Archive for September, 2009

Most girls love to dance. Even the ones that can’t keep a rhythm worth their life still find their toes tapping when a catchy song comes on the radio. It’s not always graceful, stylish, or sometimes, dare I say, attractive. However, there can be something very cathartic about throwing your hands in the air and waving them amuck like you just don’t care. (And yes, I threw in “amuck” for my own spin on an old phrase)

Sadly, most boys do not appreciate the act of dancing as much as girls think they should. With that very thought in mind, a girl’s night out for some much needed grooving was born! A group of my good girl friends and I went out to Bar 9 in Fort Worth last night for a little VIP fun. We wholeheartedly shimmied, bounced, stomped, and danced the night away.

Getting ready for an evening of dance mania!

The most intimidating girls I know...

Ahh sisters who boogie together...stay together?

Needless to say, Saturday was a late night. However, I had a wonderful time and I feel fairly confident in saying that all the other gals did too. Of course we all love our respective boyfriends and husbands, but sometimes it’s nice to leave them at home and just enjoy some girl time!

The sad part is that I took a fairly decent amount of pictures, but my camera is ill! I have no idea why, but the bottom right hand corner always turns out blurry. It just started happening last night! I’ve already tried cleaning the lens to no avail. It’s possible that the image stabilizer doohickey is jammed, so says Andy (he didn’t actually say “doohickey”, again, that’s my own addition). I’ve posted a few of the salvageable pictures and am working on trying to enhance the eighty photos that remain. I will be sure to put them in the gallery if they turn out…

In other exciting news, eight days remaining until we’re in Europe!!! In not so exciting news, I’ve only got eight days to figure out what’s wrong with my camera!!

My eyesight is absolutely terrible. I’m not talking about being unable to drive at nighttime because the signs are a little blurry kind of terrible. I am referring to the fact that I probably wouldn’t be able to find the door handle to my car, let alone drive anywhere without my corrective lenses. My vision without contacts or glasses is about five inches from my face. The blurriness is so bad that I wouldn’t be able to tell who was standing next to me! I can see a person, just not a face.

So when news of LASIK and other laser eye corrective surgeries began to surface, I was immediately intrigued. I waited to hear about long term complications and effectiveness, and when everything appeared to be kosher I went ahead and booked a consultation appointment with Dr. Bowman at Cornea Associates of Texas. Thank you Kim for doing all the legwork and research beforehand!

I’m wonderfully excited about the possibility of being rid of my glasses and contacts for an extended amount of time! The downside to the appointment, however, is the fact that I now have to wear my glasses for the next two weeks. The receptionist said something about how contacts distort the shape of your cornea, so glasses it is! This seemed easy enough, until I remembered that I HATE wearing my glasses. Bad flashbacks from middle school came flooding back to me.

Tis me...as a bespectacled middle school nerd, braces and all! Just so you know, there are some HORRIBLE pictures of me in this phase of my life...

Modern day me...showcasing a slightly more fashionable, though still geeky, pair of glasses.

For those of you that have never had to experience the inconvenience of glasses, here is my whiny con list.

1. I can’t stand it when it rains outside and your glasses gets little specks of water all over them.
2. I can’t wear my sunglasses.
3. I hate all the smudges on the lenses.
4. In order to put on my makeup, I have to take the glasses off. This makes for a tricky situation because then I can’t see my face in order to put on any makeup! I poked myself in the eye with an eyeliner pencil!!
5. It’s annoying to have to continually push my glasses back up my nose because they keep sliding.
6. I feel like I should be ill with my glasses on everyday! (the only time I constantly wear my glasses is when terribly sick)
7. Plus I feel like a dweeb, a nerd, and a geek.

Andy keeps reassuring me that I look smart and cute, but I’m ready to be rid of the darned contraption! I have eleven days remaining until the appointment. Wish me, the bespectacled dork, good luck at my appointment! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I will be a suitable candidate for LASIK!

This weekend was the annual Trommer Family vacation (last year we journeyed to Padre Island). Where to this year? The glorious state of Oklahoma of course! What was there that was so worth visiting? Because, let’s face it, Oklahoma isn’t exactly at the top of my must see destinations. I’ve been asking myself the same question, and I think my reasoning was that it’s close by, making the scheduling issues much simpler. Much to my surprise, Beavers Bend, OK turned out to be a very tranquil and beautiful place. Though the ride was fairly cozy (poor Lilly had to sit in the trunk next to our suitcases), our journey was blissfully uneventful.

Andy's parents' dog happily packed in the trunk and ready for a long weekend vacation.

We reached our beautiful cabin on Friday afternoon, which was located quite literally in middle of the Ouachita National Forest. Thank goodness we arrived during the daylight hours, otherwise I have serious doubts that we would ever have found our living quarters! I unapologetically pat myself on the back for the comfortable and roomy accommodations that I found and booked. For three nights and two days, we stayed in the Top Notch Cabin from the Beavers Bend Creative Escapes Cabins. It was an amazing three bedroom, 2.5 bath, all pine interior cabin with a gorgeous media room, which was complete with giant screen television (don’t ask me how many inches, my t.v. sizes go from tiny with VCR to ginormous wall sized…and yes, it occurred to me that the previous sentence may be a run-on sentence, but I’m too tired to care.).

Oh and did I mention the huge almost wrap around deck that had a gorgeous view of the surrounding forest?

This weekend, I got the opportunity to try all sorts of things I’ve never tried before. We visited the local Stevens Gap Restaurant where I got to experience steak fingers. (think chicken fingers but with tasty salty steak instead) I also ate the best coconut cream pie I think I’ve had to date. Yum!! I hiked through the forest with my puppy dog, where we spotted various numbers of spiders and a water loving snake. (not so fun, but seeing as how we were in their environment, I tried not to be too disgusted) We relaxed on a gravel beach on the side of the lake, which is not a new experience (thanks to Shawnee Mission Park), but was different than my everyday routine so I think it counts!

(Just moments before the loving brothers picture was taken, they were doing this…) We even took an afternoon to go canoeing/kayaking down the river. Let’s just say that canoeing with your significant other is the ultimate test of communication skills. For instance, if Andy says “paddle right”, does that mean paddle on the right side or paddle on the left so the canoe goes right?? Or when Andy says “let’s go through that gap between those two rocks”, out of the hundreds of rocks, exactly which ones might he be referring to?? In conclusion, be specific but be snappy with directions. This is no time to be verbose!

Needless to say, we tipped over on several occasions and found ourselves stranded more times than we can count. (Sorry, we didn’t take any pictures of the canoe trip! Thankfully, we were smart enough to take all our valuables, camera included, out of our pockets.) With a little luck and a lot of help, the Trommer Family survived and made it home for a delicious steak dinner and a small birthday celebration for Mom Trommer.

It was a much needed weekend, one in which a family was able to create memories for many years to come. I can only hope that next year will be able to match this one in fun activities, comfortable accommodations, and good times. Click here for all the Oklahoma photos that we took.

Last weekend, we celebrated my good friend Carrie’s birthday. For a little history, Carrie was my first friend as a lonely freshman at Iowa State and incidentally my next door neighbor in the dorms. She was my role model for independence and helped me create some of my favorite college memories. Years (and many levels of maturity) later, Carrie was a bridesmaid at our wedding. Though we have not always seen eye to eye on certain topics, it was still fun having a rigorous debate amongst friends.

For the special evening, we took Carrie to 8.0 to see the Spazmatics perform. I had heard that the Spazmatics were a fun and popular band in the area, and we were not disappointed. They played a slew of 80′s songs as we danced the night away. If I had planned things a little better, I would have themed the entire evening…after all, 80′s clothing is coming back in style, right?

Kim, Brittany, me, and Carrie celebrating another fantastic year!

Sunday was a nice relaxing pool side kind of day. I’ve been studying my old Spanish book in preparation for our trip to Spain in a month. Yes, I know I took four years of Spanish…but lack of practice has rendered most of my espanol fairly useless. I still have all my basic greetings and simply verb conjugations in my noggin, it’s the more complex stuff that I’m having trouble with (i.e. irregular verbs and large amounts of vocab) So far, I’ve gotten through Chapter 1 of my textbook and my list of must remember phrases are:

1. Otra vez por favor, no entiendo. –> (Say that) Again please, I don’t understand.
2. Tengo una pregunta que hacer. –> I have a question to ask.
3. Con permiso –> Excuse me (to request permission to pass by)

I’m hoping to borrow a friend’s copy of Rosetta Stone so I can study a little French too, which is much more difficult for me since I was only subjected to three weeks of the aforementioned romance language. But so far I’ve got the following phrases from Wikitravel…

1. Je voudrais une carafe d’eau –> I would like a carafe of water (apparently if you ask for just water, you’ll be charged for bottled or sparkling water)
2. Parlez-vous l’anglais? –> Do you speak English?
3. Je vais vous casser la figure si vous ne vous en allez pas. –> I’m going to hurt you if you don’t go away. (I’m not sure why this was included, but it says the phrase is slightly vulgar. I find it amusing that any one would need this phrase, exactly what have you been doing in Paris?)

I leave you with this picture of Andy brushing Attila. Her fur is fully grown now and a weekly brushing is completely necessary. She always gets a little smackering of tuna after the grooming session, but she’s still not thrilled about the process. Then again, this is the look that we get most every hour of the day…

I know, I know...she's a cat, what can I expect?