Our First Baby...Shower

This weekend we celebrated the upcoming arrival of a new little bundle of joy in the MUSC resident family! John and I hosted a resident baby shower at our house for our good friends Connie and Daniel, who will be having a baby girl in the end of March.

I started planning this shower pretty much when Connie first told me she was pregnant last summer. I'd never thrown a shower before and was excited to put it together! Especially when they found out they were having a girl and I knew I could do everything in pink!

The dining room set up before the food was put out. 

Connie and Daniel are keeping the baby's name a secret until she arrives, so for now we just call her baby Cornett.

Since Daniel is the actual MUSC resident, Connie is a pharmacy groupie like myself, we decided to make it a co-ed shower, inviting all the residents and their significant others. The girls in the group helped me provide all the yummy food and while we opened presents and played baby shower games, the guys played in a diaper poker tournament. To buy in, they had to bring two packs of diapers and $5. Daniel got to take home all the diapers, and the cash went to the winner of the tournament. 

The guys enjoying the food. Thanks ladies for all the yummy dishes you shared!

While the girls chatted and opened gifts in the living room...

John hosted a poker tournament for the guys in the spare room/ man cave.

Daddy and Mommy to be laughing during one of the baby shower games

Me and the baby mama!

All the girls at the shower

Gettin' Wild

This weekend we had our first experience with one of Charleston's biggest annual events, the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition ( or as the locals call it, SEWE.) It's been a little hard for me to explain this event to my Oklahoman friends, so here's the best I've got: Imagine a large city-wide outdoor festival with a wildlife/nature/conservation theme. That pretty much sums it up!

The event lasted all weekend and included things like art shows (nature themed,) wild game cooking classes, animal exhibits and demonstrations, etc. etc. Mainly I think everyone likes it so much because of all the beer!

We checked it all out on Saturday with my friend Ali and her boyfriend Ryan. Ali was an Alpha Chi with me at OU (love the lyre!) and just moved to Charleston last week! I'm so glad to have an Oklahoma friend in Charleston and I'm excited to explore even more of the city with her. 

Me and Ali enjoying the festivities of SEWE

                                          

Ali and Ryan. Glad to have a new couple friend we can double date with!

Seeing the animals was definitely my favorite part of SEWE. John and I caught the Jack Hanna animal show where we saw a live cheetah, lynx, bobcat and lots of other fun animals. The wildlife art was pretty impressive too, but by far my favorite part of the day was hanging out with this guy....

Don't worry Mom, he's harmless.

My new friend

Unfortunately, it rained almost all day Sunday, so we missed out on the SEWE animal demonstrations planned for that day, including the dogs' dock diving competition. Maybe next year!

Sweet Valentines

We had a great time celebrating Valentine's Day in the Hurst household this year. After the awesome concert, of course, John took me out for our Valentine's date Sunday night since he gets too busy at work during the week. He came home from work Sunday afternoon with a dozen yellow roses (my favorite!) and a bottle of wine. 

Roses: perfect way to start the evening. 

Then he took me to High Cotton steakhouse for dinner, a very nice restaurant in town we've been dying to try. He went all out on this one! I mean it's one classy joint, they scrape the crumbs off your white tablecloth between courses. Fancy! Even better, the steaks we ordered were delicious!

This is a picture from their website. I wasn't going to bust out my camera during dinner after all. 

When we got home from dinner, we had the red velvet whoopie pies I made earlier in the day for dessert. I got the recipe off Pinterest (you can find it here) and they were heavenly. Mine weren't quite as red because I ran out of food coloring. Oh well!

Red velvet whoopie pies with cream cheese icing

And to add to the Valentine's Day sugar fix, my sweet Momma ordered cookies from the Charleston Cookie Company and had them delivered to our house on Valentine's Day. Believe me, they are just as delicious as they are cute! Mom sure knows the way to my heart!

Thanks Mom and Larry! We love you!

 I hope your celebrations were just as sweet!

 Happy Valentine's Day!

Wanna Be Your Crystal Baller...

For Valentine's Day this year, I got John tickets to see Third Eye Blind in concert as an early present. When I saw they were coming to Charleston the week before Valentine's Day, I just couldn't resist surprising him. 

The concert was Wednesday night at the Music Farm, which is right off the main strip of Upper King Street. For you Okies out there, the Music Farm is to Charleston what Cain's Ballroom is to Tulsa. So we were excited to see our first show there since we had heard so many good things! And by we, I mean me, because John hadn't heard of it until that night :) 

But he was really excited when I gave him the tickets! He's been a huge 3EB fan since he was a kid and has never seen them live. So I knew this one was on his concert bucket list. 

And the concert was amazing! They played lots of their old songs and I was glad since I didn't know any of their new stuff. I was glad to hear "Motocycle Driveby," "Crystal Baller" and of course "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life," which they saved for the encore. 

Overall it was just a great date night going out on Wednesday night (I know, crazy!) and dancing and singing together and having a good time. 

Love my Valentine!

Ice Ice Baby

A couple weekends ago (I've lost count, that's how long I procrastinated this post,) John and I went to check out the South Carolina Stingrays---Charleston's very own hockey team! One of John's co-residents is a booster for the team, so she invited the residents to come out on "Pack the House Night" when tickets were just $5. I'm no hockey fan, but I rarely turn down $5 entertainment on a Saturday night.

Go Rays!

 The game actually wasn't that bad. Our team won and there was one really good (kind of scary) fight! We had a few drinks, spent time with our friends and got to watch this act of awesomeness at halftime....

Oh yeah, he's juggling fire! 

But by far the highlight of the night was the look John sported to the game...

All stache, baby.

 Yes, he shaved off his beard, leaving only the mustache, and kept it like that for about 3 days! The first night, it was funny (and actually fit in pretty well at the hockey game!) After that, it started bugging me that my husband looked like a 40 year old trucker. But hey, if he wants to experiment with facial hair, so be it! Thankfully, it's gone now!