Go Team Red!

Another wonderful thing about the Lucky 7 is our awesome birthday celebrations. ( I am next up in the birthday timeline, I am so pumped!)

Niall, Darcy's husband, turned 31 this past Friday. In order to celebrate we played laser tag! That's right....laser tag. Due to Niall's schedule we had to go on the Monday before his birthday, and it was so much fun! We went to Frankie's Fun House and to put it into perspective on how awesome this laser tag was, please read the description that is on their website about it:

Lasers make everything cooler. Seriously, take anything and put lasers on it and watch it's cool factor jump through the roof. Trained attack ninjas, or trained attack ninjas with lasers? Unicorns dancing on rainbows, or unicorns dancing on rainbows with lasers? Homeless puppy shivering in a rainstorm, or homeless puppy shivering in a rainstorm with lasers? See? We know the puppy will be okay, why? Because the puppy has lasers. It's not sad, it's cool. Somehow we don't think you've quite grasped the concept. Dude. It's tag. With friggin' LASERS!

John, Kim, Cassie and I were on the red team, while Darcy, Niall, Stephen, Rachel and Niall's friend who I cannot remember the name of (sorry) were on the blue team. The red team, is not a very competitive bunch, expect apparently when it comes to laser tag because we ended up winning! John guarded the base and Cassie and I hid on the bottom floor performing sneak attacks. We had a blast, if it had been cheaper, we would have gone for another round.

It's tag...with friggin' lasers

After the laser tag fun, we headed back to the Berry's apartment to have some cake, beer, and singing for Niall's birthday. Niall was able to open some presents, which he was very excited about:

 

The best present in my opinion was the sign that Kim made for Niall:

31 years ago, your parents made an (picture of egg and sperm (embryo)), excellent decision. Happy Birthday!

Overall, it was a great night with great friends, celebrating the day that the world went from being without Niall to being with Niall :)

Why am I being mocked on my birthday?

Blog Snob Update

So, I realized over the last few weeks how difficult it is to keep updating my blog....which is kind of hard to me to admit since I am such a big blog update snob. No seriously, I love when people update their blogs but I find it so hard to update my own. Maybe its because I am not interesting....or that it is so much easier to read someone else's blog instead of taking the time to write my own. 

Whatever it may be, here I am updating, in fact there may be a few entries today to make up for lost time :)

School Update: School has been going well. It is hard to believe that it is halfway over, but then again it is hard to believe how much stuff I have to do still before the end of the semester :(  I did suuuuuper well on my first set of exams, which is always reassuring. This is what I am suppose to be doing, and I am good at it. Although, I do need to work on my words per sentence....yeah I speak 17-22 words per sentence....whoops!

Apartment Update:  I FINALLY was able to move into my new apartment this past weekend. I am now far away from the highway and on the third floor which means no one living above me. I had Jared and Randi, my dad and Niall, Darcy's husband help me with the move and I know I could not have done it without them.  I am almost done unpacking and hanging things up and then I promise a full blog post devoted to the new apartment.

Needless to say, Rory is adjusting well....

Baby kitten on the new kitchen chair

Diet Update: ::sigh:: I must admit I have been horrible at this. I have been making poor food choices, being lazy instead of active and simply taking the easy way out. However, starting tomorrow I am back on track, and will be restarting my 30 Jump Start book and plan on finishing it. My scale has been located, so I will be able to give you better updates on my progress. Cheer me on?



I dedicated myself to it completely, heart and soul, believing in its power, believing in its ability to get me where I needed to go

Are you as Loved as I am?

In my moments of homesickness a few weeks ago, I began to realize just how lucky I am to have the people that I do in my life.  Or maybe I already realized it, hence why I miss them so much.

My family has been so helpful, especially coming down to visit and talking with me on the phone on a regular basis. It has been wonderful to have them so close by.


My heart belongs to Raleigh and all of the people associated with it including Jared, my two best friends,  my NCSU Genetics family, and  the genetic counselors at Duke. I have gotten nothing but loving messages from all of them encouraging me.  How did I get so lucky?


Today I received the most beautiful flowers from my former den mother at NCSU and et al. It was such a pleasant surprise, and it meant so much to me to have them not only thinking about me but also being so supportive.

Smile :)

This is to say thank you to everyone that has been there for me over these last couple of months and those that will continue to be there. I could not do this without you and I promise to try my best to make you proud.


Supportive. You know, go team.

Catch Erin's Hat

The much anticipated Erin and Ginger weekend occurred this past weekend and it was awesome (as if it could have been anything else).

Erin arrived around 7pm on Friday night and we enjoyed a dinner of cheese bread, veggie pizza, and brownies with icing on top. But of course the best part of the night were the Cosmopolitans. Now, if you are like me, I have had some super delicious cosmos at restaurants, the best being in London, but when it comes to making them at home, I have always just bought Cosmo mix and added vodka. Not so awesome.

Thanks to Wikipedia however, we discovered how easy it is to make your own super delicious cosmos.

Recipe:

2 parts citrus vodka

1 part Triple Sec

1 part Cranberry Juice

Lime

Place vodka, triple sec, and cranberry juice in a shaker with ice. Shake to mix, strain into a martini glass. Decorate with a lime wedge. 

There may or may not have been 8 of these....

We watched the movie You Again with Kristen Bell and Jamie Lee Curtis. Not the best movie, but it was fun and light and girly!
....and of course Say Yes to the Dress and Four Weddings

On Saturday I took Erin to Village at Sandhills to walk around and shop. I ended up with a new shirt from Loft and Erin got some cute clothes at Old Navy, including a super cute hat, and decorative pins at NY&Company. We came back and watched Ringer, we both love SMG, and then got ready to go out with part of the Lucky 7.

After much talk from the second years, we decided to go to a local place in Five Points called Pawley's Front Porch. It is known for its amazing burgers, so known in fact that is was on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives! Lucky for us they also had a veggie burger, so we could all enjoy something! Erin was able to meet John, Cassie, and Kim which I was really excited about because they are my new family :)

 

Loving Pawleys

Afterwards we went out for drinks at a bar on Washington called Kelley's and then returned home for, you guessed it, more cosmos. The majority of the rest of the night consisted of us looking up Wikipedia information on actors from Buffy and Firefly and skyping with Jared. Erin was a skype virgin.

One thing you need to know about Erin is that she LOVES Emma Watson ( I mean, who couldn't). They even have the same haircut! As a part of our internet searches last night we wanted to know when the new Lancome Midnight Rose perfume comes out, for which Emma is the spokes woman. Here is the commercial if you have not seen it:

As you can see Emma wears this amazing hat in the commercial, and my beautiful  best friend bought one that looks very similar!

So Pretty!

Don't Emma and Erin look EXACTLY the same?

Watch out Emma, someone might be stealing your future movie roles!

Finally this morning, we were just lazy, made pancakes, and watched Jumanji (throw back!) still being able to  recite a large majority of the movie. But all good things must come to an end, and Erin left around 3pm :(

I could not have imagined a better weekend. I miss having my best friend so close and I am looking forward to the next time she comes to visit. On the agenda will be the Riverbanks Zoo!

Luckily, I do not have a lot of school work this coming week, so I will be packing my apartment for my move on Saturday (finally!) and a visit from Jared and Randi!

They have a community of people, friends, you know, who travel together, engage in silliness, dress in costume. I think it's nice.