Mr. & Mrs. Farris

Lace got hitched this last weekend in GB.  It was such a fun weekend - it seemed to go so fast though!  Here are some pictures.  I didn't take near as many as I should of... kinda mad at myself. 

Rehearsal Dinner:

All of the Bmaids - we should have done this earlier before it got so dark.

The beautiful bride putting on her dress!  It was gorgeous!!

Some of the Bmaids.  I'm happy to report that it only took 2 people to zip me into my dress.

Emily, Christy and I

Emily, Gina, Kala, and I

And then the 'icing' began.  If you don't know what icing is... go here.  Evidently 'bros' are just supposed to ice 'bros'.  However, this night we had our own rules.

Then came the best part of the night.  Lacey put a Smirnoff in her garter and Hunter found it when he was already down on one knee.  Priceless.  Tony has the whole thing on video... I think they could make some money with that!

I had been SO good about not falling for it.  I thought I was in the clear.  I was wrong.  Mitch had the bridal bouquet and asked me who caught it.  I said 'Gina, she always catches it'.  He's like 'hold this, I'm going to go find her.'  So I grab the bouquet... and I feel the cold bottle.  Damn!  I got got.  At least it was cold...

Great times with great people in Great Bend.  (sorry, couldn't resist)

June 20th

This is a day late, but better late than never right??  Happy Father's Day to my amazing dad!  Happy Birthday to my wonderful mom!  I was fortunate enough to get to spend the weekend with both of them.  My friend Lacey got married in Great Bend this weekend (post to come on that) and so we all made the trip to GB and stayed with my parent's friends.  Lots of laughs over lots of drinks.  It was such a great time! 
We are having dinner at our house on Wednesday to celebrate both, so I'll post pictures then. 
Love you both more than you know and thanks for everything you do for us!  MUAH!!

Danger!!!

This may not look dangerous, but after my experience with table umbrellas the past 2 weeks, believe me - it is!

A couple of weeks ago Gina Emily and I were going to see Sex & The City 2.  We decided to grab a drink at 810 Zone before we went.  It was a rather windy day, but nothing out of the ordinary for Kansas.  Our table didn't have an umbrella on it, but the poor table next to us did.  Two ladies were sitting there and all of a sudden the wood umbrella FLEW out of the table and bashed this lady in the face.  She was moaning and crying and YELLING that she needed a doctor/ambulance.  Gina grabbed the umbrella and put it on the ground.  That's when we noticed that this lady's face was gushing blood and her chest had also been cut.  However, she was still drinking her wine during all of this yelling, so I think she was a bit of a drama queen.  We tried to help as much as possible but the ambulance (and a fire truck, I never understand this) pulled up, and we had a movie to catch so we peaced out. 

Thinking it was just a crazy fluke, we had nothing to worry about at Fred P. Otts last night, right?  Wrong!  The guys sitting at the table next to us had the same thing happen to them!!  Nobody was hurt this time, and there were no paramedics/ambulance/firetrucks rushing in, but it made me realize that this probably happens pretty often!  Those umbrellas are out to get you!!  Watch your back!  You can be sure that I will not be sitting at any patio table with one of those man eaters again...

Suck it In!

I'm in my wonderful friend Lacey's wedding this weekend and I couldn't be more excited!  However, I'm quite nervous about the way my dress fits.  All in all, I should have gotten the next size up, but it's flowy and I didn't want to look preggo in it.  So I stuck with the tighter-than-hell size small.  I've tried it on (a.k.a. Tony's helped squoosh me into it) at least 3 times this week.  I keep thinking it will stretch just a little... just enough that I don't have side boobs.  So far it's not helping, but at least I can sit and breathe decently.  In Caitlin's wedding, I thought I was going to pass out from not being able to take a decent breath!  You would think I would learn either to lose weight or get a bigger dress!! 
It sure is a beautiful dress!!  I guess this is how the dress should look on... no side boobs there. 

Next week I'll let you know how many people it takes to get me into it on Saturday...

I love Doggie Daycare,

because it makes Margo tired.  Really tired.  THIS tired. 

Even when I drop a cucumber slice on her a$$, she just lays there.  Didn't even budge.  Not even a glance back at what cold slimy object just fell on her.  Reminder: this is a dog that eats everything!

I wish I could take her every day!

Hughes' Hoedown

This past Saturday we headed to Salina for my friend Nate's wedding.  The weather = craziness.  Serious storms all day long.  If you live anywhere in Kansas, you know what I'm talking about.  Seriously, is it EVER going to stop raining?!?  Usually it wouldn't be a big deal but this wedding was scheduled to be outside.  Somehow, it quit raining long enough for the wedding ceremony to take place, it was such a neat setting in front of Erin's parents farmhouse.  The wedding party arrived on a tractor and the guests sat on covered haybails.  It was so cute!

After the ceremony everyone headed to the covered tent for the reception.  Please disregard my sweaty face/hair in all of these pictures.  It was 97 outside and more humid than I have ever experienced in my lifetime.

GB friends:

It started storming again so we quickly assembled the sides of the tent considering our table was the closest to the opening.  I was 99.9% sure that the whole tent was going to blow away about 8 different times during the night.  It didn't.  But it was pretty close!  Tornado warnings were all around us.  Being out in the middle of the country with nowhere to take cover made me a little bit nervous...

My mama and I:

The rain stopped long enough for Tony and I to get a pic in front of the sunset.  It was gorgeous!  (the sunset, not this picture of us getting blown away)

The Newlyweds!!!

Gina, braving the storm to head to the bathroom

My mom got some great candid dance shots.  These are the less embarrassing ones:

Blake, Tony and Scott holding down the table.

After my wonderful mom stayed to drive us all back to our hotel, Caitlin Tony and I decided we wanted some food.  The McDonalds right next to our hotel was already closed so we treked it across the highway to a 24 hr. diner.  In the rain.  See??

And then Caitlin slept on the biggest roll away cot I have ever seen... 

Such a fun weekend getting to see everyone!  Congrats to Nate and Erin!  Next weekend, Lacey's wedding!!  Let's do it again :)

Tony Flay

Tony and I have a new weeknight dinner schedule we are trying out.  Note- this is for week days, on weekends we don't plan to cook since we are usually out and about.  While I claim that I love to cook everynight (most of the time I do love it), sometimes I'm just over it.  Especially during summer.  In the fall/winter I love doing chili or crockpot meals and having a nice homemade meal.  Summer?  Different story.  I brought this up to Tony about a month and a half ago.  Since he only works until 3:00 on Thursdays, I felt that it was only fair that he grill cook on that night b/c I work until 5:00.  We came up with this solution - we would eat out once a week (something cheap, nothing fancy), he would cook on Thursdays, and I would cook the rest of the days.  So far, he has gotten out of it EVERY week since we started this.  Not once have I tasted his amazing grilling cooking on a Thursday.  Tony's cooking day has turned into the day where we go out to eat.  Johnny's has BOGO burgers on Thursdays and clearly we can not pass that up!  I will take the responsibility for last week since I had friends in town and was gone, but all of the other weeks he has just been lucky!! 
Well... tonight is Thursday.  He says he'll figure out something before dinner time.  I'm hoping for something delicious.  Hoping that it's not fish sticks.  And hoping he read my email about Ahi Tuna being on sale at HyVee :)

Nashvegas

This past weekend I headed to Nashville for Lacey's bachelorette party!  Gina, Em, Chris, Cait, Linz, and I all flew out on Friday morning, landed in Nashville around 12:30 and headed to meet everyone else at a little mexican restaurant close to Lacey's sisters house.  There were 23 girls total, this is just a picture of the ones that got there first.

The beautiful bride to be relaxing with a marg...

Lacey's sister and cousin made an awesome dinner for all of us followed by a lingerie shower.  A surprise party bus picked us up around 9:00 and we headed to downtown Nashville!  First stop, Tootsies.  It's considered 'Nashville's orginal country music tour'.  Somehow we managed to score a front row spot.  I seriously never wanted to leave.  I've never had to pee so bad in my life (and my beer was empty) but I was not moving for fear of losing my spot. That should tell you how awesome it was. Repeat- my beer was empty.  The band we saw was amazing and we all knew every song they played.  Lots of country stars have played in Tootsies and Lace got to get up on stage and sing with the band!  Pretty awesome. Song = Here for Party.  How fitting. :)

Everyone decided we should bar hop... I cried a little.  As we were walking to the other bar (Coyote Ugly) the news crew stopped us and interviewed Lacey, Abbey and Candice about Rascal Flatts. 

Reporter : What do you like best about Rascal Flatts?

Lacey : The guitar player.  He's HOT!!

Poor Meghan had stitches in her foot and was on crutches the entire weekend, she sure was a trooper though.

Her name for the weekend?  One Leg Meg and Sausage Toes Chose.  I laugh everytime I think about it.  Seriously, have the giggles right now.

Christy and I also had our fun with the crutches...

Lacey's Last Rodeo continued with Day 2 being Lake Day! Weather was beautiful!

Lacey with the koozie that Meghan made her.  A bedazzled boot with a veil attached.  Cute!!

After 5 hours of being on the water and hooked up to a bachelor party that ran out of beer (what bachelor party runs out of beer??), led to our boats running out of beer so we decided to call it a day.  Oh wait, our boat won't start.  About 7 different people were trying to help us and no luck so we called the marina.  They are coming to get us... Note: we are 45 minutes away from the marina.  So we are stuck on the boat until then... without beer.  Tony laughed at me.  I told him it was not funny. 

Here's poor Em making sure the boat doesn't crash into the rocks:

Eventually we all get back, safe and sound.  Headed to dinner at a sports bar, had a post dinner party in the parking lot that consisted of 5 hr. energies, poprocks, and 40's... in paper bags of course.  When we got back to the house we all hung out on the deck for the rest of the night. 

I can tell it was an awesome weekend by the way I feel today.  I feel like I got beat up.  Very similar to the feeling after returning from Vegas.  My liver hates me. 

I'll sum this up with a few of my favorite moments.

Friday night Amy and I were walking back to the party bus with the driver.  Amy sees lots of people on the bus... says 'Oh, Heeeellllll No!' (in her cute texas accent) and runs onto the bus while yelling 'what the hell is this?!?'  The driver of the bus looks at me and says 'that's not your bus'.  I run after her and see this girl up in her face yelling back at her.  I'm grabbing her arm saying 'Amy, this isn't our bus.'  and we run off like little kids on the playground that just stole someone's lunch money.

Saturday on the lake, Gina gets into the water and starts freaking out that she is sinking the noodle so we throw her another one.  I'm sure she's yelling something about sinking, while flailing her arms in the air, and Lacey looks at her and says 'Why can't you swim??'  It was hilarious.  You might have had to be there for it to be funny, but it was.  The rest of day when Gin got into the water, she looked like this.  Absolutely my favorite picture of the weekend.

Our cab ride back to the airport on Sunday.  Cab is an hour late.  Gina has talked to yelled at him several times and he keeps saying he'll be there in 5 minutes.  He doesn't speak good english.  Shows up about an hour and a half late and we all get in.  As he takes off, we see a bag of green stuff in his driver's side of the door armrest.  Really?  So, that's why he was over an hour late I'm sure, and why the same terrible country song was on repeat our whole ride.  Got high and lost track of time listening to 'Blue Eyes Blue'.   Awesome.  Get us the hell outta here! 

And finally, just being with everyone!  It was fun to get to know Lacey's friends from Texas.  They are a crazy bunch just like we are.  Can't wait for the wedding in a couple of weeks!  I'm so happy for Lacey, she deserves the best and I'm so glad that she found Hunter.

More pics on Facebook, too many to put on here!

Big Love

This may or may not be a surprise to some of you - I have always wanted a Great Dane.  However, there have been times, see here, here, and here, where I almost regret having any dog.  When we first talked about getting a dog, my vote was Great Dane!  I came across these wonderful, sweet, and GINORMOUS animals when my friend from college Meghan had one named Stella.  No joke, it was like a person was sitting next to you... except she was furry. 
I would occasionally send my hubby, the cat lover, pictures like this to persue him... at one time (after a little help from his friend Vern, and I'm sure some brews) I almost thought I had won. 

Then I think I scared him off by sending him either one of these pictures via email...

I'm sure the convo went something like this. 
Tony - 'We are not having a dog that can eat our baby'
Me - 'It's like having a live in babysitter!!'

Needless to say, I did not get my great dane.  One day folks, one day. 
So the whole purpose of this post is because I ran across this blog today - Things Great Danes Eat.  Freaking Hilarious!!  Margo doesn't look so bad after reading these stories.  Is it bad that it kinda makes me still really want one???  Can you imagine if we had crazy 'i'll eat anything that's on the floor' Marg AND a great dane... I'd have to become a stay at home mom.

You would think...

...I would learn to put my shoes up... 

Another subtraction to my shoe collection has taken place.

My opinion on what the shoe should look like:

Margo's opinion of what the shoe should look like:

So help me God if she ever gets a hold of my heels...

Lake Bum

Well, after celebrating my birthday for about a week and a half, it ended with a trip to the lake.  Tony and I took off on Thursday night for the 3 1/2 hour trek to Kanopolis.  We had off on Friday and Monday so it was a well needed extended vaca!  I'm sad to report that I was terrible at using my camera this weekend... partly because my battery was dead and partly from the beer and mojitos.  We did a whole lot of laying out, hanging out with family/friends, drinking, sleeping in, and of course eating.  Tony is in a BBQ competition this next weekend and has to smoke sausage (heads out of the gutter please :) ).  He practiced a few different kinds on Friday and we got to test them out.  Tony's family was so cute and made me a 'birthday dinner' with my favorite - salmon!  Tony smoked the salmon as well and it turned out great!  (again, wish I had pictures) 

This was Margo's first trip with us to the lake and she actually did really well!  It seems like everyone has dogs up there and she doesn't understand that ALL of them don't want to be her friend, so we did have to keep her on her leash for most of the weekend. 
My wonderful friends Gina and Emily came down on Saturday to celebrate!  They are too sweet! 

I came away with a couple of pictures from the weekend - here's the view from the cabin.  Thought I'd take a beach picture of my toes :)

And of course a pic of Marg.  This is her scary face... actually she has no idea when this happens.  That's what face you get when you have a huge underbite.  Love it!