Fabulous and 50

Why hello there fellow bloggers! It seems like a year has passed since I've been on here...so much has happened in the days since my most recent post! Vegas (x2), Thanksgiving, New York, Dallas, & Christmas have all come and gone since I've blogged last. Where does the time go? I mean seriously, just when I thought I was catching up on life, work just took off and swallowed me up! Don't feel too sorry for me though :) I've managed to slip a few personal days in throughout the past two months! I'm going to try and stay organized through my next few posts and outline them in chronological order.... because I'm OCD like that.

I owe you all:

• Vegas trip # 2
• Thanksgiving
• New York
• Dallas
• and our 4 family Christmases!

There. If I type them out on here where you all can see, I'll feel obligated to blog them in a timely fashion :)

With no further ado... let me introduce to you my FABULOUS mother-in-law.

I know that there is a stigma with the term "mother-in-law". I mean pop-culture movies like "Monster in Law" and "Meet the Parents" give in-laws a queazy connotation by any mention of the term, but I'm happy to announce that I seriously won the jackpot with my mother-in-law.

Meet Susan:

Beautiful, smart, fantastic mother-daughter-friend-sister- and oh, did I mention mother-in-law? She's one of those people who is just magnetic. Throughout the past 5 years of knowing her, I've gotten to watch her work her magic on people. My friends, family, heck the lady at the checkout line in Walmart- you name it, they all love her. Susan has a way with people that is so intriguing to watch. Practical strangers confide in her for guidance and assurance! I've seen it!

Susan and I have had an abnormal (in a good way) "in-law" relationship since Ryan and I started dating. She is one of my very favorite people and I can tell her anything. We are VERY much alike (which is nice when she sides with me instead of Ryan! haha) I even look more like Susan than my own mom! (Haha, sorry mother, the facts are just the facts...Ginger is your clone anyway).

Susan turned 50 this November and insisted that we all go out to Vegas to celebrate. She even invited my mom and Dad to join in on the party. Ryan and I are truly blessed to be able to share such amazing memories with both of our families. Words can't describe how much fun we had, so I'm not even going to try. I'm leaving it up to the pictures to say it all. Enjoy!

That's all for now! Stay tuned for my sister-in-laws fabulous "fashion shoot" that we took while we were in Las Vegas coming up next!

Then NEW YORK with my girls after that! Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, now it's time to play CATCH UP!!

work hard play harder!

So I am completely aware that my family and I go to Vegas much more than your average relatives. However- between my family, Ryan's family, & our FABULOUS friends, we very seldom turn down a trip. I should definitely make a label here on my blog for just "Vegas". We are so fortunate to have families that LOVE traveling together- as a matter of fact, my family & Ryan's family will be going to Vegas again this month to celebrate my mother-in-law's 50th birthday!! SO judge if you want, BUT we are just a "Vegas Vacation" kinda family :)

This past trip was especially fun for two reasons.

1. It was Halloween weekend, and oh- mah-gah- did we see some costumes!

2. We went with our new friends that we met on our Royal Caribbean cruise last summer.

Many of my friends give us a hard time about traveling with people we met on a cruise ship. They think it sounds very e-harmony meets dateline.... HOWEVER if you knew these people and my family- you would totally understand. We met one day when the cruise buffet was short on seating... They offered us a seat at their table and next thing we knew we were fellow Texans having a fun lunch in the middle of the ocean! As the week went on (and the beer & pina-coladas flowed) the entire crew got to be great friends!

Kim & Mark invited us to join them (and Kim's hysterical friend Diana) in Vegas for Kim's "fabulous & forty" birthday weekend. We seriously had the BEST time!! We already knew we were good at traveling together, but it was such a different scene in Vegas! Saturday night we went to Blush at the Wynn and celebrated Halloween with some interesting characters. They were having a halloween costume contest and even though our group didn't dress up, we were NOT short of entertainment for the night! I have a message to any parents who's kids are in Vegas without them on halloween- BEWARE OF WHAT YOUR LITTLE GIRLS ARE WEARING!!! Oh my goodness.

The best costumes (and PG might I add) were Iron-Man (who literally engineered his entire costume, and it blew steam!) and the creepy baby mama (you just have to see the pictures).... Sasquatch on stilts ended up winning a $5,00o prize.... maybe we should have dressed up!

The weekend ended all too soon and we were sad to part, but fortunately Kim & Mark hired me to do their kitchen remodel in Dallas so I'll get to see them much more. Kim and her daughter even have a trip planned to come visit Tech over Thanksgiving weekend! Yea to new friends and yea for LAS VEGAS!!