Weekend in Arkansas

I went down to Northwest Arkansas for a quick trip last weekend and it was so great to spend some time with friends and family and meet a new addition to the group :)

Sweet baby Wren was sooo precious!

I spent as much time hanging out with friends as possible and of course eating cheese dip :)

So many adorable babies!!!

My mom and sister even drove up on Saturday to see me which was awesome!

We all hung out at the Lake Fayetteville park on Saturday and I got to enjoy some greenery, definitely something I miss living in a gigantic concrete city :(

 

We even did a little swinging :)

It was a FANTASTIC trip, so laid back and so great to see everyone, if only it were a little longer!

Catching Up

Ok, so I guess I took a break for Christmas and never really came back. Part of my absence is because I got an Ipad for Christmas and haven't been using my laptop since. The drawback there is that I can't get pictures directly from my camera on to my Ipad to blog. Anyway, here are some of the highlights from the past couple of months...

Before Christmas we took John's brother and sister-in-law to Carnegie Hall to see Handel's Messiah, it was a really neat experience!

For Christmas we went down to AR for probably the longest we've been since we moved to NY, I think it was almost two weeks!

Rosie even got to go down with us since we were going for such a long time. She did really great on the flight and loved getting to play with all of her cousins :)

John got an antique gun for Christmas from his grandfather and we got to do a little shooting!

After the excitement of Christmas there hasn't been much going on but I've been loving my latest knitting project :)

AR Wedding

Two weekends ago I flew back to Arkansas for a friend of mine's wedding. I flew into Little Rock a little early so I could spend some time with my family and then I drove up to Fayetteville for the wedding festivities.

The wedding was at the Garden Room on Dickson and it was so beautiful! It was a perfect Fall day (keep this in mind for the irony later)....

Julie and Tony

I have to admit I borrowed all of these photos of the lovely couple from Facebook, my bridesmaid dress didn't really allow for my camera :)

Julie and I went to design school together along with Pepper and it was so fun to be back in town and get to hang out with old friends!

Pepper, Julie and Me

A quick note about the bridesmaid dress, its very cool but a tiny bit complicated. Its the Dessy Twist dress and can be configured in so many ways which is awesome but it definitely requires some practice and maybe another set of hands :) 

Me and Charles (Pepper's significant other)

After all the wedding festivities I drove back down to Little Rock and I was really looking forward to a scenic drive but unfortunately the entire drive looked more like this :(

And as a super fun welcome back to NYC we had snow this past weekend, yes, I said snow....in October!

Another Wedding Weekend

This time we went home to AR for a wedding. I blogged about going home for my friend's bachelorette party in April and now it was time for the wedding. I made sure I went down early enough in the week so that I could spend some time with my family and friends and still be able to help Whitney out.

Whitney is one of those really creative and crafty people which is probably why we had so much fun as kids. For her wedding she decided to decorate with paper flowers. I am already a fan of paper flowers and have used them to decorate parties in the past, however I did not know that Whitney was making over 300 paper flowers!

 Whitney and I have known each other since kindergarten so it was really special that I got to be a part of her big day :)

I just thought the picture below was too hilarious not to share. I don't even know how many people were back there trying to figure out how to bustle the dress!

We all had beautiful bouquets with peonies (my fave!) and the paper flowers were used as decorations.You can see some of the paper flowers in the background of the picture below behind the happy couple. Keep in mind this is June in Arkansas so if the groom doesn't look too happy its because it was 97 degrees and everyone was trying not to melt :)

The ceremony was outside at two in the afternoon which was just a smidge hot but the reception was inside and wonderfully air conditioned :) My family was at the wedding too which made for the perfect opportunity for a family photo, everyone is even smiling!

Such a fun trip home and a few much appreciated days off work! Now if I can just make it through July John and I are going to Alaska in August!

Easter Weekend

For Easter I flew down to AR for a surprise bachelorette party for my oldest friend Whitney. Her wedding isn't until June but all but one bridesmaid lives out of town. Whitney thought she wasn't going to be able to have a bachelorette party and so we decided to surprise her and all come in town for Easter. We were all waiting at a nail salon while the one bridesmaid that lives in town brought her in. Whitney had no idea and it was so much fun to see her reaction!

After getting our nails done we got dressed up and went out to get drinks and dinner. For a bachelorette party it was pretty tame but I think that's just what Whitney needed :)

My trip to Little Rock was so quick I really didn't have time to do a whole lot else. I quickly tried to see as many people as possible and get in some cheese dip while I had the chance!

And We're Back

We had a fantastic Christmas back home in Arkansas, it just ended up being a few more days than planned since NY got 20" of snow and all of the airports closed! We were able to make it back late last night after our original flight back earlier in the week was cancelled. We got lucky and got stuck in Little Rock and not some connecting city. We also had all of our bags when we got home which was not the case for lots of people judging by the sea of luggage at the Newark airport last night!

 

Poor Rosie had to be boarded for a lot longer than I would have liked. She's completely exhausted and has slept non stop since she got home, fingers crossed that she won't get sick again like last time (I'm convinced she picked up the bug while she was boarded at Thanksgiving).

Here's a couple of pictures from the walk home after picking Rosie up. 

She sooo wants to play in the snow! Here are a couple more random images.

The tree at my mom's Christmas morning, yes that's like a ten foot tree. She actually thought John could just reach up and put the angel up when we first got there. I think she underestimated how tall it actually was :) 

John likes to play with sweet baby Austin, doesn't he look so cute! 

Clearly we had fun back home :) We got to see lots of family and friends but no matter how long the trip is it seems like we never fit everyone in. I just haven't quite figured out how to get the scheduling down, I'm definitely working on it though!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

While I was in Little Rock I also took my mom and sister to the Memphis Zoo. It was really my attempt to make driving me to Memphis to the airport worthwhile :) It ended up being cheaper to fly into LR on my way down but fly out of Memphis on my way back and it made for a fun little trip for me and the fam.

Lions

Tigers

Bears

And the occasional other creature :)

My sister had never been to the Memphis Zoo and it is definitely a nicer zoo than the one in Little Rock. They even had pandas, apparently only four zoos in the US have pandas!

It made for a really nice last day on my Arkansas visit, sometimes it's really hard for me to say goodbye to everyone and head back to NY. Going to the zoo was great because it took my mind off leaving and I got to spend a great day with my family! By the time I went to the airport I was so worn out that it made the goodbye a little easier.

Little Rock

My trip back home over Labor Day weekend to see Lauren and Austin was soooo much fun! Austin was adorable and it was fantastic to hang out with Lauren for the long weekend.

This was my little knitting project I was working on before I went down to LR, I'm really proud of the way it turned out :) The time that I wasn't hanging out with Lauren and Austin I was playing tourist, which I've decided is kind of fun since I don't live in Little Rock anymore :)I went downtown to eat at the Flying Burrito (best cheese dip ever!) and then wandered around for a little while. The riverfront park area has been renovated so much lately it doesn't even look like it did when I was a kid!One of the old railroad bridges has been turned into a pedestrian bridge so you can walk over to North Little Rock. Of course I drug my mom and sister all over on my touristy adventures too! That's the other fun part of not living in Little Rock anymore, everyone does what I want to do when I come in town :)

Don't get me wrong though, I would trade all the special treatment to move back home, I miss my friends and family!

Homeward Bound

I'm going to Little Rock this weekend and I can barely contain myself I'm so excited! One of my very best friends had a precious little boy earlier this month and I'm going down to meet Mr. Austin in person.

I just have to finish up a tiny little knitting project before I fly down Thursday night :)

Family Filled Weekend

Speaking of getting out of Manhattan, John and I went to Little Rock the first weekend in June. John's brother was getting married and I was helping host a baby shower. It was a short trip but we definitely packed in a visit with as many people as we possible could! It's a rare occasion that all of John's family is in one location so it was really great to see all of them.

The wedding was beautiful! The bride's father is a minister and performed the ceremony, it was very emotional to say the least :) I don't know if you can tell from the picture below, but Andrea has red hair too. I think it's really funny that both John and his brother married red heads!The baby shower that I "helped" host was for one of my very best friends (helped needs to be in quotes because I really wasn't much help since I live out of town, the other girls did an amazing job).

I was so glad that I got to be part of the shower for Lauren, it breaks my heart that I don't live in Arkansas anymore and can't share in such an exciting time with her :(

Why did I ever leave???

The World Cheese Dip Festival is taking place this fall in ARKANSAS!!!!

I'm kind of speechless right now. First of all the fact that there even is a world cheese dip festival and second it's in Arkansas! Seriously, why did I ever leave?