this post isn't for you mama..

she hates bananas. I--lucky enough, didn't inherit that trait of hers.

So this happened..

Which only means one great and glorious thing!!! 

Banana bread!

Thank to this awesome recipe I found on Pinterest I had a feeling some amazing banana bread was in my near future. However this recipe kicked it up another wonderful notch by adding none other than..

miniature reeses.

If you haven't purchased these nuggets of pure heaven, don't do it. Thomas and I have no control when it comes to these. Peanut-butter m&m's are another weakness too.

... apparently we have a thing for peanut butter?!

This was so good. I could have easily eaten the entire loaf, but I knew better. The one thing that makes me feel better about baked goods like this is that Thomas and I can have our couple of slices and then I can bring it to work for them to devour it instead of me. :)

kinda like our cupcake craving

rhonda, i'll always love you.

Oh Rhonda.
You were such a good car to me. You were a rusty mess and you made Thomas extremely worried about the last date of my tetanus shot (spoiler! I'm pretty sure I'm due for one... sorry mama, I'll get on that..). And girl, you gave me way more years than I thought I'd have with you. Your engine was great.. but I don't think the rest of your rusty mess was much longer for this world.
I'll always treasure our midnight Kroger trips in college and how shaky you got when we hit 70mph on the interstate. You weren't the entertainer type with your squeaky tape deck, but we made it work. I credit you Rhonda for the reason I have the entire Sorcerer's Stone memorized (thank you Jim Dale for your incredible narration of Harry Potter on tape).
You moved me out of my college house and we embarked on our journey to Tennessee together. Thanks to my dad and a crisp dollar bill you were the first car title I had in my name!! What a good car. All of her two doors and squished driver seat included. Nothing but fond memories Rhonda, not once did you bail out on me and land me in the shop.

So here we are together, on our last drive.. which was out of a parking spot and to the garage. 

Very exciting. 

And of course, I made Thomas take a picture.

Leaving Rhonda-- It was more bittersweet than I thought it was going to be but I'm happy to say we upgraded and traded poor Rhonda in.. and I got all sad cleaning her out. The lady who was technically buying her from me was so great and SO funny! She even put on the paperwork for the title, "Her name is Rhonda." I loved that.

So Thomas and I bit the bullet.. we're now the proud parents of Anita!! She's a 2012 Kia Sorento and the nicest thing either of us has EVER owned.

She's super fancy and a bit of an attention seeker.. I'm in love with her SUNROOF and Thomas can barely contain his excitement over the backup camera and a car with a real sound system. We're so happy and the waiting game we played paid off. I think the only frustrating thing with Anita (other than actually stalking used car websites and waiting for her) was naming her! It was driving me insane that I couldn't think of a name-- and I wasn't about to call her Rhonda 2.0. So the other night I was gushing to Thomas about how much I love our new car and I truly don't know how I lived without heated seats before and I yelled out dramatically: I NEEDA (Anita) name for our new car! And Thomas so cleverly said.. there it is, she's Anita. And it's so perfect. We just love her!!

And because I know you're waiting on the edge of your seat, Thomas' trucks name is Stan.

Stan the man. :) 

mini-moon in chicago

Thomas and I were so heartbroken when we had to cancel our honeymoon to Yellowstone. Stupid government shutdown stressing us out a week before our wedding. However, we had such a good time in Chicago. We were only there for three nights, we were such tourist and it was amazing!
**warning this post is a full one, chalked full of tons of photos!

There was not a dull moment on our drive thanks to my family writing all over Rhonda. As soon as we hit the traffic in Chicago we seriously had an entire line of cars honking and waving at us-- it was so funny!

       

 

How cool is this wind far in the middle of Indiana?! 

We got into Chicago early evening so we thought it'd be fun to hit up Navy Pier.

And of course ride the Ferris Wheel. :) 

       

Our first day in Chicago, first things first.. we hit up the aquarium.

[I want to frame this picture, I'm so stinkin proud of it.]

We unsuccessfully took selfies in the sun with the sears tower behind us..

and we wondered around the amazing art institute.

we of course stopped at the bean and were mesmerized by it.

 

We were actually debating on if we wanted to go or not go up to the top of the Sears Tower, and we're so happy that we did. It was insanely fun and so cool.

The Ledge was ridiculous.

And I'll go ahead and admit it.. I have a problem. I purchased every touristy photo they took of us. Even the awful green screen ones. But this one was by far the coolest.

You can't go to Chicago as tourists and not get pizza! 

We were so tired at this point that we ordered it to go and ate it back at our hotel which was such a brilliant idea. 

And I might have whined a little while we were checking in about our honeymoon getting canceled and that this was our replacement and lucky us, they upgraded our room-- wooo!

When had one rainy day and it kinda put a wrench into our architectural boat tour plan. That was the only thing on our list that we didn't accomplish. But we did camp out inside the Field Museum while it was pouring rain outside.

We hung out with Sue the tyrannosaurus rex.  And other dinosaurs.. 

and we ended up seeing a buffalo after all!

On our last night in town we went up in the John Hancock Observatory and since it was rainy and gross out, we had the place to ourself.

It was fun seeing all the buildings pink for breast cancer awareness month. 

And then we treated ourself to a salted carmel sundae and coffee.

It was such a good time. As we knew it would be. 

Oh! And to top off our touristy trip.. 

we got a tin of Garrett's Popcorn for the car ride home. So yummy!