Austin bound!

A couple weeks ago, I drove to Austin for an early celebration of Tori's graduate school graduation. Her masters program held a beautiful reading at Laguna Gloria, part of the Austin Museum of Art. The space is really beautiful and has an amazing view of Town Lake. Here are a few pictures from the reception afterwards.





Tori read a few poems from her thesis. It was great to get to see her work bound and official-looking and know it will be in UT's library. I am so proud of my little sister!

After the reading, we went to a late dinner at Z'Tejas. We got a yummy new appetizer, artichoke beignetss and, of course, cornbread. I got the Jerk Chicken salad for my entree. I have had it once before and it was as good as I remembered, very spicy!

My parents and I stayed at the Star of Texas Inn right by the UT campus. It was cute and I liked the location. I slept fine because I'm used to noise, but they do offer complimentary ear plugs because of all the fraternity houses nearby.

And because we were so close to campus, I just had to go visit my old stomping grounds at Scottish Rite dormitory (aka SRD). I checked out the cafeteria (no CCB's being served that day unfortunately) and sat by the pool. I miss those days!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Day!
We had a great day visiting with friends and family. We started off the day by sleeping in (always a treat!), then made our way to the Bakers' house to visit. Then we headed off to Blair and Amy's house, where they were hosting Thanksgiving dinner for my family (the Sharpes) and Blair's family (the Brennans). The Sharpes and Brennans go way back, the kids grew up together and we used to meet up in Austin for Thanksgiving every year until the Brennans moved to Virginia. Now they are back in Texas so we started up the tradition again. We had some new additions this year, Blair and I have both gotten married since we last had Thanksgiving together; Amy's best friend Travis also joined us; and my grandfather Faulk drove up from Jacksonville. Jennye and Chad are amazing cooks, we left stuffed!
Here are some pictures:




Have you heard about the bird?



And of course the best part about Thanksgiving is the food! This year I made sweet potato casserole as well as spinach artichoke dip. (However, the spinach artichoke dip was so delicious it didn't quite make it to Thanksgiving dinner.) I also made a chocolate pecan pie; Monika (of sushiandchocolate.com) gave me the recipe a few years ago and it has become a favorite.

I am so thankful for our wonderful family and friends!

Great weekend!

We went to a fabulous wedding this past weekend. Our friends Will and Courtney got married in Ft. Worth at the Beth El Congregation and had an amazing reception afterwards at the Modern Art Museum. You know it's a good party when 1) you get to drink champagne in the temple before the service and 2) the reception venue runs out of Blue Moon. No joke, I snagged the last two.
Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Landes!

Gorgeous flowers; the color scheme was purple.


See, we can clean up pretty nice!


Sadly, I didn't get many pictures of the bride and groom together. Here they are cutting the cake.


We can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind...


Mom *loved* the tiny milkshake bar.


I love this picture of Courtney, looking "smoking hot" in her Oscar gown!

Happy birthday, Treyson!

Phil and Erika's son turned two this weekend. Here are some pics from the party at his grandad's house. Michael had to work so I was the designated picture-taker.

The birthday boy with his dad.



With Uncle Elliot.



Treyson loves the turtle.

Prost!

Some pictures from Addison Oktoberfest. We had a blast with Charles and Judson!

Time to celebrate!

Last week was my birthday, I turned the big 2-5! I feel old... :)
My actual birthday was pretty low-key, we did go out to dinner with the parentals (both sets) the day after, which was fun! Since the weather had been nice, I wanted to go to Patrizio to sit on the patio. However, the night we went was cool and drizzly so we ended up cramped inside. Oh well, dinner was great as usual!



And of course right after my birthday is our anniversary! I can't believe it's been two years already. I couldn't get out of working late that night, but Michael had a gift waiting for me when I got home. Champagne and flowers- what more could a girl want?



And just to reminisce:



P.S: To follow up on my last post, I got the sideswipe as a birthday gift, yay!!!!