Bagel Bash 2011: Cruisin' with Awesome Friends!
Our friend Matthew Levine has on several occasions made it a point to plan a cruise around his birthday and this was our second Bagel Bash Cruise so far! Last year there was a break, as Paul's bachelor party was a bachelor cruise!
As with the last Bagel Bash, we planned an inexpensive, 3-day Cruise with Carnival to the Bahamas. We had a nice little group, Matthew of course, Paul and myself, one of my best friends (and my maid of honor) Ashley, and now new friends to Paul and I, Earl and Ron! It was a nice convergence of people, and we had a blast! The weather was wonderful, and the fun was unlimited starting with our first picture... Me having a bit of fun in our cabin!
We were on the Carnival Sensation, a very nice cruise ship! I think between crew and guests it has about 4,000 people on board - don't quote me on that, but it's pretty darn close!
We got on board and immediately the party began! Awesome fruity drinks and great food! We enjoyed just chilling out as we waited for the boat to leave port.
The first night we celebrated Matt's 34th birthday (OLD MAN!) haha. I think every night of the cruise, we had our fine dining experience, and there were at least a half-a-dozen birthdays, and if it wasn't Happy Birthday the crew was singing, it was Happy Anniversary! The meals were awesome, and you could eat anything and everything you wanted. You could order one of everything on the menu if you really wanted!
The first full day, we docked in Nassau, Bahamas and were off the boat by 12 or 1 PM. The weather was gorgeous, you couldn't have asked for a better day to tour around the island.
Of course our first stop was Senor Frog's cause there's always a party there! We had a blast hanging out, munching and of course DRINKING a LOT! Paul even did a beer drinking contest!
And he won!!! We had two LARGE drinks and some shots, we left Senor Frog's pretty toasted! And naturally what would anyone do but get their hair braided when you've got a nice buzz on in the islands...
After braiding, we went to the beach, and met a friendly little beach cat! Such a sweet one... and got a little bit of beach time before we caught the bus back to the boat.
We had a pretty fun day on the island and were headed back to formal night to do dinner and get pictures! Matt was determined to get a nice group picture for his wall! I unfortunately don't have it for the blog (maybe I'll try updating it later with it), but we went to three different stations to get pictures before we were ready to cut loose in the club!
Paul and the guys had a lot of fun this evening, and ironically the ladies cut out early. But Paul did pretty good in the casino's so it was ok that he stayed out a bit later!
The next day Ashley and I were dead set on getting our chairs to lay out ALL DAY LONG! And that we did! We scoped out our spot after breakfast, and then got ready for our day in the sun. Paul and Earl joined up with us around lunch and Matt and Ron were sleeping off their wild night ALL DAY!
But toward the end of the day, Paul, Earl and Matt decided to give the water slide a try! They said it was a lot of fun... I'll take their word for it. I heard it was very cold, and that it was a little painful if you hit the seams the wrong way. But it looks like Paul enjoyed it!
Overall it was an awesome time! Ashley finally got used to the rocking... it was definitely more rocky than normal. And the guys had a great time drinking, eating and gambling. I think our next cruise will be longer, and maybe to somewhere new like the Mediterranean or something! Oh and did I mention, Ric Flair was on the cruise! I included a pic of Paul with him. Matt, Ron and Paul all go pictures with him, and he was a good sport about it!
Fun times! We love cruisin' with great friends!
In Route to Nassau!
No better way to travel than a CRUISE!!! Headed to Nassau on Carnival! Will be a blast with my wonderful Husband and AWESOME friends! Check back for some amazing photography compliments of my Paul Paul!
Our Family Santa Pictures!
Paul, in coordination with Elaine, planned this year's Annual Family Santa Shoot, and of course we couldn't miss out on getting pictures with Santa. We had the privileged of getting pictures with Santa last year, and our dog Chunk has a blast!
So naturally, we have to make a tradition out of it and we got some great shots with Santa for 2011! We had a lot of fun and Chunk really enjoyed visiting with Santa too!
Check it out!
To get more information about the Santa Shoot, go to SantaShoot.com or you can contact Paul or Elaine by clicking on their names!
I LOVE Christmas and I LOVE Scrabble - Why not Marry them?
I love crafts and they are especially fun during the holidays! When I came across these DIY scrabble ornaments, I had to make them this year! I love Scrabble and playing it with friends and family on Words with Friends, so it was a logical idea for a cute ornament to give to friends, family and more on gifts or just because!
This is what you need to make these fun ornaments!
Supplies:
- wooden Scrabble trays and tiles
**I purchased this Scrabble Me set and was able to make 8 ornaments from it - ribbon, cut into 5-6″ lengths
- pencil
- miter or hand saw
- white glue
Directions:
To start, decide on the words/names you’ll be making. I did a mix of last names (friends and family) and short holiday words like "Joy", "Elf" and "Hope." Lay these out on your wooden trays, pairing the words to make the most of the trays. Line the letters up to the outside edges and mark the tray on the inside edge of each word with a pencil.
Remove the letters and cut the trays with a miter saw. This is the most involved part... so be prepared to put in a little man power with the saw! I also sanded the edges a little to make sure the ends were smooth.
Put a small amount of white glue in the center of the tray, stick the ends of the ribbon onto the glue in the center. Add additional glue along the tray and begin to stick the tiles on the tray. Let sit to dry, best to let sit overnight before hanging.
You should try it out yourself! They are super cute! Check them out on 101 Days of Christmas - Christmas Your Way.
It's Snowing On My Blog!!!
Baby's It's Cold Outside... Tis the Season... Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow! hehehe How Fun, it's Snowing on My Blog!
Pinterest Achieved...
So the other day Paul and I completed our first Pinterest Project, the Photo Heart! And I think the relevance of having Pinterest is to be able to achieve those things we think would be great for our life, whether it be for our home, for our taste buds, for wearing or just for fun!
a·chieve
verb (used with object)1. to bring to a successful end; carry through; accomplish: The police crackdown on speeders achieved its purpose.
2. to get or attain by effort; gain; obtain: to achieve victory.
I think I will make this a regular thing, to "achieve" a Pinterest on a monthly, bi-weekly, or even weekly basis. Hopefully more often than not, but we will see as we go. One day when I was searching for the Pinterest logo, I stumbled upon this image (below), and I think this was created by someone with a lack of drive and motivation.
Well, I have achieved three Pinterests last week and have several others in the works! First was our Photo Heart for our bedroom wall...
Second was purchasing this super cool shirt from Forever 21(it was only $23 including tax and shipping - and I probably could have gone to the store for it... but I was impatient and wanted to be absolutely sure I didn't miss out!)
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And third was making this fun scarf (and it was even easier and took less time than the blog said)!
I think Pinterest is all about collaboration and inspiration! THere are not to many original things out there anymore, but there is definitely individual personality, desire and achievement, and Pinterest is totally helping me achieve!
Thanksgiving Holiday in PCB!
Paul's parent's have some awesome condos right on the beach in Panama City Beach Florida, and we have the privilege of using them on various occasions, and Thanksgiving was no exception!
Paul and I headed down after work Wednesday, to sleep in, relax and prepare our bodies for an amazing Thanksgiving Dinner at the Boat Yard. It was pretty awesome as they prepare a family style dining experience for Thanksgiving where you get a 26 lbs Turkey, and all the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner dressings, of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, dressing, veggies, green bean casserole, and my favorite cranberry sauce! And of course they topped the meal off with some pumpkin pie! It was a great time, and they even had live music (a local saxophonist).
Also, on a very impressive note, they pack up the turkey carcass, turkey and any left-overs, so you can take it home and eat it for the rest of the week! How cool is that?? We actually took the carcass home, and Paul is making up some delicious Turkey Soup! YUMMM!
While that was the main highlight of the weekend, there was some more fun to be had! Following dinner, we all of course went back to the condos to chill, nap and let the turkey tryptophan wear off. Once we were able to get the energy back on, we decided to head over to the movies and were totally entertained by the movie Hugo in 3D, and while I believe it is geared for children, it was actually a very good movie, one I would totally watch again! It has a very intriguing and elaborate story line, and is good for the whole family! Of course I think it could be a bit much for children under five or 6.
Thanksgiving Day wasn't over yet, we headed back to the condo to hang out and wait for Midnight so that we could take part in the Black Friday fun, starting at 12AM!
Elizabeth (my sister-in-law) and I decided we were going to hit up some stores in Pier Park in PCB. Target was open at 12AM Friday, we decided that was going to be our first and "main" stop. This was the first time that Elizabeth had gone out for Black Friday, and I think she may actually do it again in the future. Of course it really is one of those thing that you need to do advance research on, as there seems to be either very specific deals in places like Target, and smaller stores have what you would be surprised to find, like 40% EVERYTHING!
When we got to Target, there was a line to get in, but by the time we walked to the front, the line had dissipated and we were headed in! We found a good amount of deals and were seeing people everywhere with LCD TVs in their carts. We weren't really looking for anything specific, so we got a mix of good deals and just stuff we had to have. And while we thought we would only be out for about an hour or so, I think we actually spent almost 2 hours in Target alone! We roamed around and as we were in the midst of our shopping spree, we noticed a line building around the entire store! It was INSANE. Ironically, we continued browsing, and by the time we were ready to check out, the lines were gone. Either time flies when you're having fun, or those Target checkers were moving in super speed! CRAZY!
Once we left Target, we moved on to some of the other shops in Pier Park, and were very excited to find that American Eagle was doing 40% off your entire purchase! YEAH! These are the times that we find more stuff for ourselves than others... but we did accomplish a good bit of Christmas Shopping too! ;) Other stops included Bath & Body Works, New York & Co., and Nike! Elizabeth and I were shocked when we finally got back to the car at 4:15AM! The couple of hours we thought we would spend out, turned into 4 hours of shopping... It was so fun!
The rest of the weekend continued with more fun, shopping (Paul's Mom really knows how to scope out the consignment shops!), eating great PCB Seafood (Bayou on the Beach and the Captain's Table), a Boat Parade and Festival (the 25th Anniversary in Downtown Panama City Beach), and just good old family fun!
We Did It!!! It's Our Photo Heart!
I've been wanting to do something with our HUGE accent wall in our bedroom for some time now, and to buy art or print large canvas photos for this wall would just cost too much money! I was torn because I wanted to be able to feature images that were meaningful to Paul and I, so I either wanted pictures of us, or photographs Paul has taken.
I found this idea on Pinterest, and fell in love, and was determined to make it happen! 
I calculated costs for frames, printing prints, and nails to hang everything, and it wasn't bad (about $120.00 total). Now our heart is about 5 ft wide at the widest point and about 3.5 to 4 ft tall from the bottom most point to the highest point. To purchase canvas prints to cover that approximate space, we would need at least two and at Paul's cost it would be a minimum of $300 (not including shipping)! So doing this cool and sentimental design, not only did we save probably $200 or more, we now have a very cool piece of art that is all about US!
From conception to completion, it only took us a few hours, not including the time it takes to purchase the frames and time waiting to get the prints in the mail. We bought the frames at IKEA ($1.99 a piece), and got the cool metallic prints through Paul's Photography Vendor Smugmug. We got a deal b/c Paul is a photographer and was able to get them at cost, but we did splurge a little for the metallic prints, so you could easily do it for as much or less than we did! And Paul, being very meticulous about design laid out the design on our computer with exact measurements. It was great for us to be able to visualize how it would look! He just took a picture of the bedroom and digitally put in frames with pictures so we could measure out how many frames would fit, based on the size of the wall and the 5x7 size I chose! With the upfront work that Paul did, it only took a small amount of time to hang! I think I spent more time putting pictures in the frames than he spent hanging them. Paul was definitely leery about putting 28 holes in the wall, but as you can see, it was totally worth it! It is AWESOME!
And you know what I love most about this!?? It can totally be a living piece of art.... as we get new pictures or grow our family, I can swap out old pictures for new ones. I absolutely love that!
Santa's Back! Get Your Santa Pictures with Our Favorite Santa
Last year we did a photo shoot with Santa (at our house) and he's back again this year! I'm definitely planning to get some family shots (Paul, Chunk and myself... the cats aren't really into pictures).
Chunk really enjoyed getting his picture taken with Santa, and I know he will be excited to visit with him again this year! Check out some of the great shots we got last year!
Paul is working with the REAL Santa Claus and they've got some great packages for your holiday photos! And if you just want to give your kids a great Santa experience, it's totally FREE! The only cost you would incur is if you want to walk away with photos. Either the sitting fee cost (for those that choose to bring your own camera) or you can buy photos, discs and holiday cards.
The atmosphere will be warm and cozy at the festive Perdue Mansion with great holiday sounds and complimentary Milk and Cookies! Oh YEAH!
Definitely check out the details at SantaShoot.com or contact Paul directly at 770-316-2812 or [email protected]
Also you can check Paul's photography out at PaulPerdue.com!
Join Me and Stop the Privatization/Expansion of Briscoe Field!
Greetings,
I just signed the following petition addressed to: Board of Commissioners Gwinnett County. I've lived in Gwinnett County for about 20 years now, and grew up in Lawrenceville, GA where Briscoe Field is located - There has been so much great development in Lawrenceville and Gwinnett it would be a shame for them to ruin all the great stuff with this new plan to privatize and/or expand!
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Stop the privatization or expansion of Briscoe Field
Don’t Land in My Back Yard
Join together and let Gwinnett County Commissioners know they need to care more about the quality of life of their citizen’s than making a buck.
There have been numerous article, commentaries, opinions, etc. about expanding the use of Briscoe field. We need to deal in facts and realities, no matter what they call it; this privatization will evolve into the expanded use of Briscoe Field.
What does that mean to the residents of Gwinnett County, more traffic, added pollution, noise and larger planes landing and taking off from Briscoe Field? The quality of my life over the last 18 years has been impacted with the rapid growth of Gwinnett. Growth is good if it does not also impact the value of your home as well as the quality of your life in that community. Real Estate motto, location, location, location try and sell your home with large and frequent planes landing 10 miles from your back yard. In my case I’m about five miles from the airport, less as the crow flies.
I did a search looking for the number of residences within a 20 mile radius of Briscoe Field. These are the zip codes I came up with 30011, 30017, 30019, 30024, 30043, 30044, 30045, 30046, 30052 and 30052. There are over 70,000 homes based on information from the post office in these zip codes. If you live in these zip codes your probably within about 20 miles of Briscoe field.
I can sit in my back yard and watch planes every 5 minutes fly over heading for Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. I’m over 35 miles away from the Atlanta Airport and the planes are usually fairly high but we do occasionally hear them. Try to imagine being 5 or 10 miles away from the run way.
You can say not in my back yard, you can attend meetings and get verbal or we can band together. There is strength in numbers and it has more impact than an occasional article or TV spot on the news.
Let your voice be heard, tell Gwinnett County Commissioner’s that we do not want Briscoe field privatized or expanded.
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Please join me and sign this petition today! Click here to SIGN!
