Valentine’s Day, A Birthday, and A Snow Day

I can’t believe it’s already Wednesday! This week is moving so quickly (not that I’m complaining). If you follow me on Facebook, I already gave you a glimpse of our Valentine’s Day date. We celebrated a day early this year and The Professor planned a great date night.

We had dinner at this little place called Jane Barleycorn’s in Downtown Danville. The Professor had stopped by on his way home from worked and dropped off some beautiful roses that were waiting on me when we arrived at the restaurant.

After dinner, we stopped by The Hub for some coffee and a slice of Snickers Cheesecake. We were going to split a slice but somehow The Professor only got one bite…you snooze, you lose! Centre College had a student production playing at the theater last weekend, so we went to see it after our cheesecake.

The show was called, “In The Event of My Death” and the students were incredible. The show was serious, but it had lots of humor mixed in. The students spent their Centre Term class learning how a play is written from idea to production. They had an opportunity to work directly with the playwrite on this production.

On Saturday, we drove up to Bardstown to celebrate Grandma Ruth’s 84^th birthday! We made dinner (homemade pizza) and had a wonderful evening spending time with The Professor’s parents and grandparents. I only have one picture and it's us making pizza. I have to get better at taking pictures!

Now, let’s talk about our SNOW DAY!!!! I love snow now more than ever. It’s so nice to be able to work from home and enjoy the winter wonderland outside my window without having to drive in it. We woke up on Monday with just a couple of inches on the ground, but the college had already cancelled classes for the day. The Professor was pretty pumped because he wanted the extra time to work on his research.

When we first measured right before 8am, we had 4.75 inches of snow.

By 10am, we were up to 7.5 inches. I enjoyed an awesome snowy view during my treadmill run and then headed outside at 12:30pm to measure again…9 inches and counting!

At this point in the day, I started counting down until 5pm so that I could go out and play in the snow instead of just measuring! At 3:15pm we were up to 11 inches of snow (and I was on my third outfit of the day - all from the sweatpants collection).

For my 6pm measurement (12.25 inches!), I was able to drag The Professor out with me to play in the snow! 

 ...and by play, I mean that he shoveled and I made snow angels and took pictures. 

Living in a tiny little town means that there are no snow plows and no salt trucks. We were able to get the driveway shoveled out and luckily our road is somewhat clear. The Professor was able to get out and go to the office on Tuesday (although no students showed up to his office hours) and I was glad to sit at my desk in the home office and stare out at the pretty snow all day. We're supposed to get a few more inches this week and I'm hoping for a few more snow days.

How's the weather where you are?

What is your favorite snow day activity?

HELLO 2015

It’s a pretty calm New Year’s Eve in the Huber/Roush house. The Boy is working on his interview prep and I’m working on the blog. Our plan is to be in bed by 9pm since we have to be up and on the road by 4am tomorrow – party animals!

Throughout the year, I felt like this day would never get here. Now that it’s December 31^st, I feel like this year has flown by, especially these last two weeks.

I graduated from Duquesne University with my MBA this month and I consider that one of my biggest accomplishments for 2014 (and pretty much ever so far!). I had lots of visitors in Pittsburgh that weekend to help me celebrate. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of walking across that stage and getting my diploma! I was SO happy. Grad school is hard and figuring out how to wear that graduation hood on is even harder! But I am so glad I did it. I’m looking forward to the opportunities that lie ahead and can’t wait to use all of the skills and knowledge I gained over the past two years.

 On December 30^th, I turned the big 2-7. I think this means that I am officially in my late 20s now (or my late 80s according to my New Year’s Eve plans). 26 was a good year, but I’m really looking forward to 27. There are a few things I want to accomplish in 2015. It seems like a good year to get married, run a marathon, move a few times…and maybe a few other things in between!

 I hope everybody had an exciting (and safe) New Year’s Eve. 

Holiday Hugs For Everyone

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas!

I can’t believe another Christmas has come and gone! The holidays are always so much fun but they go by way too fast. We drove down from Pittsburgh last Saturday night and kicked off our holiday activities with a Christmas Light Scavenger Hunt. My cousin put this event together for all of the Huber Cousins. We broke up into 4 teams and had 2 hours to find almost 80 types of Christmas lights. Our car was the best - we found a real live Santa sitting in his yard handing out candy canes! We all ended up back at my cousin’s house for food and board games. We can’t wait to continue this tradition next year!

On Christmas Eve morning, Justin drove down to his Grandma’s house. We still haven’t figured out this whole “merge the traditions” thing, but we’re working on it. He made it back in time for pictures in front of the tree and Christmas Eve mass with the Huber family.

The long standing Huber tradition is to go to grandma’s on Christmas Eve after mass. There are 35 of us and we all cram into Grandma’s basement for presents. This year we had three babies under a year old. They loved all of the presents but I’m pretty sure they loved the wrapping paper more.

After grandma’s we headed back to my parent’s house for Christmas #3. We exchanged all of our gifts and set cookies out for Santa…which Levi decided to eat!

We woke up Christmas morning and did stockings at my parent’s house before driving down to Justin’s parent’s house. We exchanged gifts there and then went to visit with his grandparent’s for a bit.

Before we knew it, it was time to head north again for Christmas #6 with my mom’s side of the family. We played card games and played with the baby’s toys all night long.

Before we knew it, Christmas was over and we were camped out on the couches talking about our favorite things from the last few days. As cheesy as it sounds, my favorite part of the holiday is just spending time with family.

What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

What was your favorite gift this year?

So. Much. Food.

Raise your hand if you’re stuffed full of turkey and other yummy foods.

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving. We sure did. We kicked off Turkey Day with a brisk 5 mile run. I've run Fast Freddies for 11 years in a row and I love it. My dad is on his third year (plus he competed in the walk event the 9 years before that) and Justin has run it the last two years. This year, my sister ran the race for the very first time. Pretty soon my evil plan will be complete and my entire family will be running with me on Thanksgiving morning!!

 

I managed to keep a 9:40 pace and finished in 48:22 - better than I expected! After a warm shower and a giant mug of coffee, we went to Thanksgiving #1 at my grandma’s house. Her cheesy cauliflower is my favorite food in the whole entire world. I was too busy eating to take pictures so you'll just have to trust that it was a wild and crazy time. We had over 30 people smooshed into my grandma's house and enough food to feed 60!

For dinner, my grandparent’s came over to my parent’s house for some pumpkin pie and (what was supposed to be) game night. We ended up watching the Levi show most of the night. This kid is so awesome. He has so much personality and is a musical genius! He can play the piano and sing...so much talent for a 10 month old :)

On Friday morning, The Boy and and I traveled down to Bardstown, KY to his grandma’s house. We had a delicious lunch with his family and I made plans to visit his grandma again to learn all of her recipes! 

On Saturday, we went to see the Christmas light show in Charlestown, which is just a few miles from my parent's house. For a little town, they do it up BIG. They have two HUGE parks full of Christmas lights and there is a little show set to music. My cousins brought their two kiddos and we all had a blast.

Even though it was a long weekend, it went by so fast! On Sunday we all parted ways to head back to our respective parts of the country. Leaving home is always hard, but it was a little easier this trip knowing that we'll all be back in Indiana in three short weeks.

What is your favorite Thanksgiving food?

Random, but what was the last movie you saw in the theater?

Well Hello There, NOVEMBER

It’s amazing how fast time flies when you’re so busy all of your days run together and you don’t have time to breathe let alone blog having fun. At some point, I should consider writing a “Day in the Life” post. Maybe it would help me track where all of my time is disappearing to….

ANYWHO….I can’t believe it’s already mid-November. I would love to share every detail of my life from the past few weeks, but I don’t think any of us have that kind of time. Instead, here’s a brief recap of the last few weeks. Grab a cup of coffee and get to reading!

After our awesome Gatlinburg trip, it was back to real life (with a few fun interruptions). The Boy came up to visit over Centre’s fall break and took me on a date. We crossed a few things off of our Pittsburgh Bucket List:

Eating at a restaurant on Mt. Washington: The view was INCREDIBLE…but in order to get a reservation at a table by the window we had to eat dinner at 5:00 and be out by 6:00. The food was mediocre (I guess we were really paying for the view) but the wine was fantastic! Also – you can’t go wrong with a cheese plate.

We rode the Duquesne Incline down to Station Square, stopped for a drink, and then hopped on the T to head downtown. Our next stop was Olive Or Twist. I had heard great things and it did not disappoint! They have live music on the weekend and Justin said the dessert we had “was the best dessert he had ever had and he might love it even more than he loves [me].” SO if you’re ever in Pittsburgh, stop in and try the Banana Caramel Xango.

 

Facebooking how much he loved that dessert...

He had to go back to Danville, but the very next weekend was Homecoming at Centre C so it was my turn in the car. I’ll go more into detail in another post, but it was an awesome weekend. Friends + Chili + Day Drinking = my kind of weekend.

The next weekend was Halloween (aka one of my FAVORITE holidays) and it was Justin’s turn in the car. We didn't have very many trick-or-treaters so we called it an early night and got together with some friends. Justin & I were introduced to Cards Against Humanity and it is officially on our Christmas list! My friend from work had a costume party on Saturday and I was SO EXCITED since we didn’t get to dress up last year. We made our costumes and I was very concerned that we would have to throw them away and run to the store to buy backups, but they turned out AWESOME. Meet Fred & Wilma :)

Relationship exercise in trust...I survived with all of my hair.

From my instagram

I wasn’t without visitors for long, because my parents came to town last weekend. We were actually pretty lazy (we all needed a little break), but it was a fantastic visit. I showed them where I work, we took a LONG walk, and we went shoe shopping (this was not my dad’s favorite part of the trip). We went to Church at St. Mary’s on the Mount and spent some time on the overlooks on Mt. Washington. I’ve never been up there at night and it was really cool to see all of the lights in the city (it is not cool that it now gets dark at 5pm).

That brings us to this weekend…and my only plans are to do homework. It should be nice and “relaxing.” You’re probably out of coffee by now so I’ll wrap it up. We should do this again some time. I’ll do my best to not wait three weeks before another post (but please don’t hold me to that!).

Enjoy your weekend!

Disappearing Act

Remember that time I told you I thought I was going to have tons of free time to blog this summer? Yea….sorry about that!

 Since I know how much you all love hearing about my life, I’ll start by filling you in on our 4^th of July trip. Justin and I roadtripped down to Florida to visit my brother and his family. My mom and sister were down there at the same time so it was quite the party. 

We spent lots of time at the beach.

We played a very intense game of Monopoly and lit off fireworks on the 4th.

Then this little cutie took a 10 hour car ride with his mom and grandma to come visit Indiana & Kentucky.

 

He helped Aunt Kim with some work and went on a walk to visit his great-grandma.

 
He spent lots of time playing with Grandma Susan and went to his first ever Bats game with Grandpa Bob.

Also in July, we got some really exciting news about Justin's job! 

More on that later :)

Strawberry Summer Salad {Recipe}

Happy Memorial Day! I’m in Louisville for the weekend and the weather here is PERFECT! In case you’re still looking for something quick to throw together for a cookout this weekend, here’s a quick & easy recipe for a crowd pleasing summer salad.

Here’s What You Need:

Baby Spinach

Strawberries

Feta Cheese

Pecans

Balsamic Vinaigrette*

*Or your favorite dressing

Here’s What You Do:

Throw it all in a bowl

Mix it up

Enjoy!

I told you it was easy!

Easter Sunday & Boston Monday

Has it really already been two weeks since Easter? I promise that by the end of the week I will be all caught up with my blog posts. You’ll finally get some “real time” information! For now though, here’s a recap of our Easter weekend:

After my half marathon (and 3 hour nap), we drove down to Bardstown to celebrate Easter with Justin’s family. We had a delicious Easter dinner and then dyed Easter eggs. I have not dyed eggs in FOREVER. We had a blast. We also went on a 2 mile walk at a local park. It was by far the most painful walk I've ever been on…but was totally worth it to work out my sore running muscles.

First thing on Sunday morning, we found a Starbucks. Justin gave up coffee for Lent and was in desperate need of some caffeine. 

We went to church with Justin’s parents before heading north to celebrate with my family. It was almost 80 degrees out – the perfect weather for Easter dresses! 

After the most epic photobomb ever, my dad put together an Easter egg hunt for us in the backyard. No, there was no one there under the age of 23. Yes, it was awesome. I am not very the most competitive person ever. I totally had the most eggs at the end :)

We went to my grandma’s for lunch with the Huber family and played our annual game of Easter Whiffle Ball. It’s a good thing Justin & Shane got new bats from the Easter Bunny.

I was super excited for my stuffed bulldog :)

We closed out the day by enjoying dessert and playing cornhole with my mom’s parents on Sunday night. I gave up sweets for Lent so you can only imagine the sugar high I was on after eating an entire bag of Sweet tart jellybeans and about 100 Reese’s eggs! The sugar crash hit me hard and I could barely stay awake to pack up my suitcase that night.

I put in a full day’s work watched every minute of the Boston Marathon on Monday. I had 2 friends running and I was super excited to stalk them for 26.2 miles.

I know I’m a little late, but how awesome is it that Meb won?! I’ll add my congrats to the women’s field as well. A new course record and a bunch of PRs this year! Watching Boston makes me want to quit my job and become a professional runner. Is a contact running high a thing? My vote is yes.  

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

…says the slacker…over 2 weeks late! I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe we are already two weeks into 2014. I am just now getting around to hanging up my new calendars. The Christmas season is always hectic and relaxing at the same time. I don’t really know how to explain the feeling, but I came back to work this week with an, “I need a vacation from my vacation” attitude.

Here are some of the highlights from our Christmas & New Year’s celebrations:

On Christmas Eve, we go to 4:00 mass and then head down to my Grandma’s to celebrate with my dad’s side of the family. I’ve probably forgotten someone, but at last count there are 31 of us (not counting the 3 babies on the way J) that cram into my grandma’s basement for present time. I always get prime real estate in the middle of the floor.

On Christmas Eve night, we go back to my parent’s house and exchange gifts between the 8 of us and then we open our stockings on Christmas morning. 

We had Christmas with my mom’s side of the family on Christmas day. My mom cooked Christmas dinner this year…and it was delicious.

The weekend after Christmas, Justin and I headed down to Pigeon Forge for Christmas with his family. His aunt & uncle rented a cabin for us all to stay at…I want to live there. We had 2 hot tubs, a pool table, and a 12 seat theater. We relaxed, exchanged gifts, played lots of pool, and even adventured into downtown Gatlinburg for one day to go to the Moonshine distillery.

By the time New Year’s Eve rolled around, we were excited to stay home and ring in the New Year while relaxing on the couch!

Other “Christmas Break” highlights:  

A baby shower for Levi, who is going to be the most spoiled little boy of all time!

A couple of birthday parties for some other very spoiled person that I know…

and quality time with my favorite Southern Indiana ladies (which I forgot to document!)

  

I told you I needed a vacation after my vacation!

Tell me about your Christmas traditions?

 Did you start any new ones this year?