Four friends and a polar bear walk into a bar....

Friday Friends to Follow

Friday! Finally. And hey there October, didn't expect to see you so soon!

In honor of us being a mere eight hours from the weekend, here are two of my favorite friends' blogs to go check out today!


Everyone go check out Mia-mi Likee and follow MB as she posts speedo spottings and drug deals in her new home of Miami!


And then go check out KD of Present Considered for all things gifty, homey and booky. She'll keep your apartment dressed in its best, your friends' birthday gifts at the top of the list, and your bookshelves well stocked with the latest (often depressing) read.

(and how cute is her cat Maurice when he sleeps?! Gus is a fan).

Happy weekend to all. Hook 'em horns :)

thank goodness this week is over because i am sooo ready to get out of the office!

Fifteen minutes away from the weekend! I have big plans in store for me - Tonight is a slumber party in Southlake and tomorrow I'm going to the always-classy, must-not-be-missed Hurricane Harbor with some girlfriends. (!!) I haven't been since high school, and who knows what's in store for us. After a day on the water slides, Mark and I are heading up to Muenster for dinner and some quality R&R with the parents and sisters. Can't wait to see these two ladies... and for the first time in a long time, we won't have to talk about/think about/work on the wedding!


Cheers and Happy Weekend to everyone!

Christmas Cheers and Reindeer Ears

The Crazy Christmas Bachelorette Party was everything we hoped it would be: festive, silly, fun and filled with plenty of Santas and reindeer!

The five hostesses with the Mostesses met up at the Sheraton in downtown Austin to get to work. We each had our areas of expertise to get ready, and the clock was ticking!


Morgan, Sadie, Me, Ashley, Meredith


Sadie, Entertainment Chair for the evening, had collected photos and video clips from all the guests that she made into an amazing video. We played it for everyone at the party and let's just say it was a hit. My sides were hurting from laughing so hard! Sadie really put in some sweat and tears into this project, which I know the Bride (and everyone!) loved.



Yours truly took on decorations. Here I model some tinsel and admire my string o' panties, which only fell about three times. Success!



Bridesmaid and friend of the bride Morgan was in charge of costumes. A self-proclaimed craft queen, Morgan really ran with the costumes. Her theme? Christmas tacky. Check out those bows on the shirt our bride wore (most of) that night! And that veil? Complete with poinsettas and Christmas garland, it stood out wherever we were, as well as got tangled up in Royale's hair... many times. Morgan also brought reindeer ears for the all the guests, which guarenteed we could always find each other, no matter how crowded the bar (or elevator) was.



Ashley was in chrage of beveraves. Christmas cocktails and pink champagne all around! Also please note my excellent use of Christmas lights in the bar area (decoration shout out, what what!).



Meredith made sure everyone got there that night with her adorable invites. We hung one on the door of the hotel room, procliaming to everyone on our floor that yes, we are having a bachelorette party in here and we dare you to call and complain about us being too loud!

The evening was a total success. When dressed as festive as this bunch was, would you expect anything less?!

Party Games

What's a good Bachelorette Party without some party games?!

Besides taking care of the decor, I also took charge of the games for my BFF's B-ette weekend in Austin. We've all been at showers and parties where we've been forced to play some pretty cheesy games -- think building wedding dresses out of toilet paper or making words out of the bride and groom's first names. I promised the other hostesses that my games would be cheese-free!

It seems pretty standard that, in my circle of friends at least, Bachelorette Parties also include a lingerie shower. So with the help of Martha and some creativity, I got things ready for the Name That Undie game. Have ya'll played this one before? It's one of my favorites. For each gift that the bride opens, the guests come up with a name for the ensemble, and a tag is tied to the piece with its name on it. Come honeymoon time, the bride gives her groom a choice of what she should wear each night, based on its name. He doesn't get to see anything until after he choses!

I found some cute stickers by Ms. Stewart at Michaels. They are supposed to be for photo captions, but they ended up working perfectly for the game. They had who, what, where and when lines on them, which we'll use for the gift's giver, undie description and newly christened name.



I mounted each sticker on some cute scrapbook paper, added a sticker and ribbon, and the tags were ready to tie onto the gifts!

Game Numero Two was an old standby classic - How Well Does the Bride Know Her Groom? I emailed the groom-to-be a list of questions for him to answer, and then the bride has to try and guess his responses. For each wrong guess, she has a sip of champagne, and for each correct guess, we all take a sip. I've also seen this game played with gum and candy, making the bride take another bite for each wrong guess. I tried to think a little out of the box with this one, asking questions like "what time is your wedding?" (groom's reply: 6ish) and name all the Bridesmaids (which, I'm glad to say, he got right!). I also added some multiple choice questions such as, Which would you rather:

a) the bride get a tattoo of her dad's face on her back, or
b) the bride wear permanent socks, 24-7
(he picked B, in case you're curious!).

And for the third and final game, I made jingle bell necklaces for all the guests to wear (reminder: our party is Christmas themed) with a little card on each one. Each card has a task written on it that that person has to make the bride do that night. Some of them are:

Take you picture on a sports car
Ask a guy to marry you
Write your phone number on a bathroom stall
Dance with ten different guys

Once each girl gets the bride to complete her task, she gives the bride her necklace. The goal is for the B2B to have all the necklaces (and a whole lot of jingle!) by the end of the night.

Note: Cats are great crafty partners. They especially like to help with projects that involve strings and/or bells.





What are some Bachelorette games you've played that aren't too cheesy? I'm always looking for a new idea!

What craft project requires glitter and panties?

A Bachelorette Party, of course!

As I mentioned yesterday, this weekend some friends and I are throwing a Bachelorette party for our BFF and Bride to Be, Royale. We're meeting up with a bunch of ladies in Austin, where we have a hotel room and some great activities planned for Saturday night. We divided up the planning responsibilities among the five hostesses, and I took on decorations and party games.

Since the B-ette party ended up being in the middle of December, we decided to give it a silly Christmas theme, complete with holiday sweaters, Christmas cocktails, reindeer antlers and gifs under the tree. I decided to go old school with my crafts for the decor, using - you guessed it - glitter and Elmer's glue. Remember when all your crafts consisted of glitter and glue? Well, its a little messier than I remembered, and Mark's living room floor may have a hint of sparkle for the next several weeks, but I made (slightly shaky) personalized stockings for all the guests, with the bride's name glittered in gold. Some of these took me about four tries of wiping off the glue and starting over again, but alas, here they are!



Next up, I decided to hit up the Christmas aisle in Walmart for some inexpensive holiday decor. Eight dollars later, I had three strands of twinkle lights and thirty feet of tinsel. Eight dollars! That's my kind of price! I felt like I was still missing some stuff though, so I decided to hit up Victoria Secret and snag some of their 5 for $25 panties, and then found some ribbon and clothespins to create a string of panties to hang by the "mantle" (read: hotel room wall) along with the stockings. Extra bonus- the bride gets to take that decor home for the honeymoon!

I'm finishing up some posters and a couple other decoratey (totally a real word) ideas to bring along with me. I'm running out of time, so I might have some last minute crafting to do once I get to Austin this weekend. You're allowed to carry a hole punch onto a plane, right?

Asking My Crew

One of the first things I started working on when we got engaged was our bridal party. I was super excited about inviting all our friends to be a part of the wedding and start sharing all the plans and details with them. Mark quickly came up with his list of guys and waited until he saw them in person to ask them if they would be his groomsmen. Me on the other hand, I knew I wanted to do something a little different than just asking my dozen girls when I saw them or calling them up to pop the bridesmaid question.

I started googling around for creative ways to ask your bridesmaids. Surprisingly, I couldn't really find much of anything terribly creative or unique, other than sending personalized fortune cookies or some sort of other little charm or token. I wasn't too keen on the fortune cookie idea (although I did debate it for a while) and everything else out there was a little more than I wanted to spend on this task (especially when you multiply it times 12), so I decided to enlist the most creative person I know to help me design something to send out.

Enter Maid of Honor/Sister/Graphic Designer Kelly. She worked with my (somewhat amateur) sketches of ideas that I had for postcard designs and created an adorable card using Illustrator. I knew I wanted them to match the wedding theme (although let's be honest, at this point we had zero theme!), so we went for a rustic, chic design, with a little bit of Texas flare. So Kelly designed some cute little boots with Mark and my initials on them and we incorporated a slogan that I found somewhere online when I was searching around for ideas: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something You.



We printed the cards out using my parent's rinky-dink printer on some heavy linen paper, and then trimmed them to jumbo postcard size with our handy-dandy paper cutter. I wrote each girl a personal note on the cards, telling them how much I loved them and how great it would be to have them as one of my bridesmaids. We then made envelopes for each one out of scrapbook paper and some cute flower stickers, and added an address card with the same little cowboy boots on the front of each envelope.



I sent them off in the mail and waited for the phone calls from the girls as they got them. Everyone loved them and was thrilled to join our crazy wedding party! I am truly blessed to have such fabulous friends who are ready and willing to stand up for me on my big day, as well as listen to me talk about the wedding for one year straight :)

My Best Girls

I like to think of myself as a somewhat professional bridesmaid.



No, I don’t have 27 dresses stashed away, but I’ve been in four weddings so far, will be in two more before my own, and I do have a dedicated corner in the back of my closet just for bridesmaid dresses. I know that being a bridesmaid can be tough work. Planning theme showers and bachelorette weekends within groups of other girls usually involves some drama. Attending numerous parties and purchasing the various wardrobes required for b-maids is often financially straining. Getting up-do’s, traveling out of town, paying for hotel rooms, purchasing silver shoes, gold shoes, brown shoes, white shoes, getting lingerie for the bride, pots and pans for the couple, a round of drinks at a party - weddings have pretty much been a line item in my personal budget for the past five years, long before I ever got engaged!

Bridesmaid Hall of Fame, Starring Yours Truly:




On the flip side, I know how fantastic it is to be so closely involved in the weddings of your closest friends and family members. It’s so exciting to shop for wedding dresses with your best friends. I love being included in every shower, party or event honoring the couple leading up to their marriage. Some of my best weekends ever were at my girlfriends’ bachelorette parties in New York City, Dallas, Vegas, Austin and holed up in a cozy lakehouse. And don’t even get me started on how much fun the rehearsal dinners are, with their Ode to Couple slideshows and hours of open mic time! Plus, no matter how costly the dresses, shoes and accessories add up to be, there’s nothing better than being with your BFF on the morning of her wedding, sipping champagne while everyone gets their hair and makeup done together, anxiously awaiting the time to put on the dresses and head to the church.

Ever since I started to know that Mark was The One, I’ve been mentally constructing my own wedding party list. There have been days in the past couple years where I pulled out the post-it notes at work and started listing out the names of all my best girls, trying to figure out who I would include. The problem? I have waaay too many friends. Best friends. LLYAS friends (that’s Love Ya Like A Sister, for all those who didn’t speak in AIM code all through high school). I usually just pushed the list back into my mind thinking “I’ll figure that out when the time comes.” Well, fast forward to May and the time was here.

My initial thought was to narrow it down to six ‘maids. That would include my two sisters, two friends from high school, and two girls from college. Seemed simple enough and certainly nice and fair, right? But it wasn’t. I don’t have two BEST friends from high school or college, I have tons. And how could I take my circle of BFF’s and cut out 3-4 of them, when we all love each other and share in our lives together equally? I agonized about this for the first several weeks of our engagement, truly not knowing that to do. I considered doing only high school friends or only college friends, but that would eliminate a big chunk of my very best friends, and I couldn’t imagine my wedding without them there by my side, as I had been for some many of their big days.

So I did the only thing that made sense. I included them all! All twelve of them. My two beautiful sisters, my five high school girls who have stuck by me for the past 12+ years (through countless loser boyfriends and bad hairdo’s), and my five college besties, who’ve been by my side through frat parties, football games and countless late night Taco C runs. Sure, I get some odd looks when people ask how many bridesmaids I’m having, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. And really, is it ever a problem to have too many best friends?

Wedding Dress Shopping, 2.0

As I mentioned before, this dress shopping is proving to be tougher than I thought it would! After going to three different shops last week and really not finding anything that said to me I'M YOUR DRESS!, I felt discouraged and lost on where to go from there. So I did what any bride in this situation would do... I stalked anyone and everyone whose wedding photos I could find on Facebook. I like to see real brides wearing their dresses at their weddings more than just looking at the pictures of the models on the designers' websites, and what better place to find hundreds of wedding photos that the good ol' FB?!

I started looking through all the photos of my friends and if I saw one that looked like it was at a wedding, I stalked that person's photo album and found all sorts of lovely weddings, brides and dresses! I'm not going to lie, several of the photos in my Wedding Inspiration Folder on my computer (ok, they are actually all just saved to my desktop, taking over the screen, but whatev) are from random people's weddings that I don't know but found on Facebook!

I came across one of my Facebook friends whose profile picture was of her on her wedding day. She was wearing a gorgeous dress, with lace and detailing and a sweetheart neck and pretty much everything I was looking for. I am real life friends with this girl, sort of. We went to college together, she was a year or two younger than me, and I haven't talked to her in oh... five years. But I was feeling desperate and sent her a message asking who made her dress and where she got it. She wrote back right away and was super sweet (whew! I'm not a total Facebook stalker creeper!) and told me it was a Paloma Blanca and that she got it at Mockingbird Bridal in Dallas. Wha? I went there last week! But admitedly, we had just come from another store where I must have tried on 20 dresses and we barely had time to scarf down a quick lunch before our appointment at Mockingbird, so once we got there I was tired, hungry and slightly crabby. I breezed through the racks, grabbed five totally random dresses and tried them on, not liking any of them. I knew I didn't give Mockingbird a fair chance, so I called and made another appointment for Friday.

I did my research this time, scouring the Paloma Blanca site and picking out eight dresses that I wanted to try. I was off work Friday (Fair Day!), so I grabbed my BFF and Bridesmaid Virginia, and we showed up with a plan. We tried on four of the PB's I had on my list, as well as two others that I ended up snagging from the girl who was in the dressing room next to mine. She kept coming out in these gorgeous dresses that I'd be eyeing, and my sales associate was kind enough to get them for me to try as well.

I pretty much loved every one of the dresses I tried on. They were so fabulous. I have my Top Three, with a very good chance that one of them is The One! (!!!!)

I'm going to hold off posting the ones in the running, but since it's alway fun to look at dresses, here are more of the rejects! PS. These aren't the best photos because you aren't technically allowed to take pics at this shop. But BM V was totally awesome at sneaking them when we were in the fitting room!

Reasons I Hate Living in an Apartment: #712

The people who are currently living above me are loud. Really loud. Are they walking around wearing scuba flippers up there? I can hear them pounding around up there all hours of the day and night. Are the constantly dragging very large pieces of furniture across the floor? Hammering nails into the walls at 2 AM? Running laps around all 700 square feet of living space? I've started either keeping the TV turned up very loud or having my iPod plugged into my ears at all times. Which means I miss a lot of phone calls, but at least I can choose what is blasting in my ears.

End rant.

My weekend of absolutely zero plans other than laying around and perhaps painting Mark's kitchen didn't quite go as planned. Friday afternoon Mark's best friend from college called to let us know he was in town for a wedding and wanted to hang out. We were already discussing making dinner at home and heading up to Home Depot to look at paint colors when this little call threw a wrench into the whole plan. We still hit up the paint department, stared at the 1,000 different squares of color for about 20 minutes, finally blindly picked two and got samples, took them home and put them up in the walls and then Mark mowed the lawn while I feel asleep. Since we didn't hook up with his friend and his GF that night, we made it a point to see them Saturday. They were staying at the Gaylord out in Grapevine, so we met them up there and spent about six hours at the hotel's FABULOUS pool with a beach bag full of illegal cans of beer ($4.50 per drink at the bar? no thank you). We left with great tans and no desire whatsoever to pick back up the paintbrushes (although we do have about 5 different patches of colors on the walls currently: picking a color is so hard!) We went to bed early with plans of hitting up the paint department early this morning to makeup for our lost time.

But then, this morning when I checked my email, my friend and fellow Bride to Be had emailed to see if I wanted to go to the Dallas Bridal Show today. Woo! So I sent Mark on his way and told him he could paint the kitchen ANY color he wanted at this point, and I met Laura for lunch and an afternoon of DJ's, Latin Cover Bands, Cake samples galore, balloon arches, veils, free drawings for a wedding day makeover and about 280 different chair covers. Whew. It was really fun and also quite exhausting. By the last row of booths, our bags of giveaways and brochures were so heavy that we had the drag them out and we avoided eye contact with every vendor we passed. I did manage to sign up for a "free" facial from a Mary Kay consultant, create a registry at Bed, Bath and Beyond (with nothing on it yet?), and enter for a chance to win a Bachelorette Party at... get ready... Texas Motor Speedway. Oh joy. Laura informed me on our way out that she was giving everyone a fake phone number. Hmm. Smart.

But really, the bridal show was fun. I felt like I was a part of this exclusive "Bride to Be" club and like all the girls there had that same happy engagement glow. Plus, I did find some really cute bridal boutiques that I hadn't even heard of before, many of who I for sure want to go check out for dresses. And the lady at the LuLu's booth even snuck Laura and I one of her coveted coupons, even though she swore they were only for referrals. I think we smooth talked her pretty good :)

When I talked to Mark earlier tonight he hadn't made any paint decisions yet. He figured I needed to come be a part of the final decision. But one thing we do know - our little kitchen project will involve some chalk board paint. Stay tuned for that one!

Texas on My Mind

I spent the first few days of this week at an Alumni Relations conference in Austin. All it took was one drive down Mopac into the heart of downtown on a sunny morning to make my heart ache to be back in that city. Our conference was at the Omni, which meant I could walk two blocks to meet both Morgan and Royale for lunch on a patio, where we sat in the sun and chatted like we were all still roommates, living together on the third floor of the DG house, eating our Mexican lunch on a Friday, still in our PJ’s. Before I left for the airport on Tuesday evening, I took a detour to campus and walked the drag, hitting up the Co-op and Tyler’s to add a few more UT t-shirts to my ever-growing collection and marvel and how everything looks so different from four years ago, yet still feels so very much the same.

The guy selling the silver rings at the little table among all the other artists is still there, with his sign recognizing him as the oldest vendor in the Renaissance Square. The chubby “homeless” guy in the tie dye t-shirts with the goofy cardboard signs still walks Guadalupe asking for money, even though I swear he also works at the Co-op. The yellow Starbucks that I passed every day on my way to class is still crowded with students meeting to study, while still smelling slightly odd and murky. Most of the shops on the drag look the same, although the bagel store is now a Potbelly and the Cadeau, where I’d always go to buy a cute birthday present, is now another trendy clothing boutique. I so wanted to be there, every day, walking across the street to campus and going to class. Being there, with all the current students darting around you and sporting their round up t-shirts really, really made me miss it.

So my new long term goal in life is to get back to Austin. Maybe in two years, maybe in five, maybe in ten. Maybe I’ll just spend every other weekend there this summer and go back for (more than just one) football game in the fall. I know I’ll be there more often this year for Royale’s wedding festivities. Showers and parties and a bachelorette weekend are surely in the works. We even talked about possibly coming down for a weekend to help her pick out her dress! That would be exciting.

So I’ve go Austin on the brain and missing my friends who I had a great quick visit with. Every meal I ate was with either Morgan, Jamie or Royale and we really got to chat and catch up with each other. I’m sure after one weekend back here at home, I’ll be perfectly content with Dallas again. In fact, I’ve got a date with Laura for the Mavs game and plans in the works for the St. Patrick’s Day parade in a few weeks. What’s not to love?

Where'd she go?

I’m back. My brief hiatus is solely because I have been so busy lately. I met some friends for happy hour yesterday and we had this very conversation. One is a student in her last year of law school. One just started her own PR business. One is a PT and recently bought her first house with her husband way up north. We pondered over how we manage to always be so busy that even getting a date on the calendar for us to all get together is nearly impossible. Two other girls couldn’t make it at all and we’ve been planning this date since Christmas! I don’t work dreadful long hours, yet there are never enough hours in the day, week, or month. But, I’d always rather be busy than bored.

Anyways. One of the main things I was doing all last week was prepping for the Super Bowl Party at Mark’s. I always knew it would take actually inviting people over to really get the ball moving on decorating the house. We painted, cleaned, shopped, changed out his ancient framed photos, hung something over the mantle, rearranged, laid some stones in the backyard, bathed the dogs, bathed the cat (!), baked galore, grilled burgers, made dips with chips and dips with veggies, scrubbed the bathrooms and washed the windows (inside AND out). Just before people started arriving for the game, we stood back and admired out work. The house looked great.

The party was also a lot of fun. We had a good group of people come over and two of them even brought their dogs. I watched more of the four dogs chasing each other around the house and yard than I did most of the first half of the game! They all got along so well and it was hilarious to watch them play together. Everyone brought delicious food and we ate and ate and ate. In fact, we’re still eating the leftovers. Leftover burgers, leftover cookies, leftover cupcakes, leftover veggies, leftover chips and dip, leftover beer. No complaints, other than the extreme unhealthiness of most all of it. I ordered Mark to eat all the cookies before I returned to his house later this week. I think he’s taking my command pretty seriously, since he told me he had seven cookies with lunch yesterday!

In the middle of all the prepping for our gathering, I of course went to buy the iPhone. I won’t dwell on it. I know it is extremely annoying when people talk about their phones all the time. Play on their phones all the time. Email on their phones all the time. Text on their phones all the time. Use the facebook application to check photo updates on their phones all the time. Respond to every ring or ding or beep on their phones when you are trying to have dinner or drinks or a conversation. And I am not becoming one of those people. But I am AMAZED with this phone. It’s been about four days and, as my friend at happy hour so eloquently put it last evening, the iPhone will change your life. And it is. Another friend told me that it’s as addictive as crack, which I am also finding to be true.

So yeah, we took a quick break Sunday morning to dash over to the mall and buy the phone. Then I tucked it away for the rest of the day and didn’t really bring it out until mid-football game, and then everyone got theirs out and we downloaded applications for a full hour. At least. Ahh. OK. That is the end of iPhone talk on this blog.

This week is slow at work and I'm finding it hard to start and stick to one project long enough to actually complete anything. My apartment is a mess and I need to do laundry, as well as hit up the treadmill. Super Bowl Sunday took a toll on the trip to the scale this week, so I'm hoping for a better try next Monday. I am looking forward to going to the cycling class tonight because it's been two weeks since I've had the time to go! I'll end with some photos from this weekend and a promise to be better on keeping things updated. Happy Hump Day to all.

Well, the photo went in on the top and I don't feel like taking the time to move itdown. You can see our nice new green wall in the picture, which was during the 3D commercial at the Super Bowl.

Another Year

I am 26 now. Past the middle of my 20's. On the side closer to 30. Yikes. Where did the year go? I celebrated for two weeks straight, first in Austin, and then in South Bend. This weekend I am looking forward to watching the games from the comfort of the couch!

I've got a date tonight with Laura -- Chick-fil-a and a Nicholas Sparks flick. Sounds like the perfect ending to a birthday celebration.

Following Sadie's lead, here are some things to celebrate on this Monday morning, when I for one would love to be in my bed, under the covers

* Getting to see so many of my DG girls in Austin this weekend. It was a reunion weekend in true PC '01 style with a large Mexican dinner, tailgate hopping, walking 20 blocks to the stadium, a Longhorn victory, a night out downtown and brunch at Trudy's Sunday morning, sans showers
* Cats who sit on shoulders and hang upside down
* Pedi-cab rides when an actual taxi cab is no where to be found and the call center is experiencing an "unusual amount of call activity"
* Longhorn football games!
* My Texas Tech born and bred brother doing the Hook Em and singing the Eyes of Texas
* Super BF being a great sport about his 8th year in a row of watching his Cowboys be defeated by the Horns
* New puppies named Maggie Mae
* One week until my birthday!
* One month until Thanksgiving!
* Two months until Christmas!
* A trip to South Bend this weekend to attend my first ever Notre Dame football game
* Homecooked dinners in Muenster with Halloween goodie bags for all
* Halloween costumes! What do you wear when the highs are in the 40's??
* Wedding Weekends with old friends and fun

What reasons to you have to smile this Monday?

Raise Your Glasses

In two short weeks, one of my very best friends will be getting married. In case you’ve been following along, I still have not received the 30 Day Shred in the mail. WTF Amazon?! I only have 15 days left now, so there goes that plan. But anyways, I’ve known Stephanie since we were five years old so, do the math, that’s 20 years that we’ve been friends. That not only amazes me, but also makes me feel very old.

Last night I was at the gym for a spinning class and it suddenly occurs to me that I have to give a toast at the wedding. In front of 198 people (latest guest list tally). OMG. What am I going to say? Luckily it will be a co-toast with Mary Beth, but still. As I pedaled along, I started to think back on moments I could mention in my speech. Moments that would be both touching and funny. I want laughter and tears during my toast. I remembered the day I met Stephanie, when she knocked on my front door the morning my family moved to Dallas from Tulsa. I remember roller skating around the neighborhood with her, spending hours playing dolls, Barbies, school, house, office, and countless other pretend games. I remember how every year for Christmas, we’d always get several of the same things, something we knew Santa had worked out for us. In Middle School we made up dances in our living rooms and filmed hours of goofy movies on my parents’ video camera. My mom would drop us off at the mall, where we’d spend the twenty bucks we made babysitting on Sun Ripened Raspberry body lotion at Bath and Body Works. We went through my brother’s Jesuit yearbook to pick out all the boys we had crushes on when we started high school and studied together for exams before Christmas Break. In college, we went to school several states away but still stayed in touch. I remember on my 22nd birthday she left me a voicemail saying that I only had one year left to find a husband if I wanted to fulfill our childhood dream of getting married at 23. Then just after we graduated from college, I called her up to talk and she told me she had met a boy that she was going to marry. And now here she is, getting ready to walk down a real aisle and really marry this boy - not for pretend like when we were kids and I always ended up playing the role of priest.

I grew up with Stephanie and I am beyond excited for her big day in a few weeks. I can’t believe the moment we’ve dreamed of since we were in kindergarten is really here for her. I hope my toast does it justice. Waiter, bring on the champagne. Better keep it coming before I have to get up in front of the microphone!

Birthday Wishes

Her birthday may be over in her neck of the woods, but over here it's still June 2nd and this sassy expat just turned 26!

Happy Birthday to my carpool buddy who truly understands the greatness of the Mix 2 CD.  Happy birthday to the only girl who thought it was a good idea to walk alongside George Bush to Katherine's house.  Happy birthday to a fellow drill teamer who hated the feathered fans as much as I did.  Happy birthday to someone who can appreciate my long toes.  Happy birthday to a cook who uses chow mein noodles instead of sugar.  

Happy birthday to my best friend.

Food Critic

My good friend Kristen is always finding new things to do and see. She emails me almost weekly, asking me to tag along with her to fashion shows, sample sales, sewing classes, happy hours, professional groups, women’s auxiliaries, etc, etc, etc. One time we almost went to a class on how to blow dry your hair perfectly.  How weird is that?

Yesterday Kristen invited Mark and I to go along with her and Chad to a new restaurant in Garland, Coopie's.  Her boss's husband is the chef at Coopie's and Kristen offered to help them with some PR work, since they are still pretty up and coming.  She promised us a free meal, so we were in.  We made the trek out to Firewheel Center, sat down at our table and were promptly greeted by our personal waiter, Casey.  Casey tells us that we will be sampling EVERYTHING on the menu.  Every meat, every side, every dessert.  We could also order as many drinks as we wanted.  I ordered a Lynchburg Lemonade, had a few sips, then moved on to a Slushy Margarita.  We ate pot roast, meat loaf, chick fried steak, smoked brisket, fried chicken, fish, shrimp, king ranch chicken, rosemary chicken, mashed potatoes, cucumber salad, mac and cheese, veggies, grits, green beans.  You name it, we ate it.  When it was time for dessert, they brought out no less than sixteen plates.  Homemade ice cream in four different flavors, milkshakes, pies, cakes, cobbler.  It was insane!

Everything was really good.  I think my very favorites were the meatloaf, chili lime red bean salad and carrot cake with butter cream icing.  Its too bad that the place is so far away because we would probably eat there more often!

On an unrelated note, I'm going to see Sex and the City with Stephanie tonight.  On opening night!  I haven't seen a movie on opening night since...... oh, Titanic.

This, That and the Other

Summer is here!  We spent just over three hours at the pool today with Stephanie, Mark, Virginia and Roth.  We spent the time talking about everyone's plans for the near future and I'm so excited for my friends and all the exciting changes they have ahead of them.  The only bad part of the day is that I now look like a lobster.  Bright red and sunburned.  I've already mentally tried to plan what I can wear to work tomorrow that will make me look less than ridiculous.  I'm not coming up with much.

Speaking of work, we have a new Marketing Coordinator starting on Wednesday.  I am so excited to have a new face in the office!  On Friday, my coworker and I spent the entire workday rearranging our office furniture, cleaning out our desks and weeding through the files on our old Marketing girl's computer.  Today I went to Ikea and bought cute new lamps for our newly cleaned desks.  I hope it will really 'brighten' the place up.

Saturday Mark and I were in Muenster, helping my parents prepare for the graduation party next weekend.  Well, Mark really did the bulk of the help.  He and my dad spent eleven hours outside, creating a garden and leveling out the yard behind the house.  I watched a lot and brought them cold beers when they looked like they might die.  I also planned menus and decorations with my mom and made a few trips to Home Depot to buy flowers and supplies.  I think its going to be a great time next weekend!

Gus and I are watching HGTV, our usual pre-bed activity.  The weekend feels like it went by too fast, so I'm glad we have a long weekend ahead of us!  Best wishes to everyone for a speedy work week and a great Memorial Day!

Oceans Apart

My best friend Mary Beth moved to the UK two weeks ago. She'll rock your socks off because she designs greeting cards for Hallmark and now she's chasing her dreams across the globe and designing for their UK branch. I'd buy up all her new cards and make her the most popular employee across the pond, but who really gets that British humor?

I was sad to see Mary go, because she is one of my favorite people to hang out with. We've always been the kind of friends that don't really have to get together and do anything, we just want to be able to talk to each other and catch up. So I was thrilled when, just before she left, she taught me a little trick that our Macs can do. Today, as I watched the end of Oprah and got ready to head to the gym, and just before she crawled into bed to call it a night, Mary Beth and I had a quick chat.

Lists

There are some important things to note today. Since I am at work with plenty to do, I am just going to list them out. Enjoy.

1. It snowed twice last week. This week, the predicted high is 89 degrees. Gotta love Texas weather!

2. I went to a wedding on Saturday night with Mark and some of his coworkers. His boss was there sans his wife, so he took the opportunity to drink a lot and ask everyone awkward questions. While a Brad Paisley song was playing, he asked me and Mark if this was going to be our song at our wedding. I just rolled with the punches and told him no, it wouldn't be. He then started referring to Mark as my fiance for the rest of the night and tried to get everyone at our table to place bets on who would get engaged first - Mark or another guy they work with. Meghan, another one of their co-workers who was sitting at our table then informed me they already had a pool going at their office for this very bet.

3. Morgan is coming to Dallas this weekend for St. Patrick's Day and some girlfriend catch up time. It promises to be an eventful weekend. Here's what happned last time she came in town: