Hip Hip Hooray for Christmas Vacation!!!

Jray on the giant chair outside of No Mas Cantina!

The gang at dinner!

Benny and our new baby!

Big Red!!!

Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas...a Heatherly Tradition!

Christmas Vacation was a lot of fun this year!!!

Ben and I left for Spartanburg late afternoon on Tuesday! As soon as we got to Spartanburg we went out to dinner with Mom, Dad, Kelly, Travis, and Johanna and Steve! We ate wings and had a great time catching up! After dinner, we came home and watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation while we spent some QT together!!! Make sure to ask Johanna about the "candle incident" for additional laughs!!

Wednesday morning Ben went to meet a coworker in Greenville for lunch while I helped my mom bake Gingerbread men (unfortunately my cake decorating skills from Baskin-Robbins in high school have faded so all of the gingerbread men looked a bit disabled) and then Ben and I went for a quick run around the golf course. That night we went to church for Christmas Eve services and had Chicken Stew for dinner. Around 8pm my parents, my sister, and Ben and I headed to Roper Mountain in Greenville to see the Christmas lights!

After that we came home and started watching 24 hours of A Christmas Story on TBS until we fell asleep. By the way, whoever came up with the 24 hours of A Christmas Story idea was a genius!!! I watch it at least 5 times in a row on Christmas day!!!

Christmas morning we exchanged gifts and had my aunt and uncle over as well as my grandma! We had a great time and we all got a lot of awesome gifts!!!

Friday, after a quick trip to the gym by my parents house, Ben and I started our CAR SHOPPING!!! I have been dying to get a new car for ages and Ben and I both decided that now would be a good time to start looking! We went to the Lexus dealer in Greenville but we weren't really happy with their selection. So we came back to my parents empty handed. Friday night Ben and I went to Sidestreet Pizza (SO YUM) in Tryon, NC with Ethan, Johanna and Steve. We had a great time hanging out and catching up! We then came back to my parents and watched our traditional Christmas movie Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas (it's a Heatherly tradition that Johanna, Ethan, Me and my parents all watch this movie together). Ben and Steve hate it...it's like pure torture to them!!!

Saturday morning Ben and I were on the road early back to ATL because we had more car shopping to do. We stopped by Nalley Lexus of Roswell and that's when I saw her....BIG RED!!! It was love at first site! So Ben and I bought her....my brand new baby!!! Here are some pics of my Lexus RX 350!!!

I'm so in love!!!

Sunday after finalizing all our car stuff and bringing Big Red home to meet Bertha the '03 Corolla, we went downtown to meet Andy, Angela, Anastasia, her BF Ryan, and Jon Ray for dinner at No Mas Cantina. We had a great time catching up over margaritas!!! Oh and Jray decided to christen my new car by eating extra beans on his burrito...Thanks Jray!!!

It was definitely a very Merry Christmas for the Sullivans!!!

Hope everyone else out there had a great Christmas!!!

Twas the Weekend before Christmas!!!

The group at Maggiano's for dinner on Saturday night!!!

Cat's Meow in New Orleans...so much fun!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

It's definitely been an eventful week leading up to Christmas!!!

Last week I was in both New Orleans and Little Rock for work!

Not much to do in Little Rock other than work but New Orleans was a blast! I even got on stage at the Cat's Meow and did karaoke to "Don't Stop Believin" by Journey! I was a hit and my coworkers were loving it!

Thursday when I was in Little Rock I got the best news ever!!! Ben called to tell me he got a placement at Bank of America! We were both SO happy!!! For those of you that don't know, Ben has been in a rotational program with BOA for the past year and a half. With the economy, we were both a little worried about when/where he would be placed. Ben will be working as a Sr. Underwriter in the Dealer Finance group right here in ATL so we are very happy!

I got home on Friday from Little Rock. Ben came home from work and we headed over to Melissa and Chris's for their Christmas Poker Party! We had a really good time!

The Sullivan's hit it big that night. We got a binocular flask and a Spider Man Slip-n-slide in the White Elephant drawing (add some jello to a slip-n-slide and it's a hit at any party) AND Ben won the poker tourney. We walked away from the night with $20 and two great gifts!!! Not too shabby if I do say so myself!!

Saturday I wrapped, wrapped and wrapped, and then we got ready for our holiday group dinner at Maggiano's. My friend Grace set this up for us. Eleven of us gathered and ate and ate and ATE! But man was it good! After dinner Ben and I had a drink at Amanda's house and then headed home for the night!

Sunday I tried out a new running trail in Alpharetta but I wasn't too thrilled with it so I didn't run that long. After one last Christmas shopping trip, I came home and Ben and I made White Chicken Chili for dinner. It was SOOOOOO Yummy and really easy!

Props to my hubby for making such a fantastic meal!!! (PS- If Matt and Jim are reading this....Yes, Ben did eat from his Blue Chili bowl)

So, today Ben and I will be heading to Spartanburg to spend Christmas with my family. I'm really excited!!! Tonight we'll be going to dinner with Johanna and Steve and my parents! Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will be spent hanging with My parents, My aunt and uncle, my sister and bro-in-law and my grandma!

I will definitely post an update and pictures when we get back in town on Saturday!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

Weekend Update

This weekend was definitely fun but much more chill...thank goodness!

Friday night was date night and Ben and I went to Little Alley Tapas Restaurant in Roswell. I LOVED their tapas...however I think Ben only liked them!

Regardless, the restaurant had a very cool atmosphere...very funky, jazz kind of thing going on!

Saturday started with a trip to the gym and then to Spike's Running store to get some new running shoes for my half marathon training. The guy there was super helpful and even had me run on a treadmill to complete a Gait Analysis...not sure what that means exactly...but I know it helps you find a good shoe! I can't wait to try them out! After that it was more errand running then we headed home to get ready for the VA Tech Alumni Christmas party! It was a potluck dinner at an art gallery so Ben asked me to make my Mom's Turkey Dressing! Well, what normally turns out as a fantastic dish ended up turning into a big pile of YUCK! I decided to use some Sage that was different from my normal sage and it ruined the whole dish! I was so upset!!! So we stopped by Publix and picked up some chicken tenders instead.... But it ended up being okay as there were two other dressing/stuffing dishes at the party anyway! We ended up meeting some great people and having a really fun time!

Sunday Ben and I headed to Steph and Pat's for dinner. Their friend Chris was over and he brought over 6lbs of Brazilian Steak. I made my broccoli and cheese casserole (redemption for my dressing catastrophe) and Steph made a salad!! We had a great time!

Hope everyone else had a great weekend!

Celebrate good times...come on!!!

Yeah.... we look hot!!!

Guitar Hero Queens!!!

So, after I passed my test on Thursday I was ready to PAR-TAY!!! I picked Caryn up from the W Hotel around 5:30 and we headed to the mall to do some celebratory shopping! (BTW, I think I have a serious addiction to Ann Taylor Loft....seriously) Caryn was in town for work so it was great to see her!!! (We went out to dinner on Tues night with my friends Amanda and Kim but Wed night I had to study so wasn't able to hang) After the mall Caryn and I trucked to my friend Steph's apartment for my book club meeting. Caryn got to meet a lot of my friends while we discussed the book briefly over a couple glasses of wine. But seeing as we had more celebrating to do we decided to head back to my house to pick up Ben! When we got to the house, the three of us had such a great time catching up that we opted not to even go out at all. So I made Caryn and I some drinks as Ben introduced Caryn to Guitar Hero!!! How Caryn has gotten by for the past year without playing "the most amazing game EVER" is beyond me. But guess what? She rocked at it! I have to say I didn't believe her one bit when she said, "Um, watch out kids...I played piano growing up so I think I'll be really good at this" but it definitely was a site to behold. We even had to call her hubby Brett and fill him in on the action!

We crashed around midnight and I drove Caryn to the airport bright and early Friday morning!

It was so great seeing her and even better to have a partner in crime to celebrate my PHR!

I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hip Hip Hooray!!! After Months of studying and prepping, I'm proud to say that I passed my PHR exam! I'm now a Professional in Human Resources!!! I'm so excited!!!

Who thought I would be a "professional" anything other than a Professional Chunk Impersonator, or a Professional flip cup player!!!

WOOOHOOOOO!!! Time to celebrate!!!

Eminem shout out!

My legs are killing me after "8 miles". But I'm proud of myself!

Christmas Tree Lighting

In the the spirit of the holidays Ben and I ventured to historic downtown Alpharetta last night to see the Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony.

Our friend Amanda and her date Matt came along with us!

Amanda and Matt met us at our house where we had a glass of wine and then headed to the tree lighting ceremony around 5pm.

My feedback was

1. They need more people managing the hot chocolate stand and horse carriage rides...the lines were ridiculous

2. Someone needs to water the Christmas Tree...it looked a little parched!

3. Someone needs to recruit kids that will actually sing on stage...that poor piano player was singing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" completely on his own!

Overall I would give it a rating of GHETTO!!! hahaha! But I promise I'm not being Ba Humbug about this...it really was a little bit of a let down as far as tree lighting ceremonies go...but I guess I was expecting Rockefeller Center, and that's just not going to happen in Alpharetta, GA!

But that's okay! We went to Pure Taqueria afterwards and had an awesome meal and lots of drinks. Then we came back to our pad and watched the Redskins game!

It was definitely a fun night!

Happy 1 Year Anniversary!!!

Ben eating the wedding cake!

Ben trying to get the top off of the champagne bottle (probably the most hilarious pic ever!)

Ben with the champagne and one of our wedding flutes!

Me with our wedding cake topper!

Our Christmas tree!

Saturday night Ben and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary! Our actual anniversary is December 8th but we wanted to be able to go out to dinner and have fun and not worry about work the next day, so we opted to go out on Saturday instead!

Saturday morning we decorated the house for Christmas and then headed to Stoney River Steak House for dinner! We had an amazing meal!!! The steak melted in your mouth!

After dinner we came home and ate our wedding cake topper. To our surprise it didn't taste that bad at all. I was expecting it to taste like cardboard after sitting in the freezer for a year but it really was quite tasty! We also opened a bottle of champagne and toasted in our wedding flutes! Then we spent the rest of the night watching a movie by the fire!! It was a wonderful anniversary night! I'm such a lucky girl to have found such a wonderful man to spend the rest of my life with...AWWWW :)

As for gifts...Ben and I are pooling our anniv and Christmas presents together this year. I'm getting a Dooney and Burke for my gift and Ben is getting surround sound for his! YAY!!!

Movin on Up!!!

Me, my current boss Suzanne, My VP Lori, and my coworker Lauren at Solas in Downtown Raleigh!!!

This week I flew to Raleigh to work in coporate for a few days and attend a two day HR meeting for our company! I was really excited because my boss announced my PROMOTION this week! That's right...effective December 15th, I'll be moving to a field HR Specialist role. I'm really excited to learn as much as I can about HR and venture beyond recruiting! Lots more traveling involved (as if I didn't do enough already) but I'm up for the challenge!

It was definitely a busy week. Tues night I went to Carolina Ale House with my coworkers Chesare and Sylvia, Wed night I went out to eat with my new team, and Thursday night was a reception after the HR Meeting at Solas in downtown Raleigh! Such a great time!

I got home to Ben around 9pm on Friday night. I was exhausted but ready to celebrate our anniversary on Saturday!!!

Turkey trot to SC, DC, and MD

Ben and I in front of the Capital Replica made of leaves at the Botanical Gardens

Ben, Dwight and Jan in front of the real Capital

Captain Crunch French Toast...mmmmmmmm

The Dodge Calibur...it brought a tear to my eye to have to turn it in this morning...hahaha

Thanksgiving weekend was definitely a busy one this year!!!

It started out something like this...

Ben and I decided a few months ago that we should drive to Maryland instead of fly. The ticket prices were ridiculous expensive and we couldn't use our frequent flier miles because of black out dates.

So.... with the Toyota having a lot of miles already and Ben's car being a hoopty (is that how you spell that?) we decided to rent a car!

Tuesday night Ben and I picked up a Dodge Calibur (try not to be too jealous) from Enterprise and headed to SC to spend the night with my parents. 11 hours is a long time in a car and so it was easier to break it up by crashing in Spartanburg at my parent's house.

We arrived in Maryland on Wednesday around 5:30pm. We had a few drinks at the house and then headed to Baltimore to meet Kate for dinner. We went to Lebanese Taverna and had a yum meal!

Thursday, Thanksgiving morning, was nontraditional in the "stuffing your face sense" but a lot of fun just the same! My sis in law Kate is in her first year of residency and working her little tale off. Needless to say, she was scheduled to work on Thanksgiving day. So we all decided to push back our T-giving meal til Friday evening. Thursday we headed to the Smithsonian Museums in DC. We went to the Botanical Gardens first. Their holiday exhibit is AMAZING! Seriously, you have never seen anything like it! I give it two thumbs up. Def check it out if you live in the area!

After the Botanical Garden we headed to the American History Museum. They had just completed the remodeling so we got to see the new Star Spangled Banner exhibit and the New American Wars Section.

After the museums we headed back to the Sullivan Pad.

We went to the store to buy supplies for the next day's turkey feast and had apps and drinks and then dinner.

Friday morning Ben and I woke up bright and early and headed into Baltimore for Breakfast. We had been dying to eat at the Blue Moon Cafe since it had been highlighted on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.

Ben had the Captain Crunch French Toast and it was SOOOOO Yum. I couldn't get over how amazing it was! But beware..it's super sweet so you don't need syrup.

After breakfast we walked around the harbor, came home, rested by the fire, cooked dinner, and waited for Kate to arrive.

We ate T-giving dinner around 7 and it was so good! I made My mom's dressing which got rave reviews!

Saturday Ben and I were on the road early to try to make it home to Spartanburg in time to watch part of the South Carolina vs. Clemson game (wishful thinking since it started at 12pm). But now I'm glad I wasn't there to witness the blood bath. What started as a pretty solid season ended very badly for my gamecocks!

Saturday night we hung at the Heatherly house with my mom and dad and sister and brother in law.

Sunday morning consisted of Church, visiting the grandma, and sitting in traffic on 85 trying to get back to Atlanta.

Ben and I got home right around 6:30, headed straight to the gym, ate dinner and CRASHED!!

Man...what a weekend!