Rihanna

I got the best Christmas present EVER this year. Seriously, it was one of the best presents I've ever gotten.

MAMA IS GOING TO SEE RIHANNA. 

Brett got me two tickets to see Rihanna in St Paul in March. My bestie Amanda and her boyfriend Andy are going to join us and Andy is going to keep Brett company while Amanda and I go twerk to Rihanna and A$AP Rocky. Jeesh. I'm so jazzed.

Of course, I immediately started losing my nut about what to wear. I went to the only place I know in times of outfit crisis: Polyvore. 

I'm kind of OCD when it comes to Polyvore stuff. I only include items in my sets that I could actually afford, in my size. I'll occasionally include $500 heels in an outfit for a chuckle, but rarely. 

So find below, three outfit options. I'll take suggestions and ideas. I looked for clothes that were comfortable, stylish, and of course, provided the greatest range of motion.

My favorite is this one. I'm for reals considering buying that t-shirt. Also, I'm dying for those sneakers even though they are so not "me" and I have no idea when I would wear them.

This is the most glam option. Those gold sequin slippers are my life.

This is the more casual, but also realistically, the closest thing to what I might wear. I'm really digging these sort of rugged, hiking boots everyone is wearing now. 

Count down to March!

Saint Louis

This weekend Brett and I went to St Louis to see our bestie Mary, who we met and fell in love with during our brief time together at Missouri State. She was a bridesmaid in the wedding and has known Brett and I as long as there as been a "Brett and I." 

Our visit coincided with The Loop Ice Carnival Pub Crawl and that event is virtually responsible for everything that follows. We had so. much. fun.

We started at Pi Pizzeria for lunch. I had a Schlafly Kolsh that could be my new favorite beer. 

Each stop of the pub crawl had an ice sculpture. This one was fairly intact, but the rest looked pretty sad because it was something like 60 degrees that day. Awesome for pub crawling. Less awesome for ice sculpturing. 

Second stop- The Eclipse Restaurant at the Moonrise Hotel. Rooftop bar. Half pipe. Skateboarding 10 year olds. 

 St Louis and The Mosers.

Third stop- The Pin Up Bowl. Brett ran into an old college friend here and Mary made a hole-in-one! I would say we were maintaining here.

 While we traveled, Mary stopped to lick one of the ice sculptures. You can see the state of it (and us).

 Last stop- Three Kings.  We had some tasty New Belgium Lips of Faith beer of some kind and had a really hard time finding it on Untapped.

I started texting everyone I knew would reply. Someone received this photo and I'm sure that someone was very glad.

We left Three Kings around 6 pm. It was time for laying around and taking a bunch of selfies while we waiting for our Chinese to be delivered.

Here is a real exchange I had with the delivery guy:

Delivery Guy: "You work at haircut?"
Me: (How does this guy know I just got a haircut?) "What?"
Delivery Guy: "You work at haircut? Your hair look good!"

The next morning we needed so much brunch. Mary took us to Square One Brewery in this adorable neighborhood called Lafayette Square. I attacked some Eggs Benedict and a mimosa. I definitely want to hit this place back up for lunch and brews on another STL go-round.

After brunch we went to Euclid Records (and by "we" I mean "Mary and Brett" and I followed along because I was in the car.) Brett picked up a Pixies record and I checked Facebook on my phone. I didn't find their sweet selection of poster prints until Brett was checking out, but at least I'll know where to beeline when we go back. 

Here's a sweet photo.

We had an awesome weekend. We don't really make it to St Louis as often as we should considering how close it is. 2013 is the year of fixing that!

We did miss this guy though!

Bloomington

So, one of the huge advantages of my new position at work being part time is that my schedule is pretty flexible. And since it's my first year of marriage and all (you guys know I got recently married, right?) I basically want to spend EVERY LIVING MINUTE with Brett. So when he told me a couple months ago he had a short work trip to Bloomington, Indiana planned, I was all, "I'M COMING WITH." (Enter SVU "dun dun" here.)

Bloomington is only about 7 hours from Kirksville so we left Friday morning and got back on Sunday evening. Brett's event was Saturday and I basically vegged in the hotel room doing crossword puzzles on the iPad and watching extremely edited raunch-coms on USA. What is interesting is everything other than those moments. What did we do in everything other than those moments? EAT.

We have friends who love Bloomington. Our pal Jason got his PhD at Indiana University (do I get credit for having a friend with a PhD? I want credit.) and he and his wife Erin had lists of suggestions for us. On some of Brett's longer trips, he loses the energy to seek out a local establishment every night (and who could blame him) so we wanted to take advantage of the easy commute to tasty places (our hotel was SO close to downtown), good company (hello- ME!), and trust-worthy recommendations.

Friday night took us to The Upland Brewing Company. As expected, it offered totally delicious pub fare (I had fish and chips and Brett tackled their Reuben) and their brews were very tasty.

I think this is their wheat ale:

I ate breakfast at the hotel in the morning, but Brett was able to get away for lunch and at Erin's suggestion, we tried Mother Bear's Pizza- a delicious pizza place with a very busty bear for a logo.

I took this picture of some graffiti in our booth.

No photos of the pizza, which was devoured too quickly to snap a pic. We shared pesto bread sticks, I had the Illinois Central (I'm a sucker for barbecue sauce on a pizza) and Brett had the Tuscaloosa Touch Down (two words: pulled pork.)

Saturday night, I scouted out a place to try and settled on Bub's Burgers and Ice Cream, mostly because those are two of my favorite things in one name of a restaurant. Turns out, Adam Richman visited their Indianapolis location and completed their food challenge- The Big Ugly. This is a one pound hamburger. Brett strongly considered that, but wanted to save room for a milkshake. I really liked this place. I had a regular cheeseburger, but Brett got adventurous and tried their Elk Burger. (I tasted it. It tasted basically the same.)

I also took the most pictures here because lots of other people were taking pictures which made it less awkward.

Not our best, but blog worthy:

They brought us samples of their soup of the day and I made Brett take it like a shot.

Brett going to town on Elkie:

And our super tasty milkshakes- Cinnamon Crumb and Praline Pecan.

We had brunch on Sunday (yep- still eating!) at The Runicble Spoon, a place that serves Erin's favorite mimosa. I'm inclined to agree since it was a full glass for $5! Our waitress had a hard time splitting our check and we sat next to some fairly self righteous IU students, but my Eggs Benedict was kick ass and Brett had a stack of blueberry pancakes that were very, very worth it.

On the drive home, we stopped for lunch/dinner in St Louis at about 3. A weird time, but by this time we had been destroying our bodies with food on a pretty regular basis so what did it matter. We did (you won't believe this) 5 Guys Burgers and Fries.

It was really yummy and I loved it because I am the type of person who develops an emotional attachment to her food. It made me wanna say DAYUM. (You knew that was coming, right? You knew.)

As you can tell, there were NO weight resolutions on the queue this year. I just... GUYS WE ATE SO MUCH FOOD.

We had a really great time together though and I'm feeling super grateful to have the opportunity to spend extra time with Brett when he travels. It sorta sucks when he leaves and it felt great to pack up into the car with him instead of saying goodbye.

As with any time I travel out of town, I gathered quite a few thoughts and insights on the process (more than just "Another pale ale, please" I swear) and I'll share those soon for sure. For now, I think I'll read back through this post and enjoy the visual feast from our weekend!

Back in the Saddle

Well I've returned to the world of blogging. Won't lie- it was a nice vacation. BUT! Now I'm back and I'm totally ready to over-share and under-perform for my captive audience.

Isn't Thanksgiving the bomb? Or da bomb, rather. I just love it. So much food. So much family. I love my Iowa family and I don't get up to see them enough so when I do, it's a great treat. Food was awesome and I was so busy eating I neglected to take any photos.

Friday we drove to Kansas City to be with Brett's family for the rest of the weekend. It was our first trip to KC as a married couple, and look at this adorable way his family greeted us:

We had game night that evening and relaxed most of the day on Saturday, but did a little shopping here and there. We caught up with Chris and Sarah and we all ate and drank our weight in beer and pizza at Waldo's Pizza. Again, too much eating, no photos.

My wedding gift to Brett was a pair of Chiefs tickets and coincidentally, Sarah and Chris have season tickets and we were able to tailgate Sunday before (and after) the game. Photo time was totally on. Bask in the glory:

 Brett and I doing the tailgate thing

 Me and Sarah, whom I love

 At our seats

 With our treats

Game time baby! 

Outside the stadium, a little chilly at this point 

 The gang, cameo by other Sarah who looks cute even though she wasn't really in the picture which is something I never manage to do. 

Brett and Chris... True lovers. 

Yay for a photo-full post of fun things! We did it!

Moonin': Friday

We've got noticeably less photos from Friday, but to be fair- by this point we were completely exhausted. We did only a handful of rides and left the park relatively early. When we go back (years and years from now!) I'd want to give this park lots more attention. We did snag a delicious dinner at a restaurant called Sanaa in the adjacent resort, Kidani Village on Friday night and it made a really nice end cap to our trip.

We left mid morning on Saturday and flew into a bit of a storm in Kansas City that made our landing a bit rough, but the trip home was relatively easy and painless. The settling in journey begins now!

In the lobby that morning 

The Finding Nemo Musical Show.. This and the Festival of the Lion King show were both amazeballs. 

Dino Ride!

Mickey at the Jungle Parade

Before Dinner

A giraffe right outside the restaurant 

My many colored cocktail! 

Farewell Animal Kingdom Lodge! 

Moonin': Thursday

Thursday was probably one of my favorite days of the trip. I loved Epcot. Love Love Loved.

First of all, Smash Mouth was playing a concert there which was basically a comedy goldmine for Brett and I. We got our photos taken with lots of characters and rode a few rides in the morning, but it was the second half of the day that I enjoyed so much. Epcot was hosting the International Food and Wine Festival in its World Showcase portion of the park.

The pavilions for each country were just awesome. I loved all the shops and the staging and it really ignited my passion to travel to each of those places for real! We ended our night with a delicious Mexican meal and watched their light show- Illuminations from the restaurant. Too legit.

Good Morning!

Chip and Dale

The Mouse!

Pluto

Minnie!

Donald congratulating Brett...

He was appropriately impressed with the ring!

Canada Pavilion 

Brett in front of some United Kingdom scenery with his Guinness 

With a Belgian beer 

In front of some Moroccan Scenery 

Morocco was one of my favorite pavilions 

Going local

There's a joke I wasn't there for in this photo. 

A troll in Norway!

Brett the Red

Brett doing the "Here I Am" pose at the Mexican Pavilion