Friday, December 18, 2015

'Tis the Season for a 12 Days of Christmas Pub Crawl

December is without fail the craziest / busiest / most insane month of the year, and in the hustle and bustle of things, all the holiday parties can start to blur together. BUT NOT THIS ONE. Some of my super cool co-worker friends put on a 12 Days of Christmas Pub Crawl, and it was hilarious and fun and wonderful.

If you're thinking "whoa 12 bars!??! that's a lot - yowzaaa!"... that was my initial thought too, but that's not how this pub crawl worked. It gets its "12 days of Christmas" theme because there were 12 different "teams" - each one representing one of the 12 days. I was designated the "team leader" for "8 maids a-milking" so I had to recruit 7 friends to interpret this theme with me.

Here are all 12 days...
(Photos by the super talented Ryk VanRavenswaay)

A partridge in a pear tree

2 turtle doves

3 French hens

4 calling birds

5 golden rings

6 geese a-laying

7 swans a-swimming

8 maids a-milking

9 ladies dancing

10 lords a-leaping

11 pipers piping

12 drummers drumming

WHOOOO CHRISTMAS!

xoxo,

Annie

Sunday, December 6, 2015

The Wedding Planning Chronicles: Meet the Bridesmaids

Wedding planning has been stressful at times, but overall pretty okay so far! There are just SO MANY DETAILS and things to think about - it's a bit overwhelming at first. One of my favorite wedding planning activities so far has been selecting/inviting my bridesmaids to be part of the big day.

I knew I didn't want a huge bridal party, so I kept the bridesmaid list pretty small. I chose 4 of my nearest/dearest friends (who just so happen to be representative of 4 very different/wonderful stages of my life) - Mary (my lifelong best friend since literally age 2), Kayla (my best friend from college), McKenzie (my fantastic LA roommate for 3+ years), and Kaylee (my incredible new sister-in-law).

They all pretty much knew they were going to be bridesmaids because I had more or less told them "Hey, I want you to be one of my bridesmaids" at some point or another, but I wanted to do the whole cutesy official invitation as well.

I found these cute customizable cards, so I customized them with my name/their names. (Sidenote- I thought these were like actual cards that would have room for me to write a note in them, but they def were not, so I had to write my heartfelt notes on random Warner Bros. cards I had. Hollaaaaa former employer!). I also found some cute necklaces with keys on them that I thought would appropriate for these girls who have played such a KEY role in my life. (Get it?) Then I used to Sticky9 to print some of my favorite photos with each of them through the years. It came together pretty nicely I think!

Let the countdown to the bachelorette party begin!

dancing excited kristen wiig maya rudolph bridesmaids

xoxo,

Annie.

Monday, November 9, 2015

8:11 October Highlights

Last month was my least favorite month of 2015 by far. It's been my busiest/craziest month at work, I got rear-ended (my car is still in the shop 3.5 weeks later), and my wonderful/loving/strong/amazing Papa passed away. To say I'm glad October's over is a huge understatement. (blurghhhhh.)

Despite all the horribly sad, frustrating, and stressful things that happened last month, it had some happy moments with friends, family, and Taylor Swift sprinkled in there as well. Here are my 11 favorite 8:11s from October...

8:11- the Barcelona BBQ cooking class at Central Market is legitttt. So much fun.

8:11- movie night with madre. @theinternmovie was delightful!

8:11- @beccaboo10108cooked us din and it is deliiiiiish. 😋

8:11- happy birthday to@thechrisleroux's mom! ❤️

8:11-thanks for having us over for din, boss! (Sorry your eyes are closed in the 8:11 pic.)

8:11- WE'RE READY FOR YOU TAYLOR!!

8:11- sometimes you just need some good pizza, you know?

8:11- long overdue catch up with @ashleymclontz over a homemade din. :)

8:11- I really lucked out in the family department. ❤️❤️❤️

8:11- love my family. ❤️

8:11- so excited @bhaz is in town!

xoxo,

Annie.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose [Costume Contests]

Happy day-after-Halloween! When the stars align and Halloween actually falls on a Saturday, it's a magical thing.

Chris and I had been planning our costume for months. Pretty early on in our relationship we started watching Friday Night Lights. Chris had never seen it before, so I was adamant about introducing him to the best TV show that has ever been on television. (Sidenote - if you haven't watch it yet, the entire series is on Netflix and you really have no excuse. Seriously, get on that). Chris loves it, as any normal / good human does, so we decided to be universally beloved Coach Taylor and Tami Taylor for Halloween.

clear eyes full hearts cant lose animated GIF

Definitely one of my favorite costumes I've ever done. (Shout out to Mary for masterfully trimming my extremely-way-too-long wig last time she was in town).

We wore these lovely costumes to our friend / party-planner extraordinaire Rhonda's fantastic house party. (The wig got very unruly after some time on the dance floor... I don't know how Tami Taylor does it).

Coach Taylor, Marshmallow Man, and Shooting Star (aka Rhonda the hostess with the mostest)

Hope you had a fun Halloween too! (And that you watch Friday Night Lights as soon as physically possible). :)

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose,

Annie.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Concert Review: Taylor Swift - 1989 Tour (Dallas)

If you ever get a chance to see that Taylor Swift live, you should absolutely do it. Homegirl knows how to put on a SHOW. I've been looking forward to seeing her again since I saw the Red tour in LA 2 years ago, and after seeing her this past Saturday at Cowboy Stadium, that 2 years of anticipation was well worth it.

Some general observations from the show -

Her fandom knows no bounds! I saw what I assume was a 3-year-old girl (but I'm really bad with child ages... she might have been 6 for all I know) emphatically singing every lyric of Blank Space to two middle-aged security guards breaking it downnnnn to Shake It Off... and everything in between.
The best signs I saw - 2 huge light-up cut-outs of her cat's faces.
The weirdest costume I saw - some dude inexplicably dressed up like a giraffe.
The number of T Swift costume changes - approximately 10.
She only played 4.5 non-1989 songs - Fifteen, Love Story, I Knew You Were Trouble, We Are Never Getting Back Together, and a little bit of Enchanted... I kind of wish she would have played a few more. Also, We Are Never Getting Back Together was legit unrecognizable at first - she did a very cool/different/punk rock-y version (that I def like better than the original).
Every song is a full-on production and her stage is a crazy moving robotic catwalk that is amazing.
She has the best hair.
Ellie Goulding was the surprise guest and they sang Love Me Like You Do and it was fantastic.

In addition to being an amazing songwriter/performer/superstar extraordinaire, homegirl is also very well-spoken and inspirational. Numerous times throughout the show she gave motivational speeches (main takeaways: don't let bullies who write mean things on social media get you down ... keep singing/dancing... it's better to be happy than cool.) Let's just say these speeches brought one of my close friends (who shall remain nameless) to tears on 2 different occasions at a recent show.
It's hard to pick a favorite performance... I think my top 2 were Out of the Woods and Shake It Off. For Out of the Woods her dancers had these huge paper airplanes flying over the crowd (from the lyric "... Baby like we stood a chance, two paper airplanes flying, flying, flying...").

Basically, it was one of the best shows I've ever been to and I already can't wait until I get to see her again (probably in approximately 2 years). :)

xoxo,

Annie.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

8:11 September Highlights

Since I'm bringing the blog back, I figured I might as well bring the 8:11 highlights back too. :) Here are my favorite 11 favorite things I did at 8:11 pm last month...