It's been awhile...

Forewarning: this could be lengthy. I have been neglecting the dear old blog the past two weeks! It was not intentional neglect; life has been fun & busy, which has left me lots of fun stories to share with all you!

So, rewind to April 20. Also, can you believe it's May already? Our WEDDING ANNIVERSARY is only a week and half away...whhhhat? But that's a whole 'nother post.

April 20: I flew home! Flight was quick and easy, although it was super early...I was up at 3:15, which is an hour that Brian sees frequently while my head is still glued to the pillow, trying to block the light from the bathroom. Now that PT has switched to the morning, our alarms go off at 4:30 or earlier...I'm becoming a champ at falling back to sleep quickly! Mom picked me up at the airport and we headed straight to Casa Blanca for lunch! Casa is our favorite Mexican restaurant at home and it was just as delicious as I remembered! I actually went twice while I was home...I seriously love this place. And I order the same thing every time...it nevers fails me.

While I was home I got to have a few "friend reunions"...and one of those happened right when my plane landed! One of my dear friends from high school, Gena, was flying back to Ft. Lewis, WA and we realized that our times in the airport were going to overlap! So we got in a good 30 minute conversation/reunion...it was wonderful! Repeat: I have the greatest friends. Her husband is deploying in a few months, so we're planning some "deployment survival trips" together for the upcoming year... :)

Wednesday Mom and I spent some good quality time together, running around town and her spoiling me with a quick shopping trip :) That night I prepped for Lindsay's bachelorette party! Thursday I drove down to B-ham to get ready for the par-tay! We stayed in downtown Birmingham and had an absolute blast! After everyone got there (which took awhile and some map-consulting...) we had dinner at this great trendy restaurant called Jackson's Bar & Bistro, and had this hilarious waiter named Ricky...After dinner and some drinks, we decided it was time to find a place to go dancing! Ricky overheard this, and decided to put in his two cents. Well, he suggested we go to Quest, because we wouldn't be bothered by other guys and this place was open 24 hours and people were always dancing. And bonus, there was a show at midnight! Yes, Quest is a gay bar/club. Ha! We started to realize this as he was talking...then he handed us a pen from Quest, and it was rainbow-colored; our musings were confirmed! We seriously contemplated going, but then we discovered STARZ on Google...a karaoke bar! So we set out to sing/dance/make fools of ourselves. It was an excellent decision. We signed Lindsay up to sing some great classics ("Genie in a Bottle"--we knew she'd have some good moves for this one, as well as some other, more suggestive songs...too bad they didn't get to them!) Emily, Lindsay and I sang a classic from "Mamma Mia", our anthem musical/movie. One Christmas break, us three as well as my aunts, mom, and grandmother all watched it together and the three of us acted out/sang every song. Don't you want to be a part of our family? haha!
A lot of the other girls sang and we found that we had some "groupies" in the crowd...including Wanda and her friends. They dedicated about 10 songs to Lindsay (most of which we'd never heard before and were extremely suggestive!), and then she called us up on stage to join her in "Don't Cha" (wish your girlfriend was hot like me). Can you say hilarious? Don't think I'll forget that experience! We finished up the night by staying up WAY too late, opening presents, and playing some fun games--a very successful bachelorette party!

Friday, Lindsay and I headed back up to Madison and went with mom and Clay to the Class 6 (liquor store on post) and bought all the wine for the wedding--whoo hoo! I got to have another "friend reunion" with Erin, another friend who's been around for quite some time! We chilled in style: trip to Target, then glass of wine at my kitchen table. Aren't we exciting? We had fun :) And I made a menu board for Clay and Lindsay's BBQ the next day...another reminder of why I'm not an elementary ed teacher. It took me waaaay too long to complete!

Saturday Clay and Lindsay had a BBQ "shower" in their honor with about half of Madison...it was so much fun to see all these families we grew up with! It was great getting to catch up with a lot of my friends' parents as well as people who've been like another set of parents to me all of these years. Sunday we got to spend the day unwrapping all the loot those two got! They got lots of good gifts :) It's always so fun to unwrap them...and then you start counting, and realize you have to write a ton of thank-you notes!

I was home until Monday...or so I thought. After arriving at the airport, we realized that we were about to get slammed with the (first) wave of bad weather, so I ended up being at home until Tuesday. Thankfully, I was able to fly out before the insane storms/tornadoes came through, otherwise I'd probably still be at home! Which would've been fun, except that I had meetings that I had to be back for in EP! When we flew into El Paso, we were in an insane windstorm. You have to understand that it's totally normal to have 30-40 mph winds out here. Well this day, the winds were up to 60 mph and we were having a "dust-out"...imagine intense fog where you can't see anything, and replace the fog with "dust". Needless to say, when the plane was landing, I thought I was on a roller coaster. Some poor soul had never been to El Paso before...I think he was fearful for his life.

When I got home, Brian was in New Mexico doing a week of training. They went to a place where they have native speakers of most of the languages in Afghanistan/Iraq and the town is set up like a traditional town of Afghanistan/Iraq, so they got to really experience what it would be like to be overseas. They ran some missions and pulled security; Brian said it was a pretty successful week!

Well, I've kept you long enough...but come back soon--Paul came to visit this weekend so I have even more stories! But I'll leave you with this jewel...

I subbed Monday in the middle school for a technology class. In the first period I had that day, these are some of the things told to me:

(by a boy, after about three boys had been fidgeting around and looking at me shyly): "Umm, ok, I'm just going to say it: You have a really pretty smile."

Second conversation:
(by a girl): "You know who you look like?"
Me: "Who?"
Girl (whose name was, ironically, Sally-my mom's name): "That girl from 'Legally Blonde.'"
Me: (thinking to myself...was there a brunette in that movie at all?) "Oh really? Which one....?"
Girl: "The main actress!"
Me: "Reese Witherspoon? But I don't have blonde hair...? I look like her?"
Girl: "Oh yeah...well, you look like her."
**I think it was because I was wearing a black skirt and cardigan.
This same girl told me that my "eyes were pretty, even though they don't have any color." Perhaps to Hispanics brown eyes are boring, since all of their eyes are usually brown...She also didn't do any of her work that day. Tsk tsk Sally.

Oh, middle schoolers. Gotta love them.