Saturday, April 2, 2011

Happy Jennie's Birthday!!!!! ***picture heavy***

Today, one of my older sisters turns 27. I shared a room with her for a very long time, and many days were spent with me cleaning while she sat on the bed reading. Thankfully she grew out of that, but not until after we weren't room mates anymore. She is also the only blonde in our entire immediate family, and she's also very tall. Well, tall for our family at 5'6" while the rest of us are 5'1", 5'2" and 5'4" respectively. Anywho, last night was the night we celebrated, and we did so by meeting up in Columbus at the Easton Town Center to have dinner at the Mongolian Barbecue!
Birthday girl looking slightly manic with her barbecued pineapple stir fry stuff.

We had a blasty blast watching other people be given balloons and made tinfoil hats. Other than all of the grill men singing a tuneless Happy Birthday to Jennie, nothing else happened. No special dessert, no hat, no balloon. But not for lack of trying! Our friends Laura and Nicole did their darnedest to make sure every waiter and waitress and busboy and grill man in the building knew it was Jennie's birthday.



Basically it was a really great, fun night. Lots of birthday people came in, though considering it was April Fool's Day I have to wonder how many of those birthdays were real...

Random change of subject, but when my mom was still with us, but was fading slowly, we decided we would get these charms called Thumbies. Basically they send you information that includes a card for a fingerprint and a plastic pull-off sheet with black packed powder inside. Aunt Lauri and I spent a good fifteen minutes trying to get a good fingerprint from my mom's limp hand (she was fast asleep and had no idea we were doing anything to her). It was actually kind of hilarious because we discovered we were really bad at it. However, what they do is you send in the print and they create a charm using the fingerprint. You can get plain round ones, or you can get a heart shape, or a double heart. My dad got a double heart with Mom's fingerprint on one and his own on the other. I got a single heart. My sister got the basic round. My aunt got the basic round also, but with a jewel at the loop. We ordered them the week or so after the funeral and they finally came in. Jennie brought mine to me yesterday and I took a picture of it.

The back is engraved with "Mom 1958-2011", just in case you can't read it. And that little squiggle thing I think is their trademark. But anyway, I'm wearing it now and will most likely wear it often and someday will bequeath it to my currently hypothetical daughter.

Here's a few more photos of the night, just to wrap it all up!

Why yes, that IS a Mini hanging on the side of the parking garage...

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Monday, March 28, 2011

Bridal Showers and Babies

I have decided I should never eat again. Because when I do eat, I eat far too much and then I feel fat and then I don't have time to work out and shower before bed so then I sit and be a lazy bum and it's too cold to go outside and run and basically it needs to be warm so I can buy a pass to the park and go do stuff.

I'm going to talk about bridal showers. My younger sister is getting married on May 28th and I am the maid of honor (huge shock when I found out, let me tell you) and we had her shower on Sunday. She is getting married exactly two months from today, which is insane, to the guy she has been dating since they were in the 7th grade, which is even insaner. She is the only one of the four girls to manage that, and I have no idea how she did. But all that aside, she's getting married, she's annoyingly tan for a family of German/Swedish/Irish white-ness, and we are all very happy for her.

We had a blast getting the family together at my aunt's up in Wooster, OH. All the ladies stayed at the house to watch Anne open presents and to play with the babies (a nine week old girl!! Cutest thing ever!) and take pictures while all the older children and the men went bowling. I had brought my camera, but the memory card was still in my computer three and a half hours away so I am basically an epic fail, but her future sister in-law took a bunch of photos so once she Facebooks them Ima stealin'. It was a good thing anyway because I had to document every gift she got and keep track of cards so picture taking wouldn't have worked out anyway.

But I did take two phone photos of the baby with my sister...

This is Jerusha. She is half Indian (as in from India indian) and half blue eyed blonde haired American. SO cute, and a very happy little girl!

The only damper on the day was the one woman not present from the merry gathering, and she was very much missed. We shed tears, we shared memories. My aunt, who organized the event, doesn't do games so there wasn't Toilet Paper Wedding Dresses or What's in Your Purse or anything like that, but what we did do was give advice. Some of this advice was recycled, as four of the younger generation of women were all married within the last decade. In fact, my cousin Corrie shared what Mom wrote on a little card to her at her shower years ago, something about holding hands every day with my father and it was much sweeter when Corrie told it with tears glistening in her eyes. I know how much my mom would have loved to have been at Anne's shower, and to eventually have gone to mine. And I can't even tell you how many times I have wished I asked my mom for advice on how to be a good wife to my Johnny before she was gone. But since she isn't there Anne and I rely on our aunts and cousins and grandmother to be our helpers and guides, a task they are all ready and willing to fulfill. It's amazing to be part of such a close, loving and giving family, I can't imagine a better one.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Anne really liked her Pampered Chef present from me. :-) Since I can tell you now, I gave her a cutting board that has measuring cups that fit into it, a collapsible strainer that also fits into it, and a "hold n' slice", which is basically a big pick you can use to hold the fruit/veggies/whatever that you're cutting without sliding or slicing your hand open by accident. And my card was extremely sentimental. I wrote, "Enjoy. With love from your maid of honor, Emily."     ......... ;-)