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?!?!

Party Planning Would Not Be My Occupation of Choice! - But it was still fun :)

One of my little cousins is getting married in April!!! She's not so little anymore, but she still feels 12 to me, like she was when I moved to Richmond! Anyway, a few weeks ago, my mom, her neighbor, her mom and I threw her a wedding shower. 

I agreed to help with some of the decorations and such. We all know that my friend Laura is the queen of decorating for parties and she's REALLY REALLY good at it. Mine was a little tamed down compared to all the intricacies you can usually find at a party thrown by Laura, but I thought I did ok, especially for a not especially crafty person. 

Little Banner

Food plates and signs

Cupcake toppers

Dessert table

Three little tea lights with Washi tape on them,
those were the party favors

Basket of party favors

Sooo... apparently I didn't even get a photo of my cousin! :( Whoops... Buuuut after the shower, my mom and I came back to my house and then went to dinner at my favorite Greek place in Carytown with Laura and Kathryn. Afterwards we happened to see the "Hot Now" light on at Krispy Kreme, so we took mom in for her very first hot Krispy Kreme. We made her wear the hat, too! I'm pretty sure she liked it!

What are you going to do next?!?!

So, I got a full time job at the place I have been working at for a year and a half (as a consultant). One of the many advantages of the old job, was that I had a parking pass to the Main Street office, which was just a few blocks from the Landmark Theater. We used to park there when we went to go see shows at the Landmark and stop in to use the rest room. On the way out we would always grab swedish fish and sour patch kids. On my last day I grabbed some swedish fish and sour patch kids for nostalgia's sake.

Now onto more important things, anyone remember these old ads?

I always think, when something fun or exciting happens someone says, "What are you going to do next?" and of course you are supposed to answer... "I'm going to Disney World!"

And true to my tradition between jobs, accidentally after my first job out of college and on purpose ever since, I took the week off in between jobs. While new jobs have perks, they also have at least one setback, or at least one for me. That setback is the lack of vacation in the first year of the job. So, to make up for it, I usually go for an unpaid vacation in between jobs. Sooo... in between my old job and my new job I went to Disney World! Though this is a correct statement, we were only actually at Disney for one day.

My friend Laura, who is pretty much always on board for an adventure and vacation, kindly decided to vacation with me to Orlando for a little fun trip. We ventured out Sunday morning (flight at 7AM arriving in Orlando at 9AM) and pretty much spent the entire day at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.

HARRY POTTER WORLD!!!

Hogsmeade

Hogwarts Express!

As avid of a Harry Potter fan that I am, I had never been to Harry Potter World. Laura, who isn't really into the books and/or movies, has been there several times! But, she agreed to accompany me to Harry Potter World, and let me tell you, it was worth it! I was super excited to be there, and she likes Universal anyway!

Monday we woke up and went to the Titanic Experience, and while the tour was a little long we did get a fun surprise at the end! Also, we missed out on the photo opportunity to stand on the ship bow... shucks! I would say that it was a good and educational little adventure.

Titanic Experience

That afternoon, at my request, we hung out by the pool for a couple hours, enjoyed some drinks from the poolside bar, and relaxed in the sunny warm weather. Sheraton said that the pool is 70% heated... yeahhhhh I'm not sure which 70%, but it certainly wasn't the part we went in!

Pool, drinks and warmth!

That night we hit up Downtown Disney for dinner and a nice walk through all the stores.

Laura at the Lego Store in Downtown Disney

Just a little curtsy!

Tuesday we went to Epcot and Hollywood studios... I was persuaded to go on the Tower of Terror, which wasn't really as bad as I remembered it being, but still not my favorite ride. We also went on the Aerosmith roller coaster, which I remember doing over and over again with a friend from High School at her first trip to Disney.

It's the happiest place on earth!

Laura's favorite princess!

Wednesday we finished off our trip by going back to Universal for the day. Funny story, on Sunday we had gone on the Harry Potter ride and one of the kids (high school) in front of us took pictures on his phone of EVERYTHING in the castle... on Wednesday when we went back, Laura decided to take my phone and replicate the situation. What we didn't anticipate, though, was having this little girl behind us that kept walking into us, touching us, and being very close to us. Her parents never said anything to her... Though we tried to get a good photo of her, unfortunately it didn't happen.

Hogwarts

See that little purple shirt to the left? That's the girl!

About to go on the Harry Potter ride!

No idea...

???

It's the Fat Lady!

Sadly, on Wednesday evening, we boarded our plane to Atlanta and finally to Richmond... At the Orlando airport we bought dinner, and I accidentally bought chips that I don't really like. I gave them to Laura but realized in the middle of our flight that the chip bag was looking like it was about to explode... check it out!

Bag of potato chips before we got on the plane...

Bag of potato chips in the air... crazy!

Then we returned to cooooold Richmond very late in the evening. Though the trip was short, it was a perfect little adventure for the END OF WINTER and in between jobs!

Another Book Down

Ok, my goal of 6 books this year is going ok so far! We are almost in mid March right now and I have completed 2 books, so I'm doing quite alright.

Book number 2:

Cheesy romance novel... but it was a good vacation read! I just went to the library today to return the other book I started last year but never finished... paid my $5 fine and then borrowed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, which have gotten RAVE reviews from pretty much everyone I know! I'll report back!

Potpourri - Part 2

I lied to you in the last post, because there wasn't anything super exciting about it. Buuut... here are some additional photos that I will share with you... 

During my basement cleaning, I had to say goodbye to a cherished item in my house...

I don't have a photo of my original Poang chair from Ikea, but the
above is a replica. Mine was more of a navy color.

I went to sit down on it and it broke...

Booooooo!

Then I took it apart and it went out in the trash today... RIP chair

Pieces of my beloved 9 year old chair!

This is Millie showing off the ottoman that went with the chair... that got donated

Thennn... there was my really old dell laptop...

Took out the hard drive and smashed it using a hammer.
This computer has now been disposed of, too!

Found this gem when I was cleaning... it's a magnet of a Bible Study
retreat that my study had maybe 5 years ago?

Aunt Zilla bought Millie a shirt... looks like
Millie needs to lose a few pounds!

Lobstah races on Christmas!

Millie's Christmas toy!

So there you have it! For real, this was actual assortment of randomness! Hope you enjoyed the photos :)

A Little Potpourri

Since last time I've written, it seems a lot has happened. Mostly including a few snow storms! :) Most recently several inches then ice, then MORE snow! Buuut, in the past few weeks I haven't been super productive but you can see what pictures I have on my phone.

PS One day you'll actually see some progress in my basement... that day isn't today!

Craft Day - Laura and Kathryn made Burlap Wreaths, I made brownies :)

One of the snow storms :) love the Google+ effect!

Opened a Dove Chocolate and saw this message...
Must have had me confused with Laura, Anna or Emily,
because we ALL know that I'm not the first to hit the dance floor!