David's Surprise Birthday Party

Hello everyone!

It's been awhile, but I wanted to stop by because summer break has started, and more importantly, it was David's birthday yesterday!

Since it was his big 30th birthday, I wanted to do something special for him and throw him a surprise birthday party!  I asked everyone to come at 6:30 with the plan to pick David up from work and bring him home around 7, but the plan almost fell completely apart.  At 6, David called me and said that he already left work and was walking home instead of waiting for me to pick him up from work.  It takes about half an hour to walk from his work to our place, so I panicked a little bit, and texted everyone to come ASAP.  Thankfully, we have amazing friends who ran over as fast as they could (one even ran out of the shower to get here on time  haha) and we were able to assemble before he got here!

SURPRISE!!  =)

It was a little stressful towards the end because everything had to be done super quickly(thanks dear...), but it was also fun to set everything up.  Initially I was going to use plastic cups, but when I ran into these cute little milk jars, and couldn't pass them up!  I think they ended up being only a little more expensive, and I thought it added a cute touch =)

the first wave of friends as we waited for David

The birthday cake!

I didn't really have a theme in mind, but somehow, the theme became green/blue as I was assembling the spread, and there happened to be a perfect cake that matched the theme!  It was a green tea/blueberry cake, and it was absolutely delicious!

such beautiful peeps =)

After the food, we got together for some friendly competitive round of Taboo and other board games  ;)  We could have gone easy on the birthday boy, but that's just not how we work around here =p  haha

After a round or two, I presented David with the last part of his birthday presents  =)  

We had all of these amazing pictures taken with Kate last year, but we had never printed any of them!  It was a good chance to get one blown up so that he could hang it wherever he wanted in our home =)

Happiest of birthdays, my dearest David.  Hope your 30th year will be the best yet  =D

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

Surprise Surprise!!

Hello everyone!!

I just wanted to share a few photos from the night of my birthday when my dearest friends completely surprised me with a party!  As you can tell, they succeeded completely, and I was just.. blown away!

They got the carrot cake recipe from our trio blog that we all love, baked it in secrecy, and surprised me with this amazing cake, funniest of cards, and really, so so soo much love.

gosh, I absolutely loved reading all of the wonderful (funny, loving, and inappropriate  ;)  loved all of them!) comments in the card!

 We shared the incredible cake, played a lot of ping pong, danced a whole lot, and played King's Cup!
It was a good ole' time  ;)

It was such an incredible night, and I felt so, so loved!  Again, I can't believe I have been so blessed with these amazing peeps in my life.  =)

I hope you have a wonderful day today, and thanks so much for stopping by!

--Janny

Amulet's birthday!!

Hello everyone!

Today is Amulet's Birthday!!  

To celebrate, we went and visited St. Arnold Brewery here in Houston.  I don't drink, and David rarely drinks, so we've never visited anywhere like it, and it was definitely an experience!

You walk through these giant ornate doors, and walk up the staircase that reminded David of his elementary school and me of a prison, and then you are at the 'Beer Hall'!  For $8, you get 4 tokens (for 4 glasses of beer usually) and a St. Arnold Brewery cup.

On either side of the hall, you can exchange your beer token for a beer, or in my case, root beer, and then you can go back to your table and hang out with your peeps, eat some food, play games, and enjoy the general chaos and the beer.

We brought some cake, chips and guac, and some other finger foods, and played some board games!

With the birthday girl!  =D

The boys getting really into the game (and the food  haha)

It was such a fun afternoon playing games with wonderful company, and celebrating the roomy's birthday!

So, Happy Birthday Amulet! Hope it was a wonderful one!
(Sorry the camera focused on the balloons and not yo face.. still learning how to use the camera, obviously  haha  =p)

--Janny

The Jazz Age

Hello everyone!

Friday night, we had a chance to go back in time and enjoy the roaring 20's, the Jazz Age!!!  A little time travel action, lots of Swing dancing, a live jazz band, Gatsby inspired outfits and makeup...  not bad of a lineup for a Friday night!

We donned our best 20's inspired dresses and head bands, did our best to copy 20's makeup (thanks Youtube tutorials!), got together with our 3-piece-suit-wearing men, and headed off to dance the night away! 

Well, after taking some photos of course  ;)

some selfies with my guy while waiting for Amulet to find her perfect shade of red lips..

oh, and look at these photos I found of our great grandparents waaaaay back in the 20's!  we look just like them, no?  =p  haha

please excuse the blurry quality of these photos...  Iphone camera doesn't do so well with time travelling I've found...   but the Jazz Band from Shepherd School of Music!!  they were definitely phenomenal even back then, mmmhhmmm.

some awesome lindy-ing and swing dancing!

It was a lot of fun, but the venue itself was a bit small for how many people showed up, so after a couple of hours, we said goodbye to the roaring 20's and came back to the present.  

All that time travelling left all of us famished, so we hit up the only place that we could think of that would be open at 1 in the morning; 59 Diner. I had never been there before, but I think diners have this quaint charm about them, so I had no objections.  =)

We ordered some milkshakes (which were awesome, btw!  I think Chris finished his in less than a minute!  haha), a healthy platter of hamburger, some chicken-fried steak, and I tried my very first chicken and waffles!  I know, I know,, I thought it was a weird mix at first too, but it's a southern thing, and I was feeling very adventurous  ;)    and you know what?  it was actually really good!  the sweetness of the waffles and the syrup mixes quite well with the saltiness of the chicken, and the honey mustard added just the right amount of zing to the mix.   A very satisfying 1 A.M breakfast indeed!

It was such a fun night, and a wonderful start to the weekend!
I hope you are all enjoying the weekend as well, and thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

BBQ take II!

Hello everyone!

Last night, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, Texas style, at the best BBQ party ever.
Rick and Berk threw another one of their crazy BBQ parties (you can see the last one here) and once again, they did not disappoint!
It was the perfect day to have a BBQ too!  Perks of being in Texas -- while my friends up north are dealing with snow in May, we can frolic about in summer dresses!  Please let us enjoy this moment of 'haha! we have better weather than you!' as this will not last for very long. we'll be having 100 degree weather with 100% humidity soon enough...

As it was last time, the BBQ was full of meat--complete with Rick going around offering a plate of bacon to everyone--, lots of beer, lots of food in general, and of course, lots of chillin.
Sorry for the lack of photos... When the first thing you get offered when you get there is a jello shot, some things get forgotten along the way  haha

Jello shot!

the deceptively spicy and amazing pulled pork

haha  my goof  ;)

 One thing that was quite different from last time was the fact that there were so many puppies there this time around!  And of course, that just makes everything so much more enjoyable!
 And where do you find happiest puppies?  At the BBQ of course!  with lots of people willing to feed them scraps of meat!
Poor-lucky- Houdini's belly was so big by the end  haha

And though Houdini was not too interested in these 9 and 10 month old puppies, they were quite interested in one another, much to everyone's amusement.  =)

AHHH I can't wait to see my puppy soon!!!!   Only 2 more weeks or so until I get to hold my McKinley man again!!

Anyway, there were a couple of us who attended Interlochen together during our high school years, so we decided to take the 'Inty love' photo.  Only when I got home, did I realize that every single time I've been involved in the 'Inty love' photo, it's always been the same four people!!
so I thought I'd group the three photos together:  first taken during the first week or so of school, second taken sometime in the middle of the school year, and the last one taken last night  =)
Totally not planned, we promise.  but we make a pretty cute Inty group, don't you think?  haha

The Interlocheners!  and Toby in the last photo  =)

My favorite part of this may be the fact that it shows all sorts of different stages of Conrad's beard growth  haha   ;)  I can't remember how many times I've walked by Conrad this year without realizing it was him because he had gone from the second photo stage to completely clean-shaven!! 

We came home having thoroughly enjoyed and stuffed ourselves, and then passed out on the bed pretty much right away.  Why is it so tiring being outdoors even when you do nothing but stand around, eat, and chill?  I don't understand...

Anyway, it was such a great evening; thanks Rick and Berk for hosting another incredible BBQ!  ;)
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you are all having a fantastic week!
--Janny

Ugly Sweater Party!

Hello everyone!

Last Saturday night, Amulet and I hosted the Ugly Sweater Party!!

We had to celebrate because we were both finished with school 

(this Saturday could not have come soon enough),

and it was the first day of December!!

(let the countdown to Christmas begin!)

Though it was 80 degrees outside, 

we had so much fun turning our apartment into the winter wonderland!

The decorating ended up being a lot more intense than either of us imagined,

(it took ALLL day)

but it was so fun, and since we were completely over school by that point

(what's practicing?  studying?  who does that?)

we felt completely guilt free devoting all of our energies and time into this task at hand.

This photo was taken during the decorating process  lol

I think we scared our neighbors who happened to walk by as this was happening  haha

But the finished product (Christmas-fyed apartment) was so worth it!

snowman fridge:: mistletoe:: wall mural:: candy canes:: tinsels

And Christmas-fying would not be complete without some good old sugar cookies,

so we baked about 60 of them!  haha

of all shapes and sizes--at least they were whole wheat, so they're healthy...?

Cookie decorating station all laid out for the party  =)

We also put up mistletoe--made of some wrapping paper  haha

It's the holiday season, after all   ;)

Amulet, waiting to be kissed under the mistletoe  haha

And Christmas season (and all other time of the year) calls for watching the movie,

Love Actually.

right?  

you can't hold an Ugly Sweater Party without having the movie playing in the background!

our sketchfied fireplace with our stockings!

And before everyone got here, we had to have the roomies photo shoot!

Thanks to David, our wonderful photographer, who had to deal with us bursting out laughing every other second throughout this whole process  ;)

 hugging/climbing our wall... haha

bahahaha 

sparkly leggings, ugly sweaters, holiday earrings, and antlers.

yup, we are ready to partay!

more shots in front of our fireplace.

such goofballs  haha

 in front of our wrapping papered doors!!

Then the party started, and it was such a fun night of air conditioning,

 (thanks a lot Houston for being 80 degrees in December...)

sugar cookies, mulled wine, peppermint candy vodka hot chocolate, hard cider,

ugly sweaters,

and of course, wonderful company!

the beginning of the party.

everyone chilling and decorating cookies  =)

 aww the bleeding heart...  haha

cookies, frosting, and wine.  =)

Wonderful peeps, the Amulet cookie, first cookie decorating experience...

And some of the other roomies at the party wanted to have their roomy bonding photos as well  =)

The Berk/Rick roomy photo shoot.  aww  haha

Sometime in the middle of the party.

Ugly Sweater Family Photo!!!

By the end of the party, somehow we had acquire Rudolph noses,

and sad, droopy reindeer antlers  haha

It was such a fun night, and thanks everyone for coming in awesome holiday spirit!   ;)

Happy December and Happy Holidays from our apartment!

Thanks for dropping by!

--Janny