A Sweet Gesture

After my co-worker/friend, Lisa, gave The DLF her notice, I was offered her position assisting the senior partner of our Firm & our new associate. After taking a weekend to think it over, I accepted the position & Monday, November 21st was my first day assisting my 2 new attorneys. Thankfully, it was only a 2 day work week because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but those 2 days turned out to be the most hectic & crazy days at the office because we were short staffed. I was definitely thankful for my 5 days off after that. =]
Anyway, on Monday morning I arrived in my new office, Lisa's old one, & found these waiting on my desk for me: They were from the senior partner, David & they came with a very nice note. When I said, thank you for the flowers & asked him if he was trying to butter me up; David's response was: "of course I am."

I'm looking forward to this new challenge in my career & am excited to learn more; after all, knowledge is power. I've been told before that David is one of the best teachers & based on my past experiences covering for him while Lisa was out - I understand where that came from.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

See You Soon

On Friday The DLF girls had to say goodbye to one of their own - Lisa (aka Li) who had worked there for 13 years; she found a job that doesn't require her to have almost a 2 hour commute to work. At first I was extremely upset by this news because I can't imagine the office without her & I'm going to admit that I was selfish & not happy for her & this change. It took me a while to realize that this move will be good for her, will make her happier & that just because she's leaving doesn't mean that I will never see her again. I can now appreciate the 1.5 years that I had with her & I take away so many great working memories. The girls & I each bought her going away presents, which consisted of a lot of photos & frames - now she'll never be able to forget us...even if she wanted to. ;o)
We ended the day on a happy note with some chair races (Sandra Lue's idea & it was a great idea): First up was Li & me:

I realized after watching this video that Li was actually trying to CHEAT by grabbing the back of my chair because she was losing - cheater, cheater, cheater!

Second was Christine & Sandra Lue:


We hope you enjoy your new job & we miss you like crazy. See you soon, sweets.

"Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave & impossible to forget."

Are We Nuts?!

If you recall, last month I posted on our blog a post titled Bummed, which was basically 3 activities that I wanted to do/try in order to get into something new & find another way to get in shape & to stay in shape - all 3 of them fell through. Well, I have come up with something else now (I should say Dan did because it was his idea).....a half marathon. Last Wednesday Dan & I signed up for the Yuengling Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach on March 17 & 18, 2012 - thre's no backing out now! There are 4 events taking place that weekend: (1) The Marathon; (2) Anthem 1/2 Marathon; (3) Townebank 8k; & (4) Operation Smile Final Mile. The training program that we found is as follows: And I'm looking forward to training with Dan. Due to our different schedules I'm sure we'll only be able to run with each other once a week, but I'll take it. I'm telling myself that I can do anything I put my mind to; that failure & quitting is not an option & I'm putting my faith in the training program to allow me to finish strong. I'm looking forward to the challenge & trying something I've never done before; I'm not looking to blow everyone else out of the water with a great finish time, but I do want to finish with a decent time. Dan's looking to beat his past run times & to finish better than just decent, so you can guarantee that we won't be running side by side on race day. So to answer my question above - "are we nuts?!" We might just be, but at least we're nuts together. =]
I'm sure Dan & I will be saying this to each other a lot when we arrive on race day & see our competition.

Daughtry Concert

Last Saturday Dan & I went to see Daughtry at the Patriot Center in Fairfax with Ashley & Katie. We've gone several years in a row & he's so great live that we've already said we're going to go back again next year. Great music & such a great view. =]

Getting ready to leave our house: Dan's got a great rocker face going on here - me, I just look like a dork holding up a peace sign.
LOL!
First song - Renegade {Click here to listen}.
Tried to take our picture, but I had the zoom on.
There we go.
Sporting his man scarf that he wears oh so well.
Ash & Katie
Ash & Me

My favorite song of his at the moment is still the remake of Def Leppard's Photograph, but then again I'm also an 80's girl - LOVE, LOVE, LOVE:

High Five!

October Wedding

Last month our friend from college, TR, got married at the Lansdowne Resort to his fiance, Claudia. I was very excited for one of our friends to be married in Virginia because usually we drive up to Pittsburgh in order to attend (most of our college friends are in PA) - it was nice not having to worry about traveling, booking a hotel & finding someone to watch Lexi for the weekend. That weekend we also had company from our friends Jesse, Jenni & Luke, we definitely had a full house. The day of the wedding we had our first snow fall which was crazy & ironically TR & Claudia even said that they had originally planned to get married in January, but moved it because they didn't want to have to worry about snow...spoke too soon! The ceremony, cocktail hour & reception were all held at the resort, which is a beautiful place. I've been there for massages at their spa, but never for a wedding. Here are the photos I took from that day/night.

Ceremony ~



Cocktail hour ~

Luke, the ring bearer
Tera & Brian
Jenni & Me
Dan & Brian
Lovers

Reception ~
Absolutely loved their table settings.
First dance
Jesse (being a dork) & Jenni
Tera & Brian (also being a dork)

Dancing the night away ~






Having a good ole time.

Alright, now are you ready for one of the cutest videos I have ever taken??



Congratulations to the newlyweds!

All Spiffed Up

If you haven't noticed by now, I've changed a few things around on our blog. I decided to use a different template than the one I was using previously - I was getting tired of the old one & thought a change would be nice. Hopefully it doesn't cause any confusion/frustration to those of you that visit our blog on a regular basis. If it does, please let me know.

We hope you love us just the same as you did before. :P

Enjoy!

Brings Back Memories

A few weeks ago I was surfing youtube & found this video of a few maltipoo puppies playing. They look exactly like Lexi did when she was a puppy (same color & everything) - it brought back so many great memories, like the night I picked her up from the airport. I remember her flimsy little tail, her super soft fur & that puppy breath...oh, the puppy breath. :]

Pumpkin Picking

Dan's pumpkin requirements "a good stem" & "nice & round." This one met the requirements:
Lexi was extremely distracted while Dan was trying to take our picture - thankfully an older woman stood behind him & said, "puppy...here puppy;" got her attention immediately.

Some of our purchases. I fell in love with this mum & had to have it. Unfortunately, while I was potting it at home for the front steps, a big daddy long legs spider came crawling out of it & scared the living crap out of me.

We had such beautiful weather for our pumpkin picking tradition & it's really one of my favorite things that we do each year.