Thumbprint Guest Book Tree.

I am so bad!  I just went through my drafts in my blog, and found so many posts that I didn't quite finish and SHOULD have posted!  Now, they are so 'out of date' I will spare you.  BUT, I do want to share this....now remember, this is an OLD post.

Written before our wedding in July

I am sooooo excited about our guestbook!  We are not doing your traditional "sign on the line" type of book!

We are doing this!

This poster will be laying on the table for guests to come "Leaf their thumbprint"!  How cool is that!  Everyone will use the green ink pads, print their thumbs, then sign by their print!  I can not wait to have this hanging on my wall forever.  

If any of you are in the market, check out GreyDogDesigns on Etsy.  She is so great and very helpful!  Thanks for all your help!

Now, here I am in DEC posting this blog...

I wanted to show you how cool this turned out!  I absolutely love it.  We have it hanging in our hallway right outside of the guest bathroom.  When friends come over who were at our wedding, they LOVE to stop and find their signature on it :)  

Pual leaving his mark :)

This is it hanging in our house :)

LOVE!

Trip to Montreal for my 30th!!

Back on 11/12/11 I turned the big three-o!  Sean and I decided back in August that it would be a lot of fun to go somewhere different.  We landed on the idea of Montreal.  Boy was it COLD...but we couldn't have picked a more perfect place to go.  It is an amazing city.  We want to make a trip back during the Spring or Summer months.

We were lucky to have some special family and friends join us on our little getaway!  My brother Shawn and his wife Anastasia.  This was a big deal for them to go away!  They have a 10 month old and this was their first trip away from the buddy!  Also, Dean and Karime.  They are friends of Sean's who live in Hamilton, Canada.  And lastly...Alex and Tam.  They are a couple Sean and I met a few years ago when traveling to Turks and Caicos.  They gave us their email and told us if we ever come to Montreal to give them a shout!  We did and we had a great time seeing them again :)  It isn't always easy finding people you travel "well" with.  I think we validated we are all good travel partners on this trip!

Here are some of the photos from our trip!  

Waiting on our shuttle in long term parking at DFW

Cheers to our first night in Montreal!

Trying to understand french!

Poutine!  (french fries, cheese, and gravy)

It was SOOOO cold!

Check out that 'feels like' temp!

Warming up with cafe au lait

Old Montreal 

Nothing like Bailey's in the hotel room after closing a Real Estate deal!  YAY Hubs!

My new favorite.  A Bloody Ceasar (like a bloody mary w/ clam juice --not it doesn't taste fishy or like clams!)

Friends Dean and Karime who met us in Montreal. 

Mustard!!!  and a LOT of it!

Night cap :)

China Town

Eggs Benedict.  My favorite!

Brother Shawn and Anastasia eating a delicious treat.

Government building.  Awesome!

Out REALLY celebrating my 30!
Dean, Me, Tam, Sean, Alex, Brother Shawn

My sis-n-law + me + Karime

Little french restaurant

Love this.  Picture doesn't do it justice.

That's right.  Mojitos at 3am.
Tam, Sean, Alex, Me

Eating my 'Happy Pork Chop"

Brother Shawn ready for his duck in a can!

Our hotel!  Place d'Armes

Thanks to everyone who came.  You truly made my 30th birthday :)

Wedding Video Highlight!

Ooooooh, the day finally came!  Monday night, around 9pm while I was waiting on Sean to get home from a work event, I was laying on the couch watching TV.  My phone lit up and when I saw the message I about died!  It was from Sarah, at PenWeddings!  Our video highlight was officially posted!  I was soooooo excited.  I thought for a moment I should wait to watch it with my husband for the first time, but I couldn't stop myself.  I was already running into the computer room to watch!  (O'well, at least I had the nice thought to wait :) )  He didn't care b/c he knows how anxiously I have been waiting for it!  Anyway....I watched it and before the last few seconds were over, I was dialing my parents!  I didn't really care if my mom was asleep (selfish, I know, ha!) but I had to share it with someone!  So then I watched it again with them on the phone and we were all just dying laughing.  About 10 minutes later, Sean came home!  I think we watched it up until about midnight, to where we switched to the bed, and watched it again on our iPhones, ha!

I could not be more excited about this video.  There is no doubt in my mind it truly captures the feeling and excitement of July 3, 2011.   Now I am sitting, anxiously awaiting for the full DVD version to come to me in the mail.  My Christmas wish this year is to have those DVDs in time for Christmas, when my family will all be together again on the mountain in AR.  I. CAN'T. WAIT.

If you haven't already seen it, here's the video!  Please enjoy :)
And lastly, BIG SHOUT OUT TO PenWeddings!  THANKS SOOOOOO MUCH!  You made our wedding day come back to life in this film.


Catherine + Sean | Mildred B. Cooper Chapel Wedding Film from Sarah Pendergraft on Vimeo.
 

LSU vs. Auburn - 10.22.11

2 weekends ago, my family took our annual trip down to Baton Rouge for a big SEC game!

Sean and I woke up eaaaaaaarly Friday morning to make it alllllll the way to BR in time for dinner!
My parent's drove to Shreveport on Thursday night, so when we hit Shreveport on Friday, we met at a gas station off the interstate and caravanned the rest of the way down!  Sadly, my brother Adam wasn't able to make it this year.  He was missed and it definitely wasn't the same w/o him.  Next year, brother!

So....back to the caravan (I am SO BUMMED I didn't get a picture (or video) of this moment), but when my parent's pulled up to greet us, they had the windows down and were blaring the LSU Fight Song with Tiger Puppet on the dash (Tiger Puppet:  a stuffed LSU tiger puppet my mom found at a flea market that plays the fight song!)!  We had to get to BR in time to pick up the other brother, Shawn, at the airport by 4pm.  We couldn't pass through Lecompte, LA w/o stopping for a ham sandwich and a piece of pie!  YUMMM-Y!  The remainder of the drive was spent HeyTelling back and forth on the back roads of south Louisiana, discussing how nice it would be to live such a simple life on a sugarcane farm.

We made it BR just in time to get Shawn, RIGHT on time actually :)  That evening, we all went to Parrains for dinner.  It was myself, Sean, Shawn, my parents, my Uncle Jim and Suzanne.

The rest of the weekend, I can recap in pictures....

Sean + Me

Me + My Momma

The crew: my Dad, my Mom, Suzanne, Uncle Jim, Shawn, Sean, Me

Oh my GOSH the food was soooo good there.  My mom and I split a meal and still had leftovers.  Dinner was over around 8, and everyone was ready for bed.  Well, everyone except for myself + my 2 favorite S's (husband Sean and brother Shawn)!  You see, everyone else was staying in a pretty nice HOTEL, while the 3 of us decided to save money and stay in a not so nice MOTEL.  On our way home from the restaurant, the thought of hanging out in our motel room didn't sound so appealing.  Not when New Orleans is only 1 hour away!  Who wouldn't want to head out of town...at least for a few hours.  We could go and be back by midnight (cough. cough.)!  DONE!  We went upstairs, got ready and met back at the car within 10 mins ready to GEAUX!

On our way down, brother Shawn and I jumped on our phones and immediately started contacting anyone we knew living in the NoLA area!  We had great success finding out where to go.

The Superdome all lit up!  Loved the purple lights!

We went to Maple Leaf Bar in Uptown for some local Funk/Jazz.  We found it, and loved every minute of it!

Flow Tribe - amazingly funky!

Me w/ Brother Shawn 

My friend Becca is a local NoLA artist and I hadn't seen her in years!  We roomed together in college while in Paris.  She was out on Frenchman Street, so after lots of dancing, we decided if we were going to do this right, we had to switch locations.  Off we went....The Spotted Cat was next up, in the Quarter.  (side note: it is now approaching 2am...who said anything about being home by 12am?).

Nothin' better than live New Orlans jazz

Becca + Cat (only she was dressed as the cat.  A WhoDat Cat to be exact!

After much convincing, I finally convinced the boys it was time to GO!  It was 3 and we had to be at the tailgating spot at 9 and we still had an hour drive home!  We said our goodbyes and off we went.  Thank goodness for Shawn + Sean's love for Radiohead b/c that is what got us home!  We made it around 4am.  We were picking up my Mom and Suzanne at their hotel at 9.

OH...another side note: we decided not to mention on Friday night we were heading to New Orleans b/c we didn't want to worry them that we wouldn't be "fresh" and ready to go for the early AM tailgate party (the reason we were there!).  

So that morning, around 8:30, my brother sends this text to my parent's...

Pretty sure my Mom was freaking out at this moment!

It was so fun, and so worth our last minute trip!

Saturday was all about LSU!  Bloody's by 9:30, can't beat it!

My Dad opted out of going into the game.  He sat right here with a smile on his face!

Waiting for kickoff!  Only question is...where's Shawn?!

It was a whoopin'!  GEAUX TIGERS!

It was a great weekend, and I'm pretty sure we are still recovering!  This weekend is LSU v. Alabama...the biggest game in college football this year.  SCARED.TO.DEATH! ! ! ! ! !

Feet! Shoes! Germs!

I do not like feet!  I never have.  The gross me out!  Thank goodness my husband's feet are ok (for feet at least).  They are better than mine, ha!

But I have this thing...with feet...and with germs.  Shoes.  Think where your shoes go.  I can't even say all the places your shoes go because quite frankly, it just grosses me out!

I have for a very long time, very much enjoyed the tradition in a lot of European and Asian cultures, of removing your shoes when you enter a home.  I LOVE this idea.  It keeps yucky germs OUT of the house that you work so hard at keeping "clean" so often!

Sean and I take our shoes off in our house.  The only time our shoes make the trek through the house is if we are going from the front door to the back, or the shoes we want to wear are in the back closet and not by the door where we last took them off.  But that's not really ok either!

How do you tell guests when they come over to please take off their shoes?!  My mother, for one, hates to be barefoot!  My sister-in-law is Russian, and when we have get-togethers at their house, we take off our shoes and kindly put on a pair of slippers.  They have a ton of extras and provide them for whoever wishes to wear some!    It is just custom and it's what we expect.  They don't even wear them from one door to another!  AND...here is the real kicker...if they leave, and then have to run back in b/c they forgot something...you guessed it...the shoes come OFF before running back through the house!  I should ask my sis-n-law if she would even do this with hard to get on and off winter boots?!  Hmm..

How do I enforce this in our house?!  Shoes are SO GROSS!  And I just cringe at the thought of having a baby crawling around on these floors with all the yucky shoe germs on them!

Do I need germ therapy?!  

Labor Day Weekend.

Perfect weather  and perfect company.  That describes my weekend.  Friday, my parent's drove in from AR.  We had a big weekend of football and eating planned.  While at the grocery store Friday morning, I spotted this gorgeous bunch of sunflowers.  I decided not only did I have to have them b/c they were LSU gold, but b/c what screams fall in a flower more than a SUNflower!  {I agree, not much!}

These put such a big smile on my face :)

My parent's were due to arrive around 5pm.  Around 4, the doorbell rang.  I of course was hoping they were fibbing and it was going to be them at the door an hour early :)  Nope :(  Instead, it was another great surprise!  They sent flowers to help get ready for the LSU party on Saturday we were hosting at our house!  My mom said they had to call 4 different florists in our area for PURPLE and GOLD flowers!  REALLY?!  The florist they found nailed it!!

Geaux Tigers!!

On Friday, Sean and I prepared our favorite "go to" recipe for company.  Chicken Enchiladas from Skinny Taste.  DELISH if you haven't tried them :)  My Uncle Jim and Suzanne came for dinner!  They were in town from Shreveport for the game on Saturday at the insanely large Cowboy Stadium!  I must say, dinner was a huge success.  I even made strawberry pie for dessert :)  (and no, I did not make the crust from scratch!)  I forgot to take a pictures of the finished pie, whoops!  But it looked so pretty in my new Emile Henry pie plate :)

Not the best picture, but I think it looked pretty :)

LSU kicked off the start of NCAA football for the season against the Oregon Ducks on Saturday.  Sean and I had lots of family over for the big game!  15 people I think to be exact!  Sean decided he wanted to attempt to smoke his first brisket!  We started the marinade on Friday evening after dinner.  By 9am, it was definitely ready for a slow and low day of smoking.  We had brisket, mac 'n cheese (my grandmother's recipe!), corn, potatoes, salad, and lots of yummy desserts (yea, carb overload)!  Check out this stadium cake my aunt made!

The game was a huge success!  Our tiger babies whooped up on those ducks!!!!  We were never really that scared ;))

Cousin's all for one team!!

It was a late evening, but well worth it.

Sunday morning, my dad got up and made us his famous french toast sans butter {cough cough}.  Regardless, this stuff is A-MA-ZING!

NO!  of course that's not BUTTER!

After trying to get the bacon smell out of the entire house, Sean went off to sell a house, my dad made it to the sofa for a movie, and mom and I headed out the door to shop :)  They had to leave around 1 that day to go to Shreveport to visit my brother Adam.  He had to work over the weekend and had to miss the game watching party with us :(  The rest of the day for Sean and I was spent napping off and on.

Monday, we were up and ready to conquer!  We first attacked the garage.  It needed some serious organization.  It is SOOOO nice in there now.  We hung our bikes, hung a tool organizer, and cleaned out a few things.  The weather was perfect so we decided we should celebrate with a bottle of champagne!

Cheers to an organized garage!

By 3pm, we had ants in our pants!  The weather was so nice and if you have ever lived in Dallas you know that only means one thing....what patio and when?!  We loaded up and drove to UpTown to meet up with a few friends at the Gingerman, followed by our favorite... Primo's.  We were home before the sun was down.  

I hope everyone had a nice relaxing Labor Day.  It was a perfect weekend, indeed :)