Habitat For Humanity

Cam and I volunteered this weekend with Habitat for Humanity with the firm I am interning at this summer.  It was an absolute blast, and after learning more about Habitat, we definitely are interested in doing more builds and being more involved in such a wonderful charity. 

Two local firms partnered for this build and were listed as "Buildable Hours"--how cute is that?

 

The moment Cam thought he'd never see--me in a hard hat with a hammer and Demarcus Cousins style glasses.  See those awesomely crooked rows of nails? All me.

Hubs, also looking cool.  Except he actually knew what he was doing.

Midway through the build. The support beams were built and the floor joists were nailed in place.

Our finished project--we had about half of the subflooring put in.

Not only did I take pictures, but the news came to our build site  and the clip was the "top news story" on a story about funding for a Habitat build in honor of Amanda Ross (but, I know, lawyers actually doing something good for the community is newsworthy in and of itself).  Here's the link to the clip (Cam's in the blue hard hat and DTD shirt and I'm in an orange hard hat and white shirt and navy shorts).  No making fun of my sitting-indian-style hammering skills either. It was effective, okay?!

 

Also, in a completely unrelated note, is anyone up for a Lexington get together? Jill had mentioned it, and I think it would be fun! August 27/28th works for me--does anyone else want to do this? 

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Sophisticated? RRiiighhhtt...

I got a call yesterday saying that hubs and I were in this season's Sophisticated Living magazine for a charity event we attended, Grape Expectations. I don't think of my living as too sophisticated, but I'll take the compliment and run with it...

My ever-lovely team and close friends. Excuse my weird looking chest, I know now not to slouch in this dress (or let my purse hike my dress up on the side!)

For those who haven't heard of it, Grape Expectations is a competitive wine tasting event for charity. Each team of four brings 5 bottles of the same wine and donates a certain amount of money.  Four bottles are placed into silver or gold baggies (to make it blind but still separate the white and red, respectively) and then tagged with a number.  The fifth bottle is placed in the back room.  Each team goes around to different tables, tastes each wine and votes on the wine through the number system on a scorecard.  The team who brought the highest ranking red and wine wines takes home all the fifth bottles (which were over a hundred bottles this year). They also had a local caterer with heavy appetizers and plenty of water and beer.

It was a really fun event and a great concept to meet new people because you have the conversation ice breaker of which wines at which tables they recommended (or should stay away from). It was hosted by the law school, the Urban League Young Professionals, Lexington Young Professionals, Lexington Charity Club, and the Bar Association, so it was a great way to meet a diverse mix of other younger professionals. I'd recommend it for any group who wants a good way to raise money, cut down their event's alcohol cost, and still draw a crowd. I've even thought it would be a fun event for a neighborhood shindig,  larger group of friends get together,  or couple's shower--but probably with fewer bottles of wine necessary. 

And on a completely unrelated note, remember that TODAY is the LAST DAY (midnight EST) to enter to win the $25 Sephora gift-card. I created a spreadsheet and am updating it as I go. At midnight I'll select a winner through a random number generator, and double check to make sure that person has followed the give away guidelines. I'm excited to see who the lucky winner will be!

Wedding Wednesday

I had one of those amazingly awesome days yesterday where everything was just perfect.  I got all the classes I needed/wanted, my presentation went fine (i.e., I didn't fall on my face or vomit), I am going to be able to re-arrange my finals so that I am done earlier (hooray!), a legal article I wrote was selected for publication by the journal, got some good feedback from a professor about my projects thus far, and I topped the day off with a good ole Gigi's cupcake after dinner with Cam.

Don't you just love the feeling of a good day?! Today I have to take hubby to the airport (he's going back to FL, not that I'm jealous or anything), and I just hate that super-lonely feeling of a quiet house. But, pulling up the big girl panties and going to use this opportunity (of loneliness) to try to a lot done for finals. 

Now, I'll stop rambling and get on to the wedding part of the post:

Tops-in-Lex (a local scene magazine) used one of our wedding photos again in their recent wedding special (the top right photo). We made the KFC baskets for our out-of-town guests (they received the basket at check-in at the hotel) and filled them with Kentucky things.  People absolutely loved the baskets, so I thought I'd share what was in the basket  and how I threw them together. They would be great for out-of-town Derby guests or really for any visitors.  

First, I actually just went to my local KFC and asked for their large bucket. I ended up needing about 60 of them, so KFC charged me about 5¢ or 10¢ each (no big deal--a couple bucks). I think smaller quantities are free though. Each basket had: 

 A thank you note on this equestrian-themed Crane's stationery. 

 Two Ale 8-Ones (a local ginger ale)

 

2 waters (with the above damask label with our name and monogram I created using this file [click to download it]). 

 Two "Luck in Kentucky" Kizito cookies (local cookie maker in Louisville). 

Two Kenny's Gourmet Popcorn bags (cajun flavored--my favorite!)

A "lucky" horseshoe that was used by a horse at Churchill (and then cleaned by me). 

I used this basket filler in a goldenrod color before I placed each item in. I ordered the cellophane covering from Nashville Wraps as well and then tied each with some ribbon from Hobby Lobby (you can always find it is 50% off there at least a few times a month).

Our wedding had a general KY feel so the baskets fit in perfectly. Also, quite a few of our guests had never been to Kentucky, so we wanted to give them a warm "Kentucky" welcome for traveling so far.  We gave out Derby glassed filled with bourbon balls at our rehearsal dinner, but bourbon balls would be a great addition to this basket. 

TOPS Article

I was waiting for TOPS to publish an online version and completely forgot about sharing this with you all. Our wedding was featured in TOPS in Lex's fall edition, a local scene magazine thanks to our photographer, Frank Becker, who was fabulous!

The link to the online article is on page 98-100: here

And a picture copy of the article:

Real Couples, Real Registries

Check out the article on TheKnot.com about our registry.

We are really flattered that Macy's and The Knot picked our registry and asked us to pick out our favorite pieces. I didn't know that the article was up--Louisville Stoneware actually called today and thanked me for including them in the article.