in the blue jacket, are you okay...", "yes sir".... i had to talk myself into getting my feet which were above my head and un-bury myself from the snow so i didn't look like a fool under neath all of this snow!

I also decided to put my pedometer on because I realized that reaching 7,000 steps a day was not going to be easy unless I could get some of my steps in on the mountain... sure enough it worked!

I will take the horrible conditions on Saturday any day to wake up to what we did on Sunday morning... we had 13" of fresh powder and we headed over to Blue Sky Basin. It was a little bit of a struggle to get over there, but once we were there it was pure heaven! I looked at my dad and told him I felt like I was in a big kid's playground!

There was a little hut outside at Blue Sky Basin where you could get hot dogs and drinks - and let me tell you - it was one of the best hot dogs I have ever had.. I had the Denver dog - with chili, cheese, onions, and jalapeno.
Monday we boarded/skied 1/2 of a day before we had to head out. The 4 of us on our last day of vacation [I wish the sky was not so gray... but that's mother nature for you!]
last view from our room...[where were these blue skies when we took our family picture?!]
Thank you mom and dad for another wonderful family vacation! I don't think you realize how much I appreciate that you still take us on vacations and that we all can do something together such as snowboarding/skiing and have so much fun!

Can't wait to do it all over again in New York!

So What Wednesdays....

So what if:

• I haven't blogged since last Wednesday... I've been out of town, and I will do a whole recap tomorrow of vacation, I did bring my computer with intentions of blogging, however I am so dumb with technology I couldn't figure out how to connect it to the wireless Internet and ended up just relying on my phone with fb and twitter to stay connected to most of my favorite bloggers
  
• I have become semi addicted to twitter... there i said it!
• I was really hoping to peak into the fire truck that ran through the village of Vail when we were there to see if Ryan Sutter was on the ladder truck.. I mean there is a slight chance it could have been his unit day? right?!
  
• I drank straight from the 2 liter when we were packing up to leave Vail because I didn't want to dirty a dish in the condo that we were staying in, and then I realized it was such a novel idea not to dirty a cup I did it again last night at home while sitting on the couch [okay - maybe last nights piece was pure laziness]
• I feel like I should have taken a day off just to catch up on my DVR. Last night alone I watched the following shows : Top Chef, RHOBH [sooo good and juicy!], Biggest Loser [Sorry President Obama, although I would love to have your wife's arms, I do not appreciate you cutting off one of my tv shows for the State of the Union Address.. sorry that i'm not that into politics-please don't hate me for saying that!], 2 episodes of Teen Mom [and yes I'm kinda loving Lea and Corey], and Holly's World ...
• We got a save the date in the mail yesterday addressed to Justin Woogie and Lindsey... Justin's nickname growing up has always been Woogie.. and apparently they found it quiet funny to use that rather than his last name.. i got a kick out of it.. however, I do not think I would appreciate being called Lindsey Woogie - JS!
• I still haven't unpacked my bag - I just keep taking out pieces of clothing that I need and the rest of the suit case just sits in the middle of my floor [i know mom, your shocked! ha!]
• Hate the saying "I know, right?!?!" it just annoys me, and makes my blood pressure rise!
• I read a Nicholas Sparks book on vacation -and yes I realize that I'm 27 and still reading his books, but they are good
• I finished the book in 2 days
• I cried on the plane while reading the ending! I have never cried before during a book.. guess I won't be reading in public anytime soon!
• My attempt to maintain my current weight until we start round 2 of the biggest loser is not working out so well... I have lost 3lbs in the process of trying to gain/maintain. Here's to hoping a lunch consisting of hibachi next Monday will increase my sodium intake so much that I will have water weight for the first weigh in...
• I'm slightly freaked out by the fairly new guy in our office. I swear he is a clone of me - we have WAY too parallel - here are a few that we have caught onto thus far, and we don't even work together on a daily basis:

our birthdays are a day a part, we live across the street from one another, we both drive VW, we go to the same church, we both showed up at work yesterday wearing peacoats and Burberry scarves, we both went to leave for the day and realized we had on fleece North Face gloves, we work out at the same gym...

Would you be kinda wigged out by all of this? Or is just me?


So what are you saying so what to today?

Head on over to Mama Dew's blog and link up!