Bridal Shower, Take One

On January 24th, a wonderful event took place: my Bridal Shower. And it was wonderful in every way. People came from all over the country and North America, from all around Orlando, and got together to be with me. And of course to give me presents.

I am so thankful to each and every one of them. It was truly amazing.

My sister decided to hold it at the Gaylord Palms Resort and off we went. If you ever have been to this place or have seen it, you would know that it was huge. H.U.G.E. We got a little lost wondering around the wilderness area - but finally found the Pineapple Room. It was a nice room all to ourselves (we could be as loud as we wanted) and right next to the buffet area. Perfect. We were in the Villa de Flora area. The food was Spanish inspired (but with olives galore, for Jill...) and so good. And the dessert. Oh the dessert. Here was a picture:

Only half of the dessert. Plus there was an ice cream bar.

Enough about the food.

Dru, Melissa, KC, and LaShan got there early to set up while I arrived with the 'older' ladies. Here was what they did - it was beautiful!

The tables (with flowers!)

Presents galore.

We waited (patiently) for everyone to show up and then chowed down!

Clockwise: Dru, KC, Kucku, Janice, Del
(and Melis taking picture)



Becky, LaShan, and Raji also chowing down.

After a fun little Del quiz (which Melissa won by the way) and me having to tell everyone Jake's full name (Jacob Tiger, people), we got to the good part... presents.

First one!
(Watch as my dress slowing creeps up my legs. Sigh.)



KC, the present bringer and taker



Watchers to the Left:
KC, Mom, Margie, Becky, and LaShan



Watchers in Front:
Daryl, Maggie, Courtney, and Jill



Del with great bowl. Loved it!



Mom and Del. Love you.

And this was what they made me do. It was LaShan's idea, and I blame her 100%. We did the traditional rehearsal bouquet out of ribbons (I only tore one, so that means one child...), and then they made me put it on my head. But I looked cute, so why not?

I can't even being to say how surprised I was by how generous people were. I must have some pretty terrific friends. Thanks SO much. Loved everything!

P.S. And no pictures of the cute little naughties I was given. I'll try to add some later...

Initital Festivities

So, the weekend of the 24th of January was my Bridal Shower. A whole bunch of wonderful people came into town to celebrate with me and give me presents. How great was that? My Mom and sister, Dru, came in on Wednesday night (from Seattle); Maggie came in on Thursday morning (from St. Louis) and KC on Thursday afternoon (from Guelph, Canada); Margie, Friday morning (from Pawleys, SC), and LaShan (from Clemson, SC) and Melissa (from Carlsbad, CA) on Friday night.

Thanks guys for flying all this way!

Thursday night (after a day of shopping), we went to Houlihans for dinner. Thanks Maggie! Had a terrific meal and some nummy drinks. Love love love the key lime martini.

Maggie, Mom, and Del
(Those were my martinis...)



The pretties...
(If you've noticed, I've gotten these before.)



Dru and KC. Yo.

Friday was Airport Day. Went three times to two different airports. Yikes. Poor Honey was confused (that's my car...). Darin and I also decided to try to smoke some ribs again for a special dinner.

KC and Jakey. She missed her pups, Lilly and Macy.
Jake also missed them and wants them to visit.

Jake was in heaven the whole time everyone was here - just because so many people took him for walks/runs and gave him extra food. Mom even bought some raw hide bones for him because she felt he was not getting enough treats. (He normally doesn't get them!)

Dinner was served - ribs and chicken with lots of veggies! Also TOO much stuff was bought from Costco and consumed.

L to R:
Mom, Dru, Del, Maggie, Darin, Margie, LaShan, KC, and Melissa
(missing Jake - probably under table by Melissa)

The older ladies decided to stay at a hotel for the visit, so when I was driving them there the rest of the ladies made the beautiful flower arrangements and favors for my Bridal Shower. Loved them!

KC, Melissa, and LaShan

While they were busy in the kitchen, Darin hid himself in the other room with Jake. There were a LOT of women around that weekend - poor Darin found himself kicked out of his office and wondering around looking for a place just for him.

On the couch in the other room!

More pictures of the Bridal Shower to follow.

Steak and Friends

Awhile ago, maybe two weeks?, we celebrated our very good friend Angela's birthday.

We also celebrated steak.

Drool.

She got to pick the restaurant - and we ended up at Charley's Steakhouse. I don't know who Charley was, but which I would have known him sooner.

The boys:

The girls:

I have never been to a real steakhouse - that is, a restaurant whose main and only dinner was meat. Steak and Fish. M.E.A.T. (I guess fish isn't technically 'meat', but we all got steak so...) And though the prices were pretty scary (yikes), we made an event out of it and celebrated in style.

Including my buddy here:

Ms. Appletini

The food was good. So so good.

As was the company.

Angela and Brad



Del with drinks!



Darin with meat!

Before you ordered your meal, they brought around a meat tray so you could see each piece they sold. Wow!

And I just HAD to take pictures of my steak. I got a sirloin. He was a happy piece of meat.

Before.

After.

I have no shame that I ate it all. It was good.

Will go back again when the time's right. Definitely recommend Charley's for big celebrations and such. Eat more steak. (But not too much because of the cholesterol and all.)

Finishing the Holidays: Seattle Part Three

Sorry it took me forever to get to this post. Been busy (reading, really. I was obsessed there for awhile.) I decided I should probably get this one done before all of the others!

Getting on with it...

One of the main things Darin wanted to do on this vacation was to go snowboarding. He loved all of his previous adventures, and it was one of his favorite things to do.

So snowboarding we went. All of us (excluding Mother and Cricket). yep. Dad went!

We were a little worried about the state of the roads/weather, but decided it was definitely worth it IF we put the snow chains on the tires. (And it made Darin and I feel so much better!)

We went to Mt. Baker. It was fun. Scary. But fun.

Beautiful Mountain

Dru, Dad, and I decided to take lessons because we had never really snowboarded before. That was an experience.

Here, pictures really do speak more than words... enjoy!

Del, action shot

Dad, action shot



Dru and Darin



Del



Darin
(How great was this picture!?)

After the lesson, Dad and I had chili and Dru and Darin went on the Beginner slope. I was scared. Maybe next time!

Rock On!

Darin just went everywhere on the mountain. I think he made it to all of the runs. He was a happy guy.

Went home and had a GREAT dinner.

***

Next morning, we had to take Dru to Seattle for work. Boo on Mondays. We also decided to "do" the city because Darin hadn't really explored before.

But there was this crazy wind storm. Yikes.

Did the normal routine - Pike Place Market.

Mom and Dad



Darin and Del

Darin and Fish. Sigh.

It was fun as always. I can't wait until we visit in the summer and they hand out strawberries and raspberries. After grabbing some of Seattle's best chowder, we drove up to Queen Anne to check out the incredible view.

Seattle View. Notice, no Mt. Rainier

After that, we went to a bar to watch a BOWL game - The Alamo Bowl, Missouri vs Northwestern.

Go M.I.Z.Z.O.U!

And they WON - in overtime. What a way to end the visit!

Can you say 26.2 miles?

Oh DJ.

What will you do next?

On Sunday (1/11/09) my soon-to-be sister-in-law ran the Disney Marathon.

And she did great!

Kevin (her husband and Darin's brother), Darin, and I decided it would be fun to volunteer and watch her race! Good idea us. (kind of said sarcastically)

Good Morning.
Notice it's dark outside.

Chipper Kevin and Darin

Didn't see DJ until she ran by us, but Kevin, Darin, and I were at Disney at 5:30 am. A.M. Yikes. It was very early and dark, and there were nice other volunteers there.

Ended up being crazy.

Good crazy though.

First, there were 22000 people running this race. And we were at mile 22 to give them water. All of them - though only like 15000 actually made it that far.

Here were the tables lined up. Just the water - not the powerade.

This was what I did. For 2.5 hours straight.



This was what Darin and Kevin did.
The male runners seemed to really like Darin's long arms.
Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Side note: We decided to do Mile 22 because we're evil and wanted to see if people would puke. They didn't. It was sad. (Or at least we didn't see anyone puke.) Next year?

Filled up so many things of water. Wow. The people were non-stop for over 2 hours.

Can you see the people coming? Yikes.

And then when people were finally finished (they put a cap on the race, 7 hours I think) we had to clean up all of said cups. Because the runners didn't bring them with and didn't throw them away. Obviously. (Most people were out of it by the time they came by.)

It's almost over. Yeah!

Montage of cups.

But we saw DJ and got to cheer her on.

DJ! She was by us for like .0002 seconds.

We met some nice people and got a free ticket to a Disney Park for volunteering.

All before 11 am.