We've been begging our friends to come out to Granbury for months now, and lately the only ones that seemed interested were Lyndsey and Lane. But alas, some of them pulled through and came out to the lake with us! We convinced Lindsey and Brandon to come out after Lindsey got off of work at Be-Dazzled! on Saturday night. My friend Erin also joined us.
I left on Friday after work with Erin and Shadow in tow, and left Kevin behind to go party with some of his friends. The man needed a night off of parenting so I was happy to take the dog with me.
Erin and I stayed up late but had a great time. We woke up Saturday and waited on Kevin to get there so we could all go to lunch. We took her to the Nutshell, and downtown Granbury was hoppin'! They had an entire celebration going on for General Granbury's Birthday (silly, yes) with vendors and all kinds of entertainment set up. We also went over to my parents' house to take a cruise on the lake.
getting some much-needed sun on my pale ass
That night, Lindsey and Brandon showed up and we had a huge dinner and stayed up - again - past our bedtimes. SHOCKER, I know.
the feast of appetizers
one shot, two shot, three shot...
more champagne, please!
we want YOU to come party with us
we ran out of limes, so we resorted to lemons
Everyone left early on Sunday and Kevin and I stayed until around 5. We came back to Dallas and met his sister Teri, Jeremy and Stephanie at Red Lobster for dinner. Kevin had seen the "Lobster Fest" commercial earlier that day, which prompted him to yell, "HONEY! IT'S LOBSTER FEST! We're going. That's where we're going. Yup. Dinner at Red Lobster." If I didn't know any better, I would have thought a small child climbed inside him and discovered the candy jar.
I think it's about time I post those embarrassing pictures from St. Patrick's Day.
We had every intention on keeping tradition and running the Dash Down Greenville 5K. Last year, Kevin and I weren't "officially" dating and were going through some rough patches, so I ran with Lance, Brook and a few other people. Here's what last year looked like:
40 oz. Crushers for everyone!
Kevin, me, Brook, Lance, Shannon and Shannon's bf (Robert?)
Fueling before the race - circa 8:15 am
Fast-forward to this year...we got up at 6:45am-ish so we could get ready, awake and stretched in time to grab a decent parking space by 7:30am. The race was scheduled for 8:30am. We both woke up groaning and playfully threw around that we didn't want to go. Nevertheless, we put on our numbers and got in the car...drove to about Mockingbird and 75, which was ONE EXIT SOUTH of the race.
"Honey, I don't want to run. Really." "Nikki, we're one block from the race." "I know, but it's cold. And rainy. And I don't wanna." {sigh} "Okay, I'll turn around." -- 6 minutes later -- "I'm going to drop you off and I'll go run." "But KEVIN honey, then I'll feel LIKE A REAL LOSER." {sigh} "Okay, I'll come upstairs with you."
You could say I was the catalyst. I prefer mind reader. At lunch, we decided we were getting a late start on the day and it was time to cab down to Greenville Avenue for the big block party. We met up with Jeremy, Stephanie, Kara, Liz, Oscar, Travis and the rest of their Addison Circle crew. I also ran into Jammi and Kyle. Here's a taste of some of the Greenville block party humor:
mature St. Patty's humor
By 3pm we had experienced enough of Greenville to last a while so we called up one of Kevin's friends, Natalie, and went to a house party to join her. The hosts were so gracious and they had a fantastic green vodka punch that I gulped down like Kool-Aid. A pair of bagpipers stopped by the house to play some tunes for us...it was neat at first, but after about 10 minutes I was fully prepared to help Kevin stick that bagpipe where no Leprechaun would hide his pot o' gold {ahem}.
We went back to Greenville after a while to meet Trudy and Greg. I spent last St. Patrick's Day with Trudy so I was excited to carry on the tradition. So excited in fact, that I pulled her down to the ground after I tripped and fell while running to her. In front of approximately 300 people. I triggered applause and laughter from the crowd and Kevin refused to acknowledge me. But as you all well know, I tend to be a little clumsy. I fell again at the house party...TWICE. I must have looked really impressive to Kevin's friends.
Still sober
After Fall #1
Trudy, Kev, Greg
Fall #2 - documented
Proof of Fall #2 on Trudy's ass
Trudy and Greg spent the rest of the day with us, going back to the house party and then to Snuffer's for a feast of cheese fries, beer and burgers. My diet went in the shitter that day.
No longer sober
Our drunken stupor landed us at the Loon, and I don't know why. My last text shows 11:23pm, but the Loon receipt says 8:59pm, so I'm not sure when we made it home. Trudy and Greg stayed with us and bunked down in my living room, and surprisingly Kevin nor I was hungover the next day. I think it had something to do with the five pounds of grease we ate for dinner. Either way, I was thankful and we headed to the lake so I could do laundry and wash the street grime off of my shoes.
Oh, and thank you Trudy for my Porta-Potty ring. I let it sit in rubbing alcohol for 24 hours before donning it again, but it fits beautifully on my pointer finger. Looking forward to next year Trude.
Kevin found this video online last Friday during our weekly office "happy hour". I couldn't help but share because I know you all will find it just as hysterical as we did.
A few months ago, I began "dropping" hints to Kevin that I really wanted to go escape to a cold mountain resort before the season ended. And by dropping hints I mean, "Hey honey, let's go somewhere in Colorado for Valentine's Day. I want to see some snow."
After weeks of what I thought was him completely ignoring me every time I brought it up, he presented the idea of Telluride to me. Apparently he had spent hours of his valuable work time looking around for the perfect spot. And I was all, I GUESS YOU DO LISTEN, MY BAD. We agreed that our Valentine's Day gifts to each other and settled on the first weekend of March.
We also invited Tom and Melanie to join us. Tom is an ex-work partner of ours from Lookout; he and his wife Mel moved out to North Carolina last year. Tom and Mel also invited Mel's sister Vicki and her boyfriend John, which rounded out to a nice group.
Kevin and I flew in to Montrose, Colorado on Thursday, as Telluride's scareport didn't offer a direct flight from DFW. The plane was small and packed like a can of sardines. I noticed in the seat in front of me was a cute little girl that was getting antsy about halfway into the flight and unfortunately for the seat in front of her, her legs were just long enough to jut out over her seat and she started kicking her feet. The older lady sitting in this particular seat looked like an angry AARP member that obviously didn't have any grandchildren, because she turned around and gave the little girl's father a look. He immediately apologized, but I guess that wasn't enough. The senile bitch flipped around in her seat again and looked down at the girl like she was the fairy godmother's evil stepsister. "When you kick your feet I can feel it in the back of my seat and it makes me very uncomfortable. Stop." Umm, last time I checked, that's not the way a normal person would correct a 3 year old child who didn't belong to them. No "sweetie" or any other kind words, she just laid it out flat and simple like she was talking down to the panhandler at the stoplight on her drive home. I just prayed that I didn't have to every cross her path. God only knows how she would correct me if I did something awful like recline my plane seat back into her tray table. WHAT A CRIME.
Upon landing, I stayed clear of the bitch and her husband. Kevin and I gathered our bags, headed out the door to catch our designated shuttle, and lo and behold - GUESS WHO WAS IN THE FRONT EFFING SEAT. AARP woman and her husband. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.
When the shuttle dropped us off at Capella Telluride, the crabby lady spat off some comment to the effect of "Oh, you're staying at the Capella? We saw that hotel too when making reservations, but we didn't want to take our chances being that they're new and all." Really? First the kid, now me? I spat back with a snotty tone, "Well, I guess you could call us risk-takers," before slamming the door in her face.
I don't think we could have asked for better accommodations. The desk staff were beyond friendly and then one of them took us up to our room, where the head of housekeeping was waiting to greet us. When they opened the door, I turned back around and said "This isn't OUR room... is it?" The bellboy laughed and said sarcastically, "Actually there's a Lithuanian family moving in to the second room." Can they clean? If so, they're welcome to stay. Not to brag or anything, but they upgraded the shit out of us to an 1,100 square foot two bedroom suite:
master bedroom with separate balcony
2nd bedroom bathroom - ours was about 1-1/2 times this size - I just couldn't get a good shot
Kitchen area with Sub-Zero fridge and Wolf appliances
Living room with wrap-around balcony to second bedroom
I thought I'd died and gone to heaven in the Rockies. I normally don't unpack and put stuff in the dresser drawers, but it was apparent that we were the FIRST people to stay in this room, so why the hell not?
After picking our chins up off the ground and getting settled in, we went downstairs to check out the Mountain Village area we were staying in. It was a like a little European ski village downstairs: coffee shops, ski rental shops, cafes and boutiques. We grabbed lunch at Track's, which soon became our go-to place for quick meals during the whole trip. That night we hit the hotel bar/lounge for some snacks and drinks and took one of the few pictures from the trip.
Suede with yummy bar snacks
On Friday morning, we ordered in room service breakfast so I could get some fuel before hitting the slopes. I couldn't believe how easy they make renting stuff nowadays. And I also learned a few other things...
Last time I skied (circa 1999), they didn't have things like boot and ski valets. What a godsend! However my tip money dwindled away quickly...
I quickly learned that by not wearing a helmet I was in the minority. Last time I skied down a run, if you saw someone with a helmet it was because they were ski-retarded and couldn't avoid falling every 10 feet.
You burn a hell of a lot of calories skiing. According to my HRM, I burned 1,000 in a matter of 3-1/2 hours.
I was a lot more fearless at 15 than I am at 25. Mogules were fun back then, now they're like a rash on the devil's skin.
You can't expect to ski down black diamonds after 10 years of being dormant. I had to go down three green runs just to get my bearings. Talk about frustration.
Friday night, we met up with Tom, Melanie, Vicki and John to have dinner at Floradora Saloon, a downtown bar/restaurant that Kevin had stumbled on in Telluride while I was skiing. Afterwards, we went to the local liquor store and picked up a few things to take over to the house that Tom and the rest of his crew rented for the weekend. We didn't stay long, as I was exhausted from skiing and needed some rest!
Saturday morning, Kevin and I loaded up and took a snowmobile tour with Dave's Mountain Tours. Ole Dave shows up at Capella in his 1987 'Burb that I just KNOW will die on us on some mountain pass on the way to his base camp. We picked up two other people, a son and mom. The son was about my age and beyond annoying (we later saw them again at the airport and avoided at all costs). We drove about 30 minutes to some desolate location where we donned the dorkiest helmets that exist. I insisted that Kevin drive and me ride as passenger.
For the next 2 hours, my fingers and toes nearly froze off several times. My handlebars that were "brand new" didn't work, and the snow was so packed that we bounced most of the way. As I hung on for dear life, poor Kevin had to work just to keep up with the other 2 snowmobiles, going about 40 miles per hour and whizzing past the beautiful scenery. We finally reached the open field where we could "cut loose," but all I wanted to do was put in foot warmers and actually LOOK at the mountains. As I was getting off the snowmobile when we got back to base camp, Ole Dave turns to me and says, "Well I don't see a smile on your face?!" Oh, I'm sorry. It must have FROZEN UP AND BOUNCED OFF BACK AT MILE 12. But it was an experience....an experience I'll probably never do again.
Exhibit A: forced smile
Exhibit B: leaning into Kevin for warmth at Beaver Park
Saturday night we went to dinner at Allred's, which is the kinda-touristy restaurant on top of the mountain. Spectacular views, okay food and great conversation.
After dinner at Allred's
I guess the food made Kevin a little gassy, which I commented on back at our hotel room and he ran into the second bedroom to go "hide". This prompted the best quote from the whole vacation:
"I'm in fart jail. It's where I deserve to be." We got back up fairly early so I could get my rentals again and do some more skiing. After about an hour and a half I was wasted from skiing on Friday and hanging on for dear life on the snowmobile on Saturday. I quit, showered up, and we took the free gondola over to Telluride. We did a little shopping and a little bar hopping until the early evening hours. Then went back to the hotel to grab some small snacks from room service and drink everything we had bought in booze for the weekend (alcoholics? us? no...) But we both fell asleep after one round of vodka-sodas in our robes in the living room with the fire going. Jealous yet? YOU SHOULD BE.
It all came to an end on Monday morning when the shuttle picked us up to go back to Montrose and catch our flight. As I'm reluctantly handing the driver my suitcase, Kevin opens the door to the shuttle. My entire world comes crashing down...why, do you ask?
Just take a guess at who was again in the front row seats.
Why, oh why, did the snow gods want to torture me?
"How was Capella?"
"OH MY GOD. It was FANTASTIC. Really glad we took a chances. Kevin, wouldn't you agree?"
"Yeah, it was great. My only complaint was that they kept the rooms a little too hot for my..." {I kick him under the seat}
"...It wasn't hot at all. Very warming atmosphere. We'll definitely stay here next time."
Then the angry lady goes on to brag about what all they did on their trip, and I listened with same level of interest that I would have if Obama called me tomorrow to talk about his stimulus plan. We avoided them as well in the airport so I wouldn't become further annoyed.
I didn't want to come home. AT ALL. I mean, I would have duct-taped myself to the wood floor in our room if I thought it would have helped. But alas, we had to come to the mountain-less 85 degree sweltering heat of DFW. Sigh... I'm already looking forward to next ski season.
Welp, looks like I'm a first-time homeowner. Ray and I signed the closing documents last Friday afternoon and my boss told me not to come back, but to go celebrate. You don't need to tell me that twice. I bolted out of the office at 1pm and took care of everything while waiting on Kevin to get home from work. He showed up late that afternoon with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a bottle of champagne (oh goody! that makes two bottles in my fridge!).
So we did a little celebrating before heading over to Lyndsey (my other half while in college) and Lane's house for dinner and drinks. On the way, we stopped at our neighborhood liquor store to grab some adult beverages. Most of you probably won't find this half as funny as we did, but I had homemade cupcakes in stow that had to be taken into account while we left Shadow in the car to do God knows what. Kevin suggested an alternative solution to avoid another Sugar Lips incident, because we all know what happens when we leave him in the car alone:
Safe from someone's paws.
I can only imagine what other liquor store patrons thought walking up, perhaps that we were trying to nonchalantly feed the homeless some sweet treats? Or maybe that I had made toxic cupcakes and we wanted to poison any cupcake thieves?
Dinner was fantastic, both are great cooks. Thanks so much guys for an awesome meal! The dogs (Shadow, Libby and Sadie) all had a hell of a time and so did we humans. Here are the highlights:
Shadow and Libby are now a couple according to Libby. She loves to kiss Shadow. But I don't know if Shadow's ready to date yet...hell, he's not even old enough to drive!
We learned that you can in fact throw a Wii remote into a flatscreen and it will not break it...at least when Kevin throws it.
One and a half bottles of red wine will make you slur. And will affect your ability to score over 50 in Wii bowling. (What? I was celebrating. Duh.)
After drinking those bottles, don't open your mouth if pulled over by a policeman. Let Kevin do the talking.
That's right. We got pulled over leaving their neighborhood because someone had reported a suspicious black SUV driving around. It wasn't us of course, but I made sure not to point that out to the nice policeman. Thankfully Kevin hadn't had much to drink that night and we were let go without any questions.
Purple lips
Shadow couldn't use the Wii controls very well so he lost.
Saturday afternoon we left town for Granbury with Lyndsey, Lane, Libby and Sadie following. We spent the rest of the day drinking, making dinner and playing Apples to Apples and Cranium. We didn't go to bed until nearly 4am! That's way past this old geezer's bedtime. Right Kevin?
After our late-night board games - which the girls TOTALLY dominated - we slept in on Sunday and woke up just in time to grab lunch. We took them to Pearl Street Station to get some grub before they left town.
Good times were had for all, and we were just happy that SOMEONE wanted to actually come to the lake with us! We were beginning to think that we just smelled bad or were really boring! Thanks Lynds and Lane, we hope to have you both out there again soon!
June 14-18: Austin work trip July 2-5: July 4th at the lake July 25-28: Houston work trip August 13-15: Illinois for Sankey Fest / Love Inn August 29-September 3: San Francisco work trip October 7-10: Austin City Limits music festival October 24: Kevin's Birthday! November 24-28: Home for Thanksgiving December 23-26: Home for Christmas
getting some much-needed sun on my pale ass
we want YOU to come party with us
