noBOLOGNA

Meeting Baby Cade

A few weekends ago, Nick and I headed down to Gainesville to meet his new baby nephew.  To say we were excited is quite the understatement!  I took off 2 days of work so we could get an extended weekend for a good visit and of course, a day at Disney for Mickey’s Not-so-Scary Halloween Party.

We arrived to town around Thursday morning at 5AM so after a quick hug to the new mom, we headed to bed so we could wake up for a fun day with Cade.  Kathryn’s mom was also in town which was the sweetest treat of the entire weekend.  She’s one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met and I enjoyed spending some time with her!  She cooked us delicious muffins and vegetarian chili.

I knew Kathryn was pretty worn out from the night before, Cade was having a rough night, so I spent some time with her during feeding and changing to get comfortable with Cade and then mid-day we finally got Cade comfortable so she could sneak off to take a nap.  Cade slept through the whole thing pretty much and although Kathryn admitted that she didn’t actually get much sleep, she said it felt so good to just rest.

baby-cade

Cade loves laying on his side.  It’s quite an art to get this kid comfortable haha.

Later that day, Nick and I took the pups for a walk to explore their new neighborhood in Florida.  They were so excited for some attention.  Side Note: We all expected Sprinkles to be the best big sister in the world and for Ace to be the evil one who disliked the new baby, but we got quite the surprise!  Ace is a protective big bro and Sprinkles could care less about that baby.  Ace is so cute about it – if Cade cries, he runs over to check on him, If someone is holding Cade, he follows them around.  I was impressed with little  Ace-hole!

sweet-baby-cade

Nick is such a proud Uncle.  He wasn’t entirely comfortable with holding Cade, but he increasingly got more comfortable throughout the weekend.  I personally am looking forward to Cade being 3-4 (Sorry Kathryn, not trying to age him too quickly or anything!)  I think Nick is going to be a great Uncle to 3 and 4 year old Cade.  Nick was taking bicycle’s apart at age 5 and I have no doubt, he’s going to share his love for mechanics and vast array of knowledge for cars and survival along with random tidbits of information with Cade.  Cade’s going to have the coolest Uncle in the world!  I’m excited to see how their relationship develops as Cade gets older and can talk and play.  I see them playing with race cars and building legos and Nick teaching Cade how to properly use a knife and tie knots and how to juggle/yoyo.  It’s going to be great, y’all!

Our weekend ended on a relaxing note, spending time with the whole Family enjoying pizza together.  Unfortunately, we had to head back home.  I considered the possibility of quitting my job and becoming a free live-in Nanny for them.  Who needs a job when you have this squishy cute tiny human being to spend time with?!  Not this girl.  We’re already looking forward to our next trip over Thanksgiving!

I have so much respect for new mother’s – Kathryn, you’re doing an excellent job!

Cade, we’re so proud of you already and we cherish every  moment we’ve had together and the ones we’ll have in the future.  You’re absolutely wonderful and we can’t wait to see what you accomplish with this life of yours!

Life Update

Hey y’all!  Let’s do some catching up since I haven’t blogged in over a week! {yikes}

LABOR DAY WEEKEND

Nick and I went to Florida again to help his brother & sister-in-law move into their new house!  It turned into quite an adventure of a weekend though when Nick’s dad ended up in the hospital.  Thankfully, the doctors/nurses took great care of him and worked hard to get him out as soon as possible so we could all drive back to Mississippi.  He’s doing good (per my latest update), but has some health issues to take care of now that we’re back home.  Prayers would be greatly appreciated!  Nick and I decided to stick around a little later than anticipated so we could drive back with them in case something happened.  That left me behind for the rest of the week which is why I didn’t get much blogging done.  Even though it was an up & down kind of weekend, we made the most of it and thoroughly enjoyed some quality family time!  Nick and I still managed a very short trip down to Disney World once everything settled.  It was good to see my friend David and we visited Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Magic Kingdom while we were there.  I’m pretty sure I had more than my fair share of Starbucks throughout the trip and managed to take zero pictures.  Oh well, there will definitely be a next time!  Nick and I will probably be back down in October for the birth of his nephew – now that will be a short trip because I don’t think we’re taking off or missing school for it, so we’ll be down Friday night and back up Sunday night, but it will be well worth it to experience the joy that his brother & sister-in-law have been praying about for the past few years!  We won’t get much baby time, but we want to be there for any errand running necessary while the parents & grandmothers soak it all in!  **Don’t worry about the Starbucks, Trey!  I’ll have us both well caffeinated!**

ROAD TRIP

It’s no surprise to any of you who have been reading for… well a minute (see above) that Nick and I are no strangers to traveling and road trips.  We love them!  I kind of think they’re our “thing”!  Well folks, we’re about to embark on the ultimate road trip and I could NOT be more excited!!

4 Days.

16 States.

5 Friends.

1 Wedding.

45 Hours on the Road.

disney-wine-dine-me-meg

It all started with a wedding invitation… from my sweet, amazing, wonderful blog friend & Bliss Co-host, Meg!  I was originally going to fly out there because there was no way I was taking the Alero up to Massachusetts!  I went back and forth on the decision because it was going to be a costly short trip and I’d only be in town for a day and a half, plus I didn’t want to go by myself so Nick would have had to pay for a flight as well.  Then my Alero broke.  Then I was practically forced to get a new car.  Well, because of our love to travel & road trip, we decided that a Prius would be a good investment for me since it gets 50mpg!  Then the debate was whether or not we should spend the money driving up there when I ended up with so many unexpected expenses in August.  I felt so torn between what we should do, but we ultimately decided that the trip was not in our best interest…. then…. THEN…. I filled out the RSVP card with a big fat NO and a sad face, then sent a picture of the saddest note I’ve ever had to send to Nick and expressed my deepest sadness about not going and well…. we went back to the drawing board to really figure out if we could make this work.  We realized that we could visit a lot of people on our way up and back down, with us splitting all costs, it really won’t be that much money in the end for an epic road trip such as this!  We’ll get to see my best friend Lacy in Virginia and shower & stay with her, we’ll get to have Breakfast with our friends, Adam & Tiffany who recently moved to New Jersey, and we’ll get to have lunch in D.C. with one of Nick’s good friends from high school who recently got engaged and we’re excited about meeting her fiance!

soak-up-the-sun-triathlon

new-orleans-me-lacy

It boiled down to this…. we purchased this car for road trips and we finally had the opportunity and availability to make one heck of a road trip up the East Coast and we can manage it within our budget, so we’ll be off next Thursday to Virginia for our first pit stop!  I’ll be heavily documenting the entire thing and hope to have some pointers for you wanna-be road trippers out there!  I’m so excited about this new adventure, it’s something we’ve never done before, but I have no doubt that it’s going to be an awesome good time!  I’m so stoked to see my sweet friend Meg and to also meet another blog friend (she no longer blogs though), Amanda!

WORK UPDATE

I mentioned in my last post that I passed my Series 6 test for Investments, but now it’s on to my Series 63 test.  I scheduled the test for Friday, September 26th at 3:30pm.  Prayers are greatly appreciated!  I shouldn’t have any tests for a couple of months after this one.  We have a new girl working in our office, so I’m spending a good bit of time training her, but I love management & I love working with people!  This also gives me the opportunity to learn even more because if I don’t know the answer, I want to find it out so I’ll know for future use as well.   I really do love who I work with and where I work, which is such a huge blessing!

LIFE UPDATE

I completed the 28 Day Challenge and loved just about every minute of it.  I thought it would change the way I lived, but sure enough… I’ve reverted back to some old ways.   There were so many things that I missed while on the challenge that it was difficult to resist once the challenge was over.  I think I got it out of my system though and I’m slowly finding my balance.  I haven’t been working out as much lately either, but I’m finally on track for this week.  I went to the gym last night and then today I attended my favorite HIIT class – which… holy moly!  I’m going to be sore tomorrow!  I’m not a fan when she decides to take us across the room and that’s practically what we did for the entire 30 minutes!  Tomorrow morning, I’m joining a running group and depending on how that goes, I may be taking a rest day on Thursday, but I have a Kickboxing class planned for Friday!  This week has proven to be a good one and I’m excited about what else I have planned.

So tell me….

  • What’s the biggest road trip you’ve been on?
  • What’s going on in your life?  Share some posts from the past week because I haven’t done any blog reading either!
  • How are your eating habits & workouts going?

Goodbye Alero, Hello Prius!

Last night was one of the most stressful nights of my life.  I made my very first Adult purchase and it was exhausting, scary, stressful, exciting, and confusing!

I think I did a really great job with my negotiating, especially with this being my first time!  I’m so thankful for the people in my life and their help throughout the process – I could NOT have managed without them.  Nick has been looking at cars for months.  He knew I’d need a new one in the near future and he had a good idea of what he wanted me to get as well as what would qualify as a “good deal”.  I was sad that I needed a car so soon in the future, but I’m thankful he had already been looking.  On Saturday, we went looking and I found a car I really liked, but I was nervous about my budget.  I found out last minute about a 2014 Prius that had a great rebate on it until Monday night and with all the traveling I do, the gas mileage was unbeatable.  I told the guy that I needed to talk with my dad to figure out if I could afford it and if it was a good decision.  Although I’m making my own decisions throughout the process, I’m the type of person who needs to talk through all the options to get a clear head.  On Sunday, Nick and I spent a good amount of time going over my budget and determining an amount I could afford each month.

The unfortunate thing about all of this was how quickly I needed a car.  I could either spend a couple thousand on another car that wouldn’t last me very long or I could invest in a newer car and build my credit, but stretch my budget a little.  It took me 2 days to determine what I wanted to do, but I finally had a plan in place and the negotiating began.

I went to the dealership with my dad and mom after work to sort it all out.  It was nice having them there to help me talk through decisions and I wanted them to see the car before I purchased it.  After 3 hours at the dealership, I finally left with my new car and I said goodbye to the Alero!

GOODBYE ALERO

The Alero has been on countless adventures with me and it’s been a very reliable car.  Ideally, I would have purchased a brand new Alero if they still sold them – that’s how much I loved my car!  I thought I’d round up some “memories” from my 7 years with the Alero:

  • Texas: I’ve visited my cousin quite a few times in this car.  Texas was the Alero’s very first roadtrip & very last roadtrip
  • Florida: It went with me to Disney when I did the Disney College Program.  It’s been back for multiple trips with Nick, including our 4th of July Weekend & Nick’s Graduation trip
  • Atlanta: I have lots of family in Atlanta and now that I’m out of college, I also have a handful of friends who got jobs in Atlanta.  Nick and I love visiting Atlanta!  I’ve taken it with just my family on holiday trips & I’ve taken it on weekend trips with Nick
  • Kentucky: My car has gone on a few trips to visit family in Kentucky.  It went for my great-grandmother’s funeral last August.
  • Nick asked me to be his girlfriend in this car and we’ve had many serious discussions in my car!
  • I’ve also had many serious discussions with other friends in this car.  Those have always been my favorite!

I am so thankful for the 7 years I got with that car!  I never had a major problem with it until recently.  Now I’m saying goodbye and although I’m sad about that, I’m excited about the new memories to be made in my Prius!  I’m in it for the long haul and I’m bound to gain more memories & more miles!

HELLO PRIUS

2014-toyota-prius

2014-toyota-prius-2

2014-toyota-prius-driver

  • Have you had to negotiate for a car?  What was your experience like?
  • Would you be interested in a post with Tips on Buying your First Car?

 

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The views and statements expressed on No Bologna are my own. You are reading No Bologna at your own risk and I am not providing any type of professional advice. Unless otherwise noted, all material on No Bologna may not be used, reprinted, or published without my consent. I do occasionally have affiliated links on my blog - this does not raise the price of the product, I simply get a very small commission from the regular retail price if something is purchased using an affiliated link on my site. I appreciate any support by you in regards to affiliated links.