Do-It-Yourselfers party of 2

Cory and I took on the Do-It-Yourself project of painting the table and chairs that were recently moved into our breakfast area. You'll see below the brownish color they were before. Not my fav by any means...so I decided black would look great. Cory made the deal with me that if I taped up the seats of the chairs and the rim of the table he'd paint them. And so...this is how it all went down...

Nope...its not snowing in our garage...that's primer floating all over the place...
notice the GREAT tapping job of the seat!!!

Quite the expert spray painter...

drying...

Taaadaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!

A sign he might have inhaled too much spray paint!!! Sorry lungs!

That's going to take some scrubbing...

Cultural Experience...in Dixie...

What a fun filled weekend for the Blackmon's! Friday night we used a gift card from one of Cory's clients that we've had since Christmas to go see Bruno (by the same guy who did Borat..one of Cory's favs) It was funny, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to the masses.

The first half of Saturday was dedicated to the gym..then the dogs and the yard. Cory washed the dogs...I cut the grass. (you may be thinking this sounds backwards but I'd rather cut grass than wash a dog that weighs more than me) And let me tell you...this was my first experience with a self-propelled push mower...and lets just say the mower won the battle. But that didn't stop us from our 'cultural experience of the weekend'...the Dixie Speedway. Yes, you read it right - on Saturday evening we drove over to Woodstock, GA on to take in the action at the Dixie Speedway. Cory's great uncle has worked there for the past 40 years and has been asking us to visit so we finally took him up on the offer. Here are some pics from our evening....Apparently Cory was ready to see some racin' yeeehaw! What a clown!!

in all her glory and mud
First came the typical dirt track races....

I know this is blury. The purpose of this pic is to show you the "Cruiser" car. This involves two drivers...hopefully as you can see in this pic that there is a driver in the passenger seat too. The one in the left seat controls the steering wheel and the brakes and the guy on the passenger side controls the throttle...HILARIOUS!!!

Then comes the last race of the evening...spectator racing...can you believe it?!?! People put their everyday cars in this race...here is a Mazda and a Toyota Camry!!!!!!!!!!

Another spectator race....is that the car my grandma drove when she picked me up from elementary school????!!!!!!!!!!!

We spent about 6 hours watching cars drive in circles but I'll admit it was fun! Most of the day Sunday we were with my family. Cory and I went on a bike ride around Good Hope, GA and then went to revival at my church that night. What a great way to end the weekend...

Entertainment at work...

Currently I work for a high energy advertising firm near Buford. I'm a media buyer...I've never purchased media in previous jobs, but it's fun! So my boss is all over the place...imagine the Tasmanian devil if you will. The guy is wired...super hyper, always speed walking, occassional deficiencies in volume control, etc. You just never know what crazy thing he's gonna do or say....so yesterday while walking past his desk I noticed this...


....yes...that is an open jug of water...sitting ON TOP of one of his laptop keyboards! God bless him!!! I had to share.

On to more news in my life. Cory surprised me with tix last week to go see Joel Osteen in August. I'm super excited! I have such a sweet husband.

Oh..and one more note...I am trying to get back into the swing of going back to the gym 4 or so days a week. Cory and I went on Saturday morning and I'm happy to report that I can finally lift my arms over my head again. It wasn't looking so good in previous days. The joys of marrying a trainer :) Surely something interesting will happen this week and I have something else to blog about. Have a great day!

Changing your name...what a pain!

So today was officially name change day. Yes I got married in May but haven't really been motivated to change my name until this week. Plus I finally made it to Monroe so Emily could do my hair (I was totally sporting some white trash dark roots) and who wants dark roots in a pic that you're stuck with until 2012?!?! Not this girl! My morning started with a lovely trip to the department of driver services in scenic Gainesville, GA. (I only saw one dead chicken in the road). Things seemed to be going smoothly...in and out in less than 20 minutes...not bad. Well... until I got in my car and took a closer look at my new drivers license (which for once I liked the pic)...and realized that they misspelled my new last name! So I had to march my happy butt back in and tell the gal that my last name was spelled BlackmOn...not BlackmAn. Cory says I'll be dealing with this mix-up the rest of my life. GREAT! I then find out that they'll need to take another pic...DANG (which I didn't like as much as the first one!) and wait another 5 minutes for that to process and print. But not bad compared to my afternoon adventure to the Social Security office in Gwinnett County.

First: The social security office is conveniently open from 8:30 til 3:30 M-F...clearly not taking into consideration those who actually work for a living M-F!!! So I dreadfully walk through the door of the SS office...take my number...and look around for a chair...bad news...most of them were taken! Once I located a seat directly across from the restroom doors....yuck...I met a nice girl named Valerie who was married in April (so I don't feel like a terrible wife for not rushing out to change my name...someone actually waited longer than me). An hour and 15 minutes later...the one cheerful window operator calls my number and I dash to take my seat infront of her. A few minutes later I walk out of that horrid place with my receipt informing me I'll receive my new SS card in about 2 weeks. What a depressing place...I honest thought I'd end up spending all afternoon there waiting on my number to be called. Why don't guys have to go throuhg all of this trouble?!?!?

The good news is I'm basically done with the whole name changing process...thank GOD! Lauren Brooke Blackmon it is...though I secretly would have preferred Brooke Atha Blackmon but I've been told that changing your first name is a huge pain in the rear. So I opted for a simple last name change.

On to more exciting news...Cory bought a new dining room table today (from Costco...they "only had two left") so this was a true show of trust in 'Cory's taste' on my part. I haven't seen it yet in person...but from the pics he sent me on my cell...it looks awesome! Until next time...

This should make it more interesting

Wow...what a fun weekend we had. It went by way too fast...as usual. But that's probably because we were super busy. Our weekend started Friday evening at the Gwinnett Braves game.

Cory likes to wake me up SUPER earlier on the weekends (earlier than I actually wake up during the week). Maybe one day I can talk him into 'sleeping in'. This is how it usually goes: Cory wakes me up...I ask him what time it is in somewhat of a mumble (I'm NOT a morning person and don't speak in complete sentences until I have my first cup of coffee)...so for the past two weekends he's added roughly 1 hour onto the actual time when he answers me...HA...well I've learned not to believe him...look at my phone and what do you know...its 6:50am....not 7:45am like he just told me!!! What a sucker! So we wake up and head towards Monroe bright and early Saturday morning to do some pressure washing at my parents house. I know...how fun!!...right!?!? But it needed to be done and we love to help my parents out whenever we can. I love getting to visit with my parents and playing with Chloe and Crouton. Since dad has been home from the hospital...he and my sweet Chloe have become BFF. This is where she hangs out most all day every day...Dad's lapDad's doing so great! I never imagined that I'd get to hang out with him by the pool this summer when I was sitting in his hospital room in October and November. God is sooooo good!!!

Oh...and Crouton watched Cory pressure wash...this pic cracks me up!

Saturday afternoon we headed over to the Carnes residence for my cousin Grace's first birthday party! Yes...I've come to the point in my life where I no longer celebrate my friends birthdays...but I celebrate the birthday's of their childeren. I have to admit..it was lots of fun! I got to visit with some of my girlfriends that I graduated with (from the world famous Monroe Area High School.) Yes people...home of the purple hurricanes!...try not to be jealous. Picture it...purple graduation robes...we looked like a bunch of grapes marching across the stage!

Ok...now to some pics from the party...

Meet the Brithday Girl, Grace!!!

Stephanie, Emily, Nikki, and yours truly...

My girlfriends all wonderful mommies with the most beautiful little girls.

girltime in the jumpy thingy (what do you call those things??)
Birthday Girl and Mommy

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early agian to head to Carters Lake in N. Georgia. We spent the day with Cory's uncles. And as you know from my previous post...Uncle Richard let us borrow the jet ski...YAAAAY!!!! I forgot to take a camera with us on Sunday :(

Looks like that completes my first blog w/pics. Success!!!!