Mother Daughter Weekend

While Gary and the boys were away golfing, I had my mom come stay with me for the weekend. And what an excellent weekend it was! I took the day off Friday and we treated ourselves to some pampering. As a parting gift when I left Mullen, they gave me a gift card to a really nice spa in Novi called Visions. My mom and I both got facials and my, oh, my it was WONDERFUL! It was SO relaxing and my skin felt amazing afterward! Friday night we went for dinner and to see Mama Mia. Great movie if you haven't seen it yet. Makes me want to open a little resort in some remote location!

Saturday we quickly hit IKEA (I say quickly because usually IKEA is in all day trip) and went to Lowes to get some painting supplies. The rest of the day was full of home improvement stuff. We spent most of the day painting (see previous post) but also installed a new programmable thermostat. Saturday night we had Pot Belly for dinner and stayed in to watch a chick flick off of video on demand. We were exhausted!!

Sunday we had cinnamon rolls (a Karsten family tradition) and mom left around noon or so. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. It was great to be able to spend the whole weekend with just me and mom! :)

(MOM - you cryin' yet?)

ReVamping

Since Gary and I have been in the condo for over 6 months now, we finally decided to do some painting. Originally the whole condo was the same color - boring beige. Well I'm sick of beige! Here are two projects that we've finished in the last month or so.

Project #1: the basement ceilings, hall and stairway

The stairway up to the main floor of the condo was a MESS! Between the previous owners moving in and out and then us attempting to bring in furniture that didn't fit, bringing up all new appliances, bringing back down the too-tall fridge and dented dishwasher and hauling up the right size fridge and dent-free dishwasher, the walls and ceiling really took a beating. We chose what I describe as a cocoa brown, with an official name of Sweet Georgia Brown. I think it looks a million times better!

Project #2: the half bath downstairs

Special thanks to my mom for helping me with this one. We finished the project while Gary was away golfing. I already had a red and black theme going on so we decided to paint the walls a deep red as well. After three coats...voila - we had COLOR!!

Next up: maybe the master bathroom? I'm thinking GREEN!

Courage - If I only had the nerve

Note: I've been slacking so I'm catching up on my blogging this weekend... so when I say this weekend, I don't really mean this weekend. I'm referring to the date of the post :)

Most of you probably know that I've had a hard time adjusting to my new job. Not only do I have a lot of new stuff to learn, I have a lot of new people to try and befriend. Most people who know me well are shocked when I tell them I'm actually very shy. So, being thrown into a entirely new group of people has been very stressful for me. This weekend, one of the girls on my floor threw a small get-together at her house. I was grateful for the invite but scared to death to actually go. Normally I'd make up some silly excuse why I couldn't go or I simply wouldn't go because it wasn't "comfortable" for me. I knew if I was going to try and make friends at work, I had to go. No excuses.


So, I went. And it was fine. Perfectly fine. Comfortably fine. I wonder what all the fuss was about?

Three Wonderful Years

This week Gary and I celebrated our three year anniversary! I can't believe it's already been three years, it seems like just yesterday I had a stomach full of butterflys as I got off the plane in San Diego visiting him for the first time. In true "us" fashion, neither of us could keep a secret from eachother so we ended up giving each other gifts way before the actual day!

A quick look back in time...here is a picture from that first time I went to visit in San Diego.

Last Fling Before the Ring

My friend Rachel is getting married in Las Vegas this coming weekend. Last Friday, Amanda threw her a bachellorette party for all the people in Michigan who were not flying out to Vegas. Her "official" bachellorette party will be Thursday night in Vegas. We had a great time and of course took a million pictures (thanks to the paparazzi - a.k.a AMANDA). Here are a few from the evening:

The bride-to-be decked out for a night on the town

Amanda, Kristie and I at the Dirty Martini in Novi

In case you're wondering about the name tags, it's a fun little activity we did for Julie's bachelorette party where you give everyone stripper names. We also decided it would be fun to take the name tags to the bar and re-name random people. It turned out to quite entertaining!

The PGA Comes to Detroit

Although I didn't attend (it's not really my thing) Gary was lucky enough to get tickets for both Monday's practice round and Saturday's tournament round from his friends at Popular Mechanics Magazine. I'll have to say, that is one of the things I miss about working in advertising...no more magazine rep perks!

I posted this one because it was the only picture that had someone I knew in it! John Daly is in the blue shirt...

Fun in the Sun

Saturday we spent the day with Kristie and Burton out at one of their buddies houses in Commerce. He lives on a lake and has a HUGE backyard. The weather was perfect and I was so happy to be out enjoying the sunshine!
And of course, what Saturday afternoon wouldn't be complete without a Baggo tournament? My partner and I ended up losing the losers bracket. Ouch.
Thanks KJ and BW for letting us tag along!!