coming home.

Last weekend was just what my heart needed - a great homecoming with my best friends recreating our favorite college memories! Friday, Jess + I made the 8 hour drive (from Tennessee) to Gainesville in which we sang at the top of our lungs the entire way just like our numerous road trips in college! We rendezvoused with Carly + Megan at the mall to stock up on gator gear + get my eyebrows threaded by Veena (just like old times)! 

After getting ready together (borrowing each other's clothes + make-up) we headed to the stadium for Gator Growl, the country's largest student run pep rally! Aziz Ansari + Kevin Hart performed! 

Then we headed out to Swamp, one of the best bars in Gvegas, + caught up over pitchers of Blue Moon! 

Saturday, we went to Satchel's, our favourite pizza place before heading to campus to tailgate until kick-off! While this is a "rebuilding" year for the Gators, we still had a lot of fun at the game cheering our hearts out for our boys!     

It was a tradition in college that we always made breakfast or went for brunch on Sundays so before we left Gainesville, we went to The Flying Biscuit for brunch!

Sunday night, Carly + I went to Daniel Tosh's stand-up in Tampa Bay before Jess + I drove to Nashville Monday night. I left my camera but we met up with some of Jess' new nursing friends from Vanderbilt + my first + favorite friend from college, Liz! She is the one of the most fabulous people I know + I am so glad we have kept in touch the last few years! Now back in Knoxville for my last week with Reese, I'm not sure how I am going to leave on Monday....

...I long to live a life again filled with laughter + sunshine!

tailGATORs.

Last Saturday, me + my roomies decided to have a tailgate before the game since kick-off wasn't until 7:00 pm. We spent about forty-five minutes finding our tailgate essentials ... not a tent, cornhole, satellite tv or a keg ... but a trunk, bud light lime, gator coozies + sugar cookies with orange & blue sprinkles! 

 A bit of amateurs at drinking being 2 years out of college + never drinking much while in college either, we couldn't consume our 24 case fast enough so we started shotgunning beers .... ironically, the lady we asked to take these pictures was a DUI attorney + was "happy to help us later!" Pretty hilarious that it wasn't until a reunion two years later that we all shotgun a beer together for the first time! Miss these girls so much already! Can't wait for our Roommate Reunion 2011 - tentatively set for MLK weekend in PHX! Love, love, love you girls! =)

 

thanks for being a friend.

us now.

us in ten years.

us in 30 years.When I watch Sex & the City, I think that's us (without the Chanel and the City) in ten years. Helping each other through marriages and parenting and careers. When I see groups of little old women, I (immediately think that I could never imagine reaching that age but) smile at the thought of knowing we will be planning Eternal Roommate Reunions for the next 50 years and no matter where life takes us, these three girls will always be a phone call/plane ride away! Maybe our girlfriends are our soul mates and guys are just people to have fun with. I know this is a quote from Sex & the City but Candace Bushnell brings up a really great point. The concept of a soul mate is really weird to me. Finding one person you're meant to perfectly match; your other half. A natural affinity to a complete stranger but a soul you have loved in many lifetimes before. I've decided my soul was divided into quarters and these are the three that complete me. Thanks for being a (soul)mate!

the best thing.

"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other."

- Audrey Hepburn

roommate reunion 2010.

When my roommates and I made a pact to have a reunion every year after we graduated college, I couldn't help but to wonder what would be the perfect place for four young, desirable, virtually inseparable bachelor girls who lead and confide in each other in all facets of their womanhood to parade down crowded city streets in Manolos, spend endless hours shopping and galavanting thru art galleries, talk about their love (read: sex) lives over breakfast and become regular glitterati socializing amongst the cultural elite... it was unanimous... only in New York City could the four of us find the Carrie Bradshaw in all of us!!! Here is a photog chronicling of the sexy exploits that took place on our weekend away in Manhattan.

in the candy shop at FAO Schweetz

not the cash cab ...

heading uptown.

Mamma Mia

Times Square

Wall Street

Stock Exchange

love, love, love you girls!!!

we must find ourselves.

We must find ourselves without losing each other.

Wine tastes best when served with good friends!

When Carly and I studied abroad in Italy 2 summers ago, we brought back a bottle of wine. It was quite the adventure locating this bottle of wine. We walked through the back alleys of Florence to this tiny inoteca hidden amongst the gelaterias and markets to purchase this specific brand recommended by my adorable cooking teacher, Stefano. When the original intentions for the bottle fell through, we decided to save it for a very special occassion- our graduation... which not only marked the end of our college career but also the end of our four-year era as roommates! You create a rare bond with a roommate that you cannot possess with your average friends. You share every memory, every milestone, every hardship. You are there through all the good times. All the hard times. All the laughs and all the tears. You know everything about the person. You tend to finish their sentences before they even start to speak and a rare type of ESP develops where with just one look you know what the other one is thinking. You could have an entire conversation without saying a thing. When we opened the prized bottle of wine the last night in our house together, it was very evident what all of our were thinking- the bottle of wine had not aged like we intended it to. Perched on our shelf upright for nearly two years, and in combination with the Florida sunshine and humidity, our homemade aging process had a rather negative affect on the flavor of our wine, leaving us with a somewhat fishy vino. Wine tastes best when served with good friends and I have been so lucky to have 3 of the best of friends as roommates! My college experience would not have been as memorable without them! I'm going to miss Jess and Megan incredibly (*Carly and I have decided to live together until it is no longer socially acceptable for two women to live together...) but I am looking forward to our annual reunions in fabulous locations where we will reminisce over nostalgic bottles of wine! Love you girls!! =)

ConGRADulations!!!

Live Well. Laugh Often. Love Much.
Celebrating our graduations with our closest family and friends! We were so excited that everyone who contributed to our successes could attend our graduation party! We couldn't have made it so far without their love and support and we were excited to share our special weekend with them! Enough of the cheese, the festivities included a beer pong tournament in which the moms possessed the most skill...

Cap & Gown

We all let people into our lives...

but you'll find that really good friends let you into your own.

The result of 4 girls living together...

...Never any hot water!