For the last three years, a group of my grad school friends and I head to Lawton to spend the weekend of the 4th of July at my parents’ house.  There’s always a big country concert out at Ft. Sill that weekend, so we’ve made a tradition of attending the concert one night and then spending the next day relaxing at my parents’ pool.  Each year we have a great time, and this year might have been the best yet!

(Beware, there are a TON of photos ahead)

The concert:

Erica & Chris

John Michael & Amanda

Jarred & Sabrina

Erica, Sabrina, and me (looking like a giant compared to the other two):

Stoney LaRue!

This was the obnoxious man who was sitting a few feet in front of us:

Beer!

Great Friends. Great times.

Jarred decided we needed to swap sunglasses:

It was RIDICULOUSLY hot the whole weekend:

Merle Haggard!

Miranda Lambert!

The concert ended up being a blast!  The only downside of the night was the 1 hour wait in the parking lot to leave.

The next day we enjoyed my parents’ pool and had a great time visiting with friends and family.

John Michael’s friend Amanda made a DELICIOUS blueberry pie.

Dad grilling out.

I didn’t get a picture of all of our food, but here’s some it: grilled corn and (an awkward pic of) hot dogs!

Mojito Break!

My grandma (above) and my dad:

My friend Lani brought her family over for the evening, and it was great to get to visit with them!  Her boys enjoyed spending time with Jarred.

My cousin even graced us with his presence, looking as stylish as ever:

A picture of me doing a cannonball:

It was a PERFECT way to spend the evening.

My mom and Lani.
My mom and me!

Sabrina and JarredThe next day we took a drive out to the Wichita Mountains and up to the top of Mount Scott.  It was somewhat overcast, but still quite hot.

Jarred in deep thought (actually he was grumpy and didn’t want to smile for the camera).

Chris as King of the Mountain.

Chris wanted to get a posed picture of me, though I’m not the best at fake posing.

That night, we spontaneously planned an early birthday party for Jarred. Because it was a spontaneous party, we didn’t have a cake especially for him. Luckily, my grandma had given us a partially eaten cake earlier that day.  I’m not sure who the cake was originally for or how old it was (it didn’t taste especially fresh), but we made do with it.

It’s hard to see, but we attempted to write “Jarred” into the frosting with a knife:

Since that didn’t work too well, we resorted to a sign made courtesy of Chris.

With the help of a few random balloons that my mom had in the pantry, we put together quite a nice party, haha.

Happy, Happy Birthday, Jar-Bear!!

What a great weekend!  And on that note, I’m all caught up with my picture posting for the past month.  Hopefully I can refrain from inundating you with a kazillion pictures again in the near future!

In an attempt to get to know the city better and meet new people, I’ve been trying out many different events and venues here in Dallas.  A few weeks ago, Erica and I decided to hit up a sports bar in Uptown called Frankie’s.  We planned to stop in for an afternoon beer and to catch the end of the Cardinals game, but we ended up staying for 8 hours!  Yikes!  We met lots of interesting people, and had a really great time!

The most interesting person we met was Jorge, an older gentleman from deep in the heart of Mexico.  He was quite a character, and by the end of the day, we were all best friends.

Jorge:

Watching my boyfriend Albert Pujols (Poo-Poo Bear) play ball:

At some point in the afternoon, Jorge kept wanting me to say “Are you talking to me? I’m Stella Artois!”  I’m not exactly sure why this came about, but I do know that he made me practice saying it without smiling a kabillion times.  I failed miserably.

Me trying to look tough:

He gave me his hat in an effort to increase my toughness:

Frustrated, Jorge decided to demonstrate the proper way to say it by asking Erica if she’s talking to him:

Erica didn’t buy it.

Oh, Jorge.

After a few hours at a bar, bad (but delicious) decisions are often made:

For the last half of our stay, I switched from beer to water.  After 23 refills (literally!), the bartender just gave me the water hose thing and told me to help myself.

We met lots of fun people aside from Jorge that night too (like our great bartender Boston!), but we only got a picture with this new random friend.

All in all, it was a great day!  I’m definitely looking forward to my next Frankie’s visit.  I just hope Jorge will be there to teach me some new sayings!

Well, as you can see, my plans to update semi-daily were foiled.  Unfortunately, I have a legitimate excuse this time as a family difficulty took me away for most of the month of June.  Thankfully, everything seems to be on the upward mend, and I’m back to my normal day-to-day life.  I have lots of pictures from the last month (despite being MIA on my blog, I still took random pictures throughout the month), so the next few posts will be picture-intensive/story-light.  Pictures are more fun anyway!

Here’s a mix of random pictures documenting some of what I’ve been up to for the last month.  This post is literally all over the place, so be ready for random!

My friend Erica and I at The Ranch on one of our many great nights out on the town.

The jury’s still out on the chicken and waffles we tried there.

At the beginning of the month, I was great about walking, jogging, or biking every day.  Despite the heat, it was beautiful out and it felt great.  Sadly, leaving for 2 weeks threw me off my game, and I’ve yet to find the inspiration to get out in this heat the last couple of weeks. Here are a few pics from the beautiful walking/bike paths in my neighborhood.

Erica and I decided to make a night out of the horse races here in town.  I’d never been to the horse races before, and it was a lot of fun!  I lost $2 on the only bet I made that night, but the atmosphere was nice.  Yay for new experiences!

I wasn’t fast enough to catch the horses as they passed the finish line.  This is the best I got:

Food pictures!  I’ve been cooking a lot this summer, using all the great fruits and vegetables that I’ve bought from the farmer’s market.  Delicious!

My experimental blueberry mojito.  Think what you will, but it was delicious!

Babies!  I got to meet three sweet, sweet babies this month.  I love that I get to be Aunt Erin to so many adorable kiddos!

My friend Bethany’s son Logan and me.  He is seriously one of the most precious newborns I’ve ever seen.

My Pookie Mike and his son Michael.  He’s such a happy baby.  I can’t believe it took me over 8 months to meet him!

I also met my cousin’s girlfriend’s son Case!  He was incredibly sweet and active, and he LOVED my brother:

My best friend Jarred’s birthday was yesterday, and because I couldn’t be there to celebrate with him, I decided to honor him by treating myself to a red velvet cupcake (his favorite) from Society Bakery.  SO yummy!

My cat looking exceptionally tall and exceptionally sweet:

I made a visit to a travel store to find the perfect piece of luggage for my upcoming 3-week trip to Europe.  I have decided that I will pack everything I need for the trip in one carry-on piece of luggage.  Those of you who have ever traveled with me know that I’m a TERRIBLE packer, so this could be an adventure.

Why I drive bartenders crazy:

Despite a constant temperature of 68 degrees in my apartment, my bedroom is too hot for me to sleep comfortably.  My solution:

Yes, that’s TWO fans next to my bed.  I also have my ceiling fan going–even then my bedroom doesn’t get as cool as the rest of the apartment.

Relaxing on the patio at my aunt and uncle’s house.

Trip home to Lawton for the 4th of July:

My first night out in L-town, I went out for beers with my bro.  He hates that I take so many pictures, so I took a moment when he was distracted as an opportunity to document the night.

Whew!  That’s the end of my pictures from this last month.  I warned you there were a lot and that they were random! Now I’ll work on my posts from the 4th and from an especially fun night in Dallas.  I bet you’re holding your breath in anticipation after seeing all these exciting photos, haha. They should be up shortly!