Birthday party with the Trusty's

This past weekend we headed up to East Tennessee. It was a great weekend since we got to see so much of our family. I am going to share some pics from our niece, Annemarie's, 6th birthday party. All of Ben's siblings and theirs spouses were able to make it so we got to spend some great quality time with the Trusty tribe.

The birthday girl blowing out her candles.

Opening up presents.

One of her presents was a kite which required all 3 of her uncles to help her with. As you can see there are hardly any trees in the neighborhood but somehow she managed to keep getting stuck in them. She had a great time with it though!


Here is our sweet nephew, James. As you might recall, I went and helped take care of him back in August, well Ben never got to meet him until this trip.

Here is Uncle Ben and James. He is not sure what to think but he never screamed or cried. He kept smiling at me. He is a sweetie!

Finally, here is a picture of all of the family together. The last time we got this was a year and 2 months ago and there have been some additions since then.

We also visited with my family on this trip but we will have to get to that later. Stay tuned.......

Bedroom "Rentervation": Sneak Peak

This is just a little teaser for our big weekend project, our bedroom "rentervation".

Back story- When Ben and I moved into our townhouse, we said that we would be here for 3 years, tops. Well due to other circumstances, we are now at 3 1/2 and I have been getting antsy. We always seem to be talking about when we get a house. I have a mile long list of projects for when we move.

When it came to decorating, I wanted our house to feel like a grown up house and not a college apartment. I made sure that our living room, dining room and kitchen felt put together so that I was proud of it when I had people over. My upstairs was another story. Our bedroom and guest room/office were just a hodge podge of college leftovers and family hand-me-downs.

Our downstairs (I have added some things since these pictures were taken)

I hated our bedroom the most, but we were not in a position to replace the furniture. We had a dresser, and side tables that matched, a dresser handed down in Ben's family, and a bed that was just the mattress, box springs and frame that they sat on. I planned on, when we did buy a house, moving our current bedroom furniture into a guest room, so due to a lack of storage options, I had to stick with what we have.

This past Saturday we went into Ikea for nine $2 frames for a kitchen project. We walked amongst the furniture and played the "when we move" game again and it got kind of depressing. When we got to the beds we found one that we loved and started decorating with it in our head. Then we realized that we were both seriously considering this. Long story, short.....we walked out with a bedroom.

We have built the furniture and hung some things on the wall but we are not done. We decided to put a stain over our existing furniture and paint the knobs so that they will better match everything and update them in general. Hopefully that will happen over the next few weeks, so once that is all done, I will post the official before and after pictures. Here are some before pictures though.

After we moved the old bed out.

The bed still in boxes


The bench for the end of the bed


Some of the parts for the bed, on the new rug

Christmas'10/ New Years '11

So I know that it has been a while since I have updated this blog. While I do not think that our life is that interesting right now, others might like to see some pictures of what we are up to. So I am going to try to update it more often, even if it is with stupid things.

Of course we headed back to Knoxville for the holidays. It was a busy 11 days!

Ben and I at my grandparents house on Christmas Eve.

Mom and I on Christmas Eve


The Christmas Tree at Grandma and Grandpa's


The Christmas Tree at Daddy and Bobbie's house


Joe, Leslie and Tim unwrapping their presents on Christmas Day


All us actually managed to get together for the holidays. Here are 9 of us squeezed into the dining room for Christmas dinner.


All of us kids got together and got the parents a Wii. It proved to be more of a family present but we did manage to get Daddy and Bobbie to play.


There was snow falling all day, but it did not begin to stick until that night. Here is what my car looked like when we left my parents house. It was the first white Christmas that I can remember. I loved it!!!


The 26th is the day we normally open presents at my moms house and her birthday. Here is Ally and Ben prepping for present opening.


Due to the snow, she did not want to get out and get stuck so Ben and I ran some errands and got her a cookie cake and pizza for dinner. We all sat down and watched "Inception" including Ally.


On the 27th, we had a get together at my grandparents house because some of my out of town cousins, had come in town. Here is Megan and I catching up since we have not seen each other since May.


Veronica and Katie catching up.


After the family gathering us big girls left and went to take Katie and Veronica for a drink for their 21st birthdays. It was such a weird but neat thing to walk into a bar with these 3 girls whom I have known their whole lives.


On the 28th, Ben and I headed up to Greeneville to see his sister, brother-in-law, niece and parents, who were there visiting. While there we picked up his best friend, Daniel who stayed with us through the rest of the trip. Here is Ben with his mini-me, Annemarie. She actually talked to Uncle Ben! That never happens.


On the 29th, Ben, Daniel, Ally and I went downtown and hung out. We ended up at Sapphire and got drinks. I just thought this picture was nice. At the top is Daniel's Naughty Elf, then Ben's Coal something, and on the bottom my mojito.


For New Year's Eve Ben planned a surprise dinner. It was so much fun and I saw so many friends. I just loved that Ben actually planned something.


Ben's sister, Liz, and her husband Dave


Ben, Daniel, and Dave


Ben and I


On my birthday we hung out with family and then went to dinner at my favorite restaurant, Altruda's. I requested that I not have a grocery store birthday cake so my uncle made me chocolate bar cake. Yummy!


I have been looking forward to my birthday being 1/1/11 for a while so I had to document it somehow.


Unwrapping my birthday presents.


We made breakfast on the 2nd. Here are Daniel and Ben making gravy.


Well that is all from our trip home for the holidays. It seems like a blur. Now it is back to work and back to real life.

Anniversary in Paris- Days 6, 7 and 8

We start off Friday by going to the Musee D' Orsay. It is an art museum that is in an old train station. We could not take pictures inside, but here is one of me in front of it.

Next we went to the Musee de l'Orangerie which boast two oval rooms, each with 4 walls covered in Monet's water lilies. They were so beautiful! I could have sat in there forever.

We then caught our bus out to Giverny that took us to the actual gardens of Monet. I am sure that they are pretty in the spring but they are still gorgeous in the fall.

Here is his house.

When we got back to the city that evening, we decided to take in another night at the Louvre. Our goal was to do the whole museum, which is humongous, in our trip, so we had a lot to see between this night and the next day.

This was the only time it rained while we were in Paris and it made all the lights reflect on the streets and seemed very romantic and had a certain movie glossiness to it.

The next day we had a lot to do before we had to leave for the airport at 5. First was to go to St. Chapelle, but before we got in, we had to wait in line for an hour to go in to the church. Then when we got in, it took about 5 minutes to take a few pictures. It was pretty but that hour line, really ridiculous.

Next was our last trip to the Louvre to finish it up. The first time we went during the day.

Lastly was Angelina. It is a tea-room/restaurant, and it was the only place that I really wanted to go eat all week and of course we left it to be the last thing we did. When we got there we were not sure we had enough time because there was line but we made it in and out in an hour (which is record time for Paris dining). I had their famous hot chocolate and their Mont Blanc (picture below). It was the best pastry ever!!

Then we went back and finished packing up our flat. Here is the picture of the inside and the one below that is the outside (we were on the 4th floor, which made those spiral stairs everyday fun).

We left our flat and there is a whole long story about how what should have taken us 40 minutes to get to the airport took us two hours because of the darn Metro strikes. We got to Amsterdam, and checked into our awesome hotel. The circle that you see on the bottom right corner is the shower and the glass doors close around that. Plus you can see the blue light above that. The toilet is the same way and the lights rotate colors. You can see the bed beyond that, and yes it was the whole width of the room.

Then we headed into downtown Amsterdam via train and walked around exploring from midnight to 2 AM. It was awesome, yet cold. We can not wait to go back there for a full vacation in the future.

The last picture of us from our trip, in front of the train station.

So that is our last two days of the trip and while sad that vacation is over, we are excited to be home and getting some rest. Now, we are looking forward to our two beach vacations next summer, where we get to relax.