Back Home in Texas

After Vietnam, there wasn't much of a culture assimilation shock (is that a thing?)  Because I came home to my mom and dad making me banh cuon, one of my most favorite dishes EVER!

Aren't they cute?

Aren't they delicious looking?

Drove back to Austin in this mess

Went to a going away party at the Ballard's for Chris & Amy (and little Ev!)

Isn't she adorable???

Played Mafia.  It got intense.  Hence the hands

Had breakfast at Whole Foods with Caleigh on the day she went to go find a place to live in Temple.

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...

Not A Very Prolific Year

For a year that was supposed to see the world's end, you'd think I'd want to document everything I did in 2012.  Or not, because if the world ended, who would be there to see it?  Like I've said before, the more I actually am busy DOING, the less I find the time to write about what it is I'm doing.

That being said, 2013 doesn't seem to be all-that prolific either.  It's practically June and I've had 3 posts.  THREE posts.  What gives, Mel?

Well... I guess the big BIG news is that there has been a new leading man in my story lately.  His name is Dan.  We call him Dan Lawyer for fun.  I met him on match.com.  Oh, did I tell you I got on match.com?  Hah, yeah.  That happened.  It was MLK day and I just finished watching Obama's 2nd inauguration.  I sat myself on the couch and, influenced by Sarah's online dating stories, I decided to go the Nike route and "just do it."

I went on 5 first dates.

They were all tolerable and decently pleasant.  Dan won out, though.  So, to the victor go the spoils.  He gets me and all my crazy.  (Well, the crazy hasn't quite come out yet.  It will though.  Oh, it will.)

at Spiderhouse, which coincidentally was where we had our first date (this was not from our first date, don't worry Chi Thu, I looked a lot cuter than that on our first date).

It's only been a couple of months, but we've had a great time getting to know each other.  So far, other than weekly movie nights, our days together are pretty random.  Planting succulents, camping in the backyard, Renaissance Fair(e?), reading in Mayfield Park, long walks on the beach down South Congress, that kind of thing.

Back to the rest of life:

January was alright.  We had Hannah's birthday party at my house and that ended with my group of friends in my bedroom eating taco bell.  Eating about $40 worth of Taco Bell.  Yeah.  That's all I remember about that.  Also, Lisa, Mike and I went to go see Keane.  It was... just as spectacular (if not more so) than it would've been had they performed when they were supposed to back in 2006.

This is what $40 from Taco Bell looks like after you and your friends demolish it.

Keane @ the Moody Theater (ACL Live place)

February was good.  I had my first date with Dan on the first.  He actually wanted to go out for Valentine's day 2 weeks after meeting me.  Chloe and Daniel were in town, so we went to see DIE HARD!  Mom & Dad's 50th Anniversary celebration was great.  I also got to see some good friends running the Austin Marathon!  Maggie, Mike, and I went out and cheered with our posters--it was actually a lot of fun!

Cupcakes from Mom & Dad's 50th

Joel at Mile 24 (aka 92% done!)

Maggie about to give B-Go a high 5 at 92%!

March saw Mr. Matt get married to the gorgeous Alyssa.  Somehow I don't have photos of us at their wedding... meh, I'm sure they'll turn up somewhere, no?  :)  I sang during their ceremony "Make You Feel My Love."  I fudged up part of the song, mostly because I got distracted by the little kiddos walking down the aisle during the instrumental.  Whoops!  Anyway, it was quite a night!  It POURED down rain all night, even when we were going to the bar for the after party.  But not when Schutte and I walked to our secret after-after party.  Hah, oh what a night.  

Schutte & I pre-wedding

Schutte, LC & I post-wedding at... where were we?  McKinney Ave?  Something like that.

March also saw Spring Break.  Ahh yes, my first Spring Break as a teacher... So March looked a lot like this:

Texas Independence Day a la JJ Penny and the gang!

Driftwood Vineyard with Miss Bliss!

TEGAN AND SARA and a badly soundteched Macklemore with JJ, Danielle, Dave Behr and Danielle's engineer friend at Waterloo

Dan and me at our first concert (Alabama Shakes) at the Austin Rodeo!

Pi day pies with Miss Bliss and...

JENNY!  GIARDINA!  (LIENHARD!)

First time camping with Dan (...in his backyard.)

Kayla came into town, which naturally summoned Kristi, Eshe, Johnny and myself downtown.

Yes, we danced for far too long at Latitude.

One of my favorite couples, the Cernys, invited me over for some Elk burgers in Manor!

Early Easter with the Chamberlains, my favorite Austin family :)

Renaissance Fair (Faire?) with Dan and these two, Tommy & Kate

 Geez, March was a full month.  Or rather, I took a lot of photos in March.

April.  My favorite month.  Why?  It's birthday month!  :)  I got three days of birthday!  I got early birthday with some teacher friends at Billy's on the 2nd, real birthday with my family (Dan's first time to meet the Chamberlains and Danielle came for dinner too!) and then a final birthday with the friends at Contigo.  

Yeah... it was cold.  Can you tell?

Everyone's getting cozy, even Eshe and Blake who... have probably met once.

Tommy & Kate came with some pretty flowers!

Caleigh (in my jacket... AGAIN, haha) and Hannah, future roomie :)

Yeah, we're all sick of pictures of us two by now

Other cool things in April?  Ryan & Ellie got engaged and we all celebrated at Opal Divine's, Luke & Nia both had their 4th birthdays!  :)  April was a delightful month!

Waiting for the engaged folk to arrive

Nia blowing out her Dora & Diego cake!

Gosh he's a cute kid.

Luke with his friends at Pump it Up!  May the fourth (birthday) be with you!  :)

May is shaping up to be quite the month too, but it's not quite over yet... so... maybe I'll update more now that I feel slightly more caught up!  :)

Oh-- VIETNAM IS HAPPENING IN LESS THAN A MONTH!

I Should've Written, "5. A Million Dollars!"

In general, I don't expect gifts.  Well, okay, I take that back.  Thomas I expect something from.  (Not always, we did have a deal a couple years ago to not give any gifts!)  :)

This year, I got literally everything I wanted and more!

On Monday (the day before my birthday) I jokingly (and randomly) wrote a list of things on the dry erase board in the class I was subbing for.  This was more my way of getting their attention (they were all talking to each other when the bell rang, but they got a lot quieter once they started trying to figure out what I was writing):

1. green
2. size 7
3. Anthropologie
4. gerber daisies

I proceeded to ignore their questions and comments ("Miss Nguyen, 'anthropology' is spelled with a 'y'") and take roll.  I then went through the instructions for what they were supposed to be doing that day and right when I was done, on the tail end of the last instruction, I pointed to each item on the board and said,

"My birthday is tomorrow.  Oh and by the way my favorite color is green, I wear size 7 shoes, my favorite store is Anthropologie," (here you see some girls nod in agreement, and the rest of the class still remains clueless as to how there is a store dedicated to the discipline of anthropology), "and my favorite flowers are gerber daisies!  So, you know... just... saying."

The next day, I actually had some students bring me things!

Not only did I get green things (a green bag with an umbrella and some green lotion and body mist and also green cards), but I also got some flowers including (of course) gerber daisies!  :)

That night, Lisa, Luke, Thomas, and I went to Jasper's.  We had some (and by some I mean all) of their happy hour bar menu.  My favorites were the: pizza, sliders, and pork satays.  Skip the blue cheese potato chips--especially if you're expecting it to be as awesome as Plucker's version.  Then we... went to... *drumrollnotreallyneeded* ANTHROPOLOGIE!  Where I found myself some silver shoes... size 7.  And my sister was, of course, sweet and wonderful enough to treat me to it (this is after she already treated us to said dinner at Jasper's)!

Probably could've gotten a better photo, but too lazy.  :)

So there you have it.  My four things that I randomly off-the-top-of-my-head listed, and I got all four!  I even got a couple more things I hadn't expected (but would definitely be somewhere on my list of favorite things): TWO--yes, count it--TWO bottles of sriracha--one from Miss Maggie and the other from Thomas's family.  Thomas's family then threw in one more really really awesome thing:

Seth Meyers @ Paramount Theatre

I have such an awesome nerdcrush on him.  I look forward to weekend updates so this SNL Headwriter can make me giggle.  I still haven't decided if I have a bigger crush on him or Tina.  It's a tough one.  Now, if I got this combo, I might not have such a hard time making the decision:

Or, even better (if you're not reading this from your iPhone and/or the book I plan to print and make of this):

Yes, guys.  Really.  This was a GREAT birthday!  Much like Edwin McCain, I've got all I've waited for, and I could not ask for more!  (Yeah, I went there)

My birthday cupcake!  Luke helped me blow out my candles!  :)