Summer Scrapbook

It's Monday and I'm a little sad that the weekend is over... and so is summer.  As the smell of Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes fills the air (and pictures of said drink overload my Facebook and Instagram feeds), I start to get reminiscent of the summer that's passed.  Just for fun, here are some highlights of this summer of 2013!

We went to a beautiful wedding in La Jolla...

Followed by a gorgeous wedding in Oklahoma City...

We rode the mustache train to Fort Worth...

Bachelorette in the Burbs

I feel guilty blogging about one friend's bachelorette weekend and skipping over another equally fun one, so it's time to play a little catch up.  One of my high school besties tied the knot in Oklahoma City in April, so a couple of weeks before her big day, her girlfriends from Dallas, Fort Worth, and Oklahoma City all met in neutral territory- Grapevine, Texas, Murica.  Isn't she a gorgeous bride?

If you're a North Texas local (or an Oklahoman, which is pretty much the same thing), you know Grapevine for the mall Grapevine Mills.  For high school kids in OKC, one of the really cool things you might get do on a special occasion was to take a weekend trip here.  I have literally come to this destination as a "vacation".  My parents tricked me into thinking this was fabulous.  Now, another thing this area is also locally famous for is its wineries.  (I didn't say the wine is good.  It's just wine.  No one's complaining.)  I don't know which came first for the city: the name or the vineyards. There's an annual wine festival (happening next weekend) and any time you can tour the wineries.

For this particular trip, our group stayed at the Gaylord Texan.  My first time to stay here was New Year's Eve in 2010, which was a solid good time.  The weekend started off with (what else?) a group dinner.  I was in it to win it this weekend, so when the majority of the group decided to call it an early night after dinner, we (the cool kids) had a little dance party in our room.

The next day we did normal things and had a Pinterest-style bridal shower in a suite at the hotel and played cheesy wedding games. 

A Very Merry Wedding Weekend

It was a very merry (albeit short) wedding weekend in Copper, Colorado this Labor Day weekend.  After a hellacious day of travel on Friday which caused us to miss 50% of the weekend events we were going to attend, the other 50% was fab!  And yeah, it was worth the money spent and stress to see the world's best boss get hitched!  Here are some totally gorgeous pics of the bride and groom that I stole from a co-worker's Instagram account. 

Doesn't the background in the first pic look fake it's so perfect?  That was no green screen, folks!  The bride and everyone else rode a ski lift up into the mountain to get to that picture perfect spot.  It's so much easier to get on and off these things without a stupid snowboard hanging from my foot!

When Good Trips Go Bad

If you travel enough, you know (really, you expect) that every once in a while, a trip is going to go horribly wrong.  There are too many moving parts, too many uncontrollable variables in play, for every trip to go off without a hitch.  Let me tell ya about our journey to the Rockies yesterday...

First, I have the world's best boss.  I need to buy her that coffee mug... So when you get invited to her destination wedding, you go.  Yesterday sucked because basically, we left our house at 10:45am and arrived at our hotel in Copper, Colorado  twelve hours later.  To give you some perspective, the drive takes thirteen hours.  We flew into Denver International Airport (arriving on time), which is a very nice airport, but logistically, it's a beating getting from terminal C to ground transportation.  The rental car lots are all located off-site, so by the time your shuttle picks you up it's a fifteen minute ride to get there.  And on Friday afternoon (4:00pm to be precise) of a holiday weekend, you're gonna stand in a long line to get your car.  By the time we got ours it was close to 5:00pm and traffic was bad, to say the least.  Over four hours later, we completed the 100-mile trip to Copper.

At least the view (beyond the miles of cars) was nice!  The company wasn't bad either.  :)  I practiced taking selfies to pass the time, which I regretted this morning when my camera died.  And of course I didn't pack the charger.  Since our house is a wreck, I wouldn't have been able to find it if I tried.  (I apologize in advance for the crappy cell phone pictures I'm going to post later this week.)  Here's what ya get for now...

Vegas, Baby!

Today I'm allowing my brain a little break from work (as in my job and house work) for a virtual Vegas vacation. I mentioned earlier this summer that 2013 is the year of the wedding.  In fact, we're going to one this weekend.  With weddings come showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties, bridal lunches, etc... Basically, there are lots of ways to spend money on celebrate the betrothed couple.  Before one of our couple-friends walked down the aisle in July, I attended the bride's Vegas bachelorette party in May.

I've been to Vegas too many times over the last seven years, and some of my favorite trips there have lasted only twenty-four hours.  IMHO, that is the perfect amount of time for Vegas.  This is not my old age talking.  I've felt this way since I was 22 and made my second trip to Sin City.  Now, there are many different ways to approach a Vegas vacation.  The agenda can be centered around gambling, dinner/shows, partying (day at the pool, night at the club), or general entertainment (indoor sky diving, roller coasters, bungee jumping).  You can keep it classy on the strip, or go ghetto old school in downtown.  I've done Vegas on the cheap, staying at a place called Terrible's Casino (the name says it all), eating at convenience stores and Fat Burger, and playing nickle slots.  This particular bachelorette trip was Vegas done right.  Five girls + one room at The Cosmopolitan + (???) bottles of bubbly = one epic weekend.  I'll break down our trip into the following categories: restaurants, pools, and clubs.

Wedding Season

It's here.  And it's been great!  But I'm excited to spend this weekend at home (at least until Sunday when I go to Oklahoma for Mother's Day like the good daughter I am).  Weddings are high-pressure events for those of us in the wedding party.  I have responsibilities like making sure the bridesmaids' bouquets make it to the reception so they can double as center pieces on the dining tables... This stuff is hard work after a day of hair, nails, makeup, and wedding rehearsal.  We bridesmaids have to perfect our step-together-step-together down the aisle and stand around for all of the pre and post ceremony photos...  It's exhausting!  We are also expected to be the first to start a conga line on the dance floor, and we really should stay for last call.  My boyfriend and I had back-to-back weddings last month, plus a few weekends of showers and bachelorette parties, so you now know where all of my discretionary income is being spent.  With love, of course.

Our first wedding weekend took us to La Jolla.  No complaints there!  We flew into San Diego and rented a car for the short drive north.