Green Seats!

Last night Nick and I experienced a first for us:  The Cardinal Club and Green Seats.  For those that don't know these tickets include a pre-game buffet that had yummy things like stuffed pork roast and buttery potatoes and fondue.  Once you get to your seats there is another menu of more ballpark like food including a bacon wrapped hot dog (which let me tell you was AWESOME!).  Our seats were first row literally right behind home plate.  It was a great vantage point to watch the game, but knowing that we were constantly on TV was a bit nerve-wracking.  Who wants to be on national television stuffing their face with a bacon wrapped hot dog??  Here are some pictures from the night:

look I even wore just a little bit of red!

pre game meeting

Bacon wrapped hot dog!

the view

The nice group of old men sitting behind us took this picture for us.  It was also there first time sitting in the green seats and I think at least one of them was on the phone with their wives and/or children the whole game asking if they were on TV.  They were quite entertaining.

We also had a request to wave for the camera and one of our friends caught it on their DVR.  There were also a couple of foul balls that came right at my face and my reflex was to duck and cover even with the fence.  Those around me were quite entertained by my reaction and I'm pretty sure it was also on TV at least once.

Yep I'm that girl!

It was a beautiful night for baseball and we had a great time!

Derby Party: I'll Have Another

This weekend Nick and I threw our first Kentucky Derby party.  It was a great afternoon of wonderful friends, amazing food and some friendly betting on horses.  Nick as well as two of our friends were the lucky winners picking the horse named "I'll Have Another" who pulled ahead at the end and won the race.

Unfortunately my camera is still MIA but I did manage to remember to take a few pictures on my phone (please excuse the poor quality):

Waiting for the race to start-Amanda is sporting an awesome purple hat

watching some pre-race coverage

Nick and I all dressed up for the occasion

We also managed to squeeze in a little Cinco de Mayo celebration with some Mexican food for dinner with those that were still around.  It was a great day that we think we will have to make an annual McGeehon Tradition.

Happy Earth Day!

In celebration of Earth Day we decided to finally start our garden.  After spending most of the day Saturday watching the sun position we finally decided on the best location for the garden.  We decided on the back corner of our yard.

As you can see the corner of the yard already a little bit of landscaping and really is the only part of the yard that isn't really shady.  We decided to move some of the plants that were already back there and extend it out just a bit and put the garden there.  We planted tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, green beans, spinach, kale and onions.  I didn't get any in progress pictures but here is our final garden:

The pots to the side are the herbs I planted a couple weeks ago and referred to in this post. They have already started to sprout so hopefully we will have lots of fresh herbs soon.  

 We also re-potted this little plant.  A few years ago my mom gave me this plant and it was probably a quarter of this size. I have no idea what the plant is, but let me tell you this little guy is hardy.  I very rarely remembered to water it and really just left it alone and it seems to flourish- that is my kind of plant!  Yes those stones are a Cardinals stone and a Cubs stone. They were housewarming gifts from a good friend of ours.

The last thing we did yesterday was replant one of the plants we removed to plant the garden.  When we moved in there were 3 of these bushes along the back of the house They were still green then but looked like they might have been on their last leg and unfortunately they don't seem to be making a come back so we replaced one of them with a plant from the corner of the yard.  We hope to replace the other 2 soon, maybe with a flowering bush or two.

Hopefully that bush (We have no idea what it is) will make it and fill in that space nicely.  

There is still lots to do outside, but we feel pretty accomplished after this weekend!

Getting Our Spray Paint On!

Lately our house project focus has moved outdoors. We have been busy cleaning up all the leaves and discovering plants that the previous owner planted. Spring is such a surprise at a new house; you just never know what might appear.  In addition I recently planted an herb garden and plan to plant a vegetable garden soon as well.  This past weekend, however, we took on a couple projects that just needed a little refresh job!

Unfortunately I forgot to take very good before pictures so you won't get the total transformation.  The first project was a new fire pit that our friends weren't using anymore and donated to the cause.  It was a bit rusty so we decided to give it a fresh coat of paint.

We also found a great patio table at a garage sale a couple weeks ago for much cheaper than we could have bought the same thing new.  It was however a forest green color and the chairs we have are all trimmed in black so we gave our cheap table a new look with a can of black spray paint.
The process:

The After:

Probably can't really tell in the picture but I promise
it looks brand new with the fresh coat of paint

Since we had the spray paint out and still had a lot left Nick decided to give this chair a new color as well.

Before

After

 I really don't know where the chair came from and it didn't really look all that bad, but now it fits in nicely with our new chairs and "new" table.

Those are our outside updates so far.  Hopefully in the next couple weeks I will have some details about my garden and our other outside updates.

Honeymoon Part 4: "Happy Thanksgiving!"

**Sorry I just realized I forgot to hit publish on this post a couple weeks ago


As I mentioned in a previous post we decided to go to the Dominican the week of Thanksgiving both because of cost and because it allowed me to only have to take a couple of personal days.  I was bummed to be missing my favorite holiday at home with family but we ended up having a great day even without Turkey.

Most of the day was similar to how we spent any other day; we started the day relaxing on the beach and ended the afternoon at the pool.  We had decided early in the week that one night we wanted to have dinner on the beach.  The resort provided private candle light dinners on the beach and we decided this would be a suitable substitute for missing Thanksgiving dinner.  So after relaxing all day we got dressed up and headed to the beach:

A picture of us all dressed up before the humidity attacked my hair

Our table on the beach

The meal was like a 7 course dinner that consisted of:
Grouper Ceviche
Salad Symphony
Portobello Mushroom Soup

Lobster and Vegetables
Grilled Chicken and Potatoes
Passion Fruit Sorbet
You & Me Black & White Chocolate Cake

I took pictures of each course but the pictures really didn't capture the yummieness of dinner.  Our waiter, however, noticed me taking pictures and when he brought us our dessert insisted on not only taking a picture of the dessert for us: 

But then also insisted on taking pictures of us feeding each other:

We were also surprised by a mariachi band that serenaded us during dinner:

While it was no turkey and mashed potatoes it turned out to be a pretty great Thanksgiving dinner!

After dinner we were headed back to our room and walked past the buffet and discovered this little beauty:

How fantastic is he?  We also noticed a sign that said the buffet was serving Thanksgiving dinner so I thought it would be interesting to just go look and see their interpretation of the American tradition.  Let's just say I'm glad I didn't get my hopes up.  There was not a single thing on the buffet that even remotely resembled a good ol' American Thanksgiving.  Good thing they had Mr. Turkey out front to make up for it. 

Every Thursday on the resort was also "White Beach Party" night so we decided to take a walk down to the other side and check out the festivities.  The party consisted on lots of performances by men in little white shorts included a bar tending show, dancing, and flame throwing and don't worry there was a pretty fantastic conga line thrown in as well.  Sadly the darkness mixed with the glow sticks we didn't get many pictures but here are a few to hopefully give you an idea:

 All in all it was a pretty great Thanksgiving and one we definitely won't forget.

So that is the end of the wedding and honeymoon recaps.  Now I suppose we need to get to getting on house stuff so I have more stuff to post about!  Hopefully I will have a couple house posts soon.  

Honeymoon Part 3: "The Real Dominican"

We knew before we even got to Punta Cana that we would want to go on an adventure (or excursion)  we just didn't know what we wanted to do.  The first full day we were at the resort we had an introductory meeting with our travel agency and they provided us with a book of adventures to choose from.  We had a hard time deciding what we wanted to do and in the end it came down to an afternoon cruise on a party boat or a day experiencing "The Real Dominican."  Because we are huge nerds (mostly just me this time) we decided to go with the second choice.  Now I'm smart enough to know we didn't really experience a day in the life of a "The Real Dominican"  but we did learn some things, met some new people, saw some of the island beyond our resort and had an enjoyable day so I think it was a success.

Just after breakfast we boarded this truck/bus thing:

and our tour guide "Rudy"  immediately started serving drinks. We decided with a tour guide/bar tender like Rudy it was sure to be a good day.  Once we were all loaded with drink in hand we were off.  Here is a view of the countryside on the way to our first stop:

Our first stop along the way was a school.  Rudy explained that kids go to school for a half day each day in a one room school house and then another group of kids comes in the afternoon.  It looked like there were probably kids in the classroom from about 1st grade to probably about 8th grade. We spent about 10 minutes at the school before loading the bus again on to our next adventure.

We drove on some interesting "road" and a couple of times I was a bit worried we were going to get stuck but we managed to make it even after getting stopped by a herd of cows:

Some more pictures of the country side:

Our next stop was a "restaurant" owned by the tour company where we had a traditional Dominican meal, learned how cigars are made, and saw some wildlife:

Pineapple Plants- I had no idea each plant only produces 1 fruit 

Iguanas

Crocodiles 

Making Cigars

Lunch- fried chicken, rice, tomato salad, and potatoes- Very yummy!

After lunch we went to a coca bean and coffee bean farm where we learned how both are made.

The cement pad is where they dry coffee beans

Coffee Beans

Coca seeds- raw seeds are very slimy right out of the pod!

Coca beans and pods

After we left the farm it was off to the beach to enjoy some boogie boarding:

It was a very fun day and while most people probably think I am crazy for going on an educational adventure I thought it was the best of both worlds.  We got to enjoy beach time and learned some new things, but yes I can admit I am a giant nerd and Nick is a trooper for going along with my nerdiness.