Things I'm Thankful For - Friendsgiving Edition

"Friendsgiving" has become a really fun tradition. Last year, me and Jordan decided to host a dinner party for our friends and have everyone bring their favorite Thanksgiving side. I always love a good reason to use all of our wedding presents, so I was really excited about our very first Friendsgiving. The idea went over so well that our friends requested another one in July. The tradition has lasted and last weekend we had the third Friendsgiving at our house.

It has expanded so much that this year we had 24 people and two turkeys. I'm still not sure how we all fit in my house comfortably AND ended up with leftovers. It truly was a fabulous time! I think the best decision I made was to switch to using paper and plastic instead of my china. Number one: I don't have enough china for 24 people. Number two: so much easier to clean up!

See what I mean? It was a lot of people! There was even an appearance by cookie monster. And some wrist bands to reminisce about our interesting wristband incident a few weeks earlier.

Good friends, good food, and a good time!

My family Thanksgiving was amazing as well. I love that Thanksgiving reminds you of all of the things in your life you are greatful for. And my family and friends are definitely up there on that list!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I guess I've recovered enough to write about my weekend...

Ok. It's been well over a week. I guess I've recovered enough from the LSU/Bama weekend to write about it...Let's just say last Saturday was a very eventful day.

It started with my sweet friend Kelly's absolutely BEAUTIFUL wedding. Have you ever been to a wedding where you notice every tiny detail and see so much simple elegance in all of it? Well this was one of those kind of weddings. Beautiful scenery (the Mississippi River), a gorgeous beaming bride, a singing groom, and everyone dancing and having fun. It was hands down one of the best weddings I've been to. You could just tell how happy they were and I think that's what makes a wedding go from fun to amazing. Seeing the love people have for one another is always the most important thing. :-)

I love taking pictures at weddings (well, actually I love taking pictures in general), but I think this is one of the first times that all of my pictures came out this nice. That says a lot about how gorgeous this wedding was! Not even one bad blurry picture. Love it!

AND here's where the night gets interesting. After the wedding, we headed downstairs to a bar that's in the same building as the reception. They had some giant screens set up to play the big LSU/Bama game, and we were all looking forward to "the game of the century." Jordan had called ahead and got a bunch of us a really nice roped off section. I bet the people who worked there were thinking "Yay! A group of people dressed up nice who just want to sit quietly and watch the game." Boy would they have been wrong.

As you can see, we were a little crazy (as evident by the picture of Jordan being teleported somewhere via the light fixture). AND these pictures were all taken before the game even started. By the time the game started we had a table full of cheese fries and beer. Some people were armed with wrist bands entitling them to drink specials and an open bar at half time (this fact will come in handy in a bit). The bar was truly a lot of fun. I'm pretty sure my favorite part was that they played dance music during commercial breaks. After coming from a fun wedding, we were all very excited to get to dance some more!

Then came half time. And lots of shots (from the people who bought wrist bands). You would have thought my friends had never drank before in their lives. I'm pretty sure the first thing my parents told me when I turned 18 was to never mix liquors...and I follow that rule religiously. These crazy people were doing shots of jager, followed by shots of vodka, followed by shots of tequila, etc. You get the picture. And you can guess what happened next....black outs across the board. I won't get into the gory details, but I can say that my foot was thrown up on twice, I missed quite a bit of the second half checking on people in the bathroom, and over half of my friends woke up the next morning not knowing who won the game. Which is sad because that game was A-MAZ-ING!!!

Oh, you thought my tale was over? Not quite. After being one of six people (out of over 20!) who could walk myself out of the bar, I had an incident. Our ride had left due to shot sickness, so we decided to take a cab home. Close your eyes and picture this scenario. Jordan hails a cab from the other side of a busy street. Me and one of my friends scurry across the street to join him. Jordan is in the cab and the door is wide open. I get one foot in the cab....and the driver TAKES OFF! With me hanging out and the door wide open. I ended up on my back looking like a sad turtle (Jordan was curious how that part happened - I looked at him and said "What was my other option?! Surf on the sidewalk with one foot in the cab?). Needless to say my foot on the ground wasn't so happy. I know it could have been way worse, but it took me a good week to be able to wear real shoes again. 

It was actually a lot grosser in person....and hurt SO bad. Plus my pretty pedicured toes lost parts of both of the big toenails in the process. Ew. At least I'm all patched up now and lived to tell the tale!

So the moral of this story is: don't mix your liquors and be very observent when entering a cab. :-) GEAUX TIGERS!

Our annual LSU tailgate

Since I've been away from the blogging world for so long, there's a lot to catch you up on! Let's see...next up is our big LSU tailgate. Every year our old college group gets together for an annual tailgate. It's always so much fun to see everyone, drink starting at a crazy hour of the morning, dance until the game, and then party until dark. This year was no different. We have such good friends!

So much fun before the game

We somehow got amazing free tickets to the game :-)

Second lines, flip cup, and dancing on trucks. You know how we roll.

I can't even describe how much fun it was! It's always good to pretend you're in college again. I don't think that will ever get old. Although Buster did miss us while we were away...

Advice for my soon-to-be married friends

This weekend I went to an engagement party for my sweet friend Allison. Allison lives in New York, so we don't get to see each other very often. Don't you love those friends you can go a year and a half without seeing, and when you finally do it's like absolutely nothing has changed? I'm really lucky to have a handful of wonderful friends like that. The party was beautiful. It was good to catch up with old friends, have a few drinks, and leave with two bags of candy.

How cute is this candy bar in the wedding colors?

 
After the party, her mom asked me if I had any advice for the soon to be married couple. Jordan immediately chimed in with "Let her have whatever she wants for the wedding!" I have to say, that is some pretty sound advice.

Such a happy day

Since I have so many good friends getting married in the coming months, I've actually been thinking about this exact topic lately. I don't consider myself to have tons of great marriage advice, but after thinking about it for a while here's what I've come up with.

Never go to bed angry.
This is one of the best pieces of advice we got before our wedding. It sounds so simple, but it truly is hard to do sometimes.

Create a hug pact. (Or something similar.)
Jordan had this idea a long time ago. Every morning before we leave for work, we make a point to hug each other. I know it sounds silly, but it's one of those things I love about our relationship.

Never use the word "divorce" in an argument. 
It's a low blow. Just don't do it.

Be honest.
Again, it sounds so simple. Honesty and trust are some of the most essential parts of being with someone. Whether you're married or just beginning a relationship, always make a point to be honest with one another about everything.  

Pick your battles.
Take a step back and put your argument into perspective. Do you really care enough about the pair of pants he left on the floor to not speak to each other for a week? Probably not. 

Keep your disagreements between you.
This is very hard for me to do sometimes, but it truly does strengthen your marriage. Complaining about your hubby to your friends just isn't worth it.


Can you think of anything else?

From classy to trashy in one streetcar ride

I realize this event actually happened a little while ago, but I was waiting on my friend to send me a picture for this post. Just wait – it’s worth it.

The week of New Years, some of my friends decided we should go out to lunch at really nice restaurant in town called Commander’s Palace. It’s a very fancy restaurant, which is cool and all, but the real reason we picked there for lunch was because they have 25-cent martinis. Yes, that’s right. 25 cents. Even though we knew the food was going to be a little pricy (and AMAZING), 25-cent martinis were just an idea too good to pass up.

So off to lunch we went! We had boyfriend/husband rides there and back, so even though it was only 11:30am we were ready for them to bring on the martinis! When we walked in we were greated as though it was the final scene in Titanic. No joke.

After a long Google image search, this was the best I could do. You get the point.

There were at least 10 people lining the entranceway waiting to greet us and tell us to have a good day. Once we made it up the stairs, there were another 5 people waiting to do the same thing. It was nice and all, but I was waiting for someone to tell us we had just been on a sinking ship.

Anyway, the room we were seated in was absolutely beautiful. It was overlooking a garden and was decorated with pretty twinkling lights. Such a great atmosphere for a nice lunch.

Next came the many, many martinis. They had four martinis to pick from, all of which seemed amazing. I stuck with the cosmo because I figured why mess with a good thing? Between all of us, we tried three of the four (we referred to them as the pink one, the blue one, and the green one - I couldn't tell you what the green and blue ones actually were if I tried).

Next came the food. My goodness was it good. Although, I'm not going to lie - those martinis might have stolen the spotlight. I'm pretty sure by the end of this lunch we all had at least 5 a piece. Why? Because it was only $1.25 a person!

Corn and crab bisque, Open faced pulled pork sandwich, bread pudding, and strawberry shortcake

This lunch was so much fun. It's always great to spend a day with good friends just laughing and catching up. It made me wish I were a woman who could "lunch" - I guess I can on random days off of school like that one was. My friend Stephanie re-discovered her love of cosmos. She evidently had given up on them after an incident 5-6 years ago. I realized that my new years resolution would be to make my friends my family (even though they kind of already are).

My cosmo with the pretty view, Stephanie loving on her cosmo

So here is where the day takes an interesting turn. A few cosmos into lunch we decided we were having so much fun that we didn't want the day to end. Somehow that thought turned into, "Hey, here's an idea. The street car runs just a few blocks away. We should get on it, head down to Bourbon Street, and call your hubby (who thinks he is picking us up at the restaurant) when we're already there! Plus, the street car is only a dollar a person, making it within our 25-cent budget!" Clearly a 5 martinis into the morning kind of decision.

We made it to Bourbon Street and called my hubby. Besides the shock of our classy day turned trashy, he was supportive and just told us to behave. I guess we can call what happened next behaving...maybe. If any of you watched the most recent Real World New Orleans, you probably noticed that the cast hung out at a total of one bar on Bourbon Street: The Beach.

The Real World cast at The Beach on Bourbon

This is a fairly new bar. I'm only saying this because I don't remember it being there...but then again I also can't remember the last time I was on Bourbon Street. Anyway, I was really excited to go there because I remembered there being a killer whale that you could ride like a bull on the show. Lo and behold, there was. And it was only $5 to ride it. Yes, please!

Besides riding the whale, there was a lot of dancing, avoiding creepy old men, laughing, and second lining with a random wedding down the street. You know, normal Bourbon Street events.

Second lining with umbrellas and a band - a New Orleans tradition

Absolutely great day spent with some amazing friends! Hopefully this will be a new after Christmas tradition!

2010 in a Nutshell

2010 was a seriously interesting year of my life. So many big things happened, and as a result I grew up more this year than I think I ever have before. I learned a lot of life lessons; the most important being that no matter how hard you try, sometimes you just can’t change people’s minds. I also had a few pretty harsh lessons in not worrying about what other people think about you (no matter how many times I have had to go through this, it never gets any easier).

Since 2010 has come to a close, I wanted to use this post to reflect on the most important things to come out of this year.

January was the month I got married and went on an amazing honeymoon to St. Lucia. After over a year of planning every little detail, the big day came and it was seriously the best day of my life. People always say that your wedding day flies by and that you don’t remember half of what happened. Not me. I can still play the entire day in my head from start to finish (although the time spent on the dance floor dancing to songs like Party in the USA and Bye Bye Bye does seem a little bit blurry).

Our honeymoon was in St. Lucia, and it was an absolutely fabulous vacation! We saw a volcano, waterfall, mountains, and other breathtaking scenery. We ate so much wonderful food - on our last night we got to go to a restraunt at the end of a pier and listen to romantic Celine Dion music while dining under the stars. Jordan also convinced me to zip line in the jungle...I’ll probably never do it again, but it was a fun experience. Oh yeah, and we had a butler. I would give pretty much anything to go back right now (although we are heading to San Francisco and Napa Valley for our anniversary next week, so I guess that will do).

The Saints won the Superbowl!!!! Enough said.

My niece, Madelyn was born at the end of March. My hubby is her godfather and we are pretty in love with her. She lives in Houston, so we don’t get to see her much, but we cherish being able to spend time with her! She's just starting to crawl and say things like "ma ma." I wish she were closer so we could see her growing up every day!

One of my really good friends, Molly, had a baby boy named Hart at the end of April. He's such a cutie! He’s so active and fun to be around. I love being able to watch him grow up!

Right before school let out for the summer, my brand new husband got shipped to Mobile to work for BP. He was there for three months working on cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf. He found out that it might be an option for him one day while I was at work, and they asked him to leave the next day. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but we made it through! While he was gone I worked at a summer camp doing things like frog races, and learned how to cook fun things like lasagna. I also decided I was lonely and bought some fish named Dug and Kevin (from the movie Up). They died right before Jordan got home...guess they knew I wouldn't be lonely much longer?

In August I started working as a Kindergarten teacher. As much as I gripe about it sometimes, I absolutely love my job. There is no greater feeling than seeing a light bulb go off in a child’s mind – and knowing that you helped them learn something as significant as reading and writing sentences. I love my K1 Kids!

In October, we became homeowners! YAY!

And of course, there were many great moments spent with friends and family...this is getting long so I can't put the 100s of pictures of these times. Here are a few highlights!

Family

These pictures are from when me and my family went to the Jazzfest together, my birthday, when we spent Easter in Houston meeting our sweet baby niece, and one of my mom's art shows (this year she followed her dream and started painting mats which she sells at some really fun art shows).

Friends

These pictures are from visiting Harley and Lindsay in West Palm Beach, our super fun annual LSU tailgate, my trip to visit Victoria and Nashville, and Friendsgiving.

2010 was a good year, but I'm very ready for the adventures to come in 2011! I've already had a few interesting ones I'll post about soon. :-)

Friendsgiving

This weekend I had a dinner party at my house that will definitely become a tradition from now on. We recently finished decorating our new house, and my husband decided we needed to have a dinner party with our friends to celebrate/break it in. We asked our friends to bring their favorite Thanksgiving side dish and we told them we would take care of the turkey and a few other things. One of our friends decided to dub it Friendsgiving, and I pretty much became obsessed with that name.

One of the two tables - the second table was our patio furniture

Me and the hubby ended up buying a turkey because we were nowhere near ready to screw up the main dish of this party (maybe next year we will be more adventurous).

Carving the turkey

In addition to the turkey I decided to make my grandmother’s oyster dressing, mashed potatoes, and turkey gravy. The mashed potatoes turned out pretty good and were easier to make than I thought. I was really nervous about making my grandmother’s oyster dressing, but it turned out great! I was so excited I was able to do it justice.

Oyster dressing! Yum!

Now the turkey gravy...that’s another story. My friend from work came over early to watch the LSU game and decided to help me start on the gravy. The recipe seemed easy enough (and came with a video), but my first mistake was getting it online from a chef who evidently didn’t believe in exact measurements. Have you ever noticed that? Real chefs apparently don’t need exact measurements and can handle a “dash” of this and a “sprinkle” of that. I, on the other hand, am by no means a real chef and cannot interpret a “dash” to save my life. What we messed up on was the amount of flour, which apparently is not a good thing to mess up on with a gravy. It was a very fun process which involved “whisking the shit out of it,” and eventually we ended up with a not-too-bad tasting gravy.

Adding some of the jug of wine to the gravy, while "whisking the shit out of it"

Dinner was a ton of fun. Everyone did an amazing job of contributing and all of the food ended up being so good! We had everything you could think of: turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, mac and cheese, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, pumpkin rolls, AND cake! Yum, yum, yum!

All of the food!

After dinner we headed outside for some survivor flip cup (similar to normal flip cup, but if your team looses you have to vote someone off of the team). I’m pretty sure every family thanksgiving should include a game of flip cup. Just saying. And then, like normal 20-somethings, we decided to have a Disney karaoke party. Only my friends...

Karaoke time

It was such a success, we decided we need to have a Friendsmas party in December!

Great night with great friends!

I'm BAAAACK!

I’m sorry I’ve been on hiatus for a while. The last REAL post I made was around a month ago...and a lot has happened since then. There is oh so much to catch you up on (and I apologize in advance because this will be long). Here is a random recap of happenings from the past month:

1. School is going well, although sometimes it seems as if parents need to be reminded to get a hobby (that is, one that isn’t bugging your child’s teacher). A few of them got that memo and decided to have a silent competition for the cutest kindergarten snack. Here are a few examples:

Bat Cookies

Snack-o-lantern -- SO CUTE!

This wasn't my class, but I just love it!

2. I finished reading Lauren Conrad’s book series called LA Candy. If you were a fan of The Hills (or just interested to hear about the other side of reality TV), I would definitely recommend them. There are three books in the series and they are very easy reads…relatively mindless books are my favorite ones. Here is a picture from the book signing where I got to meet her! (If you’re wondering why there are peanuts behind her, it’s because instead of the book signing being in a BOOK store it was at Sams)

Lauren Conrad book signing

3. I learned that going to a Saints game for Halloween is way more fun than going to a party. People watching was a lot of fun, the game was great (minus the fact that Stealers fans SUCK), and we both loved dressing up for a black and gold Halloween.

Black and gold costumes!

4. I love all of my rent-a-babies. Thank goodness my friends and family have adorable kids we can borrow every now and then!

My hubby and our niece

My best friend Molly's cute baby

5. Being a homeowner reminds me of this quote from the Notebook.

6. I went to Nashville to visit my great friend Victoria for her birthday. It was a much needed, amazing, relaxing, girly weekend. She seriously is the best hostess in the world. Visiting her is always so much fun! Here are a few highlights from my trip.

I've always wanted to go to a vineyard!!

The cute cupcake place that made Carrie Underwood's wedding cupcakes

The Nashtrash tour...SO FUNNY!