rewind - girls get-together 2010.

Since fall officially begins tomorrow, I decided it's time to get serious and post the rest of our summer pictures.

Our whirlwind summer travels started in June with a visit to Indianapolis for a girls weekend with some GREAT friends. This was our second annual get together, but this year we did it right and made it an all day affair. We started off the day with breakfast at the adorable Bub's Cafe in downtown Carmel. This was my first Bub's experience and it was delish - especially their famous "Bub holes"! I forgot to take a picture, so I snagged the picture below from here:



Our next stop was Woodhouse Day Spa for a little pampering! My beautiful friends (L to R): Steph, Leslie and Bethany (who also happens to be my sis-in-law love!)




We took our time at the spa and enjoyed champagne, snacks and some quality time together....



Next, we grabbed a quick lunch and then headed to the pool (does it get much better than relaxing in the sun with girlfriends?!) After our sun time we got ready for a delicious dinner at Plum's Upper Room in downtown Zionsville (Aaron's home town). Can I just stop to point out how gorgeous Steph looks for being due a month(ish) later?! Beautiful!



The restaurant is located on the 2nd floor of an old building on Main Street - I loved the quaintness of it!!



Steps leading up to the restaurant...

We enjoyed a little wine...



and a little cheese! (I had heard about the amazing cheese board at Plum's, but OH MY. Simply delicious!)



I am so thankful to have such amazing women in my life. It is such a blessing to have friends that you can pick back up right where you left off, share life with in joys and trials, who offer encouragement, advice, great laughs and most importantly spur one another on to be more like Christ. I am blessed!

i love them.

We went back to Indiana last weekend to meet Mr. Micah - our good friends' Steph and Kyle's new baby. SO handsome and SO precious...



Steph and Kyle call him "Bugsy" (think Madagascar 2) when his eyes get big like this...I love his focus!



Proud big brother Noah. It was so much fun to spend time with him and experience the sweet little boy he has become!



We love you Kyle, Steph, Noah + Micah and are so blessed to have you in our lives!

gus' party.

I have a TON of pictures I want to post from our adventures this summer, but in the meantime these were too funny not to share. My co-worker Angie decided to have a birthday party for her dog Gus on Friday (he turns 1 next week).  A birthday party for a dog? Yes...ridiculous, I know....but I have to admit it was actually the second doggie party Ollie has been to. What can I say - he's a social guy :]

Anyways, at the end of the night we attempted to put birthday hats on all of the dogs. While we didn't capture a picture of all 4 dogs together, I think their individual shots turned out pretty good. This one makes me laugh...



Here are the other 3 pups (L to R)...Baxter, Gus (and Angie), Jeff



Here were the party favors - not pictured are the amazing homemade dog treats that Angie made.



And a few more of Ollie for some more laughs....

mail.

Who doesn't love getting some good old-fashioned snail mail? I know that I do! Except for junk mail which is usually a big waste of trees. Below, for example, is a request to subscribe to yet another design magazine. No thanks. Especially when they manage to butcher my name this much....



I mean, seriously?? Mr. Lewis Jenna.

Dear Architectural Digest-

Next time you try to coerce me to subscribe to your magazine, you could at least get my gender right. Thanks for the good laugh though.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Jenna Lewis

On a different mail related note, my friend Katie turned me on to Curly Girl cards a few years ago. This is the card she sent after Aaron and I got engaged, which I now have framed in my kitchen...



I love love love the mixed media design of the cards and also the wording (some are sweet, some are hilarious). The only downer is that the cards are only sold at select boutiquey stores, so you can imagine my excitement a few weeks ago when I found a store just down the road from us that sells them! Here is the card I got for my college friend Hannah's baby shower this weekend. (Fun fact - Hannah is another 05.17.08 bride along with me and Amy. In total I know 4 other girls who got married that day, and they are all having/have had babies!)



Aren't they great?! Curly Girl Design also makes other products such as stationary, mugs, art canvases, jewelry, etc... Here is a magnet I have on our refrigerator that my friend Katie got me...



So go check out Curly Girl and find a friend that makes you snort if you don't already have one :]

Kulp family photo shoot.

Back in April, I had the fun opportunity to put my photography skills to the test! My friend Amy and I took a photography class together to better learn how to use our cameras. A coworker of Amy heard about the class and asked if Amy would be interested in taking her family's pictures. Amy asked if I would come along to help, and the rest is history. 

Meet Amy. We both got married on May 17, 2008. She is having a baby in August! (I am not.) Check her out in all of her pregnant adorableness...

Meet the Kulp family - Andy, Wendy, Matthew, Jacob and Lucy. Let's just say that photographing 3 kids under the age of 5 was a CHALLENGE! Getting everyone to look AND smile at the same time did not exactly happen, but we did manage to get some good pictures.

This pretty much sums up the boys personalities. Matthew is very sweet and compliant, while Jake has some of his own ideas...

Lucy wasn't feeling well, but we managed to get a few smiles out of  her!

Daddy time...

And some mommy time...

There are so many cute pictures of Matthew and Jake, I had a hard time narrowing them down! Here are a few of my favorites...

And now for some silly ones. These boys were hilarious!

We snuck Lucy in for a picture of the 3 cutie pies. Being the good sport that she is, pregnant Amy was jumping up and down in the background to get them to all smile!

My favorite family picture...if only Lucy would have been happy without the paci! 

Thank you so much Amy for including me in this! It was great to get some experience, get more comfortable with my camera and learn a few tricks for photographing kids :] And thank you Kulp family for being so stinkin' cute!

[If you know anyone who would like an amateur photo shoot, let me know! I need all the practice I can get.]

our "backyard"...

For the most part, we have enjoyed living in our apartment for the past 2 years. One of the biggest downers for us is the lack of a yard. We look forward to the day when we can host BBQ's outside, let Ollie run around, have a fire pit and just enjoy the great outdoors! But until then, we will make the most of our 3rd floor balcony....

I'm not sure exactly what type of plant this is, but I love it!!



The flower boxes I planted a few weekends ago [sweet potato vine, geraniums, wave petunias + marigolds]. They have grown a lot since this picture...I am just hoping that the pesky squirrels don't uproot my flowers like they did last year.

A little cramped, but the grill masters are hard at work...

Ollie LOVES the porch, probably because all of the (5) windows in our apartment are too high for him to see out of. He thinks he is big stuff checkin' out all of the action going on around us...

spring break 2010 - part dos

Welcome to Miami...better late than never, right?! We had such a fun time with the Levi's as they hosted us around their hometown. We got to visit their homes and spend time with their parents, experience South Beach, eat even more delicious seafood, and even witness a real live crime scene (just like CSI Miami!)

Our first night in Miami we braved South Beach. It is a place with a very eclectic mix of people (which might be an understatement!) and it also boasts the world's largest collection of Art Deco architecture, which you know I enjoyed!





The Art Deco glam was further emphasized once the sun went down and the neon lights shone brightly...



Our delicious dinner that night included stone crab and fish tacos..yum! Daniel informed us that the reason stone crab is so expensive is because the fisherman are only allowed to pull one leg off of each crab before they realease it (a.k.a. one dinner = catching lots of crab!)



Our second and last night in Miami we visited Key Biscayne, one of Carolyn's favorite places and much more low key than South Beach! We first stopped at a Biscayne National Park...sadly the light house was closed and we couldn't climb up it!

The boys being boys....



And the girls being girls...



The Levi's then took us to their favorite hole-in-the-wall Cuban restaurant...so quaintly cute and authentic! We took our feast (which included Cuban sandwiches, empanadas, croquetas, plantains and flan to name a few!) to the beach to enjoy the sunset.



Cuban coffee = delish. Enough said.




It was cloudy, but still so beautiful to watch the sun go down and see downtown Miami come alive!



One funny moment from the trip was when Aaron just happened to mentioned his love for snow cones. Daniel got serious, made sure Aaron was serious, and then told him that his parents just so happened to have a commercial snow cone machine (his family used to sell snow cones at sports events around the city). As you can see, Daniel is still a master at making snow cones, and Aaron was a little excited about eating them.



Levi's - thank you for an amazing trip. We love you guys and look forward to many more adventures in the future!