"Wine and Diamonds"

The Tri Delta Alumnae group had a great get-together on Thursday. We went to Romance Diamond Company and had a "Wine and Diamonds" event. The owner of the story opened all of the jewelery cases and let us try on anything we wanted. At one point I had a $60,000 rock on my hand. It was A-MAZING! It was fun to get together with a bunch of sorority sisters, drink some wine and try on pretty jewelery.

Lauren Sullivant and I - she already has a ring but she still wanted to play

Courtney, Erin and Becca

Jacquelyn just got engaged this month and her ring came from Romance

The whole group.

Buddies

I took this picture over Christmas break on my phone and forgot about it. I love it! It is my dad and his two favorite four-legged buddies - The demon dog Tackle (I promise his eyes don't always look that scary) and Sam.

Fayetteville to Fayetteville

I have to say, nothing is better than a weekend with one of your best friends - and this weekend was no exception! I landed in Raleigh at 8 p.m. on Thursday night and Stacia and I didn't stop talking until I left on Sunday. Once we got back to her condo on Thursday night we stayed up til midnight just talking and catching up. I also got to meet the other man in her life - Trek. Trek liked me a lot and Stacia said I was his new girlfriend.

Saturday morning, after several wake-up kisses from Trek, we got ready and headed to Smithville to do some shopping at the outlet mall there. We did a lot of damage and finally at 2 we realized we hadn't eaten anything so we headed to lunch at the nearest mexican restaurant we could find. Lots of chips and salsa and a huge margarita re-energized us. We did a little more shopping and then headed back to Fayetteville.

Stacia then took me to Fort Bragg. It was huge and nothing like I thought. She said 68,000 people live on base alone! I saw Chris' office and some other training facilities.


That night we decided to stay in. We weren't hungry but of course we found room for some ice cream. In college we had a tradition of going to Shakey's and sitting in the parking lot while we ate our delicous treat. We did the same thing except there wasn't a Shakey's so we went to Cold Stone instead. After we finished our ice cream we went home and watched the movie Amelia (about Amelia Earhart). It was a great movie.


Saturday morning we got up and headed to lunch early. We decided pizza was in order and went to Rudinos and had a hamburger and onion pizza pie (another tradition of ours from college). After lunch Stacia had to go to a baby shower and I opted out of that and stayed home with Trek. We took a long walk around Stacia' neighborhood and around the lake behind her house.


That day mom texted me and said she transferred money to my account so we could go to dinner and have a drink on them and so we did just that. After spending hours getting ready and talking like we use to, Stacia took me to a Fayetteville orginal - The Mash House. We got stuffed on salmon, steak and creme brulee. We loved dinner. Thanks Mom!

Stacia decided I needed to experience the Fayetteville night life as well. We went to a local bar and had tons of fun. One of Stacia's NC friends met us there and we had a blast dancing and meeting other locals. One guy asked us if we were Italian, we got in an argument with a guy from Tennessee who said they were the best team in the SEC and one person said Meredith was the most unusal name he had ever heard - huh?

I love this girl :)

Sunday we laid in bed talking for a while and then we headed to the airport. It was an action-packed weekend and I had a blast. Now, we are planning a Stacia trip to the REAL Fayetteville!

Packing and Flying Solo

I am leaving today to go to North Carolina! I am super excited. While planning for this trip I set a goal for myself -pack everything I need in my carry-on rolling suitcase WITHOUT unzipping the extender. I decided to do this because 1) I refuse to pay $3o to just check my bag and 2) I really need to learn to pack lighter. So this was my opportunity. I am only going to be gone 3 days so this should be doable right?

To do this, I called Staysh and told her about my goal. She kindly offered up all hair suppplies (blow dryer, flat iron, shampoo and hairspray) as well as any extra close I might need. I am taking 2 pairs of jeans and then several tops and one dress. I am the kind of person that needs options. I cannot be confined to to wearing one thing - hey I might not be in the mood to wear the outfit I picked to wear that day. Plus, we really don't have any set plans for our weekend so I need options for all possible activities.

Next on my list was shoes. Now really, does a girl need to take 3 different pairs of shoes for such a short trip? Well yes, this girl does. I have a pair of flat boots, a pair of tall boots with a heel and my tennis shoes. That sounds reasonable. I am actually proud of myself for packing only three.

To save even more room I only packed half of my make-up and picked out the pair of pajamas that would fold down to the smallest amount of space. As of this morning, I think I am going to be able to accomplish my goal.

Another thing I am excited about this trip is that I am flying alone. I am a very independent person and the idea of traveling alone and making my own decisions is very exciting for me. Yes during my layover I will go into one of the restaurants and have a drink by myself and that is just fine by me.

So this weekend I will be the lone traveler, the girl with no sidekick, the mysterious one. I've got a new book to keep me company and my suitcase by my side with everything I could possibly need. This is going to be a great weekend!

Happy V-Day from Hudson

Isn't my baby cousin the cutest thing ever?!? I sure do think so! Check out more pics of him at Sarah's blog here.

Oklahoma Aquarium

For Valentine's Day I decided to surprise Ryan with tickets to the Oklahoma Aquarium in Tulsa. He had been wanting to go for a long time and I thought this would be a great opportunity. Another couple went with us - Aaron and Alena. We left early Saturday morning and drove to Tulsa.

The aquarium was awesome. They had fish from fresh water and from the ocean as well as an exhibt with life from the Ozark streams. My 2 favorite parts was the shark exhibit and the otters. The shark tank had a tunnel you could walk through and see sharks all around you and above you. It was a very surreal experience. We stood and watched the otters play for probably 20 mintues.

After the aquarium we went to an awesome mexican restuarant that was located on the river. Once we were stuffed, we took a walk along the river which was also amazing.

We were back in Fayetteville by 9:30 Saturday night. It is easy to say this was one of the best Valentine's Days ever!

A pregnant seahorse

The boys in a shark tank - Ryan is scared!

Ryan in the shark tunnel. So cool!

This beast is life size. Alena is about to be chomped!

A huge beaver

Why I love him....

Because he hand delivers these to my office. He picked out the flowers and arranged them himself.

The Time Traveler's Wife

In January I read the book The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I saw the previews for the movie so I decided I would read the book before seeing the movie. The book is about a man who can literally time travel. He doesn't have any control over it and he finds out it is a genetic disorder. The book was hard to follow because there was "future Henry" and "present Henry" and they could both be in the same time at once. The book jumped around from all different eras, always centering around Henry's love - Claire.

I was determined to finish the book even though it took be a bit longer to get through because I would have to go back and reread parts. Finally when I finished I was very mad and upset all at the same time. I had no idea how it was going to end and when it did, I was crushed. But don't worry, I won't spoil it for you.

After I finally finished the book I was anxious to see the movie. It finally came out this week so I headed over to my trusty Red Box to rent it for only a $1 and sadness- it hadn't made it there yet! After being bummed out (I was on my way home from work and was not going to turn around to go to a Blockbuster) Ryan tells me I can just "rent" it on OnDemand through Cox. Genius! I didn't even know I could do that.

So I got home and sure enough for only $4.99 I got to see my movie (it is 5 times more expensive then the Red Box but Ryan told me I better watch it then because he REFUSED to watch it with me).

Surprisingly, I LOVED the movie. It was so much better than the book. And I usually don't say that. The books are always better but not this time. The movie starred Rachel McAddams and Eric Bana - two actors I love. I was able to follow the movie when Henry was jumping around in time and the movie had a slightly different ending so it made me happy. I even cried during it. And those of you who know me, KNOW I don't cry in movies. The only ones I have cried in were Armageddon (I lost it when Bruce Willis was telling Liv that he wasn't coming back to earth) and The Notebook (coincidentally, also with Rachel McAdams).

If you haven't read the book or seen the movie I would first rent the movie and then read the book. You are more likely to understand what is going on in the book that way. That will probably be a movie I have to own.

Super Bowl Party

This past Sunday I had a Super Bowl party at my house. I was super excited about it because I would get to decorate for my favorite sport - FOOTBALL! Ryan and I decided that we were going to have only food you find at a concession stand - nachos, hot dogs, hamburgers, popcorn and soft pretzels. Ryan has been dying to buy one of those huge cans of fake nacho cheese from Sam's. I never let him but this was the perfect opportunity. So we went all out - we got the nacho cheese, the big 6lb box of chips and we even got 1,500 nacho boats. We will have nacho boats for the next 10 years. Who knew a trip to Sam's could make my man so happy?

Along with nachos we were planning on grilling hot dogs and hamburgers as well. I had to stray a little from the theme and get some fresh veggies and Kosher hot dogs for our Jewish friend Alena, but other than that everything we had was authentic stadium food authentic untill.....

I won a Super Bowl Pizza party from Eureka Pizza!!! I love Twitter and find that I get pretty lucky on it. If you remember, this time last year I won a Ninetendo Wii on Twitter and this year but just typing: "I love Eurkea Pizza because it reminds me of late night study sessions and sorority dinners" I won 6 large pizzas, 20 wings and 3 two litter drinks. The owner of Eurkea Pizza (Twitter: @eurekapizza) asked everybody to tell him in 140 characters or less why they loved Eureka Pizza and the top 3 answeres would win a Pizza Party. Cool huh?

Well I found out on Friday night that I won so that kind of threw my party planning off a bit. I decided that since Ryan was so excited about the nachos we would still have those and just save the hot dogs and hamburgers for another time. Good thing we did because the stadium nachos were a huge hit!

The party ended up being a blast. We had probably around 20 people come and watch the game on my new 42" LCD flat screen TV. The party kinda went down hill though when the Colts lost but never the less, we all had fun.

Sadly, I only got 2 pictures the whole night - and there aren't even any people in them. I was too concentrated on the game and I forgot to take any more.

My food table before the Pizza arrived

The cupcakes I made for dessert - Almond vanilla with blue sprinkles for the Colts and chocolate walnut for the Saints.

Here are my two favorite commericals from the night.

Doritios Boy

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