Texas Fall Wedding #1

I got to spend 10 whole days in Texas in October - what a treat!! I had planned long before to be there for Jessica's wedding in Austin. She's one of my oldest and dearest friends, so of course I wasn't going to miss her big day! I had also always intended to stay the week before or after in Dallas. When I realized my New York friends, Kelly & Daniel, were also getting married in Austin just 6 days after Jessica. I started thinking that maybe I could swing 2 weddings in Texas in one week - and I did! It was a busy 10 days, but very fun!

I flew into Dallas on Thursday night, then headed to Dry Bar on Friday morning on my way out-of-town. I had heard of Dry Bar in Dallas and they more recently opened one in NYC and I was really excited to try it. They blow your hair straight and have a wide selection of cocktails to sip on while they're working. Fun! I wasn't SUPER impressed with my blow-out though. I had my hair blown-out in NYC a couple of weeks before that when I'd gotten my hair cut and I thought that stylist did a better job than the gal at Dry Bar. It was good enough, though :)

I drove to Austin and stayed with my college friend, Janet, and her family for the next 2 nights. It was soooo great to spend some time with Janet - it had been too long! She has 2 boys and I hadn't met the youngest yet, so it was great to see them, too. Her oldest is extremely sociable and so fun. I had fun seeing them and catching-up in between all the wedding festivities and on Sunday we were all able to go to lunch together before I drove back to Dallas. I am so mad I didn't get any pictures with Janet or of her family that weekend.

Jessica's wedding weekend was such fun! Friday night, we went to the rehearsal dinner at a pizza joint and all my high school friends were there - it was great to see everyone in Austin! It was a fun, relaxed night with wine and yummy pizza.  We also got to meet Waylon and Miles that night, the two newest Kewpie babes and just a couple of months old!

With Kate, Waylon, Kelly, Miles, and Maggie

It's so sad that we only took 1 picture this night

and it did not include the bride!!

(oh, and I'm actually liking my hair in this picture....

maybe I'll straighten it this weekend :))

On Saturday, I threw a little bridal breakfast for Jessica and her closest girlfriends/family. We went to a place called Chez-Zee and they have an event planner who was SO awesome to work with and made it so easy to plan something from 2,000 miles away. The food was pretty good, too.

Our table, all set up!

I homemade the menus and placecards.

I'm all about frugal event planning these days and the

only thing I purchased was the buttons (from the $1 bin at Michaels!!)

Finally, a picture of the bride!

All the ladies!  Plus, Evelyn the flower-girl.

We had their famous creme brulee french toast as an appetizer - yum!

Jessica again

With Kelly & Evelyn

We got our waiter to take a pic of the whole party

Party Favors...Imperial Wedding Tea!

After brunch, Kelly, Maggie, Kate, and I huddled together in Kelly's hotel room and got to planning our toast for that night. We'd already done the bulk of the planning via email, but it was good to get together and edit it all and practice. And it was fun to have those few hours together! Jessica is involved in Mortified shows (as a performer and producer), and Maggie had the brilliant idea of doing a mini-Mortified show for Jessica's toast - it was really fun!  I didn't take any pictures of our toast-practicing, but did get one shot of the cute babies!

That night was the wedding, of course! It was a really fun wedding! And it's been featured on all kinds of blogs so you can go here or here to read all about it and see more professional pictures than mine!
 

Cute set-up of pictures of Jessica & Bobby

A friend of theirs embroidered this and it looks just like one

of their engagement pictures!  Love this!

Joe & Kate, too cool in their shades

Jessica's brother & mom 

Bobby's niece and nephew

Bobby made an awesome entrance down the aisle...shaking hands and greeting everyone

Even 2-year-old Evelyn made it down the aisle!

Here comes the bride! 

Getting married...Jessica looked so happy!

 Sweet girl with pretty flowers

Table setting 

Dessert Table!  So cute!

Loved all the cookies homemade by her Brazilian mother

Grand Entrance of the newlyweds
Don't you love her dress?
It was her mother's wedding dress, made by her grandmother!

Jessica's pretty bouquet

With the bride!

Bride & Groom placecards

First Dance!

This picture cracks me up...it looks like

Bobby looked up and posed for the shot!

Toast Time!

Jessica's Dad's Toast

With Julianne - Jessica's college friend

Dance Party!

One more pic with the bride!

Photo Booth shot with all the girls!

October Snow!

I'm guessing that most of you all have heard (or maybe are also experiencing yourself) that this winter has been incredibly mild here in the Northeast. I am so thankful!! We have not had too many of those bitter cold days where you can see your breath and your skin hurts at the end of the day. And when we have had those days, they've only lasted for a day or two before it shoots back up to around 50 degrees. I've worn my puffy coat very little this year, which is nice because that thing is huge and annoying and not the most flattering, but it sure does keep me warm on those super cold days.
Anyway, the ironic part to all of this is that we had our first snow extremely early this year...Saturday, October 29th! It wasn't a ton of snow, but it was still a bit shocking to see snow so early in the season....especially when I had already predicted a very mild winter.  Because all the trees still had the bulk of the leaves on them, they could not withstand both the weight of the leaves and the snow, so there were a lot of trees and tree limbs down around the neighborhood and in the park. I made my way across the park that day (via bus) to watch some Baylor football at Stacy's and it was CRAZY out.  A huge tree in front of my building was down and as I stepped out I heard a really loud noise and then watched as another huge tree limb fell and very narrowly missed falling on a guy walking down the sidewalk - yikes!  And, the street the bus usually takes thru the park was closed because of trees that had fallen there so we had to take a detour.  I wasn't expecting so much damage for such a small amount of snow, but it really took it's toll!
 
The boyz happened to be spending some time at my mom's that weekend and I guess mom told them that it was snowing in NYC. So, when I talked to them later that day, Ryder asked to see pictures and I assured him I would take some and email them. Well, I'm not always the best aunt and I totally forgot about my promise. The following day, I got a phone call from Beau. BEAU! To this day, I have no idea how he called me....he was playing with Beth's phone and I'm pretty sure it was unintentional that he called me (as opposed to some random person), but it sure was fun to get a phone call from that little dude. Ryder overheard Beau talking to me and insisted on getting on the line and he proceeded to remind me "Hey, SuSu, where are the pictures of the snow?!" So, I immediately went outside and took pictures. Anyway, these are the not-so-great pictures I ended up with for sweet Ry of our first snow of 2011/2012!

Small tree limbs down on my street

Snow covered car on my street

Snow @ one of the Brownstone's on my street

Trees down in the park

Big Tree Truck alongside the park

Snow in the park!

Personal Retreat!

Back in late July, I decided I really needed a getaway - by myself.  I had just been so busy and I have trouble sitting still at home when there is an incredible city right outside my door.  Or, when I am still at home, it's not very focused time.  I needed to get away and have some productive down-time....if that makes sense!

I decided to go to Morristown, New Jersey.  It sounded like a cute town, I could easily get there on the train, and there was a hotel with a pool I was excited to stay at.  It ended up being a wonderful weekend!  I think I will definitely go back there again this coming summer.  I spent most of my time at the hotel.  I lounged by the pool, worked on my bible study, prayed, read, slept well in the comfy bed, and used the gym and went running outside around the nearby neighborhood.  I am bad about having extended, quality time with God and I had a LOT of it that weekend.  It was so refreshing.  I also read the entire book Bossypants...did most of that reading on the train and by the pool.  It was our book club book that month (for Book Club on a Boat!).  I am sure that is the only time I have read one of our books in a single weekend!

On Saturday night, I went into the downtown area of Morristown and grabbed a bite and walked around and into some shops.  It was a super cute little town.  I kept thinking about how it reminded me of Ireland - which I thought was strange at first.  There were a couple of churches and a park that reminded me so much of Dublin and then I noticed a couple of Irish pubs and THEN I saw a whole shop that was only Irish souvenirs....that was my final clue that there was definitely something Irish about the place.  You may remember how much I loved Dublin, so it's no surprise that I loved Morristown!

This park reallly reminded me of the parks in Dublin

I don't remember what this was, but I thought

it was really pretty and also SO European!

When I saw Sweet Lucy's, of course I had to try a cupcake :)

Concerts

Of course I have seen some concerts during my blogging absence.  Way back in the summer I saw Taylor Swift.  This isn't a concert I would have normally requested tickets to, but Megan wanted to go and since she took me to Glee, I was happy to put in for Taylor (plus, I secretly kind of like some of her music).  Sadly, this was by far the worst concert I've been to in my 5 years of going to awesome concerts for free.  Taylor is awful live.  And I mean AWFUL.  Not so much her singing...it was probably fine, but I wouldn't know because I could get over how irritated I was the whole show.  Her concert had a plot and theme, as some do, and she did a LOT of acting.  A lot of really, really bad, stupid acting.  It was like fingernails on a chalkboard for 2 hours.  I was so annoyed with her.  Funny part of this show was that it was almost all children!  I don't even mean teenagers....there were a ton of young kids there!  Megan and I were the only people without kids in our box - ha!  I'm sure all the kids thought Taylor was the best.

One thing I saw at Taylor's concert that I can't say I've seen before is a ton of people who brought home-made light-up objects.  Basically cardboard cut out in shapes and then lit up with Christmas lights or something (battery operated, I suppose).  In this picture, you can see a guitar and a heart, among other things.

So, Taylor and her little play/concert was a bust.  But in the fall, Stacy and I went to see Katy Perry and she also had a plot and a theme, but she did a much better job of pulling it off.  Some of it was rather cheesy, but overall it was pretty cute and Katy Perry and her chops made up for any of the dumb parts...she's so talented!