"It Sucks to Be Me"

On our way up to CT Friday afternoon we heard on the radio that Gary Coleman had died.

I know he's had a really rough life and for that I'm sad because it was never easy for him. However since I'm in the generation I'm in, the only real Gary Coleman interaction I personally have ever had was through Avenue Q. I never watched Different Strokes so I was never familiar with his work on the show.

I realize in Avenue Q it's just a caricature of the man, and in fact the person who plays him in the show is a woman, but I like to imagine Gary Coleman a fun-loving, goodhearted, landlord whose just trying to make his way in life on the non-existent Avenue Q. A little grumpy? Sure. A little inappropriate? You bet! That's how I'll always remember Gary Coleman.

Birthday Datenight

Casey's birthday is just shy of a week after mine. Every so often we throw joint parties (our Pirate Themed Birthday is still frequently laughed over), but we decided this year we'd just go out on a date together to celebrate quietly.

That's not to say we didn't get dolled up and she didn't pick me up like we actually going out on a date. And by dolled up, of course I mean I was wearing jeans and a tshirt and Casey was wearing gym clothes, ready to go out for a run.


We decided to try a new (to us) restaurant down in Long Beach called the Beach House. Casey had heard that their mac n cheese was incredible and we thought that sounded like a fantastic birthday meal.


And let's not forget something to drink. This trio was pretty potent and we shared it over the mac n cheese. I have to admit, the mac n cheese is pretty much the second best mac n cheese I've EVER had. Best mac n cheese was at a Bistro around the block from Glenn & James' apartment in Jersey City. Holy crap was that good.

Party in the USA

Let me first start out by saying I have awesome friends.

Then allow me to continue to explain that when I told my friends we were having a Party in the USA themed Quarter Century Birthday Extravaganza at the beach house and were requesting everyone wear the most ridiculous cacophony of red, white and blue they could muster, they all seemed pretty excited. (Or at least, willing to humor the birthday girl).

I think the best way to describe the rest of the day is through photos, so if you'll allow me...

When we reached the beach house and we realized we were a few drinks behind everyone else, we realized we had to catch up. I spied a fishbowl-like glass in the kitchen, rinsed it out, and poured some wine in it. For the rest of the weekend, we all enjoyed drinking out of the fishbowl and it may or may not have been the very best idea, but it was pretty awesome at the time.

It was about half a fishbowl in that we realized the house next door looked like it was smiling at us.
Chris showed us the importance of packing properly when going on a hike. Craig accepted to being his human backpack.

About a third of the way through the fishbowl, Amanda has a tremendous idea! Chris is obviously missing white from his ensemble and she decides to help him out by lending him her apron. ...Oh the things our men let us do to them...

We all sat around on various blankets in the backyard while some of our awesome friends cooked and BBQed.

I could have sworn I had a photo of the three of them sitting there like old men talking and eating, but this one will just have to do.

Jamie showed off her best Statue of Liberty impression.

And then Craig showed us how he gets all the ladies:

All in all I have to say it was a top night. A stellar birthday! Definitely one to remember, and it was so great that Chris and Julibean hosted us all at the beach house. We had a very random crowd of friends around and they all got along so well it was fantastic.

I couldn't have asked for a better birthday!

Quarter Century Extravaganza!

We turn 25 this year. Quarter Century Extravaganza anyone?

My sister and Chris offered to throw us a party for our birthday at the beach house. Originally it was supposed to be a surprise, but I got really antsy and it turned into a huge celebration and bringing together of random friends.

James, Laura and I drove down together which resulted in us getting extremely giddy towards the end of the trip. Added into that the fact that my GPS brought us clear into the middle of nowhere before recomputing and we were treading down the back roads of Delaware.

Along the way it was getting darker and darker and people were lighting "candles" in their windows. We had a length philosophical discussion about this in which Laura likened the lights to Jesus and from then on as James so very well put it: "Laura has decided that candles in windows of MD country homes represent JESUS and is shouting such. Drinking hasn't even started yet."

Yes, we are quite excited when it comes to Jesus.

Finally made it to the beach house and everyone was already there and having a crazy good time. The wine was flowing, the friends were chatting, and Julibean had made us birthday cupcakes :)

As you can see <-- they were delicious. Julibean makes a mean cupcake. The boys devoured them. More debauchery continued into the wee hours of the morning.

Jim Scott took up residence in the garage, despite more elegant offers like the HP Palace under the stairs.

And we all lulled into a nice deep sleep until James woke up impatiently the next morning and wanted to get breakfast and hit the beach!

We grabbed breakfast at Big Peckers. Surprisingly although our group was easily a dozen people they only made one mistake. They totally forgot James' blueberry pancakes and then brought him some johnny-come-lately sympathy pancakes when the rest of us were halfway through our meal. Suffice to say, James' high culinary expectations were unmet. (Perhaps a bit of karma for waking us all up?)

James, Craig, Julibean, Jason, Morgan, Me & Jim

From there we made our way over the beach. It was nasty weather unfortunately, but we made the most of it. Skipping in the surf (James and Jason nearly throwing Morgan and I IN), Laura and Chris backing away every time the waves bubbled towards them, Becky and Andy building sand castles. It was a good time.

Some of the ladies: Becky, Morgan, Laura, Me & Julibean

May I just point out the awesome shirt Laura has on in this photo? Check it out! When she told me about it she basically said, "I have a t-shirt with my face on it." I had no idea what she was talking about but, by golly, that is TOTALLY her face on a shirt right there!

Soon we were joined by Schwendy and then Amanda and Chris showed up. Somehow we split off, the boys played around in the sand, tossing a frisbee, and the girls sat down to chatter. Amanda unloaded about 8 bridal magazines on me that her mother had been collecting. I swear, my FMIL is awesome.

We meandered over to play some Viking Mini-Golf. There are dozens of mini-golf places on the strip in OC but we love the Viking one. Not sure why.

Chris got friendly with a horse.

I visited my creepy mushroom faced friends.

And what mini-golf trip wouldn't be complete without a light saber battle?

After mini-golf we all went home to shower and change and get ready for a Party in the USA!

Manjoyment Monday: Roar

The following Manjoyment Monday was given to me as a "birthday present" from Ashley.

Hahahahahahahaha *heart you*

It reminds me I never asked any of you if you caught the Tomorrowland Carousel of Progress "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" ripoff in Iron Man 2.

Anybody? It's totally the Stark Expo Theme during the flash back videos of his father.

Never heard it?

Quarter Century

I don't feel any older. I suppose I'm a little wiser.

Today's my 25th birthday. 1/4 Century strong!

I certainly don't think I've changed much since I was 4 years old. But then again, that's just my opinion.

And that's all I have to say, about that.

Silly Bday!

It's Manjoyment Monday! It's Jason's Birthday!
Coincidence? I think NOT!

Happy Natal Day to my favorite Silly <3


Also, here's a little something I enjoyed from a seller over on Etsy.


It reminded me of how I feel about Jason sometimes. You'd be surprised how annoying facial hair can get but I still prefer Jason with it as opposed to the way he looks 15 when he is clean shaven.

Even if I prefer him that way...it is quite scratchy.

DPF: Oy

I'm so exhausted this week. The weather is blah. My allergies are crazy.

I've been slacking, but I promise to post a few things next week. This weekend is Laura's Shower. It's a surprise where we're taking her so I didn't post anything about her invitations or Thank Yous that I made because every so often she happens upon my blog and I didn't want to ruin it. But I will post a few photos of the things I've made and of the shower next week.

I also have photos to post of her actual invitations that we mailed out a while ago. I'm such a slacker.

I'm really really excited because we're seeing three different wedding venues this Sunday. So I'll have a post about those at some point too.

Please excuse this interruption:

Hold Me

This weekend is one of my two weekends that I am actually home instead of traveling.

To Do:

• I need to get Laura's Shower Thank Yous made.
• I need to buy Nanny's birthday/mother's day present from the grandkids.
• I need to buy Mom's mother's day present from us kids.
• I need to wrap Laura's shower gifts and all the mother's day gifts.
  
• I need to do laundry since currently I'm wearing one of Julibean's tops...it's a sad morning when I have to go into her room and steal clothing because mine are all dirty.
• I need to get my butt to the gym! Got a year to lose 3 dress sizes and get to goal, but I gotta start somewhere!
  
• I need to clear off all my crafting supplies from the dinning room table.
• I need to return all of my failed sneakers to the UPS store.
  

I need to start organizing myself with all the research I'm doing for the wedding, and gather more venue info. Currently I'm knocking around theKnot forum for Central New York. So those lovely ladies are already giving me lists of names of vendors to contact.

My father's cousin Kerry's husband Sergio used to own a restaurant in Albany. In fact Kerry's sister Kathleen had her reception at his restaurant. I'm hoping he'll be able to give me a few insights to the restaurant biz in the Capital Region and who to definitely avoid working with.

So I'm sure we'll talk a lot about wedding details this weekend and try to get things kick started on a budget and guest list for our side so I have a general number.

Also, this weekend Nanny will around and I'm sure she'll go bonkers over my ring. It's going to be crazy.

In ALL Her Glory!

A few photos from our weekend of betrothed bliss...

I really wanted Mexican and our favorite new place Plaza Alteca wasn't lit up. I got really really sad that they might be closed and just as Jason said, "Maybe they forgot to turn the lights on." The lights turned on. I think he has ESPN or something.

Me enjoying my delicious margarita. Hey, we're not getting our Bomber's Birthday Margaritas this year, so I've got to celebrate somehow!

And, as promised. Here are some photos of Kayla.

This is how she looks on my hand. She is delicate and classy.

Straight on. She is quite the looker.

From the side. It took me ages to find a ring
with three stones clustered like that.
AGES I TELL YOU!

The other side.
I was so happy there wasn't some ridiculous added diamond
or an ugly tower like complex for Nanny's diamond to perch in.
Kayla's all streamlined on the sides.

The photos aren't the most amazing quality, and granted, they don't do the ring justice. But you get the idea.

Kayla is going to cause traffic accidents. I can just tell. She is wildly distracting when the sun hits her while I'm driving.

This just in: Apparently Nanny's diamond is even more special than I originally thought. After the war my grandfather used his entire GI Bill ($400) to buy Nanny's ring. THAT WAS A LOT OF MONEY back in those days. Seriously, my ring is perfect!

As You Wish

Oh sweet wounded baby Jesus do I have a story for ju!

I flew down to Virginia last night for the weekend. Jason picked me up and we had some dinner out but nothing special. We had Outback, for those of you who are truly thirsty for details. I had the Chicken on the Barbie with veggies (sans squash) and Jason had a steak with potatoes (he loves his meat n'taters) and we had a few margaritas.

Came home and Jason wanted to watch the Princess Bride. (Which in hindsight should have been a huge give away since he doesn't often volunteer to watch movies he'd rather play a game or go out and do something.) But I love the Princess Bride, in fact I can recite it word for word (I'm not proud), so it's not like I was going to say no to watching it.

He started the movie and said he needed to re-wrap his knee (he has a softball injury so this wasn't really odd). The copy of the movie he had though was awful, the sound was a good 3-seconds off and I was about to go find Jason and refuse to continue watching it but I figured I'd just wait for him to get back.

So cue to me, sitting in the living room watching the beginning of the movie well into the part where the kid is asking his grandpa if "This is a kissing book?", and somewhere along the scene this photo of us popped up. We took it in Canada when we were there on Spring Break. It's probably one of the only photos we have of the two of us on the day we got together (3/11/06).

At first I thought that he had been streaming the movie from his computer and his screen saver had turned on but then the song "Say Hey" started playing and that's kind of our song I guess. The first time I came down to Virginia to visit after Jason moved here we were stuck in traffic from Norfolk to Newport News (big shocker!) and the song came on the radio and we started singing it to each other. This turned into us txting lyrics to each other every once in awhile and it just developed from there.

Anyway...this photo montage started up of us throughout the years and he popped out of the bedroom wearing a suit and singing along a little to the song and that's when I knew I was done for.

After we finished watching the little photo show he took a knee and asked me to marry him. It was adorable. I'm still laughing (giddily) about it.

So those of you who are wondering, no I didn't cry. I was too busy laughing. But for those of you who know me really really really well, you'll know that when I'm excited or terrified I laugh. (It's kind of amusing to sit next to me on a roller coaster, I spend the whole time giggling like a school girl.)

The ring is perfect (ArtCarved Kayla) and has Nanny's diamond in it which Jason secretly got from Mom and Dad back in February! Apparently the weekend of his grandfather's funeral, after we drove to my house and we sent his three cousins off on the train, I had to get to work (gotta love that second job!) and Jason and I said goodbye so he could start back down to VA he didn't actually go anywhere! The sneaky little devil drove off at the same time and then doubled back after I was on my way to the store so he could ask my parent's permission.

According to Jason my Dad had Nanny's ring in his pocket because he "thought he might be asking for it". My Dad is almost as sneaky as Jason is!

A little additional backstory here: My grandmother's engagement ring was split between my mother and my aunt. My mom got the diamond and my aunt got the setting. My aunt has been proudly wearing the setting for years but my mother was waiting to reset the diamond until this year. In fact my mom has been really excited about getting that diamond into a new setting since her engagement ring has a chip in it and although I can't see the damage it bothers her and she doesn't wear it.

When my sister got engaged Mom thought I was so upset that Julibean (three years my younger) got engaged before I did. She knew that Jason and I were waiting till we were both financially stable enough which could be surmised as we were waiting for Jason to have a full time job instead of a contract position that could expire at any time. So cue to my mother and my grandmother worried that I was so upset that Julibean and Chris got engaged first. In reality (as I've mentioned many times) I don't take much personally. I was super happy for Julianne and Chris makes her happy and to me that's all that's important. If she is happy I am happy and I don't care if she got engaged first. But since my mother is someone who takes a lot personally, she thought I was upset.

Mom and Nanny both agreed (at the same time allegedly) that I should get Nanny's diamond so it was one less thing we had to worry about. I knew exactly how much this diamond meant to my mother. She was literally waiting for years until she lost some weight and got healthy again with skinny little fingers to get the diamond set into a new ring, so I knew it was sort of a prize at the end for her. The fact that she still wanted me to have it just makes me want to cry. And the fact that Poppy bought this diamond for Nanny is also really important to me given how close we were.

So Julianne and Chris also just happen to be around when Jason asked my parents so literally they've all be keeping secret what's been in the works for months. And apparently everyone else knew too! Laura and Chrissy knew, Casey would have known if she hadn't told my sister NOT to tell her anything because she'd probably say something stupid...even Jason's friend Shawn knew when we took him out for his birthday! THE INSANITY!

I love and hate you all for keeping this from me!

I had inklings. There were definitely instances where I thought Julianne was keeping something from me and after the last time I visited Jason the first thing my mom did when I got home was casually glance at my hand...like she expected there to be something there! *sigh* My family is special.

Pretty much after everything was said and done we called my parents and I told my Dad that Julibean and Mom could stop pestering Jason now. Again, the web of lies/secrets goes even deeper. Nanny was upset that Jason wasn't visiting for Easter and was in fact in New Hampshire and not at Zum's with us. Only after Mom told her Jason was in NH buying me a ring did she stop complaining that she wasn't getting to see him. (Jason is obviously very well liked by my family, Nanny adores him and expects him to be with our family for every holiday.)

So Nanny was calling like every few days to see if anything had "developed" and bothering my mom who in turn was bothering my sister who was forced to bother Jason lest she be publicly flogged by my family. Jason legit was getting the third degree from THREE generations of women in my family, but he maintained his resolve and did it his way in his time. I'm guessing if he can cope with my sister, my mother AND my grandmother, then he's a keeper :P

I also later found out his mother had told him to "do it properly" and wear a suit and make certain to get down on one knee. It made it even more adorable. I love his family and can't wait to be a part of it.

Actual photos of the ring to follow...eventually...

Basically right now I'm just giddy with excitement!
I'm gonna be a Koala!