Birthday Luau

I forgot to blog about this so here I go!

The last weekend in July - 2 weekends ago:

Casey and I headed up to Longview early on Saturday morning to attend a birthday party for my wonderful Aunt Karen. For those of you who don't know who my Aunt Karen is, she is like my second mom and she is my cousin Jen's mother. Here are pics from the weekend:

My oldest friend Ashley came to the party to see me! We grew up together living on the same street for all of our childhood.
Riley being festive:
Chris, Rylan, Casey and Abby:


Me and my best friend/cousin Jen:

Happy Birthday Kel

Today we went over to Kelli's house to celebrate her birthday with her family and friends. While this might seem morbid to some, it is what Kel would have wanted. She loved bringing people together which is why I am friends with so many different people that seem to only have one thing in common, we all loved Kelli. On the way to Kelli's, C and I stopped and got some pink balloons to release. Upon releasing them this afternoon, they didn't seem to climb very quickly but did drift west. I decided they were going to the mall, which is exactly what Kelli would have wanted to do today. We miss and love you so much friend. Happy Birthday!

Kel and I on her birthday in 2009, last year she was in Venice for her birthday so we didn't get a pic.

Birthday Kelli! :)

Pink balloons in honor of Kelli

Where have I been??

I don't know if I could even tell you - it's been such a hectic and busy year so far!

Here's a quick run down of what has been going on with the Pages in the last month:

First week of October: I had a mysterious mole removed on my arm. My doctor thought it might be Melanoma, but it came back clear - YAY! It did give me a good scare though, so I made a dermatologist appointment and when I went he said all of my moles/freckles looked good, but that I have pre-cancerous cells on my lips. I had to have the skin on my bottom lip frozen which gave me an awesome blister that looked like a fever blister. I also have to use this cream (over the holiday break) that will burn off several layers of skin on my lips to get rid of the scary pre-cancerous cells.

October 8th: College Day at my elementary school! I love college day because I absolutely love where I went to college. It was a blast telling the kids all about "Essefay" (S.F.A.) and letting them try on my cap and gown. They also loved seeing the picture of "Mr. Casey" and me on my graduation day.

October 8-10: Home to Longview to visit my dad and relax. Casey and I helped him fix the roof and paint his kitchen. My dad also started a new job recently that he really loves. Thank you Lord for giving my dad a job that he loves!

October 11: I survived Parent/Teacher conferences - Year 2. Last year I threw up on my way into conferences. This year was much better. :) I have a great group of parents this year - another thing to be thankful for!

October 16: Dinner with our old friends the Tolars. Trey was my outside salesman when I worked at Elliott Electric Supply and we became great friends during that time. It was so great to hang out with them and get to see their kids - they are such a cute family!

October 23: Stephen F. Austin vs. Sam Houston game at Reliant Stadium! Casey and I got tickets through the ZTA alumni association earlier this year to go to the SFA vs. Sam game and we had so much fun tailgaiting with friends and watching the game. Oh and the Lumberjack Marching band did Beyonce "Single Ladies" and Lady Gaga!! That absolutely made my day. :)

October 22: Family pumpkin carving night at Casey's Aunt Jackie and Uncle Gregs! A year ago Casey proposed to me at this event so it was really tough opening up a pumpkin and not finding a diamond ring (kidding). Casey and I went traditional this year and made pretty basic pumpkins, but they turned out really well. Here we are with our pumpkins!

October 30: Halloween parties. Casey dressed up as the "Hide yo' kids, Hide yo' wife" guy (Antoine Dodson) and I dressed up as Santana from my favorite show GLEE!

October 31: My MIL's birthday! I love that her birthday is on Halloween! We went out to eat at Black Walnut Cafe and then back to the house for ice cream cake - yum!

That pretty much brings me up to date!

Half a Century

Oh yeah... and also I turned 25 this past Thursday. Birthdays have always been kind of strange to me. I feel like everyone wants you to be SO excited (and I kind of want to feel excited) but it always feels like just another day. Thursday was one of those days - I got up early and headed off to church to help with Vacation Bible School.

Pastor Ware with his Roman helmet and spear

After that I went to have lunch with my friend Andi and then went home and cleaned up around the house. When Casey got home we hung out and then went out to eat at Sake Kawa (my favorite restaurant in The Woodlands) and to my surprise (sort of) Chris, Jessica, Kelli, Andrew, Mike, and Amanda were there! The reason I say "sort of" is because Casey and I are HORRIBLE about surprising each other. We're just way to much of an open book to be able to keep things from each other. That's okay though - it makes for a wonderful honest and open relationship. :) Sake Kawa was AMAZING and we had a great time hanging out with our friends.







On Friday we went to get our Marriage License! YAY!


On Saturday we headed up to Huntsville to go to Blue Lagoon. Blue Lagoon is a scuba place, but you can go there to swim if you are with someone who is scuba certified. Chris and Jess came with us and we had the best time just hanging out and swimming in the crystal blue water.





All in all it was a pretty darn good 25th birthday. I can't believe I'm already 25 - where does the time go?

Mud Bugs

Another busy, but wonderful weekend! Yesterday was the Page family Crawfish boil that used to happen every year, but hasn't happened since I've been around (Okay guys I get the hint! Haha). Casey's mom and dad bought 200 lbs of crawfish and we spent 8 amazing hours eating them and hanging out with all of our wonderful family and friends. There were about 75 people there when it was all said and done and only 2 or 3 lbs of crawfish remained at the end of the night. Here are some pictures from yesterday:






We were all exhausted today, but had a great time so it was all worth it.

Celebrated Shannon's birthday today and now hanging out with my dad and grilling steaks - life isn't too bad. :)

Why Not Minot?

Here's why not... it's WEIRD up there!

Last Wednesday I flew up to North Dakota to spend some quality time with my cousin Jen, her husband Chris, and my precious God daughter Abby.

(For those of you who don't know, my cousin and I are 2 weeks apart and are like sisters. We grew up very close, spending as much of our free time as possible together. I am very blessed to have her in my life. :) )

The trip up to Minot wasn't too bad. I drove to Dallas on Tuesday evening because I was flying out of DFW because it was several hundred dollars cheaper than flying out of Houston and I'm glad I did because it gave me an opportunity to hang out with my friend from high school - Sally. Sally and I were SUPER best friends in high school, lost touch for a couple of years in college, but are doing a much better job keeping in touch these days. We didn't do much but watch Bride Wars and eat animal crackers, but it was a fun night just getting to hang out. She is an absolute SAINT for driving me to the airport - love you Sal! My flights (DFW - to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to Minot) went off without a hitch (except for the strange stares I got from the Mennonite population in Minnesota) and I finally made it to Minot. I was SO happy to see my favorite cousin and my beautiful God daughter. Abby turned 2 on March 5th and is SUCH a smart little girl. I am so proud to be her "AnSah".

The reason for my trip was to celebrate Abby's birthday and boy did we ever. Anyone watch iCarly? Well it looked like iCarly threw up all in my cousins house (we went a little crazy with the decor), but it was absolutely great because Abby LOVES "iCarlysam". We had a blast opening gifts and eating cake and I was sad to leave my family, but not so sad to be leaving the weird, judgey, cold, boring, Great Plains. (Disclaimer: If you are from the Great Plains or Midwest, I am sorry, but I just don't care for that area of the country). Here are a few picture of the party:

Jen and I posing as Carly and Sam. If you don't watch this show, you really should. Just watch one episode - it's so cute and funny!

Me and the Birthday Girl who seemed quite distracted by 6,536,294 gifts she got.
For the story about the bandaid on her head, see below.

At least Abby can tell how much of a princess I am - she decided I needed not one, but TWO princess crowns! So cute!

Blowing out her big girl candles!

Decorations

So about that large bandaid on that pretty little girl's head: The night before I flew to N.D. Abby was running through the house and fell into the corner of a wall and split her forehead wide open. 6 stitches and a dented wall corner later (yes the corner - with the metal part!) she had this lovely bandage on the entire time I was there. Ohhhh kids.

My flights back were not bad at all except for the fact that I had only got 1.5 hours of sleep before getting on the plane. By the time I got to Dallas and drove back to Houston, I was basically a zombie. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do to push through and finish that drive, but I made it thanks to my mom staying on the phone with me the entire way home. Love you Mom!!

And that.... was Spring Break 2010. Back to work (and now that I've finally finished this post that I started a week ago - I've already been back at work for a week!), but only 2.5 more months of school left!!!! WHOOO HOOO!!!

Cake, Cake and more Cake!

This week was pretty hectic with trying to fit in time to work out and spend time with friends as well as spend as much time with my Daddy (who was in town for work) as possible and also not to forget Casey! Monday, Jennifer and I had the day off and feeling jealous, Casey took the day off as well. Jennifer and I have been going to the YMCA to do fitness classes and well, I'm pretty much obsessed. I really love the Y and I've found that group fitness classes are a perfect fit for my competitive nature.

Now on to why the title of this post is "Cake, Cake, and more Cake!"....

Tuesday was lovely Jennifer's 27th birthday. That day we went out to eat at the new little Mexican place right across from our neighborhood and boy was it yummy! After a few margaritas and embarrassing Jennifer with a birthday song and sombrero at the restaurant, we went home to have cake. If you have never had an ice cream cake from HEB you are MISSING OUT! They have the absolute best ice cream birthday cakes have I have ever had. I think by now I have eaten at least half of it all by myself. You just can't leave me alone with ice cream cake in the house. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of Jennifer and the cake (because again, I was too excited about the cake!) but I did take this at the restaurant:

Ole!!
Now... on to more cake.

Yesterday Casey and I drove up to Austin for a couple of cake tastings. First to Michelle's Patisserie. We tried plain wedding cake, italian cream cake, cookies and cream cake, and finally Tiramisu. O. M. G. As a cake connoisseur this is hard for me to say, but hands down this was the BEST cake I have ever tasted. It was moist, it was crumbly, it was delicious. Perfect texture, flavor, everything.

After Michelle's, we took a detour over to our new favorite Austin restaurant.. the Oasis. The food is delicious, but what we go there for is the amazing view. The Oasis sits on top of a bluff overlooking Lake Travis and is absolutely gorgeous. We are looking into having our rehearsal dinner there if the price isn't too high. Here are a few pictures of Casey and I at the Oasis.





After leaving the Oasis we drove to Pflugerville where we met with Brittany of Cr8tive Confections. Brittany does her tastings a little different than other bakers in that she give you 6" taster cakes as opposed to small slices of each flavor. We chose 4 different flavors and had her incorporate them into 2 cakes. Her chocolate fudge cake with cookies and cream filling was amazing! Here are our two cute little taster cakes.


After talking it over and thinking about the overall flavor of the two cakes, we have decided to go with Michelle's italian cream cake and white cake (alternating) for the wedding cake tiers and a tiramisu grooms cake. Both bakers we tasted with were SO nice and had such great ideas, but it came down to flavor with us and we just couldn't get the Tiramisu cake out of our head. It was very refreshing to meet both of them and see their passion for their artwork. For those of you coming to the wedding - I can't WAIT for you to try the tiramisu cake!!

Yummy Soup!

Today my handsome hubby-to-be turned 28! We are getting so old! This morning we slept in until 10 and then did house work before Casey went to his weekly meeting with Pastor (he's learning Biblical Greek!). While Casey was gone I decided to clean out the refrigerator and pantry and found the acorn squash that we had bought for Thanksgiving but ended up not cooking so I decided to look for a recipe to use it up. I found a recipe on Allrecipes (one of my favorite sites!) for Acorn squash soup and spent the next 2 hours cooking it. It was not in vain because that was some of the best soup I have ever had! The flavor was so unique and had so many dimensions. If you're looking for a yummy way to use acorn squash here is the recipe:

ACORN SQUASH SOUP

Ingredients

• 1 small onion
• 1/4 cup chopped celery
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules
• 1/2 teaspoon dill weed
• 1/4 teaspoon curry powder
• dash cayenne pepper
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
• 3 cups mashed cooked acorn squash
• salt and pepper to taste
• 5 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled

Directions

1. In a large saucepan, saute the onion and celery in butter. Stir in flour, bouillon, dill, curry and cayenne until blended. Gradually add broth and milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Add the squash, salt and pepper; heat through.
2. In a blender, process the soup in batches until smooth. Pour into bowls; garnish with bacon.

The only thing I changed is the evaporated milk. I didn't have any so I just used about a 1/2 a cup of heavy cream and it turned out so creamy and decadent. Yum!

After the soup making, I cleaned up around the house and we went over to Casey's parents house for his birthday celebration. We had baked ziti - his favorite - and ice cream cake (his other favorite) and hung out with his family and watched football. Overall this has been a pretty nice weekend- and we're 90% done with Christmas shopping- yay!! Now if we could just get that darn tree decorated.....

Thanksgiving, Mom's Birthday, and Wedding Dress shopping Round 1!

Wow - I can't believe it's already Sunday and I've had 5 days off. It feels like this week and weekend flew by! Casey and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my mom and dad and we succeeded in cooking an entire meal without burning anything/burning the house down - yay! I was very proud of myself - one Thanksgiving at our place down - 60 more to go! Haha. Here are some pics of us cooking and the table, turkey, and my favorite part -DESSERT!!



Friday was my mom's 51st birthday and I was so excited when she said she wanted to go wedding dress shopping that day! I had never tried on a wedding dress until then and I was very excited to see what was out there. So Mom, Daddy, and I went to Princess Bridal in Old Town Spring for Round 1 of dress shopping. I was so surprised at how not picky I was - I tried on about 8 dresses and loved 4 of them. I really thought I would be sooooo picky and dissect every dress until I found "the one" but I liked most of them and would have been happy with any of them. Kelli met us there to see the final 4 and talked me into trying on a really different dress and I ended up liking it too. I obviously didn't buy one that day because I want to make sure and include all of my bridesmaids and Casey's mom as well, but at least I have an idea of what's out there now. If you're interested in seeing pics of the four I liked, email me (gmail address) and I will send you pics! I don't want Casey to accidentally stumble upon pictures because he really doesn't want to see me in a wedding dress until the day. :)

After dress shopping, Mom, Dad, Kelli, and I met Casey at Wunsche Bros. for some lunch and we had a great time hanging out and chatting. I had never eaten there and it was pretty good. Here are some pictures from lunch:


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That night we celebrated Mom and Casey's birthdays with gifts and cake - Casey and I got mom this handmade western cross and some other smaller things and Casey got his Xbox 360 from Daddy and I and some black Chuck Taylor's from my mom. Needless to say, after this weekend I need to get on the treadmill BIG TIME!

Today we went to Thomas and Carly Hudson's house for Harper Hudson's 2nd birthday party. It was an Elmo Dance Party theme with a live 6 foot Elmo and I cannot express how hilarious Harper's face was when Elmo walked in to the room. I love kid's birthday parties and we were so glad to be a part of Harper's 2nd! I wish I would've gotten pictures but Harper already had about 50 cameras going off so I didn't want to add to the chaos.

More later- Kelli and Andrew just arrived for Taco night!

Oh the life of a stay at home "mom"

So this week I get to pretend to be a "Trophy Wife", minus the "wife" part of course, stay at home "mom" (to two cute dogs), or just a plain ol' bum. Whatever you want to call it, as of last Thursday I was unemployed and really feeling the anxiety that comes along with it. As I left TWYLA with a tear in my eye, I got a moment of clarity when I realized that everything was going to be okay. Yeah, Casey and I might be living paycheck to paycheck (his paycheck) and eating Ramen Noodles every night for dinner, but at least we have each other and we're happy. We'll make it and we'll be fine and in 10 years this will just be another blip on the radar and we'll laugh about how "poor" we were. As far as me being a "Trophy Wife", by that I mean since I don't have a job I get to stay home and concentrate on making things run smoothly at home. Whenever I think of women that do this I always think about the women I see who drop their kids off at daycare and spend the rest of the day working out, letting their housekeepers clean their house, and then of course shopping. Unfortunately I won't be doing any shopping and I will be the housekeeper. Today I am cleaning the house, working on assignments, and running errands. I have been up since 5am and I can't believe that it's already 1:00. Time flies even faster when you're not at work. I thought the day would drag on but I've been busy since I woke up and haven't even come close to accomplishing everything I need to do today. There's always tomorrow though!

This weekend my dad came in to celebrate his birthday and spend some time with Casey and I. We had a packed weekend and had a blast. For those of you who don't know, I have the best father in the entire universe and I do mean that literally. I have been my dad's sidekick since day one and would be totally lost without him. On Friday I had substitute training for Conroe ISD and then met Daddy at the house so we could go get some lunch. We went to Guadalajara in The Woodlands for lunch and had some delicious fajitas. After that we went up to the mall to walk around and chat. I got a call from my new boss at Ann Taylor Loft so we also dropped by there to talk to her. I start on Wednesday- yay! Friday night we had plans to go to the Astros game but traffic was insane due to a bad storm coming in so we decided to go on Sunday instead. We went out to eat at Outback and then went home and fell asleep on the couches watching Monty Python - not a bad a little Friday!

On Saturday morning we got up and I made breakfast tacos (with low carb tortillas) for Daddy and I and then as we were getting ready to head out to Galveston, Casey got a call from his sister Katie. She needed a ride from IAH to Galveston because she was flying in from New York to go on a cruise with some friends and her flight was delayed almost 3 hours. So Daddy and I headed out to Galveston by ourselves. As soon as we got to Galveston we were starving so we went to grab a light lunch at The Strand. I have never been to the Strand so I had no idea what there was to do or eat down there. We asked a lady who was working a parking lot booth and she recommended some steak and seafood place or a place called Fisherman's Wharf. We decided to go to Fisherman's Wharf because it sounded like a nice, family owned, unique kind of place. We were wrong. It ended up being a super expensive Landry's owned restaurant, but the food was good so all was well in the end. After eating lunch Daddy and I went down to the Strand to do some shopping and we had plans to go to the Railroad Museum but they were closed - LAME! I was really surprised at how many stores didn't re-open after the storm and I was SUPER impressed at how high the water got in the Strand. You could see water lines that were 5-8 feet above my head- insanity. I guess I had forgotten really how bad Ike was last year, but after that I'm praying for no repeats of last year! At around 2:30 Casey finally rolled into Galveston and we went to Stewart beach for an hour or so. I didn't realize it but my dad had not been to a beach since he was 20 years old- is that not the craziest thing you've ever heard? When I was a kid I was usually with my mom during the summers so we went to the beaches in South Carolina, so Daddy and I never went to the beach together. Weird! After the beach we went to Casey's for dinner and I'll have to be honest - whatever they changed post-hurricane, the food was NOT good. I was very sad because that's where we always go! Here are some pics from our Galveston trip:






On Sunday we slept in a bit and then went to the Astros game against the Diamondbacks. We ended up getting club tickets which was nice because I haven't sat there in forever and it was nice and cool which Daddy liked. Unfortunately the pitcher that started was AWFUL and got us way behind so we ended up not being able to catch up enough to win the game, but it was a decent game to watch. Here are some pics from the game:




This week I have a lot going on despite being underemployed. I have my first day at Ann Taylor Loft on Wednesday as well as an interview at Stepping Stones Preschool on Wednesday morning. Not sure if I am going to take a full time position right now because that kind of defeats the purpose of me subbing to get a full time teaching job, but we'll see how things go. TTFN!