Christmas is coming...

Ok, so I get that it is still October (for at least another 10 hours) but I have to share the following photo with you. While in Cleveland, for my annual conference, the following lamp graced my hotel lobby.



Recognize it? Well you should, as it is the infamous "reward" from the classic holiday movie, "A Christmas Story." I kind of forgot that the movie takes place in Cleveland, but was pleasantly surprised to see this in lobby, and of course it did get me pretty excited for the holiday season!

Now if only they'd had the flag pole on display...

Pumpkin carving, caramel apples, karaokee, and great friends!

A few weekends ago our good friends, Chris and Aimee, drove up from Richmond to visit with us and Greg and Erica. This was the first time Chris and Aimee had seen Greg and Erica since Easter 2007, so we were all excited for the reunion!

Erica and I had planned lots of fun "fall" activities and fortunately the weather cooperated. To get things started we carved pumpkins. I always love getting to carve pumpkins, mostly because I never really did this growing up. My mom thought it was more "fun" (aka less messy!) to simply draw faces on our pumpkins with magic markers. Now that I'm old enough to use a knife, I do enjoy carving out faces, and am proud to say that I don't even need to use a stencil. Greg and Erica went the stencil route, and we lovingly (ok maybe not lovingly) refer to their winking pumpkin face as "The Sarah Palin." Chris and Aimee also went the "free hand" route and carved out a Virginia Tech logo, the school that brought all of us together!

We also made caramel apples. Oh my my my, were these good! We got creative with our topppings, and while it didn't turn out to be such a good idea, Erica and I even double dipped our apples in the caramel...tasty but I think I may have taken 10 years off of my teeth! So worth it though!

We had a great dinner, I even used the gathering as an excuse to break out my china, something I'm always happy about in the beginning and regret when I'm stuck hand washing dishes for an hour. Thankfully Aimee and Erica were great helpers (can they just move in!?)

The boys got a fire going outside where we enjoyed some after dinner drinks and more conversation. And to top the evening off, we played "American Idol" on the Wii. Hilarious! Our poor neighbors!!

It was a great weekend, and we've already got another one on the books for January when we'll head down to Chris and Aimee's. We are so thankful for our fabulous group of friends!

New Kids on the Block

As most of you know, a few weeks ago (ok, so maybe it was last month!) Erica and I took my winning tickets to see the New Kids on the Block at the Verizon Center. What a night! We both donned our converse sneakers (Erica's red with white stars, mine, pink) and Erica even had an old school t-shirt of Greg's to wear (did you know they had little league for bowling, and Greg was awarded a badge for perfect attendance!?)

With our stellar outfits all set, we headed to the metro for what would be a night to remember. We started the evening at Cafe Atlantico where we enjoyed their amazing guacamole, some cocktails and a light supper. Our bar tender even made us a complimentary "Cotton Candy Mojito," which was interesting, but perhaps a bit too sweet for my taste buds!

Upon arriving at the Verizon Center we realized that our expectations of what the crowd would be were correct. The place was packed with 25-35 year old females...still young at heart and most of them rocking their old school NKOTB attire! It was quite the scene. We couldn't help but wonder where all the single guys were as they probably would not be single once leaving.

The concert itself was insane. I don't think Erica and I stopped laughing from the minute it started. These 25-35 year old women quickly turned into 12-16 year old screaming girls! It was like we had jumped in a time machine and found ourselves at the Capitol Center in 1987! The songs, the dance moves, even the attire, were straight out of one of their MTV videos. Hilarious!

Now if only Debbie Gibson would make a comeback!

Busy season...

Yikes! I feel like such a slacker. But I promise I have some really valid excuses for my lack of entries..and mainly for the missing entry regarding my evening with the New Kids on the Block!

First off, NKOTB was amazing (I swear I'll fill you in more with pictures soon!!) and hilarious and insane and crazy all at the same time.

Of course, I left the concert with a bunch of germies from everyone else and thus spent last week and a good majority of this week feeling under the weather.

Good news is, I got my sickness out of the way in advance of my big annual conference taking place a week from Sunday! So the good thing there is I'll be all set to run around like a crazy lady onsite, but the bad news is, I lost some valuable work time that I desparately needed in order to be prepared for the conference. *sigh*

So anyhow, I suppose all of the above should give me a pass! Erica...I promise I'll get those pictures and videos up soon!

In the meantime, I'm heading to an Oktoberfest celebration with Andy, and then we're anxiously awaiting the arrival of Chris and Aimee tomorrow for a fabulous weekend of pumpkin carving, caramel apple making, good food and of course good friends!