PSF: Not Exactly Roughing It...

If you've been reading here lately or keeping up with me on facebook, you may have heard about the fabulous trip to Colorado my family and I took. If not, pay more attention don't worry I will fill you in!

About a week before Christmas, we found out that we were being an amazing gift; a trip to Colorado. A family who heard of our family and what we've been going through has a house in Beaver Creek. Every year around Christmas time, they pick a family and donate their house to them for a week. This year, they chose us. And let me tell you, this was no average trip! We were living the high life for that week, and it is a trip we will never forget I am sure!

First of all, as if staying in an amazing house and bringing 4 extra people (my sister's friends) with us wasn't enough, we were flown to Colorado on a private plane.Which was really, really amazing!

Definitely a step up from your average flight, don't ya think!? As we were flying in, we could already start to see the beautiful, snowy white mountains!

Once we landed, we drove about 30 minutes (with amazing views the whole way! Everywhere you looked, it was so pretty) to the awesome house we stayed in. Seriously, it was such a beautiful house!

The picture is kind of dark... I don't know why it didn't occur to me to take a picture during actual daylight.

As soon as we got to the house, my sister and her friends literally ran into the house and before I even got inside, they had claimed their bedrooms! The house was just as beautiful inside as out; it was 5 stories and 5 bedrooms! We all kind of ended up on our own floor; my sister and her friends were on the next to last floor, I was above them and my parents were in the huge master bedroom on the top floor.

This was my room.

Clearly, this was taken after I had been living in it a few days!

The room my sister and 2 of her friends stayed in

The room the other 2 girls stayed in. (Sorry crappy iPhone picture)

The living area upstairs on the main floor was beautiful! It had a really nice kitchen, dining room and living room where we spent a lot of time playing games and watching movies!

The kitchen is on the right, dining room on the left and the living room in the middle!

Not only was the house clearly amazing, but the trip itself was also a blast! My mom and I don't ski (hate it. Despise skiing. Tried it once, never again!), so we spent our days walking around town (before the temperature dropped later in the week to single digits, including 0), shopping, etc. We even went and drank Pear Martini's one day! They were so good!

Yum!!!

It was really nice to spend some time with her just the two of us! My dad took my sister and her friends skiing every day, and they (mostly) had a good time! They were even crazy brave enough to face the single digit weather.

Of course, New Years was an experience all in itself, but you read about that already.

The end of the week came way too quickly (we tried to negotiate another day, but it didn't work out) and we were sad to leave the beautiful mountains. We flew home on another amazing private plane as a last part of our high life week!

We are so grateful for this trip that was such a generous gift! It was so nice to completely escape from real life for a week and enjoy some R and R! Great memories were made, a lot of fun was had and the time was definitely well spent!




Hosted by Cecily and Lolli
(I'm accidentally posting this a day late because I forgot yesterday. Ooops!)

How We Became the Laughingstock of the Beach

Disclaimer: I was sadly not present for this event due to not feeling well. However, I heard about it in enough detail from my family members that I feel I am educated enough to tell this story, even if it is second-hand. I attempted to check my facts as much as possible, so I blame lack of family cooperation for any incorrect facts.

This past week, my family and I were in Litchfield Beach, SC for a family reunion with my dad's side. This our 21st year in a row going, and it is always a blast. It is truly special that my cousins, sister and I were able to grow up with this tradition of getting together every summer, and getting to see family who we might not be able to see otherwise.

Anyway, after 21 years of meeting at the same place, we have definitely developed some traditions over the years. Some have lasted all 21 years (as far as I know... I was only 9 months old our first year!), some are newer traditions and some have changed as we (my cousins, my sister and I) have gotten older.

One of these traditions is "family day". It is every Wednesday of our beach week, and on this day the dad's and our "Papaw" don't go golfing like they do every other day, and they stay home and spend quality time with all of the family. When we (the kids) were younger, this was the day when the dad's took us out to the water park. We spent the whole day there, just us and our dad's, and it was a blast. However, a few years ago we decided we had all kind of outgrown the water park. As fun as it was, we were not little kids anymore, so we decided to scrap that tradition.

However, in it's place we developed "Beach games" that were to be planned by the dad's and played by the kids on family day. So, the first year was fairly successful; we played our games and we all enjoyed ourselves, and it was a fun family bonding experience. Fast forward to last year, and beach games failed to take place. We blame the dad's, but they claim it's not their fault, so who knows who is to blame. Anyway, this year we decided to bring them back and make them better than ever.

So Friday, our last day at the beach, all the grand kids file out to the beach for beach games to begin. And this is how it started to go downhill. The planners of these games (my mom and my aunt Kara) decided that this should be like "Beach Olympics". We needed an opening ceremony and a closing ceremony. I laughed this off, thinking they were joking. They weren't. As everyone got outside to play or witness the games, the adults began to sing. Not only were they singing loud enough to get other people's attention on the beach, but they were singing The Star Spangled Banner. People around us on the beach started standing up, putting their hands on their heart as if they had to follow what we were doing, and some people just laughed at us. When some of my cousins started to laugh, because clearly this had to be a joke, our grandfather informed them that this song was "the most important song you'll ever hear." So in other words, shut up. 

 (Here are the teams, lined up preparing for battle!)

So, the beach games proceeded and of course there was sibling rivalry, cousin rivalry, and everything else you could expect. We were really a sight to be seen, out on the beach playing field day like games. People who were walking by literally stopped and watched either out of shock like WTF are they doing, or to laugh at us, either way they were staring. It is important to note that 6 out of the 8 cousins are girls, and we all know bikinis or any kind of bathing suit is not the most modest outfit. It is also not really conducive to running around the beach and pouring water into buckets, which is exactly what the game requires.See?

Then, there was the egg toss. Get a group of kids together, and toss eggs, and you are bound to get a mess. Even on the beach. The eggs ended up all over the beach and of course, in peoples hair because someone thought that was a good idea since it's apparently good for your hair.

(Passing the sponge game)

 (Egg tosses are very intense!)

And obviously beach games would not be complete without some silly string to spray all over everyone. So now not only is everyone soaking wet, covered in egg, but also covered in silly string. And suddenly everyone looked like this:

 Well, mostly just the adults looked like that, at least they were good sports! ;)

Then, for the closing ceremony it was decided the kids would shoot off rockets they had made earlier in the week as a craft. This is when disaster really struck. The rockets are not exactly high tech, and were made by kids ranging from 8-14. That being said, these rockets apparently had a mind of their own because when they were lunched, they landed everywhere. Including near other people on the beach, almost hitting people in the head. Some people were angry we were throwing rockets at them, some just laughed at us, obviously thinking we were crazy people.(Sadly, no pictures of this.)

21 years at the beach we have experienced many things, but this was definitely the first time that I can say for sure that we were the laughing stock of the beach. You know when people are pointing and laughing, it's pretty safe to assume they are not laughing with you.Oh well, what's a little embarrassment for family fun right!?

(Note to any and all family members who may be reading this, this post is intended to be a satirical recount of what happened. It is in no way supposed to be offensive to anyone involved in planning or participating in these games. Also, please don't kill me for posting pictures of you in your bathing suit. It had to be done.) 

Oh the Joys of Traveling

Traveling is so fun isn't it!? Don't you just love the stress, the deadlines, the baggage (both figuratively & literally!), etc, etc!? I know I do! Especially the kind of trip I had the other day. Allow me to demonstrate: 

5:00 AM- Wake up. Silently curse the fact that I am awake before the sun! WTF? The last time this happened... try NEVER! I like LOVE my sleep. 5 AM does not work for me. 

5:15- Finally get out of bad, finish packing. Still cursing the fa

ct that the sun is still not up & I am. 

6:00 AM- Leave the house and start the drive to the airport. 

I'm a little less bitter about the sun not being up because I know Starbucks is in the near future. 

6:05 AM- We have to turn around, my mom forgot her phone. 

6:45 AM- We get to the airport. This is where the fun begins! We try to check our bags they want to charge us like $1000 for them, so we decide to only check 5 of our 6 bags. Then, they inform us that oops sorry, it's 2 minutes passed the deadline to check in bags for your flight, so you'll have to put them on the next flight. The next flight is at 1 PM... our flight is at 7:30 AM. Which means we will have to go back to the airport & get our bags before we can drive to the beach house. The ticket desk workers don't listen to our arguing, and put our bags on the next flight. Fantastic. 

7:15 AM- Best part of the day so far. STARBUCKS! It's like Heaven! 

7:30 AM- on the plane. I sit back, relax & enjoy the flight! 

10:00 AM- Plane lands. As we are getting off the plane, we realize that remember that one bag we weren't gonna check? Oh yeah, well it's gone. As in, not with us! No one picked it up and brought it to the plane. The missing bag? MY suitcase. Fantastic. I'm thrilled, really! 

10:10 AM- We sit down in the Charleston airport & try to call the DFW airport. We try to give a description of the bag, but don't know the type of it. My dad tells me to google suitcases with frog logo's (because that's what mine looks like) to find the type of the bag. The guy on the phone looks, doesn't find it. Stress is building by the minute!

10:30 AM- hang up with the airport. My dad tells me there is probably a 3% chance of them finding my bag (he's always the optimist!). I'm thrilled, really. 

10:45 AM- waiting in line for rental car. This takes forever. Seriously, like 30 minutes. 

11:00 AM- We go outside to look at our rental car when my dad decides it is too small to fit all of our crap stuff. So we go back in the rental car place & get a new car... this takes 30 minutes again. 

11:05 AM- I am still bummed about my suitcase. But I get a text which leads to a phone call from one of my sorority sisters who promptly cheered me up! Also, she informed me that North Face now makes hoodies. It is now my mission to obtain one of these. 

11:30 AM- We are finally leaving the airport (for now)! Since we have to stay in Charleston, we decide to get some lunch somewhere & then go shopping for some new clothes for me since my entire wardrobe is lost. 

12:00 PM- We eat lunch at a place called Hymans where apparently every famous person has been! They have plaques on the tables that say like "Raven Simone ate here." (bad example, I know, but that was who sat in my sister's seat)

We get some half-shelled Oysters for appetizers & they were so delicious! Even better, when my parents order wine, the waitress pours me a glass too!! Woo hoo!! 

See!!? YUMM!!! 

12:30 PM- We walk around by the restaurant for a little bit. We go into this one shop that has these cute dresses that could apparently be worn as a dress, skirt, or top. My dad suggests getting one since I have no clothes, & my mom says "No, we'll just get her some clothes at Target or Wal-Mart." Nice, real nice mom! My entire wardrobe is lost & y

ou want to replace it at Target!? Come on. Now is not the time to be cheap! 

While at the store, I found this awesome button: 

Terrible picture I know, but it says "I'm much cooler online". How cool is that!!? I LOVE it! It's so true! I would've bought it except no one would get it except my online friends! 

1:00 PM- We've still got a lot of time to kill since our flight our bags don't come in for another 2 hours, so we go shopping at Target. More stress erupts on the way! We're trying to get directions off my dad's iPhone & read them to him. He makes a couple of wrong turns or something, and starts cussing & freaking out! Um... as if we have anywhere to be anytime soon! We've got nothing but time to kill! 

1:15 PM- We finally make it to Target & work on replacing my wardrobe. Not only does this include clothes, but also bathing suits, underwear, pajamas basically all the necessities in life. At this point, I am tired & I really hate picking out clothes, so my mom & my sister take over & find me some decent outfits. My dad goes off on his own; I guess he didn't want to stand there while I picked out underwear. Who would've thought!? 

2:30- Leave Target. Go across the street to the grocery store so my parents can get wine. My sister & I wait in the car. They take forever. We got bored. So we took pictures of ourselves on our phone! 

3:00 PM- Drive to the airport to get our bags. Praying that somehow my bag turns up with the rest of our bags. Holding on to that 3% chance! 

3:30 PM- Arrive at airport. We got a text that the plane arrived, but clearly they were lying because we had to wait like 30 minutes. Some professional wrestler dudes were there and people kept taking pictures with them. *Yawn* Who cares!? 

4:00 PM- Our bags finally come. My bag is here!!! All is not lost!! Turns out it was our cosmetic bag that we forgot at the airport & it somehow got to the airport anyway! Woo hoo! I'm now working on a plan in my head to convince my parents to let me keep the new clothes. My mom claims she is returning them. Not gonna happen! 

4:30 PM- We finally leave the airport & head to the beach house! It's about an hour & a half drive. I'm just happy we have my clothes! Even though I was excited about getting an all new wardrobe, there were some things in there I wanted back like my AXO t-shirts! 

6:00 PM- Finally, we have arrived at our destination!! After a long day of stress & traveling seeing all my family was a great way to end the day. Not a lot of better things than sitting around talking to family & listening to crazy stories! 

So what did I learn from this? Stay calm at all times. As my ex bf says (in a really funny fake southern accent no less) "Do not panic! Everything will be okay!" When someone who is super optimistic slightly negative tells you there is only a 3% chance of something happening, don't listen! And, as cheesy as it is, at the end of the day family is almost worth it! (Almost!) 

We Now Return to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming...

It's been a really long commercial break around here for, oh, only the last week and a half or something like that! Did you miss me?! Did you know I was gone?! lol I'm sure you totally knew & you totally missed me, don't lie! Anyway, I have a totally legit excuse for not being here, don't worry, I wouldn't just leave you for no reason! I was on vacation for a family reunion with my mom's side in Sun River, OR. It was beautiful! And even though I had internet access and everything, I just didn't have the time to sit down & like, write a whole post! Well maybe that's not true either, but whatever, the point is I'm back now & that's all that matters! So my vacation was pretty fantastic. It was really great to see my family; we only get together every 3 years or so, so it's really great to see everyone when we get together! I have a cousin my same age (only like 3 months apart) so that makes it even more fun since I get to hang out with her! So anyway, we did a lot of fun things! We took a trip up to Crater Lake, it was pretty fantastic. You can read all about that here at my post for College Lifestyles! We went White Water Rafting... that was a blast! Probably my favorite part! We also did some black light mini-golfing, that was pretty cool! All in all, it was a great trip, but I'm glad to be back home and of course, happy to be back with you all, my bloggy friends! I know you were just missing me so much! For pictures of my fabulous trip, check out my facebook! Are we friends? We should be! So, yeah, this post is kind of lame. But I just wanted you to know I'm back in action! More to come soon, don't worry!

PSF: Best Weekend of the Summer So Far!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

This post is long overdue, but as soon as I got back from my trip I started summer school & ever since then have barely had time to breathe (well, ok I've been breathing, but not much else! ;) ). Anyway, I finally now present you with pictures from my fabulous trip to Kansas City to stay with my bff Lisa! The weekend was great from the time I got there until I left! I got in Thursday night, and we took a tour of the city & of her college she went to before we went to school together! It was a really cool city, and it was really fun to see where she went to school before! This is the downtown Kansas City skyline! We went downtown Friday night to something called First Friday's where they feature lots of art galleries and people come and sell their stuff or shop for art or homemade jewelry. It was pretty cool, and it was awesome to see downtown! This is the night time city skyline... pretty isn't it!? After First Friday's, we went to a party at one of her friends' house. This was the 1st time I had done any kind of partying since I left school, so I was excited to get out & party it up! haha It was great meeting all of Lisa's friends; everyone was so nice, and the party was a blast! Saturday, we went shopping! There were so many awesome places to shop, so we did a whole lot of that! Then Saturday night, we went out to dinner with a few of her friends at a place called Cheeseburger in Paradise! Yes, like the Jimmy Buffett song! The chain was actually started by Jimmy Buffett himself! It was a really cool place, and my cheeseburger was delicious!! The inside of the restaurant was decorated all cool, and there was a live band playing, so it was a great environment as well! This is the bar area inside the restaurant. I can't take credit for this picture, however, because I forgot my camera that night! I got this off google, but it is exactly what it looks like! Anyway, after dinner we went to see a comedy show! It was so much fun, the guys that performed were hysterical! You have to check out Dan Levy & Adam Ray! They were both hysterical! Seriously, click on that link to Dan Levy's site & watch the video on the front page! I can't even tell you how funny he is! Sunday we took it easy for awhile, then went swimming at the neighborhood pool with her adorable three year old niece, her sister, brother-in-law & a couple of her friends! It was really fun and a great way to spend the day! Then that night was the fun part! We decided to make it a pizza & margarita night! Seriously... is there anything better?! The funny thing is we decided to make it an adventure... we were about 10-15 minutes from the state line, where you cross from Kansas into Missouri, and because we thought that the liquor stores were closed on Sunday's in KS, we went into Missouri & went searching for a liquor store! Eventually we found one, and we got all the necessary ingredients to make the fantastic results! As it turns out, though, there was a liquor store in Kansas open... right next to where we got our pizza! But we had so much fun on our mini-road trip we didn't mind at all! Yummm!!! We made them with the best recipe ever & because I'm so nice (& most likely not the only one who knows this, but I can pretend!), I'll share! We used Frozen Limeade, Triple Sec, Tequila (obviously!) & beer! Seriously, it does not get any better than this!! This is me, obviously enthused with my delicious drink! The rest of the night, we just enjoyed our drinks and played some cards, like Uno! It was a great time! The trip was definitely the best weekend of the summer for me so far, and it couldn't have come at a better time since I started summer school, it was like my last hoorah for awhile! I really wouldn't have come back if it weren't for school & I would go back in a heart beat! I might take another trip there before the end of the summer or Lisa might come here, or both! We'll see what happens, but it was fantastic & I'm so thankful Lisa put up with me for a weekend! haha **Note- I am extremely tired. It's late & it's been a long week of non stop school stuff, so please forgive my poorly written post! Also, some people are weird about having their picture online (even though I argue if you put your pictures on facebook, why not a blog, but that is why I don't have pictures on here including Lisa because I did not receive permission & I didn't want to do it without asking... just in case you were wondering!**

RTT: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Welcome to Random Tuesday Thoughts hosted by the UnMom. This week's edition of RTT (Random Tuesday Thoughts!) is themed the good, the bad and the ugly! Exciting, right!? I do love a good theme! 

So in order to keep things happy & cheery we'll start with the good! In case you didn't get the memo, I spent this weekend in Kansas City with my bff & sorority sister Lisa. (who has a blog, but has also blogged once lol. However, she has big plans to turn her blog into a Nanny Diaries theme, so check back soon or go encourage her to get on with it! haha). Anyway, it was a fantastic weekend! As promised, I will do a post about it! For now, the pictures are up on facebook! :) 

Also one of my friends (another sorority sister!) is in town from Houston for the summer & she & I & another 1 of our sorority sisters are having dinner tomorrow night! It will be the first time I've seen either of them since school ended & I'm super excited!!! 

Moving on to the not-so-good I started summer school today... college algebra. blah!!!!! ugh I hate school & I especially hate math!! It was not fun at all. I'm also taking a history summer school class online. Needless to say for the month of June I'm going to be super busy & I'm not looking forward to it at all! I know 1 month is better than a whole semester, but I really hate math & it's going to be really hard to push through...

And now for the ugly (also bad but whatever). I rear-end

ed someone today. It all happened super fast. Luckily I was fine & so was the other person. The 

other persons car wasn't even damaged, but mine was a total wreck! Check it out... 

It's pretty banged up, huh? Bummer :( Oh well, it could be worse & I'm thankful that everyone was okay & it wasn't more serious. 

And because this is still Random Tuesday Thoughts even if I did have a theme, you know I have to keep talking! 

1st of all I was just watching Paris Hilton's My BFF & this girl just totally dissed sorority girls!! She was all "Sorority girls are bitchy & cliquey & they pay for friendship!" Oh no she didn't! 

Speaking of my trip to Kansas (well I wasn't but do I have to point out again this is supposed to be random!!), the funniest but kinda creepy thing happened to me! I'm totally blogging about it & it's going to be awesome, so be prepared!! haha 

I've been reading Jodi Picoult's book Picture Perfect. It's so fantastic! I seriously can not put it down! I highly recommend it! On that note, my bff & I watched the movie New In Town this weekend & it was so fantastic! Definitely go watch it if you haven't seen it yet! 

Well I totally forgot what else I was gonna say... it's been a long, tiring day. So that's it for now! If you have random thoughts you would like to share, just write your own post & link up with The UnMom! 

Don't Mind Me...

Don't mind me if I'm gone for a few days... (I know, I know it's not that unsual for me to go several days without blogging but let's pretend it is!) I won't be around here much because I'm leaving, leaving on a Jet Plane!!! (yeah I know that reference is totally before my time, I don't know what's up with that)

Anyway.. I'm going to Kansas City for the weekend to see one of my sorority sisters, my BFF Lisa! 

I'm so excited!!! :) I'll be for sure on Twitter, tweeting our every adventure, but I probably won't blog much (or at all, really)! 

But, never fear, I'll be back Monday with a full report & maybe even some pictures! :) 

So, have a great weekend friends!! See you on the other side.... wait what!? 

Vacation Recap

Ok, so as you may know I spent the past week at the beach in South Carolina. This is a family tradition we have held now for 19 years! The first year we all got together I was 9 months old! Can you believe that? Now I'm about to go to college... crazy! So let me explain to you all the attendees: We go with my dad's side of the family so his brother, sister, and step-sister all come. I tried making a family tree to make it interesting, but it didn't work out so I will just explain it to you in words.. sorry! Here is it how it goes:

• My grandfather comes and his 3 kids (my dad, my aunt and my uncle)
• Also my step-grandmother comes and brings with her her daughter.
• Everyone brings their kids and spouses. My aunt mentioned above (my grandmother's daughter) married my uncle, who is from Egypt. They have 3 kids- Tammir, Amanda and Jenna.
• My dad's brother has 2 kids- Maggie and Samantha and he is married to my Aunt Kimi.
• My dad's sister has 1 kid- Spencer who is 5 and he is crazy, but so cute! She is married to my Uncle Carl.
• Then there's us: My mom, my dad and my sister Anna and of course me.
• So that = 8 kids and 10 adults.... all in one house.

So now that you have the background info... basically what we did all week, was eat a lot of food, spend alot of time on the beach, and drink a lot. (Ok, not me so much on the last one.. I was allowed a few cocktails, but I definitely wouldn't say "a lot".. but the adults? YES.) Anyway, it really was a lot of fun (I really need a synonym for a lot ... for someone that wants to be a writer you would think I could do better than a lot, but whatever.) We played games like Bunco (which my dad affectionately nick-named "drunko" and commented that it must be a really "thought-provoking game because all the mommies have headaches the next day when they play @ Girls night out lol), we played several card games and even some dominoes. The best part for me was just bonding with my cousins.. we don't see them all that often so it's really fun to spend time with them when the opportunity presents itself. So, I took a lot (i'm giving up on finding a new word for a lot, maybe next post ha!) of pictures, so here's a slideshow in case you're interested. Sorry for the boring post, I guess I'm not feeling writing inspired today...