Exhausted

I can barely hold my eyelids open as I type this, but there are so many things to blog about.  We're fresh off a marathon weekend of awesome events and while we had a blast at all of them, we are now struggling to recover! First things first, I can't write a single thing about this weekend without mentioning that one of my best buds got married!  We waited for 7-9-11 to get here for so long, and now I can't believe it has come and gone.  If you thought the royal wedding was a big deal, you are wrong, as this was certainly the event of the year.  Kendra and Antonio threw a party like no other, and it is one we will not forget!

Because I'm struggling to stay awake, here are my highlights from the weekend, bullet-style.

• The fact that our friend, Darrin, live-tweeted the entire event (follow him: @darrinearl).  He had help from lots of us that were there, but he was very instrumental in getting everything started and creating the hash tag for the event.  (Am I speaking a foreign language to you?  For you non-tweeters, twitter is a way to let your friends know what you're doing in 140 characters or less.  A hash tag can be used for a trending topic - for example, you could search #caseyanthony if you wanted to keep up with all the craziness that is that trial.)  Search #kentonio2011 if you want to read what all the party-goers, me included, had to say during the ceremony and reception!
• Not only did Darrin live-tweet the event, he also created a website to journal all the tweets and updates.  Visit it here for lots of pictures and details.
• The rehearsal dinner on Friday was fun and relaxed, just like the bride and groom.  For dinner, we had a variety of foods from all of their favorite places, including tacos from Moe's, chicken from Chik-Fil-A, sandwiches from Lenny's, and much more.  So yummy, and such a great idea.
• Kendra was absolutely stunning.  She looks great any day of the week, but on Saturday, she absolutely glowed.  That girl knows how to rock a strapless white "princess" dress.
• Kendra's dad was one of the proudest father of the brides I've ever seen.  He looked mighty fine walking his baby girl down the aisle, and he sure put on a good party afterwards!
• My friend Mary Elizabeth sang "Beautiful" during the ceremony and it was, indeed, beautiful.  Her voice is angelic and the song was filled with emotion.  I could listen to her sing all day!
• Both the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom wore hats and they did not disappoint.  Several other hats were in attendance, with one particular hat arriving on two different heads.  The fashion statements made it a true spectator's event.
• The flowers decorating both the church and the reception hall were b-e-a-utiful.  Huge arrangements of mostly white and green with a touch of pink thrown in.  They all had the prettiest white hydrangeas I've ever seen.  I really wanted to grab an arrangement to take with me as I left.
• The reception was crazy-fun.  After a cocktail and appetizer hour, we had dinner from several different stations.  There was a catfish buffet, a pasta bar, an asian area that had cute little chinese takeout boxes filled with fried rice, and mini cheeseburgers and fries.  Yummy in my tummy!
• The dj kept the dance floor full by playing all the right songs.  Who knew there were so many line dances?  He played several back to back and the dance floor was packed for every single one of them.
• The groom ditched his jacket for the reception and it turns out he was sporting a pair of green suspenders.  I have decided I like boys in suspenders.  That should happen more often.
• There was a black jack dealer there.  Yes, a real dealer with a real black jack table.  It was pretty awesome, and completely unique!
• As if the black jack table wasn't cool enough, there was also a table were you could get custom rolled cigars.  I am not really the cigar smoking type, but it was pretty cool to watch the professional cigar roller.  My dad, and I'm sure many others, was definitely a happy camper.
• At one point during the ceremony, everyone on the dance floor made a train and danced all the way around the room, picking up people as they passed by.  I've seen this done in plenty of movies, but it may have been my first time to see it happen at a wedding reception.
• The bridal cake was two small-ish cake layers stacked on top of a ginormous cupcake tree.  There were cupcakes everywhere and they were all different flavors.  Doc had strawberry, I had vanilla (though the flavor was probably a much fancier name than that).  The icing was fluffy and light.  My first thought when I woke up Saturday morning was that I wanted another one of those cupcakes.
• The groom's birthday is next week and, to surprise him, Kendra made special arrangements for his birthday/groom cake to be wheeled out than none other than The Grizz!  Antonio is a huge Grizzlies fan and the look on his face when he saw The Grizz come out was priceless.  His cake was a Florida Gator wearing a Memphis jersey with a Duke basketball in his mouth (I think that covered all of Antonio's favorite teams).  After singing and blowing out birthday candles, The Grizz hosted a dance off (hilarious) and then threw out t-shirts into the crowd.  It was just as good as being at a game!  No, actually it was better than that.
• After bustin' a move on the dance floor and completely sweating through all of our clothes, we sent the newlyweds off through a tunnel of bubbles and ribbon wands.  It was a perfect night!
• Except for one thing: my friend Matt was in charge of putting the groom's bags into the limo.  Simple enough, except that it turns out there was another wedding on site in a different hall, which means two limos were parked out front.  Antonio's personal items rode off with the wrong couple and poor Matt had to track it down.  While completely hilarious to me (seriously, I was doubled-over in laughter), I'm sure it caused a little stress for Matt.  I mean, who wants to have to call up a newlywed's hotel room on their wedding night?  Awk-ward.

I swore I was going to go to bed at 8:45 tonight, and now it's already 10:23.  Crap!  There is so much more I want to tell you about this weekend, like how we totally managed to completely surprise my mom and throw her a 60th birthday party.  I'm still sorting through tons of pictures, but there's lots more to come!

For now, I'll leave you with this.  I think it's the perfect picture to represent Kendra and Antonio's awesome wedding weekend!  Congrats, Mr. and Mrs. Pickens!

(I completely stole this picture from Antonio's twitter feed [@themrantonio], but I think it was taken by their photographer.  All credit should go to him/her, whoever they may be...)

4th of July

I don't have much time to write but I do want to post some pictures from 4th of July before it gets to be too late.  This coming weekend is packed full of fun things so I know there will be different things to write about next week...better get these done now. Doc and I were invited to two parties to celebrate the holiday.  He got up early that morning to get in a round of golf and I headed down to the kitchen to work on some food stuffs.  Why is that I wake up at 6:00 on days when I could sleep in??  Since I was up anyway I got to work on my festive red, white, and blue strawberries.

This idea came via Martha Stewart and was all over the blogosphere last week.  How can she make things look so daggum easy?  The picture floating around the web made it look easy enough - dip a strawberry into white chocolate and then again into blue sugar for a patriotic effect.  I knew I already had some light blue sugar on hand so I thought I was set.  But making these things ended up being a pain in the rear!  If you dipped into the sugar too soon after dipping into the melted chocolate, the chocolate got messed up.  And you couldn't set them down to dry for a minute because then the bottoms would be messed up.  I wish you could've seen how I had my assembly line rigged up; I would definitely get points for creativity.

They were a lot more fun to eat!

I had a box of cake mix on hand, too, so I whipped up a batch of festive cupcakes.  They were dee-lish.

Party Number One was a family gathering at my brother's house.  I could see this becoming a tradition.  It's nice to have a pool to jump in during the middle of the summer!

This picture has to be posted, not just for the super cute fella but also for the towel.

Parker and his mommy gave Bren a new princess floatie for the party.

Can you count the ribs?

Jett gave Mimi a soaking wet hug when she arrived.

And then he jumped right back in!

Even Brennie had fun jumping into the pool.

She wore not one, but two floaties.

The big boys enjoyed playing water basketball.

And they also broke in the freshly painted patio set.

This little boy has gotten so tan this summer.  I'm so jealous!

He got thrown around a lot by his uncle Ben.

I just love Brennie's pig tails.

Party Number Two was later in the evening at our friends' house.  They grew flags in their flower bed!

And look!  More apple vases!

Kendra and Antonio were there...their last 4th of July as singles!

Wesley showed us how she splashes in her pool.

Her mom showed her how to hold her pinwheel in front of the fan to make it spin.

Cliff got the prize for most festive outfit.

I mean, his cap had a bottle opener.  You can't really beat that.

After everyone had eaten, it was time for the best part - sparklers!

We tried to take a girls' picture but we got photobombed.

Our hosts for the evening.

And just to prove we were both there, here's one of me and Doc.  I look a little sleepy.

We ended the evening with a mini fireworks show in the front yard.

And that's a wrap for our holiday.  It was a good day!

Paint Night!

Once again, Allison has beaten me to the punch and already blogged about our most recent paint night.  Go check out her post for more pictures! Have any of you guys done one of these Girls' Night Out paint parties?  They're the new fun thing to do, and I think most cities are catching on.  I know there are several different companies that do them in our area.  In fact, we've done this once before at a different location.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's the scoop:  you sign up for a paint class and get to paint your own masterpiece.  Now, that might sound a little daunting to anyone that's uncomfortable with a paint brush, but these are almost fool-proof.  The price of the class buys your canvas and painting materials, and a professional artist guides you along so that you don't royally screw up your piece of work.  At most places, you can also bring in your own wine and food to make it a real party.  For this paint night, my friends and I all purchased a $20 Groupon.  Not a bad price for a girls' night out, especially since we got to come home with some new artwork for our walls!

I enjoyed this place a little more than last time because we got to stand up to paint and had a little bit more room.  There were also three different paintings we could choose from, or you could freestyle but we weren't quite brave enough for that.

Even with three paintings to choose from, we all picked the same thing.  Great minds think alike?

I didn't take any pictures of us in action, so these photos are 100% stolen from Mary Elizabeth.  Here we are all working on perfecting our backgrounds.

This could be me coaching Jenny on the perfect painting technique (like I know?) or it could be me scolding her for stealing paint off my plate.  A little sneak, that one...

(Looks like Jenny got cut off.  Karma?)

Here's Mary's painting about 75% of the way through.

I love the colors Mary chose for her painting.  This is it right after she had applied her texture.  This was a scary part since the texture medium is a different color when you apply it than when it dries.

And here are all the finished masterpieces.  I love that they're all the same, but still so different.  I think they'll look great in all of our houses!

I tried to snap a couple of pictures of mine when I got home.  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

You can kinda see the texture in the trees here.  The texture medium I used was HOT pink when wet.  Talk about making me nervous!  I'm so glad it didn't stay that color.

We bought my mom one of these classes for Mother's Day so we've got another paint night coming up soon.  I can't wait!

Weekend Update

This weekend was jam-packed with activities.  It was a lot of fun, but it was also sad, scary, and every emotion in between.  Oh, and did I say exhausting?  It was that, too.  Might as well start at the beginning... Friday night after work we met up with friends to have some of Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken.  This place is definitely a hole-in-the-wall, nothing too fancy about it at all.

Matt and Mary were excited about fried chicken.

As were Chris and Allison.

Jenny joined us too, even though her other half, Darrin, was still in China for work.

Doc was there too, of course.

If you're a beer drinker and you find yourself at Gus's on a hot Friday night, might as well order up a 40.

Allison and Mary Elizabeth were excited about the beverages.

Jenny was too.

Sometimes a drink that big requires two hands.

It didn't take too long before our food arrived.  I gotta admit, I wasn't super excited about eating there since I'm not the biggest fried chicken fan, but this stuff was goooood.

This isn't your ordinary fried chicken; it's got a spicy kick to it.  The crispy skin is dee-lish and the fries and baked beans complete the plate.  I guess it's World Famous for a reason.

We all hung out downtown for a while longer before finally calling it a night.  Most of us had to get up early the next morning...

...which brings us to Saturday.  Saturday was a day that I had been really excited about and dreading all at the same time.  I haven't written about on here yet - mostly because I refuse to believe it's true - but my alma mater, Lambuth University, will be closing it's doors for good at the end of this month.  Yesterday, June 18, was Lambuth Heritage Day - a day of celebrating Lambuth and its history, and also the last time I would see all of my friends, classmates, teachers on campus.  It was a bittersweet day.

We arrived on campus around 10:30.  Doc had been to Lambuth with me once before, but I was glad to have him there with me for this last reunion.  I was going to make this a whole post of its own and include a photo tour of the campus, but apparently you can't steal pictures from Facebook anymore.  Did y'all know that?  I didn't do a great job of taking pictures around campus but a lot of my friends did.  I was hoping I could post some of them, but I guess not.  We'll just have to work with the few pictures I took.

This is the steeple on the chapel.  The chapel sits in the middle of campus so, since we parked on the outskirts of the quadrangle, we walked towards the steeple to find the crowd.

This is in no way the best shot of the chapel (it's not even close), but I think it's almost impossible to take a bad picture of it.

Fun Fact:  You can't tell from this picture, but from this view, the chapel goes straight back but then has a small wing on both the left and right sides.  From a bird's eye view, it looks like there's a cross situated in the middle of campus.  Or at least that's what I was told, and it's what I told every prospective student I took on a tour during my time as a Student Ambassador.

With the chapel such a prominent feature of Lambuth's campus, it only made sense that the heritage day started with a service in it.  In all my years as a Lambuth student and then graduate, I have never seen the chapel as full as it was yesterday.  Every pew was full and late arrivals had to stand in the back or around the sides.  I sat on a pew with some of my best friends from college just like the many chapel services we attended as students, only this time our husbands were sitting with us.

The speakers at the service were all good, focusing on the idea that Lambuth doesn't need a campus to stay alive, because it will live on in all of us.  There were some short stories shared, and lots of praise and thanks to the faculty and staff that stuck with the school during its last days.  But for me, the best part was the music.  I loved hearing some of my favorite hymns - O God Our Help In Ages Past, Come Thou Font, My Hope Is Built - sung by a packed house.  I recorded a couple of songs on my iPhone but since it picked up my voice the most and we all know how off-key I can be, those will have to be for just me to enjoy.  The last hymn, It Is Well, was tough to make it through.  By that point, I was well past the emotional point.  The service closed with us all singing the Lambuth Alma Mater, followed by the Irish Blessing.  That moment is one that I wish I could bottle up and put on a shelf so that I could get it out and relive it any time I wanted.  But since that's obviously not possible, it will just have to be a sweet, sweet memory.

Immediately following chapel was supposed to be a big picnic out in the quad, but as we sang the Alma Mater, the rain came.  Luckily, several buildings on campus were open and we were able to duck inside for lunch, but it did mean that the crowd got split up into different areas.  My friends all made their way to the cafeteria, so we had our picnic lunch there.  I am thankful that we were all together for one last lunch in the caf, but I hate that I probably missed seeing so many others.

Some of us in the cafeteria.

It was really good to hang out with my best friends on campus again, but also to see some great friends that I don't get to see often enough.  And I loved meeting all the new spouses and even several babies.

The rain eventually stopped and we were able to head back outside.  This is just a handful of sorority sisters that were at Lambuth the same time I was.

The schedule for the day included a Greek Rally Around The Flagpole.  I'm not sure who named it for the schedule, because every Lambuth student knows it's just called Flagpole.  As far as I know, this is pretty unique to Lambuth.  I'm sure fraternities and sororities on every campus have their own chants that they do, but at Lambuth, we had Flagpoles.  The flagpole is located right outside the chapel, so its also in the center of campus.  During a Flagpole, the greek organizations take turns rushing the flagpole and then circling around it, chanting and singing songs.  For the girls, there was usually a lot of choreography.  For the guys, it mostly consisted of hurrahs and woos.  We had Flagpoles all the time and for every reason: first day of school, first day of recruitment, bid day, initiation, drops and engagements.  Pretty much anything worth celebrating got its own Flagpole.

We were the last sorority to go on Saturday, and we had the biggest crowd!

Lots of hand-holding and singing...

...and even some awkward motions.

During our last slow song, half of the circle held hands and the other half put their arms around their neighbors' shoulders.  Somehow I was the point where those two different motions collided.

As much as we sometimes dreaded Flagpoles during the school year (remember, we had them ALL the time), I'm glad that we had a chance to have just one more.  This one was definitely awkward since there were so many generations there and things have certainly changed over time, but I think we pulled it off and it was ok.  I'm glad Doc got to see it since it was such a foreign concept to him, especially since he attended a school that didn't have a greek system.

After the Flagpole we took a group Phi Mu shot.  This is most of us that were there.

I won't even try to tell you where I am in that picture because you can't really see me.

The rest of the afternoon was just spent visiting and walking around campus.  There were a couple of auctions going on, plus lots of memorabilia being sold in the bookstore.  I didn't really expect to buy anything, but I also didn't expect them to be selling old desks.  You know I had to have one!

(This picture was taken after I'd already put the desk in the attic for the time being.  Ignore all the junk around it.)

I snagged my wooden desk for just $25.  Completely worth it.  The majority of my classes were in the business rooms that had table seating, but I did spend my fair share of classes in these desks too.  I'm probably even guilty of writing on a few of them.  I quickly glanced over the ones for sell but I couldn't find my autograph on any of them.  I've read over the scribbles on the one I bought and all I've learned is that Amanda Loves Chuck and Christy Sucks.

There may also be a few wads of gum on the bottom of the desk.  Kinda gross, but hopefully they can be scraped off.  I have no idea what I'll end up doing with it (keep it as is or paint it?) or where it will find a home, but I'm sure I'll blog about it when I decide!

We left Lambuth around 3:00.  I'm sure Doc was exhausted from meeting people and I was exhausted from the range of emotions (so happy! so sad!).  But I said this weekend was also a little bit scary...

...and that brings us to the ride home Saturday afternoon.  About halfway home, Doc received a text that said Wyatt was headed to the emergency room for an ultrasound.  Obviously, a trip to the hospital for any reason is the last thing that any parent wants to hear, but not knowing many details was especially scary.  I'm sure Doc felt helpless as there was really nothing we could do at that time except keep driving.

When we finally pulled into town, we went straight to the emergency room.  I dropped Doc off and then drove my friend Jenny home (she had ridden with us to Lambuth).  Everything ended up being completely fine, but it was a long afternoon and evening.  Doc stayed by Wyatt's side as he had some tests done and I sat at home with phone in hand, waiting for instructions.  The word "surgery" was thrown out very early, before anyone really knew what was going on, so I think we were all thinking the worst in our heads.  After a few tests, it was determined that he was fine.  Hallelujah!  The doctors just said he needed lots of rest and maybe a little pain medication.

We are very thankful that he was able to go home that night (around 8 or so) and that it ended up being nothing too bad.  He does have to stay home from camp this week, but that's a-ok with us if it means he's a healthy boy.

Doc and I didn't get around to eating dinner until after 9 that night and then we crashed hard.  What a long day!

I forgot to mention that Friday, before dinner, Doc got to open his Father's Day gift from Lolli.

I know, I know, kinda silly, but remember - I thought we were going to be having a picnic on Saturday and we didn't have any outdoor chairs.  I picked up a couple and thought they might as well be a gift, right?  They had to be from Lolli since he was already getting something different from the kids.

Lolli helped pull off the bow for him.  And her handwriting is better than her spelling.

So I guess this finally brings us to Sunday, Father's Day.  Doc was supposed to drive the kids to camp today, but since that didn't happen, we ended up getting to spend the day together.  We went to church and then had lunch with my parents.  We worked in the shop most of the afternoon and then came home to get ready for the week.  Just a typical Sunday.

Hap, hap, happy father's day to three of my favorite fathers: my dad, my father-in-law, and my husband.  I am so thankful to have each of you in my life, and hope that you had the best day today!

"Happie fodder's day" to all of you other dads out there, too!

Champs All Around

I've had a couple of lousy days this week and haven't felt like blogging much, but I did want to get some pictures posted from this past weekend.  Doc's parents were in town and I'm ashamed to say that I did not do a good job of taking pictures at all.  In fact, I only got my camera out once the whole time they were here.  We had a great weekend, though, and enjoyed having them here with us.  I wish they could be here more often. Over the course of their visit, we did lots of eating, playing cards, walking the neighborhood, watching the Grizzlies, playing outside, and just generally having a good time.  Saturday morning Doc had his final tennis match of the season.  I had some business to tend to out of town so I didn't get to go watch, but everyone else did and said he did a really great job.  He played doubles this week with his team captain.  Lala was able to snap a few pics for me.

Doc and his partner won 6-3, 6-2 and his teammates all won their matches, too, making their team first place in their league!  So exciting!  This means they will play in the state tournament at the end of June.  Luckily the state tourney is in our city this year so we won't have to travel.  I just hope it's not too hot!  First place champs - not bad for Doc's first year to play in this league.

Here are the only pictures I took over the weekend - everyone dressed and ready for church Sunday morning.

The kids have both recently taken entrance exams to get into a new school for next year.  They both did well on their tests and have been accepted into the school.  We are, of course, very proud.  They are our champs.

While I have not been able to shake out of my funk lately, I was able to take out a little frustration on the volleyball tonight.  Doc and I play on a co-ed team in a church volleyball league.  Tonight was our tournament.  We played our first match at 6 and were victorious, which put us in the championship game at 8:00.  We lost our first game in the finals, but came back strong in the second game and ended up winning it all.  After several years playing in this league, we are so glad to finally be the champs!

There is no state tournament for us to play in, or even a trophy to take home, but that's ok.  Tonight, we were winners, and that's all that matters.