Three Weddings

This year and next three of my very best friends in this entire world are getting married!

First up, we have Monica.  

Monica and I became friends our freshman year of college.

We were suite mates so we shared a bathroom.  We quickly found out that we had lots in common.

Her birthday is in March, my birthday is in March.

She likes my ramen, I like my ramen. (yes I mean the noodles)

She loves Target, I love Target.

The list goes on and on.

We stayed roommates/best friends all the way through our junior year of college.

And I seriously cannot imagine what my college life would have been like without her in it.  

She is one of the most honest, stylish, fun, and caring people I know.  

Her wedding day is November 18, 2011 and I am one of the maids of honor.  She’s got 3! lol 

But my main job is gonna be to speak at the reception so I need to come up with a killer speech!

Next up is Ashley.  

Ashley and I have known each other since elementary school but we didn’t become best friends until after high school.  Strange I know.  See her brother and my brother became best friends when they were in high school.  Then on a school theatre trip we were all sitting in one hotel room chatting it up.

Ashley and I were both wearing our glasses and dare I mention this…..yes I will….our retainers! 

We’re sitting there talking and that is when we realize that we both LOVE Harry Potter and we have the basically the same taste in EVERYTHING else.  So you can imagine the two of us sitting there lisping slightly because of out retainers and looking totally nerdy with out glasses.

That was when we first thought we had were sisters separated at birth or something.  

Then after we graduated we started hanging out and our brothers are best friends and our families are pretty similar.  

Ashley is fun, an amazing teacher, kind, and she is devoted to her family and friends.

Her wedding is March 17, 2012.  (the day before my birthday!)  And guess what? I’m the maid of honor in her wedding too.  So another amazing MOH speech must be written.

Last but certainly not least we have Jenny!  

Now Jenny and I have been friends literally since we were in the womb.  Our mom’s worked at the same school and we pregnant at the same time.  We went to the same elementary school for a while (Jenny says I was mean to her, but I don’t remember that at all).  Then she left and we saw each other every once in while until she came back to the middle school our moms worked at.  So in 8th grade we became best friends and even though we went to different high schools and different colleges, Jenny and I have stayed close ever since.  

She is that friend that no matter where we are or what we have been doing we can get together and it is like we’ve have been seeing each other everyday.  

Jenny has amazing fashion sense, she is hilarious, she’s a great listener, and she is a great friend.

Her wedding is May 27, 2012.  Her wedding is gonna be in our home town.  I’m a bridesmaid in her wedding which will be super elegant yet simple.  

So there you have it.  Three weddings and me.  I am so unbelievably happy for my three friends.  

But it also makes me feel (just a tad) like I’m being left behind.  

Don’t get me wrong, change is great, I embrace change, I even welcome it.  

But this is a lot of change all at the same time.  Three of my best friends are start a whole other chapter of their lives and while I’m in a new chapter too, it is on a whole other level.  Their husbands will be their best friends now. Which is the way it is supposed to be.  I’ll just have to get used to being the single friend.  

For now anyway. : )

Ps. Sorry for the depressing end to this post.  

I wish 3 of my BEST FRIENDS all the happiness in the world!   Thank you so much for wanting me to be part of each of your special days! 

You three totally deserve it and I love you all!

Birthday Tea Party

I love afternoon tea.

There is just something about getting all dressed up, sitting at a table with a friend or group of friends and enjoying a nice cup of tea.  It’s just so ladylike and fabulous.

It also reminds me of regency England and I have to say, I wish that it was still the custom to have afternoon tea at 3:00 o’clock every afternoon.

I got so into afternoon tea last summer that I went to two different tea rooms;

The St. James Tea Room in Alberqurque, NM and another tea room in Las Cruces, NM.

My friend Jenny and I hosted our own tea for Jenny’s birthday.  We made all the food items, used my great-granmother’s assorted tea cup set, and the vintage tea pot my Mom bought me at this vintage store back home.

It was fabulous.

But by far the best tea room I’ve been to is located in the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa. 

If you’ve never been to Grand, let me tell you, you are missing out!

It is a beautiful hotel that makes you wish you lived in a different decade.

Suzanne shares my love of afternoon tea.  She said that all while she was growing up her mother always had afternoon tea waiting for them when they got home from school.  

Needless to say, part of our friendship is based on our mutual love of having tea and pretty much all things girly.

So it was only natural that my birthday gift to her be…..you guessed it….afternoon tea at the Garden View Tea Room at the Grand Floridian.

We had a delightful afternoon filled with yummy food, delicious tea, light hearted conversation, laughter, and it even rained! 

Birthday Girl! 

Our fancy little set up at tea.

Princess Breakfast Tea

Course 1: A selection of tea sandwiches.

Course 2: A strawberry tart and scone with Devonshire Cream.

Course 3: Strawberries and Cream for Suzanne.

Two pastries for me.

We are so fancy.

 I could totally get used to having afternoon tea each afternoon.

Laundry 101

Ok, let me just preface this post by saying that I have been doing my own laundry for a while now.

And by a while, I mean since I moved out my parents house when I was a freshman in college.  

That was 5 years ago.

In those 5 years I have been pretty awesome at doing my own laundry.  I’m proud to say I have never shrunk, discolored, nor ruined any item of clothing that I own. 

Until now.

See this dress…..

Yes, it is a dress.  A perfectly adorable green (though in this picture it looks more blueish) dress

that I bought at this super cute boutique called Francesca’s Collections. (click the link to see just how cute and fun all their stuff is!)   

Well to make this semi short and sweet.  

I read the tag on the dress before washing it.  It said hand wash only, lay flat to dry.

  I just threw it in my closet along with another pile of clothes that I needed to wash, after I wore it to the beach one day.  

It got lost amongst the others and I may have accidentally washed AND dried it. 

I cannot tell you how sad I was when I found that it had shrunk.

And I mean shrunk A LOT! It used to come to just above my knees.  It now rests at my hips.  

On the plus side it is still an adorable item of clothing and I can totally still wear it (just as a shirt now).  

But I felt like I needed to share this with y’all because I want to warn you of the dangers of losing a brand new dress in a pile of dirty clothes.  

Keep hand wash only items SEPARATE from all other items.

Now my shirt looks like this: 

While it may still look like a dress. It is no longer a dress its a top. I plan on wearing it soon, so you’ll see what happened.  

St. Augustine, Florida Part 2

One of the things St. Augustine is most famous for is their ghost tours.

They’ve been featured in several ghost centered TV shows (sorry don’t watch them so I have no idea what they are called).  

They seriously have like 10 different places that you can take ghost tours and all over the place they have places where you can buy tickets to said ghost tours.

Now Suzanne and Amber had already taken a ghost tour.  Actually Suz had been on two up to this point and she had great things to say about both of them.  She said that on one of them, she was so scared that she got chills AND even got teary eyed.  So naturally I was willing to talk her word on which tour to take. 

So we stroll up to one of the many stations that you can buy tickets and have a chat with the lady behind the counter.  We ultimately ended up going on a tour that Suzanne had already been on, but again said was good.  

Here is what we were expecting the tour to be like:

(YES, you get to watch a video!) 

So yeah, that is what we were expecting.  Basically to be super scared and to see some ghosts. Because hello, we were on a ghost tour! 

(this is Amber and Suz before the tour, they were pretending to see a ghost)

Fast forward 90 minutes……

WORST GHOST TOUR IN THE HISTORY OF GHOST TOURS!

The entire tour was basically a history lesson of St. Augustine with one or two stories of people who are said to be seen either walking along the sea wall or in the fort.  

The kicker was when we were stopped in front of this house and our guide said we would be going into the house.  We expected to be able to wander around the house and look for ghostly things.  Nope.

Didn’t happen.  We stood in a dark house while this lady (who looked exactly like Bellatrix Lestrange) babbled on and on and made jokes about “partying like a rock star,” “dropping it like its hot,” and “being saved by the bell.”

Only pretty neat thing that happened was that in a couple (and by couple I mean 2) of my pictures those orb things showed up.  

Can you see them?  They are supposed to be ghosts. 

Anyway the whole tour was a complete waste of time.  

We had fun laughing about it later though! 

In fact we took a post tour video:

(I would post the video we took of what I thought, but Suz didn’t take the videoing seriously and she pretty much just taped my body, not my face. FAIL.)

Moral of the story? Don’t go on the ghost tour of St. Augustine that takes you through the Spanish military hospital and then for a special “ghostly encounter.”  It’s lame and totally not worth.

On the bright side we came away with some great stories and a good laugh.  And of course we all go to hang out!  

The next day was spent at the beach, but since I don’t take pictures of myself in swimsuits (you’re welcome) I don’t have many pictures to share.  But I do have these:

We had breakfast at a diner that was right in front of our hotel.  It was adorable.

We had dinner at a place in the downtown area. We sat outside and there was this fun little band playing.

And ok, I lied, I did take a picture of myself at the beach.  But please note the one I took is from the chest up (again you’re welcome, I didn’t want to startle you guys.)

Over all we had a fantastic time eating, laughing, not being scared on ghost tours, and eating some more 

in St. Augustine.  

Best part?  I get to go back again in less than a week! 🙂

St. Augustine, Florida Part 1

Tuesday and Wednesday I found me, Suzanne, and our friend Amber taking a day trip to St.

Augustine, Florida.

St. Augustine is the oldest city in the US, founded in 1565 by the Spanish.  So the history nerd/teacher in me was super excited.

The city has the most adorable downtown area I think I’ve ever seen. There are nifty little shops and restaurants and of course historical sites.

We stayed in a hotel right in downtown. (thank you expedia.com)

According to the internet it was supposed to be one of their haunted hotels.  But when we asked the

front desk guy about it.  He just laughed and said, “Nope it’s not haunted.  But I can come knock on your door in the middle of the night and then run away.”

Yum, yeah no thanks. 

This was an old fashion tavern.  Exactly like what you would have seen when the town was first founded.  We had some yummy Sangria and played some old social drinking game (we just played for fun though).

  

This was the inside of the tavern. The bartender was dressed in old 16th century clothing and he had a piece of burlap covering the cash register.  Above the register was a sign that read:

“Tickets of credit excepted include”

Talk about authentic! 🙂

This was a vintage boutique with the neatest old Irish woman running it.

She told us stories about her 93 year old mother, showed us how to wear hats from different decades, and shared some other amazing stories about St. Augustine with us.  

The city also has an old Spanish Fort that still has portions of it standing today.  

We didn’t go inside the fort but we did browse around the outside.

Entrance to the fort.

See those super thin windows?  Well we were told that at one time a group of Native Americans, 

(what their tribe was called I have no idea. fail.) were being held prisoner in the fort.

They starved themselves for months until they were just thin enough to fit through these windows.

These holes?  They’re actually marks from a gun shot.  Several different areas around the fort were used as execution walls.  There were walls with hundreds of holes just like this.  

So after touring the cute little downtown area and before walking around the fort we realized we were starving.  We found a restaurant right next to our hotel and guess what kind of food they had?! 

I’ll give you a hint:

That’s right MEXICAN food!  I haven’t had good Mexican food since I left Texas, and let me tell you,

I sure have missed it! 

Well I think that is where I’m gonna leave you.  Looking at pictures of that food has made this girl hungry!

But stay tuned for Part 2 because I have to tell y’all all about our ghost tour and trust me you don’t want to miss that! 

🙂

Seats to the Greatest Show on Earth

My camera decided to be awesome while we were at the beach on Saturday.

I was able to capture some AMAZING pictures of the ocean, the beach, and the sunset. 

Yes, all of those things together! 

Suzanne and I decided to have special album on Facebook that has nothing but pictures of the sunsets we watch when we go to the beach.

So here are the ones we took at Holmes Beach on Anna Maria Island on the Gulf Coast:

It’s ok to be jealous.  

I would be too! 🙂  

Harry Potter and a Beach Day..wait what?

The last couple of days have been some of the most fun days EVER.

No really, I’ve done so many fun things, I’m having trouble believing that this is my life now.

Thursday night was the midnight showing of the last and final Harry Potter film.

(Yeah, the one I used two how posts to gush over)

And y’all, it did not disappoint!

I loved it! I really just loved it!

 There were a few parts that I thought well that could have been done a tad better.

But I think this was the best of the series.  

I laughed, I got startled, and yes I cried (A LOT).

I even went and saw it again on Friday night. It was just as good, if not better the second time around! 

And now….

PICTURE TIME:

I was ready with my Harry Potter 3D glasses and my Muggle shirt! 

It was a great final HP midnight show!

Now for Part Two.

On Saturday Suzanne, our friend Sara, some of Sara’s peeps, and I went to the beach.

Suzanne and I had this plan to just fill up the car with a full tank of gas and then just explore the Gulf Coast.  We had no set plans whatsoever. We did however, have some criteria.  

Where ever we ended up we wanted it to be historic, have adorable little beach shops, and of course the beach itself.

So we hit the road with nothing but a full tank of gas and a map of Florida.  

NOT a GSP, just a regular, old-fashion map.

We hit the jackpot when we found Anna Maria Island.  YES, I said ISLAND!

It was absolutely PERFECT!

We laid on the beach, we browsed some adorable little beach shops, we had a wonderful seafood dinner, and we watched a magnificent Gulf Coast sunset.  

Anna Maria Island and Holmes Beach were our destination.

YAY for sunshine and the deep blue sea.

Yummy ice cream cones!

There were Sea Turtle nests EVERYWHERE! 

If only they had hatched that night.  Looks like we’re just gonna have to go back.

Shucks.

Beach Adventures are my new favorite,

Kathleen

It All Ends Tonight

Y’all all know about my obsession with Harry Potter via my last post.

So I’m sure it is no surprise that I will be attending one of the hundreds of midnight showings of

the last and final film tonight.

I’m heading to the theatre at 9:00pm (yes 3 hours before the movie starts) so we can get good seats for the show.

Earlier today, Ashley (my bff from my previous post) and I, each went to the Hot Topic in our respective  states (she in NM and I in FL) and picked out a shirt that we could wear to the show tonight. 

Unfortunately we couldn’t find the exact same on, but we both got Muggle shirts and will wear them tonight!

We may not be together in person but we will def be together in spirit.

Ashley took this picture at the Barnes and Noble in Las Cruces and I love it:

So true and something EVERYONE should remember!

It all ends tonight and it is going to be one of the saddest and most exciting nights EVER!

Pictures of tonights shenanigans will be posted soon! 🙂 

Oh and if you’re going to an HP midnight showing…….I hope you have a blast! 🙂

Success at Last!

Thanks to one of my very best friends: Monica (you can check out her fun blog here)

I figured out how to salvage our canvases.  

So when Monica and I lived together our sophomore year of college

(that was 3 years ago…scary)

She came up with a super cute way decorate our walls.  

It is like the easiest craft project anyone could do…EVER.

All you have to do is buy fabric and hot glue them to canvases.

Easy as 1…2…3

We went to Joanne’s Fabrics and bought some fun fabric that went with the colors in our pillows and slapped those babies on the canvases!  

We now have a lovely wall decor.

I think I’ve decided that simple is best in the crafting department. 

For me anyway. : )

Epic Fail in the Craftiness Department

So remember a few days ago when I posted about my wonderful day of crafting?

Well we attempted to have another day of amazing craftyiness today.

And let me just say it was a fail of EPIC proportions.

I said last post that our lovely canvases with the Disney lyrics were not finished just yet.  They needed a 

little something else to make them really pop.

Well, Suanne and I decided that something extra would be to outline the letters with brown paint

(special thanks to Megan from Mackey Madness for her thoughts, we took your idea and ran with it!)

then we thought we would Mod Podge the entire thing to give a little glossy look.

Off to Michaels we go.

We return with some brown Sharpie paint pens (they’re awesome btw)

and some Mod Podge.  Now while we were at Michaels and looking at the Mod Podge we thought it would add a little somethin somethin if we got gold shimmer Mod Podge.  

So to make a long story short, we get home, outline all 9 canvases and Suz starts to Mod Podge them.

I ask, “Why is it so gold?”

Suz says, “Oh it’ll dry clear no worries. It just needs to actually dry.”

(20 or so minutes later)

All 9 canvases are not a pretty shimmery color we thought they would be once they dried.  

All 9 canvases are now this really ugly shimmery GOLD color that is completely uneven and barely shows ANY of the lettering we spent all day stamping Disney lyrics on.

We now have a set of canvases that in no way, shape or form can be put on a wall in our living room.  

So yeah….that is where we are at in the craftiness department at this point.  Totally disappointed in our crafty skills.  We’ve both realized that art is HARD.

I would post pictures, but they would just hurt everyone’s eyes, they are so horrible.

Bright side to the story:

  I  think I’ve come up with a way to salvage the canvases.  

And I will only write about it if they are a success and come out AMAZING! 

I hope you’re crafty projects turn out better than ours did and if not please let me know so I’m not the only one who thinks being crafty is hard work! 🙂