The Half-Century Party of the Century

I really didn't get enough pictures of this b/c my camera was out of memory, and I didn't feel like going through to delete pictures at the time. But Saturday night Jason and I went to a 50th birthday party (my first, I must say) for Glen Woita. Audrey and Glen have been so so special to us since coming to St. Louis. On the way home Jason and I were saying that even though we'll probably only be in St. Louis and at Crossroads for 3 years, Audrey and Glen will be a part of us for years and years after that because of what great friends they've been to us while we've been here. Here are a few pictures of the shi-shi Glen Woita business attire we had to make out of paper bags, duct tape, and ties.








And here's the birthday boy showing his true colors ....



And I cannot fail to mention and thank our host, Glen's beautiful bride, Audrey.

Besides some very entertaining Glen-centric games, we had great food, great music, and heard wonderful and hilarious stories about Glen's 50 years. We feel so lucky to be friends with the Woitas and to get to celebrate with them.

Oh yes, and thank you to the Hagars for hosting at the ranch. It was somehow both beautiful and manly, as always.

My Birthday!

I must say that this year was a rather wierd year for my birthday, in that I forgot about it. I pretty much never forget about my own birthday. Birthdays are still kind of big deal for me. At least they have been up until this year, I guess. Someone invited us over for dinner 2 weeks earlier for "next Friday." We typically don't do anything on Friday's so we both said sure! As it turns out, it was my birthday. ha. Oh well, we really enjoyed our time with some new friends that evening (I still don't think they know that it was my birthday that night), and we ended up going out to a fun dinner the evening before. So the night before my birthday we went to.... MoMo's (thanks for the recommendation, Missy!).

This picture is just from their website, but it's definitely a cool place. It's a Greek tapas restaurant, and it was soooo GOOD! We tried a lot of things that we never had before (nothing that you can get at the hole-in-the-wall-but-oh-so-good Gyro House). If you end up going, I would HIGHLY recommend the chocolate phyllo for dessert, and going to http://www.restaurant.com/ for a gift certificate. (restaurant.com could be a whole post by itself. we have tried so many nice restaurants in st. louis that we really shouldn't be able to afford because of that site!)

The actual day of my birthday was really good too. I got tons of phone calls and facebook messages and felt very loved. But I have to say that quite possibly the highlight of that day was at work (probably the only time I'll EVER say that) when an alum who I've never ever met before brought me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. I've emailed with him a million times, and he happened to be on campus all the way from New York moving his son into the Freshman dorms. One of the directors told him he was welcome to stop by and must have mentioned that it was my birthday. His entire family came to our office and presented me with the prettiest flowers I've ever seen. I wasn't going to say that to Jason, until he picked me up from work and said "wow. those are the prettiest flowers I've ever seen." So he agreed :-) I had to take a picture of them - but it really doesn't do them justice at all.

Finally, my wonderful husband got me a very fun present - one to go along with the anniversary present he got us in May. I can't wait to use it!!

It's orange, and it is for women 5 ft - 5ft 4'', so it's just my size (I didn't even know sleeping bags came in sizes), and it's good for down to 15 degrees - which i fully never expect to need.

I'm 24 now.

Beachin' it.

I love the beach, and I really REALLY love my family. So our last week of vacation was about as good as it gets for me. good sun, good books, good laughs, good games, good waves, good times. We joked several times we could most definitely be the poster family for Surfside Beach. I'm pretty sure all the other families wanted to join ours. We played bocci ball, paddle ball, football, foxtail, boogie boarded, flew kites, and went fishing (kind of). I'm sure it goes without saying that I was less than excited to get back to work today. Oh well, here a few of my favorite pics from the week. (check out Brooke's blog for a few extra pics of the festivities)

Sweet Griffin. He really acts like a big boy already and wants to do all the the things that Miles and Noah do. He practically swam out of Mikes arms to play basketball in the pool! First thing's first, Griff - you must master the walking before we let you dive in the pool by yourself.

The whole family tried their hand at guitar hero while we were there (jason and Mike, however, were the only ones who stayed up til 1am just to beat Guitar Hero II before they went to bed). My favorite rocker was definitely Mom. She even decided she should get a henna tatoo while we were at the beach just to go along with her rockstar persona. (she never did, by the way)

This is my favorite pictures of me and sister Dana from the whole week!

Despite all the sunshine, warm weather, the pool in the backyard, and the beach across the street, Miles really really really wanted to do this puzzle some time during the week. So the boys sat down and did it one morning all before lunch! very impressive.

This is how you relax and do nothing at the beach... in case you needed a tutorial.

Dad, chillin in the shade.

My super-cool dad had a photo exhibit of pictures that he has taken on his trips to Ghana displayed in a local Myrtle Beach museum. We were so glad they were still showing it when we were in town! It was pretty cool to see dad's pictures and bio and name all over the walls of this room!

The Brown family. How can I ever hope for my family to be this cute??

Thank you Dana, who gave Jason the absolute PERFECT birthday present - a bocci ball set. I don't know what Jason would have done all week without it. He spent probably at least 3 hours a day getting all the members of the familiy to play with him.

Gram and Pop in the water with Noah and Griffin. Miles was probably off somewhere "boogie-ing."

Miles and Noah - they were clearly just so excited for me to take their picture. Actually, I'm pretty positive Jason was sitting right next to me teaching them how to be ninjas or something.

Good times in Charlotte

Then we got to go to Charlotte where we met up with some more great friends. How crazy that Bobby and Jenna were in town while we were there! I sure wish we got to see more of them!

We made a few quick stops over to Brooke and Mike's house. On this particular afternoon, Schub decided he wanted to join in the kids' game of dress up. I think here he is Super-Knight-Cowboy-Bunny-Man.

This is one of Schub's best friends from high school, Steve. We get to hang with them every time we go to Charlotte. And their little boy Landon is just about the cutest thing i have ever seen.