Another Year, Another Birthday Celebration

On Tuesday, I turned 29. But, as my family usually does, I celebrated all weekend!

I slept in a bit on Saturday morning, before heading out for a friend’s bachelorette party at a winery that afternoon. On Sunday morning, after lectoring at church, I went to the same friend’s bridal shower. It was a tea party and we had a lovely time! I even got a fascinator. It was the first of two for the weekend!

On Monday morning, however, Hubs surprised that morning after my work out with my birthday present from the family – a new iPad! I still have got to figure out how to blog from it. Maybe I will post more if my tablet is with me the entire day!

Of course, we had to go old-school for the present as well. Hubs got me the most beautiful edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. It will start our fancy book for nice book shelves in the living room collection we want to start.

We spent Monday afternoon shopping for my wedding planning emergency kit. It’s an exciting time around our house! Don’t you wish you were me? ;)

That night, we went out to the in-laws for dinner and cake. This was what I was waiting for. My cake. It was white almond cake with raspberry filling, from a local bakery, Lubeley’s. Oh. My. Goodness. It was AMAZING.

Of course, my in-laws wanted me to have something to open that night so I got my second fascinator of the weekend! This was one I was drooling over a few weeks ago at the craft festival in St. Charles. I want to wear it to work, but I wonder if it’s a bit over the top. But come the right event, I will actually pull it off! I promise.

The best present of all was my precious nephew in a onesie I gave him – stating that his auntie is the best. Which she is. I am. :)

Isn’t he getting so big? He was four months old on my birthday. Seriously, it’s like light speed! He needs to stop growing.

On my real birthday night, after a very long day of work and meetings, Hubs took me to Vin de Set, a wonderful French restaurant that we hadn’t tried before. It quickly became one of my favorite restaurants that we can go to for special occasions! YUM. The scallops were amazing, the trout was perfect, the wine was lovely (and expertly chosen by Hubs) and the crème brule was not only yummy, but complimentary for my birthday. Fabulous on all points!

So my 29th birthday was officially a success. It’s a little surreal having completed the last birthday of my twenties. When I turned 20, I was in college, dating someone who I thought I would marry, when I planned to be an actor. Turning 29, I am married to the love of my life, in a job I adore, friends in person and online who are pretty darn amazing and I’m happy with where I am. Hopefully this next year will be just as amazing as the last!

A Potential Weekend in Sin City

In Hubs’ law school career, we have been lucky enough to meet some amazing people. Truly, the students that started law school with my husband are some of the smartest, funniest, craziest kids on the planet. We have a blast when we hang out with them.

When most of them graduated this past May, and starting making plans to take the bar in states other than Missouri (how DARE they!), we were a little bummed. Ok, a lot bummed. When some of the close friends sent out emails for their going away party, we were downright upset. People moved to Florida, Texas and many other states that ARE NOT MISSOURI. Not ok.

Since one of them moved to Texas for their job, she also moved there for her fiancée. They live in Houston and they are awesome. We knew right away when they announced their engagement that we would be heading to Houston in February to attend their wedding. They are that kind of friend that we couldn’t imagine not being there. So I started looking for flights and I’ll get the hotel reserved soon. It will be so much fun! Even if it happens to be two weekends before Hubs takes the bar – whoops!

Because of the timing of the wedding and the bar, this means we won’t go down for a mini vacation like I had hoped, to see the “sights” in Houston as they are. I mean, they have museums and shopping. That would have been fun. But basically, we’ll be stuck in the hotel while Hubs studies for the bar. And that’s ok! Because I want him to study!

But that has bearing on my dilemma. A few weeks ago, I got the first email from the bride-to-be announcing the bachelorette party.

In Vegas.

In the middle of December.

And I don’t know what to do.

Hubs suggested I could ask for the trip for Christmas and I think my awesome mama is thinking this could be a possibility. I’m still waffling and trying to decide if I want to go. It means another day off work, and two weeks before I take a week off for spending Christmas with my mama in Texas. Which I’m REALLY looking forward to. I have the vacation but I always worry about being gone – but there aren’t any events on the horizon at that point.

It’s also kind of expensive – over $430 for the flight and about $200 to share a hotel room for two nights. Plus dining and shopping and tickets to a, um, show club thing of some kind. Although the bride-to-be has said that as ladies, we’ll probably get in free for many of those clubs.

I have never been to Las Vegas. I’ve never been on a destination bachelorette party. Hubs doesn’t really have a desire to visit Vegas for a while, since gambling isn’t our thing. I’ve always sort of wanted to go, mostly to see the theatrical shows and concerts and the glitz. I think when he graduates and we move on in our lives, this kind of thing that might not be possible due to schedules and money and other things that might need my attention more than girls’ get away trip.

What would you do?

August Awesomeness in Disney, Part Four

See parts one, two and three.

We ate, we drank, we had fun and met characters. But we did take some other pictures throughout the week that were really fun.

The view off the back of a boat from Downtown Disney to our hotel.

Me and my fabulous Disney hat, plus a lanyard with new Annual Pass exclusive pins. Those are our souvenirs that we bring home from each trip.

Fabulous margaritas at Cava del Tequila in the Mexico pavilion at Epcot

We got upgraded to a Princess room at Port Orleans: Riverside! It was amazing. This is the backdrop of the bed, and the picture actually lights up with fireworks when you hit a button.

Princess Tiana even left us a note! Well, she painted it onto the table but same thing.

There was even a Mickey waiting for us when we checked in.

Hubs wanted to include this one because of the crane in the soon-to-open new Fantasyland!

Balloons on Main Street

We even got to take a tour of Main Street and go backstage. We learned the stories behind the forced perspective of the buildings on Main Street, and a bit behind the naming of the windows there. It’s a very big deal to have a window on Main Street and is only given for those who make a major contribution to the company somehow.

We had wonderful seats for the Wishes firework show – from an angle we hadn’t seen it before.

Even without the twinkle lights on it, the castle always takes my breath away.

And what would a trip report be without adorable pictures of my nephew?

I feel like I have a million pictures of him in different hats.

The shirt says “my daddy wanted to name me booyah” – another treat from the ESPN Zone. Hehe.

One of our favorite parks. I love that big golf ball!

We took a much smaller raft than this big boat to Tom Sawyer Island in the Magic Kingdom one afternoon, wandered around, climbed on the paths, and then found some rocking chairs to just sit and look around.

One of our views, this was the small raft that takes you to the island.

What a view!

The Imagineers have all kinds of little details that bring the story to life.

This is a tradition – the Attitude Picture. We have pictures of everyone on the last day of the trip, showing whatever attitude comes to mind. This day, my BIL and the family did NOT want to leave Disney – and you can tell by their expressions!

Less attitude here, I think.

We asked a nice cast member to take this family portrait. We were leaving Disney, but we would be back soon! We’re already planning the next one…

August Awesomeness in Disney, Part Three

Read the first installments: part one, and part two.

On our trip, we really enjoyed introducing our nephew to the characters – even though he won’t remember it! My BIL and his girlfriend had a lot of character greetings and got their autographs in his first autograph book. It was really cute. Some of our dining reservations included characters meals, where the characters come to your table for interaction rather than you waiting in line.

Tigger took an interest in my nephew. He came back again later and wanted to hold him! The cast member who was accompanying him was clearly VERY nervous at this, but Tigger did great and so did the baby. He was a champ!

Don’t think the baby knows what to think about the day-go tiger next to him.

Of course, I needed my picture with him too!

This was my profile picture right when we came back. :)

I felt bad smiling around Eeyore, but what else would I have done?

Family picture!

With the Big Cheese himself!

Goofy is my BIL’s favorite character, so this was a great picture.

Notice Mickey on my nephew’s onesie!

I love my MIL’s face in this one.

I love meeting the characters, no matter how many times I may have seen them before.

August Awesomeness in Disney, Part Two

Read the first part of my trip here.

Ok, so we ate a ton of ice cream for dinner on our first day at Disney. How else should you celebrate a three month birthday? ;)

So that was the first full day, on Saturday. Normally this would be the point where I moved on to Sunday’s pictures, Monday’s, and so on. But I guess we were having so much fun that we didn’t take a whole lot of pictures! We also have shots of almost ever part of the park, so we usually don’t take that many when we’re down there now. Also – I had SO much fun that I can’t quite remember what we did each day!

I do know that Hubs and I ate at one of our favorite restaurants during the week, at California Grill.

We were celebrating something, I’m sure! Well, since we weren’t celebrating a birthday or anything, they said we could celebrate coming back to our favorite restaurant and so, that’s what I got on my yummy caramelized banana and other awesome banana dessert. SO GOOD.

And just to continue with the food theme, we had the most amazing lunch at 50’s Prime Time Café with the whole family. It’s themed like you’re having dinner at your family table, with your aunt or uncle or cousin serving you lunch or dinner. Elbows off the table, eat your veggies, no back talk, things like that. If you mess up, you can end up doing some silly things! Our table was well-behaved and so no one got in trouble. But we all got names – Junior, Scout and I was Princess! It’s such a great theme and a fun way to interact with your server.

Brothers, hanging out in the restaurant lobby

See? It looks like my grandma’s kitchen!

We asked the server for a family portrait and we got this unposed one.

So much better than the posed one!

The last memorable actually happened towards the beginning of the trip. While my BIL and that part of the family were back at the hotel, we ended up at Biergarten in Germany at Epcot with my in-laws. We had never been there, and we had a blast! You are assigned tables family-style, although we didn’t share a table with anyone. It’s a buffet with all of my family favorites – it felt like I was going to a big family reunion and had all the usual German dishes. SO GOOD.

There were even performers during lunch!

Me and hubs, and our drinks.

We learned that Germans take their beer VERY seriously. But coming from St. Louis, this was no surprise! The family was quite amused when I tried to take a sip of beer from Hubs’ stein. It’s almost as big as my head. But my oh my was it good beer.