Flapper Girls

Sorry for lack of posts this week- lots of fun happening with my mother in town for a week!

Two weekends ago me and Shantel took a roadtrip to Wichita to celebrate our friend Dani getting married in a few short weeks!  It was 1920's flapper themed so we all had to dress the part.

The flapper bride opening her gifts.

Dark picture but you can kinda see the whole group before we loaded the party bus.

Check out our saweet hot glue/sequin/feather headbands we DIY'ed for the occasion.

On the bus it was a murder mystery game so we drove all over Wichita collecting clues and picking up different actors up along the way.  It was really cool and me and Shantel were super excited when we actually guessed the murderer right!  It's always those quiet ones...

Down in Old Town for lots of dancing... we got lots of looks with our costumes!

The bride-to-be and her mom

Our last stop was at Club Rodeo which I've heard lots about but have never been.  Live bull riding in a bar= crazy.  Dirt was flung down my dress as I sat there wondering where on earth we were. 

With the gorgeous almost-Mrs. Erker!

The bars were great but we had the most fun on the bus.  So much fun I already got a rip in my new dress :(  Glad my mother-in-law is an expert seamstress :)

Back to the Erker house for munchies!

We took this picture the next morning as we headed back to KC.  We pulled into a gas station for Gatorade and Mt. Dew... looked over... and saw this.  Really?  Only in Kansas....

My last post to "The Chosen One"

If you've been a blog reader for awhile then you probably know how much I love my movies and especially how much I love Harry Potter.  But sadly all good things must come to an end and this was the last Harry Potter movie ever :(  I can still remember going to buy the book at midnight and how sad I was to read the last one.  I cried and cried as my favorite book series came to an end and now the movies are coming to an end too.  Tear :'(

Thank goodness Trent and his co-workers are masters at winning stuff off the radio cause they won six early screening passes for the movie on Monday night.  This will be the third Harry Potter movie in a row that we've got to see early.

The movie was in 3D so they handed out sweet Harry Potter look alike souvenir glasses.  How cool do we look, right?

But movies are always better with your BFF so months ago we made plans to watch the last HP movie at midnight with Jo and Kyle- and Kyle's sister, Katie.  We sat in line and thoroughly enjoyed some awesome people watching.

Jo and Kyle went to Florida for vacation earlier this summer and got to experience the Harry Potter theme park- so jealous!! She came back with Gryffindor T-shirts for all of us!!!  Best friend ever :)

And one pic with props- Katie's kindergarten glasses (for real), Jo and her wand, and me with my 3D Harry glasses.

Glad I've converted my hubby into an HP nerd too :)

We were super excited cause we bought tickets to the double feature- Deathly Hallows Part 1 at 9:00 and then Part 2 at midnight.  Seeing them both back to back was definitely the way to do it- good thinking on Jo's part!

Thanks for all the memories Harry!!  Love your favorite Muggles- Jobeth and Kala 

P.S. Weirdest text I've ever sent to someone:  "Ur wand is still in my purse, meant to give it to u last night"  Don't think I'll be texting that again anytime soon!

3 year celebration

Our 3 year anniversary celebration started off with present opening!  We like to do gifts according to the anniversary list and the third year was leather on the traditional list and crystal on the modern list. 

Even though Trent just got a watch for his birthday a month ago I knew I wanted to get him a watch with a leather band for our anniversary too.  He can add it to his "watch collection"... such a girl ;)

 He loved it!

 And my gift made all my birthday dreams come true...
***this picture is proof that my eyes aren't squinty all the time... only like 95%.

 I was so shocked/amazed/surprised I started to shed some tears.

 Trenton got me my Canon camera I've been dreaming of!!!!! I've got lots to learn for sure but with as many pictures as we take- this will be perfect for scrapbooking and for the blog ;)

 Pictures of our little family before we headed out to one of our favorites- Houlihan's

To end the night we had a bottle of wine and watched our wedding DVD... awww ;)  3 years down and forever to go!

All Aboard

Sunday morning and it was time to load a bus, leave Orlando, and head to Port Canaveral where our ship was waiting.   And I told myself that I was only allowed 20 pics top for each blog post about the cruise... we'll see how that goes ;)

 Can you tell we're excited!!

 The fam was really excited too!  After what felt like a super long bus ride we finally arrived to our ship.  But then we had to wait and wait and wait in line to actually board.

 Arriving in our rooms.  All of us were right across the hall from each other.  Bob & Lora, and Ashley & Jerad had the 2 rooms with the balconies and we had a royal promenade room which we loved cause of...

 ... our view down on the Royal Promenade.  It made for some really good people watching!

 Thanks to our travel agent we had 3 bottles of wine welcoming us aboard.

 We explored the ship, did the safety drill, and then watched our boat pull out at 6:07 p.m. according to port's clock.

 From where our ship docks you could see NASA's launch pad.  Bob took this picture and when we zoomed in to look at it on the laptop you could actually see the shuttle already out there ready to go.  It was cool.

 The Royal Promenade was gorgeous!

 Lots of stores and food!!

 Ready for the shows and dinner!

 In the theater for our first show.

 At dinner having the first drinks of the cruise!

 Self timer while walking around the ship.

 It was a bit windy.

 Dreamworks is a sponsor of the ship so there was a big parade that night with all the Dreamworks characters- all the Madagascar characters, Shrek, Princess Fiona, Puss in Boots, Kung Fu Panda, etc.

To end our first night we went for a night swim and some hot tubbing.  Next up... day 2 at sea.

Whirlwind Weekend

I know I need to post more cruise stuff but this last weekend was too much fun not to include in one huge post. Here we go...

Emery Elizabeth Carlson was born July 7th at 6:39 a.m. 6 pounds, 1 ounce, 18 inches long and DARLING!

Some of her first visitors that Thursday morning: her real Aunt Sara, "Aunt" Caysie, and "Aunt" Kala

Only Kenny would hold his daughter like the Heisman pose!

The beautiful Carlson family

How amazing does Jess look?!? Seriously. She gave birth 3 hours before this and looked incredible. I know I'm gonna be one huge, hot, sweaty mess. Can't wait... ;)

We all agreed she looked just like her mommy! Still a little mad at Emery though... we were supposed to be birthday buddies on the 10th but she decided to come on the 7th and share her birthday with her daddy and Fritzy. Poor Kenny will never have a birthday again... it's all about this little lady now!

I know the only people who care about these next 3 closet pictures will be Lora and Ashley so everyone else can keep scrolling past them...

On Friday I hit up the Target dollar section to see what teacher goodies they have set out so far. (Teachers love the dollar section of Target in July and August!) To my joy and excitement they had lots of cute organizing things for way cheap so I stocked up for a linen closet makeover.

Here's the before. I know it's not terrible but it just wasn't doing it for me.

And the after!!! LOVE IT.

Everything got sorted, purged, organized, then labeled. Here's a close up of the labels I used... just cheapy ring tags I've had forever from Office Max.

Friday I surprised Trent for our monthly surprise date. He was convinced I was taking him to the balloon festival at the Great Mall in Olathe. He even told people that we'd see them out there. But I had other plans for us- date night at the drive-in movie theater! The drive-in is down by the Paola/Osawatomie area and is SUPER cheap. For 7 bucks a person you get two movies in one night.

Since I was at Target earlier that day I stocked us up on movie candy!!

I also packed a cooler full of beverages for us.
My parents used to bring me and my brother here all the time as kids. It was just how I remembered it. We saw Green Lantern and X Men First Class. We really liked them both but we're suckers for comic book/super hero movies.

Movie popcorn is only $1.80. How could you not love this place?! This was Trent's first experience at the drive in and he was sold! I'm sure we'll be back quite often this summer.

After getting home from the drive-in at 2:30 a.m. we headed straight to bed because we had to be up first thing Saturday morning to head to Emporia. I had Kim's baby shower and Trent was going to hang at the motorcycle shop.

Kim and her shower hostesses

Kim with her mother-in-law and her mom

Baby McNeese got lots of cute things! Can't wait till he arrives in September!

We left Emporia that afternoon to head back to KC for a wedding of a long time family friend. We went with my parents but left after a few hours because the reception venue was HOT and with KC's heat wave we were dying! We headed home for a quick change of clothes and to grab the fur babies so we could go to the balloon festival Trent thought we were doing the night before ;)

Harlee barked hellos to everyone around us.

Bentley just sat and looked handsome like always ;) As long as he is getting petted he's a happy boy.

We are also suckers for hot air balloons since we celebrated our first anniversary with a ride.

They had really unique balloons- a pig that said "When Pigs Fly" haha.

Upside down Humpty-Dumpty

HUGE daisy
Panda bear

What we came to see- the night glow. At this they don't actually fly- they just all burn at the same time and it looks cool in the night sky. Picture is doing it no justice- it's way cooler in person.

Sunday morning we got up at 5:30 and headed back to the Great Mall with Jerad, Ashley, and Jeryn to see the balloons launch. Sadly it got cancelled cause of wind :( Didn't they know it was me and Ashley's birthday?! So this birthday girl went back home and went straight to bed since I'd had 10 hours of sleep in the last 3 days. Believe me- I needed that beauty sleep!

Trent gave me my present that afternoon and then surprised me with something I've been looking forward to for over a year and couldn't see when the day it came out cause we were on the cruise....

Transformers 3!!!! In 3D!!!! Transformers is my favorite movie. I watch it ALL THE TIME. It's always the first movie I pop in when I have a scrapbooking day. I don't know why I love it so much. I'm normally a Kate Hudson/Reese Witherspoon movie type of gal but there's just something about those Autobots and Shia that I love.

After the movie we met Ashley, Jerad, Jeryn, my mom and dad, my brother, and his girlfriend at Cheddar's for our birthday dinner.

Trent borrowed Ashley's huge cupcake cake pan to make our cake. And since we only had 20 candles at the house it looks like me and Ashley are only 20 this year. Next year's 21 should be fun then ;)

The birthday girls celebrating 26 and 31. I always wanted a twin sister to co-celebrate my birthday with. This is what it would be like if my twin sister was cuter, taller, and way more athletic than me ;)

What I wished for has already came true... can't tell you yet though... that's for another blog post. And NO I'm not pregnant- just wanted to make sure no one got their hopes up! Mom.

And no blog post is complete without a little picture of my favorite girl. She really liked Tio's cake and even told us "happy birthday" :) Being an aunt is the best!