Jay and Lindsey's Wedding

I thought I'd finally post pictures of the wedding, though I'm sure all five of my blog readers have already seen them on facebook! After being sick for 3 freakin' weeks, I'm finally well! Or, I should say, well enough. The cough is still lingering, but I'm hoping another week's worth of Zyrtec and Musinex will clear it out. I went to the doctor last week and was told that all of my pain and suffering was merely allergies. Ugh. I was able to return to boot camp on Saturday morning and looking forward to going again tonight. It's been so beautiful outside the last few days and I haven't really been able to enjoy it.

There's been lots going on... weddings this and weddings that, mostly. Guess that's just how it goes when everyone you know gets hitched.

So the first wedding of the season was my twin brother Jay to Lindsey. Jay and Lindsey are the parents of my precious 2 1/2 year old niece, Madelyn... so most of us thought it was about freakin' time they tied the knot. They got married on a Friday evening at a banquet facility called Occasions in Royse City (right outside of Dallas). They had originally chosen the location because they wanted an outdoor venue for their wedding, but the harsh Texas winter and lots of rain prevented the venue from landscaping their outside so the ceremony was held in their chapel with the reception in their banquet hall.

It was a fun wedding! Of course, there were a few glitches in the actual ceremony. Madelyn woke up with an ear infection that morning and had to be taken to the doctor. At their absolute best, a 2 year old in a wedding party is a wild card. She made it about three rows down the aisle before she spotted her sitter and decided she wanted to cuddle with her. She could spot my dad sitting on the front row, so she started pointing at Pop Pop. My dad ended up having to carry her down the aisle and deposited her with a bridesmaid!

The second glitch had me crying from laughter. When Jay and Lindsey went to light the Unity candle Jay ended up knocking over all of the candles. They all fell to the floor and burned out. My dad still had the lighter from when my mom lit her candle, so he tossed it up to Jesse, who caught it and gave it to Jay so he could re-light the candles.

The reception was smooth sailing... though Jesse's best man speech was very random and even included a shout-out to Obamacare. It was fun two-stepping and being spun around the dance floor, and there was even a twin vs. twin dance-off between Jay and myself and Clay and Jared (Jay's fraternity brothers and ushers at the wedding).

Fam at the wedding

Jay and Lindsey with their potinis... they were yummy!

The Groom's Cake made by the Groom!

Precious Madelyn

Mother/Son Dance

Jay is a dance-off machine

Friends and Cousins at the wedding

Me and Cousin Kathryn

Lindsey and Jay Rush

Me and Andrea (or as Kathryn called her, that girl in all of my pictures)

Spring Break

Sorry for the extended absence, I've been a busy and very sick girl. I woke up LAST Tuesday with a sore throat, and made the decision that I should probably stay home from work. I took some meds and laid on the couch and napped, hoping that it would be a 24-hour kind of bug and would move along before my life got all crazy with DAR State Conference and Jay and Lindsey's wedding. NOT SO MUCH.

I'm still sick. 10 freakin' days later. Of course, I only have myself to blame. I couldn't really take the time to rest with so much going on. And I wasn't going to be the wimp who didn't enjoy herself because of a little sickness. Remind me not to be so stupid in the future. I can't tell you how much fun it is not sitting on a platform in front of 700 people running a fever while preparing to give a presentation. My apologies to any sweet old ladies I may have infected last week.

I believe my last fever was Saturday night, and I took it easy early this week with going home from work and taking naps and going to bed early. Then I woke up even more sick on Wednesday. I ended up having to leave work at lunch. Such a fun and exciting way to spend St. Patty's Day! Now I have the death cough. And I wish it would go away, because it hurts and it's loud and really puts a damper on my day.

This week I've grown to have a love/hate relationship with Spring Break. I absolutely love, love, love the lack of traffic on Austin roadways. My morning commute has been taking 15 minutes!It even rained one morning and I still didn't have any slow downs on my way into work. I've definitely used that time to get a little more sleep. It's been a-maz-ing. I will be sad to see Monday return with the annoying traffic.

And now the hate part. I absolutely loathe the increased foot traffic in the Capitol. There are so. many. tourists. EVERYWHERE. The elevators take forever. There's a line in the bathroom. There's a line in the cafeteria. People randomly open our door to peer in at least 10 times a day. Foreigners ask if they can go out on our balcony. Kids just open the office door and start snapping pictures. Seriously.

I guess it hasn't been that bad for me in Spring Breaks past because I've always officed in a not-so-desirable part of the Capitol. There's nothing very historic about the Capitol Extention, it's only about 15 years old. And no one wants to see an office with no windows. But you move up to the 4th floor and suddenly everyone wants to stop by your office and just stare at you. One guy asked me if this is where they bring the Taks tests to be graded. Really? I can only guess how well you did on that test....

But enough ranting. I promise to post pictures from the wedding next week, for those of you non-facebookers (are there really any of those kinds of people left?). This weekend will be busy with celebrating Phillip's birthday and Michelle's bacheloretteness. I'm very much looking forward to our trip to Fredricksburg for a wine tour! Now if only I could stop coughing, it should make for an interesting 10 mile run on Sunday....

To-do List:

***UPDATED 3/4/10*** I'm pretty dang impressed with the progress I have made over the last few days!!!

I've been meaning to make a to-do list for the next two weeks of C.A.R. and DAR State Conferences in hopes to relieve some stress, so here goes:

___ Write Sr. Registrar Report

_X_ Make seating chart for C.A.R. State Conference

_X_ Make seating place cards for C.A.R. State Conference

_X_ Make seating place cards for TSDAR Memorial Service

_X_ Print and mail Chapter Outstanding Junior Member certificates for signature (42)

_X_ Sign and mail OJ participation certificates for chapters (42)

_X_ Write Outstanding Junior Member Presentation for Thursday Night

_X_ Make corsages for State OJ Winner and Runner-Up

_X_ Order State OJ Pin for winner

_X_ Write Oustanding Junior Member Presentation for Jr. Breakfast

_X_ Write OJ Contest Chairman Report

___ Write "Texas Talk" OJ newsletter article

_X_ Finish Junior Breakfast Program

___ Make props for Junior Breakfast skit

_X_ Make Page certification cards for OJ Contest point

Hopefully work won't get in the way of everything I have to do! And hopefully nothing else will get added to the list...

SNOW!

Here is a picture of the snow falling outside of my office:

It started coming down pretty heavy right after I got to work. Then it stopped. Then it started again. Then it turned more to sleet. Now it's snowing again. I guess even snow in Texas falls into the typical weather patterns. I've spent most of the morning staring out the window just watching it. I'm not sure what's more entrancing... snow or curling. It's a toss-up. And right now I'm watching both!

We've been trying to convince the boss-man that we need to declare today a snow-day, but so far, no luck. Maybe I'll have better luck this afternoon. Because I mean really, there's no point in it snowing if I don't get to go home and curl up on the couch. Nevermind that I have to work tonight at BBW... I'd just enjoy a few hours off from work!

She's crafty...

DAR State Conference is in a couple of weeks. One of my jobs as the State Chairman of the Outstanding Junior Member Contest is to attain 2 corsages to be presented to the State Winner and State Runner-Up on the Thursday evening of the conference. There are two stipulations for these corsages: they must be silk flowers, and they must be yellow roses. Okay, the second might not necessarily be a stipulation, but I've only ever seen yellow roses as the corsage in my 10 years of DAR.

The previous chairman went to Michael's and had them make the corsages. I was out running errands yesterday and decided I should go ahead and get this taken care of, since it will be March 11 before we know it. I stopped by my neighborhood Michael's and was completely unimpressed in their floral selection and their lack of staff to assist. I decided to give Hobby Lobby a try today on my lunch break. While I was looking for someone to assist me in the floral section, I came across an aisle that had everything you needed to make your very own corsages. Of course, they seem to only think that people use silk corsages for WEDDINGS (which I have seen done well, but none of the displays were of that calibur)... but that's another story.
I gathered everything I needed and it came out to a grand total of $17.07, that's way cheaper than I thought ordering the corsages would be! I brought everything back to the office and in less than 30 minutes, this is what I made (the pen is for proportion reference):



I have to admit, I'm kind of impressed with myself! Who knew I could be so crafty?

Valentine's Day

This past weekend was Valentine's Day, and my parents did something they haven't done for me since my CHILDHOOD... they sent me flowers! Originally, the flowers were scheduled to be delivered to the Capitol on Friday, but I wasn't at work. Not sure what happened with the delivery since no one in my office ever saw it, but the flowers showed up on my doorstep Monday night. Very bizarre. But flowers, are flowers... no matter when they show up!

Of course, since they arrived I have remembered why it's a good thing no one ever sends me flowers.... Smokey finds them VERY tasty. She started chomping on them before I could even get them fully arranged in a vase. I first put them on top of a book case that is out of her reach, but she is determined. Last night I caught her several times jumping up onto the shelf below and trying to get her fat booty on the next level. Instead of sacrificing my book case, I had to resort to putting my flowers here....

Snow!

I went home to Lufkin on Friday for a funeral (my cousin's grandmother), and I got to witness beautiful SNOW! It NEVER snows in East Texas, and it was so pretty to see while driving. From College Station to Lufkin, there was snow everywhere. The Davy Crockett National Forrest was absolutely beautiful with snow-covered trees. Of course, when I drove back to Austin on Saturday, the snow was gone. And my car got gross from the slosh on the road, but it was due for a nice wash anyways. Here's some pictures of our house with snow, there had been more in the morning, but I didn't have time to walk around and take pictures before the funeral.