My Blog

And what it means to me..... Throughout the past 3 years I have documented our lives on my blog. It started out as a way to keep track of all our fun wedding plans but has evolved into so much more than just wedding planning. When I started it I never would have imagined what it would become and how many memories I would document on here and have all these wonderful years of our lives to look back on. I have made a book of the story of our lives. I'm so grateful to have these memories written down. When I look back on certain posts like the one I wrote about our wedding day even less than 2 years later I couldn't remember it with that level of detail. I love reading about all of the feelings I had that day. Or the day that my little Gabriella was born, I think I was more of a nervous wreck than her mom. And of course bringing little Rocky home with us and growing our family. He has had such a huge impact on our lives. From these memories to everything else in between I have documented in on here.

My blog has served as my personal journal. It doesn't really have a theme. I read other blogs, cooking blogs, fitness blogs, photography blogs, fashion blogs, how-to blogs, travel blogs or any other type of blog I might stumble on. There's a blog for everything out there. My theme is me, and my journal, good, bad or ugly, it's the story of my life. Thankfully we have been very blessed and most of my blog has been documenting all of the wonderful things that have happened in our lives. But on occasion as there is in life there are certain things that happen that can be a disappointment or frustration, it's all part of life and sometimes my life.

I have always been very open and honest with all of my feelings. I'm a very happy, outgoing and personable person. I love to talk to anyone I meet, always have, always will. I'm not someone that is good at keeping secrets, and I'm especially bad at keeping my emotions in. But at times that is what I've had to do lately on my own personal blog, and I haven't been true to myself. I've refrained at times for writing things that impact me on a huge level because at the end of the day this is the internet after all. And one never knows who is out there reading this.

At the end of the day I've always been very proud of sharing my thoughts, emotions and memories with anyone that is interested in sharing them with me. I stand behind everything that I write on here, it represents how I am feeling at a particular point in time. I have never written something here that I would not say in person if asked. However some recent events have caused me to evaluate exactly how I want to proceed with my blog, which I think is a real shame. While I know anyone out there can read this I do have my own qualms about sharing my personal feelings and being open and honest about situations when someone would potentially try to use this in a negative way against me.

For this reason I am not sure what that means for my blog if I am going to continue with it or if there is another avenue I can pursue to keep my thoughts private and share it with those that I trust the most with my thoughts and the story of our lives. I have a number of posts in my draft folder that I do want to finish. I'm so behind on writing them mostly because I use writing as my creative outlet, it is me time and I have to be in the positive mood to write them and give them the happiness that they deserve and quite frankly certain situations have impacted me tremendously and I'm not really in a mood to write but I'm going to give it a go and get them out there and then see where I end up.....

Let's Go Mets!

For my Dad's birthday this year my Mom got him tickets to a Mets game for all of us. Which is totally awesome since we reaped the benefits of this gift. I was really excited about going to a game at Citifield, not because I'm a Met's fan (don't be crazy) but because there is nothing like a baseball game. Baseball is hands down my favorite sport and hence my favorite sporting event to go to. I do love me a good Yankee game but I'm not a Met hater so I'll partake in a good Mets game. Plus it doesn't hurt that it's only 20 minutes away from my parents house.

Unfortunately Mother Nature was not on our side the day of the game. Thankfully the heavy rain passed earlier in the day but it was misting quite a bit early on in the game. Once we settled in, got our (delicious) pretzel and $8.00 beers we were good to go. Our seats were actually pretty good too. We were in between home and third but closer to the home plate side but up a little bit, but still overall pretty good seats. 

Finally what I'd been waiting for, dinner. With plenty of food options in the stadium there were no storage of places to pick from. I made my family walk all the way to center field to check out the premium food options out there. Unfortunately like every other Shake Shack in the this city there was an enormous line for that, so that option was out. Mike and Dad went with Blue Smoke, a Kanas City rib joint, Mom went with the pizza and I went with Taco's. 

Not going to lie all of us were less than impressed with the food but the beer was still quite good at it's premium price! You get the idea of the line at Shack Shack in the picture below. It would have been a cool area out there to hang out in if the weather hadn't been so crummy but at least it was't pouring us. 

Even though it rained on us and sadly The Mets lost the game, we still had a fantastic time. It really is a beautiful stadium and fun place to go. I'd love to go back and catch another game, hopefully in better weather next time! Or of course there's always a Yankee game. 

Yea that's totally a White Castle sign, which we totally stopped at on our drive home. I don't think Mike really believed my Dad when he said we were going to stop there since we were all starving by that point. My three tiny tacos def did not fill me up. I think Mike actually got scared when my Dad ordered 14 hamburgers, yes 14. But they're sto tiny. We totally dived right in and all devoured 2 each in the car on the way home and they were delicious. The ultimate night cap to any fun evening!!! 

Good Wedding Hair

Not to come off conceited or anything but not going to lie I was feeling pretty good the day of the wedding. I had a pretty kick ass hair-do going on. The woman that did my hair totally rocked it. I gave her a general idea of what I was looking for and wow did she nail it. I thought it looked incredible. I was so excited with my fun wedding hair. Probably the second best hair day I've had, followed by my Wedding Day as first and the girl for Bridget's wedding also did an amazing job as well to come in a very close third! It also didn't hurt that our dresses were absolutely beautiful on everyone. I had to post the pictures of my hair since I was so excited by it, so here is my awesome hairstyle (and the makeup came out really good too). 

And me and my handsome sweetie. 

I LOVE this picture. I just ordered an 8x10 print of it for our bedroom!

I think we make a pretty good looking couple :-)

Nick & Steph's Wedding in Photos

Here's a small taste of some of my favorite pictures from Nick & Steph's Wedding day!!!

I think these really capture the fun and beauty of the day! 

 

 

 

 

  

The New Mr. & Mrs.

Wow I am really behind on my blog these days, especially on this post. It's now the end of July and Nick and Stephanie have already been married a month. Where does the time go? I couldn't forget to write about this major milestone in our lives and the new official addition to our family!!! On June 23, 2012, Nick and Stephanie tied the knot in the most perfect and beautiful day. Seriously everything about it was so beautiful and perfect and best of all, it was so them! 


We started the morning with Stephanie getting ready in the hotel suite. Stephanie's dress was magnificent. It always amazes me how everyone seems to find the perfect wedding dress for them. I really believe there is a perfect wedding dress for every bride out there, well Stephanie absolutely found hers. This dress was stunning, it could not have been any more perfect on her (I get the sense this post is going to include a high use of the word perfect, let's count). She looked so beautiful and happy!!!

After that it was on to the church. I got to go see Mike and Nick upstairs in the church and give them the rings, yes they put me in charge of delivering the rings to Mike, can you believe that? They should know better but I did get them there safely, and I got to see my dashing husband first when I came up the stairs. I'll never forget telling Nick that he has the most beautiful bride. The two of them together during the ceremony would make anyone cry, I'm pretty sure there wasn't a dry eye in the house during their ceremony, it was touching! 

After that it was picture time, not going to lie, it was a tad bit hot that day taking picture outside but totally worth it in the name of a picture. I've been in one extreme, snow storm in south jersey, snow boots and all to sweating bullets in North Carolina summer, it's all good! We had a blast taking pictures once we were safely back at the air conditioned hotel. We even got into the hotel fountain outside, now that was a picture, can't wait to see that one!

Finally it was on to the big party. Included in that party is also the Best Man's speech. Something Mike had been preparing and rehearsing for at least a week straight, I'd heard that speech so many times I think even I knew it by heart. It could not have been more fitting, appropriate, and perfect (of course). It was such a touching speech, my wonderful hubby really delivered, he had some funny lines in there and touching. And as Mike put it, I know that Nick has really found his Adrienne. We had so much fun partying the night away!

 Congratulations to the Mr & Mrs V! 

So happy for you guys and could not have asked for a better Sister-in-Law

Trade Joe's Crazy

Man I love Trader Joe's. Yes I am talking about a grocery store, well not just any grocery store though. This is one of those times when you hear yourself saying, "you know you're old when...." When you get excited over grocery stores. But if you've been to Trader Joe's you know exactly what I am talking about. Even more lame than that is that I actually set everything down on the counter so I could take a picture of all my 'loot.' Yea I totally did that because I was so excited by my successful Trader Joe's shopping trip. All of this in the picture for $120. That is definitely one of my heftier price tag trips there but I got so much good stuff!!! There's really no other point to this random post other than to comment on how much I love that store and how much yummy food I got there. So that's all :-)

Happy 30th Miss Rita

This is the year of 30th Birthdays! I would just like to add that I am the youngest so I will stay in my 20s for the duration of this year, while they all hit the big 3-0. I can't wait to celebrate with Bridget though. We plan to treat ourselves to a WHOLE day at the spa for the occasion. Anyone else reading this is welcome to join us as well, just let me know. We're not talking about one massage, we're going for the whole deal. But I'm totally disgressing from the purpose of this post. This post is about one of my near and dear friends - Rita!!!!

June 27th was Rita's 30th birthday and in order to celebrate her parents through her an awesome bash. We were all invited to come join the birthday girl for drinks at Rory Dolan's in Yonkers. Her parents hosted an open bar for all of us which was so nice of them to do! It was a whole Marist crowd reunion. I had not seen Rita since Kristin's baby shower, and Miss Olivia is now over a year old so it has been way too long. Needless to say we made up for lost time at the festivities just kicking back and having a great time!

The two best roommates in the entire universe!!! 

Me having fun with the Mister and Birthday Girl!

Marist Girls - Almost 10 years later, craziness, ok not quite 10 but almost.....

 And of course no night is complete without some antics! :-)

Fun times were had by all in celebration of the guest of honor. 

Happy 30th Birthday Rita - To many more parties and celebrations to come! 

I promise to always bring the classic Rachel antics!
Can't wait to see what the big 4-0 brings in 10 years