Hello, Lover.

Mama went and splurged on a present for herself.   You know. From Santa.



Ok...well...semi-splurge. I had a 30% off coupon and gift card for Kohl's.



I've been drooling over these for.ev.er.  And I'm in love.  It is hands-down the best home brewed cup of coffee I've ever had in my life.





So if you're ever looking for something to get me, you know, since I know you're all dying to get me something...I'll take k-cups.  Or gift cards to Kohl's or Amazon.

253/365. Liquid Threesome In A Bottle.

I've had this bottle of wine for over a year now. It's not that I didn't or don't want to drink it, believe me. It's just that I can probably count one one hand the number of times I've drank in the last year. Don't worry...it won't last much longer.

Apparently I graduated...

...and forgot to tell you all about it.

Well, I started to.  I just never hit "publish" on the blog post and didn't realize it.  Whoops!  So here is my do-over.

On May 16th I was awarded an MS in Rehabilitation Science from the school whose logo is pictured below.  I'm not naming it because I want to brag about my accomplishments while attempting to lessen the chances of someone I know from school that I've talked crap about from stumbling upon this blog.

Man am I glad that is over.  For whatever reason, you don't graduate with honors at this particular school.  If they did factor it in though, I guess my 3.81 would have gotten me a cute little "magna cum laude" after my name in the program.  Oh well.  C'est la vie.

Anyway.  After the graduation ceremony we headed back to our house where we held a small bbq to celebrate.  Corey's brother Matt also graduated with his MA in English from UW Milwaukee that day so the party was for both of us.  Unfortunately he was sick, but that didn't stop him from playing flippy-cup later in the night.

Brecken, my best friend from the army, came to town for the weekend too.  I hadn't seen her since she flew to California for my LAST graduation, so it was awesome to spend time with her.  Over the last 7 years we've gradually started moving closer and closer together.  Right now she lives in Iowa, but eventually she'll live in Wisconsin.  For now I'm happy that our states at least share a border!

Anyway, here are some pics from the day (and well into the night).  Yes, we busted out the cornhole, learned the magical joys of flippy-cup, and then came SingStar...

Florida!

Oh hai!

So it's been awhile. I've been busy with...well...everything. I won't get into all that now. For the most part it's the same old song and dance - except for some things with my mom. I'll talk about that sometime when there is a little more to know.

In the mean time...I went to Florida! I wish I had written this post sooner - I would have felt more motivated to include more details. I needed a break, and a long weekend in Venice, Florida for a friend's baby shower was the perfect opportunity. There were 12 of us down there all together - all Freaky Internet Friends. Yes, I flew somewhere and met weirdos from the internet.

This was a group of people that I have talked to (online, on the phone, and some in person) for over 2 years now. We've grown incredibly close and I think that many of us know more about each other than we know about some of our closest friends (and that our closest friends know about us). That's nothing against our original friends - it's just more of an open forum of randomness and it all gets put out there...on a private message board of course.

Anyway, it was great to meet these women and to have so many of us in one place all weekend long and to celebrate with Vanessa at her baby shower. We spent a lot of time at the beach (and at Target), and the shower was a blast. I might have overindulged a bit at the shower - but in my defense, it wasn't your typical baby shower. There was men and alcohol and horseshoes! Not that I care about the men and the horseshoes, but booze is a change from your typical baby shower.

But what, you ask, could inspire me to overindulge at a baby shower? Well...I was on track for a night full of fun with the girls and a steady beer buzz...until V's aunt asked me when MY baby was due.

Umm...

Yeah.

Not pregnant.

At least not that I know of.

I always wondered how I would respond to that question if asked, since it is no secret that I've put on some weight. I, like both of my parents, tend to carry my extra weight in my belly. Regardless, I thought for sure my answer to this very rude and assuming question would be "I'm not pregnant, I'm just fat." but I couldn't muster that. First I stood there in disbelief...then I squeaked out something along the lines of "...I'm....not........uhhh...........pregnant." She was caught off guard. After a long pause, she stammered out something like "Oh...well...with the shirts girls wear these days it's hard to tell."

Yeah, right lady.

Luckily I recover quickly and have a sense of humor. Not to toot my own horn, but not everyone would have handled it as well I don't think.

But boy was I thirsty after that. For beer. More beer.

Although in hindsight, I was standing there blatantly drinking a beer while she asked me that. So...not only did she think I was pregnant, she obviously thought I looked classy enough to be the kind of showing-pregnant chick to stand there and drink Budweiser from the can. Fantastic.

Anyway...I had something else I was going to talk about, but telling that story again has distracted me to the point of no return I think. So instead, here are some pictures. We spent a lot of time at the beach, so obviously I played with my camera a lot. Apparently I have the ability to summon dolphins and the uncanny ability to get a certain camera shy German shepherd to be my supermodel.

If you click on the collage, it will open up larger in a new window. You can also get a glimpse of my version the shirts I made for everyone in honor of "Hoarstock '09". If I remember correctly, and you're curious, "Hoar" is a reference to an inside joke about some spoiled crazy girl on the wedding site who didn't like an answer someone (or several someones...one of them might have been me) gave when she asked advice about some family drama that she created because people weren't all excited for HER special day.

Obviously, when you don't like an answer or answers someone gives you, you call them a bunch of "hoars". It has been a group nickname ever since.

Oh hey - We got married! Part 1: Family day and Bachelorette Party Day

I've put this off for FAR too long. So long I have not been posting OTHER stuff because I hadn't written this.

Our wedding and the days leading up to it were days I will never forget spent with good friends, family, and a whole lot of fun! I will break this up into a couple posts.

Our first houseguest on the Tuesday before our wedding was my bridesmaid April who lives in Los Angeles. Wednesday early evening brought my mom and stepdad and two little sisters (also bridesmaids). Thursday morning brought my Maid of Honor Melissa, while the evening (on a 4 hours late flight) brought another bridesmaid, Melissa.

Wednesday night the girls and I had a great time running around outside with a jar catching fireflies. I'd never seen them until we moved to Wisconsin and the girls had never seen them at all, so we had a blast running around outside like idiots trying to fill a jar with them.

Thursday afternoon's plan was to hang out with the family, have some drinks, and play a little cornhole and we did just that! Everyone had a blast and it got quite competitive, but in a friendly way. Shit-talking was kept to a minimum, and Melissa was a natural.







And of course some hanging out on the stoop.

Thursday afternoon we took a whopping 20 minutes to sit down, have more drinks, and turn on the wedding favor factory (super difficult tying a tulle round full of Oregon salt-water taffy with ribbon). April decided to wear her mojito in the process.



Thursday night, once we picked Jo up from the airport, it became bachelorette party night. Parents and children were sent off to bed and a friendly game of Pin the Junk on the Hunk was started (not by me - I swear I would not have chosen this myself). On my turn, I closed my eyes, was spun around by Melissa, and decided I was pinning this junk on his nose. He looked like a dick-nose.



Then we walked down the street to a local bar to warm up with the intention of taking cabs downtown for more drinking. Well...we never left. There were only 4 people in there when we went in, so we essentially doubled the population. We immediately took a round of jaeger bombs and I got in on the next game of pool...then proceded to run the table for about the next hour! I was drinking, so I was steadier...and I was smoking...because I was drinking (yes, I'm still a non-smoker, but c'mon, it was my bachelorette party!). Here I am displaying the hi-klass drinkingsmokingbilliards zone I was in:







Massive amounts of beer, jaeger bombs, and spins of the Wonder Wheel (Melissa and Jo each won $20 gas cards!) continued until the lights came up and we staggered the whole one block home...

And collapsed in a fit of giggles in our front yard, like so:





Which woke up our upstairs neighbor. Whoops. I guess he was going to come outside and hang out with us but first we ran across the street to frolic in the yard of the catholic church, and when we came back, some creepy guy was out there talking to us. He didn't want to be a 2nd creepy guy out there with us...which would be understandable if he was creepy.

Once inside, April laid down with only her upper body on the couch and went to sleep, and I went to the bathroom and threw up anything and everything I'd ingested in the last week.
Then, for the first time ever, Corey kicked me out of bed because I swore my side smelled like cat piss. He thought I was nuts. I went out to the couch and less than 2 minutes later GUESS WHO WA STRIPPING ALL THE SHEETS OFF THE BED BECAUSE THEY SMELLED LIKE CAT PISS? Yep. You guessed it. Corey! I guess he believed me then! I moaned a big fat "I told you so" and rolled over on my big comfy couch :)

Apparently our anti-social cat was a little peeved at all the people around and wanted to punish me for leaving the litter box 2 feet out the door of our bedroom.

Anywhoo...I digress. Bachelorette party was a blast (even with the slightly embarrassing light-up bachelorette sash, and matching penis necklace and bracelet) and I met some great people from my neighborhood at that bar. I paid the price that night but felt pretty damn good the next day!

That's more than April can say for the next day (in the McD's parking lot):



Coming soon: Rehearsal Dinner and Bachelor Party

Stock the Bar Shower

On May 4th my friends here (formerly known as iFriends) in Milwaukee threw a Stock the Bar Shower for my friend Tara and I. Tara is getting married in New Orleans a week before us.

For those of you who were wondering, Stock the Bar = Best. Bridal shower idea. Ever.

Instead of usual shower gifts from the registry, people bring booze and their favorite drink recipe to go alone with it. The awesomeness can be summed up with one glorious photo:



Isn't it beautiful?

There was an amazing spread of delicious food and OHMYGOD A VODKA LEMONADE BAR! They also had really cute cookies made for us by the happy cookie lady:



I'm craving one of these cookies right now, actually. I'm hoping to get them made for our wedding, but we'll see. I guess I should get on that soon.

Here I am modeling my cookie...



Here is a picture of my co-showeree (is that even a word?) with the newest adorable baby in our group:



Thanks again to the awesome hostesses and to everyone who came!

The delayed monthie beerfest recap

Ok. so I never blogged about meeting some crazy monthies last weekend, and I'm currently on a quest to be in bed by 9:30 (lame, I know). What I'm about to write will not accurately portray how fun that night was, but if I don't write it now - before grad school sucks me in to the thesis/non-thesis abyss - it will never happen.

Definition of Crazy Monthie (for the non-knot folks): Girls from the message boards that are based on the month of a wedding. So no matter what month/year a person is getting married, there is a place where other brides getting married that same month/date can be found. Those message boards tend to be overrun by crazy, bridezilla-ish, sunshine, rainbows, and smoke-up-your-ass girls. And they are crazy.

The one I happened to be on is the OPPOSITE of that. One of the girls I met on there happens to be from Milwaukee, and another is from DC but happened to be in town last weekend. She was with her friend and her step-sister in law who also joined us. We met at the Lakefront Brewery, ate at the fish fry (Lent is a busy time for friday fish frys), did the brewery tour, went to the Irish pub at County Clare (where we were never empty handed and didn't pay a dime, thanks to sweet old drunk Irish men), and then somehow found our way to Pizza Shuttle.

It was like we were old friends that hadn't seen each other in ages and we had a fantastic time! I'll summarize with pictures:

The first picture at the beginning of the tour, still sober, random guy wants to be in the picture...



Our awesome beer-guide Bob, telling the story of Larry, Moe, and Curly (a story I don't remember)...



Posing with my (nick)name sake...



Kelly, performing her duties as Bung Queen (something about some wood and a hole) which includes pushing "play" for the Laverne & Shirley song...



...which we sang.



Posing at the end of the tour with Bob and a good buzz.



Getting drunk at the County Clare with old Irish guys! He was the best!



Dancing...maybe...



Funniest expression ever...



At some point shots were introduced between beers...



My shoes were not made for all of that walking around and at some point I had taken them off. But now it was time to get pizza. I'm clearly not too sophisticated to sit on the floor of a bar and put my shoes on.



So who is ready to come visit me and repeat this tour de Milwaukee?

Good. Hurry up.

Happy New Year!

I feel like crap. We didn't leave the house but that didn't stop us from consuming any and every alcohol filled beverage in the place. Other than my run to McD's for a hangover cure and side of fries, we haven't moved all day. Nothing but pajamas, football, and the internets all day long.

Speaking of football, it was great to watch Fresno State win the Roady's Humanitarian Bowl over Georgia Tech (40-28) yesterday. It wasn't a cool big name bowl game or anything but hey, it was still a bowl game and I still got to see a sea of familiar Fresno faces all over ESPN2. Also in football...how great was it watching the Pack run over the Lions? I don't know about you but I thought it was fantastic. My joy over another Packers' win was followed closely by the Cowboys' and Vikings' losses. It was a good week for football in our house. Wisconsin lost today so Corey is a little bummed, but I have no real tie to UW and can't honestly say that I care much. Sorry.

Anyway, back to New Year's. Here are some pictures displaying just how classy our last moments of 2007 were.

We started the evening by watching Ocean's Thirteen which was unexpectedly good and funny. Then Corey cooked up baked potatoes and some steaks on our spankin new George Foreman grill. That thing is seriously awesome. We should have bought one (or put one on our Christmas list) years ago. The steaks were perfect and juicy and done very fast. I can't wait to try it with some other stuff! I took a picture of it because it looked so delicious but I don't want to gross out the vegetarians that read my blog.

[You know you are a grown-up when small kitchen appliances are THIS exciting. We also got a coffee maker for Christmas that became the first object of my affection.]

After dinner we were salivating for some champagne already so we popped open a bottle and played Trivial Pursuit. I lost this time. Stupid brown category.



Before we knew it, it was getting close to midnight and time to open another bottle of champagne. As you can see i don't like to waste any of the first bottle.



Second goofy smooch of the New Year :) What, you think I'd ruin the moment of the first one by taking a picture?



Since Christmas was a week ago already, I'll post pictures instead of writing much about it. We had a nice, lazy relaxing time in Madison and received a lot of great gifts from our families including the glorious George Foreman grill, coffee maker, a featherbed (so comfy), and lots of other stuff that excites us like gift cards, kitchen stuff, a cookbook, and coffee (which only excites me).

We also played games, watched movies, went bowling, consumed more alcohol and food than anyone should be able to take in in the span of a week, and built a snowman I didn't gain the expected 7 lbs on average - only 3. Luckily 2 of those pounds have already moved on to greener pastures (aka Not My Ass). I also bought myself some sweet new shoes.