Goodbye to My Roaring Twenties

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently celebrated the big 3-0.  Not as intimidating as I thought it would be.  I think it helps that I have several friends that have already passed the milestone.  Of course, it does seem to make people more apt to ask the "when are you going to have babies?" question...  All in good time, my friends!

I love a good theme/costume party and I've always loved the flappers' era so it seemed like a perfect idea to throw a "Say Goodbye to the Roaring Twenties" party.  We held the party at our house the weekend before my birthday, since the actual day fell on a Monday.  We kept the party small, but in this day of Pinterest-parties, I tried to pay attention to details.

Most of the guests came dressed in costume, which made for some great pictures.  (I apologize for several of them being blurry!)

 My best friend from Charleston, Caroline, and her husband, Aaron, aka Charlie Chaplin, came in town for the weekend to help me celebrate!  It meant so much to me to have them here.

of course the picture of me blowing out my cake would be blurry!

not really sure what all is going on in the picture!

The party was a success and I had a wonderful time celebrating a milestone with some good friends!

But of course the celebrations weren't over yet!  You know I had to have a birthday WEEKEND!  Since my birthday actually fell on a Monday, Cameron & I both took the day off.  Then, it worked out better flight-wise for Caroline & Aaron to stay until Tuesday.  So we decided to take the boat down to Gulf Shores for the day.  When Mary found out our plans, she managed a day off as well so off we went.  Unfortunately, it was less than warm, but still a beautiful day.  Since there wasn't much beachin' it going on, I decided we should do a bushwacker tour of Gulf Shores to figure out who had the best drink - by boat of course!

Stop #1 - Tacky Jacks

 

 Stop #2 - The FloraBama - beachside

Stop #3 - Pirates Cove - Unfortunately, they were closed.  But Tiki was there for a photo-op!

 

Stop #4 - Flippers - this one was a first for us on the recommendation of one of my technicians.  They make their bushwackers with homemade ice cream!  It really is like dessert.

 

seated at the perfect table

apparently herons are not interested in tomatoes...

and this is what happens when you try to take photos of yourself on a moving boat after a bushwacker tour

trust me - this is the best one!

So yeah, I'd say it was a pretty awesome start to my 30s.  Sad to leave behind the carefree days of my 20s and look ahead to all those "grown-up" things, but I know there are some amazing things in store for me!

I'm back!

Wow i didn't mean to disappear for so long!  I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July.  Since it was supposed to be rainy and nasty here (except the weatherman lied), we cooked out at the house with friends.  Still had a great time, even if our original beach plans were cancelled!

It's been a while since I've blogged and we've been up to a lot!  We celebrated my 30th birthday in May.  Yep, I'm no longer a "twenty-something!"  We had a wonderful party, followed by a great beach day - but I think that deserves a post to itself so stay tuned!  So where do I start??

Back in May, I headed off to DC for a few days to visit one of my good friends from high school.  Anna has been in Seattle for several years working on her PHD and recently moved back to the East coast.  It had been forever since we'd seen each other, but picked up right where we left off.  Isn't it great to have those kind of friends?  Since I'd done the touristy thing plenty of times, we skipped the museums & monuments in favor of quality time together - good food, shopping, and of course - happy hour!

A few of the places we went...

Amazing food!!

Great bar with a vintage speakeasy feel

Great atmosphere & good Southern inspired food - brie panini anyone?

sangria & margarita swirled together = best drink ever!

My last night there - and the only pic we took!

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We spent Memorial weekend in Gulf Shores. 

 Had to go by Pirates Cove for a bushwacker and cheeseburger.  Glad we got there early, because by the time we left, it was nuts!  

Enjoyed the beautiful water.

Met up with a friend on Robinson Island - THE place for boats to hang out.  In typical holiday weekend form - it was chaos as well!

Dinner at Tacky Jacks

And of course lots of boat riding

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We finally got sick of having no grass in our backyard and on a whim decided to sod the yard.  I'm talking Friday morning before work I was standing at our French doors saying, "I wish we could have grass.  I know the dogs might destroy it, but we should try sod."  Cameron - "I can see if they can deliver it tomorrow morning if you want."  Me - "Really?  Let's do it!"  I came home that afternoon to the yard tilled up and we worked all day Saturday, through numerous rain showers to lay 3 pallets of sod.  But now our yard looks like this:

At least for now!

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Of course, we have had plenty of boat trips.  Just about every weekend we are out on the water.  But what we were most looking forward to was snapper season.  If you aren't into fishing (let's be honest, I wouldn't be if I didn't live in area where that's ALL anyone talks about!), red snapper are delicious eating that have to be caught off-shore in deep water and have a very short season, especially in Alabama.  Basically you have the month of June and that's it.  We were out opening weekend with a 4am wake-up call but it was worth it.  There's a 2 fish per person limit so we were a little short and some of our fish weren't the giants we were hoping for, but we had fun!  Cameron pan-fried a couple of our fillets in a Parmesan breading - so good!  Unfortunately, every other weekend Cameron tried to go, the water was miserably rough so that was the extent of snapper season for us this year.

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Cameron and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary!  I can't believe it's been 5 years already!  Time flies when you're having fun. :)  We had planned to go to New Orleans for the Mumford & Sons concert, but the concert had to be cancelled last minute due to health problems with the bass player.  So disappointing!  Since we had already taken the afternoon off work, we decided to take a little sunset booze cruise on Fowl River and go to dinner.  Nice relaxing way to celebrate 5 wonderful years together!

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We recently got back from several days in Sandestin, FL.  I had a veterinary conference down there so Cameron came along for a mini vaca.  Several of our friends were down there, including some I hadn't seen since vet school.  Always fun to catch up!

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And of course there have been other fishing trips / boat rides:

Wow, so I think that about wraps up what we've been up to.  At least what I can remember/have pictures of!  Stay tuned for a recount of the 30th birthday bash.  It was pretty fabulous!