Visiting Vicksburg

Last night we headed back to our old stomping ground in Vicksburg for a night out with some old friends. Jennifer Lynne and Stephen were in town from Oklahoma City, and Leslie was in from Houston, so we took advantage of everyone being in one place for a change and headed west.

We went out to dinner and then to The Loft downtown. It's been a year and a half since we've seen Jennifer Lynne and Stephen, so we had a lot of catching up to do. It was so good to see them and hear about their wedding plans and what's been going on in the big OKC. The weather was great, so we sat outside on the balcony and visited over a few cocktails.

Here's a pic of our group at The Loft, plus some random old guy who jumped in the picture. I mean, who does that?

Here are the girls...

And here's Derek with Lenny. They've been friends for going on 15 years now.

So after closing down the bar last night we spent the night at Katie and Neil's and headed back home this morning. It's been a lazy afternoon for us, and we're about to settle in on the couch for the rest of the night. It was good visiting Vicksburg, and it's always good to see old friends back in the place where it all began. :)

Just Like New!

Last week we finally finished updating our guest bathroom. You've seen our progress so far in replacing the green floor tiles and green toilet, and now we've replaced the ugly green sink. It was actually a pretty cool process, so I don't feel bad giving these guys a shameless plug for the great work they did.

Years ago when I was working at the paper, I did a story on porcelain reglazing for our Home and Garden special section. My editor had her old bathtub reglazed, and it made an amazing difference. So when we started talking about updating our bathroom, this was just what I had in mind for our old sink. I called around and had Integrity Restorations come give us an estimate.

The kicker for us was the fact that our sink is inlaid in the tile, and in order to actually replace the sink itself, we would have to tear out the tile on the counters. The green might not have bothered us so much if it wasn't totally rusted by the drain. It, too, was original to the house, meaning about 50 or more years old.

The "reglazers" got here about 10 on Friday morning with a trailer full of chemicals. They laid a tarp down from the back door to the bathroom and step-by-step cleaned out the rust, filled in the holes the rust left, primed and reglazed the sink with an acrylic compound. It looked like the scene from E.T. when everyone's walking around with hazmat suits. But we opened all the doors and windows and let the house air out so it wouldn't smell so strongly. Five hours later, the sink was shiny and white! It was incredible. Here's the before while they were cleaning the rust...

And here's the after... it looks like a brand new sink!

Needless to say, we were super happy with the results. It saved the old green countertops, but made the bathroom finally look finished. It's a great option for anyone who has older sinks or tubs that need a little freshening up. And the guys felt so bad about getting to our house a little late that they threw in a finishing cleaner on the kitchen sink, too. Now that's good customer service. :)

My 28th on the 28th of 2008

I'm another year older now and have little to show for it except for a huge headache today and a lot of pictures from our back-to-college party last night. It was so much fun, and I'm pretty sure almost everybody there tried hard to relive the glory days of college. The next day just hurts a little more now than it did when we were all 21. Pretty much everybody followed the college t-shirt rule, and the beer pong tournament and 99 Jell-o shots we made were huge hits.

We started our shindig about 4 yesterday afternoon when our spend-the-night guests arrived ready to kick off the party. I couldn't have asked for better weather, and it felt so good outside that it just made the night that much more enjoyable. I'll post a few of the better pics and try to give you the play-by-play. Here is the start of the beer pong tournament. I tried to get an action shot, but this was as good as I could do.

Here are the winners of the first bracket, Ben and Allison. We didn't really keep up with the bracket thing past the first game, but it was a good idea...

Here's me with other DG alums, Ashley, Jessica, Keever and Allison. I guess we'll never be too old to jump right into the letter pose. We should be pros after all the party pics in college.

Here's a pic of the whole group minus about six or seven who left earlier or came later. It was a fun crowd. We even had several neighbors come over. I'm pretty sure the neighbors who didn't come might not be too happy with us today, but maybe not. Although I do know the music outside was on maximum volume all night, and the louder the music was, the louder everybody else was. Yep, the neighbors might not be too pleased. Hopefully they'll forgive us.

This picture just cracks me up, so I thought I'd share. Here's Keever breaking it down on the deck. There's no telling what song she was dancing to, but this pretty much sums up the night right here...
The party ended about 3:30 in the morning, which wasn't too bad considering some of our guests didn't even come until after midnight. Here's a pic of us with Josh and Lauren, the latest arrivals of the night who drove in from Monroe and got to the house about 12:30. Notice the look on Derek's face... priceless.
I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate turning 28. It was a great birthday weekend, and today has been spent on the couch and was topped off with take-out for dinner and leftover birthday cake. What more could a girl want? :)

Mullets and Margaritas

Happy Birthday, Drewski! Yesterday was our friend Drew's 27th birthday, and his wife Kristin planned a surprise party at Cinco de Mayo to celebrate. As you probably know from earlier posts, Drew is a fan of mullet wigs. I don't really know why, but to each his own. It's his party trick. You know you have one, too, you just may not want to admit it. Ha! He recently bought a new mullet that he sported at the party last night. This one looks more like an 80's hair band wig, though. Nevertheless, he rocked it proudly, especially once they put the sombrero on him for his birthday tequila shot.

I represented the Greys at the party since Derek was flying somewhere over Louisiana en route home last night. It was a good way to pass a couple of hours before I headed to the airport. Derek got in about 9:30, so once we got home, we unpacked and got our to-do list together for the next couple of days. September has shaped up to be a really busy birthday month. We're having a party tomorrow night to celebrate mine. It was just a good excuse to have people over and enjoy sitting on the deck and having a few birthday drinks in this nice, cool weather. I'm excited! And Bentley doesn't really know it yet, but he gets to celebrate my birthday by spending a night in one of the suites at the new PetSmart Hotel. He'll get a nice lambskin bed and a TV in his room that plays Animal Planet nonstop. We figured it would be a nice treat for him so he won't miss sniffing all the strangers at his house and trying to convince them to throw the ball.

While having margarita number two last night I missed a call from Cassidy in Japan, but she left me a sweet voicemail wishing me a happy birthday a couple of days early. I think she thought my birthday was today, but in her defense, there is a 14-hour time difference and her planner is somewhere out in the ocean right now slowly being shipped to her along with just about everything else except for one suitcase she brought when she moved over there in August. She's called me EVERY single year on my birthday if I don't see her, so I knew she wouldn't let being across the globe change that.

So Happy Friday and have a great weekend! I'm certainly going to make the most of it because you only turn 28 once, right? Now 29 might be a different story... that could be a birthday that repeats itself for a few years. We'll see... :)

All By Myself

Derek's in Scottsdale this week for work, and while I always think a few days apart is good for any couple, I'm already ready for him to come home. He just left yesterday morning, isn't that sad?

Last night was GREAT - I actually got the couch to myself and watched some cheesy TV (Jon and Kate Plus Eight, The Hills, AND Dr. 90210 - good Monday lineup, don't you think?) and I even got the whole bed to myself. I think I slept across it with pillows everywhere. It was a great night's sleep. But today is a different story... I'm bored.

I've gotten a break from cooking since I've just really been eating Lean Cuisines, but I'm done with all my usual nightly duties by 6:30 and there's just nothing more to do. I've got a little work I can do at home tonight, but once that's done, I guess I'll just paint my nails and maybe take a bubble bath. Pitiful, I know.

Only two more days until he comes home. Then I'll gladly hand over the remote as well as the trash I've had to take out and the plants I've had to water. That's usually his thing. In the meantime, I'll just keep the animals company and reminisce about the couple years I spent living by myself in Vicksburg before he moved home from Oxford. What in the world did I do every night? :)

Catching Up

This weekend was a nice few days spent at home, catching up with friends and family and catching up on things around the house. Friday night we went to our friends Drew and Kristin's house for dinner. I started this blog the week after they got married, so I thought since I missed actually blogging about their wedding, I'd post a pic from it just a few months later. Here's the happy couple at the reception. No, that's not Drew's real hair... he just really likes his mullet wig.

It was good to catch up. Even though we live a lot closer now than we did a few years ago, it seems like we never see each other, so it was a nice visit. Hopefully we can do it again soon!

Saturday we spent at home, just doing a few things around the house and cleaning. Saturday night was spent on the couch. It was a nice lazy evening which I think we both needed, especially considering we actually went out Thursday night and still hadn't caught up on our sleep by Saturday. Normal bedtime for me these days just keeps getting earlier and earlier. Pretty soon I'll be headed for the early bird special for dinner. Geez, getting older is no fun...

Today my parents came up for brunch in honor of my birthday next weekend and my mom's birthday a few weeks ago. It was a great day to sit outside and drink a few mimosas. We had a nice visit, and my mom and I opened a couple of birthday presents, which makes any Sunday even better!

Now we're getting Derek packed for his week in Arizona for work and will soon retreat back to the couch for what's left of our weekend. They just go by way too fast. Only seven more days to enjoy being 27, so guess I better enjoy them. :)

Forget counting sheep...

Last night I had a hard time falling asleep. For some reason my brain wouldn’t quit churning, and somehow I started thinking about weddings. The past three years have been full, and I mean F-U-L-L, of weddings.

Since the summer of 2005 when we got engaged, there has not been a period of time when someone close to us has not been sharing the excitement of getting engaged, planning a wedding or returning from their honeymoon. It started when our friends Jennifer and Matt got engaged around Memorial Day that summer. That’s when the “circle of love” began. Ha! No, but seriously, I really could draw a timeline of it all, but I won’t bore you with details.

All in all, not counting us, FIFTEEN couple friends of ours have tied the knot or are now engaged. Some were family, some were friends. That may not be a lot, but they have all overlapped timing-wise, so maybe that's why it seems like so many. Our "circle" almost ended in July when Keever and Bobby got married, but Cassidy and John got engaged two days before, and Jennifer Lynne and Stephen got engaged the week after that, and so it continues.

Out of those 15, we have been in six of those weddings, will be in one this summer and have so far attended all but two. Pretty pointless statistics, I know, but I couldn't help doing the math. This was what I counted instead of sheep to fall asleep last night.

My point is, if this trend continues, once the baby fever hits all of us, we’ll have another few very busy but happy years ahead of us. :)