Baby, Baby, Baby

We're having a baby.

A tiny person. A mini-me. A little minion.

It only seems fitting that our B & Me blog has a baby, too:

b-and-me.weebly.com

Here's to the next adventure!

xoxo, b & ben

Since... MAY!?

We've been on Go Mode since.... well apparently since May and the first hints of summer.

Since then, we had a Ben&B trip to Vegas.... where it actually ended up raining for a good portion of the trip. In the desert. We had a pretty wicked awesome corner suite room at the Hard Rock, with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the center pool on 2 of the 4 walls. Ben flew in from Wherever, USA that he had a work trip the week prior, and I managed to get myself from MKE to LAS in one piece. Because Ben is amazing sometimes, he went out and bought an array of snacks, champagne and orange juice, wine, vodka, red bulls, and waters to stock up our room before I even got there. We had way too much fun at the pool (on the nice day.5), playing goofy slots, hitting up the blackjack tables, and walking the Strip.

So obviously, we went back in about a month's time. Hello Hard Rock Hotel, you sexy beast. The second go-round was for Ben's birthday, so we ended up going right over Labor Day weekend. There was a little snafu with not getting the corner suite again, so we stayed one night in a standard room and were told we would move in the morning. Morning came, we fueled ourselves with mimosas, and headed to the pool to wait for the call that at our new room was ready. Long story short, when we grabbed all our stuff and dumped it in the new room, our wedding bands were nowhere to be found. Ben went back to the old room to look around, and the nervous Nelly maid assured him that she hadn't seen anything................................................this brings me to a dark place. No additional comments.

Anywho, we spent the majority of this trip outside by the pool. We played swim up blackjack, lounged in the sun and sun, and went to the Jason Derulo pool party concert. It was while we were poolside that I found out my friends Kor&J were already on their flight headed to Vegas. And then Ben's cousin Jennifer from Phoenix texted and said she also was in Vegas for the weekend. What are the beautiful odds?! We ended up meeting up and spent a night out together causing a general ruckus.



The week before the second Vegas trip, I surprised Ben with family and friends at our apartment for his 29th birthday. His high school friend/best man Dan stopped by as the official distractor, and took Ben out on a brewery tour and to Potowatomi for lunch while everyone gathered. If you know anything about me, I'm :HORRIBLE at keeping secrets from Ben. I get too excited to share things with him, and when I do keep my mouth shut, he can pick up on my even more awkward attempts at being smooth and nonchalant. The surprise went off without a hitch, and the second surprise-- a pontoon boat for the evening-- went over great as well.

But more catch up later... time for work!

unsupervised.

I'm unsupervised this evening, which means that there's no one here to make me check my crazy at the door.

It's about time to de-clutter my pack rat husband's stash of lordy-knows-what in the closets and from the goodness of my blessed heart give the vast majority of it to Goodwill. Because I'm absolutely full of good will... And stuff we don't need and I don't want to move come 4 months or whatever when we decide to up and leave our current living establishment and move cross country to an environment full of sun and warmth and deemed fit for human life.

I'm seriously starting to doubt my relationship with Wisconsin. It's emotionally draining. Wisconsin is so terribly horrible to me all winter long, then summer rolls around and I forget why we were fighting in the first place. The weather is glorious, brats and burgers are frying on the grill, bonfires are crackling, stars are twinkling, there is a festival practically every freakin' weekend, the outdoor theater is open, and my energy level goes through the roof. In the summer, Wisconsin gives me wonderful things like a social life, patio drinking, and a tan. I totally blank on how the majority of the year is a frigid betch.

But I digress. Time for me to continue my good will rampage through this place.

Or maybe not yet.

Catch up since last month:

mini-moon up north

• I flew out to Virginia Beach for the weekend to meet up with Ben at the end of his work trip. We got seafood and walked on the beach and had a room with a balcony overlooking the water and I thought it was overall fantastic. Then we went to a crowded sports bar and yelled at the tv as we watched the Badgers end their NCAA run in the last seconds of the game. Because that's how we do.
• My grandparents sold DeCabin up in Winter, WI. We spent the weekend up there helping load up the truck and empty out the place where we spent time every summer since 1999, where Ben and I took our "mini-moon", and the go-to place for a last minute trip away from it all. We got a few items that are now in our apartment, and that still smell like the pine-needle-fresh-air-cut-grass-pine-wood-whatever-else-there-was that was DeCabin. That certain smell which, depending on how much wine I've had that particular evening, makes me tear up and/or cry a few glistening tears. Soooo many memories!! 
• I'm finishing up a gigantic king-sized patchwork-esque type quilt for our bed. My determination to finish it comes and goes. 
• I'm helping Jess shoot video at a wedding this weekend. wheeeeeeee
• May 2nd was the 5 year anniversary of Ben flinging me off of a teeter totter. All because I was trying to be a responsible 22 year old and NOT go to a street party in Madison that particular night in question. Going to the park and playing "farmer brown let me down" on the teeter totter seemed like a good alternative at the time. At least it did before I was sitting in the Urgent Care cry-laughing as Vicodin powered its way through my bloodstream. The damage = dislocated shoulder, collar bone split in two, and mild concussion because I can't play nice with the other kids.  The moral of the story: Never turn down a street party.

xoxo, b

Wedding in Nashville

Kor and J's wedding in Nashville was stupendous. 

Nicole Marie Photography

 Belle Meade Plantation was gorgeous. Such a fun weekend full of love & dancing, singing at the top of our lungs, and Fireball shots. 

Damn Fireball shots.

Ben and I even had a little bit of time to head downtown one afternoon and have Jess take some "10 year anniversary" photos on her fancy pants camera. The photos............... capture our odd little relationship pretty accurate. Kinda awkward, super cheesey, and basically crazy.  Once I bug Jess enough, I'm sure she will forward them. 

On our drive back to the Dairy State, we pulled over at a dusty little gas station to refuel the car and fill my need for caffeine and Doritos. It was straight out of a movie. Dusty little shack, middle aged lady behind the counter with a southern drawl, and a cop and local farmer sitting at a bench talking over a coffee. Hey small town, hey. So good.

xoxo, b 

pack it up

We leave 3am Thursday morning for Nashville (heeeeey wedding!), so I decided to become an adult this afternoon and pack. No last minute realizations that the majority of my clothes are dirty, I can only find one of my nude heels, or a cat somehow got zipped up into my luggage. 

So I got the 90's music bumping, pulled out my suitcase, and put on my cowgirl boots for inspiration. About 20 minutes and 53 wardrobe changes later, N'sync was blasting, booty was shaking, ideas were flowing............ and then Hurricane Brit hit.

the beginning....

I can't really explain how or why, but I pulled everything out of our closet with the idea that I would "totally organize this" and "maybe do some spring cleaning AND packing." Then the power tools and pink toolbox made an appearance, there was some dis-assembly and shelving modification.... the chaos spread from the closet to the rest of the poor little bedroom like a sickness. 

Now I'm sitting Indian style in the middle of my floor among a sad wreck of heels, sweaters, work out shorts, hangers, a lawn gnome, and mismatched socks. I honestly don't even know where my suitcase went. I haven't see one of the cats for a few hours. 

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. 

Thanks for getting me so amped up N'sync. This would have never happened if you weren't so ridiculously awesome, old school style.

Ben says I have to have this cleaned up by tonight. We'll see. 

I'm hungry and losing interest faster than...


Anyways, here's a picture of Nicole licking her lips while
I was trying to make her look like a vampire cat. 

xoxo, b