Archive for August, 2006

We had a terrific time last weekend. Andy’s parents (Rick and Sherry) came to visit us at the new house. Sherry bought us a beautiful house plant as a housewarming present. The happy green plant is currently residing on our kitchen table with a wonderful view of our overgrown lawn. Andy says we can’t mow the lawn until it’s stable enough to walk on, guess that makes sense. Still makes me think we’re growing a jungle back there!

After a quick tour around the house, the Trommers, Kareem, and I sat down to eat a fast chinese lunch that I whipped up in a few minutes (potstickers and spicy tofu on rice). We then made our way to Costco to buy some necessary items for Griffin, who just moved into his very first apartment. With all the groceries in tow, we ventured back up to Denton to see Griffin’s new apartment. Though lacking in furniture (which was being moved in later that day by one of Griffin’s roommates), it was a very cheery looking place and he seems to be happy.

All the oohing and ahhing made us very hungry indeed, so it was off to El Paseo for dinner. I can’t recall if I have written about it before, but it’s a cute little mexican restaurant right by our house. They have fantastic food and all at a decent price. I love the interior of the restaurant though. They’ve designed it to be very open and airy, and to pretend like they have a better view than the back of a Kroger’s. ^-^

Sunday was just spent chatting with the parents. Sadly, they had to leave early because they wanted to get back to their own comfy home. Andy and I then proceeded to bum around and for the first time, be lazy in our own house! I spent most of the afternoon reading, writing letters, and browsing the internet. Andy spent the time playing Oblivion on his Xbox 360. It’s already Thursday, time for another weekend (and hopefully a more timely post, here’s to wishing…)

This entire week, I’ve felt like we’re a day ahead (on Tuesday if felt like Wednesday, Wednesday felt like Thursday, and so on). I’m not sure why, but it’s been rather disorienting. I gently reminded (as well as Kareem and Andy’s dad) Andy to please update his blog site. I mean, seriously! For a computer guy, he sure neglects his own website!

I promised more weekend updates. Let’s see…we flew in to KC on friday night. My parents picked us up from the airport and we promptly went to bed. (we stayed up most of Thursday night packing, and when I say “we”, I really mean me. Being a gal, I had to try on all the outfits I was planning on bringing. Which soon led me to believe that I hated everything I owned. Then in a sudden moment of inspiration, I found the perfect outfit)

Saturday morning, Ashley and I went to Oak Park Mall for me to get my trial wedding makeup done at the Dillards Clinique counter. Sarah was wonderful! I loved everything she did and she was a blast to work with. She explained to me that most brides insist on having very neutral makeup, and while she always respects the bride’s wishes, she’s puzzled by that choice. Apparently with all the photo flashes, neutral makeup can make a bride look washed out and tired. Good thing she’s an experienced professional! Trust me, I can NOT make myself look as good as she made me look (yes, I’ve tried since then). The topper was the fact that my mom liked it. She’s been complaining that I wear too much makeup ever since I started putting on the stuff. While that might have been true in my middle school, my foundation is 5 shades too light so I’ll just pile on more phase, I hardly think I’m still guilty!

Ashley and I then met with Cathy, Andy, Brandon, and my grandma for a tasty, though slightly strange lunch. My grandma insisted on taking us all out to lunch at Mimi’s Cafe. If you know my grandma, you’ll understand why that’s weird. My grandma speaks very limited english, and all our lunch companions speak very limited chinese. So, needless to say, there was a lot of translating and slightly awkward silences. But things got better as the lunch progressed. In the end, I believe everyone had a nice time.

Saturday evening, as I described before was spent at Dave and Mary’s wedding. On Sunday, Andy and I went to church and met with Pastor Ken after the service. It was our second of three counseling sessions. We actually had a good time, Ken has pronounced us very compatible. It’s something we suspected in the almost four years we’ve been together, but it’s nice to hear it from an expert. After we got back to my parent’s house, we had a tasty lunch at Fusion (new chinese restaurant on 135th and Switzer next to the Sonic’s…try the salt and pepper fried tofu, it’s delicious!). Then met up with Cindy and Cindy’s aunt at the Fortune Star restaurant to finalize the wedding menu. It was great to see Cindy, friends sure are nice. Soon after, we headed to the airport to get back to our comfy and nice little Jaybird Manor. There! The weekend is finally caught up…just in time for this weekend. Sigh…blogging is so difficult! (mock whining)

**New/old pictures posted in my photo gallery (Ruth’s wedding).

So, here I sit waiting for our plane flight back to Dallas from Kansas City. I wish I had a nice iced skim milk mocha latte to keep me company, but alas I’m already in the secure part of the airport. (If you haven’t been to KCI, it’s a pretty icky setup. There are no stores or restaurants in the secure part of the airport) The thought of leaving and coming back through all the security checkpoints makes me sigh heavily. At least they didn’t go through our bags this time.

Andy and I are in Kansas City this weekend for the wedding of Dave and Mary Brown (nee Brungardt, did I use “nee” correctly?). We’re very sorry we didn’t have time to see everyone we wanted to see, but the weekend was jam packed as it was. Plus, as we flew…we had to bum rides from people or borrow my parents’ cars. For those of you we didn’t get a chance to see, we promise you the attention you deserve come October, we’ll be in KC for a whole week before the wedding!!

Back to the Brown-Brungardt wedding, it was a fabulous event. The ceremony was at the Country Club Christian Church on Ward Parkway. There were huge stained glass windows all over the place, and a real organ to boot! (Andy accidentally left his camera at Brandon’s house, so we don’t have any pictures ^_^) Mary was absolutely gorgeous/glamourous in a shiny (silk?) floor length, lacy shoulder, slinky white wedding dress. I love the fact that it is completely different from the typical wedding dress of late. It also helped tremendously that Mary had a very slim figure. Dave was looking very sharp in his tux, but let’s be serious, the majority of the attention was focused on Mary.

The reception was at the Rockhill Tennis Club. It’s this beautiful house that was later converted into a tennis club in the Missouri side of Kansas City. It gave a lot of character to the reception…as well as the polka band playing in the background. Despite the fact that nobody really knew how to polka, we did our very best hopping from side to side and yelling “HEY!” randomly between accordion solos. Of course, the polka dancing was helped along by the fact that there was an open bar all night long. We had a fun night and I’m so happy for Mary and Dave. Hm…looks like we must go line up to get on the plane, more on this weekend at a later time.

Andy and I finally made the big move to the new house! Yes we love it and yes….everything is a huge mess. We spent all day Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday moving all our stuff from the apartment to our beautifully clean house. However, the boxes just kept on coming and stacking up in our kitchen. We probably made a total of 10 trips back and forth from Denton with completely stuffed cars. With that said, I have since decided that I would make a horrible bag lady. The massive amounts of junk that I own would NEVER fit in a single bag, or even a grocery shopping cart (if I happened to be a fancy bag lady). Here’s where I have to thank all our awesome friends for pitching in and helping us with the move, we simply wouldn’t have finished in time if it weren’t for them (them being Jordan, Griffin, Sean, Kareem, and Eric).

Since we finished moving, I’ve been working like a madwoman to get everything unpacked. There’s just something wrong with a brand new house being messy! So far I have the kitchen up and running and the bathrooms are in decent working order. Now I just have to figure out the study (which is a complete and utter mess) and the master bedroom (again, I stress the fact that I have way too much stuff, and stuff being clothing). The reservations for the Chao-Trommer Jaybird Manor (our house is on Jaybird Drive) are going quickly! All of August is filled up, better call soon to RSVP for a weekend if you’d like to visit our spectacular home in the fascinating town of Keller, Texas!