Make New Friends but Keep the Old

Happy Wednesday!!!
 Goodness. Time has seriously been flying away from me! Probably because I have been having so much fun. :-) Seriously. This was one of the best weekends ever!!!
  For lunch on Saturday, I met up with a few friends at the Beauty Shop and then headed to a blind wine tasting at Great Wines Memphis! Yay! Since it was blind, you were supposed to guess what each wine was based on the flavor. I'll confess, out of the 15 wines we sipped, I only guessed 2 right. Haha! Goes to show how little I know about wines! We had a lot of fun pretending we knew what were talking about though.

  Saturday evening we celebrated Will's 30th in a big way with Amanda and Josh at their combined Treasure Isle July Birthday bash! What couldn't be fun about festive drinks and food, colorful leis, a slip-n-slide, an outdoor movie, viscious mosquitos, and fireworks! Totally one of the best parties I have ever been to! The other great thing about this party?! My friends from Bluffton arrived to join in on the fun that night! I was terrible about taking photos at the party, but our friend Joseph took lots of pics! For all the photos, click this link! I did get this one of Will on the slip-n-slide though... Trust me, it was just as hilarious to watch as you might think. Lol.

Sunday, I spent the day adventuring with Ben, Bird, Lydia, Amy, and Will! Here's a few pics from our day!

Toes in the Mississippi River Model

Modeling at the Mississippi River Model...

Fish taco from the food truck rally at Shelby Farms.

Our little geocaching find! I never knew how much fun geocaching was!!!

Umm... so maybe I was terrible about taking pictures the whole weekend. Shucks. It was fun though, you'll have to believe me! Haha. Let me just say, I was so glad I took the day off on Monday to catch up on sleep! At the party on Saturday I realized how many great people I have been able to meet here in Memphis. It's going to be tough to leave and have to make new friends all over again in Chicago. :-( At least I know I'll always have Bird, Ben, Lydia, Amy (and Erica, of course)! We have stuck together through the years after our BU days - and hopefully many years to come!

Nerdy 30 B-Day

I was so not ready for this weekend to end. I was having so much fun! Will turned 30 on Saturday, so I tried to come up with some fun gifts/activities to celebrate. The big party comes next weekend when we celebrate with our friends Josh, who also had a birthday the same day(!) and Amanda, whose b-day was the 19th. July is a popular month!

Still a cutie at 30! 

Friday, we had dinner at the Trolley Stop Market - always a winner! Afterwards, we scooted over to the Orpheum theater for The Princess' Bride. That movie seriously never gets old. We were a little late, and the theater was so packed they had to open the box seats - we were able to snatch one of those. Sweeet! The best part was that the entire theater would quote certain lines or cheer whenever Inigo Montoya said his famous line, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Classic.
Since I just couldn't wait, I gave Will one of presents on Friday night. I saw this on a blog one day and thought it was cute. So I did it too! I was too sheepish to buy that much beer in one place so I went to 3 stores. Lol. I bought 30 bottles of beer and tied pictures or tags on which I had written things I love/appreciate about him to each bottle. I think he liked it. :-)

Saturday I did a tough 12 mile run with my Star Runners friends. We all got soooo lost. Ha! I just followed Sally and Emily and they were able to figure out a way to get our miles in still. Those ladies are awesome! Afterwards, it was pet-sitting at the market. My faves of the day were these two chihuahua sized poodles named Coco and Chanel.

This is probably to closest I will ever get to wearing Coco Chanel. 

Saturday evening we went to Will's neighbor's apartment for a little birthday party. (Yes, her too!!). We used some spearmint I had noticed was growing near his driveway to mix up some mint mojitos. They were soooo delicious. Taste just like summer. Seriously. Sunday we went met up with my Star Runners friends (+ significant others) for a Redbirds game. They actually won too! It was so nice to hang out together as a group for something other than running or racing. :-)

Go Redbirds!!!

Now it's Monday again. Oi. Starting tomorrow, I'll be in something called "yellow belt" training for the next 3 days. Initially, I thought it might have something to do with karate. Unfortunately, it's about learning to do performance improvement projects. Yuck. I so wanted to learn how to karate chop through a bunch of wood blocks!

Coffee Chat with Deb

Back in the days of high school and college I remember how I would meet up with friends at coffee shops in the area just to hang out all the time. Sometimes I miss those days. Friends, if we were to meet for coffee today, here's a bit of the news I'd gladly share!
- I bought a ticket to Ireland on Thursday!!!! I am so incredibly excited to go visit Charis and meet Cillian! (Oh, and spend some time with Tony of course! Haha.) Initially, I tried to buy the ticket through Priceline and was charged 3 times! It never let me buy the ticket and I spent a lot of time on the phone the following days with Priceline and my bank. As soon as my account was cleared again, I went ahead and bought it through the airline directly. So. much. easier!
- Will got a new job! He'll be working for one of our Grad school profs, Dr. Steiber as the Senior Project Manager for research at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (ie. AND). As far as I know he'll be helping collect research outcomes to compile into a database for AND. I've known about all this for a while, but couldn't say anything until the job offer was signed! His last day at the VA is fast approaching. I'll miss getting to eat lunch with him and seeing him at random times throughout the day if I need!
- What does Will's new career move mean for me? Well, he can work from home here in Memphis for a few months and travel to the AND headquarters on occasion. Where is AND located you ask??? CHICAGO!!!! I'm pretty stoked to be moving back north eventually. I'll be much closer to my Bluffton friends and I may be crazy but I miss the longer months of chilly weather. (I'd much rather spend more time in skinny jeans and scarves than tank tops and shorts!) The only bad part is having to find a new job. :-(
- For about a month now, I've been doing a bit of the readings from this group, "She Reads Truth". I initially found out about it when the author of one of favorite blogs, EatLiveRun mentioned it. It's a daily devotional with discussion let on Twitter by some other really awesome bloggers.
- I'm excited for Will's 30th birthday this weekend! I can't wait to have him open the things I bought. I used an idea I saw on a blog a few weeks ago in an effort to be a little more creative for a mile-stone year! :-) We'll also be celebrating next weekend with a combined party with our friends Josh and Amanda - both of whom have birthdays the same day/weekend as Will!
- My Bluffton friends may be coming to visit me next weekend! I'm so excited to see them again! I seriously feel so blessed to have such great friends. :-)