8995 Lake Drive

Since, I am limited in how many pictures I can send in email I am putting all the pictures that I took here. The house is on a corner lot, we are having the basement finished. It will have 3 bedrooms upstairs and a 4th downstairs along with a rec room and bathroom.


Living Room


Back deck from the kitchen


Master bathroom


Master bedroom


Laundry room


Guest bathroom upstairs


One of the spare bedrooms


View from the stairs into the office/den/formal dining room


Front door


Mud room (entrance from garage)


Living room


Kitchen


Half bath on main floor


View up from the front door



Front of the house

Thanksgiving in Hastings, NE

Luke and I traveled to Hastings, NE to spend Thanksgiving with the Albertson’s. We stayed at Stephanie and Matt’s house and had a great time. The weather was fantastic this year, and we even ate our Thanksgiving meal outside (we had delicious ribs and wonderful sides, compliments of Matt and Kathy). Stephanie made Luke’s favorite green bean casserole and we can’t forget Stove Top. Luke was able to go to the race track and drive John’s Porsche; I believe that was a highlight for him.  We also had our Albertson Christmas gift exchange, which is always fun. Luke takes the cake with his new Iowa State sweater. Other than that we spent our time visiting, sitting on their back patio, watching football, and eating until we could eat no more.


Sarah gave us some great advice before taking a picture, you're supposed to think to yourself "I feel a little bit pretty". Above is the result of our experiment. You can be the judge.


Since the weather was so nice, we spent a lot of time enjoying Stephanie and Matt's new patio. Nothing like quality time while on your smart phone.


Luke's new sweater...I think it's pretty cool.

Anniversary Trip to San Diego

Luke and I celebrated three years of marriage with a long weekend getaway to San Diego, CA. Neither one of us have been to Southern California, and figured it was a good time to go. We flew there on Thursday evening and flew back Monday afternoon. We spent Friday exploring the Gaslamp District and shopping, it rained off and on all day, but we made the best of it and had a lot of fun. Saturday, we got a rental car and drove to Mission Beach for a late lunch. After spending some time walking around on the Mission Beach boardwalk we drove to Torrey Pines National State Park. It was by far my favorite part of the trip. We went hiking on several of the trails and captured some beautiful pictures. Saturday night we went to a really fun Mexican restaurant called Funky Garcia’s. If anyone is in the Gaslamp District, I highly recommend this restaurant. Fun atmosphere and delicious delicious food! Sunday, we had another relaxing day. We took a long walk along the Bay and then went to a sports bar to watch the Bengals play. Below are a few pictures from the trip.


The Bay we walked around


Torrey Pines National Park

Lily

Lily is our anti-social, somewhat psychotic, but very intelligent dog. This past Monday we had quite the morning. Luke has taken a consulting job with Encore, so he flies to Philadelphia super early on Monday mornings. Leaving Lily and I to go through our normal Monday morning routine, which involves me letting her out prior to getting in the shower and letting her back in after make-up has been applied but before I have dried my hair. This past Monday, our lawn service came early so Lily had to stay inside until they were gone. After they left, I let her out and got in the shower. I had Pandora streaming, it was a good little morning. Got out of the shower applied my make-up, brushed my teeth, possibly sang into my hairbrush, and decided it was time to let Lily back in. With my robe on and hair pulled up in a towel, I opened the back door and called her name. She usually comes bounding from somewhere in the yard and I can’t always see her. She didn’t come right away, so I went ahead and used her kryptonite word “treat” this ALWAYS does the trick. Still…no Lily…I started to panic a little and walked as far as I could bare foot without going in the cold, wet grass. I didn’t see here anywhere. I ran back in the house put on clothes (t-shirt and shorts) and flip flops and came back out. Took 3 steps into the yard so I could see the gate, and realized the lawn service guy had left the gate open.

FREEDOM for Lily, and panic/stress for Alex…I walked down our drive way calling her name and couldn’t see her anywhere. I called Luke, but his phone was still off since he was flying. I ran back in the house, grabbed her collar along with my keys and started the search. I slowly drove up and down the streets in our neighborhood, asked people walking if they had seen a brown dog, and called her name. I finally got Luke on the phone and I was a bit upset to say the least. I decided that I need to check Atlanta Highway, even though the thought of it made me nauseous. We live one house in from a very busy 4 lane, 60 mph highway. I figured if she ventured out there, I can only expect the worse. I drove about a mile each way, and no Lily. This made me very happy. I decided to check our neighborhood again. After about an hour of searching for her I decided to come home and figure out the next plan of action. (I was not as calm as this is sounding). I pull into the drive way and there is Lily in our neighbor’s front yard. I was elated and mad at the exact same moment. If you know Lily, the next part is the worse. She loves the game chase (which we will not teach our next dog). Long story short, I can’t catch this dog, and my empty promises of “walks, car rides, treats, and trips to the park” are not working. Luke calls our friend Travis and he comes over with his dog, Sam. After another 15 or 20 minutes we were finally able to get Sam in the house and Lily followed. Phew...what an exhausting morning. The lawn service people received a wonderful email and call from Luke.


She only looks cute and innocent...

Weekend in Ohio

This past weekend we went back to Ohio to visit family. Friday, we spent a lot of time at Grandpa and Grandma Chaney’s house. We sat and visited and reminisced on different things that have happened in the past, talked about why Grandpa stopped smoking. It’s kind of a cute story; he quit smoking because he doesn’t like paying taxes and decided this was one tax he didn’t have to pay. This went into effect January 1st, so he smoked up until then, but after that New Year’s Eve he quit cold turkey. After our visit with them, we drove to Fort Loramie and met Dad and Ann at the German Festival. It was fun and Luke was able to enjoy some yummy German beers and food. The potato soup was to die for! Saturday we spent the day watching Amy tear it up on the volleyball court. Saturday night we had a lovely dinner with Mom, Grandpa and Grandma Hoying at Outback Steakhouse. Another great visit with Grandparents where we reminisced on past events, shared stories, and talked about the different happenings in our family. Sunday, unfortunately, Luke and I had to travel back to good ole Alabama.

Last Beach Trip of the Summer?

One of the only advantages of living in Montgomery, Alabama is the fact that we are 3hours from the beach. Two weekends ago, Luke and I decided to take advantage of this and spent 3 days in Destin, FL, one of our absolute favorite places on the Gulf. We had a fun and relaxing time. Since I spend so much time in Birmingham, I have a lot of hotel points, so every time we venture down there we use my Hilton Honor points and our hotel room is free! I would say this was probably our most fun visit to Destin. Friday, we spent the day on the beach and the weather was perfect. It wasn’t too hot, and there was a nice breeze. Friday night we decided to have a date night and went to Ruth Chris. It was absolutely wonderful, we had a saxophone player serenading the crowd who was very good, and the food was amazing as per usual. Saturday, we got up and drove to Fort Walton; they have a lot of fun restaurants on the beach. We parked along the boardwalk and spent a few hours on the beach and when we had had enough, went to one of the fun seaside restaurants, sat on the deck in the shade and listened to the waves. It was especially nice because they were broadcasting all the college football games. Saturday night we went to Howl at the Moon, a dueling piano bar. (I love dueling piano bars!).This one was a lot of fun because they played more instruments then just the pianos, and they did fun routines. Sunday, we decided we wanted a few more hours on the beach since the weather had been so wonderful. We spent another hour and half relaxing on the beach, came back to the room, got ready and went to the outlets before we headed back home. We didn't take many pictures from this weekend, I guess that's what happens when you have a really good time.

A few key highlights from the weekend; I stepped on a dead jellyfish, when Luke told me I was standing on said jellyfish I screamed and jumped, naps everyday (key!), I almost fell off the elliptical in the hotel gym, Luke’s great idea to get a bottle of Captain Morgan to spike our Diet Pepsi’s from Taco Bell (ha-ha!) while sitting on the beach, and Luke of course, doing pull-up’s any chance he could in the hotel.


Jellyfish! Yuck


Luke and I are a little red...we bought sunscreen after the second day.

Attempting Paleo

Luke has been doing Crossfit consistently since January/February of this year. He has started to see a lot of positive results. Along with Crossfit they recommend doing Paleo or a caveman type diet. I like to think of it as a less stringent Adkins diet. We decided this past weekend we would start to slowly transition. We’re not going to take it seriously or cut any major food groups from our diet, but wanted to try and eat 70 – 80% Paleo. This past Saturday was our first full meal. We made homemade meatballs and homemade marinara sauce. It was DIVINE! We have always wanted to make our own marinara sauce and finally took the time this past weekend. We even bought a bigger food processor for the chore. Alex is working a conversion for the next 2 weeks, which tends to make dieting a little difficult. She sits in a room full of cookies, chips, pop, candy, etc. anything you could possibly imagine, but is trying her best despite her surroundings. Here’s to a healthier Albertson household!


A picture of the our delicious dinner!

Lake Martin, AL

I thought I should do a post on the lake Luke and I have spent a lot of time this summer. It’s located in Equality, AL about 45 minutes from our house in Montgomery. Our friend Kevin has a boat there and we have been out on the lake several times this summer. It’s a very clean man-made lake created and maintained by Alabama Power. We usually leave our house in the morning and get there by 11:00, load the boat, and spend the day either riding around or swimming near Chimney Rock. It’s a pretty big rock where boats gather, and people climb up on the rock and jump off. Luke actually jumped off “Chicken” rock a few weeks ago, which is a little shorter than Chimney Rock. Around 2:00 – 3:00 we frequent Chuck’s marina, which is a really great pizza place! Below are various pictures that have been taken during our weekends spent at the lake.

Weekend Update

Luke and I spent a lot of the past weekend traveling. We flew into Kansas City, MO drove to Hastings, NE to visit Luke’s family (Stephanie, Matt, Saylor, and Tagg Pershing). We had a wonderful visit with a few HOME cooked meal s– always a big win for me. We got a grand tour of Hastings, NE and spend the evening talking and catching up. It was a really fun visit. The next day we drove to Salina, KS for Katie and Regan’s wedding. Katie and Regan are good friends of ours from Kansas City, and we met while I was still with Cerner. Here are a few pictures from our adventures this past weekend.


The newly weds! Congrats Katie and Regan!


Luke and I at the wedding


Windmill we saw while driving....either in Nebraska or Kansas


Luke trying to figure out how we're going to get to Hastings.


Flooding on the way to Hastings, NE

29 on the 29th

I was pretty excited for my birthday this year, for a few reasons. 1. It’s my last year in my 20’s 2. It was my golden birthday 3. We were going to be in the country to celebrate (as awesome as last year celebrating in Croatia, it’s always nice to hear from family and friends on the actual day. I spent my actual birthday in Birmingham and went out to dinner with co-workers and friends to Slice, followed by a few drinks at a local fav…Dave’s. Thursday morning I drove back to Montgomery where Luke and I left for a long weekend in Destin. We had so much fun. Thursday night, we met up with some friends from Montgomery and had dinner and went out to listen to some live music on the water. The rest of the weekend we spent relaxing on the beach, shopping, eating, and drinking until our hearts were content. Such a wonderful trip, it sure made coming back to work tough today.

Quick Update

Here’s a quick update from the Albertson household. We were supposed to go skydiving, back in April but the day we were scheduled to go, it was too windy. We have since rescheduled and I will post pictures afterwards. Alex had a fun girls’ weekend in Vegas. Went to a show, went shopping, and spent time with some of her girlfriends from KC. This past weekend Luke and I went to Boston for a weekend getaway. Boston is a beautiful city with lots of history, and it’s super clean. It’s probably one of my favorite cities I have ever been to. This coming weekend we are headed down to New Orleans for Jazz Fest. One of Alex’s friends at work lives there, so we’ll be spending time with them and another friend and his wife from work. It should be a good time! Other than that we are both gearing up for conversions at work and in a few short weeks Ann’s high school graduation and Ashley and Matt’s wedding!

Warm weather is here!

I haven’t done that well with the monthly updates, good thing I have a couple of days left before April. February and March really flew by for us, we had a lot of different things going on and it was all very fun! Alex flew to Chicago to celebrate Ashley’s Bachelorette Party and it was a great time. The highlight of the trip was seeing The Blue Man Group and spending quality time with sisters. Kirsten came to visit the following weekend, which is always a good time. Kirsten makes us go on all sorts of “adventures” in Montgomery. Highlights include; Key Largo right outside the Air Force Base. We were the youngest patrons by eh…let’s call it 25 – 30 years, not necessarily my idea of a good time, but the experience was worth it. We also went to Jasmine Hill Gardens on Sunday afternoon, it was BEAUTIFUL! It’s always an interesting time with Kirsten.






This year for St. Patrick’s Day we took the Harriet (a steamboat) down the Alabama River. It was a dinner cruise with green beer and a deejay. It was a lot of fun and something I am looking forward to doing again. This coming weekend we are planning on driving down to the beach. One of our goals this year is to take advantage of living less than 3 hours away from the Gulf. Alex has a ton of Hilton points so it makes the stay really cheap, just a tank of gas! Totally worth every penny for a couple of days of sitting on the beach and outlet shopping!

Welcome 2011...Here We Go...

I am going to try and be a better blogger this year, with at least an update once a month. A few key highlights since the last blog post:

August: Celebrated my Grandma and Grandpa’s 50th Wedding anniversary.

September: Luke and I visited Kirsten and Megan in Chicago. Joshua was able to come up for a night as well, what a great time.

September: Luke completed his MBA program!

November: Ann and Amy’s volleyball team took state. (Lehman Catholic Cavaliers) I was able to make it back for the big event!

November: Luke and I went to Nashville to celebrate 2 years of marriage. We had a great time shopping and dining in downtown Nashville.

November: Traveled to Hastings, NE to celebrate Thanksgiving with Luke’s family. It had been a long time since we have spent time with them. It was absolutely wonderful.

December: Took a last minute trip to New York City, it was absolutely amazing!

December: Traveled back to Ohio to celebrate a WHITE Christmas with my family. It was fun to relax, visit with family, eat a lot of delicious food, sit by the fire, and watch football.

January: We rang in the New Year with Kirsten; she came to Montgomery to visit. It was a good time, per usual.

Here's to a happy, healthy, and wonderful New Year....with some more blog posts!