Paisley

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Warning: Lame excuse post

Hey guys, so I'm gonna have to put off another anniversary day post because for some reason these CPA exams put me in a weird funk where I don't want to do ANYTHING, like cleaning (which I don't mind doing), studying, exercising, or anything. So instead we met friends for Froyo tonight so I could relax my mind a little and now I must get a good nights rest so I can become one of these:
Hopefully tomorrow brings my last CPA exam. But honestly folks, not feeling too good about this one at all. I feel like my brain is at capacity and I've had a hard time remembering things, so it's kinda freaking me out....oh well...here goes nothing!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

How I Worked out Wednesday

Lets try this post again!! I will be getting to part 3 of the trip and our actual anniversary tomorrow since I don't have much time to upload pictures onto blogger because I MUST study!! booo, cannot wait until Friday, although, I am very frightened about it to, the fear of not knowing enough and not passing. It's  my last one of 4 for crying out loud, and I wanna pass it bad and have it done and over with!!

Anywhoooo workouts...lets go!!

Wednesday: Turbo Kick!! I am still loving this class, a full 50 minutes of intense cardio and super sweating is my thing! I love the up beat tempo and music, definitely sticking to this class!

Thursday: Ended up being a rest day since I had worked out 3 days in a row and I was tired and I may have had plans but I can't remember

Friday: 6 mile run. Another not good one but I somehow ended up doing it in 54ish minutes. I felt terrible the whole time, walked a lot but made it home in time to quickly rush around the house and pack for our trip

Saturday: Uh...hello...vacation = lazy Ashley

Sunday: Since we were driving back from Madisonville on Sunday Michael and I hadn't planned a workout but since our bstud played putt putt that evening (which I will hopefuly be discussing tomorrow) we decided we could run to the putt putt course, it was only 2.4 miles but it was hilly PLUS I was running with Michael who runs 4 miles in like 26 minutes which is ridiculous, so obviously I felt like I was going to die!

Monday: GUNS (we used the TRX things at the JC, hard to explain what they are  but basically they are suspension training and it made my arms feel like they were going to fall off only after a 15-20minute class!) and then Turbo Kick...both classes with Katrina. We were both super tired and SO sweaty afterward. Loving the Monday workouts with her!

Tuesday: 6 mile 9 pm run with my fav, Becca! It was perfect and we did it in around 50 minutes, no timer but rounding! Running with someone + running in the evening created a much better run for me then I've been having in the past few weeks. It is exactly what I needed!

Wednesday(today): TURBO KICK!! WHEW, so sweaty and awesome. Seriously everyone, you NEED to try this class!!

Well that's my how I worked out Wednesday! Hopefully you are finding some kind of rhythm to your workouts or trying to incorporate them into your busy daily routine, now I MUST get back to studying!! later loves!    

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Madisonville Part Duex

Saturday morning Michael and I woke up in a gorgeously bright room overlooking a lake with the sun shining in through the glorious windows. (well it may have been a bit overcast BUT it was still bright in our room!)...

Shirley asked us the night before what time we wanted breakfast in the morning because we were her only guests in this house. They manage another B&B downtown and apparently she manages to do glorious breakfasts at BOTH of them, I was so impressed when I heard that. Since we were an hour behind we opted for an 8:30 breakfast. We wandered down around that time and were met with super cheery Shirley, offering us coffee as we sat down at a fancy table setting for breakfast, if I do say so myself. We already had glasses of water and orange juice and she came out and set down some yogurt with strawberries, blueberries, orange zest, mint, and her homemade granola! MMMM!! Michael and I felt like Kings and Queens as Shirley continued to wait on us. We devoured the first dish...



Then came individual Monkey Bread cakes, oh goodness, love, I mean, you can't go wrong with sugary goodness for breakfast!!

get it? Monkey Bread!
Then came a plate of scrambled eggs with dill and super cripsy delish bacon and some grapes to color up our plates. Oh goodness, breakfast was SO good. I felt like I was about to pop after we ate.

After our huge breakfast we waddled back upstairs very full and satisfied and after lounging around  a bit decided to explore the property, which you see many pictures of in yesterday's post. There was going to be a wedding on the property that evening so people were humming around here and there setting up stuff and whispering prayers for the cloudy nastiness to go away. Michael and I ended up sitting by the pool, in our clothes, soaking in the rays when there was a break in the clouds. I felt weird putting on my bathing suit with all these people around so sitting in my clothes sufficed.
Playing with the wedding signage

super cute signs everywhere

the dance floor


The lake house

inside the lake house, rawr!

scary!


Then Michael discovered something he LOVED. Joe, the owner, owned 2 cars that Michael fell in love with a 56 Red Corvette and '57 Red Thunderbird...i believe those years are correct, or around those time frames. (MICHAEL NINJA EDIT) But the cars were gorgeous, so we HAD to take pictures. We weren't the only ones though, the bride and groom had their pictures taken with the cars as well!!



Then I spied on the bride taking pictures from our room and used the new Sally Henson Nail Effects strips on my nails...rawr!

Then came time to get ready for the wedding...we got all dressed and spiffyed up again, about to walk out the door, when Michael looked at the invite and said, Ashley it starts at 6:30, not 5:30. Fail #1 for me! We changed and watched tv for an hour and then headed out the door again.
i matched the wedding colors which were purple!! oops!
I had the job of inputting the address into the GPS. this is where fail #2 for me occurred. I entered Madisonville, but my friend lives in Manitou. We ended up on some abandoned gravel road, once I reentered the correct city we had to drive another 20 minutes. UGH. I'm terrible, luckily I convinced Michael to allow us plenty of time to arrive early, so we were fine!!

The wedding was gorgeous. The thunderstorms had been raging a lot of the day but it stopped about an hour before the wedding and the sun decided to come out. So did the humidity. *My hair looked terrible*. The wedding was on Maggie's parent's patio overlooking the hills of KY. My friend and future co-worker Kearstin, and her husband were at the wedding so we sat with them and gushed over Maggie in her gold wedding dress. She looked gorgeous!!
I sadly had the lovely view of the post the entire time :(

the view!

Me and Kearstin

Micheal's artsy picture of the tent ceiling and lights

Announced as Mr. and Mrs. Lefler!! so happy!

first dance!! (Thomas lives in NYC, so they don't see each other much!)

Kearstin and Maggie

UK MSACC representin'!

The wedding was a great time. Frozen Margarita machine was also a plus, and I nice little meal. And of course the cake...my favorite part about any wedding! :) Michael and I also participated in the favorite, anniversary dance that often happens at weddings. Where they start with everyone who is married then they say everyone married for 15 minutes leave (aka bride and groom) then everyone married for a year....ohhh that's us, we had to leave almost immediately!! haha!

Michael also captured some awesome pictures of the sun setting since the property faced West. What a gorgeous view and overall good time!!


Look at me, shortening up this post. That's about it for Saturday!

Monday, June 27, 2011

Weekend Get-a-way -- Friday evening

So I feel like I haven't written in forever...oh you say I had a post yesterday, well yes I did, BUT I kinda cheated for the weekend because I was uncertain about our access to the internet while away and went ahead and typed out my Friday, Saturday, and Sunday posts Friday morning, so it has been a few days since I've technically written.

In order to not overwhelm or bore you to death with pictures and comments about the weekend I thought it would be best to break the weekend down into days, I view them as bite size pieces or nuggets of fun!! So lets start with Friday...

The time leading up to our trip was stressful for me. I hadn't packed ahead of time, I needed to do a 6-mile run, go to the bank, pack up the dogs' stuff, pack up my stuff, load Ipod with tunes, and other random things. Michael said we needed to leave at 5:15 at the latest to arrive at our reservation for dinner on time....well 5:15 quickly approached as I tried to pack, dry my hair, etc. and no Michael has returned from work yet. If you know me at all you would know that I HATE being late, no matter what. And actually being on time still makes me antsy, I'd rather be early. Well...Michael had been getting off all week at like 3 so I was like what's the hold up yo?! Apparently they were stuck waiting on an attending or something ... I told Michael he should leave and he just stopped responding. Dang, I got frustrated. Michael hadn't packed either so I knew that was more time to wait to leave...

Well my frustration may have been unwarranted. Michael showed up at the house with a little anniversary gift. Some super cute mini roses AND instead of chocolates, a bag of powdered donuts for moi!! haha I giggled and immediately opened up the package! NOM NOM NOM!!

So we finally get ourselves out the door and on the road. Michael's mom was to pick up the pups shortly after we left. Well...we were about 15 minutes on the road and Michael gets a call from his mom. APPARENTTTTLLLYYY Michael was supposed to leave the door unlocked because Michael's dad had our house key and was out of town so she had no way to get our poor little pups. Well then came the u-turn and the drive back through 5:30 Friday evening traffic back to our house. There were no other options though, our poor puppies would have died being alone ALL weekend in a locked up house!! So after 30 minutes of driving in circles basically around Lexington we were on the road again. Now my silly time frustrations returned, which I apologize to Michael for , I can be a stinker. Not to mention that I also get cranky when hungry and dannnggg I was hungry!

After a 3 hour curvy, windy ride down the bluegrass parkway and western ky parkway we arrived in Madisonville! I was sooo glad, cause my tummy was a rumblin'! We drive following the GPS through tiny little neighborhoods of houses clumped together. The GPS tells us we are like .2 away and I'm like what the heck, this place CANNOT be what is pictured on their website, not many trees or greenery around here are we lost. And all of a sudden, out of no where we approach a stone entrance. And the scenery opens up like a movie or something....HUGE green trees everywhere, a lake to our right as we follow the super curvy driveway to the house. As we approach we smile and gaze at the gorgeous house located on 70ish GREEN acres sitting SUPER close to a lake. This was my dream!!

Even has a gorgeous backend! Our room is the one with towels hanging off the railing
Trees, trees, trees!!
our room with our stuff thrown all over
our quaint little bathroom

top of the stairs, our room is to immediate left

HUGE window in living room!

right side of living room

Entryway of house
One of 2 screened in sun rooms
The library
our room again, and our balcony
the view from our room, there was a wedding there Saturday evening!

We checked in with the owner, Shirley, and lugged our stuff upstairs. I was overjoyed with our room. It looked out at the lake and it was soooo bright and open. As we passed through each room I got more giddy and gasped with excitement. This house was like my dream house. It was built in the 40s....wanna hear it's story?!
The Ruby Lodge was featured in this book!
Joe, the owner of the house was more than happy to tell us and I LOVED listening: Apparently Mr. Ruby (Ahem ahem...the Ruby lodge) had this house built for his wife in the 40's by a well known architect of MANY homes in Louisville (one of like 4 homes not built in Louiville). A different feature is that the wings of the house face out at a 32 degree angle. (the house is about 5000 sq ft) Anyway the home owner sadly divorced his wife after 10 years because he had a lover. Well the ex-wife moved to Louisville and bought an apartment where she sadly committed suicide. Mr. Ruby's lover refused to live in the Ruby lodge so Mr. Ruby built a similarly sized, different styled home directly next to the Ruby Lodge, coined the Lakehouse.  Mr. Ruby's son owned the house until about 7 years ago when he sold it to Joe and Shirley, sadly Mr. Ruby's son passed away about a week or 2 ago! :(

Anway, back to OUR story:
We arrived at 7:30 (central) and our reservations were at 8 so we rushed to get dressed for dinner. We looked snazzy!!(gotta do a photo shoot of course!):


Dinner was awesome, it was at the nicest restaurant in Madisonville called DeFabios Casapela. And Michael and I were ready to go all out on our din din. The restaurant had made us a nice little happy anniversary paper table cloth!! it was cute:



Michael and I started off with some drinks. He had the Italian Ice tea (can't remember everything in it but there was sweet and sour mix) and I had, well shoot, I can't remember haha it had amaretto in it though, yum!! For our entrees I ordered the Chicken Marsala and Michael ordered the Filet...both were delicious and so were their breadsticks!!
Chicken Marsala

Michaels DELISH red wine filet with 1 cheese ravioli! haha, it was SO good though

Then it was time for dessert. You know how at PF Changs they bring out the dessert tray but it's all fake desserts? Well they brought out a REAL dessert tray, and well I drooled. They had like 10 different things. We opted for the Flourless Chocolate Cake with ice cream and raspberries and the Samoa Girl Scout cookie Cheesecake. Both were delicious, wish we could have finished them but we were stuffed!!
Forgot to take a picture before we dug in!
Overall a fantastic evening!! We returned to the B and B and hopped in the hot tub, which was apparently on "economy" mode, AKA it was only 96 degrees, like luke warm bath water, but we sat out there a little bit and looked at the stars then headed back up to our room and hit the hay!!

WOAH, well my "little' Friday post got a little lengthy now didn't it? Hope you enjoyed part 1 of anniversary weekend!!