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 Break 2012

It was a good Spring Break, though I can barely tell you what all I did!  Here's some snapshots!

BFFs forreal

Riverwalk!

Luke snapped this shot!

Chamberlains hanging out at the Alamo

Shelby was in town so natch, we went karaoke-ing!

So great to see her! :)

Obvious Reason Why Thomas is Wonderful - #15

Thomas: "Look Mel!  I'm the Eye of Sauron!"

*Oh and just because I haven't done this in awhile doesn't mean he's not wonderful, it just means I'm lazy :)

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!

Leap Day 2012!

2/29 - It was a delightful day!  I actually didn't have to work at all that day (I suppose teachers want to come and work on leap day?) Anyway, I started the day getting some hours in at CPI to make some money that day since a girl's gotta get paid!  Then Thomas and I headed to Vintage Villas

We went for a walk at Lakeway City Park to kill sometime.  According to google maps, the Hurst Creek Arm that runs alongside the park is normally full and emerald green.  This, however, is what we saw:

Dry is the bottom of a wine bottle at one of our Monday Night Dinners

Then we went and had dinner at Hudson's on the Bend

The Chef's Amuse Bouche

Rattlesnake cake (yes, it freaked me out and Thomas ate most of it)

Crabcake (now THAT I can deal with)

Thomas's duck and scallops

My steak and lobster

Us wearing blue and yellow (thanks to 30 Rock) on Leap Day!

Oh and check out the magnificent sunset I caught (barely, no thanks to Thomas's indecision in parking spots):

Sixth Floor Museum!

1/6 - So for years, I've had a thing for JFK.  And the assassination (thank you history channel for planting all those seeds of conspiracy in me).

I went to the Sixth Floor Museum with the JFD choir my senior year of high school.  That, however, was before my interest (obsession?) with JFK... so I was dying to go back to the museum.

Having dated Thomas for quite some time now, I had expected to get to go to the museum on any of our numerous visits to Dallas over the 4 + years... but it kept not happening, so it became a big joke that it would never ever happen--or at least, when it does, he's obviously going to propose :)

Well, thanks to Thomas's mom throwing some money and telling us to just GO... so we did!  And it was a blast!  :)

Holiday Season Recap (the Recap to start off all Recaps)

So it is now officially the new year.  Despite my desperate attempts to keep my blog current and up-to-date, life happens (which is, of course, a good thing) and I fall behind.  So here is a blast of a recap of the rest of my December:

12/21 & 22 - I watched Luke for about a day and a half while his parents were still working!  I suppose that is the benefit of having a teacher for a sister--when school's out, so is she!  He was super cute all day. We'd do breakfast, we'd watch some tv... then we'd take a nap together.  Probably my favorite thing about his naps, is that both times, partially through lunch, he just walks up to me and says, "Sleep now."  It's the sweetest thing.  Then we'd take his little portable dvd player, his blanky, and we hop onto his parents' bed and take our nap.  He has the sweetest little breathing when he sleeps.

Christmas Break - First we went to Houston.  We spent the first night (Christmas Eve Eve) shopping.  We ran into Anh Vien & Chi Hong at Anthro... they invited us over for some scrumptious diddlyumptious foods!  Before we headed over... Lisa and I stopped by BLHDN... Heaven.  OMG HEAVEN.

Pretty room

It's like a museum of dresses!

A dress I looooved!

Early Christmas morning I got a phone call from my cousin Jon asking if Austin wanted to come and play some flag football.  I let him know Thomas was in town, and he was promptly invited as well.  We all went up to Dobie (along with a couple of Austin's friends) and met up a bunch of my cousins (Jon, Jimmy, Peter, Nes) and a bunch of David's friends (Donson, Peter, Thu--who watched, Steve, Felix, Nappy, etc.)  They played some muddy, messy, miserable football, but they looked like they had fun!  They also looked like they were going to be very very sore.  Also, Felix made this video of them playing.

Old dudes thinking they're not so old anymore :)

Christmas with the fam was pretty typical, food and fun :)  No Chi Tram and no David.  :(  Here are some pictures of my lovely family:

Early Christmas morning (early = 4 am... which is DEFINITELY early if you fell asleep at 3:30) Thomas and I drove to Dallas.  (Thomas drove... I slept).  Once we got to the Wilders, I woke up the sleepyheads and we all sat around the living room and opened presents.  My present from Dana is TO DIE FOR.

The rest of the time in Dallas was spent hanging with friends.  Part of the time we hung out with members of the Dennis family (Thomas's cousins on his mom's side) and then we also got some time with Crazy Carl and Matt McEvoy.  It was good times all around!  :)  Especially playing loaded questions...

Eventually we headed back to Houston for some more funzie times.  I got home, Thomas headed off to the movies to meet Anh Vinh, Austin & Aaron, and I went to Baybrook Mall with Amanda, Amber & Chi La.  Later on that night Thomas, Jenny, and I met up James at La Madeleine.  There we gossiped about people we knew and caught each other up on what's going on.  It was basically dinner with three of my favorite people :)

High School!

Speaking of high school, the next morning was spent at Lan Le's engagement party.  Lan was my best friend freshman year in high school.  Eleven years later, she's getting married!  :)  She had a traditional Vietnamese engagement party--roasted pig and all.  She asked her guests to wear their traditional Vietnamese ao dai (or, in Simra and Rabia's case, their saris).  I... don't have one.  Well, I do, but it was made for me when I was 15 for my confirmation.  Ten years later, there is NO WAY IN HELL that I'm going to fit into that.

Simra, Rabia, Phuong, Lan, Me, Natalie, Nga & Tien

We're all grabbing Lan's boob.  Gee, I wonder who started that...?

The gang... thoroughly grossed out by Lan & Braeden's blatant PDA

That night the family spent much of it together shooting fireworks.  Fireworks are our favorite :)  Katie stopped by for a bit and spent a lot of time being talked back into her letterpress ideas by Lisa!

On the last day of 2011, the last year she's officially single :)  Marriage awaits in 2012!

Aaaaaaaand I think that's it for my recap of the holidays!