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mark & lucy

Last weekend (er, now, 2 weekends ago) I was in Alabama for some New York friends' wedding. (The bride is from Mountain Brook!) It was a blast and there was a huge New York crew there which made it even more fun. Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures but I'll post a few more soon. Until then, look at this beautiful picture I swiped from facebook of the bride and groom.

Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Gunderson!

happiness


This girl's big day is quickly approaching! But she's not too busy (yet) for a quick face time call. And, boy, does that make me happy! I'm sure she's going to be really happy that I posted this picture too...welcome to the world of FaceTime, RL!

home.

I'm heading down south tonight to spend the weekend with my family and go to a friend's wedding in Birmingham tomorrow. I'm so excited for some R&R and warm weather. Have a great weekend!


cute kids at christmas

All of my Christmas pictures in Alabama wouldn't fit nicely into one post, so naturally I decided to split them up to make viewing easier. As I mentioned in my last post, we woke up at 5:30 am on Christmas morning so that we would have time to see what Santa brought, open presents, and eat breakfast before going to church. These pictures are from the post-Christmas-morning-madness! You can tell...as everyone is in their Sunday best.




 
  
Tate became quite the photog since I've last seen him! I'm not sure if it has more to do with the fact that he is 4 years old and wants to play with expensive, valuable things or if he really has a knack. I must admit, his pictures weren't half bad. I especially love the one below where I captured him focusing on taking the picture of his Gammaw and GG. It came out well (see below).


 
 
Since I was only home for the weekend, I only got to see my brother (and his family) who lives in Alabama. The rest of my siblings  - and nieces and nephews - weren't there yet, hence the reason for photos of only one set of families. Hopefully next Christmas we'll all be together again!

home for the holidays

I did a whirlwind trip home for the holidays. It was short and (very) sweet, but I would have liked for it to have been longer. Either way, I had such a good time spending Christmas Eve and Christmas day with my family! And as a special treat this year, my brother Brent and his family spent Christmas Eve at our house and Santa came and visited his kids there. It was fun waking up on Christmas morning (albeit, 5:30 am) with the kiddos because they could barely wait for Christmas to arrive.














Christmas morning:


 









And, I'll leave you with this face above. If that's not one excited kid on Christmas, I don't know what is!

christmas dinner
































Nothing against my welcome-back-to-the-hustle&bustle Chirping Chicken dinner tonight, but I can't stop thinking about Christmas dinner leftovers. My brother deep fried a turkey for us this year, and before you go thinking about how unhealthy a "fried" turkey is, just taste one. And before you say you're a traditionalist and like oven-baked turkey more than anything, just taste one of these. I chose leftovers in place of Taco Casa for dinner last night because this turkey is that good. If you know me, you know that speaks volumes. Until next year, Christmas dinner...

weekend 1 update

I am so behind on posting these pictures that I'm not yet sure if it's worth it. But then when I take a look again at how cute they are, how could I not post them? 

At the end of September, I made a quick trip home and it just happened the be the weekend of Monica and Tate's birthdays. Brent, Mayce and McKay organized a surprise party, and I was lucky enough to get to partake in the festivities! I wish you could have seen the look on their faces. Both were shocked, but Tate's response was priceless (no shock there!).



We did a full blown birthday party with pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and all!


































I still can't believe where I ended up on Saturday night! I don't need to say it, the picture says it all. But it was a fun "girls night" with just Monica, Mayce and McKay! No matter where we ended up, I enjoyed the time. And I can always enjoy a good SEC football game, there were just no Roll Tides coming from me. So glad I got to make this quick trip!

[ps - there are a series of very delayed weekend update posts coming soon!]

redefining the southern belle

I came across this great article from the Charleston-based publication Garden & Gun: Redefining the Southern Belle. I first saw it when it was pointed out to me that Lindsey Harper, my old boss (!!) when I worked in residential design, was featured as one of the "new generation of women who are redefining the Southern Belle." Even if it gets me funny looks when I say things like "I'm fixing to" here in the Big Apple, I love claiming the attributes of a Southern Belle as something I grew up being taught.

"There are other defining attributes, some more quantifiable than others. Southern women know how to bake a funeral casserole and why you should. Southern women know how to make other women feel pretty. Southern women like men and allow them to stay men. Southern women are not afraid to dance. Southern women know you can’t outrun your past, that manners count, and that your mother deserves a phone call every Sunday. Southern women can say more with a cut of their eyes than a whole debate club’s worth of speeches."

Congrats Lindsey on being included in such a neat category!

month of June: what I did

Here are the Top 10 (ish) photos of things I did in June. Blogging got away from me. Better late than never.

I mentioned this before, but I went to Salt Lake City. This pillow was on my bed in my hotel room. How adorable. Look at that salt shaker.

I visited the Mormon temple. Actually I didn't go IN, but I did a few loops around. It has beautiful architecture, interesting place.

Then I migrated to the South - 'the loveliest village on the plains' south. I went for another Four Friends wedding, and this time I took Brendan with me.

As you can tell, he's very happy to be on the Plains for the first time! (Although I may have been the happier one that he was finally getting to experience Auburn...)

I'm not sure why but I really love this candid shot. Thought I would add it for good measure.

Reunited again! The second time in just 3 months. We could get used to this... Rose I guess the pressure is on for you!

I found out that Rose had never climbed the Auburn sign to take a picture! That changed quickly when I learned that. We made our way up there with the beautiful Samford Hall in the background!

And then to make Brendan feel like a true Auburn-er, I made him climb up to take a picture too. He could pass for an Auburn grad!

The beautiful bride before the wedding.

Backstage waiting for the big event. (I forgot to mention: Rose and I were candle lighters in the wedding! We had to really focus or else a small mishap could have burned down the church and ruined Rachel's big day. We made it through successfully-whew!)

At the Greystone Mansion for the reception.

Tyler and Rose

Trying to catch the bouquet (I get competitive with this stuff at every wedding.)

Still waiting... and probably encouraging Rachel to throw it to me.


Even after all of my theatrics, I still didn't catch it.

So naturally I made Brendan go for the garter (you can see him in the far right of this picture above).

He didn't try very hard... and he didn't catch it.

Our wonderful hostess and the sweet Roberts girls.

I think Brendan was saying here "Please take my picture again!" So I obliged. (That's actually probably the exact opposite of what he was saying.) I like the picture though!

Goodbye to the newlyweds!

After the wedding, we headed back to Tuscaloosa. I spent the day on Sunday with my family and at the lake. I couldn't ask for anything more fun!

I'm pretty certain this was way over 10-ish photos. Too much to commemorate, I suppose.

washington dc

I recently spent 3 days in our beautiful nation's capital, as I mentioned earlier. Katherine and I went down to visit a couple of friends (and I went to, er, sight-see for the 5th time). We stayed with a friend of Katherine's from college and she hosted us with such wonderful hospitality! We ate brunch at a fantastic place called Founding Farmers, which I particularly enjoyed because of all the southern fare. Then we toured around, went to the Holocaust Museum (which I highly recommend while going in with the expectation that it will be a tremendously heavy experience), ate dinner at a great burger spot (Good Stuff Eatery) and went 'monument hopping' Saturday night. Sunday we made the most of our short time before we caught the bus and went to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, which was soooo great!

I was a little sad to board the bus back to NYC, but alas vacations can't last forever. Since I took almost 200 pictures in the short weekend, I'll spare you and only add my faves here.


Fried green tomatoes and chicken & waffles. Can you go wrong?































Julie at her summer job: the Treasury Department!


True tourists: the Capitol at night!


I heart Alabama!



















Good Stuff Eatery: 5 different flavors of mayonnaise to try. (And beautiful in rainbow order!)

Honest Abe, still the same from the last time I saw him...


Hello landmarks of DC!


3rd longest escalator...in the world? Yes.



















God Bless America!























I should have won scrabble on this word alone!


There she is. And everywhere we turned: The Washington Monument!

ny2dc

I returned a few hours ago from a glorious weekend south of the Mason Dixon Line!

Katherine, Michelle and I took a quick trip down for the weekend to our nation's capital to visit friends. This was my fifth time to visit DC, and I have come to the conclusion that I will forever be enamored with this city. Its old southern charm, summers that feel like Alabama, and wonderful, accessible history of our nation made me (for only a second) wonder if I should just skip my bus back to NYC...






















More pictures to come from our quick 42-hour rendezvous in DC!