Going Home

    This week has gone by at a sloth's pace, because all week I have been looking forward to Friday. Tomorrow at 1:30 we board the plane that will bring us home for two short weeks. I plan to spend the next two weeks soaking up the sun, relaxing with my family, friends and snuggling up with my niece and nephew. While I am so grateful for the opportunities Keith and I have had because of our jobs, I won't miss it even once during the time that I am home. 

                              Since January of this year we have:

Slept in our own bed less than 30 times

Been in the air for a total of 57,000 miles

Been to Orlando, Naples, Boston, NYC, Connecticut, Maine, Cancun, St. Thomas & the BVI

Missed our friends and family more times than I can count, but I plan to make up for this starting tomorrow

~xoxo,

Brittany b. 

 

Life in the fast lane

    I haven't blogged in 4 months. I've been a busy, busy girl! Summer has flown by for me. I have spent almost all of my summer working, but did get the chance to take two fantastic trips. Our first trip was to the USVI. It was very last minute. Keith and I knew we had 5 days off and had originally planned to go home, but then realized that those 5 days could be are only days off this summer! We decided to make it a true vacation and immediately started planning. Keith wanted to go to Mexico. I wanted to go somewhere amazing! We went back and forth for a while, and then decided to look at the most convenient flights from New England. St. Thomas was the best bet and I'm so glad we picked it! I don't think I'll ever forget all the fun we had there and the memories we made.

     My favorite part of the trip was taking a boat out for the day (which we actually did twice.) We were able to tour the BVI, and even went to Sandy Spit (the little island where the corona commercials are filmed.) The second time we took the boat out we had no agenda and no time constraints, we spent the whole day snorkeling and drinking painkillers (St. Thomas' signature drink). Our vacation went by way to fast!

    Our second summer trip was to Addison, Maine to visit Keith's 97 year old great grandmother "Gigi."  Addison is a small town and if you don't have any lobster traps out I guess there isn't much to do! We picked blueberries; I spent a lot of time watching Keith and his brother fly model airplanes. I really enjoyed listening to Gigi's stories and spending time with Keith's family. 

   Keith and have our last day here in Connecticut on Friday, and then we start our next project right outside of Las Vegas. I'm very excited to see a new city and explore Nevada. Then in October we go to Central California to finish out the project. 

    I really cannot believe how quickly this year is going by! My niece and nephew are growing so quickly. Every time I go home I feel like Lauren has learned so much while I've been gone!  My sister starts college in a week which seems so strange to me. I don't know how she grew up so fast. I swear that just yesterday she was running around the house in her "dress up" clothes and playing with my makeup. (That might have really been yesterday ;) My dad turns 50 this year, which really isn't so old anymore... I think that this all means I *might* be a grown up. 

~xoxo, 

Brittany B.

I'm a complete slacker...

    It's been over a month since I sat down to blog anything, but a lot has happened since then! Keith and I have visited NYC again, been to Boston, and took a one day vacation to Mexico. I am having such a good time traveling around, and am so lucky that I get to do it with my best friend. The only downsides to our job is that we miss our friends and family terribly, and we never really have time to rest! Unless you count the time we spend sleeping on the airplane... Keith managed to snag some terrible pictures of me asleep on the flight back from Mexico. The people in the row behind us got a nice laugh out of it. (Our work schedule are terrible, and we only know what we are working for a week at a time, which makes it very hard to book flights home. Some days we work 1-9, other days we work 7-5 and we sleep whenever we find time.)

     I do miss my family and friends more than they know! The last time I was home my dear friend Amy happened to be in town, and we split a shift at the hospital. I enjoyed seeing all of my work-friends that I haven't seen in forever. I caught up on all the local gossip too! We also got to spend an entire day with some of our friends at the town center, which we haven't gotten to do in lonnngggg time. We also spent time with my family and got a chance to meet and snuggle with my new nephew, Jacob.

New Baby Jacob

Had ice cream with Karli

Fished with Jenna and Addie

Keith caught a fish!

We saw dolphins very close to the boat!

Being silly with Lauren

   Mexico was so much fun in such a short amount of time. Keith and I were only there for 24 hours, and we managed to spend about 5 hours on the beach, 2 hours wandering around downtown, have dinner at Ruth's Chris, and top it off with dessert at the Ritz. Our view from the room was beautiful!

The Ritz Carlton Cancun!

 Now I have to run back to work, but hopefully I am back on the blog bandwaggon for a little while!

~xoxo, Britt

 
 

Life in pictures

Sometimes life does get to busy to take the time to write about it - no matter how much fun you're having. I'm not complaining, I know I'm blessed. Right now my day consist of working 8-5, stopping by the hotel and then going to the gym, around 8:30 I shower, return emails, work some more, 10ish - catch up onlife, laundry, etc. and go to bed around midnight. The weekends are spent travelling home, so it doesn't leave a lot of free time. 


To catch up on blogging, here's a glimpse of life in pictures...

We had a absolute blast in NYC!!

NYC

NYC

Here's a few from my trip home over the weekend...

Beach Day

Pepper's Date

Baby Kisses!

Blooming in CT

Blooming....at night

 That's all for now, I'm hoping that things settle down a bit soon!

xoxo, Brittany B.

Nashville Star

   Last weekend Keith and I flew to Nashville unexpectedly for a funeral. Nashville had never been on my radar as a place I wanted to visit, but we thought we would take the opportunity to explore the city for a day before the funeral. We were looking for something fun and not overly "touristy" to do. I had no interest in the Country Music Hall of fame and I'm pretty sure I would have had to drag Keith in kicking and screaming. We spent the day wandering around the city, and lucked up with amazing tickets to see Keith Urban at the Grand Ole Opry on Friday night. We skipped the 1st hour of the show because we didn't know the performers and thought we might hate it...

Delightful!

     Surprisingly, Keith enjoyed the concert so much that he bought front row tickets for us to go back the very next night to see Brad Paisley & Luke Bryan! He brought his cousins Philip & Abby along too. Abby & I had an awesome time, she touched Luke Bryan 3 times and was so excited about it. We took so many videos and pictures with our regular camera, but all you get is the crappy iPhone pictures :p

You can't see that Luke Bryan is behind us b/c of the lights :(

Love me some Brad Paisley...

Keith & I before the Opry

     We didn't get in from the concert until very late, somehow we managed to get a flat tire on the way home... The next morning we had to get up early to get ready for Keith's uncles funeral. His uncle was only 59 and passed away of stomach cancer (it's actually his second cousin, but he was more like an uncle) Funerals are always so terribly sad...a few words that the pastor said really stuck with me. He said that Keith's uncle had an infectious enthusiasm for life and that people were drawn to him because of it. Keith is exactly the same way! Of course, we were reminded to never take one second of life for granted. After leaving the funeral we headed directly back to the airport, but I did make Keith slow down to snap a picture of the beautiful Dogwood trees that were in bloom everywhere!

Beeeeeeeeeaaauuutttiiifffuuullllll

   And of course, you need a goodbye kiss picture....

smooch!

   We got exciting news today that we are soon getting a nephew from my baby brother. We have been waiting for weeks to find out what they are having. 


   Tomorrow is the day we have been waiting for... NEW YORK! Keith booked an amazing room with a terrace and I COULD. NOT. BE. MORE. EXCITED! I'll be boring you with those pictures very soon!
~xoxo, Brittany B.
  

Mystic Pizza

Baby,  it's cold outside!

    It started with a few tiny snowflakes... It may be hard to tell in the picture above, but the snow was just starting to fall. Keith and I had been waiting for this moment since the day we arrived in Connecticut. We had already warned our co-workers that if it started snowing we would be making frequent trips outside. True to our word when we looked out the window and saw snow we immediately went outside. At first I was worried that the snow wouldn't stick, but it eventually started to. We went back to work and peeked out every so often to check on the progress. As soon as I saw that there was a layer of white on the ground we bundled up and headed out again.

White jacket...White snow :)

    At this point it really started to snow, and we were so happy! People in the hospital thought we were nuts... I was acting like a kid on Christmas and Keith was thrilled. After a few minutes of this there was enough snow to make a baby snowman.

 

    Then I got hungry....

NOM NOM NOM

    And then we kissed!

SMOOCH!

    We left work and went to Target where we found sleds for $2. We found the nearest hill and acted like kids in elementary school. We sledded and made snow angels and froze because we didn't have proper snow attire. It was so so so soooooooo much fun.

   For the weekend, we were supposed to go to NYC. We found out that it was going to be nasty weather and we decided to postpone that trip and go somewhere closer instead. There really isn't a lot to do in CT so we picked a town on the coast and headed that way. We wound up in Mystic, CT which is actually and adorable town. There was a cute area with shops that reminded me of Center St. back home. We managed to find plenty of souvenirs for Lauren :)

In downtown Mystic...

    If you look closely you can see the tiny signs above out heads, this was in the downtown area. We had lunch at Mystic Pizza, which is actually the same Mystic Pizza that the movie was filmed at. I didn't even know there was such a movie, but I now intend to watch it. (It has to be good, right? Julie Roberts is in it...) The pizza was absou-freakin'=loutely delicious.

Delish!

     This weekend we are hoping to go to NYC if the weather is decent. I can't wait to spend some time in Central Park. Keith is really excited about getting a hotdog from a street vendor...


    That's all for now!
~xoxo, Brittany

Here & There & Everywhere

   Today is my first day back at work after my fun weekend home. Our plane arrived in Orlando on Thursday and we had to drive to Fernandina. We got home so late that we didn't have a chance to see anyone! 

Flying over Florida

    I was super happy that I was babysitting Lauren on Friday. I soooo look forward to my time with her. Keith and I took her to Target and she insisted on walking by loudly yelling, "WALK!" until we put her down. She is at the age where she repeats single words and will answer you when you ask her "What does a frog say" so I am trying to teach her to say "I love you" when you ask her "What does Aunt Brittany" say. So far she only has the "I" down.

I ain't smiling for nobody!

Ok...maybe one smile

   Friday night Keith and I were able to watch Karli and Lauren and they had the best time together! We threw them in the bathtub and they took turns dumping water on each others heads.

 Splash!

    Late Friday night I drove back to Orlando for work and Hannah came with me. She stayed at the hotel all day Saturday and read a book. (Big Surprise) Saturday night after work we went to Crispers for dinner and then came back to the hotel to do our couch-to-5k run. Hannah managed to slip on the treadmill about 2 minutes into the run. I laughed so hard when she fell that I had to recover for 5 minutes before I could run again!

Hannah taking a break...

Sweaty, but happy!

    Sunday Hannah came to the hospital with me because my shift was so short. We had fun checking out the Disney Pavilion.

The Little Mermaid was my favorite when I was growing up!

I wanna be like you-ooo-ooo

 

    After my shift on Sunday we drove back to Fernandina and Keith & I had dinner at Pepper's with our friends and then visited my cousins. Whitney & BJ are used to stopping by my aunt's house after our Pepper's dates and my family loves seeing Karli!

Me & Jenna

Having a stroke I think...

Lots of girls!

    Monday after a hair appointment and accountant appointment we had lunch at Barbara Jean's with family. I bribed Lauren by taking her outside on the deck which she loves!

BAD picture of me, but look how Lauren is laughing!

Blurry but beautiful!

All the ladies after lunch

    Monday afternoon was spent hanging out with my family and squeezing in as much time with them as we could! We got a little silly and snapped a few family pictures.

As close to a smile as you'll ever get from my dad

Snuggling on the couch

Jared took this picture and cropped off my head!

Tutus are perfectly acceptable on Mondays

    I actually cried when we got in the car to leave for the airport. I won't be home again until the last weekend in March. I'll miss my family so much! Lauren came outside to wave goodbye to us.

Bye Bye Britt Britt!

On our connecting flight from Baltimore to Connecticut we ate at a diner that had a mini jute-box you could play at your booth.

    The flight had WiFi so I was able to FaceTime Hannah from the plane!

Hi Hannah

    Today we got back to business at the hospital, but since there are so many pictures in this post I decided to snap one more of Keith & I working.

I do love this boy

   I know this post is short on words, but it's late and I'm off to do my couch-to-5K run! Until next time...

~xoxo, Brittany B.