pink party

in high school a bunch of the girl friends used to have pink parties on new years eve. it was always at natalie's house, and she and her mom are both pretty crafty/stylish so they went all out decorating. 

 we went bowling in 2004.

six years later, 5 of the original 7 of us are married. one has a baby. 

i made little favors just for fun with the everlasting japanese masking tape. i've used it on 1 million birthday cards, envelopes, etc, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. i could cover texas in japanese masking tape and still have some leftover i bet.

happy new year a little early, pink party style!

creative every day

i'm not big on new year's resolutions because i've never been good at doing something every single day (except blogging and brushing my teeth), but i found this blog that asks people to do something creative every day, and that's something i can get behind.

gardening counts.. so on slow days, i can always count watering the garden and inspecting my baby plants for pests and progress. the lettuce in the sunny spot, by the way, is amazing. it's rained in austin the last two days, and apparently a couple days last week while we were gone, and the lettuce has quadrupled in size. it's amazing and encouraging since everything else has been at a standstill. except the turnip, which seems to be loving the cooler temperatures.

lights and music

any road trip that begins in texas must include bbq, so on our way to new orleans, we stopped for lunch at meyers bbq for chopped beef and elgin sausage.

jeff's road trip strategy was not to sleep the previous night so he could sleep the whole way there. it worked. he slept through all of our pit stops and woke up outside of the marriott in new orleans.
this isn't our hotel, but it isss the beautiful lights display in the roosevelt hotel.

we did a quick walk-through of bourbon street on our last night.
before we knew it, we were cruisin' out.
mom and dad had a room with a balcony, and we had a room on the inside. my bed dropped down from the ceiling.
one of our favorite things was the towel creatures our stewards made every night.
this is as far as i got with the resizing/renaming.

lunch with andy and becca tomorrow!

baby let's cruise

hello again! hope everyone had a merry christmas. we had an excellent time on the cruise. i've uploaded a random sampling of photos just to get started, but i'll post more in the following days. for now, time to catch up on everyone else's blog.

looking out from maj & faj's balcony.
key west beach
nassau, bahamas
the ship
towel animal

goodniiight!

out of office

headed to new orleans in the morning! i don't think i'll blog on the cruise, so i hope everyone has a merry christmas/holiday season. we'll be back the 29thish with pictures and stories.

i'll leave you with this picture of jeff and his hipster doppleganger.

idling in india

one of my friends from taiwan, josh, is on an extended trip to india. i can't remember how long he's going for.. but if you need a healthy dose of travelogue (like i do), he might be your man.

http://idlinginindia.blogspot.com/

piqued

just started using pinterest. you use it kind of like an internet bulletin board. it's actually a very cool alternative to having folders of bookmarks. you can see all of the things easily and share them with other people. i still have a whole bunch of invites if anyone is interesteddd.

so ripley went on a little adventure today to the groomer at petsmart. i went to pick her up at 11 when they said she would be done, but the woman told me she was going to take longer because it took them so long to dry her. she was so afraid of the blow dryer that it took a bit to get her out from under the table. poor pup.

when i came back an hour later, she was getting her hair cut and looking absolutely miserable. she was up on a table with a short leash to keep her from moving and every part of her was shaking. it was pretty sad.
but nowww look how fluffy she is! and they put little bows on her head. we waited until everyone in the family saw them and then jeff took them off.. i don't think she liked them anyway. this picture sums it up.
and this picture is mainly for gram and spanky, but this is me earlier this week with great grandma's necklace on. lucky we have the same taste in costume jewelry.