Family, Wedding, and Birthday Celebrations, Oh MY!!!

Well, what a week it’s been! Last Friday the fam got into town around 5:30 and we headed out to the rehearsal dinner for my cousin’s wedding. Look at the pretty flowers I got to take home!

On Saturday we got up, got ready and Dad and I went to the store to pick up items for lunch. I had the whole extended family over for a little casual lunch in my backyard with sandwiches and snacks. I also dropped off some food for the bride and bridesmaids so they would have some sustenance before the wedding.

Then we headed over to First Baptist for the wedding, took some family photos, and went to the Hotel John Marshall for the reception. So much fun with the family!

Juney and me! Love the Gerber Daisy!

The bride and her daddy

Some of the cousins! Ivana, Elena, me and Eleanor

My Family (almost everyone except most of the west coast crew [Seattle and Cali],
and a few of the 2nd cousins)
Side Note: Everyone in this picture except Jane, Kelly, Sam and Juney were at my house for lunch!

Jane and me

Kelly and me

Cousins! 

My wonderful nephew... thanks for that face Scotty

Better of Scotty, not so much of me!

Then Sunday the fam went to Toast for lunch/brunch for my birthday… wait what!?! I kept forgetting that it was my birthday, oops! Last year, I'm pretty sure all I could think about, and dread, was the fact that I was turning 30. This year?!?! Eh, just another year! Hahaha. Oh and Laura came over right before in time to meet my sister, say hello to Scotty and the parents before they left. Then she helped me eat some leftovers before heading off to Youth Group that night! Holla! :) 

Monday started my week of four 10 hour days. I got to work super early for me (7:10) and started my day, knowing I would be ending it eating Maggiano's for dinner. Except I got surprise visitors for lunch! I got to hang out with Kristi and Bethany. They brought me Subway and a yummy chocolate chocolate chip cookie! I wish I had a photo, but I don't :(. If you want to see the cuteness of Bethany, you can look here, but she looks SO DIFFERENT now!

Then Monday night, I went to Maggiano's with Anna, Emily, and Laura and enjoyed some delicious dinner. Once again no photo of Maggiano's, but I put a photo of the four of us (courtesy of Laura's blog from January) below! (and just as an aside, it's Thursday night and I just now finished my leftovers!)

Laura, Anna, Emily and me

Tuesday (my actual birthday) I went to work, early again, and then when they found out it was my birthday they took me to the bakery in the afternoon and got me this delicious red velvet cheesecake. It didn't last very long!

For dinner Tuesday night, Elizabeth and I went to a new restaurant for us, Tastebuds. She surprised me by having Bev, Kevin and Shanna there, too! So it was a fun group for dinner. The food was pretty good, though I'd say the options were a little weird!

And goodness I didn't need anything else for my birthday, but on Wednesday Laura brought a cake to Bible Study for me! Mmmmmmm Chocolate cake with white icing from Ukrop's, my favorite!!! :) Thanks Laura!! I am pretty sure that the whole Bible study enjoyed it, not just me!

So this week was really just so great spending time with family, getting to celebrate with my cousin as she got married and just enjoying my friends' company and thoughtfulness during my birthday! I am SO SO SO thankful for all my family and friends. So thank you all so much for making my birthday extra special! :) I appreciate all of you so much!

And now, it's Thursday evening, I am done working for the week, and I am looking forward to my weekend adventures with Laura, Kathryn, Erica and Sara!! 

Goal Achieved! :)

At the beginning of the year I proposed my "New Year's Goals", because I don't like to make resolutions. You can read about those here. I finished my first book of the year at the end of January, Catcher in the Rye. At the beginning of March I had gone through two books. The last book post was here. The rest of the month of March and the early part of April held a lot of reading for me. So much, that I finished my goal of reading 6 books for 2014, annnnnd totally just realized I've now read 7 (oops, this is what happens when you forget to post)! So here goes a little blurb on each of the five books I apparently read from mid-March to today!

So many people recommended "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society" book to me that I really had to go for it and read it! So, I did, and I wasn't disappointed. It was really really good. It took me a little while to get into the letter style book, but it was great! I wished there was more!

Gillian Flynn's, "Gone Girl", was more of a test book for me. I have two friends who read the book and had slightly different reactions to it. Going into the book knowing that I wasn't going to like the ending was actually helpful, because then when it happened I was still irritated but not completely out of left field. It was written well and a good page turner, but I wouldn't give it five stars.

"The Night Circus" was a pretty cool book. A little strange, but I liked it. Another page turner. Not really sure how to describe it.

Ahhhh... another Gillian Flynn book. At least "Dark Places" kind of ended up a little bit better off than the other one I read. I liked this one. It's your typical thriller. The language is a little rough, but definitely not worse than "Catcher in the Rye".

Finally, I just finished reading "Divergent" tonight. Now I can go see the movie. I feel like this book is a "Hunger Games" meets 1984 meets Harry Potter. It was good, though. I enjoyed the read!

So tell me, have you read any good books lately?!?!