Celebrate good times.

#1: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! My dad turns 56 today! I'm heading up to Arlington on Friday to celebrate with him this weekend :)

#2: Shelley and Dan are engaged!! I know this is a bit delayed but I was waiting till I had a pic of the two to post on here. Shell is one of my best friends from college. She and I met back in the old Collins days and Zeta pledge days. We had a great time throughout college, including a trip to Colorado, and lots of Zeta functions and late night fun. I also met Dan freshman year when he and shell first dated, and got to know him throughout our college years and beyond. I'm really excited for the two of them AND she has asked me to be a bridesmaind. Their wedding is coming up on May 16th!

#3: Tracy and Devin are engaged! Tracy is a friend of mine from law school! We met first year of law school during the first few weeks at the beginning of the legal journey. We had a lot of fun times during law school, including many Galveston Bay trips, Las Vegas, MS150, and other various nights of fun. She and Devin started dating 3rd year of law school. He is a great guy and very lucky to be engaged to Tracy. I can't wait for all their wedding festivities!

I'm glad it's Wednesday and I cannot WAIT to go home this weekend to see my family - trips to Dallas and the Fort Worth Stock Show are in store!

OH and Congrats to my friend Cindy on her pregnancy. I am sorry I missed your shower this past weekend, look for something fun in the mail to come! (I'd link you to to her fun blog but I don't know how to do it with just her name as the link...any help there?)

Much love.

Yay: Sunny days.
Dang: Bills.

Mel's Wedding

This weekend was super fun! I had a rough week so a fun filled weekend was definitely needed. Friday night I met Kate and Steve and some other friends for dinner/drinks, and then we saw My Bloody Valentine 3D. It was hilarious. Not scary. Really stupid, and enjoyable. Patrick joined us for the movie and he thought it was pretty hilarious as well.

Saturday Patrick and I drove to Dallas for Melissa Wallace, now Gastineau's wedding! We checked into our hotel, a lovely Omni, across the street from Elaine's apartment, and also where her wedding reception was at. We got ready and then Elaine and Brian picked us up and we headed to Royal Lane Baptist Church for the wedding ceremony. Mel looked beautiful! She wore a mermaid style dress and almost got away with wearing her cowboy boots. They both looked so happy as they exchanged their vows. The reception followed at the "Old Red Courthouse". It was uh-mazing. They rented out the whole buidling. The reception was on the fourth floor. There was wine and beer and snacks while we waited for the bride and groom to show up. Since it was at a courthouse, and being lawyers, Elaine and I had to get a pic in the courtroom -

We moved into the reception area and had a yummy dinner and continued the night with lots of dancing and catching up with old friends. I got to introduce Patrick to a lot of friends from college, which was great. I got to see all my friends from the 6th floor back in freshman year at Baylor and spend some quality time with some Zetas. A wonderful wedding!

Zetas!
Patrick and I drove back to Houston today. He's currently working hard at his apt on some work projects (he's amazing and came with me to the wedding even though he is super busy at work) and I'm doing some work of my own and laundry and other fun chores that I love (ha if you know me you know that's not true, not at all).

This week is going to be super busy. For some reason January 30 is the deadline for 4 different projects at work. AWESOME. Hopefully it'll go better than last week. I'm finding my feet a bit more and trying to maintain confidence in my work in the midst of seemingly unconfident behavior.

Much Love.

Yay: Seeing friends this past weekend.

Dang: Patrick having to work a TON this coming week, poor guy.

Arkansas

This weekend ended up being very random! On thursday Patrick informed me that he had just bought the motorcycle he's always wanted on ebay, and it happened to be in Arkansas. So, after I helped out with a moot court competition on Saturday, Patrick and I headed to Little Rock, Arkansas around 230 pm. Yes yes a long way for leaving at 230 on a Saturday. We had a fun road trip through East Texas and into Arkansas. We rolled into Arkansas at 10 pm, checked into our hotel, and headed down to the hotel/bar and restaurant to relax a bit and then watched the first 20 minutes of Eagle Eye before falling asleep. The next morning we woke up and drove to Bradford, Arkansas to pick up the motorcycle. The sellers ended up being very nice people. Patrick enjoyed talking about motorcycles with the husband while I chatted with the wife while they loaded the bike into the trailer. We headed out from there at 11:30 am and made it to Houston around 8 pm. this time we listened to Stephen King's "The Cell" on cd and it kept us entertained for the 8 hours. Overall a very fun/spontaneous road trip!

Much love.

Yay: having today off.
Dang: the busy-ness of this coming week.

Week One Weigh In

Well my friends, I had my first weigh in today for WW. I lost, drum roll please -



Week 1: -1.6 lbs!

Total: -1.6 lbs.



I'm pretty okay with that. I would have liked to have seen more, but considering my splurges this past weekend of chick fil a nuggets and chips and queso, and one work out of the week, I'll happily take one I can get. Hopefully this week I can manage to get my butt in the gym more than once, and lay off the chips and queso, not so easy. Chips are a vice of mine, serious vice.



Much love.



Yay: Weekly dose of Jason on the bachelor tonight.

Boo: My poor boyfriend working 75 hours last week, or something crazy like that.

WW

Well, I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to post about this, and have decided to just go ahead and do it. On Monday I started Weight Watchers. Now some might ask why are you doing this and others may not care BUT I could stand to use a few pounds here and there. I don't have the BEST eating habits, to say the least I really just eat whatever. But its time to fix that and I am hoping by doing this plan it'll help me recognize what is good for me and what is not so eventually I can make those decisions naturally. Anyways, what better to hold myself accountable to stick through this, then to post in blog world for all my friends (and randoms) to see. Every monday I'll post how my progress is coming, good or bad. And hopefully at the end of this I'll be able to say I've lost 15 - 20 lbs!

Total weight loss to date: 0 lbs (duh I just started..)

2008 in Review

I know that it's already January 4th, but I've been a bit busy... Here's a little recap of 2008 -

Jan -
- Started my last semester of law school AND school in general

Feb -
- Attended the National Moot Court Competition and won best speaker in a round!

March -
- Bridesmaid in Elaine's wedding!
- House party in Jen's wedding!
- Wine tasting with Patrick in Fredericksburg

April -
- First time in Vegas with the law school gals!
- Rode my bike for 150 miles to benefit MS from Houston to Austin

May -
- Turned 25
- Graduated from law school

June thru July
- Studied for the hardesy test of my life
- Took the Bar Exam for 3 days

August
- Cancun w/ Patrick to celebrate the end of the Bar
- First real job for a family lawyer

September
- Second real job for law firm in Houston where I'll hopefully remain for a while!

October
- Celebrated 1 year with Patrick!

November
- Jen and Nick got hitched!
- PASSED the bar exam and became an attorney!

December
- Rang in the New Year

That's a little recap. I'm so excited to see what 2009 holds, the joys, struggles, laughs, and happiness. Here's to a new year.

Much love.

Holiday Recap

Again, it has taken time for me to update, its been a great holiday season. Here's a little recap:

On Friday before Christmas, Patrick and I went to see White Christmas at the Hobby Center. I grew up with the tradition of watching White Christmas every Christmas with my family. It was fun to see the musical version of it and I even saw Patrick laughing, I think he liked it too ;).

On Saturday, Patrick and I went to his firm's Holiday Party at Hotel Zaza. It was fun to meet his secretary and talk to his co-workers! That day I also changed my hair, cut it into a long bob and dyed it BROWN. I love it. That night Patrick and I had our Christmas. We opened our presents, he got me an IPod Touch and I luvs it, and some other various things that showed how well he listens to me (and my hints!) :) I got him an XM boombox and some other various things that show how well I listen to him :)

On Sunday, Alisa and I went to dinner in downtown and then saw The Nutcracker, another favorite Christmas tradition!

I went home to Arlington the Monday before Christmas for my first full week at home since, well, last Christmas. It was a truly great time! On Tuesday my mom, Liz, and I went to eat at the Zodiac room at Neiman's and did some last minute shopping. That night I went over to Dallas to Elaine and Brian's Christmas Party. It was so fun to see everyone and catch up.

Wednesday was Christmas Eve, that day I just relaxed and hung out with my family. That night my family and I went to church at my parents new church - All Saints Episcopal - in Fort Worth. It was a beautiful service and really helped put in the forefront of my mind the meaning of Christmas. Afterwards we opened our Christmas eve PJs and ate some snacks and watched a movie.

Christmas morning arrived, we woke up and I made some blueberry muffins and coffee for the family. We opened our presents! My parents got me a GPS and I luvs it too, no more getting lost in Houston! We ate breakfast and then our extended family came over and we made linner and ate some tasty pork loin, smoked in my dad's trash can smoker. That night an old friend came over and played scrabble with my dad, sister, and I. It was a great Christmas!

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, spending time with my family, and enjoying the holidays!

Sunday I headed back to Houston and had to work on Monday and Tuesday.

NYE I headed across to Boerne to meet up with Patrick at his Dad's house to ring in the New Year. His brother Travis and wife Kara and their kids came as well as his cousin Charlie and his wife Lauren and Elaine and Brian. We had a great time laughing, hanging out and saying goodbye to 2008!

Last Pic 2008

First Pic of 2009