Sunday Happenings

This weekend has been absolutely gorgeous in Atlanta! We've finally made it to be consistently over 70 degrees during the day, so this Florida-girl is happy!

We had a friend's wedding Friday night at the Foundry at Puritan Mill which was absolutely stunning!! Great to see friends and the beautiful couple we've known since college.

Saturday, I went to Pure Barre in the morning and Houston went golfing to enjoy the beautiful weather. We had the BEST date night :) Since the weather was so nice, we had a glass of wine out on our porch (my first glass of rosé of the season we found at our neighborhood wine shop), then we grilled out and made steaks, corn and potatoes that were delicious! Then we finished season 4 of House of Cards. Have anyone else been watching?

I went to Pure Barre this morning and today, I might try to do some yard work and then we'll go to church then dinner with some friends.

Here's a few Sunday Happenings from this week!

Springing Forward
In case you missed it - our clocks sprung forward an hour last night! I absolutely LOVE daylight savings time. It really makes the days feel so much longer and I enjoy having more daylight after work to go for a walk in the neighborhood or just be outside on our porch.

Looking forward to the longer days ahead as we head into Spring and Summer. My Pure Barre class at 9:00 this morning was pretty empty, I think everyone was sleeping in a little!

Image from someecards.com
Herb Garden
I've really been wanting to plant a small herb garden so now that it's warming up, I'm hoping to plant some soon. I found this helpful article from Home Depot's Garden Club I'm going to use. I've never been very diligent at keeping up with plants, so maybe this will help me turn a new leaf.

Image from Home Depot Garden Club
Mini Donkeys
Houston sent me this Buzzfeed article this week about 20 Mini Donkeys for sale. You have to look at these pictures, they are the cutest things I've ever seen and I want one so bad to play with our future puppy!! I've already named our future mini donkey.

Image from Buzzfeed
New ice cream + coffee at Chick-Fil-A
Starting tomorrow, March 14th Chick-Fil-A will begin serving a new coffee with ice cream. I can't think of anything better, can you? Read more from AL.com here.

Nancy Reagan & Ronald Reagan's Love Affair
It's no secret the love affair that was between Nancy & Ronald Reagan. There was a beautiful love letter he wrote her one Christmas that was read at the former First Lady's funeral this week. The video from the service is posted on Fox 2 Now, here's a snippet of the letter below.
Fortunately, all these women in my life are you — fortunately for me that is, for there could be no life for me without you. Browning asked; “How do I love thee — let me count the ways?” For me there is no way to count. I love the whole gang of you — Mommie, first lady, the sentimental you, the fun you, and the peewee power house you. 
Merry Christmas you all — with all my love. 
Lucky me.
What a beautiful love they shared, over 50 years of marriage. I just love how you could see how much Ronald Reagan adored her.

Image from People.com
I hope everyone has a great week! Just wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who reads my blog, as of yesterday the blog reached over 11,000 page views which is unbelievable to me! Thank you to those who read and let me know if you have any requests of things you'd like me to write about.
xx, A

PS - Who is watching the finale of the Bachelor tomorrow?? 🙋🏻 Do you think it will be Lauren B or JoJo? 

Our 9 month wedding anniversary!

I know I'm going crazy now, blogging twice in one night after going silent for a few months but I couldn't go to bed without sharing that it is Houston's and my nine month wedding anniversary today!!

Oh, how time has flown already so quickly! We just got our full wedding video (on Christmas morning, and what an amazing Christmas gift that was!) from our wonderful videographers, Imprint Cinema and I just had to share our wedding video teaser with you!




Thank you Imprint Cinema for making such a beautiful teaser and feature film for us! Thank you to our Dream Team of vendors, which you'll see their fantastic work throughout the video, and the one and only Brandee Gaar of Blush by Brandee for your vision, and going above and beyond anything we ever imagined for our special day!

xoxo,
A

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Valentine's Day means a lot of different things to different people - some people like to call it Single Awareness Day, some people in relationships don't even like the holiday, and others like myself are hopeless romantics and love holidays in general so single or taken I've always loved this day! (But I've gotta admit, having the most wonderful guy as your Valentine has made these past three so wonderful and I look forward to many more together!)

From growing up, Mom used to dye all our breakfast food pink! (I will totally do this as a wife and mom one day!) Complete with pink milk, cinnamon rolls with pink icing and strawberries! She has given me a love for holidays because she has always made them so special for us!

Valentine's Day in the Boyd household circa 1996. 
(You can see the pink milk in Betsy's cup!)

So here are a few Valentine's Day suggestions for you, for either a girl's night or date night!

-Girl's Night - One of my favorite blogs, The Everygirl posted these cute ideas for a fun girl's night Valentine party! Including ideas for decor, drinks, food and don't forget about dessert!

-Date Night - Last year for Valentine's Day, my parents had a progressive dinner around the house for Valentine's Day and I thought this was such a precious and fun idea! It was such a hit, they did it again this year! My parents have been married for 32 1/2 years and I admire them so much. They have such a biblically-based marriage filled with love, fun, and 3 (pretty cool, if you ask me!) kids. They had appetizers out on the dock, then dinner at the kitchen table, and my mom's famous chocolate cake, heart-shaped of course, at the high-top counter in the kitchen. So cute:) Dad brought mom beautiful flowers and they exchanged their Valentine's Day cards. Sounds like a pretty awesome date if you ask me!

Last year, Houston drove all the way from Atlanta on a Wednesday night and surprised me at my apartment by knocking on the door! I could NOT believe it! We picked up dinner and had a candlelight dinner together and just relaxed and watched a movie - one of our very favorite things to do!

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Houston and I these past 2 1/2 years! The bottom, center one is from when he surprised me last year on Valentine's Day! You can still tell my eyes are puffy from tears of joy and surprise!!

And I just got a phone call that I have a "Valentine's present waiting for me at the apartment office!" Eeeek he's just the sweetest! Can't wait to see what it is:) My family, Houston, and his parents are all coming in town this weekend for Samford's infamous Step Sing weekend and I can't wait to all be together!

No matter your opinion of Valentine's Day, I hope it's special! Let me know if you have any other great ideas for this fun holiday!

xoxo,
A

Fitness Update:
Went to pure barre 3 times last week and 3 times this week so far! Woohoo! Just gotta start working on my food habits a little better!

My Love Languages


So I thought I would help my readers get to know me a little bit by listing just a few of the many things and people I love:

I LOVE...

my Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ
my parents, and siblings Betsy and Michael
my boyfriend, Houston
my incredible friends God has blessed me with throughout my 21 years
creating things - whether it is my newest entrepreneurial idea, crafts or food, I love to create!
the sunshine (with that also comes laying out)
long talks with my best friend and roommate, Juliann and discussing our newest life plans
the beach and the lake (still undecided as to which I prefer)
traveling (I hope to go abroad again soon!!)
watching college football
Paris
polka dots
Lilly Pulitzer
sparklers
walks on the beach
cooking & baking
Penguins, only second to my favorite animal... Dogs!
tomato and mozzarella salads
green smoothies - my Aunt Lori just got me hooked! I'll write you the recipe soon!
New York City
@CuteEmergency - if you don't follow them on Twitter, you need to! It can brighten ANY day!
Taylor Swift's music (my INCREDIBLE boyfriend is taking me to see her in ATL in April!!!! Best boyfriend ever... YES!)
my mom's chocolate cake
the color yellow
driving with the windows down and blaring music (preferably with friends in the car with me)
monograms
Pintrest
seersucker
J.Crew
Atlanta (my future home --- EEEK!)

What are some of your favorite things?? Your favorite city? Food? Place to shop? Or thing to do?

And if you like any of these things too and want me to elaborate, let me know and I can dedicate a post to some of the things listed above!

xoxo,
A