Galentine's Day Brunch

A couple of years ago, my girlfriends here started getting together to celebrate Galentine's Day (here and here). This year, Kahli hosted those of us who could attend for brunch at their new-ish house.  Kahli and Kolton have been in it for a while now but somehow several of us had yet to make the trip down to see it.  Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of all the yummy food and fun times but Kahli did manage to get this group shot before we all parted ways that day! It was a great morning spent with the girls.  It's sometimes hard for us to all get together because we all have busy lives with work, family, etc. so even when we are missing a few ladies, it's still great to get together.

Congratulations Matt and Katie!

Congratulations to Matt and Katie on tying the knot in South Bend this weekend! Matt is one of Wyatt's childhood friends and it was so great to see him and Katie commit themselves to one another.  They had a beautiful ceremony that had the perfect personal touches to it!  We are so happy for the two of them!

The reception was seriously swoon worthy.  It was gorgeous and the dinner served was so good! Wyatt and I both got the duck and I can't get over how great it was.  Also, Matt and Katie had an espresso bar complete with signature drinks named after their pets! I mean, can you even? I loved getting to hangout with this group and enjoy the night together too!  After a night of celebrating and catching up, we all decided we weren't ready for the weekend to end so we met up for brunch the next morning before heading home.

Best Friends

Yesterday we went to Indianapolis to celebrate our friend Todd's 30th birthday with everyone.  It was great to be able to get together with almost all the girls (we missed Dana, Devin, and Morgan) as well as all their guys!  We all hung out at Beth and Shawn's house before going out downtown to Punch Bowl Social. It's been a while since this many of us were in one place at the same time so we had to get a group picture. I love these girls and the guys so much!

Also, yesterday morning I got my hair done.  I was on the fence of exactly what I wanted so I talked over all my options with my stylist and she just took it from there.  In the end it came out perfect!  I wanted something new for spring/summer.  It's so much lighter than I thought I'd ever be comfortable with when I started this hair color journey but I love it!

Galentine's Day!

In college a group of us girls often went and saw a movie or went to dinner in celebration of Valentine's Day.  After all, who better to celebrate love with than your best ladies? Now we are all spread out and it's not so easy to get together.  This year I decided I was going to send my out of town besties Galentines in the mail.  In my efforts to create something fun, I went to Pinterest.  I found some great ideas for friends.  I had some elastic that my sister gave me so I decided to make these cute hair ties.  I found this printable to put them on and I also found a few awesome Leslie Knope printables including these pretty cards from Brit + Co.

I am also lucky enough to have another group of ladies that I love here in town so we went to a girls only dinner on Friday night to Red Seven.  We were there for hours just chatting.  It was so fun and the perfect outing.  Kalysa came with Galentines in tow for each of us that she hand made! How cute is the one she gave me?  We also got a birthday dessert for Kahli since her birthday was on the 1st!

Best Galantine's cards ever! I had a blast with girls tonight at dinner. I am so lucky to have gained another amazing group of friends when I started dating @wacash!

A video posted by Amanda Condra (@ascondra) on Feb 10, 2017 at 9:36pm PST

10 Years Later

Ten years ago we were moving into the dorms at IU, last night some of our group was able to meet for dinner in Indy as Morgan was in from Denver this weekend.  In 10 years time, we have added the best guys to our group and a few sweet little guys.  So much love in my heart for this group plus the those girls (and guys!) no able to attend dinner last night!

Amanda Squared

Over the weekend I ventured up to Chicago to visit my friend Amanda before she moves for her new job.  (True story: I met one of my best friends through MySpace.  Granted it was at least in a time 9 years ago when MySpace was THE social media outlet so it's not as weird as it may sound.  We met in a group for incoming freshman at IU and she was one of the first people I met during Welcome Week.  We've been friends ever since and even when we went about 5 years without actually seeing each other, we talk so much through texts, g chat, etc that it felt like we had just seen each other the week before.)

We had a pretty chill weekend.  There were plans to go out on Lake Michigan but Mother Nature decided that she needed to interrupt those.  We ended up going to Spacca Napoli for pizza and then to a neighborhood bar for a drink instead due to some rain showers.  Since most things we had talked about doing included being outside during or in order to get there, we decided to just hang out and watch movies that afternoon.

That evening we went to Shake Shack for burgers and fries.  We also went to Eataly for gelato to round out dinner. OMG, Eataly is like heaven.  I cannot wait to go back there some time when I have more time to spend there and a bigger appetite!

On Sunday morning the weather was gorgeous!  We grabbed some Starbucks and headed straight to Amanda's balcony to enjoy the pretty weather.

Until next time Chicago,

Happy National Best Friends Day!

Happy National Best Friends Day! I have to say that I have some of the best friends I could ask for and we're spread out all over the country now.  It doesn't matter how long has passed, we always pick right back up where we left off each time we see each other.  I don't know what I'd do without these people.

Music City USA

I hope you have all recovered from the holiday weekend.  I spent my long weekend on a mini road trip to visit one of my favorite people in Nashville, Jessica.  I survived the 5.5 hour drive by myself (something I was unsure of going into it, ha).  We went to Musicians Corner in Centennial Park.  We got to see Elenowen and Ben Kweller as well as get food from the food trucks! Even though the Grilled Cheesery had to close early, I still got some pretty good fish tacos.

We went to Marathon Village and checked out the Antique Archeology store and of course had to check out the I Believe in Nashville mural.

We met up with a friend of Jess's and her friends who were visiting for the weekend at Sips and Strokes and did a wine and canvas night.

That night we went to the Patterson House, a speakeasy on Division Street.  I had a grilled cheese and a Pimm's cup and both were delicious.

We went also swung by downtown for a bit that night.

All of us girls from the first night met up with some more friend in Nashville and went canoeing on the Harpeth River.  Jessica, Breanna, and I shared a canoe and we managed, by the grace of God, not to tip over.  What we did manage was to get stuck too many times to count.  Thanks to the kind strangers that helped us out a few times....and sorry to the poor guys that we inadvertently tipped over.

After canoeing we took a much needed nap and shower before heading out again for the night.  Liz and Todd had been in Chattanooga and decided to stay over in Nashville to visit Jessica and Danny.  We went out and had a few drinks to celebrate Liz's birthday!

 On Monday morning I decided to stop at the Green Hills mall to check out the new Lilly Pulitzer store.  I had seen too many pretty pictures of the new store.  It did not disappoint in person.  Seriously, can they come and paint my future home one day?