A few other July happenings-

Seriously, where has July gone? I had all these extra pictures on my camera that I didn't put in here. So here goes....

Look at us- quite the patriotic family on the 4th I must say!
We celebrated Josh's 30-something birthday. We even surprised him with something x-tra special every day of the week. Why not? He IS our special man!
(LOL- the girls had problems with the frosting on the cake, but still tasted yummo)
We celebrated my Mom's 60-something birthday the week after. Can't par-tey too much in July.
(LOL again- yeah, we are not winning any awards anytime soon for the cake decorating!)
Thought this was too cute. Lauren helping Daddy in the 100+ degree "deep in the heart" of TX heat.
Our first tomato in our garden... HOORAH...I was doubting my green thumb for a bit until this arrived. ("Herb" really looked pathetic for awhile)
Good friends & tubing and lake-ing it.
Our little fishy Hannah and swim lessons.

Okay, that's that.

Hello August.

Coldplay Concert Surprise

I heard from a friend (thanks, Brenda) that Coldplay was still on tour. We tried to get tickets last year...but didn't want to dish out a ton of $. I decided to see if they were coming to Dallas...and it was sold out, but was this Tuesday! So on Sunday I decided to search and search for decent tickets. And those of you that really know me, know I love a search and a bargain. And of course, I am an Ebay freak. I figured that we once bought at clawfoot tub on there, why not try for concert tickets? I tried and tried and failed. Tried again...and got the deal of deals!

Josh knew I had something up my sleeve. I didn't tell him anything. I picked him up at work and we took off. I told a few people (jokingly) that he was going be so excited about this that he was gonna pee his pants. And I am not kidding (this is how well I know this man) that we were sitting down and he said,
"I am just so excited, I just might pee my pants!!" LOL




Okay, so we arrived and it was 103 degrees in the car thermometer. Oooookay. Then we were looking for our two aisle seats and....they had a big camera in them! What now?

Well, we whined and stomped our feet (kiddin'!) and they booted us up in the front section. I am talking just TWO seats from a stage that they did some songs on! Totally awesome I tell you. Josh frequently rocks Coldplay on his guitar and piano, so he was in Coldplay/guitar bliss.

In our luck, it ended up being such an incredible show with incredible seats and although we sweat out a couple quarts..... it was a night that we felt like we were in high school again! (even though that was decades ago, ugh.)


These next two pictures are not zoomed, Chris Martin right in front- playing just for us. (ha!)

2009 Atlanta Girl Weekend

Make new friends,
Keep the old-
One is silver
And the other gold.

(Yes, you can put a tune to it if you were once a Girl Scout!)

It was time again for a girlfriend get-away. All we could say was hooray! It takes awhile for all 5 of us to get everything coordinated between kiddos/job/husbands (and do this every 2 years) but it's so worth it in the end. We all came in again from California, Ohio, Virginia, Texas (that would be me!) and Keri from Georgia picked us all up. We went to the Blue Ridge Mountains and stayed at "Serenity in the Mountains Spa". Amy found it online in Ohio....and we all didn't actually know what to expect...but it totally exceeded our expectations in soooo many ways.

From the enormous luxurious suite to the top-of-the line spa....all we could say about it is that it ROCKED! We dove into the chocolate covered strawberries, wine, cheese...you name it, it was all-girl spoiling time. We laughed until our bellies hurt with stories about the days gone and the days present.

Not much changes in the comfort and love that we have for eachother over the ... how many years?! From playing Barbie's for hours together one day, to now having daughters playing Barbie's- this is what true friendship is. We all were a tad crazy "back in the day", and can be a bit goofy now too. Authentic lifelong BFF's is what we are.


Here we all are glowing and r e l a x e d after an hour massage and an hour facial-

Getting those toes all pretty...

At a local mountain restaurant where some of us ate fresh fish caught from the river below us- (and uh, for FREE?)
(yep, girls...the tattoo from the gumball machine is still on me!)

Downtown Atlanta- eating, catching up, looking (and laughing hysterically) at old photos of ourselves...


The 2 night spa time with my childhood buds was too short. I stayed another night in a swanky hotel with "Me too!". My friend Dawn left her 4 adorable babies and drove in from South Carolina so we could meet up. The conversation and laughter is never lacking with us but, again, we wish we had more time. After a great late-night yummo Maggianno meal, Dawn's 2 hour bubble bath in the posh hotel bathroom, meeting some fun people in between, shopping a bit, a car jump on the way to the airport from some more friendly people (wwhew!) .......I was off for home with memories to last a lifetime.