2 year wedding anniversary

May 22, 2012

These first 2 years of marriage have flown by. I look back on everywhere we have been since our wedding day and it truly amazes me:

British Virgin Islands

Venice / Pisa / Rome / Florence, Italy

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Athens / Nafplio, Greece

Ephesus, Turkey

Los Cabos, Mexico

Nashville / Memphis, TN

Chicago, IL

Orlando / Daytona / Tampa / Pensacola / Jacksonville / Tallahassee, FL

Orange County / San Francisco, CA

Seattle, WA

New York City, NY

Boston, MA

Dallas / Lubbock / Houston / Austin / San Antonio, TX

Denver / Fort Collins, CO

Fayetteville, AR

Oxford / Tupelo, MS

Myrtle Beach, SC

Wilmington / Asheville / Raleigh, NC

St Louis / St Charles / Columbia / Joplin, MO

Minneapolis, MN

Hartford / Oxford / Stonington / Mystic, CT

Portland, ME

Indianapolis, IN

Pittsburgh, PA

Oklahoma City / Tulsa / Norman, OK

New Orleans / Shreveport, LA

Louisville, KY

Atlanta, GA

Ann Arbor / Detroit, MI

Cincinnati, OH

Riviera Maya, Mexico

***

We celebrated our anniversary at Treehouse Vineyards.

Bryan had rented us a treehouse for a couple of hours, so we began our afternoon with a wine tasting in their tasting room. We then purchased a couple bottles of wine and headed up the many stairs to the balcony of the treehouse. Sitting on white rocking chairs we took in the view of the vineyard while sipping wine and eating a picnic I had packed.

You see, wine tasting and picnicing is our thing. Bryan proposed while picnicing on a vineyard in Napa Valley, and ever since then we have made a point to use that same picnic basket and go wine tasting. Picnicing on a vineyard is special to us... It's where it all began!

After spending the entire day at the winery we headed back up to the lake, stopped off at Dressler's for dinner and then went home and rocked the night away on our front porch. What a simple, beautiful and romantic way to ring in the beginning of our 3rd year of marriage!

raleigh: go further

The last stop on our tour took us to Raleigh, NC.

Oddly enough, this was my first time in Raleigh.

We worked a super fun event called Artsplosure.

Saturday night, once off of work, we got cleaned up and headed back to the event to listen to some live music and use up all of our free drink tickets with our teammates!

Lord knows I love me some fried pickles!

It's a wrap!

bachelorette monday's

a much needed pit stop

 Bryan and I were so fortunate to sneak in a much needed 2 nights home before heading to our final stop on this tour.

Our good friends, Anna and Brandon, who also tour, were coincidentally in town the same week.

We got a small crew together and headed down the street to none other than The Rudder!

boston: go further

Our week in Boston was spent working at the mall that Paul Blart: Mall Cop was filmed at and at the incredible Sowa Farmers market downtown.

Although we didn't have any days off, we were able to squeeze in a memorable Red Sox night game.

Our friends Jessica and Jocelyn, who are both from Boston, got us amazing tickets and went to the game with us!

Red Sox vs. Indians

After the win we headed out to the streets of Fenway to explore!

Of the 30 major league baseball stadiums, this is Bryan's 20th stadium that he's seen a game at and his favorite seats thus far!

 Section 35 - Row 1 - Seats 9 and 10

our favorite restaurant in the country

Our most favorite restaurant in the country is on the 1st floor of an old building in downtown Syracuse.

We have been fortunate to frequent Pastabilities several times in our life, but not nearly as much as we'd like.

We love this restaurant so much that Bryan has tried, several times, to have their tomato oil and homemade pasta noodles shipped down to North Carolina!

I could go on and on describing Pastabilities rustic character, warm atmosphere, delicious food and perfect wine selections from the Finger Lakes, but I'd rather keep the details to myself and just encourage you, if you're ever in Syracuse, to treat yourself to one of the best dining experiences imaginable.

We were severely underdressed, as this was a spur of the moment and absolutely necessary pit stop on our long drive from Chicago to Boston.

fly over states

There are few songs out there that resonate deeply with me.

The ones that do depict a life of travel, being away from loved ones or the wide open road.

Most recently, Jason Aldean's song Fly Over States has struck a chord with me.

I constantly hear people complain about how boring a city, or even worse, an entire state is.

How shallow and naive of them.

While griping, they tend to mention states like Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa and more.

I couldn't disagree with these complaints more!

Every state in this country is just beautiful to drive through.

Every state.

When up in a plane, you look out your window, see plots of land and think how boring.

But seeing these small towns, America's heartland, from the ground is eye opening, life changing and just plain magnificent.

Writing off an entire state for having corn fields, mom/pop diners and farmers plowing on the side of the highway is a poor reflection of you, not the state itself.

This is America.

Fly Over States - Jason Aldean - Jason Aldean Videos

Please take time to read this recount of a small town that I drove through last summer.

chicago: go further

Chicago was a whirlwind. 

We worked the week away at Navy Pier, went out to 2 team dinners and squeezed in a bit of fun on Friday afternoon!

***

Navy Pier - LA or St. Thomas please!

Giordano's Pizza is always a must when we're in the windy city!

After pizza I led an impromptu pub crawl to 6 bars on Rush and Division.

I made my co-worker play hangman to find out what Bry's middle name was!

The whole crew!

To read about my past 2 trips to Chicago, click here and here.

you can make a difference

You can make a difference in the life of a child... 1 textbook at a time!

Everyone has heard of Operation Smile, but do you really know what the organization does?

Operation Smile is an international children's charity offering free reconstructive surgery, and a changed life, to children born with cleft lip and cleft palate.

Many celebs have lent their time, names and efforts to this amazing organization, including our favs, Bill and Guliana Rancic.

Who doesn't love them!

Back to my point...

Since 1982 Operation Smile has donated 200,000 free surgeries and 2 million patient evaluations to children and young adults born with clefts and/or facial deformities.

Calling all students! 
This is where you can make a difference...

With each textbook rented from Campus Book Rentals, they donate .35 to .45 of the textbook price to Operation Smile. For example, if a textbook costs you $45, Campus Book Rentals will donate $18 to Operation Smile.

That's a lot of money when you think about it!

Some perks of renting your textbooks through Campus Book Rental are:

Save 40-90% off of bookstore price

Free shipping both ways

Can highlight in the textbooks

Flexible renting periods

I encourage anyone in college, graduate school and beyond to rent your text books from them.

If you're like me, a college grad with no aspirations of obtaining a Masters, please pass this information along to anyone in school. Please.

Every dollar that goes toward Operation Smile helps change a hurting child's life for the better.

new york city & lon-gisland

It's never fun to work in New York City.

Not in my industry.

Every time we see it on our schedule we cringe.

But we suck it up, get the job done and have a little fun along the way! 

Digging up dandelions on the corner of 40th St. and 12th Ave. Totally normal thing to do.

15 hour load in day = drained, sore and miserable Kate 

We found memory foam mattresses in the convention center and crashed!

Badass tree split the wall into 2... Gotta love the persistence of mother nature in Manhattan.

Poor girl had t.p. stuck in her jeans...

Super cute puppy.... Super creepy puppy owner!

After a 13 hour event day, a few of us rallied for drinks!

It began to downpour on our walk back to our hotel and, of course, we were entirely unprepared with no jackets and no umbrellas... nothing like a walk in the rain on the streets of NYC!

Soaking wet elevator ride.

Russell Simmons spoke at our event.

Bry and Dave fighting over the big money!

After our week in Manhattan we jetted off to spend a week on Long Island. 

Dinner at Bobby Flay's restaurant - Bobby's Burger Palace

"The Napa" - This goes down in the books as the best burger I've ever eaten!

And we're off to our next destination...