Coldplay!!!!

So my birthday present to myself this year was to buy Coldplay tickets. My roomie Claire is a Coldplay fanatic and she decided to help me celebrate my birthday too ;-). Tickets went on sale on my birthday, so I had been patiently waiting for July 22nd to arrive for five whole months. Whew. It was tough. And then, the BIG NIGHT. Nothing like going to an outdoor concert in Houston at the end of July. Ha. We ran into our friends Adrienne and Allyson. They let you bring in cameras! I had left mine in the car 'cause I figured they wouldn't let me bring it in...so all the pictures are compliments of Allyson. The show was great! I couldn't get over how professional the video was for the big screens they had up, and the energy that Chris Martin (lead singer) has! Holy cow, he must eat like 47 GUs with rocktane or something like that before the show. They started the set with with my favorite song, Violet Hill, so I was pretty excited...very very good show. Great effects and lights. I highly recommend you see them next time they are in town.

Claire, Allyson, and me- prepared with ice cold water and frozen lemonade :)


Ahhh, Coldplay!!!!


Lead singer Chris Martin


"Yellow"

Amanda's wedding doings...

I am finally catching up on my blog.

So one of my roommates, Amanda, got married last weekend. Her now-husband, Dave, goes to my church and mentioned she needed a place to live for a couple of months, so we threw some curtains up across the entrance to the den, unfolded the fold out couch, and voila! another bedroom. It was fun having her here for those months, although we joke that we will all probably see her more now that she is married than when she was living with us (opposite schedules, etc) :). I've been a bit bad about taking pictures of things- I think my schedule is already so full that I don't think of blogging or scrapbooking, so I forget to take pictures. Here are a few from the shower and the wedding:

Amanda opening gifts at the shower


The four roomies


The Charlie's Angels pose


Awww, Amanda and Dave :)


The roomies at the wedding

A break :)

I just needed a break. So I took one. After the weekend in Arizona, I headed out to Los Angeles. My friend Angie and her husband Andrew recently moved to Canyon Country, CA (they used to live in College Station and housed me for two hurricane evacuations :) ). Angie picked me up at the airport, looked over at me and asked "so what's the plan?". I replied "beach, Disneyland"..."Good plan". We spent the afternoon roasting (literally, unfortunately, so much for SPF 70) in the California sunshine and ate dinner outside of Knott's Berry Farm.

Huntington Beach

The next morning we were up bright and early to go to the BESTEST PLACE EVER- Disneyland!

We ended up spending 14.5 hours at the park and had such a fun time.

Ice cream and Disneyland- ::sigh of happiness::


Sporting our uber cool Minnie ears (Angie and I and two of our friends took a road trip back in college here- she got a princess hat with ears and I got a Mickey santa hat..yeah we do the ear thing).


No, we didn't actually ride the teacups- my stomach and things that go around and around don't agree


On Wednesday morning, Angie took me to this breakfast place that has 101 omelets. She got a peanut butter and jelly omelet. It was really tasty. Really. Egg is very neutral tasting so if you can just get past the mental image of eggs and peanut butter, I promise your tummy will be happy.

Ah, good times, good times.

10 Year Reunion

Yep, that would be my ten year high school reunion...the time went so fast! Although, I do have to say that it doesn't feel like I just graduated yesterday...too much life has happened since then, but it definitely doesn't feel like ten years!

My best friend from junior high, Kristen- she moved during our freshman year- I haven't seen her since my freshman year in college.


Me and Helen- we used to walk to and from elementary school together

Thoughts on the reunion? It was a bit surreal...seeing people I haven't seen since graduation night, now all grown-up and discussing our doings over drinks and dinner...strange to see them without a backpack :). What I think impressed me the most, was the confidence that everyone has...when you're 18, there are still so many unanswered questions about what to do and where to go...ten years removed from those big decisions, it was awesome to see how settled and confident my classmates are, families, careers. Confidence, as most of you will remember, wasn't run-of-the-mill in high school ;-). We're all grown up. It will be interesting to see how another ten years affects that confidence...how life events will shape us.

Me, Tommy, and Nic- these guys cracked me up all through high school- things haven't changed :)



Justin, Jason, Hank, Jonny, Lydia and I...Jason, Jonny, Lydia, and I have great academic decathlon memories, and the rest of the group, many years of shared honors and AP classes, quips, studies, and good times.


Michelle and I- we were in Girl Scouts together...which means I have known her since elementary school, and she does tris, which makes her even cooler ;-)

It was also fantastic to reconnect with friends- we all mentioned at least once or twice, how great Facebook has been in removing some of the awkwardness of reconnecting. Gotta love technology. I also had the chance to talk with a few people whom I never took the chance to know better in high school- one gal and her husband live in Dallas now and I am hoping to be able to see them in the future. All in all, I'm very glad I went. :)

holy delayed blogging batman

Yeah, I've stunk at blogging recently...there seems to be an epidemic of that right now...things have been really busy with work and such, so extracurricular activities have been limited to training and sleeping :). And then of course, when I do do something, like last weekend 3/4 roomies went outlet shopping and then had dinner with Carolyn Yohe and the fabulous Adrienne at the Yohe abode...I totally forgot to take pictures...similar case with yesterday- 4th of July festivities included a pool party at the Parris' and hangout time with the McFerren clan....but I didn't take pictures! :(...so here's the one picture I have taken in the last couple of weeks. I made a 4th of July trifle for the party. It was yummy...only Lisa and I ate some at the first party, so I enlisted the help of the McFerrens. They stepped up to the plate and finished the job in about 10 minutes flat ('course, there's a LOT of them ;-) ). I should have more exciting blogs coming up...10 year reunion, California and Disneyland...excitement!

5 year anniversary!!!

Yesterday marked my 5 year anniversary with NASA. Five years...sometimes it feels like I've always been here, and sometimes it feels like I just moved here...crazy. Still lovin' it... :)

Tea Party Extravaganza!!!

So, as most of you know- I co-lead a girls discipleship group at my church. We have 20 girls ages 13-20 in our group and to wrap our True Beauty/Modesty discussions...and kind of the year... we held a Mother/Daughter Tea Party on Saturday. It was a lot of fun- we had the owners of Bellisima! come in and do a fashion show and give a talk on dressing modestly and what beauty really is (their clothes are great by the way) and we had some activities for the girls and their moms, and of course lots of goodies. At the end, we honored our four older girls who help us by leading individual prayer groups of girls. I got all cry-y and choked up and couldn't figure out why...later I realized it was because we started the group with these four girls four years ago- and it is amazing to see how much they have grown spiritually and into such Godly young women...I was overcome with God's grace and mercy in their lives and for the privilege I have of getting to interact with such fun and inspiring gals. I truly love these girls dearly and I can't wait to see what God is going to do with our group this coming year!

And finally, someone took a picture of the roommates (folks at church call us the Chicklets :) )



Claire, me, and Pam