We're Color Runners!

Last month, Jim and I took a little weekend trip to Richmond for The Color Run! The Color Run is known as "the happiest 5k on the planet" and is something I'd added to my bucket list. I like to run and who wouldn't want to be at the happiest place? (which we all know is really Disney World, but anyway...) So the idea is: all of the runners start out wearing all white clothes. At each kilometer, you run through a color zone where volunteers throw a certain color powder on you, and at the end, each runner is a little rainbow of color! I know, it doesn't sound fun to have people throw stuff at you, but it's basically a colored cornstarch, totally harmless and it is definitely fun!

I'm still not sure how I convinced Jim to join me in his white gear and end up a rainbow, but I did, and even he had a great time. The energy of all of the other runners really did make an awesome atmosphere. At the "race party" after we were finished, runners had extra packets of color and every 10 minutes or so, we would countdown to a big "color throw" where the runners released their packets, making a huge cloud of color, and further rainbowing ourselves.

We also got to spend the weekend in Richmond, try some new restaurants and go exploring. We spent a day downtown on the canal walk, learned some Civil War history, and spent some time at the park at Brown's Island. Here's a few pictures from our trip!


Before the run



Georgia On Our Minds

Hello friends and family!
Continuing with my updates of our recent travels, last month we flew to Atlanta to visit Jim's family, most importantly our new nephew, Luke! Jim's sister Katie and her husband Tate welcomed little Luke to the family in July, so we were dying to meet him!

This was Jim's first little break since going back to work after we moved to Virginia (I know, I know -we had only been here like 2 months. But still...) so he was so happy to be able to just relax with friends and family in Georgia. We spent lots of time hanging out talking about how stinkin' cute Luke is (you'll see in a minute!) but also got to catch up with Jim's Dad & Ann Marie for a little bit.

 

Friday, we got to go to a Braves game with Mom & Steve, Katie & Tate, some of Jim's friends, and my friend Brittany & her boyfriend Danny. We had such a good time with the whole group and were so happy to be able to spend time with so many people we love!





Brittany & I at the Braves game!

                                                                   The boys

 

 



 

 Jim and I took a little solo trip to Fort Mountain State Park and were both so surprised at how beautiful the view was after just a short hike! I haven't done a whole lot of Georgia sightseeing in my day (it all started with Jim!) so it's fun to find new cool spots with him.

.

While we were in town, we also visited Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was such a quick trip from Katie & Tate's house and a very cool place to check out. We walked the bridge to the downtown area and found some great restaurants.

 Luke's first restaurant trip

And now onto the adorable new addition! James Luke is just the sweetest little boy and we had so much fun getting to know him!

(So in case you are only looking at pictures, this is our nephew, not our baby...I repeat - not Jim and I's baby!)

 

 

Uncle Jim with Luke

 

 



 Jim and I are so happy to have gotten the chance to make the trip and visit family so soon after moving. We had a wonderful time and can't wait until the next time we get to be together!

 





 

New York City

Happy Thursday! Most of August I was out of town spending time with friends and family, so I have fun pictures to share with everyone!

Two of my best friends from FSU, Allison & Jordanna have moved to New York City since graduation so I planned a trip to go visit them for Allison's birthday in August. The only good thing about friends living in different cities is getting to go visit, right?! I got in town Thursday and had so much fun exploring the city with Jordanna, Allison, and their roommate, Lindsey.



Allison and I, my first night in town!
 

Allison, Jordanna, and I were all Gamma Phi's at FSU and we have lots of sorority sisters that have moved to NYC too, so we got to have a big reunion and it was so great to catch up with everyone!



Allison, Lindsey, Lori, and I at New York's version of a Beach Bar


 
Jordanna and I 

Due to Mom's obsession with Broadway shows, we've been to New York several times, but seeing being there with "locals" is totally different and so fun! For Allison's birthday we went to a karaoke place where we rented a room to embarrass ourselves privately and had the best time letting our inner divas come out as we sang the obvious choices like Mariah Carey & Backstreet Boys.

Birthday drinks at The Jimmy


My last day in the city we went to Central Park to hang out outside and talk about how much fun we are together (ok...that's not really all we talked about. But I do love getting to be back together with them!) I am so happy to be able to stay so close with my college friends and can't wait to be able to visit them again! Except next time they are coming to the fabulous Portsmouth, Virginia ;)

In the next few days I'll write again to show off our precious new nephew, Luke, and our trip to Georgia to visit Jim's family! Xoxo 


Crop Share Saturdays

One cool thing Jim and I have been doing since we have moved to Portsmouth is join a crop share program with a local farm. It's called CSA - community supported agriculture, and there are lots of benefits for the farmer and for us, the consumer. Most CSAs are yearly, but since we moved in the middle of the season, we found a month-by-month plan to do for now.

Here's how it works: we pay monthly for a "share" and once a week, we go to the farmer's market and pick up a box of fresh, locally grown produce. It's fun to see what kinds of fruits and veggies we get, and come up with ways to cook and eat the things we may not be super familiar with. Most offer a "full share" or "half share" program, to meet the needs of different families. Jim and I are big fruit & veggie eaters, so we go with the full share, but I think it's usually recommended for families of 4+.

Our share this week, yum!

Even though I love to cook, I found myself getting the same veggies at the grocery store a lot of times, because I knew easy ways to incorporate them into recipes and dinners, but that starts to get pretty boring. Having all this produce also opens lots of opportunities to make homemade things that I would usually just buy at the store. For example, Jim doesn't like tomoatoes, and I only eat them with a few things. When we got 6 tomatoes in our box, I thought we'd never eat that many in a week. Now I've learned how to make my own tomato sauce for pasta & pizzas and have made fresh salsa (using all fresh veggies from our share!) that we both can enjoy. Because most CSAs are yearly, the farmer can count on having enough money from sales to plant, fertilize, etc. the crops for the season. It's a win-win for everyone! We now always have a stocked produce drawer and fruit bowl, so it's easy to eat healthy!

Just as an example, here is what we got in our box this week:

peaches
yellow squash
zucchini
green peppers
jalapeno peppers
some mystery yellow hot peppers (I don't know what kind they are, but they are good in the salsa!)
a canteloupe
tomatoes
cherries
red potatoes


See how many fun possibilities! If you're interested in finding a CSA in your area, here is the website we used:
Local Harvest CSA

I definitely recommend it!

Friday Love!

I just wanted to share these precious pictures with you guys, they get me every time!
Hope you have a wonderful weekend, do something sweet for someone :)

21 Pictures That Will Restore You Faith In Humanity

24 and Fabulous (and newly a nurse!)

Ok, good news and bad news! Bad news first: I have been so super busy lately that I have neglected my blog a little bit (you probably already knew that one...) Good news: I was busy doing lots of fun things so now I have plenty to share! So hang on, ya'll...this one may be a long post!

Jim started working at the hospital here in Portsmouth the first week of July. He has been working in the clinic lately, which means better hours! He's usually home by 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon, which is wonderful because I got so used to spending all day everyday with him during the wedding/honeymoon/moving weeks that I miss him so much during the day (we are clearly newlyweds, huh?) Once Jim went back to work, I began studying for my nursing board exam (NCLEX) that I scheduled for July 13 (Yes, Friday the 13th). Anyone who went to FSU with me knows that then my days consisted of a good 45 minutes of studying that quickly turned into Facebook (gotta know whats going on in the world), Pinterest (but...I just moved into a new house with SO many decorating opportunities!), RueLaLa (a girl's gotta shop...and it was SUCH a good deal!), and recipe websites (I mean...I still have to make dinner, right? That time was well spent.). I'll admit, I was starting to get a little crabby due to the pressure of the test and my lack of discipline (the Bachelorette was getting down to the final 3 and 4 guys AND it was the finale(s) and reunion(s) of Real Housewives! It's not my fault there is a 2 part finale and reunion!) In the end, I buckled down for the last few days, and it all worked out because I got a big fat PASS as my test score on the Florida Department of Health website! So you can just call me Ashley Ripple, R.N. whenever you feel like it :)

Both Jim and I really like to have people over, so the weekend before 4th of July, we had our first little cookout/pool party! We had some friends over and had a great time enjoying our new backyard! I think the one that enjoyed it the most was Miss Izzy, because the more people there are around, the more people to throw the ball for her. That little doggie just never gets tired of fetching!!

Jim & I getting ready for the cookout!

Happy 4th of July from Admiral!

I know everyone has been wanting to see house pictures, but our house has been constantly changing lately! I keep taking pictures to put on the blog, but now looking at even the most recent pictures, we have changed even more! In the past few weeks we had two huge trees cut down in our front yard, bought a new dining table and kitchen island, and have been working on cleaning out the office so we can actually have our computers in there!

I was kind of sad to see the trees go, but the roots were cracking the driveway, plus we were not big fans of the pine straw and sap on our cars all the time. Here is the house before and after:

Now we just have to figure out what to do with all the tree leftovers....anyone want some mulch?

Sunday, the 15th was my 24th birthday and we had planned on having Tiffany and Kris in town to celebrate. I was so excited about having them in town, but when they got here, there was a pretty big birthday surprise with them...my mom had flown in to DC to drive down with them for my birthday! Mom and I had just been talking about how I've never not been with her on a birthday and now we are still going strong! Saturday night I cooked delicious vegetable lasagna (in case you're looking for a recipe, this one is great!) and we hung out around the house. Sunday we played in the pool all day long and then had a wonderful dinner at 456 Fish in Norfolk.

Monday we had lunch at the Cantina in Downtown Portsmouth and Jim even came to meet us!

Tiffany and Kris went back home Monday, but Mom was still in town, and her, Jim, and I went to the Norfolk Tides baseball game. We took the ferry from Portsmouth right to Harbor Park and had fun watching the game with a few of Jim's friends from work.

Mom and Jim on the ferry

Mom flew home today, so we are getting back in the groove of things, but we all had a wonderful time and it was so exciting to have a surprise visitor! I am so thankful for my sweet friends and family and 24 is definitely off to a good start!

It's Who You're With That Really Matters

This week started off fabulously with Tiffany & Kris coming in town for the Dave Matthews concert in Virginia Beach (like 30 min away from Jim and I). They braved the Father's Day traffic and made it to our house Sunday afternoon. It was so fun to show them our new home, and Tiff even brought me my first two houseplants! Don't worry...she said they require almost no care and very little water...just in case I ever get a little forgetful.
Side note - I did have my first gardening adventure this week also! We had 2 big planters on our front porch that had ugly deadish flowers in them. I figured I could handle something like that, so I made the trip to Lowe's (may or may not have called mom to make sure I knew what the tags on the plants meant) and got some pansies petunias (??? one of those pretty cute ones...) and some Miracle Grow and went to town! It's been a few days already and they are still looking fine! Maybe I will find that I inherited Mom's green thumb after all!
Ok, so back to Dave! It was so fun and I was so happy to finally make it to a DMB show. Sad story: One of my favorite college roomates, Stephanie, got me tickets for my birthday my sophomore year. We made the drive to Tampa, etc. and got rained out :( We were devestated! When Steph saw my last post about us going, she texted me and said her and her boyfriend are going this year too! All is well with the Dave portion of our lives now :) Although he never did play Satellite (trust me, we waited...) it was a great time and fun to spend time with Tiff & Kris! Plus we had lawn seats and it was nice to be able to just relax and hang out on a blanket (and not climb over 62,038 people to get out to go to the bathroom)

So...did you notice I am wearing a cardigan in JUNE?!? We aren't in Florida anymore, ya'll! I have been shocked at the coolness at night in Virginia! It is awesome!!! It gets down into the 70's (Brr for us FL folks) at night which is perfect for eating outside and walking the pups (and the sun doesn't set till like 8:30 so I feel like I get so much accomplished!) I originally thought that VA would be kind of chilly...here was my rationale: my sister lives in Virginia. It snows at her house. Therefore it's probably cold most of the time there. Right? WRONG! It also gets SO HOT during the day.

Thank goodness my sweet hubster has worked so hard at getting the pool nice! We have fully begun using the pool...and by "we" I mean Jim, Izzy, and I. Admiral will have no part in water activities. Izzy, on the other hand, has been intrigued from the start and has now become 100% comfortable jumping in after her beloved green Christmas ball, or if we get in...or if she "accidentally" drops her ball in and has to retrieve it (I'm positive she is just trying to save me the trouble of fishing it out). No, really though, she is very good about just going knee-deep unless we say it's ok. But she is so darn cute swimming after that ball that we throw it in for her to cool off anyway.

I am such a proud Momma! She used to be terrified of water (well...everything really, but she has come so far!) I am so happy to know that not only can she swim, she definitely knows where the stairs are in the pool, so I don't have to stress about any accidents! (Not that she stays out of anyones sight for more than like 5 seconds....) Until next time! Xoxo

Home Sweet Home

We made it! Jim and I have been spending the past week starting to get settled in our new home. We arrived last Friday and the work began. Jim's been spending lots of time turning our backyard pond into a pool (it's actually blue now!) and I have been spending lots of time cleaning the house from top to bottom (unfortunately, the renters were less than tidy...plus we had new wood floors finished before we got here, so there was floor dust EVERYWHERE!) But it is looking fabulous now! We are almost box-free and have our bedroom and one guest bedroom (we're about to need it...more on that later!) lookin' good. The office and other guest bedroom are quite another story...but at least we have confined the homeless stuff to certain spaces.



Ok, sorry it's through the screen (didn't want to disturb our visitors, of course) but here is a picture of our BLUE pool! Uhh, by the way, what do you do about ducks living in your pool?  

Last weekend there was a fun little festival in Norfolk called Harborfest. There were "tall ships" (exactly what they sound like) and military vessels from around the world all in the harbor. Plus, we got to see all the other festival things you would ever want - like booths of things you would never buy at a festival (hot tubs!?), quality entertainment (our favorite was the professional yo-yo man) and of course all the fried candy bars you could ever want! We skipped the candy bars, but had a good time wandering around and touring some of the ships!



We're on a boat!

Lots of boats!

This week I had my first solo errand-running adventure! I just am not used to getting on the interstate (or highways, or any big roads for that matter....) to go anywhere except out of town. Now I get on them just to go to Target!! Geez! I am thinking I may have to have a post-it with exit number reminders for all of the important places (Chick-fil-A, Target, dog parks, etc.). Anyway, my trip probably was twice as long as it should have been with all of my wrong turns and shopping center confusion. Not to mention that the "blinds specialists" at Lowe's took 4 employees over an hour to put in my blinds order (I don't think they had ever done it before). Luckily, there was a Marshall's right across from Lowe's so I could have a little retail therapy after all the blinds confusion (I tried to make it just for house stuff, I promise!)

Last night, Jim's friend, Abby, was in town so we had a fun dinner with her and her boyfriend. Our other newly married couple friends who also just moved from PC, Nicky and Levi, and another Navy friend, Edwin also got to come. It is so nice to have people we (ok, actually Jim) know here in town! I am especially excited to have a girlfriend to go shopping and decorate with, because Jim is less than excited about our frequent Bed, Bath, & Beyond trips, and Nicky is having the same trouble with Levi...weird, right?

Up next on our fun radar is the Dave Matthews Band concert tomorrow night! More importantly, Tiffany & Kris are coming to go with us AND will be our very first house guests! I am so so excited to be living close enough for a weekend trip. This will be the closest my sister and I have lived in over 10 years! More on the concert next week...for now I've got some furniture rearranging to do while jamming to DMB in preparation for tomorrow! Yay!


Next Stop: Portsmouth!

This week Jim and I have had a great time hanging out in Georgia with friends and family! We got into Marietta Saturday night after saying goodbye to my parents & grandmother in Panama City. It didn't take long for the adventures to begin though...I started noticing sparks followed by flying black chunks coming from the U-Haul trailer and sure enough, one of the tires had blown while Jim was driving. Thankfully, we were able to pull off at an exit and we were only about 45 minutes away from Jim's Mom's house - our destination. It was late at night, so Jim sent me home with the pups while he waited for the repair. All went well though and we all made it to Marietta safe and sound!

Sunday and Monday we got to visit with Jim's sister Kate & her husband Tate in their town of Dalton. They cooked Thai food for us (their specialty, so good!) and we went to a little festival downtown. They have three dogs of their own, so it was quite the zoo at their house with our two added! One of their dogs, Beans, is Izzy's long lost twin, so it's fun to watch them play together!

Izzy and her twin, Beans (Izzy's on the right!)

Over the next few days, we visited some friends (and saw their new little ones!) and had a beverage day of tours at the World of Coca Cola and Sweetwater Brewery in Atlanta. We had to get our Sweetwater fill before we make it to Virginia since they don't sell it there! We also hiked Kennesaw Mountain, which is a historic little spot that was the site of a Civil War battle and is conveniently located right behind Mom's house! Izzy was already a pro at the Kennesaw Mountain hike, but we took Addy this time, and he had a great time too. I think Jim underestimates his athletic ability :) 

Jim and Admiral at the top of Kennesaw Mountain

Izzy and I taking a break on the way up

Today we set off for Virginia and made it to Durham, North Carolina before stopping at a hotel for the night. We want to be all rested up and ready to start settling in when we arrive in Portsmouth tomorrow! As of tomorrow I will be a Virginia resident!

The Big Move!

The day has come...not like we had to wait long, it's only our two-week-aversary! The movers are here and packing up Jim and I's things for the move to Virginia. The plan right now is that the truck will get there in about two weeks, so we also have a U-Haul so we will have a bed and a table (the only important things, right?) and some other necessities like cookware, plenty of clothes & shoes, and of course, dog beds & a few squeaky balls for Izzy in her new big backyard. We will be leaving Panama City this weekend and heading to Georgia to visit some of Jim's family and friends along the way. It will be so fun to see them again without wedding stress and break up the long drive to Virginia too!

Although we've already worked on a lot of updates for our new home from Panama City, there's still plenty to do there and it will be nice to have a blank canvas with not a lot of furniture for a few days. Ok, I'm not completely thrilled about a week of being furnitureless and having limited outfit options, but it's all part of the adventure! Our first project is new blinds for sure, but I have a feeling I'll be getting pretty acquainted with the Lowe's staff for lots of other house projects that will come up. I am so excited to be able to start using all of our fabulous wedding gifts (thanks, yall!) and decorating rooms and making a little garden and meeting the neighbors and so many more things! I just can't wait to see our new house (yes, I haven't even seen it in person yet haha!) and start making a home with Jim and the puppies!