oh wow, i realized i forgot to write about graduation! it felt kind of strange that school was finally over. it had seemed to take so long to end, but flew by at the same time.  we had lunch at big truck tacos after the ceremony and then had snacks and desserts later that afternoon. i loved being able to spend time with my family and friends and enjoy yummy food while celebrating. and the fun didnt stop until the early hours of the morning after tons of dancing and laughing! i cant wait until the wedding when we will have another great celebration!

love.

theyre here!

i was super excited to get my photos back from my water camera to find out that i didnt rip the film! so now, as promised, some fun river photos from our memorial weekend trip!

i only posted this photo because of the flying bottle that just happens to be in the background. perfect image capturing our day! haha

we seriously had the best time ever! i hope there are a lot more trips like this in the future!


love.

a few more memorial weekend celebrations

over memorial weekend karen and i had tons of adventures! we enjoyed the most delicious sandwiches ever at root cellar, sipped on locally brewed beer, took a very successful trip to goodwill (i named my dress the zoo dress because i would like to wear it to the zoo!), made our own fried goat cheese (but we baked it) drizzled in honey and it was delicious! there was tons of shopping, delicious eating, and we took some time to enjoy a new bar that opened up that is really fun. it is pretty much completely outside and has lots of games like bocce ball, washers, horse shoes and bags. a strawberry margarita on the patio was the perfect way to cool off on the extremely hot day!

love.

why cant every weekend be a holiday?!

memorial weekend was absolutely amazing! i hung out with some of my best friends and we had so many amazing times and memories filled with smiles and laughter. i just wish that all of the oups was able to attend!

i have not finished editing all of my photos so i will share a few from the days we were on the river. i have also not developed my waterproof camera. i am a bit nervous that i may have ripped the film while getting too excited about winding it for another photo. i am really excited to see how they came out and will be very sad if i accidentally destroyed them. we will have to wait and see!

here is a list of some of the fun times:

1. clarence reminding everyone about "would you like to come to my apartment?!" (picture it being said in many ridiculous accents and intensities).

2a. tracy finding a river boyfriend.

2b. her sweetly punching him in the chest and causing his glasses to fall into the river (he earlier claimed that it is impossible to wear contacts in the river. i bet he has changed his opinion about that one).

2c. he may have been lying about his age. i still think he probably was.

3. standing on the tubes (or toobs if you prefer) and dancing.

4. sharing clarence and jeff's huge water bottle of jack and coke.

5. handsome over using the phrase "what's your clearance clarence?!" when asking for a beer.

6. brad and i getting "beached" on rocks during the rapids.

7. cleaning handsome's toes.

8a. brad getting lost for 5 hours and randomly showing up at the house.

8b. alisha and i walked up the river looking for him and had no luck.

8c. i am still confused about how he fell asleep when i saw him about 10 minutes before he was lost laughing and falling over a tree stump.

8d. a kind "mother" helped him find his way.

9. the nauseating ride back to the house in the back of the truck.

10. getting back to the house and falling asleep on the slab with tracy.

11. waking up revitalized for an adventure at the eli young concert and to enjoy the most delicious jalapeno dip made by handsome's cousin.

12. my first eli young concert! i had never heard any of his songs before, but i had so much fun dancing to the music. i also made the mistake of forgetting to wear deodorant. lets just say it was the smelliest moment of my life haha. oh well, sometimes that happens i guess!

handsome, alisha, my sister and i floated the river again on sunday. it was much more calm the second time. still fun, but in a different way. both floating trips seemed to fly by. one thing i would say about saturday is that there were way less annoying people floating. it was also not as crowded as sunday. i really hope we will all be able to go again next year.

love.

water!!!

i am super excited because i survived the tornado outbreak and today i am headed to san marcos, tx to visit my sister!!! we have so many fun things planned! naturally, food is a large part of these plans. also, handsome is flying into austin on friday and lovely friends are coming down to float the river! i havent floated the river since i was a child and i cant wait! i am most excited to finally be able to get some sun and enjoy relaxing in a body of water. i love relaxing in a body of water. it has to be one of my favorite activities. cant. wait! i even bought one of those disposable underwater cameras. that is just how excited i am!

i wanted to post a great picture of a body of water for you to gaze at, but apparently i do not have one. in fact, this one is over two years old (and not very good, oh well)! it is clear to me that i have not relaxed enough in my recent past. which brings me once again to my excitement. i cant wait!

i hope everyone has a wonderful memorial day weekend!

love.

our national cheese lovers day celebration

do not think that i have not been making any macaronis during this monthly macaroni hiatus. i have made handsome some of my favorite recipes i have made so far to see if he agrees with me as well as celebrating the day of cheese! for national cheese lovers day (january 20th) i made the spicy mac and cheese. it was the first one i ever made and it was so good that it actually started this monthly macaroni journey. what a perfect way to celebrate national cheese lovers day, cheese with a bit of historical significance mixed in! and deliciousness of course. i love this recipe a lot. it has the perfect amount of spiciness and creaminess all at the same time. and i think it is perfect as a main dish. do yourself a favor and try it if you have not already!

i have also made handsome the caprese macaroni and cheese that is my favorite. i think this one is his favorite too, but he says he cannot remember and i have to make them all over again for him to sample. that sounds very difficult, but would also be a super fun adventure. maybe there is a macaroni and cheese sampling night in my future. we will see! i also made him the smoked paprika and gouda macaroni. this time i used smoked gouda cheese instead of regular cheese and omg does it make a difference! the smoked gouda was amazing!!!! try it!

love.

st. pattys + the pursuit of favorites: lime and the tilted kilt

march 17, 2011

before heading to an irish bar to celebrate st patricks day, handsome, his roommate and i went to a mexican restuarant downtown called lime. they have multiple locations and we chose this one because it was close to where we were going to be going out later that night. we were anticipating dollar tacos due to their website advertisement, however we missed the time frame you could order them (times were not online). we decided to split a pitcher of margaritas, queso and an appetizer that was large and allowed you to sample multiple items. 

lets start with my favorite thing about this place. the margs are amazing! they were super delicious and the three of us drank the pitcher with no problem. lets just say that i seriously feel that i can be found at this place enjoying margs and queso in the future. another delicious note was the chips. they were flaky tortilla chips that were absolutely amazing! a bit thicker than most, but soft and crispy and flaky all at the same time. i love those chips so much! (in fact, we tried to buy some a whole foods. they were homemade and a bit different, but still delicious!) i would go to lime just to eat the chips because they were so good. the tostadas were a bit generic. handsome compared them to taco bell, but i thought they were delicious anyway. however, he is right about them not being anything special.

since i do not eat shrimp, the boys got to split the gem of the meal, scorpions. they are shrimp layered on a jalapeno and filled with a spicy chipotle cheese filling and then fried. handsome said they were very delicious. they even sounded very appetizing to me, but i knew things would not turn out well since shrimp was involved.

the atmosphere is not my most favorite. it felt kind of cold and a bit fancier than expected. we plan on trying one of the other locations on 6th to see if we like it more.

after eating we made our way to the tilted kilt. since it was crazy, it was difficult to fully decide how i felt about the place. what i could determine was that it is an irish form of hooters. except at the tilted kilt, there is more boob, more stomach and no tights worn under their tiny skirt. if i was a guy, i would probably enjoy it more. it makes me a bit uncomfortable and i do not understand how it does not bother some girls to be dressed that way. but we are all different and i guess it is good that it works for some. it just isnt my thing. overall, i enjoyed my time there, but i would like to try a different place next year.

love.