Merry Christmas to All!

So I told you that we had taken pictures in matching pajamas, remember. I wasn't kidding!

If I'm being honest, we looked like Christmasy jailbirds. Or elves. Or Where's Waldo? It goes on and on. Can you think of anything I missed??

So originally, we had ordered our pjs from PatPat. DO NOT DO IT. My mom saw an ad on Facebook, and since we hadn't had much (or any, really) luck finding anything, so we thought we'd give it a try...

Yikes. I think we ordered them in the beginning of October, and they came in mid-November, which is the first red flag because usually stuff that takes that long to get to you is coming from China. And I speak from experience when I say ordering anything from China is a gamble. I once ordered a cookie cutter in the shape of a dress and wound up with six dinosaur cookie cutters.

Anyways, we got them, and the ones that did have sizes on them were NOT said size. Then there were two or three pairs that just didn't have any identification as to the size whatsoever, but they were all about the same size. We ordered from a women's medium to a men's xxl and they were all more or less the same.

So we tried a backup plan and ordered them from Target, and those are the ones you see! Overall, would absolutely not recommend PatPat, though they did give us a full refund and said we could "either keep it or donate it as a gift to someone else." They also offered a 15% discount on my next order. RIGHT.

Long story short, do not order from PatPat!

Anyways, Merry Christmas, everyone!

I can't remember why, but we decided to take mugshots. Ha!

Connor said he was channeling his inner serial killer.
Nailed it.

XOXO, Ness

Beach Video: Better Late Than Never

St. George Island 2017 from Vanessa Rutters on Vimeo.

I know at one point I said I would be doing well if I had the video from our vacation in July up by Thanksgiving... and that didn't happen!

So here it is, 5 months late! But better late than never, right??

XOXO, Ness

Ready for Christmas!

It's time for Christmas photos again! Last year, my mom wanted to get everyone matching Christmas pajamas and do our pictures in those... so that's what we did!

We took some pictures in normal clothes too, which are the ones above. But the pictures of us in our jammies turned out super well! In fact, they turned out so well that I decided to go ahead and post these because I'm pretty sure the pj pictures are going to be the ones on the Christmas cards!

This year things went really well! We decided to order pizza for dinner so no one had to worry about cooking. And I said I AM NOT ORDERING UNTIL WE ARE DONE. I thought that might be some extra motivation to behave and smile and not complain. And it seemed to work! I think Connor said it best: "The faster we get this done, the sooner we can eat!"

There were only a few weird faces made when we were supposed to be smiling. But no bunny ears or anything like that!

So now we are all ready for Christmas! And be on the lookout for the pajama pictures!!

XOXO, Ness

Come! We Fly!

Blue Angels

Do you like the Songebob chairs?!

Parachuters!

I definitely remembered these from last year!

We had another picnic on the side of the road for the air show in Rome again this year! I always have a blast watching planes! There were a lot of the same planes that were in the show last year, so I wasn't quite as snap happy this time around. So I actually got to enjoy just watching a lot of it! And I didn't even bother to try filming it this year seeing as how difficult it was last year. 

And it wasn't quite as hot this year either! Though at the end of the show, it was getting a little toasty. But I didn't get sunburned, so that's a big positive.

It was a nice little substitution for our usual Sunday night dinner.

And now we have Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. This year went by so fast! Seems like things are going one speed lately, and its in warp drive! Hopefully I can get everything done between now and New Years. I need to start thinking about presents! 'Tis the season! But first, I'll watch Hocus Pocus one more time!

XOXO, Ness

It's Fall, Y'all

It's fall! And we have finally started experiencing some of that crisp, cool, fall air I love so much! I love being able to sleep with my window open!

But I wasn't really prepared for it. I always check the weather on my phone, but my brain just couldn't compute what 45 degrees felt like because it had been so long. So when I walked out to my car in the morning, it was a little shocking. But in the best way possible!

So I threw together a little what I'm listening to these days, and will call it the fall playlist. Hah! 

October playlist

1. World I Wanted by Secret Nation
2. Go by Nonaphoenix
3. To Me by Jake Etheridge
4. Dark Matter by Andrew Belle
5. New Bohemia by Tansviolet
6. I Saw You First in the City by Stella Stagecoach
7. The Writer by Ellie Goulding
8. Boats & Birds by Gregory and the Hawk
9. All that I Am by Roxanne Emery
10. Attention by Charlie Puth
11. Thunder by Imagine Dragons
12. There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back by Shawn Mendes
13. Now or Never by Halsey
14. She's Out of Her Mind by blink-182
15. Having A Good Day by Benj Heard
16. Anywhere We Go by Kaptan
17. From Gold by Novo Amor
18. Whole Heart by Gryffin & Bipolar Sunshine

I can't wait for the leaves to start changing!

So Long, Summer!

The water was so clear! On this particular day, anyway!

Lens flare 😍

We were in the migration path of monarch butterflies! There we TONS of them early in the week!

Apparently they follow the coast all the way to Mexico!

It was SO nice being beach front again!

There were THOUSANDS of jellyfish while we were there! There were a ton of them that got washed up on the beach a couple evenings. During the day, we didn't see hardly any, then at night they reappeared! Then when we went out one morning, we started spotting baby ones! So I went jellyfishing with a slotted spoon!!

Me: "We have to get some family pics." Connor: "Why?!" Me: "Because I had a meltdown in July and we didn't get any." I will fully admit when I have a moment, and I definitely had one during family pics in July.

Practicing our photobombing skills!

Sunglasses: Poppy Apparel. use code nessaj10 for 10% off your purchase!

The mooooon!

So we went on vacation to my favorite place again! I haven't been to St. George Island in September in a long time! Probably 10 years! As much as I love going in July, it was so nice going in September!

It's not as hot and there aren't nearly as many people on the island! Not that there are that many at any given time, but there were noticeably less people this time around. And it was weird that the sun went down earlier! I mean, obviously, it gets dark sooner in the fall, but when I'm there, it's just getting dark at 9, so the sun going down sooner was different!

My mom and her best friend from high school are both turning 60 in the next month, so they decided we should take a trip to the beach to celebrate! I'd much rather have a beach vacation than a party any day!

But it was such a nice, relaxing week. We even went to the lighthouse! I'm perfectly content doing nothing but bumming around reading and getting a tan, but we thought we'd try something new!

The only other lighthouse I've ever climbed was on St. Simons Island, and that was in the 6h grade, so it's been a while. It was 92 steps and a sketchy ladder at the top, but we made it! And it was quite the workout. There is no air conditioning, in case you were wondering. But the view from up there was super cool!

Now back to real life. Now my next vacation isn't until July... Maybe I'll have to schedule something between now and then so I have something to look forward to!

This was a nice little so long to summer. Even though it's still 90 degrees here... Hopefully we will be getting some cooler, fall weather soon!

Also, curious. I can't decide if I like putting the text before or after the pictures... What do you think?!

XOXO, Ness