Weekend in Review: Girls at the Ranch

A couple of weekends ago some girlfriends headed out to a ranch to get away, have a relaxing girls weekend, and celebrate Michelle's last pre-baby girls' getaway! We all met up at Michelle's house and drove down to Laura's uncle's ranch "near" Killeen (though "near" is really a stretch here).

Michelle, Suzie, and I in the car on the way down:



The ranch house (below). The girls had me a little freaked out before we drove down because they told me that we couldn't drink the water! I was like, where the hell are we going?!?! Turns out that they meant not that you would end up with intestinal parasites if you drink the water but that the water isn't very tasty. Glad we got that cleared up. I thought we were going to Mexico.


I made a bunch of food for the weekend, including some desserts - pictured below on top of my favorite game!

We went four-wheeling! That was my first time to go four-wheeling and it was really fun. I think the saftey lecture we got was probably a waste of breath for Laura's uncle, as we definitely didn't get very close to flipping the four-wheelers over. Below is a picture of the cows (not Angus cows, obviously!!!) eating the bungee cords off the four-wheelers.

Saturday afternoon (after our exercise class led by Em, brunch, four-wheeling, and pedicures), we made some crafts for baby Liam!

Some finished products:

We had a great weekend! It was so fun and nice to get away and just hang out!

Weekend in Review: Memorial Day

For Memorial Day weekend some friends and I spent the weekend in Austin and at Lake Travis. Thursday night we headed downtown and went out on 6th Street. We even had Flaming Dr Peppers and worked in some dance moves!

Friday morning we started out with breakfast tacos at Juan in a Million and then toured the Texas campus (complete with some free champane!) and wandered around downtown before heading up to the lake. We went to visit the Capitol and everyone got to stand on the star and hear their voices echo. We also ate at Iron Works BBQ and enjoyed some coffee and desserts at Mozarts on Lake Austin.

On Saturday we took it easy in the morning and then hit the lake and boated around until some storms rolled in. A couple of people thought that they could do without sunscreen and definitely learned otherwise! ;)

Sunday we started out a little earlier than the day before to try to beat the crowds. We got in some water skiing, jet skiing, and wake boarding and then in rolled more storms... Check out the very grey sky in this picture!

We hung out on the boat and in the water waiting for the rain to pass over before getting back on the water skis. Once the storm cleared it was like we had the lake to ourselves! Matt and Melissa also came up to the lake and hung out with us on the boat and at the house afterwards. We played some speed scrabble and made the most amazing fajita dinner ever - which was super fun because it was a total team effort!

On Monday we cleaned up the house, packed up, and headed out. Definitely a fun weekend! And of course, left me missing Austin.

Kaylee's 1st Birthday

Kaylee turned one back in May and here are come cute pics from her birthday party!

Playing with her very pretty cake that mommy made from scratch (it was tasty too!).

More playing with cake

Daddy, Kaylee, and Mommy

She got a couple of presents...

Playing with her toys, cousins and friends at the end of the party.

Speakin' Kiwi

Sooo... I got this AWESOME package in the mail, complete with Kiwi phrase magnets. The only problem was, I didn't know what half of them meant. With a little help from my Kiwi translator, you can now expect to hear all of these worked into my every-day American conversations:

sweet as - cool
choice - cool like, that's choice = that's cool
jandals - flip flops aka 'japanese sandals'
hokey pokey - the stuff inside of a cadbury crunchy... it's used in icecream and candy bars etc
kumara - type of potato thing that grows in NZ
kai - maori word for food
carked it - effed it up
l&p - type of soda in NZ
pack a sad - it's like when you are disappointed by something... like, i really wanted to go skiing this weekend but the mountain was closed so i packed a sad and went home
piker - someone who bails on plans
scull - chug (as in beer)
tiki tour - driving around aimlessly on a nice day
suss - figure something out = to suss it out
gum-boots - rain boots / wellingtons
chilly bin - cooler or the refrigerator
togs - swimsuit

There are a few more still coming, so stay tuned!

Fun Quotes

This weekend some friends and I are going to the lake. Here are a couple of funny quotes from conversations about planning and getting groceries.

Me: I am splitting the grocery list into 5 sections so each person going to the store can take one part of the list. I'm giving Craft the easy section and instructing Barrett to help him once he's done getting the meat.
Adam: Yeah, I could see how Craft wouldn't have a lot of grocery shopping experience. You send him for eggs and milk and he comes back with a sixer of bud and some beef jerky.

Me: I'm sending you the shopping list.
Adam: I trust your thoroughness.
Me: Watch, I will have forgotten something really important. Although the most important thing is definitely on the list.
Adam: While you say beer, I may have an argument for sunscreen. My worst hangover has been 1.25 days while my worst sunburn has made me sick and sore for a week!

Weekend in Review

Last weekend, Tim, Megan, Rocky, and I went to San Francisco and also took a side trip to Napa/Sonoma on Friday. We are a great travel group (for each other, I'm sure other people might not like our travel style) because we don't really make plans and just play everything by ear. This is probably especially fun for us because in real life we're all super planny. A great thing about traveling with Tim is that it's like you have your own paparazzi tagging along. I made sure my camera battery was charged before the trip, but I don't think I ended up taking any pictures. Below is a summary of our weekend in pictures, courtesy of Tim. :)

Tera and Tim on the bus to Napa/Sonoma. We had this really annoying bus driver who thought he was funny, but he wasn't.
Tera and Megan at the Napa visitors center.

Tera and Megan at the Madonna winery in Napa. (Winery 1 of 3)

Megan expertly swirling her wine.

Megan, Rocky, and Tera in the Sonoma town square during our lunch break.

Tim, Tera, Megan, and Rocky at the Jacuzzi winery.

Mega, Tim, and Tera at the Jacuzzi winery (winery 2 of 3)

Rocky, Megan, Tera, and Tim at the Jacuzzi winery.

Notice Rocky's hand on his hip in this picture. One of the great things about digital cameras is that you can make fun of people right away if they look goofy in pictures; you don't even have to wait to get the prints back...

So that's what we did...

We love taking family portrait style pictures on our vacations together. This one is at the Viansa winery (winery 3 of 3)

Inside the tent that totally sounded like it was going to blow away.

Another family portrait style picture, where we're all about to blow away

I love this picture

Getting ready in our hotel room to go out to dinner and then meet up with some friends. I had on about 12 layers of clothes (a normal shirt, a wool sweater, and a jacket) because California is colder than one would think.

When you have the opportunity to take a picture like this, you just have to.

Megan and Rocky in front of the Full House house.

Tera, Tim, and Megan in front of the Full House house.

What a fun and relaxing weekend! We had a great time, caught up on sleep, ate a lot of great food (to the point that we thought we were going to explode), and it was great to hang out with old friends! It sounds funny to call "work friends" old friends, but it was four years ago that we worked together. Time flies when you're having fun!

Friday Night Fun

So two of my friends wanted to read this on my blog instead of me emailing it to them... So here it is! The 17 Again poem.

Backwards Big from way back when
Zach Effron is 17 Again
Get a ticket in advance of the show
Cuz lots of teen girls will go
But we're old enough for our own credit
So use your plastic, ladies, to get it
7pm at the Royal Studio Movie Grill
Get there at 6:30 before the seats fill
Can't wait to have dinner with the movie
Tomorrow evening is sure to be groovy

Funny Picture

Amy found this picture while going through some old files.

Awkward!

Weekend in Review

Again, a week and a half late.

Weekend before last, I went to College Station to visit Bethany. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures, so there aren't any to post. :(

When I first got to BCS, Bethany was doing a work thing so I went to visit my very pregnant friend Amanda. :) We got to catch up since it had been a while since we'd seen each other, had a great lunch, and I got to see her new house, meet her cat and see her soon to be baby boy's room!

Then I met up with Bethany and we went to see... the one... the only... PAT GREEN! We called Kelli and left a ridiculous message about how both of our first times to see Pat Green were with Kelli. Little known fact, Kelli not only taught us to love Pat, she also taught Lindsay and Bethany some drinking skillz which they in turn taught me... who would have known that now that Kelli is the settled down, stable mommy of the bunch? Mommy to the cutest baby in the world, I might add. :) Anyway, back to Pat. We saw Pat at Chilifest. Now, I remember back to our college years, hearing those Aggie friends of mine talk about the wonder that is Chilifest. Something about teams and tents and matching group t-shirts and, of course, beer. Well the spectacle I imagined in my head was pretty much like the spectacle that Chilifest actually is. The only parts I hadn't imagined was that the stage was quite large (for some reason, I pictured it smaller) and the field was quite open (for some reason, I pictured a lot of trees) and getting beer was quite complicated (first you have to find the beer stand, then they tell you you need tickets, then you have to find the tickets, then you have to buy the tickets, then you have to find the beer... again!). The drunken mess of sunburned college students was as imagined. As were the matching shirts! I felt really OLD. But Pat was playing, so even feeling old, all was well in the world. :)

After Chilifest, we went and hung out at Bethany's house for a while and then met up with my cousin who attends aTm and just turned 21 and just got accepted to vet school! for drinks. It was a fun night and great to catch up with my cuz, of course.

Sunday came and I was planning to leave at noon... however, after lounging around the house, going to Rudy's and then deciding to go shopping... I didn't leave til 3:30. :) You should know that Bethany and I never run on time anyway, so that was pretty much to be expected. It was a very fun weekend!

Who wants to find another Pat concert to road trip to?

Weekend in Review

So this post is about a week and a half late, but I figured better late than never!

Weekend before last, Melissa and I went on a 'retreat' to a resort in the middle of nowhere. It was awesome! It was so nice to get away and not have things to do or places to be. Especially since we're both pretty much always on the go - and she's in the middle of tax season! We laid by the pool, got massages, played tennis, watched Texas lose to Duke (boo!), ate lots of food and even some s'mores, walked around the hotel, read some books and just took it easy! Oh and I about ate my weight in pecans. And did I mention we talked a whoooole lot? Or maybe I talked a lot and Mel listened a lot...

That's us having a drink while watchin some b'ball.

After enjoying ourselves at the resort, we headed back to Austin. Melissa had some work to get caught up on, so while she did that, Matt and I went shooting. Afterwards we enjoyed a great Mexican dinner and Melissa and I about ate our combined weights in chips and salsa. :) More pictures below!

Quote-of-the-Day

I've heard from lots of friends that they really liked the blog with one liners pulled out of conversations, so I'll be sure to post another of those soon. In the meantime, here's a quote-of-the-day to tide you over:

Rachel: ‘So, Barrett, do you have any plans this weekend?’
Barrett: ‘Yeah, a friend’s coming in from New Orleans—I need to give her a ring.’
Brett: ‘A RING, what! Are you proposing to her?!
Barrett: ‘No, a call…’
Rachel (without skipping a beat): ‘Everything isn’t the Bachelor, Brett’.

Conversation Snippets

I meant to post this a while ago but forgot and just found it saved in my drafts. Below are some random conversation snippets I took totally out of context one day.



you are the only person who will get that random comment
a couple people know that i type PITA instead of pain in the ass
but you are the only one who knows it's because of a fake indian

and then didn't want to have fun naked time when i showed up adorably inebriated at his hotel

move to a different city with me?

sure, i have to live somewhere

welcome to our little blogging family

u should be on this call... i feel like im watching clueless

it is like you are a truck driver! they only get sunburnt on their left arm by the window

doesn't she know that guys are on the lookout for girls at weddings!?

i am writing the most rambly blog right now
YES! Those are the best kind

this is the kind of blog i keep typing and it gets more and more rambly as i go and then i end up deleting it

you are too much of a profectionist - just post it! It is a blog... just one level of gramar above AIM

The first picture is her yelling at me because I was wearing black socks with brown shoes... I said "wait, wait, I want to get a picture of you bitching at me"

her boyfriend... or "the drug dealer"

did you just admit to reading the twlight series?

shut up! you watch the bachelor!

they thought it was really funny to hear the white prissy girl getting off the elevator say dick

Weekend in Review

This weekend I went to Jacksonville to hang out with Amy and her family. It was a really fun, relaxing trip.

It didn't start off so relaxing though. Amy always has great baking ambitions, and wouldn't you know, they would be even higher for her neice's 2nd birthday, which we were celebrating with her family on Saturday. Amy decided we were making Pupcakes.

Now, I don't even like decorating cookies. I don't even like icing things. My favorite cookies are oatmeal (no icing) and my favorite cake to make is a butterscotch one that has chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and nuts on top - no icing! Icing just seems like a pain. And if you do it too quickly after the cake comes out of the oven, the cake crumbles and gets all stuck in the icing. And Lord knows, I am not one gifted with patience! ;) So icing in general = pain. Icing in designs, or writing, or intricate details seems like about the most stressful thing that could be done. I did not come from a family that decorated Christmas cookies or had icing on hand in the kitchen. I don't think I learned to make icing until I was about 24. I don't recall ever using food coloring growing up, yet we always seemed to have it in the pantry, so it must have been used at least once. Recently, I wrote simple words on some special-bachelorette-party-shaped cakes for a friend's bachelorette party and I had to have Amy help me and convince me that maybe, just maybe, I too could force the icing to do my bidding and come out of the special little v-shaped bag with the right thickness and speed.

Anyway, so back to Friday - Amy decided to make Pupcakes for her niece's birthday because her niece loves puppies. So there I am, hanging around the kitchen with Amy and her mom and they are hard at work on Pupcake #1 - a dalmation. Amy spends probably about 45 minutes on the thing, while her mom rolls out starbursts to make the tongue and helps out in some other ways. I'm nervously keeping my distance, anxiety rising over the thought of icing desserts. Amy completes the dalmation, and her mom is taking pictures - documenting the process, and now documenting the first completed work of art. I turn my attention for a second, and then I hear shrieking. I turn back to the kitchen, and the dalmation has died! Crashed to the floor during its photo shoot! Forty-five minutes and a perfect puppy tragically lost!

This is my EXACT fear with icing things - they are so fragile! Cut out cookies... seriously? Half of the damn things break when you pick them up to just start icing them!

After we all recovered from the tragic loss of puppy #1, the pupcake creation went on without a hitch. We ended up making 11 pupcakes (not counting the one that died), see picture above! They turned out to be very cute, and Amy's niece LOVED them. I even made 3 chihuahuas and 1 dachshund! They by far the easiest ones, which is why I mustered the courage to attempt them. And they turned out alright! I left the more complicated ones to Amy, but I think now my sense of icing adventures has been bolstered, and I might even attempt a cute, well-decorated baking project in the future!

The rest of the weekend was fortunately not as dramatic. ;) We enjoyed the awesome, sunny, warm Florida weather. We even got some color while not even being outside for too long (my left arm still resembles a lobster and is now under a wool sweater - not comfortable!). I got to meet Amy's brothers, which was really fun. After leaving at the end of the weekend, I felt like I'd known them a lot longer than just a couple of days. We also had lots of good food and good wine, pretty much my favorite things. :)

NYC

Last weekend I went to NYC to celebrate Lindsay's birthday!  We had lots of fun eating, drinking, sleeping in, and shopping at the solid color sweater store.  Friday we went out to a yummy restaurant for Lindsay's birthday dinner and then we went out to a bar that had $3 drinks!  Who knew you could find $3 drinks anywhere, much less NYC?!  On Lindsay's birthday I also got to meet Craig, who I felt like I already knew since we're Facebook friends and all. ;)  It was nice to hang out with him a bit and see first hand how happy he makes Lindsay.  On Saturday Lindsay and I had sushi, went to a wine bar, and hit up Auction House for the Jannual - of course!  

On Sunday we met my friends Monica and Rachel (who used to live in Dallas and transferred to the NY office) for brunch and then went shopping around SoHo (including the Solid Color Sweater Store!).  We finished off the night with dinner in Chinatown.  We at ate a place that specializes in these difficult to eat, but worth it, dumplings.  First you have to pick up the dumpling in your dumpling spoon and pick off the cabbage/lettuce that is stuck to it.  Then you have to bite off the top of the noodle and slurp out some of the soup.  Once you've managed that, you get the piece of meat out with your chopsticks and eat it.  Then you eat the rest of the noodle and remaining soup inside.  Being in Chinatown reminded me of college trips and eating dim sum around the country (seven cities so far: Austin, SanFran, Boston, NYC, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City... and wondering if New Zealand can be added to the list later this year?).  Lindsay and I also went on a hunt for sesame balls (my favorite part of dim sum!).  We went to like four bakeries that were all sold out of sesame balls.  And then we found one that had exactly ONE sesame ball left.  Which we split.  Then we went to like three or four more bakeries and finally found one with remaining sesame balls, so we took two home to eat later.  We practically cleaned Chinatown out of sesame balls!  It was a very fun weekend!

Just for kicks, here is a picture of Horrible Cat sleeping in the sink:

Happy New Year

2009 started off well with a party at the Terry's house!  We had dinner first - another very tasty success by Michelle!  I made emapanda-like-thingies for appetizers and fortunately they were a big hit!  I was a little worried since I just kinda made up the recipe.  Amy and I taste-tested some first batches and decided what needed to be added to make them better.  They turned out quite well in the end!  I almost left the party right after midnight but got talked into staying (they didn't exactly have to twist my arm) and we ended up staying up until almost 4.  Towards the end of the night we were sitting around the fire pit outside, just chatting about random topics - like social networking or listening to Nathan prodding people about their pro-choice/pro-life positions.  This morning we had breakfast (yet another wonderful Terry-provided meal) and sat around chatting some more.  There were lots of new year jokes that made for a fun time... "That's the creepiest thing that's been said all year!"... and the like.  All in all, a great way to start the New Year. :)  Happy 2009!!

Girls' Night Update

OMG How could I forget this other fun memory from Girls' Night?! Thanks for the reminder Bethany!

As always, when we went out, Lindsay provided 'dancing' entertainment while we were out for girls' night. Lindsay has 'moves' that she will do on command, including but not limited to The Wrecking Ball, Ass Around the World, and Drop It Like It's Hot. The greatest implementation of these dance moves on Girls' Night was when Lindsay was standing pretty much in the middle of the circle, with two unknown guys standing behind her (#6 and #7 that hit on Heather?), and Dominic shouted randomly across the group, "Hey Lindsay! Wrecking Ball!" As one who easily gives in to Bad Idea Bears, Lindsay instantaneously started her Wrecking Ball move. That quickly rid us of #6 and #7!

Good Bye but Not for Good

I thought it fitting that I should start my new blog talking about my team from work since they're kinda how I got into blogging in the first place (and/or their reminders keep me blogging).  This past week was our last week together in St Louis and it was SAD.  Thursday when we left for the airport there were definitely some waterworks.  We've had such a great run; it's sad to see it end.  I'm pretty sure most people who haven't been in a similar situation don't understand how close you can get to people you work with.  But when you're on the road together, in podunk towns together (who knew you could find fun things like Dashing Diva in Hickory NC?), spending about 40 hrs/wk working together, and about 12 hours/wk playing together, you get really close.  In the spirit of Caroline's earlier post, I thought I'd do a quick tribute to each team member:

A is thoughtful and can be counted on for many things like convincing everyone to get sloshed after you've had some personal drama or sending you Dilberts or blogs you'd like so you don't even have to filter through all of them yourself.

C is principled, and I admire her for it.  She makes the effort to be informed about many things from products to politicians and forms her opinions based on the facts she learns.  

D is fashionable and definitely the one you want with you at the restaurant when the waiter tries to seat you by the restroom.

B is a true Southern gentleman - polite, hospitable, and caring.

M is funny and can always break up tension or boredom with lots of laughs.

K is genuine, sweet, and a great listener.

While the week (and especially Thursday) were sad, we're already planning a reunion... in May.  And hopefully we'll see each other before then too.