Packing, movies and my "modeling" days

I literally only left my house this weekend three times: once for packing supplies, once for Starbucks and once for Buffalo Wild Wings. Throughout the course of packing, I watched a lot of movies: American Reunion, Hangover 2, Bridesmaids, Crazy Stupid Love, What's Your Number and The Change Up.

Thank you HBO for  making packing a little more bearable. I liked all of the movies, but Crazy Stupid Love was definitely my favorite of the bunch. Hello shirtless Ryan Gosling. Can anyone explain to me why Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds were not cast in Magic Mike? I'd like to speak with the casting director about this.

Bear wants to come with me.  Bear is technically my nephew's dog, so he will be staying in Texas.
Who wants to help me puppy shop in Las Vegas? 

Taking a break during Crazy Stupid Love

I wish I had more exciting weekend shenanigans to share with you, but I don't. I'm done packing my living room and kitchen. Hallelu-jer! However the the garage and my bedroom (i.e. closet) are going to be the hardest to pack and that is what I shall tackle this week. I should have taken a picture of my garage so you can see its hoarders status. I'm seriously petrified of a rat scurrying out from behind something. Lord help my heart if that happens.

My BFF Liz came over Friday night to help me pack, but we ended up ordering pizza, watching movies and digging through old middle school and high school pictures. It wouldn't be right if I didn't share these two gems with you, so you are welcome.

work it

Rocking my Tommy Hilfiger tankini 

I know. I don't have words either.

Kristina (the BFF in Vegas), Liz and I met in middle school and have been BFFs since. One of our favorite pastimes was to have "modeling shoots" at the neighborhood pool and/or our bedrooms (paging Chris Hansen) with our trusty disposable cameras. I can't make this shit up. Oh, to be 13 again.

Linking up with the Sami, Dana and Leeann! 

TenList Giveaway Winner + Weekend Wrap-Up!

Last Wednesday, the $75 Visa Gift Card Giveaway that TenList hosted on The Bargain Blonde closed!  I went out of town Thursday, came back Friday and then went to Ft. Worth Sunday. Life has been so hectic lately, but today I'm finally able to blog again and announce the winner! Congratulations to #259, Katelyn ...

And TenList is so awesome that they upped the card to $100 just because.  Enjoy Katelyn!

Like I mentioned above, I went out of town twice this weekend and both times were for Stella and Dot parties!  

Thursday I went to visit my Aunt who lives about 2 hours west of Dallas in a small town and while there, I had a party with blogger Amy from Tales of Small Town Girl.  She was the tiniest, cutest, sweetest little thing ever! Here are a few pics from my time in the country.

Yummy! My Aunt made veggie omlette, turkey sausage and low carb toast for breakfast. Love me some home cookin!

Saw this sign while antiquing and I'm seriously regretting not buying it for my desk at work.

Downtown Decatur, Texas

The most delicious Club Cobb Salad ever!  Sorry, I'm not sorry but I did eat all that cheese.

I drove back to Dallas Friday evening and stayed in that night.  This Bargain Blonde was tired.  Saturday morning I took Reese to gymnastics, then Bear to the dog park, took a nap and then went over to my bestie Courtney's new house for grilling, pool time and a puppy play date.

Bear taking a dip in the pool

Red wine and fresh watermelon!  

Bear is OBSESSED with the water and he swims laps. It is the cutest thing ever. 

Sunday I headed out west to Ft. Worth for another Stella and Dot party blogger Mrs. Lia Joy from life is aMAYESing hosted for moi!  She had the cutest spread, baked a fabulous cake and even had homemade Sangria for us!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cake (not on the nutrition plan, but so worth the cals)

The bevys!

The food!

If you follow me on Instagram/Twitter, then you've most likely seen me posting pictures about the Tone It Up nutrition plan.  I started the Tone It Up fitness/nutrition program last week and many of you have asked me to share it with you and post recipes to some of the healthy foods I've cooked.  I will be blogging all about it tomorrow, so stay tuned!!  If you have any fitness/nutrition related questions about Tone It Up or want to know what Tone It Up even is, leave me your question in the comments of this post!

Happy Monday!  Make it a good one! XOXO


p.s. Huge thank you to both Amy and Lia Joy for hosting Stella & Dot parties for me!  We have a fabulous hostess rewards program if any of you readers are from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. I'd love to throw a show with y'all and get you hundreds in free Stella and Dot.  Just e-mail me!

Weekend Wrap-Up: Cinnamon Roll Waffles, Gymnastics and a Beauty Bar

You know all that Martha Stewart-esque stuff you pin on Pinterest and then forget about?  Well, I finally made something this weekend that I pinned ....

May I introduce you to Cinnamon Roll Waffles?

Easiest breakfast ever and my nephew loved them (as did Aunt Lindsey)!  You literally only need cooking spray, cinnamon rolls and a waffle maker.  Spray the iron, put one cinnamon roll in the middle, close the top and less than a minute later, it is done.  Ice while warm and serve!  Yum, yum in my tum!

I was a competitive gymnast for 14 years, so on Saturday mornings I drag Reese to gymnastics so he can follow in his Auntie's foot steps.  I'm kidding about the drag part because he absolutely loves it, which brings a smile to my heart. He is the only boy in the class.  Such a ladies man that Reese.

Saturday night was "ladies night" (although when you are single, every night is ladies night), and 8 of us girls went to dinner at The Porch, which is one of my favorite places to dine in the Big D.  They have the best artichoke spinach dip and pork chop.  The food is legit.

After dinner we trekked down the street to the self-proclaimed hipster bar called The Beauty Bar, a recommendation from our waiter.  How I had never heard of this bar, I do not know.  Clearly I don't get out much but I thought the concept was genius.  The decor theme is 1950s salon.  Think glitter walls, vintage furniture, and real, antique dome hair dryers as seating.

There is a DJ and a dance party, so we had some fun here and I definitely want to go back.  They even have a $10 Martini & Manicure Happy Hour from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.  Yes, please.

There are "sister" Beauty Bars in several other major U.S. cities, so see if there is one by you and have a ladies night out with your best betches!

I need YOUR HELP in a bad way.

By now you should have read about my bestie Beth on the blog a time or two.  In fact, I blogged about our upcoming Charleston trip last week.  Refer here.  Well, today I have BIG NEWS!  She is in the running to win a FREE trip to Europe.  I did not stutter. A FREE TRIP TO EUROPE. 

Butttt .... she needs OUR help and it's the easiest help you could ever offer.  All and I literally mean ALL you have to do to help her win a free trip is "like" her nomination picture on Facebook.

You don't have to do anything else. I'm begging all of my amazing followers to take one second to click one picture and you could help Beth win a free trip.

Please, please, please!!!!!!  Here is how ...

Click THIS LINK and then simply click "like". 

Wam, bam, thank you mam!  Voting ends Monday so act quickly pleeeeeasssseeeee.    If everyone who views this post today votes, she will WIN!  And she has promised all of you European key chains!  Who can turn that deal down?  

Thank you so much in advance.  Have a great weekend and may the odds be ever in your favor.  I had to.  

Charleston, South Carolina ... prepare yo-self!

Does everyone know my bestie Beth?  If not, you should know that her and I are homies, but she lives in Greenville, SC.  This geographical distance makes hanging out on the weekends and having weekly happy hours fairly difficult.  Instead, we plan weekend vacations and for some time now, we have been tossing around different city ideas for our next destination.  Since she came to Dallas last August and we met up in New Orleans in October, it was my turn to venture to her neck of the woods on the east coast.  

After much debate, we finally decided on the location for our next shenanigan filled weekend.  Drum roll please ...

Charleston, South Carolina: put on your party panties! 

These two ladies are coming to meet your acquaintance in June.

Considering I was rolled home in a wheelchair the last time we vacationed together, this meet up should not disappoint.  Everyone who I've told I'm going to Charleston tells me the city is amazing and is one of their favorites. I hope y'all are right.    

Since Beth hails from South Carolina and she's been to "chuckteezy" a lot, she will serve as my tour guide.  However, if any of you locals have any suggestions for a first timer, let a girl know.  9 weeks and counting ...

TGIT.

A week in paradise. My Kaua'i, Hawaii recap!

When you touch down on the runway and your eyes meet the acquaintance of this ...

... It is official.  You, my friend, are in paradise. 

Everyone warned me that once I went to Hawaii, I'd never want to come back to "the mainland".  It should come as no surprise, but all of you Hawaii veterans knew exactly what you were talking about.  Kaua'i was breathtaking and I almost shed a tear when I had to leave. There are some things in life you can't fully appreciate until you experience them yourself and Hawaii is one of them.

I hate to brag (no I don't), but Hawaii is a pretty epic blogger meet-up as far as I'm concerned.  You may wonder how this trip even transpired and so I'll tell you. A few months ago Raven asked if I'd be interested in going to Hawaii with her and her family to serve as a "helping hands" with the boys.  Was this a trick question?  Obviously I said yes.

I've known Raven over a year, we talk and/or text every day and we even FaceTime, so I knew she wasn't a 50-year-old man with a big ole beer gut.  However, I also watch enough Dateline to know you just never really know.  I told all my friends I wanted Keith Morrison to cover my Dateline special should I go missing abroad and I gave explicit instructions to only to use the hottest pictures of me on air.  I know.  This really isn't a joking matter. In all seriousness, I had no real qualms about meeting Raven and company. I knew it was going to be a fabulous time and if she tried to off me, at least I'd spend my last moments in paradise.  Not a bad way to go out.

So Raven and the boys (i.e. her hubs and 2 rascals) picked me up from the airport (they arrived the night before me) and we were off to our resort.

The second I got to the room, I stepped on our patio and was completely disappointed with the view.

Disgusting view, isn't it?

I freshened up since I had just spent the last 9 hours traveling and then Raven, her boys and I walked the 20 steps to the beach and toasted our first drink together. Cheers-ies.  It was like we had known each other for years.

We made my nephew and Gunner FaceTime, and the first words out of Gunner's mouth were, "Hi, do you want to be my friend?"  Life is so simple at 4. Take me back. 

Clearly Reese is a little confused as to what is going on.

After frolicking on the beach for a bit, we headed to Happy Hour by the pool for my first Mai Tai.  I don't typically like pineapples, but the pineapples in Hawaii are unlike anything I've ever tasted before. 

Yum-o times 10.

At this point I was loving life (because I still had one) and couldn't believe I had six more days of this tropical paradise to enjoy.  We walked to Duke's for dinner, a restaurant/bar literally next door to our hotel and where we went every. single. night.  In fact, towards the end of the vacay they started yelling out "Texas is here!" when I walked in.  Excuse me miss, but you may come here too much ...

After dinner and once the boys went to bed, Raven and I decided to lay in lawn chairs on the beach to girl talk and enjoy the waves crashing into the shore. It wasn't long before a local rolled up on us asking for cigarettes.  We told him we didn't have any, but he decided to pull up a seat right next to us anyway.  Sir, were you invited?  I didn't think so.  He then proceeds to tell us that we aka "Mainland Americans" have ruined Hawaii by bringing Aids, heart disease, cancer, chickens and mosquitoes to the islands.

Other than this freak, all the Hawaiians we met were nothing but kind.  He actually was pretty entertaining, but we had to ditch him and go to bed because Raven had to get up at the break of dawn to go whale watching with her husband, Rob.  I watched the boys the day they had their whale excursion and we kept ourselves busy at the pool and the beach.  Here they are during their time with me.  I kept them alive, which was Raven and Rob's only request.

See?  They just loved Aunt Lindsey.

Now, for the main event. You can pretty much sum up our trip with the following activities then wash, rinse, repeat.

Room service delivered us breakfast on the lawn in the morning.  Is this not the life?

Breakfast was followed by hours of pool time:

Rob (Raven's Hubs), Colt and Rob's nephew Greg. Rob's nephew and his wife were in Kaua'i too, but at a different resort.

view from a hot tub

cabana!

After we had enough time by the pool, we'd walk/lay on this beach before getting ready .  Kalapaki Beach is easy on the eyes, wouldn't you agree?

Wake-up Raven.

After washing off our pool stench, we'd get ready for the evening and watch the sun come down before dinner at Duke's:

Oh and I forgot to mention these bevies were consumed:

Over the course of 7 days, OK?  Don't judge us. 

My favorite thing about Raven other than meeting for the first time and feeling like we'd known eachother forever?  We were always on the same page.  

For instance, one of us would say, "Hmm ... a Mai Tai sounds good.  Should we order one?" 

Um, duh.   

Or, "I know we just ordered won tons, but maybe we should split a burger, too."  

DONE.  

She and I gorged ourselves all week and I would not have had it any other way.  Any time my drink was empty, there she was to fill me up (or yell at me to hurry up and finish it).  I'd like to tell you we scaled mountains and jumped off waterfalls, but do you really see her and I doing that?  We had the best time just talking and lounging around soaking in the beauty of Kaua'i.  I couldn't have asked for a better first-time Hawaii experience.

Now for Rob and the kids ... y'all want the dirt, right?

Obviously those boys are precious. Just look at their faces.  But in real life they are so well behaved and are the sweetest little cuddle bugs ever.  Comedians too.  Funniest thing Gunner said all trip?  While watching Lion King one day, Pumba burped really loud and Gunner yells out, "Hey!  Lindsey can burp like that!"  *Hangs head in shame*. Oh my embarrassing.  I've really, really got to stop that disgusting habit. Sorry, Mom. And thanks for calling me out Gunz.  

  If you read Raven's blog, you know she likes to make Rob look like a mister tough guy. Let me tell you, he loves her and those boys more than anything and the entire trip all he wanted was to make sure her and I were having the time of our lives.  Raven, be nice to him because you got a good one.  

I could post a million more pictures, but I think I've rambled long enough.

Who is coming here with us next?