Just for funsies...

I'm rushing to get my post in today before it's officially midnight.  It has been a long and busy, but productive day.  Started off the day by going to the gym for the second time in a row.  My thighs hurt so bad from yesterday I had trouble walking home after English club tonight.  Slightly embarrassing.  I had a different trainer today (maybe Roma?  I can't remember his name).  Both trainers I've had know English so-so...numbers and parts of the body.  I was explaining to Roma that yesterday I did arms and legs.  He said, "Okay, today we will do back and (points at the but)...what is this?  Buts?"  He asked me how you say "but" in English, but remembered before I said it.  Except he made it plural.  I tried to stifle my laughter as I explained we only have one but.  

After showering at the gym, I headed home quickly to eat and go to work for English clubs.  Most clubs were uneventful today.  My little 3rd form brats kiddies were actually MUCH better.  Why you ask?  Because they decided to split the class in half and create another English club for me, without my consent.  I'm pretty okay with it because 8 kids was much more manageable than 17.  Do you know what they begged to sing the whole time?  

I think I've watched this video (and sang it) at least 100 times.   I actually taped them singing it today, but forgot my camera at work, so maybe that will be tomorrow's post.  I now have a new found respect for my parents and my lovely big brother who watched Dumbo and 101 Dalmatians hundreds of times when I was little.  Speaking of 101 Dalmatians...

This is what the title of the post is geared towards:

This was floating around on good ol' Facebook today.  I died laughing and had to do a double take as I sat there and thought, "Oh my gosh, that really is them!"

Today's Christmas movie holds a special place in my heart for a few reasons.  I can quote this entire scene...maybe because I've watched it so many times?  Or maybe because I've practiced quoting it with Rosemary.  This movie came out my freshman year of college and I saw it 4 (yes, four) times at the theater.  The last time I saw it was at the Dollar Theater in Norman with a group of girls from my dorm hall.  We were the ONLY people in the theater and it was one of the most memorable movie watching experiences I've ever had.  We squealed and laughed and cried and quoted the whole thing :) It was epic.  Without further ado, I give you, The Holiday :)

Just a few of my faves:

"Dad! Take her coat!"

"Wow, you look like my Barbie!"

"Daddddd! Do Mr. Napkinhead!!!"

"You don't like tents...?"

What's not to love.  :)  Much love, Lyd

Way-Back-Wednesday #9: Rachel is getting married!! :)

This upcoming weekend is the wedding of one of my dear friends, Rachel Fenn. We met living on the dorm hall of Walker 6 West in the OU dorms our freshman year of college. From football games, to float trips, to OU/SAXET, we experienced a LOT of it together. And, what's even better: her high school sweet heart, Alex, was along for all of the ride as well.

Rachel and Alex went to high school together in a suburb of Dallas...why? Because they were next door neighbors. That's right...she's literally marrying the boy next door :) pretty stinkin' adorable, huh? I forget the details, but it makes for one heck of a story! On the night that Alex proposed, they went for a walk on the golf course behind their houses and if my memory serves me correct, Rachel was being stubborn about which way they went. They ended up coming out a different way and saw the back to the sign that Alex had painted that was mounted in her front yard that said, "Rachel, will you marry me?" Friends and family were hiding in her house watching the entire thing. The picture above sums up their absolutely goofy and loving relationship. It's one of their engagement shots...courtesy of the great Stancy Higley.

{neighbors}

I'm so sad I won't be there for the wedding celebration of these two this weekend...but I can't wait to see pictures from it :) Enjoy this walk down memory lane Rachel and Alex!

Holly Lake Ranch!

Jill, Allison, Alex, Rachel (or weird Al in this pic), Ashley, Lydia

Rachel, Sarah, Jill, Lydia

Allison, Angela, Ashley

Kevin & Mitchell

Rachie and myself

Allison, Lydia, Rachel, Jill, Maddie

After our sophomore year at OU, Rachel transferred to Texas Women's University to continue studying nursing. We had a surprise going away party for her...but the biggest surprise was that Alex drove up from Waco that weekend. Super cute.

surprise!

She is wearing clothes, I promise.

OU/Texas 2007--our first one!

OU/SAXET in the west end...

Ashley, Lydia, Rachel

Kevin, Rachel, Allison, Lydia--Dallas skyline

On my trip down to Dallas before I left for the PC...check out the bling on her finger!!

Concentrating super hard on a game...

the soon to be Mr. and Mrs. :) :)

My last Monday in Norman!

It hasn't really hit me yet that this is my last full week in the United States for quite some time. Am I excited? Duh. I just wish I could snap my fingers and have everything done! However, I did get a lot accomplished today with the help of mi madre. We set up a new bank account that will reimburse me for so many ATM fees a month...big selling point. I also got to go to dinner with some of my Interior Design friends...Beth drove all the way from Tulsa, Jenna from Mustang, and Kristen just lives a few miles up the road from me :) It was great to see all of them though and catch up on their lives.

I have been lazy and not feeling like uploading pics to my computer...so I finally decided to do so tonight. Enjoy the picture montage of my trip to Dallas/Ft. Worth a few weekends ago :)

The first thing on the list was dinner with my Construction Science buddies :) Greg, Chase, and Josh (l to r). Josh's wife, Lindsay, also got to come to dinner. Totally failed and didn't get a picture of everyone at dinner. Josh and Lindsay are about to have their first child though...and from what I've seen on the blog, the nursery is going to be ADORABLE :)

This picture of Greg, Chase, and Josh pretty much sums them up. We can never manage to go anywhere without causing a scene...and this was the case that night at dinner as well :) all in good fun though.

Testing out the self-timer on my camera! It took a few attempts but we got it...thank you for being a great host Greggers :)

Saturday lunch was spent with my sweet, sweet interior design friend Casey! I got to see her hubby and new puppy too!

On the front porch of Casey and Collin's house! So cute.

After lunch, I headed to Mitchell's apartment (that I DID NOT GET A PICTURE OF...), where we got ready for a surprise evening. Where did we end up? At Dave and Buster's! Kind of like a Chuck E. Cheese for adults. Pictured above is Kevo :)

Also part of the surprise was my friend Rachel, who lived on my dorm hall freshman year! Here she is with her FIANCE, Alex! These two literally grew up next door to each other...how cute of an engagement story is that?

Rachie and myself :)

And last but not least, the video of one of the games we played. Kevin (of course) knew how to play the game...so we waited until it was just about to win and started taping. I'm off to do another trial run of packing...eek! Wish me luck!

Oh yeah...one more thing. Here's a preview for what Way-Back Wednesday is going to be this week :)

Way-Back-Wednesday #6: 19 Days...WOW!

That seems crazy to me that I am only going to be in Oklahoma for 19 more days. And that 19th day is actually March 20, which is when I leave to go to DC for staging. But that is not the point of today's post. Today is about one of my best friends...who now happens to live in the big D. The one and only, Mitchell Crow. Mitchell has thought for sometime now that he deserved a blog post dedicated to him...and since he just took his first of the CPA exams on Monday, I thought it was an appropriate time for a little dedication :)

The story of how Mitchell and I met is one for the books in my opinion. Jill Sowers had come over to my house one night in January of 2007. It was still Christmas break at OU, so we were debating what to do that night as our break came to an end. She said that there was this guy named Mitchell who was wanting to come over and maybe watch a movie or something. Did I care if he came over? Yes. I had NO clue who he was, and Jill knows I'm very apprehensive to letting some stranger come over. He had lived on the same floor of the dorms as us the year before, but I still had no face to put with a name. I hemmed and hawed, and finally said okay to letting him come over. A short while later, he arrived and rang the doorbell. If my memory serves me correct, I was still a (little) perturbed at Jill for the entire situation, so I probably made her answer the door. And in waltzed Mitchell....if I only had a picture of that exact moment. He's wearing his designer-esque jeans, a button down shirt, and ostrich cowboy boots. And then he opened his mouth...and his great accent came out :) We introduced ourselves...and I couldn't wait any longer to inquire where he was from with an accent like that. After all, I was originally from Alabama and when I moved to Oklahoma got made fun of for my accent ALL THE TIME. I asked...and he says, "Oh, a tiny town in Texas you've probably never heard of." I replied, "Try me, I've been through a LOT of Texas." Mitchell: "It's called Pampa...it's up in the panhandle." I nearly fell out of my chair. My mom was BORN in that tiny town in Texas that you've probably never heard of. We hung out that night and said our goodbyes. A few days later, I was in the drive-thru at Raisin' Canes, and I look in my rearview mirror to see who is behind me...MITCHELL. I quickly called Jill to obtain his phone number and called him as we sat in the drive-thru line together. I'm 100% sure he thought I was a freak. And from that moment on, we've been best friends.

Mitchell and his (super patient) brother Matthew taught me how to water ski on their family boat. It was literally the three of us on the lake for a few hours doing the exact same thing over and over where I would manage to get up on the skis for about 3 seconds and then fall. Mitchell and Matthew on the other hand have been doing this their whole life, as is obvious from the pic of Mitchell above.

OU/Texas 2007: the first of many OU/Texas games together....

OU/SAXET 2007 (the year we had the best seats ever...)

A 21st birthday celebration at the Mont. Sidenote: that was one of my favorite shirts ever, and I managed to part with it for the garage sale!

Mitchell, Lydia, Kevin...oldie!

Another 21st birthday celebration at the Mont.

Lydia, Jill, Mitchell...Mitchy looks like a baby!

wayyyyy old!

Tacky Christmas picture. Look familiar? It's already been on the blog before but it was too good a pic to not repost :)

Snow pic!

OU/Texas 2008-- in the West End the night before the game.

Also, OU/Texas 2008: the year that we were on TV! A few people texted me right after this was on TV saying that they saw us...little did we know that it was during a HORRIBLE play.

My graduation reception where we displayed our Capstone projects for Interior Design. Please look at Jill in the background :)

Team Sparrowhawk :) we went on a camping trip and floated the Illinois River in northeastern Oklahoma. It was a cloudy, cold, and miserable day for floating, but it ended up being a great trip!

The boys surprised the girls with a fun evening outing to the ballpark! We cooked out and watched an OU baseball game on the sidelines. So much fun :)

OU/Texas 2009

OU/Texas 2009--wayyyy high in the stadium!

more recent!

Goodbye party for Jill and Ashley as they move to Boston!

OU/Texas 2010. The time that Mitchell got to be a Frost for a day! He even sat through a dog show at the State Fair of Texas :)

This last thing on the blog is a video of Mitchell at OU/Texas 2009. We were eating dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse the night before the game. This particular location was in the West End and was packed with OU and Texas fans. Many chants and snide comments are bantered back and forth as is typical the night before the game. Mitchell decided that he wanted to lead a chant since he had NEVER done that before. I quickly moved aside to video it. El fin :)

Can't wait to take more pics and form more memories when you come visit me in Ukraine!!!!!! Love you Mitchy :)

this is a little delayed...

On August 29, 2010, Jill Sowers, Ashley Maldonado, and myself hit the road for a Boston-bound roadtrip. Taking Jill's Nissan Murano, the three of us barely had room to breathe in the car, but were determined to get there.

The back view of Jill's car...

the passenger side back door (don't worry, there was a little room for Ashley on the other side of all that!)

2 days, 1768 miles, about 8 or 9 tanks of gas?, and 500+ sunflower seeds later, we made it to my brother and Tina's doorstep in New Hampshire. They graciously put us up for a few nights as we immediately began apartment searching for Jill and Ashley the next day. Their third roomie, Kathryn (and her black toy poodle, Ziggy!) made the exact same drive with Kathryn's mom in tow. The three girls would be beginning a new chapter in their lives, just having graduated from the University of Oklahoma. I was simply along for the ride :) However, that is not what this post is about. This post is dedicated to Ashley & Jill & all of the memories that we have shared together over the past few years.

I met Jill Sowers on August 18, 2005, the day that we both moved into Walker 6W. Creepy that I remember the date? Nah. I have a weird way of remembering things like that...

Jill and I when it snowed finals week of our freshman year of college. This has got to be one of our first pictures together!

Jill and I lived on the same dorm hall and came across each other the night we moved into the dorms. Even though we went to high school together, I was a horrible human being and never truly knew Jill (sidenote: I still get ragged on for this at any opportune moment that Jill can think of! :). A few of us were ordering pizza for dinner that night, and Jill happened to stop by my dorm room to see if anybody needed anything from Wal-Mart. I did not have any ranch to dip my pizza crust in, and asked if she would pick me up a bottle. We exchanged cell numbers at that time and I put her into my phone as "Jill Ranch," not because I didn't know her last name, but because we were talking about ranch at the time. Ever since then, we have basically been inseparable. She will always be Jill Ranch in my phone :)

Our Big Event team 2006! Most people lived on our hall/were friends of our dorm hall...

bottom: Andy, Clint, Mark, Bert

2nd: Jill, Janay, Lydia

3rd: Bailey, Courtney

4th: Erin

Allison, Lydia, Rachel, Jill, Maddie

There is no better caption for this photograph than: "Jillllllll...."

This is a game that Jill loved to play. I had these little magnetic balls and other shapes that were a kids toy. ANYTIME Jill came over, she found the balls (I would have hidden them) and would let them drop on the floor...causing them to bounce EVERYWHERE. I'm sure once all of the furniture is moved out of this house someday, there will still be a few balls lying around.

this is an infamous picture (Jill and Mitchell)

Mitchy, Jilly, Lydy

Tacky Christmas Party (Jill's sweatshirt has an actual Christmas stocking sewn onto it, which she provided snacks from for everyone all night long)

Lydia, Jill, Mitchell

Many an hour was spent playing Guitar Hero at mi casa...

Lydia and Jill

We're babies in this!!!

And then Ashley came into the picture... :)

Ashley went to UCO in Edmond for a few years, but we were introduced to her through Kevin. Ashley and Kevin were both born and raised in Thomas, Oklahoma, where everyone knows your name :) One halloween, the Norman crew headed up to Edmond for a halloween extravaganza at Ashley's casa, and the rest is history!

Ashley (aka the dirty Mexican) and a flapper!

Dr. Sowers and her Flapper Girl

I feel like this picture should be titled, "Hi, my name is Lydia and I'm pale."

Jill and Ashley--tacky Christmas party!

Ashley and myself (please note the bedazzled sweaters)

Maddie, Angela, Jill, Ashley, Allison, Lydia

Holly Lake Ranch Crew!! Jillian, Allison, Alex, Weird Al (aka Rachel), Ashley, Lydia

Lydia, Ashley, Mitchell, Jill

Allison, Ashley, Jill, Lydia

one of the most fun nights ever! front row: Rachel, Sarah, Ashley, Jill

back row: Mitchell, Angela, Allison, Lydia, Kevin

Anytime it snowed (or iced as the case may be in Oklahoma), it called for some wonderful sledding opportunities on none other than Tecumseh Road (ie, the only hill in Norman).

Ashley, Allison, Mitchell, Jill, and Lydia in Owen Stadium. January 2010

Ashley, Jill, Mitchell, Lydia, Sarah

Ashley, Jill, Lydia--2 nights before we left for Boston! Can't wait to come visit again :)