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Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Bauble lovin

I got my first bauble in the mail today!
In case you don't know what 'bauble' means, like me, it translates to 'a small, showy trinket or decoration'.
Aka Jewelery.

I was surfing the Internet a few weeks ago and came across a bar necklace, which I've wanted for a while.  I haven't gotten one because I don't want to shell out 30 bucks.
When I got to the page it was "congratulations, you've found the Buried Bauble!"
I had no idea what it meant, but it got me excited!
 And the necklace was reduced from $32 to $10, which made me even more excited.


The website is called BaubleBar and it has loads of cute jeweley, and even some you can personalize!
After some research I found that they have Buried Baubles every Monday and Friday.  They reduce the cost of an item to either $10 or $20, respectively.  
But the kicker is that you have to find them!  Hence "buried".

So it's a treasure hunt!

Hats off to the creative/promo team for thinking of that one.  Genius.

After about of week of waiting in atnipication, I finally got my first bauble in the mail today!


You can even turn that selfie into sparkle by hastahing #baubalebar wearing your new bauble!  Three winners each month will be chosen to get a $100 gift card to BaubleBar!
So get going!

Head on over to BaubleBar.com and check out their 'showy trinkets'.  They have great inventory at fabulous prices!  And check out their website and sign up for their email list to find the Buried Baubles each Monday and Friday!

xx

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Seeing Herman

So if any of you know me, you'd know that growing up, I was crazy obsessed with the Herman's Hermits.  Like, why was an 8 year old listening to the Herman's Hermits anyways?
I'll tell you why. 
Because good music is so universal that has no language, age, race or time barriers.  Hence why I loved the Herman's Hermits at age 8.  Hence why the world is STILL celebrating the Beatles music.

But I digress.

 About a year ago at Abbey Road on the River, I FINALLY got to see Peter Noone and the Herman's Hermits perform.  AND we got to meet Peter Noone himself!

Another life goal: See a Herman's Hermit concert- Check

Read about it here!

Sidenote: Peter Noone is probably the funnest guys I've ever met.  He puts on a great, hysterically funny show every time he performs.  And bonus, he's a fabulous singer.  I swear his voice hasn't aged a day since the 60's.
I just love him.

But I digress again.

So, obviously, when my mom and I heard he was coming to Kansas City for a free concert, we had no choice but to go.

After waiting for two hours, he came on stage and yet again had a fabulous show.  He played all my favorites.
No Milk Today
This Door Swings Both Ways
There's a Kind of Hush All Over The World
Listen People
I'm Henry the VIII, I Am
Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter

The list goes on.


It just blows me away every time I see an artist perform that was in the heart of the British Invasion.  It makes it more real for me, like it's not just a part of history that happened 50 years ago.  It was a real-live thing that people lived through and I get to see a little glimpse of that every time I see them perform.  Make me happy :)

Anyways, we didn't wait in line to meet Mr. Noone after the show, but I got a few good pics of his performance!

 
It's Herman!

Shameless selfies

Herman being Herman


That night, I added two pictures on Instagram, and 10 munites later he liked and commented on the pictures! 
He even called me 'h'. 
Awwww. I love him even more!


So me and Peter are best friends now, right?

And to end this post with one of my favorite quotes from the lyrics of Peter Noone:
Make the most of living if you're not prepared to die.
#LetsMoveToLondon2014

xx

Saturday, May 31, 2014

32 weeks later

So here we go again.
Since I've basically been awful about posting this past year, there's going to be a lot of catch-up going on.

When we left off, I was just about to tell the novel of a story about how Caity and I met Paul McCartney.
That was about, ohhh 7 months ago, so instead of trying to tell a story thats 32 weeks old, I'm going to give you a link to Caity's story on her blog.  She was smart and actually wrote the post after it happened.
It's a great story I promise, so go check it out! 


Go follow her blog while you're at it, and like her facebook page too!

If you don't want to read the story, here's a super short recap:
We slept all night on Oxford Street in the freezing cold. With a light blanket, a Domino's Pizza box, and a Primark bag to keep us warm.
We waited in line for 30 hours like hobos.
People asked us if we were homeless.
I walked up to Paul, babbled like an idiot.
We met Paul.

Ultimate life goal: Meet Paul McCartney- Check

To say I was over the moon about it is an understatement.   I was, more accurately, over the universe about it.


During our London trip we also:
Stayed in Liverpool for 3 days
Met up with my sorority sister, Rachel Benbrook
Went to the Casbah
Crashed in our friends living room (who got engaged while we were in Liverpool)
Had job interviews
Broke a few pint glasses here and there
I went on a date with a Brit. (Another life goal: check ✓)
And we basically had the time of our lives walking around our favorite city.


So there's my 32 week update! Finally
My life has been on a boring cruise control since then, but the past few weeks have been a lot of fun!

I'll fill ya in soon!

xx

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Catch Up!

YIKES!  It's been quite a while since I've written a post on here!

Let's just recap.  Since my last post, summer has come and gone, I've been working full-time at the day care, I've been to two weddings and one bachelorette party, Livi turned one year old, a I went on a three week vacation in the glorious cities of London and Liverpool, it's now in the middle of a blistering cold winter, oh, and I met Paul McCartney. :)

But before that crazy story, let's do some catch up.

August 17 was my big's bridal shower and bachelorette party in Bricktown.  The whole bridal party took a pole dancing class and it was so much fun!  After that we headed to the hotel, got ready, played some games and went out in Bricktown for the night!  It was such a fun night with my sisters!

The girls after pole dancing!
Waiting for our limo to Bricktown


About a month later it was Olivia's first birthday party!  She has grown into such a beautiful, fun little girl and I hate that she's growing up so fast!  I love that little girl to pieces!



A week or two later I went to my uncles wedding down in the Westbottoms of KC.  It was a very cool country/rustic wedding in a large abandoned warehouse.  My mom's whole side of the family was there so it was really fun to finally catch up with all of them!

Coutins!
 
When cops get married.
Two weeks after that wedding was my big's big day!  The bridal shower and both sides of the family met up at the Gaylord-Pickens museum in OKC for the rehearsal.  We went back to the Skirvin, where we were staying for the weekend, and had a nice dinner, made some toasts, and the bride and groom gave the bridal shower some awesome gifts!


The next day was wedding day!  We all got up early and ate a nice breakfast downstairs.  Then we headed up to the room for hair and make up!  In our gifts from the night before we got pink robes to wear for the day.  So once our hair and make up was done we went around the hotel and took a few pictures before heading the to Gaylord.


Diva Big
Getting ready!!
After a few pre-wedding pictures and shots, it was finally time to walk down the aisle!  Amber looked gorgeous, and the reaction on Eric's face when he saw her was the cutest!!  The ceremony was beautiful, short and sweet!  Before no time Mr. and Mrs. Oliver were introoduced and we were walking back down the aisle to get ready for the reception!





The reception was sooo much fun and we all danced with a drink in hand all night.  It was great be back with my sisters after such a long time of not seeing them!  After the eating cake and drinking champagne for a few hours, it was time for the bride and groom to make their grand exit down the stairs of the Gaylord!  After they left the whole bridal party ended up at the Skirvin bar downstairs until it was time for last call.  It was a great night!


It was definitely a weekend for the record books!  Thank you Big for letting me be part of your big day, I'll never forget it!

Then just three short days later, I was on a flight to London Town with Miss Caity O!  But that story can wait until the next post :)

xx


Thursday, July 18, 2013

Weddings & stuff

This past weekend was a nice refresher from the 'blahh' of summer boredom.  It was Brandon and Sam's wedding weekend!  It was so nice to get out of Kansas City and see some friends from college.  It's only been two and a half months since graduation, but I missed my friends like crazy!   It was an NSAC reunion at the wedding!

On Friday, Taylor and I saw Despicable Me 2.  It was the first movie at The Warren Theater since the Moore tornado hit it.  There was a big American flag hanging down the front.  It was great to be back in the Warren with Taylor!  After the movie went out in Norman for some drinks with Mom and Gary!


 Saturday was the big day!  The ceremony was beautiful, sweet and right to the point; it was perfect.  And Sam looked AMAZING walking down the isle.  The reception was at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum in OKC, and the building was gorgeous!  A perfect place for a wedding reception :)  NSAC got our own table and had a great time enjoying each other company the whole night.  An open bar, free food, music, dancing and a surprise appearance from Pistol Pete.  Needless to say, the wedding was fabulous! Go Pokes!

Taylor and I went out with a few people from the wedding party after the reception.  We went to Speakeasy and Edna's in OKC.  We have a friend who knows a bar tender there, so we got more free drinks all night!

We had a prime location for the first dance and cake-cutting!


Most of the NSAC team pre-recpetion!

Cheers to the bride and groom!

 Go Pokes!

 Taylor and I with our favorite couple, The Kobs!

Enjoying Lunchboxes at Edna's with Dustin

 The weekend was filled with friends, fun and memories in the making!  I'm so very happy for Sam and Brandon and I'm excited for them to start the next chapter in their lives.  Congrats to you both, love you!

I have two more weddings to attend this summer, one of which I'm a bridesmaid in!  I love wedding season!

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Paul McCartney: Third time's a charm.

First off, excuse my blog right now.  I'm in the middle of re-doing it, and it's sort of a mess.

So as many of you may know (and have probably gotten sick of hearing), On May 29, 2013 my crummy nose bleed Paul tickets got upgraded to FRONT ROW about 15 minutes before the concert started!  Full story to follow.  Bear with me through the story.  It's not too long, but it will seem like it veers off into a few random directions at times.  It all has a point, I swear!

And the story begins..

While my mom and I were driving to Louisville for Abbey Road on the River, a friend of ours, Dave, put on Facebook that he just received a ticket to the Paul concert from a friend of a friend.  Dave plays Paul McCartney in Kansas City's Beatles tribute band, Liverpool.  We've known Dave since he started in the band 6 years ago.  So I shot him a message saying that he's free to ride down with us since we'll all be going to the same place.  We set up a time to meet on the morning of the 29th and that was that.

After my mom and I got back from AROTR, I unpacked, repacked and unloaded all my photots from my camera onto my laptop to have room for the concert.  I cleared the memory, packed the camera and waited excitedly for 36 hours until we were back on the road headed toward Paul.

The morning of the 29th came.  We all met at my house and started on the road to Tulsa about 30 minutes before scheduled!  It was a short 3.5 hour drive.  We got to the hotel with plenty of time to spare before the concert.  We cleaned up and got dressed then went out to eat across the street from the BOK Center.  We finished dinner probably a little to fast due all of the excitement we had!  Side note: Literally, no matter how many times you see Paul in concert, it never gets old.  This was Dave and I's third time to see him, and my mom's fourth or fifth time to see him.  I could go to a Paul McCartney concert every week for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.  The excitement of seeing him live never gets old!!

After we paid for dinner we headed toward the BOK Center.  The city of Tulsa temporarily renamed the streets surrounding the BOK center for the two days Paul was in concert.  They were Penny Lane, Blackbird Blvd, and and Abbey Road.  They were so cute we had to take a few photos in front of them.  After four photos on my camera it said that I was out of memory.  I was like no way Jose, I just cleared it all. I looked to see what the problem was and as I opened the battery latch, I realized there was no memory card in the camera.  I had miniature panic attack.  I couldn't believe that after all the preparing for this concert, that I had forgotten to put my memory card back into my camera!  The doors to the concert opened in 30 minutes and there was absolutely no way that I was going into the concert without a memory card.


We were looking around the BOK Center for 20 minutes for a place that sells memory cards, but we had no luck.  We looked on Google Maps and found a Walgreen's that was 10 minutes from us.  So we hopped into a cab and 10 minutes later we made it to a Walgreen's.  I was in and out in a second and we were finally heading back to the BOK Center.  The doors to the concert had already been opened and my mom was waiting for us before she went in. 

We had about 45 minutes to spare before the concert began.  We went in and found all of our seats.  Coincidentally, Dave's seat was only about 12 down from us!  Once we found our places my mom went to use the restroom and Dave and I went down the the merchandise table.  I was planning to cut a few people and shimmy in on the side, but Dave being the nice guy he is, went to the back of the line.  So I followed him and we waited in line for around 25 minutes.  Once we got our shirts it was 15 minutes until showtime.  We hurried up the stairs and we were making a bee line to our section so that we could wait very impatiently for the show to begin.

Here's where the story get's good.

During our 'bee line' to our seats, a man about the age of 25 jaunts up to us with a salesman smile on his face.  He asked if we had a spare moment and, me being me, I was like uhhhhh no thanks and started off to our section.  But again, Dave being the nice guy was like yeah sure.  I was still wary of the dude trying to sell us something just moments before the concert.  He saw both of the uncertain looks on our faces and said "Hey guys, I'm not trying to sell you anything, I work for Paul and it looked like you two are ready for the concert!'  He showed us his official Out There tour lanyard and once we saw it we were just waiting to see what this random dude wanted from us.  Dave and I were both like "Yeah we're stoked for the concert!!"  The lanyard dude said we looked like two people who would be singing and dancing and jumping around the whole concert.  We were still unsure what he wanted but we were still like uh yeah, we're pretty damn excited.

Next, Lanyard man reached into his pocket and pulled out two tickets.  He said "well I know both of you are going to have blast at the concert, so I wanted to give you these front row tickets."  I really had no emotion when he said this.  There is no way this is happening to me, and if it is happening, there's no way it wasn't a scam.  He gave us the tickets, we looked at them and sure enough they said Row A: front row.  The ticket was an official Paul McCartney Out There tour ticket, bought at the BOK Center saying the price was $0.00.  This is real and this is happening.  Dave and I were in utter disbelief.  Completely speechless.

A few moments later is when it really started to sink in, then my heart started pounding.  My jaw hit the floor, my stomach dropped to my butt, and my whole body started to get really shaky.  I had to bend over and prop my arms on my legs so I would faint.  Lanyard man said "Now that was the reaction I've been looking for!"  I was like, "Well dude, ya got it!" as I was almost to the floor.  I gave him a huge hug, thanked him a thousand times and he walked off having no idea the impact he just had on Dave and mines life at that very moment.  At that point, I could barely stand.  I had to lean against the railing and clutch onto it for dear life while I was going over in my mind what the hell had just happened. 

Before he walked off I asked if he had one other ticket, because my mom came to the concert with us, I explained to him.  Unfortunately, he said no and that we had gotten the last two tickets.  Dave and I were contemplating what we were going to do.  There were three of us, but only two tickets and neither one of us were going to give up our ticket.

I rushed up to my mom, still shaking and explained the whole story to her.  I had to sit down to tell her; I wasn't fully recovered from the events just moments before.  Fortunately, back in the 70's my mom was front row at a Paul McCartney concert and she said that it was our turn now.  I hated to leave my mom up in the nosebleeds by herself for the whole concert, but we had no other choice.  I know my mom was happy for me anyway.


There was still part of me that doubted the authenticity of the tickets as we were running down to the floor.  This cant be real, is all I was thinking while we were heading to our seat.  We were let in on the floor in a breeze, proceeded to the front of the stage and found our seats.  We got wristbands and a man came around to mark our tickets just a few moments before the show began.  It's actually happening, this is really happening omg omg omg omg.  Dave and I sat down waiting for the show to being.  We made friends with the people sitting next to us.  They were a cute couple around my age from Lawton, OK named Hank and Ellysa.  They had just had a baby girl a few months ago and named her McCartney!  HOW CUTE!  They were in the same situation as us.  A man handed them front row tickets, told them to enjoy the show and walked off.

Hank, Ellysa, me and Dave after the show!
As Dave and I were talking with them we realized that no one around us had bought their tickets either.  I'd say around 4/5 of the first and second rows hadn't bought their tickets.  The ONLY way you can get front and center at a Paul concert is if someone comes up to you and hands you the tickets.  There was a lady about 6 seats down from me who had bough her ticket for $4,500.  We all got our tickets by chance, luck, serendipity, or whatever else you want to call it.  I don't think I've ever been happier in my life.

We also realized that everyone (who didn't pay for their ticket) wasn't over the age of 35; they pick out young people to be in the front rows.  Paul wants young people to dance and sing and have the time of their lives at his concerts.  He wants us to give him back the same energy he's giving out to all of us.  Paul is the ultimate performer, he can control every aspect of the show.  So why not control who sits where in the audience?

The concert was absolutely completely incredible to say the least.  A few songs in, Dave and I had the realization that there were actually other people in the venue.  It felt like a private concert for just us.  We had no one it front of us except for Sir Paul himself.  We made eye contact with Paul dozens of times, shouted a few things at him, in which he replied, and danced our happy little butts off the whole concert.  Paul played a little shy of three hour straight, no intermission, and never once stopped for water.  He seriously isn't human.  At one point I was four feet from him.  I was four feet from a living legend.  I was four feet from a BEALTE!  I can't put into words how amazing the whole show was.  Every time I think of it a smile, ear to ear, comes to my face. 

So now the pieces fall together.

If Dave hadn't rode down with us, Lanyard man wouldn't have run into us.  If we hadn't left my house 30 minutes early, Lanyard man wouldn't have run into us.  If we hadn't rushed through dinner, if I hadn't forgotten my memory card, if I hadn't taken 30 minutes to run to Walgreen's, if we hadn't properly waited in the merch line without cutting people, if we hadn't been acting stoked for the concert with big smiles on our faces as we were rushing to our seats...Lanyard man wouldn't have come up to us.  I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.  Every single detail of our day had led up to that very moment when Lanyard man came up to us and handed us the tickets.

I'm so very thankful of the experience I got to have.  I can't thank Dave enough for just being who he is.  Without him, neither of us would have gotten those tickets.  I still have to pinch myself every once and while when I think back at how incredibly lucky we are.  Over one month later, I'm still on cloud 9.

And a big thank you Sir Paul McCartney!  Without whom, who knows where my life would be.  The Beatles have enriched my life with music and love since the day I was born.  Thank you Paul for being so giving and letting us young people experience your shows to the fullest.  The memories I made that night will  be with me until the day I die.


xx