June 2013 (pre-Vietnam)

[I realize that I did a terrible job of keeping up with this blog.  I plan to rectify that.  I'm technically writing all of this on January 3rd (my last day--technically, not counting the weekend--of Winter Break).  All subsequent posts for the rest of 2013 are retrospective blogs.]

Hannah & Tucker after an exciting game of tennis

Played my last game of tennis with Hannah & Tucker before heading off to Houston.  It ended abruptly, as the lights turned off and the park went pitch black right around 10:30.  In the background of this picture, you can see our "Candyland" spaces that lined our walls for quite some time.

Me & Dan @ Hamilton Pool

I had never been to Hamilton Pool.  I'd been out to Krause Springs and drove by the sign that led to Hamilton Pool, but I'd never actually been.  I was pretty excited.  We got there somewhat later than we meant to, so we did have to wait a little while (but not as long as I've heard other people have had to wait).  It was a beautiful day!  Walking down to the pool was fun... walking back up...?  Notsomuch.

JJ, Kelly, Blake, Ellie & Me

I can't remember when they ACTUALLY got engaged, but here's a photo from the night Ryan proposed to Ellie!  :)  A bunch of us got together at Opal Divine's to meet up with them and their family afterward!  Yay Harkriders!

Dentist visit:  I don't have a photo for this, but I can say that I went to the dentist for the first time in, oh... say... 8 or 9 years?  Something like that.  Worth noting.  No cavities!  Holla!

Me, Amanda & Alex

Amanda and her best friend Alex came to visit Austin for a portion of June.  They stayed with me part of the time (right?  Not the whole time, ehh I don't remember).  Since they were both 21 and thus legally allowed to drink, I took them out to Driftwood Vineyard.  We shared a bottle of wine and ate a lot of meats and cheeses!

Thomas, Johnny, Buddy, B-Go, & Joel

Me & Buddy

Buddy had a going away party.  Buddy was moving to Seattle to attend The University of Washington's Architecture school.  Yeah, because 3 degrees just wasn't quite enough.  :)  I cried, but that was no surprise.  Love this man.

A group of us in a photobooth at Shanna's wedding

Michael & Me @ Shanna's wedding

Me & Dan @ Shanna's wedding

June 22nd saw my lovely Shanna get married to Mat.  This also meant it was Dan's first time to come home to Houston with me.  He'd met most of my family before, including my dad, but he'd yet to meet my Mom.  Mom was as sweet as ever, you know, forcing food upon him.  That's about it.

Me & Dan @ Baba Yega's

Before Dan went back to Austin, Chi Thu took us to Baba Yega's for some yummy yummy brunch.  It was delicious.  I think I ate my face off.  Chi Thu brought Aragorn to eat with us.  This doesn't make sense at first, until I tell you that we originally meant to eat at Hobbit Cafe.  :)

And then... I packed...

Dinner #16 - MY BIRTHDAY DINNER!

4/2 - It was the day before my birthday and I had a feeling something was up.  Johnny hadn't yet sent out his weekly message telling us of his details for dinner.  I hadn't thought about it too much because I was still riding on my high from school.  It was a great day!  I was also focusing on my back-to-gym routine (which, thanks to it being my birthday week, I only had ONE day of, but that's okay!)

Long story short, I had a feeling, and I was bold enough to ask Thomas about my suspicions.  Which means I must've been REALLY feeling it, or else I wouldn't have bothered to ask.  I said, "Umm... we're not having crawfish tonight, are we?"  Thomas gave me a look and said, "No.  It's even BETTER!"  But I literally could NOT think of what else could be better (except for maybe... no.  I still can't think of what could be better), so I just nodded and said, "Okay."  I didn't want to make THEM feel bad for NOT getting crawfish (if that was, in fact, the truth).

I was told to sequester myself in my bedroom until they came back with food.  (Another reason I had a feeling it had to be crawfish, because Johnny generally cooks the food, so why would he need to go get it so late?  AND THEN cook it?  Nah...)

I'm finally allowed to come downstairs and sure enough, my best friends were there, with vats and vats of crawfish.  Danielle had even bought me flowers :)

This is a BEAUTIFUL sight.  BEAUTIFUL!

We all sat around and had some yummy, juicy crawfish!  Well... almost all of us.  To make this dinner even more awesome, you need to know that Johnny bought it.  Johnny bought ALL 18 LBS!  It was about $9/lb!  Yes, $9!  And he bought 18!!!!  And the kicker?  HE CAN'T EAT CRAWFISH.  Basically, he'll die.  He used to eat it with us... but I think he'd die a little each time and it's finally sunken in to him that he's deathly allergic (well, mostly).  So to make up for it, Thomas bought Johnny a steak, which he seemed to enjoy while we ate our crawfish.  This is the true mark of a best friend.  If I ever doubted (which... I haven't)... this was proof!

BUT THE SURPRISES DIDN'T STOP THERE!

While we were sitting out in our screened in patio, I heard some voices that sounded vaguely familiar... Buddy, Johnny, and Thomas looked ESPECIALLY excited, so I knew whoever it was, it had to be good.  I literally felt my heart pounding faster and faster until...

ORO AND LAURA WALKED THROUGH OUR DOOR!  Oro, our friend (who some of us may or may not believe that he may or may not be in a secret sector of the FBI) who went for "training" (see?  FBI) in Georgia back in September was finally back!  Laura, his sweet girlfriend, was with him and it was AWESOME!  :)  I was so glad they got to come join us for our dinners!  I think one of my favorite things about them being there that night (minus the gossip that was inevitable) was that Oro kept saying, "You guys are like Friends!"  Apparently the Joey/Chandler/Monica/Rachel roommate friends thing was always awesome to him.  We had officially made him jealous by achieving this.  Anyway, so the full roll call for the night was:

- Me
- Thomas
- Johnny
- Danielle
- Amy
- Maggie
- Buddy
- JJ
- Justin
- Oro
- Laura

No, unlike the other nights, we did NOT end the night with a movie.  Instead we ended it with a bundt birthday cake by Maggie!  It had alcohol in it... and by that I mean every bite was like a mini chocolate cake shot.  Which was awesome.  :)

I truly truly truly truly TRULY have some of the BEST FRIENDS anyone could ask for, and I was so happy they wanted to spend not only this particular Monday night with me, but that we're the kind of friends that want to spend almost EVERY Monday night together :)

Spring Formal 2012: Under the Sea

The night we watched "Better Luck Tomorrow" for one of our Monday Night Dinners, Johnny became inspired to have a formal.  Have a formal, we did!  The following weekend, we went shopping and went ahead and decorated the house:

Then the night of the formal (March 10th) finally came!  All day was spent putting some finishing touches up on the decorations and Maggie spent much of it making delicious goodies for the dessert table!  There were a lot of DIY elements that made this night possible!

Yum!

Really wish I had one to eat right now!

We blew (pumped?) up a LOT of balloons :)

Luke had a blast kicking them around!

I also set up a photo booth.  There are roughly 100 photos or so that were taken, so here's just some of the photos that were snapped in our photobooth.  I even bought a remote for the person to make the shutter work!  It was awesome... except sometimes after a period of inactivity, it would need to be reset, which kind of defeated the purpose, but it was still worth it :)

Mike and Lisa were the first to test out the photobooth!

Maggie, our goldfish of the night :)

Yes, Hallmark chose to place our Christmas tree into the picture

"Red cup photo!" with Trevin and Abby

The Wacktastic Adventures of Mr. & Bud: Under the Sea

The Party Planning Committee

In case you didn't know...

I mostly just wanted to include this because Mark was by far the shnazziest male at the party.

The girls got the memo for the fishface... not sure what the boys were doing.

Justin, our King and Vince, our "Queen"

Our host... standing up and taking a photo past midnight: Success!

Christmas Party with the Regs

12/9 - Our Fourth Annual Christmas party was held at Hill House.  Yeah.  I've named it.  It's on a giant hill, it's a house... and Hill House is the name of the house that the Clue people went to... so... I have self-imposed a name on our house to make it easier.  Ok.

We did a fun lil potluck... and had lots to drink.  Eventually it was time to open gifts... Johnny passed out at 10:30... or something ridiculous like that :)

A view of everyone from the "DJ Booth" in our house!

One of our Christmas trees with the presents under it!

Us with some of our gifts.

Amy, me, Eshe, Johnny, Danielle, Thomas, Maggie, Kristi, Hannah, Luis & Buddy

Bird Island Beach Buds

9/24 - Spending the weekend in Galveston for Kristi's bday!  Woot woot!

Thomas, me, Kristi & Johnny at the beach in Galveston

Some of the gang in the bay before swimming/walking to Bird Island

The gang!

I <3 this girl!  (Special shout out to Kristi on her recovery for her surgery!)

I guess Johnny is the Thu of our group...?

The Answer Is Always Paris.

So on Yahoo! today, I saw an article entitled "Best Fall Getaways."  It seemed interesting, and since I've recently-recaught the travel bug (now if I could only afford to have it), I was curious what they had in mind.

10. Yellowstone
9. Savannah, GA
8. Boston, MA
7. Austin, TX (hells yeah)
6. Vancouver, BC
5. New York City, NY
4. Las Vegas, NV
3. Chicago, IL
2. San Francisco, CA
1. Paris, France


So... I put in bold the locations I've visited (four of which I've visited--a couple multiple times--in the last 3 years!)... looks like I got 3 more to go!  Might as well do it in the fall, no?  And really though... Paris?  Like it wouldn't top the list for ANY season?!

Here are some photos of my travel companions, our lovely destinations, and... of course... me:

Thomas & Me at the Bean, our visit to Schutte

Chicago 11/2008... our first trip together!

Thomas & Me at the Public Garden, our visit to Jenny

Boston 5/2009

JJ, Buddy & Me at Harpoon Brewery, random visit/Jenny's graduation

Boston 5/2010

Chi Thu, Lisa & Me at The Central Park Boathouse, sister trip!

NYC 7/2010

Rachel, Najia & Me in Italy The Forum Shops (yeah... we didn't have a whole lot of pics of us all together), On our "Summer Lovin'" trip

Las Vegas 7/2011

Felix, Me, Nappy, Natasha & Donson in the Miracle Mile Shops (... apparently, malls are where you take photos in Vegas), On the "Let's Just Go To Vegas" trip

Las Vegas 8/2011

Anyway... this next one was not one of my more recent visits... but who cares?  It's still one of my favorites of ALL TIME!

LC, Me & Shana on the Champ de Mars

Paris 7/2007

Hey Thomas... where are we going next?

The Boys (Well... Stephen) Are Is Back In Town!

Yesterday a bunch of us had happy hour at Tacos & Tequila (TNT) for Stephen who came back into town for a friend's wedding. It was SO GREAT to see him! :) We had a swell time... :) And I'm still uber jealous of the fact that Stephen's gotten to see my sister Rachel and her family more recently than I have. HE GOT TO STAY IN THEIR TREEHOUSE!

And Then They Came BACK!

July 12th - JOHNNY AND HOT ASHLEE CAME BACK! Johnny finally came back from Vietnam! We missed him so much! He surprised me and Thomas! It was awesome! And YAY--HOT ASHLEE CAME BACK TO AUSTIN TOO! It was awesome! We went downtown and it was just... it was SO GOOD to have these people back in my life again! :)

DT with Hot Ashlee and one of her friends

These guys...

More guys :)

One of my DT staples, Erica!