quick random thoughts

1) I LOVE it when it rains fall leaves outside!

2) The one bright spot in the TTU/ OU game last night: one of the sports announcer guys was talking about some upcoming awards show, and he said "Bay-onse" (insead of "bee-on-say")was going to be performing...

Friday Night Date Night

I learned a couple of things last night:

First:
Friday Night, 9:45 + High School Musical 3 + Bolt (in Disney Digital 3D) = bad time to go to the movies. Like OMG, every preteen/ teenage girl & all their BFFs & all their boyfriends in like, Austin, like HAD to be there. Like totally.

Secondly, don't show up 5 minutes before the movie starts for the new James Bond move... it's a hard one to watch from the second row. True to Classic 007 style, there's LOTS of shoot-em-up-punch-em-in-the-face-drive-real-fast action, and it gets a bit dizzyfying from that close up. Like the first Daniel Craig-as-Bond movie, it has a different style & feel from all the older ones. It had a LOT of very striking symoblic social & political commentary in it, and there's not as much car-drooling to do as usual, but I really enjoyed it anyway. I never thought I'd like a BlondeBond better than Pierce Brosnan, but I must say, I do lurrrrve Mr. Craig.

James took me to dinner at one of my favorite Mexican food places (Chuy's), even though he's not particularly crazy about it. And he didn't complain once that the wait was an hour. Like a champ, he just waded through the hoardes of people at bar area, & snagged us a table as soon as he could, so we could stuff our faces on chips & salsa before we could be seated at our real table. Then, during the interlude between dinner & the movie, we went to Barnes & Noble to do a bit of research for our next NYC trip, WHICH IS IN JUST 15 DAYS!!!!

It was a fun, relaxing evening, and I think I'm still full of chips-n-salsa...

Overdue Catch-Up, Part I: My Birthday

I had a great one. I was treated to a fantastic date night the night before, because it was a tailgating weekend. Dinner at a really nice new place, and then he gave me my present over dessert and coffee at one of our favorite places. I was stunned by my present: I'd been kinda vaguely wishfully looking at a camera (the last one I owned was a Kodak Advantex), and I had mentioned that I thought it would be really cool to own a nice one someday- He gave me a Nikon Coolpix 80p!!!! It is amazing... I'm pretty sure I creeped out a few customers at the restaurant of all the pictures I was taking of the table, walls, lights, food, etc. WoW.

That night was chilly, and I had been pretty sick lately, so we ended the night earlyish... When we pulled up in the driveway, James said that if I hadn't been sick, he had planned to take me to a spot fairly far out of town to give me "the other part of my present"... I thought, "MORE???" He got out of the car, came around to my side of the car, and put a GIANT box in my lap. Before I tell you what was in the box, rewind a couple of weeks... While we were at the State Fair (see "Texas/ OU Weekend"), we visited the planetarium, and James learned what a dweeb I am about the stars. For years (probably 4th grade through about my sophomore year of high school), I wanted to be an astronomer. I've visited planetariums and observatories, taken classes, etc, and although I realized that a career in the area was not in the stars for me (hardyharhar...), I've never stopped loving them. I opened the box, and inside was an 80 x 800 mm (about 4"x 32") Galileo TELESCOPE!!! I haven't had a chance to really get to use it much yet (Austin is too bright to properly stargaze), but I am sooo incredibly excited about it. James is the best :) Actually, tonight would have been perfect: we're in Pleasanton, and we just watched the most spectacular moonrise, but I didn't know we'd be staying the night, so I didn't bring it. Poo.

The next day, my actual birthday, I got a manicure, pedicure, haircut/wash/blowdry, and took a nap. All in all, a great day. At the tailgate, my roommate Marcie brought me a cake! Saturday, Gameday, I had lunch with JR, and only had to be at the tailgate for a couple of hours! YaY!!!

Below are a few pictures taken with my supercool new camera :)

My Birthday cake, complete with poker chips... how apropos. :)


A nighttime view of the Texas State (Bob Bullock) Museum from the tailgate spot. ISN'T MY CAMERA AWESOME???


The birthday. You can't tell from the picture, but I'm COVERED in glitter :)

Bachelorette Weekend

I know, I know, it's been awhile since I posted, but I'll put up a few retroactive entries for the time between then and now.

Yesterday, I met my Jess in Salado for my wild-n-crazy bachelorette weekend! W00TW00T!! We ate dinner at The Range (YUM food, not great service), & spent the night at the sweetest little B&B (Alamo Cottage). This morning, we got up & partook of a homemade breakfast of biscuits & jelly, cinnamon rolls, quiche, fresh fruit, vanilla yogurt with granola, orange juice, & coffee. We drove around the little town- VERY picturesque- and "admired" all the men in skirts- there was some Scottish Festival in town, did a little antiquing, and ate (yes, again) lunch at THE cutest little tea room.

We had so so so so fun!!! :)

Below are some pics- see my cooool bridal wear that i wore the WHOLE time!

Dallas Weekend Omission of Very Impotant Evening

But I promise, it wasn't my fault!!!

I swear there was a whole big-ole paragraph about getting to eat dinner with my darling cousin/ MofH Jess & her boyfriend Michael on Sunday night! She left me a sad comment, so I went back & re-read it, and it was missing! I know that sometimes when I highlight all the text to change the color, some stuff gets deleted or moved around, but I usually catch it, because it usually does it in the middle of words or other paragraphs... All I can think is that it got deleted, but cleanly, so I didnt catch that something was missing... So here is the missing event:

Sunday night, James & I met up with my darling cousin/ MofH Jess, and her boyfriend Michael. We ended up being a bit late to her house because of my inability to pull James away from the attractions of Fair Park, so by the time we got there, the poor things were starved. They took us to a YUMMMMMY gourmet pizza place... you know it's going to be good if they refer to their pizzas as "Pies". It was so nice to get to be with them... particularly Michael, because we so rarely get to see him outside of Best-Behavior-ENTIRE-Family-Mode. Unfortunately (because we were so late, I'm afraid), by the time we got back to Jess' place, it was past Mikey's bedtime, and he had to go home, so we just went in for a quick looksey around... James had never been there before, and Jess has tons of pics from when we were kids & in college & stuff. I am so jealous of how cute her place is... She had it all decorated up for fall... cute little punkins & leaves & cute dishes & stuff. In fact, at her inspiration, I am going to Hobby Lobby tomorrow to get James' place all Fall'd up.

So, Jess, this one's for you... I'm sorry!!!! I promise, it was COMPLETELY inadvertant!!!

Texas/ OU Weekend

Last weekend, we traveled to James' Mecca: the State Fair for Texas- OU Weekend.

This was my first state fair experience, and I must say, it is definitely better than the Poteet
Strawberry Festival. Don't tell James I said this, but it was actually pretty much the same, except on a bit larger scale, and that it wasn't so dusty- everything was paved, and a lot of the exhibits (buy a hot-tub, get your teeth whitened, adopt a pet rock, etc) were indoors and air conditioned. I was incredibly grateful to one exhibit in particular: the Tempur-pedic Mattress Test Center. I laid down & had a 20 minute zzz.

All weekend, the weather was beautiful, and we both got pretty lobstered, so I actually had to push back my bridal portrait date, so I wouldn't be all red & peely. oops.

Friday night, we had dinner with a few tailgating friends that had also made the trip up to Dallas. They were originally from Dallas, so they took us to this GREAT Mexican restaurant on the South East side of Dallas... I knew it would be good, because all the businesses around had all their signs in Spanish. There were two 9-piece mariachi bands playing, and one of our friends (who had already consumed about 14 margaritas too many) knew ALL the words to EVERY song. And sang along LOUDLY. And he cannot carry a tune in a bucket. It was a bit embarrassing, but hilarious. Eventually, he called the band over to "honor" James & me with a few songs as an engagement present... They played 10 songs. At $15 a pop. It was a long night.

We stayed in a Westin, which was really nice (we got a great deal, courtesy of hotwire.com); there was a double shower head (yum!), valet parking, and the bedding in our room was FANTASTIC. A little card said that the "Heavenly Bed" was all for sale, and the cost of the feather bed, 400 thread count Egyptian Cotton sheets, feather comforter, duvet cover, and five pillows (a yummy combination of feathers & memory foam) for EACH of our full-sized beds was like $3500 ! The robe in the room was for sale too, but it wasn't as comfy as the one in the rooms at the Bellagio. Needless to say, I slept well.

The game on Saturday was a really close one, and even I actually enjoyed it. We were sitting in the end zone, and got to be a part of the "X" in a card stunt that spelled out "Texas Fight" or something. A HUGE B-52 flew directly over our heads just before the opening kickoff- it didn't matter that I was wearing orange... it all felt like a big game when I was in college. In fact, I had to keep reminding myself NOT to cheer for the red team...

Party Party Party

*whew* Big weekend!

Saturday, James and I drove alllllll the way down to Carrizo Springs for my Granddaddy's 80th birthday party at my Aunt Doris' house. Unfortunately, my mom didn't get to go, due to back problems, but that just meant Dad got to go. There were about 20 of my family there, including my cousins Jacob (works in Africa!) & Jay (lives in Atlanta), and a couple of old family friends I hadn't seen in years. I'd say the highlight of the party was when Jacob agreed to give me, Jess, & our 3 aunts a ride around town in his brand new, bright yellow H3T (nicknamed "The Short Bus"). Keep in mind that the truck is made to seat 5, there were 6 of us, and almost every woman in my family is... shall we say... bountifully blessed... in the posterior department... After hoisting each other in (my cheerleader pyramiding skills came in handy), we drove off, amidst peals of giggles, through the heart of downtown Carrizo Springs, honked and waved our way through the Sonic, and by the Mexican Rodeo (no kidding! a guy in a sombrero was riding a burro when we passed).

We spent a long night on the couches at my grandmother's house (I'll post a separate blog on that one).

Sunday afternoon was my bridal shower! I was honored that so many people came, and the hostesses did a beautiful job. The room was filled with ladies from my family, former bible class teachers, my babysitters, babysitting clients, friends parents, parents friends... it was basically a "This is Your Life" of female role models. I had been nervous about all eyes being on me, but it wasn't like that at all. Everyone was just sitting or walking around visiting, and I happened to be opening presents in the corner. Jess, Mom, & my aunt Mardi all helped with the present opening, & my cousins Carroll & Chloe acted the part of Vanna White with the presents very well. Oh yeah... and I got lotsa cool stuff.