Twice

Two years ago from yesterday, my husband gave me that ring and I haven't taken it off since. Is it weird that when I remembered the date I thought, "oh that was only 2 years ago?" It already feels like we've been together for a lifetime, in the best of ways. It is so crazy to think about all the things that have changed in such a short amount of time. Thank you for loving me so well through these years Keith, I can't wait to celebrate this day and so many more for the rest of our lives!

So if you're feeling as nostalgic as I am, feel free to re-read our engagement story and laugh about how incredibly awkward I am.

Philly Sick

I've been missing our old home a lot recently :( It feels like SO long ago that we secretly packed up all of our things and moved to Nashville. I definitely love our life here in the South, but I've had a hankering for the Northeast these days. It doesn't help that I've been looking through old blog posts from last summer and reminiscing on being tourists and BBQs with friends. Philadelphia is the city where Keith and I grew up. I mean... we didn't spend our childhood there, but that is the first place we ever really lived on our own. We figured out life together there. That is where we got engaged, got our first pet, planned our wedding, bought our first car... it's where we started our FAMILY, where I became Dana Richards. It obviously wasn't all smiles and happiness and we had reasons for leaving that I wouldn't take back, but today I would give anything for a Wawa hoagie, a trip to Sketch with Dan, Aly, Tim and Gil or even just a late night walk down Main St in Manayunk and a stroll on the towpath. It's weird to think that I can't just hop on a bus to New York City on a whim, or plan a last minute drive down to DC to get burgers with friends. Those are things I definitely took for granted while we were there and would love to have back. I feel so far removed from the life we had there and it makes me sad to think that soon it will be just a distant memory, or a story we'll tell our future children about "when we were young". I guess I just wish that we had the time and money to visit more often and feel connected to the place that we called home, but for now I'll be thankful for the 4 days we'll be there this coming November. I LOVE that town, I love that we lived there and that it will forever be part of our identity. Here are some of my favorite Philadelphia moments in no particular order:

Engaged. 12.14.09

Bangs for the first time since I was a child

Favorite burgers.

View of the skyline from the second floor of the art museum. My favorite.

Stoop life.

So much snow I literally couldn't open my eyes haha

Buying Marty!

Revolutionary War battle reenactments! Nerdiest job ever.

Saying goodbye to an old friend (ps-where did those prewedding bodies go! we look so skinny here!)

HENRY! The biggest cat I ever met.

Painting our little bathroom.

Picnics in pretzel park.

The Barnes Collection. I'm still sad they're moving this downtown :/

Rocky statue. 

Our tiny kitchen with no counter space.

Doing touristy things with family.

The zoo!

First Phillies game with Aly and Dan

Buying our bedroom furniture.

The chalkboard wall.

Our magical little neighborhood.

ShopRite (well actually... I don't miss shoprite haha)

Our cozy little living room with the dyed futon cover and makeshift "coffee table".

THE JERSEY SHORE!

First time sledding.

So many drinks in Dan and Aly's backyard.

Fireworks on the 4th with Tim and Gil.

Ruining snowmen.

The RIDICULOUS hills in Manayunk (that's why my butt looked so good haha) 

Chinatown. and the many occasions that I frequented this street the catch the bus to NYC for $10 

Our efforts to cozy up our first apartment together.

Cheesesteaks. Even though I never ate one.

Enjoying time outside with visitors.

Packing it all up.

Our last goodbye. 

120 Ripka St. 

So maybe I teared up just a little. Sorry for the nostalgia overload, I just needed to get that out of my system because it has been weighing on me this week. Regardless of all the things that I've said about it, Philadelphia was good to us, and I can't wait to pay her a visit and say thanks for the good times.

Am I the only one who gets really nostalgic over past homes?

10 Things to Love

Here are some things that made me smile this weekend:

1). Parks and Recreation I'm a little obsessed with this show... one of the only shows on TV right now that I actively look forward to each week (even more than Modern Family!) This season has been absolutely hysterical, I recommend that you get into it.

2). This beautiful summer weather! As much as I'm excited for the sun to finally be showing itself... it's such a tease to live SO far from the beach :( I miss Florida. Here's to being able to wear 90% of my wardrobe though haha this Florida girl has LOTS of sun dresses, shorts and sandals to pull out of the closet. If only my legs weren't such a scary shade of white....

3). Easter Candy I have no idea why, but Easter candy is my absolute favorite. Maybe it's the pastel colored wrappers, or the obvious egg shapes... but there is just something special about the candy they bust out for Easter. I loveeeee robin's eggs, and those magical butterfinger egg things. Even reese's peanut butter cups are better during Easter because when they're shaped like eggs you get way more peanut butter! Mmm Mmm Mmm! Sidenote: as much as I just stated my love for Easter candy... I DO NOT like peeps. Ick.

4). A new hat Last summer I rocked a big floppy hat for maximum sun protection, but I think my go-to this year will be this baby:

via H&M

5). Our new kitchen art We recently ordered some postcards from a local print shop that makes fun posters of all the Nashville hot spots. We can't wait to hang some more in our house but also to send them away to our favorite people :)

You cannot visit Nashville without a trip to Pancake Pantry

6). Baby Sage The boys went out on Friday night to have a cigar and celebrate Isaac being a dad which was the perfect opportunity for me to hang out with Carolyn, Jordie and of course... Sage. She is the prettiest and sweetest little baby :)

7). Spending a day in the park with friends Hopefully the first of many similar afternoons:

8). Finding an awesome Italian Restaurant! The south is known for lots of things but great Italian food doesn't usually top that list. After watching an episode of Diner, Drive Ins and Dives my dad suggested that we try this great local place called Savarinos Cucina and we were definitely not disappointed. It's the kind of family owned place that you would expect to find in NYC which was pretty unexpected and extremely satisfying. My favorite part was their selection of pastries and gelato which made me miss one of my favorite spots in Boca, Sonny's.

9). A clean house It took all day to get there, but our guest room is finally complete (with a queen sized bed and all) and the closest is finally organized and accessible. This was no small feat... but I'm heading to bed with a smugly proud smile on my face (and an incredibly comfy bed thanks to these freshly washed sheets!)

10). Chocolate covered popcorn Need I say more? I had some left over chocolate chips I wanted to get rid of, and wasn't in a baking mood so melted them and smothered it over a bowl of popcorn. It was utterly delightful and took like 3 minutes (plus another 10 to harden in the fridge... which was fine because we still needed to digest our dinner haha)

The theme of our weekend was REST. We slept in embarrassingly late on Saturday morning and spent the rest of the day lounging in the park and even ended our night with a fire out back to check out the supermoon. It was a pretty fabulous day and weekend overall.

We burned our Christmas tree and the flame got REALLY big haha

Another awesome thing about this weekend? Keith's best friend and Best Man at our wedding Jonathan Hillyard got ENGAGED today!!! We love his fiance Erin a whole lot, and are SO excited for them. Congrats to the happy couple!!

Anniversaries

One year ago on December 14th, Keith took me to the middle of the city, got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. Our lives have gone in such an awesome direction from that point forward and I'm so glad for it. After a 9 month engagement I thought that our wedding day would never arrive, but now it has come and gone in a flash and we've had an amazing first 4 months of marriage. To be honest, it feels like we've been married for WAY longer than that haha.

Interested in reading our engagement story? Because I just really love sharing it. It melts my heart a little and I love how thoughtful my husband is. Here it is from my perspective:

We moved to Philadelphia in September so that I could start my masters degree. My first semester was finally finishing up towards the second week of December so things were a little less stressful at the time, and I was able to make a trip up to New York to see my dad who was in town.

I noticed that Keith was starting to act a little funny around that time too. He had been sending secret text messages and when I was out of town there would be times when I couldn't reach him because "his phone was dead" which was extremely out of character. The monday after I got back from New York Keith told me that he wanted to plan a date for us, just a nice night for us to go out and see all the Christmas lights down in the city and have a relaxing dinner after the stress of a long semester. I of course thought this was a wonderful idea and just what we needed.

As we were getting ready to go out to secret dinner I again had the feeling that Keith was up to something with all the texts and calls etc, but after a week of trying to guess his secret plan Keith was a little annoyed with trying to surprise me and kept assuring me that he wasn't going to propose that night since he hadn't had time to get the ring resized.

Anyway, so we took the train down to center city Philadelphia and started walking towards City Hall, as we passed by Macys I wanted to go inside to look at the light show that they had in there which was part of the reason that we went downtown that night (or so I thought) but Keith continued to rush us along. As we began to walk through City Hall to the "restaurant" that Keith said we were going to he pulled me off to the side where he had a blanket with candles, flowers and champagne set up. He of course said all kinds of wonderful things and eventually got down on one knee and proposed. One of the first questions that I asked many weeks before when I first suspected a proposal coming was if there were going to be people around that could clap where he was planning to propose (I'm not a huge fan of big scenes) but there were definitely people all around that cheered us on once I said yes.

The very cool part of the whole engagement was that Keith had two of my best friends Andi and Katelyn there to surprise me! After I said yes he prompted me to turn around and there were Andi and Kate running towards us. Quite the wonderful surprise since we hadn't seen each other in months, but they had helped Keith to set up the whole affair (which took lots of secret messaging haha). Afterwards we went and had burritos at a favorite local spot instead of the fancy place Keith had made up for our original date (which is what I really wanted to do all along but didn't want to ruin all of Keith's special date night plans haha).

 One of my favorite days of all time. Definitely one to tell the kids about.



All the photos here were taken by the lovely Katelyn Smith. She's the one on the right up there ;)