Valentine's trip 2012...

The Friday before Valentine's Day I packed Jeff's suitcase, told him to get in the car and we were going away together for the weekend. He was not very happy with this, he kept asking a million questions and getting rather flustered he couldn't figure out what we could possibly be doing. As we entered Houston and he could tell on GPS we were almost to the location I plugged in he grew nervous ha once at the pub we were supposed to be meeting at he claimed he wasn't going in... After a little convincing he got out of the car and went inside. There he saw Keith and Bailey and was thrilled! Both guys were shocked... They ordered food and beers!

Little did they know we were getting back in the car and heading to NOLA! We gave them each a gift bag with Mardi Gras beads, liquor, fake gambling chips, and a brochure for Chateau Orleans (the place we always stay in NOLA) and they thought we were kidding! Soon after Josh walked in and we all left to go pick up Jes and we were on our way! Josh was so sweet and drive us all the way there and graciously handled our million bathroom requests! What a sport!
Nola's lights were bright and inviting on Bourbon Street... We couldn't say no! Late in the evening we spent our money on valuable things like these classy tshirts...

Krystal Burger late night snacks were a must!
We painted the town until about 5am then finally called it a night.
Saturday we tried our luck at Harrah's casino and went to a Mardi Gras parade. They are very serious about throwing beads and spare no one...Jeff got hit in the face by some beads and Bailey got her drink knocked out of her hand by a wad of beads thrown from a balcony. Jeff and I turned in about 10:30 while the rest of the gang hit up Bourbon Street again.
Sunday before we returned to CS we went to brunch at Cafe Atchafalaya and we were so glad we did! It was Ah-Mah-Zing!!!! Delicious! Fabulous! You name it! Go there!
We ended the trip with dinner in Houston at Twin Peaks then returned home. Such a fun time! Can't wait to do it again!

Valentines Day...

(A little behind but better late than never right?)
Valentine's Day Goodies...
Surprises for my Girl's Weekend Girls, Mom, Tate and B!

Here are a few of the girls after they received their packages in the mail...

Marsh Loved Mel's shirt so much he decided to steal it hah

Surprises for me!
From Vicki...

From Jeffrey...

We decided not to fight the crowds this year so we got Outback to go and had a lil romantic dinner at home! Perfect!

From Mom...

My gift to Jeff was a surprise trip to New Orleans with his friends and their significant others... We actually did it! We pulled it off! They had no idea! Read all about the fun we had in my next post!

Bachelorette Bar Crawl...

When trying to decide what to do for Rach's Last hoorah I searched and searched the web, read tons of blogs, lost some sleep, but then finally decided on a bachelorette bar crawl! What better way to celebrate one of my favorite party girls than with a day devoted to the diva herself, drinking, dining and dancing!
Much like Melissa's party I made invitations, tshirts, water bottle labels, and booked rooms at Hotel ZaZa!
Mendy, Melanie, and Alison helped me with all these shirts on our craft weekend!!! Thank you thank you thank you ladies!!!

Once the weekend was finally here Erica and I headed north on I-45 with high expectations and ready for a good time! We got there early so we could fill the water bottles with pink panty dropper punch, pick the cupcakes up from The Cupcakery, and make sure everyone arrived on time to board the trolley... What trolley?! I thought you might be wondering how we were getting around all day... The McKinney Ave Trolley! I rented the trolley for the afternoon and it was perfect! It's byob, gets you to all your favorite bars in Uptown Dallas, has a patient driver and much more room than we could ever fill!

We ended the afternoon at The Trophy Room... A lot of the girls rode the mechanical bull a time or two but I opted out and just stuck with capturing the fun in pictures ha. It was soon time to return to ZaZa to get ready for the night and do a little lingerie shower. We had reservations that night at 8:30 at Private Social but after waiting an hour and a half past our reservation time we decided to go grab something fast and get on with our evening. I will be going back to Private Social in the very near future I hope because I am still dying to try it and it was a fun place to have drinks while we waited. We scarfed down a quick bite and hit up Knox street pub where we met up with Madisen and James! The rest of the night was spent drinking and dancing!
Bachelorette Bar Crawl was a success!!!

On our way out of town Erica and I stopped in to see Dan and Kendra and their two kiddos! Aren't these two adorable!

Baby Olivia

Grey

Party like a Rock Star...

About a month ago Tate and I hosted a bachelorette party for our cousin Ben's fiancee, Melissa! She lives south of Houston so thanks to my mom we hosted the party at Hotel ZaZa in Houston in the Rockstar Suite! It was ridiculous! So fun and so nice!

 I designed the invitations and water bottle labels on my MacBook and then had them printed at Office Max. I love how they both turned out!
The tshirts are ones that we dyed and designed during our craft weekend and then, for the sake of time, I printed them when I got home. To make them I used my Silhouette, freezer paper, an iron, and screen printing paint.
For the water bottle labels I just printed them off, laminated them with packing tape, cut them out, and taped them on to the bottles.

(Picture of invites and labels on next post)
Once everyone arrived to ZaZa we got settled in and then went to Inner Me Studios to take a pole dancing class... sounds sexual huh?

NOT AT ALL!

Hilarious!
None of us were good enough to make it look how it sounds haha. I had done this once before for B's bachelorette party I hosted in 2010 at the same place and it was a great experience both times! 

After dancing we returned to the hotel to give the bride some lingerie and then get ready for dinner and our night out on the town. Then we headed to Cyclone Anais to eat... It was so good! I'd definitely recommend going.

While at dinner we debated which bar to go to... We needed one that was 18 and up. Hard to find in a big city! Once we found a few we caught a cab... Our search was interesting to say the least... The first place we went none of the girls would get out of the car because it looked very scary... The next place looked very similar but we decided to go in because we didn't want to spend our evening in a cab! We went in, paid a $15 cover and left 10 minutes later. Finally we ended up at Wild West where we felt save and everyone had fun!

So excited for the wedding and can't wait to officially have Melissa in the fam!