Friday Five

1.  It was so cold today that my parking brake froze this morning.  While I could release the lever, the brake stayed clamped to the tires.  I couldn't drive the car, so Aaron came back home, I took him to work then I went to work.  The internet tells me my mustang isn't the first mustang to suffer this misfortune.

2.  It's Triangle Restaurant Week!  Tonight a few girlfriends and I are going to try out Bolt Bistro downtown.  Restaurant week isn't really a deal - $30 for 3 courses, when I usually spend $30 on dinner anyways for entree + drinks, but hey it'll be fun and I rarely order dessert!

3.  Matouk Bedding

Y'all, I moved into a total bachelor pad.  I had little furniture of my own because I lived with my parents for most of medical school and I lived in a dorm in college.  So this means there's so much work to done!  Money isn't exactly flowing since we're saving up for South Africa, also I'm trying to be financially responsible and max out my Roth IRA for 2013 (you can contribute up until taxes are filed).  Aaron and I were married in April and I didn't start work until July.  So it will probably be until this summer that I can think about splurging on this bedding.  And the matching monogrammed pillows

in navy, of course!

4.  Elie Saab Couture 2014

Love these dresses.  I've been watching a few of the couture shows this week.  Who can forget Blaire's Elie Saab wedding dress?

I miss these girls.

5. What's been on our dinner table - Monday I cooked mussels!  It was surprisingly easy.  The secret is just making a really good broth, then plop the mussels in, after a few minutes they'll steam and open right up.  I used the recipe below which was a good base, but I think it could have been a bit more flavorful.  Practice makes perfect.

Maggiano's Copycat Mussels

South Africa Bound

At Duke, interns are alloted 4 weeks of vacation, given in 2 one week blocks and 1 two week block.  My two weeks off are at the end of April and Aaron and I definitely didn't want to spend two weeks just twiddling our thumbs.  So we decided to go to South Africa!

Why we choose South Africa
-I've never been out of the country and Aaron's been as far as Mexico.  We wanted somewhere that would only have a small language barrier, since we don't have too much experience
-the dollar is still strong there.  Hallelujah! It is cheaper to stay in Cape Town than it is to stay in most American cities.  Bed  & Breakfasts are really strong there and they are usually $100/night.  The hotels we are looking at cost around $140/night.
-It's beautiful!!! and filled with so much culture.  We definitely plan to go to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years out of the 27 he served.

One of our big plans is to go on a Safari!  We are going to stay at a few nights a game lodge in Kruger National Park.  The lodge takes you on 2 rides a day, as well as some walks.  It's very much like a hotel and they prepare all of your meals for you.  I don't do a good job with roughing it, so this works very well for me!

Naledi Game Lodge, where we have decided to stay

All of the reviews said the food was fabulous.  Everyday they go all out! Here's the breakfast first course.

The room's range from simple to luxurious - we picked a simple room to be on the wallet friendly side.  Rooms are just for sleeping anyway!  Naledi is quite small and divded into 2 camps.  Our camps, Bushbank, houses 8 people max and I think the other can hold up to 12.  I'm really excited.  Some of the animals you can expect to see are elephants, rhinos, buffaloes and lions.  Of course there's much more than that to see.  Here are some photos guests have taken from Tripadvisor

This photo of Naledi Bushcamp and Enkoveni Camp is courtesy of TripAdvisor



This photo of Naledi Bushcamp and Enkoveni Camp is courtesy of TripAdvisor



This photo of Naledi Bushcamp and Enkoveni Camp is courtesy of TripAdvisor
Wild dogs! This one is actually a little scary!



This photo of Naledi Bushcamp and Enkoveni Camp is courtesy of TripAdvisor

OMG I'm so excited!!!

After we spend a few days at Naledi, we plan to go to Cape Town for about 5 nights, followed by 2 or 3 nights in Wine Country.  South African wine is said to the best in the world, and if you know Aaron he loves wine.  Also, our friends own a fabulous wine shop, The Wine Feed, in Raleigh and said they'd call some of their distributors and have them welcome us. :-)  It will be a very boozy end to a fabulous trip!  I'm definitely going to choose a more luxurious place to stay for the last leg of our trip.  I'll post more pictures of our travel plans soon.  Let me know if you have any recommendations about where to stay in Cape Town or Wine Country!

#jammies&champagne

On New Years Eve my friends and I weren't quite sure what to do.  We were hesitant to go out - I can party every other night of the year, but New Years it's triple the cost?  We had nothing to wear.  So we decided to have a casual pajama party at my house.  The party was a success.  Most of the girls ending up wearing leggings.  We had some party crashers who showed up as well and they made the night pretty memorable.  And as always, Diddy was present.

Aaron bought superman pajamas for the occasion

the girls

our party crashers

dancing with Diddy

and sabering champagne to brin in the New Year

Hope y'all had a great New Year too!  Some of my resolutions are to go bed by 11:30, to be on time, to work out at least twice a week.  Yeah they're pretty much everyone's resolutions.  Aaron stated that he would like to work out more together, which is also nice.  I also hope to blog more!  take care y'all!

New Year, New Blog

Welcome!  I've decided to move our family blog from wordpress to blogger.  Wordpress is amazing, but unfortunately you have to be more of tech geek to fully take advantage of all of it's features.  I wanted something simple and easy, so over to blogger I go.

Also, if you didn't know, I have a few blogs and will be consolidating them:
 laurensbox.blogspot.com This blog used to be my personal blog and then turned into my wedding planning blog.  I will no longer be blogging on it.  Instead I will direct people here as well as to my tumblr for the girly stuff.

http://laurensbox.tumblr.com/ This is my tumblr and where my mind plays.  It's mostly fashion and beauty.

Where you are now is the site Aaron and I will use to docment our good times and share with our friends and family.

Expect more changes to come!  I have a new camera, so photo quality should increase by 1000x. :-) I hope the New Year is treating you all well.

Auld Lang Syne

Christmas was pretty sweet.  It was our first married Christmas and I think that both of our families did everything they possibly could to make Aaron and I feel accepted.  It's definitely hard to spend the holidays away from your family - you see the memories and good times everyone around you shares and sometimes you don't really know how to participate.  I think every year it's gets easier and easier and you begin to have your own memories together and old jokes you share.  Embraces grow from awkward to genuine and parting words sound less rehearsed.  It definitely takes time but we are getting there!  We spent Christmas morning with my family and then spent Christmas evening through Saturday with Aaron's family in Gastonia.  Both Aaron and I like to give big for Christmas and we both surprised and thrilled the other.  I gave Aaron a pair of Allen Edmond's Park Avenues.   He loves his Allen Edmond's from the wedding, which are brown, so I knew getting him a pair of the same designer in black would be perfect.  Aaron gave me a fabulous camera, the Canon HX50V.  It's a really nice point and shoot camera that takes super crisp photos.  It's automatic modes are amazing for people like me who want to take pictures in low lighting but are not comfortable working with iso and shutter speeds yet.  I love it!  Plus it connects to wifi, so I can push photos I take to my camera or computer.  Awesome.  I also really enjoyed shopping for my family and friend's this year.  Being married I felt that we could no longer write our names on gifts our mothers buy. :-)  It was fun and we kept it cost conscious too.

Here are some things we're looking forward to in the New Year

-I opened a Roth IRA and am happily saving for retirement

-we plan to get the house's interior professionally painted (we tried this on our own, fail)

-we are planning a trip to South Africa this April - so excited!!!

soon we'll post our New Years resolutions.  We hope all is well with you and your family!

Merry Christmas

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

October

So, as promised last week, I am going to blog more.  So that means I need to catch up!!!  Here's what we did in October

Our friends, Nick and Erin, got hitched!

Erin's dress was gorgeous

The band, the Casablanca Orchestra, provided an amazing big band sound with such a classy feel - did you I know I was the one who recommended them to Erin? ;-)

I celebrated Halloween with one of my favorite girls, Robin.  

Hope y'all had a Happy Halloween as well!