A Splash of Baileys: October 2011

We decided we missed all things MSU so we booked a trip home to MI to catch the MSU homecoming game vs. Wisconsin. Flying Sun Country direct from DCA to LAN is amazing, by the way - we highly recommend it! Our plane was full of 20/30 somethings in their Spartan gear doing the same as us - heading home for the game!

Arriving Friday we got to spend some much needed quality time with Meg, Christina, Jimmy and even Nate's parents made it down to meet us for dinner. But it was a long day with an even longer day ahead of it. So we opted out of going out in EL that night and getting to bed at a decent hour. I was so excited that we were there though, I couldn't get to sleep. Nate was really excited to have found Meg's noise cancelling headphones...

Staying with Meg & Momma Lewis meant mimosas were served in bed the next morning with the shouting of "GAMEDAY!!" Got us prepped for a day of tailgating. All we needed was our Katie and we were ready to go!

Nate's friends Ryan & JR had the tailgating spot ready to go like true champs and he was so excited to be reunited with his tailgate buddies. We enjoyed five hours of tailgating fun, mostly the girls challenging the boys to corn hole... and winning!!

JR had some skills!

But so did Meg.

And Katie.

Nate was sure they weren't going to go down without a fight!

Then Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy came on, and Nate & JR gave quite the show!

Aly & Jeff stopped by...

Jeff looked so precious in his MSU gear!!! He's a UofM fan, but not too proud to wear the right colors when he should!

Then Cam & Casey stopped by. It was fun to be at a tailgate with them. During my "tailgating days" they were just my baby brothers. Now to have them old enough to be there felt so strange, but it was great to see them!

Might as well have been twins!

Ryan brought along some fun glasses :)

Clearly Meg had done something shocking!

Reunited tailgate buddies!

Rats, we ran out of Oberon :(

Shenanigans!

Lots happening in this picture, hehe!!

We were out of Oberon and it was nearing game time so Megan, Katie and I started our walk to Dublin to wait for a table to watch the game. We opted out of getting tickets to the game, which considering the outcome we do regret. But we had plenty of fun at Dublin and were SO excited when we were notified that we indeed had a table waiting for us, right by the big screen!

At Dublin, Nate and Matt joined us. Poor Matt. He had been on campus for 3 hours before being able to find us! Our cell phones were having trouble with texts and calls coming through, so we had no idea he was there and he had no idea where we were :( But, he made it to Dublin and just in time for the game to get interesting.

When Matt's around the pipe must come out!

The stress of the game started to get to all of us...

Game faces, obviously.

As well all know, the game ended in a historic way. After a gutsy hail mary, MSU got the W in the last 4 seconds of the game with an unbelievable end zone scramble. There was plenty of yelling, banging the tables, screaming, covering our eyes, and jumping up and down on the benches. Needless to say, we were too excited to take pictures of those exact moments. Surprising ourselves, we were all too wiped out after 13 hours on campus to celebrate anymore than we did. We called it a night shortly after the game, just as the lines outside began to wrap around the streets. What an amazing night, we couldn't be happier that we were there :))

The next day, we needed rest and barely had voices :) Momma Lewis, being the amazing mother that she is to all of us, knew just what we needed - Denny's! She treated us to quite the spread and it was everything we hoped it would be!

Breakfast of champions!

Couldn't leave without seeing little Alaina bug! She is getting so big, I can't believe it. She's crawling, climbing and so ready to talk. I love her to pieces and wish I was able to see her more often.

She didn't remember Nate and wasn't sure she liked him, poor baby!

Take your eyes off her for two seconds and she's on the move :)

As it always does, these trips make us miss our family and friends even more! I was so sad I didn't get to see more family & friends this trip, especially my preggers cousin Jessica! Miss and love you and next time I see you, you will be holding your little man! CANNOT wait!!

We decided there wasn't a better day to have a housewarming party than the day we knew MSU would kick UofM's butt in football! When we chose the date we also started making the to-do list. The list quickly grew over the following week as we started picturing what we wanted to do with each room. But then as we started the projects we realized just how much easier things are said than done! Nate decided to start with mounting the tv in the basement. He was nervous that the mount wouldn't hold and I tried to reassure him it was fine and to just go to bed. The next morning on my way out the door I noticed that he had moved the futon loaded with pillows up to the tv just in case :)

Next, our new couch for the living room and new bed arrived. We were so excited to see things start to come together. But we were still overwhelmed with how complicated some of the other projects were and the extra time it took to work it all out. Hanging the dining light just didn't want to go easily with the wiring all backwards and hooks not holding the weight they stated that they would (yes, this resulted in the fixture falling nearly out of the ceiling but thankfully Nate was there to catch it). Next came changing out the faucet in the main level half bath. Let's just say that was enough of a challenge that Jonathan had to assist just so we wouldn't go crazy and eventually the guys got the stinkin thing out!

The next entertaining mishap was touch up paint. We have several buckets of paint in the basement left over from the sellers so Nate grabbed the one that matched the color in our living room. We assumed this was the same color going up the stairs so we used it there too. After it dried we realized they were NOT the same color...

So now we know every little project takes a LOT more time than we think and that our house is two-toned even though you would never notice unless you tried the paint on every wall. That led us to minimize our original to-do list a significant amount. It was a great lesson that we should take our time with all the things we want to do :)

With all the finishing touches on the house before the party coupled with the excitement of the game and everyone visiting, we completely forgot to take pictures during the party! But we had a blast, cheering on the Spartans as they kicked UofM's butts during the game (4 years in a row baby, woo woo!!). It was great to have people over and we got to get to know our next door neighbors who have two adorable (and energetic) little boys. The house held up well though. Here are a few pics of how we've set up the main rooms so far...