USA Proud

I LOVE the little neighborhood parade that is an annual tradition in my neighborhood. The paper said it was the 38th year for it. Only about half an hour but really cute and there are usually lots of familiar faces there. I thought it was about the cutest thing ever:

My attempt at being patriotic and decorating my house for my bbq involved some streamers. My mom and I had seen this in a Better Homes and Garden magazine and she was like, that would take forever, so of course, I had to prove to her that it wouldn't. :)

Something not very patriotic is my sister left Dallas yesterday for 3 months to go work in Australia.....she landed today and I hope she LOVES it!! I am hopefully going to get to visit this fall. It will be different not being able to obsessively text and call her since there is a 13 hour time difference and texts each cost $$. I look forward to seeing if she gets an accent during her short time. :) I will miss you sister!!

Pretty sweet 4th...

There has been quite a bit of baking in my world with the recent holiday. I had a BBQ after watching the neighborhood parade Sunday morning and went to KC Sunday night for a friend's party....and I'm hosting bunko tonight (in 34 minutes). So, with all of these events I needed some sweetness to go with them. I made an apple pie for my house, cupcakes for Gena's party and my mom helped me whip up some star shaped fruit pizzas for bunko.

Here and There...

I have clearly done a lack of blogging recently. I think I am in full summer mode, including going to BBQs, pool parties and a couple of trips. In May, my parents, sister and I went to San Antonio. We stayed on the Riverwalk and had a great time. We enjoyed a bit of shopping at the outlet mall, ate some great food and even saw the Alamo. Here are a couple pictures:

A couple weeks ago, I packed a few outfits in a carry-on bag and jumped on a plane with some friends from work for my friend Megan's bachelorette party in Vegas. And fun, did we have! The 48 hours we spent there were crammed with exploring the strip, video poker, laying out at the pool, shopping and the very popular Thunder Down Under male strip show....it was pretty crazy and entertaining at the least! We had a great time and I look forward to going to Megan's wedding the end of July....here's some evidence of the fun that took place:

Memories.

This Memorial Day weekend I planted some flowers in the planters on my front porch....impatients. I helped my grandma plant them every year in her sturdy white planters. Today when I went to Lowe's it seemed appropriate to pick out her favorites.

She lived down the street from us since I was in grade school and died when I was a junior in college. Today putting those flowers in, I thought a lot about her and all the time we spent together. Going to her house after school, watching Miss America and eating pizza, calling time and temperature, sleepovers at her house, getting candy out of the jar on her coffee table and an infinite list of other moments. She was essentially a third parent to Meg and me and it's crazy she's been gone for seven years.

A friend lost her dad to cancer this week, an unbearable thing to go through, I'm sure. I see people die every day in the hospital and their families going from having that person in their life to becoming a memory, someone to honor at times like Memorial Day. Let us all embrace those we love and spend time with them while we can.

Prayers to a friend...

This weekend one of my friends in Wichita received devastating news. Her dad went into the hospital there Tuesday with sepsis and by Friday they had diagnosed him with Stage IV cancer and gave him two weeks to live. Many of you know Mandy and already have her and her family in her thoughts and prayers, and for those of you that don't, please take a few moments out of your busy lives to send love and support to her family. Mandy is a very strong person who lost her mom a few years ago. She has very enthusiastically and publicly shared her weight loss journey over the last couple years and been a support to many other people. Prayers to you Mandy as you go through this very difficult time. Lots of love to your family.

Feel the Burn!....Together!!

I have mentioned it in previous posts, but my parents' gym recently started offering a weight lifting class called "Body Pump" every Tuesday and Thursday nights. Anyway, so when I was talking about the class to my coworkers, my friend Leslie got SOOOOOO excited as she had done it in Texas before. Since this revelation that she LOVES it, she has convinced 5 other girls I work with to get memberships there for the summer so we have essentially taken over the class (at least the left side of it) and we have a blast together! We also enjoy the next day of complaining about all of our sore muscles together at work. It's great to have people to go with that enjoy the same classes. Hopefully it will pay off this summer! :)

Leslie and her dimples, plus her Texas accent...how can you say no to that face?!

The Month of Linds!

Yep, people....if you didn't realize this, May is technically "The Month of Linds", as in one of my bff's Lindsay's birth month. Her birthday was yesterday so I went to Wichita Friday to celebrate with Linds and a few other friends.

Since I see that Molly just posted about the evening, I will refer you to her blog so you can get the scoop. :) All 5 of us that got togehter have a blog, so I had had to laugh at one point during the cooking class we took when everyone had their camera out. Thanks for a fun time girls! Happy Birthday Lindsay! Enjoy the rest of your month!! :)

My fellow bloggers with their camera out and ready to capture the moments...