Oklahoma City's OK!

Finally we made our way up to OKC. That is Ryan's hometown. His littlest brother was getting married to a redhead named Becky. They became engaged about a month after Ryan and I, while Brad and Becca were in Paris visiting the middle brother, Duff and his wife, Larissa. We had been asking for a few weeks if there was anything we could do to help out, but they had said they had everything under control.

As the rehearsal dinner was being held at their Grandmother's house, Ryan and I went over on Thursday to see if we could help. We set up tables, moved furniture and put out linens in preparation for the 50 person Mexican feast that was happening on Friday night. While we were there we met Holly, the newest addition to Ryan's family. She is a very sweet baby, all smiles and such.

Friday was spent with Duff and Larissa who had flown in from England the night before. We all went over to the wedding location to help set up the numerous decorations Becca's mom had brought. It got set up just in time for everyone to run over for the beginning of the rehearsal dinner. At the dinner we met the last family baby, Nathan, who is just a month older than Holly but much larger.

After the dinner I found out that Becca had taken me up on my offer to help and wanted me to be in charge of making sure the beginning of the ceremony went smoothly. I was a little bit worried as I didn't know any of the bridal party excepting the ones who I was related to, and I didn't know any of the music being played or pretty much any information at all.

Of course it all went very smoothly and I hope that Brad and Becca had a wonderful time at their ceremony. The wedding was beautiful, everyone had a great time and in the end they were married- and that's what counts.

Now Ryan and I are back in DC working on finding employment in his case and spending time writing study guides in mine. It was a great vacation and we hope to see everyone again in the near future.

Birthdays- 2

Babies- 4

Weddings- 2

Receptions- 3

And then to Austin...

Barton Springs- Zilker Park

Tuesday morning we took off for Austin TX to visit our friends and to see Becky. She had just returned from Thailand so it was great to see her and to hear about all of her adventures. She is a pretty active person so shortly after arrival we were whisked off to Barton Springs for some pool time fun. We then came home, showered and took off for Julios where we caught up with a few of our other friends over mexi-marts and enchiladas. It was great to see everyone.

Wednesday morning Ryan, Becky and Becky's cousin made an amazing breakfast. She has a Mexican bakery near her house so we introduced her cousin to empanadas and churros. Yum!

No birthdays, weddings or babies here- but it was fun anyway!

Houston Time!

We left San Antonio in time to arrive at our next event only a few minutes late. My ex-roomie and friend, Bianca was throwing a wedding reception to celebrate the wedding she had in Vegas a few weeks beforehand. It was held at her parents lovely home in Spring Branch TX. It was great to see her and a few other sorority sisters and to meet everyone's husbands.

We continued our frantic pace by leaving the reception to run over to my cousin's new house in The Heights in Houston and so that Ryan could see their new baby. I had already met the baby in April on my visit home but it was his first time. Neither of us had seen the new house. It is much larger than their old one and very pretty. They are having trouble choosing furniture so it is pretty empty but I am sure it will be beautiful when completed. My parents met us at my cousin's house and Ryan and I took off with my father to see a Dynamo Game.

Ever since World Cup, Ryan has been very interested in MLS soccer. A friend of mine in Houston has season tickets to the Dynamo's and as his wife's boss had offered them box seats for this particular game, his seats were open. They were just to the right of the goal box and it was an interesting experience to sit with all the regulars. The game ended 0-0 but it was fun to watch and even more fun to watch the crowd.

The next few days we just rested at my parents house, enjoying the pool and reorganizing the wedding closet. Monday night we celebrated birthdays. Ryan's birthday happened on this trip and my mom's is close. One of my cousins joined the family for a huge dinner at Perry's Steakhouse. Note to veggies- they smear their baked potatoes in bacon fat before they are cooked! The salads are very good though!

However on Tuesday morning it was time to be off once again!

Just in case you aren't keeping track; 1 wedding, 2 receptions, 2 babies, 2 birthdays.

Trip to Texas

In the second week of July my husband and I took off for the South. We had 2 weddings, 3 wedding receptions, a few birthdays, and some babies to see while we were there. We landed in the afternoon on a Wednesday, grabbed a snack, I got a haircut and then my parents took us out for Mexican food at Chuys. We also spent some of the evening visiting with my aunt and uncle and my grandparents.

Early Thursday we made a run for San Antonio with my grandparents in the back. Luckily my husband and my grandad didn't get into any political disagreements during the 4 hour drive. We did stop at Bucky's really quickly since my grandparents said they had never been there before.

Once in SA we dropped off the grandparents, ate some deliciously fattening Mexican at Panchitos with Ryan's best friend and hung out at the Quarry Market until dinner. Our dear friend Willy joined us at Starbucks and Ryan and he talked about a great deal of historical and political topics I am not the least bit interested in.

We chose The Cove as a great place to meet up with a few other friends for dinner. I just love their salads. The Cove is such an interesting place. Where else in the world can you have amazing food and follow it up with delicious ice cream while washing your car and doing your laundry? And all with an amazing band playing in the background. Our amazingly cool friends Dave and Shannon joined us for dinner and it was great to get to see them again.

Friday morning found us eating breakfast tacos at Dave and Shannon's favorite taco place and then Ryan and I separated to go to our former places of business. He spent the day at KRTU 91.7 and I stopped over at The Magik Theatre to see Snow White and the Seven Amigos. It was a very good show. The actress that played the stepmother, Becky King, was hilarious. The show was very clever and wonderfully directed. The building looks great and their new acquisition, the building behind the theatre, coming along well in it's redevelopment. I just wish I had been there to see the new sign in person. After leaving the theatre I was able to see Susie and little Julian at a Starbucks near North Star Mall. Seriously where did people meet up before Starbucks was popular?

Friday night Ryan and I celebrated the marriage of our good friends Aaron and Lori at their beautiful wedding in the Southwest Center for Arts and Crafts. She looked beautiful, everyone had a great time, the weather held- very important for an out of doors wedding in TX.

Exhausted, but happy we were able to squeeze one more taco breakfast in before returning to Houston on Saturday.

Oh San A, how I love you!

Kramer Bookshop and Afterwords Cafe

This morning I had lunch at Afterwords Cafe in Dupont Circle (off the red line). It is a delicious cafe attached to a very non-Borders like bookshop called Kramer's. (Warning: the website is not nearly as cool as the venue)

My appointment was at noon but I arrived early and looked through their book selection. They have a very extensive travel section and I enjoyed their "classics" selection as well. The children's section was very small and I was a little put out by the amount of "Twilight" junky Young Adult Fiction was on display. But, my news reader tells me that movie just came out and has been very popular so I guess, when in Rome...

Afterwords Cafe also has a bar section, right past the Twilight books, but we ate on the back porch which thankfully has been glassed in. I ordered the Cafe Salad with Portobello which also came with a huge slice of cornbread. My lunch date ordered the Jamaican Chicken Salad which looked tasty especially the big piece of grilled mango on the side.

The waitstaff was pleasant and friendly and overall I would come back for lunch or perhaps to add to my enormous book collection!

The Fourth of July

Last night we were attended a 4th of July event at our friend's house. We know him and his housemates but since our local friendship circle is pretty much limited to those 6 people, we try to attend his house parties in order to continue to get to know his friends. Plus, its a very cool house, they have a big second story deck, everyone plays cornhole and beer pong and the food cooked in that residence is amazing.

My husband has been on a big cornbread kick ever since we made vegan chili last week, so we brought 2 kinds of cornbread; sweet and green chili. We also brought some Wacko Beer which is our current summer drink of choice, it's made from beets!

For dinner the group had made, buffalo and beef burgers with onion, garlic and peppers, homemade mac and cheese, stuffed mushrooms, cornbread, roasted pepper dip, bruschetta, a amazing grilled carrot and wilted greens with goat cheese salad and a toffee banana cream pie.

After stuffing ourselves to the brim we climbed up the ladder and watched the Capitol Fireworks from the roof. It was great.

Happy Fourth of July!

Note: I will be traveling until the 19th so the blogging will be limited. Instead I hope to have shared adventures with most of the people who read this in the first place!

Convention Center Gig

So I was going to the zoo today and then I was going to blog about that. However, getting up off the couch yesterday I ran my little toe into some hand weights and I am pretty sure I broke it. It still moves up and down, but it is huge and putting weight on my foot is painful. Hopefully it won't hurt so much soon and I will be able to visit with the lions, tigers and bears in the near future.

Since my zoo trip is postponed, I will instead write about my event planning gig yesterday at the convention center. I applied for work with an event planner who was looking for a few people to work registration for an event happening at the convention center in DC. I had a phone interview and after she had asked me to work the job she mentioned that the convention was for Expungement Candidates.

I later realized that the convention I was working was for convicted persons who were working on re-entry into society. The organizer was the Public Defenders office, and they had set up a system by which registrants could get appointments with lawyers to discuss Civil Liberties, Social Assistance, Child Support and how to get their records Expunged or Sealed. There were also workshops for assistance in housing and job recruitment as well as a large fair for lawyers and other professionals to extend their services to the registrants.

They had planned on having around 700 people attend, however I think the numbers only got as high as 400. That meant that most of the day was spent sitting at a table waiting for registrants. The variety of registrants and the other staffers were interesting and overall the day was fairly pleasant.

On the way home (3 stops on the metro green line) we were informed that my stop was closed because of a suspicious package and a bomb threat. Apparently there was a bus or a shuttle but since I never found it I just walked the mile or so home. After NYC, Washington metro system feels very inefficient.