Halloween

This weekend was just what I needed: quality time with my husband. I feel like since we're so busy during the week, him with school and me with work and group activities, it's important that we make time for each other whenever we can. Friday he showed his love for me in a major, major way. I was baptized by my pastor at EastLake's worship night. Worship night is basically a party for our church...lots of songs from the band, communion, and baptisms. He'd had a crappy day at school and had a rain cloud over him the entire day, but he still came because he knew it meant a lot to me for a family member to be there at my baptism. He still has some comfort issues with church in general, which is fine. I will never force him to come with me because that will be the quickest way to get him to completely shut down. I know that he sees East Lake as a pretty safe place, so I will just hope and pray that with time he will have some of those issues resolved.

The baptism itself was a full immersion. They had a big tub for us and in total, 21 people were baptized that night. It was really something special. I felt giddy as soon as I came up out of the water. I'm sure my pictures are ridiculous because I really couldn't focus and was just standing there with a stupid grin on my face. Oh well-I am sure they are used to that kind of reaction. :) I do wish my dad could have been there, though. Michael tried to take a video but the camera memory failed. Grrrr. My good friend Elizabeth and her husband were baptized right after me, which was so awesome. She said that my decision to do it helped HER make the decision to do it. How cool is that? You never know how your actions will influence someone else. Getting baptized was something I had wanted to do for a long, long, time...just never had the opportunity to figure out how to do it. I was never baptized as a child so this meant a lot to me, to make this public declaration at 25.

Saturday I walked 1.75 miles around Mary's Lake in Lawrence with my growth group. This group is exposing me to some amazing parts of Lawrence I never would have discovered on my own. It was so beautiful. The weather was perfect...chilly enough that we didn't overheat when we walked but not frigid. According to my heart rate monitor I burned 308 calories...which I took advantage of later that day. After the walk, Elizabeth and I got pedicures. Talk about heaven! I hope I can continue getting to know the amazing women in our group and have these mornings be a casual, fun place for us to get together.

Saturday afternoon, Michael and I went to see Paranormal Activity 2. It was definitely creepy, and had a few 'jumping in my seat' moments. Was it so scary that I had trouble sleeping? No. But definitely more eerie than a slasher horror flick. I used to dismiss these types of movies by simply not believing in supernatural activity. But I started thinking...if I believe in God, and in angels (which I do), and if I believe that angels can be on Earth...then wouldn't it stand to reason that the other side could be here as well? So that put a new spin on the movie, if you do believe that something paranormal like a demon could exist. I won't give away the plot of the movie, but after coming out of the theater, we are SO glad we don't have a basement. And that's all I'll say. ;)



This is why I needed to burn calories yesterday. Well, that, and the chicken tenders I had at the movie. It's a candy corn themed cupcake. Just white cake mix dyed orange and yellow, with homemade frosting and candy corns. I will be honest and say I wasn't too thrilled with the taste of the cake itself. I like a dense cupcake and these were really soft, the one I ate kind of crumbled. I hope that after they cooled overnight that they firmed up. I made these for the food table at church today. I mean, it is Halloween, after all. Gotta get in the spirit. ;)



So you can see the layers. Betty Crocker, I am not...but it was fun nonetheless.

Speaking of Halloween...that happens to be Michael's birthday! I think he had a pretty good, relaxing day. I let him open his presents early this morning...cards from me, my dad, his dad, his sister, my aunt, my sister, and my grandparents. His main birthday present from 'me' was a bunch of computer upgrades he did about a month ago, but I got him a little surprise: the Ocean's 11 trilogy. We love those movies and now that we've been to Vegas and the Bellagio, the first movie in particular is really fun. My dad went wild and got 15 dvd/blu rays from Michael's Amazon wishlist. I loooved his reaction when he opened the big box: "holy crap!" Love him. After I got home from church he sat with me in Panera while I had soup and we clipped coupons from the newspaper. We went to Target and get this: DIDN'T SPEND ANY MONEY. That is a major feat, friends. We wanted to look at their silver ware because I've got an itch to replace ours soon. We walked over to the Halloween section, which was being replaced with Christmas decor. Before you know it, they'll have that stuff out in the summer. We got some groceries for the week and have spent the rest of the day watching Apollo 13, Ocean's 11, a Robin Williams stand up comedy dvd, the Ghost Hunters Halloween special, and stopped only for dinner at La Parilla, a Latin/South American restaurant. I had a great time on his birthday, and I'm pretty sure he did, too.

SO, onward to a new week!

Food with Friends

Tonight was fun. Michael and I went over to a friend's house to hang out and have dinner. Her husband cooked an amazing pork tenderloin with some kind of sweet asian type of sauce and pineapple, with mashed sweet potato/regular potato mix, and apple pie for dessert. Good food, good times, and good friends...can't ask for anything more than that! Michael is already thinking of what he'd like to make for them as a way to return the favor. He is a great cook so I'm sure whatever it is, it will be yummy.

I also had chili from Sue, the leader of my Tuesday growth group, for lunch. I really could get used to meals from other EastLakers. They are all great cooks. And then there's me...lol. Oh well, at the very least I could whip up something sweet. I wouldn't call myself a terrible cook, I can follow a recipe and it will turn out fine. I'm just not very good at throwing things together. I am in awe of people who can just stare at their pantry and start experimenting, and have it turn out great. Michael and I plan our meals every Sunday before we go grocery shopping, so 90% of the time we know what we're eating for the week. The only way that changes is if one of us has a change in plans that would keep us out of the house during normal dinner hours, or we're too tired/lazy/etc. to cook. We are trying not to use this as an excuse. This past month has been pretty bad, eating out wise. We took a look at our bank account earlier and died a little bit on all the fast food/restaurant entries. So next month we have both resolved to really try to cut back on the spontaneous "I don't feel like cooking, let's get a pizza" moments. It's certainly not doing any favors for our weight loss efforts so it will be trimming two birds with one stone: our budget and our waist lines! Hopefully. :)

Less than a month away until Thanksgiving. Man am I excited. Not really for the food (although don't get me wrong, that will be fantastic) but because my dad will be here. I haven't seen him since July and I really miss him! He's the greatest. He flies in on my birthday on Nov 24th and will stay through that Saturday. I'm just a teensy bit bummed he can't stay through Sunday, so he could come to East Lake again...but ticket prices were so much higher to fly back on Sunday. Ya do what ya gotta do. Anyhoo...so there's that, and Michael's birthday is on Sunday! Halloween baby. :) I think it will be low-key. He wants to see a movie and have a cookie cake, and that's all I've been able to get out of him. But who am I to turn down cookie cake?

Fall pictures

At the pumpkin patch on Oct 16th.



Our pumpkins, in our front yard. They will be carved this weekend!


Pretty mums that the pumpkin patch was selling. They had so many cute little halloween/fall decorations that I could have done some major damage with my wallet if I'd wanted to...but I resisted. :)



Taking Penny for a walk. The weather has been amazing the past couple of weeks....so much nicer than last October. Feels like a true fall instead of leaping right into winter. *knocks on wood for it to continue at least a little while longer*



Our next door neighbor's tree. Gorgeous, huh?

Fall has arrived in Lawrence...yippeee! Here's a list recap of everything I've been up to in the past week, including pictures:

-Growth groups started. I am really excited about the potential for all 3 I'm in. One is a smaller, intimate group studying an Anne Lamott book. I think this group will be full of laughter and good discussion. I'm hoping we'll all be able to open up and be real with each other. Second group is a crochet group, I think 15ish people were there last week. For this group I would like to get to know the people I haven't yet, continue cultivating friendships with the ones I do know, knit a decent looking scarf, and have some good discussions as well. Third group is me and Tisha's dog walking group, which is going to be rad. I can just tell from the group members. Our first walk is this Saturday!

-Michael and I went to the pumpkin patch this weekend with our friend Anna and her adorable little boy. We had a great time and came home with 3 awesome pumpkins. We will carve them this weekend, weather permitting I hope to sit outside on the deck in the fresh air.

Heaven on a Plate

If you live in Lawrence, and have not yet tried the fried chicken dinner at Wheatfield's, you are missing a true gem of this town. Made only on Wednesday nights, it is some of the best fried chicken I've ever had. They sell out super fast, so if you want to try it, you'll have to get there early. They were completely sold out when we left at 6:15.

It's a little piece of southern comfort in the midwest that makes my tummy and heart happy. :)

Whirlwind weekend

Wow...it's been a crazy few days. I'll try to do a short recap.

Friday: Our plane left Kansas City at 12:30pm, and due to pacific standard time, we arrived in Vegas at 1:40. That's sweet going out, hurts coming back though! We decided to rent a car since we were going to be doing some extensive traveling off the strip. We got upgraded to a slightly larger car, which turned out to be a Chevy Cobalt, and the agent gave us free usage of the GPS, which turned out to be extremely needed! Las Vegas as a city in general reminds me a lot of Raleigh (well, not the strip part, but the rest). Once you get out of the strip it's a huge sprawling city that looks like one giant suburb. This was our first trip to Vegas so it was really great to be able to see a new part of the country. The desert mountains are just stunning. Michael and I couldn't get enough of the view! It's just so, so different from the landscape we're used to. We flew over the Grand Canyon as we were landing which was amazing. I would love to go back and some point and actually go there. Friday overall was low key. We checked into our hotel, the Luxor, then made our way over to the house owned by the couple getting married on Sunday. I hung out there for a couple of hours watching Scrubs while Michael, Zach (groom) and the other groomsmen went and did their final fitting for their tuxes. Michael then dropped me back off at the hotel because Zach's bachelor party was that night. Now, don't feel sorry for me for spending my first night in Vegas alone. I had a BLAST! Seriously. This was my one night of pure relaxation and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I ordered room service for dinner, watched Sex and the City 2 on our super comfy king sized pillow top mattress bed (which isn't even out to rent yet, you can rent movies that are still in theaters in the hotel!), then took a bath in the separate jetted tub. I had brought a LUSH bath bomb specifically for this. By the time I went to sleep around 1, I was in total bliss. Michael got home around 3, which was VERY impressive for him! Remember, we flew in on Friday, so that was really 5 am for us. We learned later that the rest of the bachelor party were out until 9 am. No thanks...maybe this is putting me squarely into "old fart" territory but I would rather sleep!

Saturday, we woke up mostly refreshed and hungry! Our first stop was Pyramid Cafe inside the Luxor. I chowed on corn beef hash, eggs, and toast. Yummy but not anything extraordinary. We killed time in the casino by playing the slot machines, and Michael taught me how to play video poker which was a lot of fun! I would play that again for sure. We drove over to a rental house that the bride and grooms' parents were renting for the wedding weekend. It was great! The house had a pool, in-ground trampoline, bar area out back, and lots of space for a big party. Thanks to the groomsmen being up so late and extremely hung over, everything got started way later than planned, but not a big deal. It is Vegas, after all... we all ate a late lunch bbq together and the wedding party did their rehearsal in the back yard. Saturday night, Michael and I went back to the strip to see the Bellagio water fountain show. That was really impressive and reminded us of Ocean's 11. We then walked around the strip some and when we got hungry, we found ourselves in front of Planet Hollywood. We ate at a bar and grill inside their hotel that was pretty tasty. Michael got dorito crusted mac and cheese as a side that was really strange sounding on the menu but surprisingly tasty! He wanted to go in PH because that is where the movie 21 was filmed, so it was cool to see it in person. We walked through the mall that's connected to PH until my feet started to hurt, so we called it a night and drove back.

Sunday was wedding day! We slept in, then had a lengthy discussion about where to go for lunch. Michael used his computer to pull up a clip from Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, about this place called Four Kegs. They are famous for their strombolis and so we decided that sounded pretty good. Best. Decision. Ever. If you ever find yourself in Vegas, it is worth what will be an outrageous cab fare to go there. Michael got their classic stromboli and I had a meatball sandwich that were both out of this world. It was by far our best (and cheapest, excluding fast food) meal during the whole trip. After lunch, Michael ran into the CVS that was next door to get a wrap for my ankle, which was starting to resemble a tree trunk. I had about 10 minutes to change into my dress when we got back before it was time for Becca's wedding, which was in her hotel suite in the Luxor! It was so sweet and intimate. She looked gorgeous and wore a veil she knit herself...very impressive. Steve was so handsome in his tux! After the ceremony, we had time to grab a cupcake and chat for a bit before they were off to get some wedding pictures with their photographer at different points on the strip. So glad I was able to be there and see their wedding, it was totally worth booking the same hotel. Becca and I met through Live Journal, of all places, when she moved to Chapel Hill while I was a student there. She now lives in Miami so it had been over a year since we'd seen each other.

After Becca's wedding, we had about an hour before we had to go to a different hotel so Michael and the other groomsmen could get ready. While all the boys got ready, I played slots with one of the other groomsmen's girlfriend, a sweet girl named Holly. I am really glad she was there because it would have been so boring to be by myself! We had a good time hanging out on the casino floor until they called us back. The wedding was at a chapel off the strip, small but intimate...maybe 50ish people? Zach and Kelsey had a beautiful ceremony that made nearly everyone tear up when the officiant was telling a story about his wife in Tennessee. Michael and Zach have been friends since 7th grade and Zach was his best man at our wedding, so their friendship goes way back...I'm so glad we were able to come and be there for him. Once the wedding was over, we made our way to the reception hall that was attached to the chapel. Holly and I gladly indulged in the open bar while waiting for the wedding party to finish taking pictures. We ate, drank, danced, laughed, had cake, and celebrated until the reception ended at 11pm. Then the real party started! Haha. They rented a party bus for all the younger guests, so that was a real kick. We went to the famous Las Vegas sign and took pictures, then drove around the strip. We ended up at the Bellagio, and gambled, drank, and visited with brand new husband and wife couple. The night ended around 3 am when Michael obligingly took me to McDonald's for chicken nuggets before crawling into bed. It was SO. MUCH.FUN!! We never party like that so it was a fun departure from reality.

Monday morning came way too soon. We (read; I) wanted to try a staple restaurant on the west coast that I'd heard so much about: In and Out Burger. So we did once we checked out of the hotel. Michael was not too impressed but I thought it was pretty good. I enjoyed my animal style cheeseburger, which had grilled onions, pickles, and a thousand island type of dressing, and a neopolitan milkshake. My favorite fast food burger is still Five Guys but I would definitely eat at an In N Out again. Our plane left Vegas at 5:30 and we landed in Kansas City around 10. We had to drive to the Plaza area to get Penny, who had been staying at her brother Patrick's house and his owners. I think they had a great time!

So now it's back to regular life. Tonight was the first night of my growth groups. This group will be reading another Anne Lamott book and will be smaller than my other 2 groups, which is a good thing. I am very much looking forward to getting to know the other 6 ladies on a deeper level as we plow through some good reading material! Tonight was basically a getting to know you session, and we talked a lot about last week's sermon. I think pretty much everyone's group will be talking about it this week. Thanks to Tish for detailed notes and Anna for saving me an outline! :)

I have many pics of this weekend on Facebook...I think the new saying is going to be what happens in Vegas, ends up on Facebook. Luckily I behaved myself for the most part. ;) Check them out if you so desire!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

It's been a busy week!

Tuesday was so much fun. Sue, Tish, and Anna from EastLake came over to watch Glee. Wasn't that a heavy episode? Oy. I am obsessed with Kurt's version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand"...it was so beautiful the way they changed it into an homage for Kurt's dad. I'm glad the girls were with me and making me laugh, this episode easily could have been a tearjerker for me, especially when they showed a young Kurt and his Dad in the cemetary after his mom's funeral. After Glee Anna taught me how to crochet. Wow...that was an exercise in patience for her! Let's just say it takes me a while to catch on. Right now I have a practice scarf I'm working on. We discovered that thicker yarn with a bigger crochet hook works much better for people who have no idea what they're doing. ;) Can't wait for groups to start next week! I am really hoping to meet some wonderful new people and continue to get to know the amazing friends I already have. So far we are up to 21 people in our dog walking group...amazing! If you want to join, anyone is welcome...you don't have to go to EastLake. We're meeting at the Eldridge on Sat, Oct 16th for a welcome breakfast at 9 am. Hope to see you there. :)

Yesterday, Michael and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. The time has really flown by, sometimes it feels like we've only been married for 5 minutes. I looked through our wedding pictures yesterday just to reminisce, so that was a fun trip down memory lane. That was such an amazing day, and so "us". We were married at 11 am in a chapel 10 minutes from where I grew up in Wake Forest, NC. After the ceremony we had a lunchtime reception at Caffe Luna, our favorite Italian restaurant in downtown Raleigh. The food was fantastic. Our cake was such a hit that we didn't even get a slice beyond the bite we had for the cutting of the cake pictures! Yep...we went outside to do some portraits and by the time we got back, it was all gone! At least we had groom's cake left! LOL. After the reception, our bridal party and a couple other close friends all went to Krispy Kreme. I will never forget the looks we all got, walking into the shop in our wedding gear! One of my friends said, "Shouldn't a bride get a free donut on her wedding day?" and the manager agreed with her, so that rocked. After a break for a couple of hours so everyone could get changed and rest, we met for dinner at Bogart's in downtown Raleigh for drinks, dinner, and more good times. It was a night I will never forget, because we were with so many of our best friends.

This is my favorite picture from our wedding day. :)

Once he got home from dog class with Penny, we went out for dinner at Free State. My super sweet dad sent us some money to have dinner out. Thanks poppa!! So we did, and it was great. Onion rings and beer with my best friend, the man who makes me laugh every single day...couldn't ask for anything more. Hope there's many more to come!! :)

Tonight's going to be busy...we're dropping Penny off at our friends' house, who just happen to own her litter mate and brother. They are going to have so much fun hanging out this weekend. Then we're going to pack, because this time tomorrow we'll be on a plane for VEGAS! I'm pretty excited, if you can't tell. I've never been before and for sure will be a wide eyed tourist but I'm okay with that! We're going for 2 weddings. One is my friend Becca, who is getting married in the hotel we're staying at, and the other is Michael's best friend from high school. It will be a crazy weekend for sure, but fun. See ya on the flipside....aka Tuesday when we're back!

The Social Network

Yes, the movie about Facebook...was awesome! We highly recommend, it was fast paced and kept us totally engaged. I am pretty bad about checking my watch/phone if I start to get bored at movies and didn't glance at them once. The story is basically about the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and how he came up with the idea, its implementation, the explosion of its popularity, and the conflict between him and several other characters who claim he stole their idea, and his business partner who he basically cuts out. The movie goes back and forth between the legal scenes hashing out what allegedly happened and the action of the story actually happening. Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake (weird, but true), and the actor who played Eduardo were all really fantastic. Go see it!



And if you can, go see it in a theater like this. :) We went to the Cinema Suites theater in Olathe and it was totally worth it. 21 & up only, so no loud teenagers can get in (man I sound grumpy...lol.) Very limited seating because the seats are super plush, comfy recliners. The price of the ticket includes a food voucher and someone comes and waits on you throughout the movie. You can even order cocktails! We had lunch there since we saw the 1:15 showing and it was a really great way to spend the afternoon with my hubby. Dinner and a movie combined...genius. The food is pretty decent, too. I had chicken tenders battered in a boulevard ale coating...yum yum!