Birthday Finale

This weekend concluded my Birthday Celebrations. Sorry there will be no pictures. Do you know how weird it is to take pictures at regular places, especially when you're eating? Awkward.

On Friday, Fran and Melissa from work took me out for lunch. We went to Yia Yia's Pizza. I love this place! I ordered the Pacific slice and a coke with grenadine. My pizza had marinara, cheese, cream cheese, pineapple, ham and green peppers. That pretty much sounds like a perfect pizza to me! And don't get me started on the real cherry coke - I order it everywhere!
On Sunday, we made it to the Green Gateau for brunch. We attempted to go here last Sunday but they're only open for lunch so we missed out. Instead we had Mexican, one of my favorite types of food! For brunch, I ordered the Eggs Oscar. This is an English muffin stacked with a crab cake and a poached egg with Hollandaise sauce on top. I also had asparagus and a potato pancake on the side. I will admit that I did not order the potato pancake. When given a choice of that or hash browns, I went for the familiar hash browns. When my food arrived I was a little wary but it really looked a lot like hash browns so it must be OK. It was so much better than OK! It was hash browns with some extra love! Note: always order an potato pancake when offered.
So that pretty much rounds out my week of birthday fun! But I still have two ice cream dates yet to be fulfilled. J has promised to take me to Ivana Cone. :) I'm very excited about this! I love Ivana Cone and the fact that J is willing to take me is extra special. I'm also getting ice cream with the McNairs sometime. I was able to fill my ice cream void all summer with AJ and am thrilled that my run will extend into the fall a little. :)

Award

Mom Huebert has presented me with an award. Thanks though I admit my blog may not be award worthy. Here are a couple reasons why: bad spelling, bad writing skills, I tend to blab, bad pictures... I'm sure there are more. So I will accept my award with the goal of being worthy of it someday! :)

But to get my award I have to do a meme (What is a meme, other than clearly a list? Or is that it and I'm smarter than I thought!?)...
A. Attached or single? Attached to my hubby.
B. Best friend? I was soured on this term in Jr. High and do not claim anyone as a "best friend".
C. Cake or pie? Both.
D. Day of choice? Sunday.
E. Essential item? Panda :)
F. Favorite color? Blue.
G. Gummy bears or worms? Worms.
H. Hometown? Small town Nebraska.
I. Indulgence? Sleeping in but this may be more of a requirement.
J. January or July? July, I'd rather sweat to death than freeze to death.
K. Kids? Not yet.
L. Life isn’t complete without? Faith and Family.
M. Marriage date? July 2nd, 2005
N. Number of brothers & sisters? one of each.
O. Oranges or apples? Apples
P. Phobias? Spiders.
Q. Quotes? You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Trust in the LORD forever, For in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength. - Isaiah
R. Reasons to smile? Life! 3 year olds.
S. Season of choice? Summer.
T. Tag seven peeps! SEE BELOW.
U. Unknown fact about me? When given a survey in school I would always say my best feature was my feet. Survey says: surveys suck!
V. Vegetable? Peas or sweet corn.
W. Worst habits? Wanting to be in control.
X. X-ray or ultrasound? Ultrasound - they're for babies and x-rays are for something broken.
Y. Your favorite food? Chocolate but really I'm easy to please.
Z. Zodiac sign? No one cares.

Okay! Now I get my award:


And I get to pass it on to seven cool bloggers:
Feather Files
The Single Track Life
McNair 5
The Shanle Channel
JT's Thoughts
Dr. and Mrs. Thomas
Steph and her boys!

House Updates

This is the current state of our house.

Welcome to our living room! Have a seat. And our lovely make-do blinds for now.




The office. Boxes. This has actually improved since the picture was taken. Horaay!

The dining room and kitchen. This area looks the best. And yes J is cooking for us. I love my chef!

I am excited to be moved into our house but now comes the fun work of putting life in order again. I have a feeling this will take longer than I think. I'm so excited to see how we grow into our home!

Presents

Here's the pictures I promised of what else I got for my Birthday. :) I have great friends and family!

First a nice sports watch from my husband. I know it's not the best picture and could stand to be cropped. I'm still sharpening my blogger skills and photographing skills.

Also Marshmallow ear buds from J. As you can see he's helping me in my running ventures. My little ears are excited about these mushy buds!

Biscotti from Granny and Papa! Yum!

Cards and money from my parents, Grandpa and Grandma Fisher and people at work. Plus Mary Kay lotion from my supervisor, Kari. My co-workers Melissa and Fran are also taking me out for lunch this week.

This really cute card is from Kari as well. Aww-some! I heart kitties!

So it was a great birthday and turning 25 isn't too bad. I actually do feel older this year. Whenever someone would ask me that I would always smile and say not really. But this year I do feel a little older but I'd say in a good way.

Spectacular Day

I know multiple posts in one day is excessive. BUT let me tell you about my day.

It started with me getting up a little earlier than normal because I needed to get to work early to make up for my lunch the day before. I woke up still feeling a little funny from the day before. So I called my doctor and they told me to drink lots of water and call if I felt worse later. Nice. On I go to work, same old deal. I keep feeling worse and by 4pm, I called my doctor and they finally ordered me some drugs. Don't you think I know when I'm sick?! Of course, I do and I know before I'm in horrible pain. Thank you very much. Yes, for all you doctors, I know more about me than you! :)

I know, get to the point - what a boring, sad day L. But now comes the fun part. I have been listening to the radio in hopes of winning tickets to a particular concert at the State Fair this year. J told me that our last name is pretty lucky but I had yet to experience this. I had previously asked Heather to go to this concert with me but when I heard about the contest I was even more excited. She's a master at winning radio contest!

I was sitting at my desk manning the phones as I watched everyone else leave work at 5, knowing I had a long half hour to go. At about 5:10pm, Hoss came on the radio and began telling us about the passes he was going to let some one win for the Miranda Lambert concert next week. I sat poised to dial. Then, the horrible words "but in order to win, you must answer this question correctly". Stink. What town did Miranda grow up in? Not the same as her birth place. Like I know. But I really love Google! So I easily find the answer and start dialing in hopes that I'm not too late. After about 5 tries, I'm ready to give up. I look at my cell phone just to make sure I'm even calling the right number and decide to call a couple more times.

On the second try, it starts ringing. Really? I can't believe it's ringing! And ringing and ringing, like 30 times, really. But once it's ringing some one has got to answer it eventually. So I'm sitting here answering my work phone with one ear and listening to the phone ring in the other, finally Hoss comes on the phone. I ask if there's been an answer yet and he asks for my guess. Of course, I give the correct answer and he asks for my name and tells me I just won! WHooo HOO!! I'm am so excited and yes I do confess to "cheating" by looking it up online. He then takes my info and tells me to look for info in the mail and come pick up my tickets at the station. A minute later, I hear my voice on the radio as he plays back my winning call. Did you know that's not live? I didn't.

I am now the proud winner of Miranda Lambert VIP passes! Heather and I will be eating Rib Ranch before the concert, enjoying a great view during the concert and riding all the fair rides for free with our VIP passes and super tickets. Hopefully we will remember to take pictures. :) So if you have ever tried to win something on the radio, keep trying!

Surprised!

Yesterday, Mom and AJ came up to spend the day doing last minute errands and appointments before AJ goes back to college. So they called on their way up and we made a plan to meet for lunch. I am very thankful for a flexible job where even though I don't normally have a lunch break, I was able to arrange something.

We went to the Roost. They serve different kinds of chicken salad sandwiches. Very good! I would definitely go back for lunch. At lunch I also got my early birthday present from A and AJ. AJ had been telling me for couple weeks that she had this great idea but she wasn't sure if she could find what she was looking for. I, of course bugged her to tell me what it was with no luck. I absolutely love being surprised at Christmas or my Birthday but I can't help but try to find out what I'm getting ahead of time. Anyone else have this issue?

In spite of having to wait, I was very happy with what I got! At work, Fran and I had been listening to a radio station where they were giving away designer purses. We tried for a month to win with no success! I am so bad at radio contests. I get a busy signal when I just call in to request a song. When I saw the new giraffe purses from Dooney & Burke, I just fell in love. But really, $300 for a purse. That I cannot do. I also rarely buy a new purse because my frugal husband is taking good care of our finances. Thanks hubby for taking care of me in ways I don't think of. :) So AJ (and Mom) found a knock-off version of this purse online. Thanks little brother and sister! I love it!

I think that I will be more happy carrying around my knock-off than if I had brought the original. I would have had to use that purse for the rest of my life because it would be too expensive. And now I can brag about how I have this beautiful purse that looks expensive but isn't. I actually take pride in that. :) AJ also got a giraffe purse for herself in a larger size. Here were are with our matching purses.

Hmm, maybe this is a step towards me blogging about shoes? Heather? I definitely will when I get my next fabulous pair of shoes. Speaking of shoes, AJ just bought a very cute pair of Dr. Scholl's gold flats - cute and comfy. Maybe I'll just live out my shoe fetish vicariously through my sister. I'm sure J would like that much better. Now that I have a house, I'm so much more excited about spending money on that instead of myself. My latest material love is Pottery Barn rugs. I love them all!

BBQ Celebration

On Sunday my family got together to celebrate my Dad's birthday on the 14th and my birthday on the 18th and AJ's going back to college. After much (MUCH) debating we decided to go to the Texas Roadhouse.
But first Mom and AJ came up early so we could get in some final pool time of the summer. Yes, I know the summer isn't over yet. But really, I don't want to go to the pool by myself. I've done that and I felt like some sort of stalker. Weird. So after a couple hours of sun, we headed down south to eat. I of course didn't think ahead to make a reservation. But in my defense, we didn't really decide where we were going until right before we left. So we ended up waiting an hour and half to be seated. Apparently being the new place in town will do wonders for business. Thankfully there we're buckets of peanuts for us to snack on. Speaking of which, what do you think of that? Are piles of peanut shells on the floor of a restaurant a gross reflection of the cleanliness of the place or just a fun past time to be enjoyed?

In spite of the wait and the mess, the food was good. Although next time I might bring ear plugs because of the loud music and even more loud conversations. I enjoyed my leftovers at home much more. I ordered a pulled pork dinner with my sides as fresh veggies and baked sweet potato. They made great leftovers for lunch the next day. And before our meal we got a refillable basket of the little bread muffins with a cinnamon sugar butter to spread on them. Warm bread with sugary butter - I should have thought of that.

So it was a great meal and a great time with family as you can see from all my pictures here and on the side. :) I am really going to miss seeing AJ all the time. They've been up to help us with moving or just to hang out nearly every weekend for the last half of the summer. Here's a final picture of AJ and I showing how full we were from supper! I will now be looking forward to when AJ comes home from college in October. Then we can celebrate her birthday with another family dinner. Maybe A will come this time so we can really make it a family celebration. (hint, hint.) :)
Safe Travels!