A Ground Hog Day Wedding

I was a very responsible person, which in my company speaks volumes.  Maybe responsible is not the right word because I think most all people I work with are responsible.  Maybe the right word is self restraint or self control.  I made sure not to get overly drunk or wasted for my last night in PR.  People were doing shot after shot of tequilla and I said no.  I did stay out late but I was good to go with my 6am shuttle to the airport. I was tired, but 2 movies later, I was in Dallas for BFF's wedding weekend!  You could not ask for better Dallas weather for the first week of February. It was warm and sunny! 

I landed at DFW. My wonderful mother picked me up and we drove straight to Love Field airport to pick up my husband.  It was nice to see both of them and we had a nice lunch,  We got ready and headed to McKinney for rehersal dinner.  I had not seen Sara's parents since high school so that was nice to see everyone again.  Sara was very composed and I thought was handling everything just perfectly.  Their singer was going through his songs and I just kept telling J, he looks so much like David Jones from my parents church.  I am sure J was ready to kill me because I kept saying it over and over...he would have no earthly idea who I was talking about.  Sure enough, it was David Jones. His wife is family to Randall.  Small world. I tell this story because I ALWAYS wanted David Jones to sing at my wedding, O Holy night, is my favorite. He has a fabulous voice, but my mother told me there would be no "O Holy Night" at a wedding (side note, I'd like to think my wedding night was a holy one :)

Dinner was at Rick's Chophouse. It was a neat place and I love the room the dinner was held in. Randall's family is just as nice as can be and you can really see the love they all have for each other and how welcoming they were to Sara and her family. I love them even more because they are Razorbacks. The food was so good too!  I wish I had a better picture but damn string was in the way.

Their wedding was beautiful and I think I did a pretty damn good job making sure everyone signed her guest book pages.  Sara was a gorgeous bride and I know she was so ready to marry Randall.  They had a lot of people come to support them and share in their joy.  I must say the DJ was pretty freaking amazing.  It was an older man who played the key board and sang all the songs. He did Usher, Frank Sinatra, Sir Mix A Lot, Journey, and everything in between.  They had flown him in from San Francisco.  I wish I had more time to hang with the bride and groom, but they did a great job working the crowd and speaking with everyone.

Sara and Randall got married on Ground Hog's day.  We had talked with them at Christmas on how they wanted to get anounced multiple times to the same music to play on the movie Ground Hogs Day. I thought it was hilarious.  In the spirit of the day, I bought the same card 3 times and signed it the same way on each. On the last card I wrote Happy Ground Hog's day as well.  I am not usually creative but I thought I did pretty good on this one.  Also I am not one that usually likes to give a check for a present, but with all the travel that was just easier.  J's sister and her husband gave us a check with an amount indicative of our wedding date, so I did the same for them. I hope they understood the weird amount :) I have some pictures to share from the night.

Mr. and Mrs. Randall Watson

Mr and Mrs Randall Watson.....again

First Dance

PSHS 98 reunion

J had a great time....no seriously

Love them and can't wait for our 2013 adventures

Puerto Rico

I must say, I was quite excited to go to our National Sales meeting.  First, I love  *most of the people that I work with, and I always love seeing them. Second, I actually enjoy a limited amount of product training.  And thirdly, we were going to Puerto Rico.  I ported in Puerto Rico when I was on a cruise my senior year of high school, but we only had limited time. J and I have talked about vacationing in PR also.  (He likes the idea of going "out of the country" but staying in a United States territory.  However, I was not as impressed with PR as I had hoped;

Getting there was fairly easy.  I took a 6am flight out of St. Louis and connected in Miami.  I had a very interesting flight to Miami. I had thrown on my Blues hat and probably should have worn my Cardinals hat.  There was a huge group of people on my flight to Miami that were going on a Cardinals cruise.  I was even on the plane with the manager of the Cardinals Mike Matheny.  He is a very good looking man...side note. I arrived in PR and took the shuttle 30 minutes to Rio Grande, PR where our Westin hotel was located.  I arrived a day early to meet up with another co worker friend of mine.  Quite a few other people had the same plan.  I love warm weather and I love the beach.  I was disappointed in the sand not being white sand, but really...that sounds quite snobby of me. 

Lee Ann and I did very well....we worked out every morning but one morning that we were there.  This is a good thing because I know that I ate and drank more calories than I was burning. I was also proud that we ate cereal and fruit for breakfast and skipped the yummy omlets.  The food was just ok, so that helped also.  The PR beer did go down quite easy, just like some very yummy Puerto Rician Falls rum drink.  The meeting was fun, however, I did miss the fact that there was nothing around us.  In Aruba, we were in a highly populated tourist area with other bars and night life.  Here we had a lobby bar and that was it.  I missed dancing this year.  I thought I'd post a few pics of our time.. 

Rest in Peace

I have had an amazing last few weeks, with Puerto Rico, and BFF's wedding.  I will blog about that later.

Last night, I was doing some catching up on Facebook since I had not really read much due to being super busy in PR and in Texas.  I know that if you don't see something pretty soon after it is posted you may miss something. And I did.  Last night I learned that Terry Cobb passed away thursday due to complications from the spinal cord injury he suffered when he was thrown from his car at age 16.  I had not kept up with him 100% in the past years, but was friends with him and his sister (who was in my class) on facebook and before facebook on myspace.  My heart dropped into my stomach last night when I read the news and I started to cry.  Terry was an exteremely funny person and was super cute.  He was also pretty much my first "love" and boyfriend.  He took me to my senior prom and always had a way of making me laugh. 

He was a grade older than me in high school (even though I was 2 weeks older).  And BFF and I would swoon over him as he walked down the hallways of Shepton High School. I even think I still have the notebook we wrote back and forth in about him and the transitive property, and inside joke.  He was on the wrestling team and we went to some matches.  He was tall and was just super cute.  He was thrown from his car during his junior year, January and around superbowl, if I remember correctly.  He survived but was paralyzed from the waist down. I ran into him my senior year one weekend night on the patio of Friday's (image that!)  He asked for my number and that was that. I even wore his high school ring.  I would go to his house for lunch (we had an open campus).  I guess we may have made out more than ate lunch......  We were on and off most of senior year. He came to some of my dance performances, PDF and clogging.  I remember he loved David Lee Roth and was a pretty spectacular kisser.  He took me to prom.  He didn't seem to let his handicap get in his way.

I guess it was hard to read that you first 'love" had died.  It put a lot of life into perspective. We are getting older. He is not the first person my age to have died and he won't be the last, but he was my first love.  I hope he is running in the clouds, driving fast stick shift cars, and listing to Van Halan (the DLR years).  I pray he found peace and is not hurting any longer. 

I did find some good pictures of us last night and I am sure I have even more at my parents house.

Lunch on homecoming day...not my date, but met up with me afterwards

Prom....not a good quality picture

This was at one of my clogging performances....I think the picture got wet at some point in the last 15 years