where i'll be:

You can find me underneath one of these this weekend. Maybe starting the Hunger Games series.

& saying goodbye

A few more pictures of my little visitors last month. This is always the hard part - saying goodbye - especially with a short visit. But Krispy Kreme in Penn Station helped a bit, I suppose.

twinkies (without planning it, they said.)

impromptu doughnut monocle.

little girls in the big city

I can't believe it's been a month since I had these little surprise visitors visit me in New York. We had a fun (short) day, and I hope that they weren't too worn out or scarred to come visit again soon. As I was reminiscing about them being here, I wanted to share some adorable pictures that were too cute to miss. Thanks for braving the city with these two, Mom! I loved having all 3 of you visit.

McKay's I [heart] NY shirt: so perfect.

We found Minnie & Mickey in Times Square!

cute sisters.

All the M&M's they could imagine...

Of course I took them to Shake Shack.

...and, the American Girl store.

Dinner at Carmines.

bride and groom

How beautiful (and phenomenal!) is this picture?!

This is the bride and groom from the wedding in Vermont this weekend! Pretty amazing.

this is only the beginning.

Yep, this is only the beginning of the fun we had at the wedding in Vermont this weekend. Brendan, John and I (almost missed it, but) hit up the Photo Booth at the reception which was sooooo.fun.

I never met the bride - only the groom as I was walking into the wedding - so hopefully this will be a warm introduction for the bride when she sees these photos in her guest book!

sidewalk art

These little reminders were written all over the sidewalk in my neighborhood last week. I know they made at least one person smile. Such an unexpected way of being encouraged!

my very own.

And now I have my very own! Thanks so much to Bethany for bringing this back to me from Israel!

another amazing wedding video.

A friend of a friend proposed to his girlfriend a few weeks ago...in Bryant Park...with a marching band...and a flash mob. It doesn't get much better than this! The story even made it on ABC News.

Just check this out,



Thanks Pamela for sharing this!

best cake in the entire world.

This is lemon poppyseed cake that my friend Kyo made for her birthday party this past weekend. I wish you could taste how good it was just from looking at this picture. Because, if this is possible, it was even better than it looked. You all know I'm a big cake person, and this one - literally - took the cake. (Gosh, why do I think such terrible, corny jokes are funny?) My compliments to the baker!

And, I put in a request for one of these for my birthday...in 5 months.  It was that good, folks.

shalom y'all

Southern love...all the way from Jerusalem! 

[Thanks for sending Bethany! Safe travels!]

pretty shower details.

I mentioned in this post that I went to a wedding shower this past weekend. The details and decorations were all so pretty and lovely. I especially loved the Mason jars with washi tape around them. Such a simple and easy addition that makes such a big difference. So very pretty!

big apple bbq festival

As I mentioned, this past weekend was the Big Apple BBQ Festival. It happens every year around the second weekend in June, and I look forward to it all year long. That's mostly because my favorite BBQ from growing up and visiting my grandparents, Big Bob Gibson's in Decatur, Alabama, comes to the event every year with loads of pulled pork and their famous white BBQ sauce. And every year, it's the only BBQ I'll eat at the festival. (One year, I got my picture taken with the owner!) This year - as is the case every year - Bob Gibson's had the longest line, and Brendan and I stood in the line for over 45 minutes for a couple of pulled pork sandwiches. There's nothing else quite like it! It was worth every minute we waited. Until 2013, Big Bob...

[I took the picture of me eating Big Bob's just for GG and Anna Curl!]

my rehearsal dinner speech

Rose Lynn and I have a pretty special friendship. We met on our sorority bid day at Auburn, yet we had no idea how much history we already had. As we were taking in all of the bid day festivities and looking around as nervous freshman at 54 other girls we barely knew, her dad spotted my mom in the crowd gathered in front of Mollie Hollifield Hall. Mr. Mike, Rose's dad, recognized my mom from 20+ years before. He recognized her because some 20 years earlier, my dad was Mr. Mike's high school football coach, long before the thought of either of us had entered anyone's mind. My parents had 3 small kids when my dad was a high school football coach, and Rose's dad never knew I came along because he was a senior in high school the year he played football for my dad. (Can you imagine his surprise when he realized his high school football coach had a daughter the same age as his?!) The rest of the story of our friendship is pretty much history. Rose and I spent spring breaks together, ate 85% of our meals together in college, and drove identical cars at Auburn. Once, she drove me home, 3 hours to Tuscaloosa, so that I wouldn't miss my niece's pajama birthday party. I had stayed up all night the night before finishing a final project, and could barely keep my eyes open to walk, much less drive. We really formed more of a sister bond than a friend bond. I feel like she's as much a part of my family as I am hers. She's visited at least once each year I've been in New York, gotten me through many emotional breakdowns - in New York and in college - and was the best darn Chemistry tutor I've ever had. Meanwhile, I was helplessly watching as she studied endless hours during her time in pharmacy school, and anxiously waiting for her next unbelievable story from the life of a real-life pharmacist. And now...she's married. With a husband.

Oh. My.

And oh my, what a fun weekend the wedding was! I finally have more pictures to share (that aren't from my iphone) that I'll post in the next few days. I thought it was only appropriate to give the full background of how special this girl is to me before I shared the details of her wedding. Plus, this is what I meant to say in my toast to her at her rehearsal dinner. But I was too busy holding back tears to say any of this. Or anything at all, for that matter.

scenes from the weekend

This weekend was a fun one! It was very busy with lots of fun things going on, and now I'm having to take a deep breath to take on this Monday. Sometimes the weekends wear me out more than the work week. But with summer here and lots of fun things to celebrate, I think I can handle that!

On Friday afternoon, I spent some time at the Great Lawn in Central Park before heading to my fave italian spot, Carmines, for dinner with some friends, which turned into a spontaneous birthday celebration for Nichole. Saturday, Brendan and I went down to the Big Apple BBQ Festival (another post on that) and then to Brooklyn Heights for a friend's graduation party. Sunday we went to a wedding shower for some friends (Brendan's first, which he loved) and then ended with dinner at my UWS neighb-fave Jacob's Pickles. It was a wonderful way to celebrate the beginning of summer weekends. Ah, my favorite time of year is finally here.

on times square

"When I had a look at the lights of Broadway by night, I said to my American friends: "What a glorious garden of wonders this would be, to any who was lucky enough to be unable to read." 

-G. K. Chesterton

[from Andrew C Mace's flickr]

no vegetable left behind

When I was home in Alabama last month, I made sure I got in all of my most favorite eating spots (& more than once when possible). I don't always make it to City Cafe when I'm home because they happen to be closed on holidays, which is the primary time I'm in Alabama to visit. This time, I made it there twice in my nine days. And to make this story even better, I got to hang out with Meg (and her little girl, Reagan, who quickly became my new BFF) on one of my lunch dates there.

As I'm sitting here in my New York City apartment, trying to decide what I'll have for lunch today, I sure do wish City Cafe would deliver a fried chicken breast fillet, fried okra and mashed potato plate to my door. With a sweet tea. All for $5.65.

Proof above, no vegetable left behind.

abc news-worthy wedding

Congrats to my friends Asa and Joanna on getting married last weekend in Texas! I wish I could have been there for their special day, but I'm so glad I got to see a piece of it on ABC News!

update:

To see the video clip of Joanna and Asa on their wedding day from ABC News, click here.

[Joanna and I went to Africa together!]

thinking about this today:

[from pinterest]

that wedding.

Last week I mentioned that I went to another wedding. And then I said that there was more to come later on that wedding. That "more to come" just meant I was biding my time until the bride & groom's first dance was posted on youtube. It turns out, the bride is a very accomplished actress on broadway. And she completely choreographed a spectacular flashmob for their first dance as husband and wife. To say it was amazing would be a gross understatement; my chin dropped to the floor the moment I knew what was happening.  If you don't believe me, take a look for yourself at the video. Everything started out with a normal first-dance song to Dave Barnes' "On a Night Like This" and it quickly turned into THIS...I'm still smiling...I felt like I was at a broadway play....

give me these, or give me death

just kidding, just kidding. That's a little dramatic! But, seriously, how adorable!

[Kate Spade on Gilt. They're no longer available. Glad I snapped this screenshot to look at them!]

happy national donut day

I hope all of you got a free donut today. At least one. (It's the 75th Anniversary!)

I got mine! No surprise there.

Read more about the history of National Donut Day. Pretty interesting stuff. 

this week on the park forum

This week I wrote a guest post over on The Park Forum's morning devotional blog, 843 Acres. The devotionals there follow a 1-year reading plan, so May 29th happened to be on the book of Jude.

If you're interested, check out the post: "On Simple Pleasures in Contending for the Faith."