Fabulous Weekend Ahead

My parents are coming to visit!


The COM is putting on a Gumbo/Chili Cook-off and Caleb has been on the planning committee. Part of his job was to secure the judges, so my Dad is a judge. The Judges Panel will be made up of the following:



-DJ from the popular 92.1
-TV Anchor
-An actual Judge (of crime, not food)
-Dad (who has 15 years of BBQ judging under his belt thanks to Super Bulldog Weekend. And I also must mention that he currently holds the title of MS Veterinarian of the Year).

So we are looking for a great weekend of gumbo and chili, plus fun family time. If you want to learn more about the Cook-off and read the Judge's Bio (pretty entertaining) click here.

I don't know how to upload my phone pictures to the blog.... sad!

Well I took some really fun pics with my new phone but I am not tech savvy enough to get it from my phone to my blog. I really thought taking phone pics would revolutionize the journalistic aspects to my blogging as I could post all the mullets I come across on a daily basis (or Obama airbrush t-shirts). Well, I will not give up, but in the meantime, I don't have any images.

So this post really begins with last Friday night, as Caleb and I headed to Ocean Springs to meet up with Lindsey and Adam for dinner. It was tricky getting into the restaurant, as a Mardis Gras parade was happening in front of the entrance, but it was fun darting in front of the floats to get into the restaurant. We ate at a Brazilian tapas style restaurant and it was really neat. Everyone orders a lot of different things and then you all share. This restaurant is also known for houka which, is not illegal, but really freaked me out nonetheless. From what I can gather, it is fruity air that you breathe in from a huge, decorative bong. I would rather stuff my face with the cream cheese crab crepes. No one at our table got high on houka and we had such a great evening! Caleb and Adam bonded over their shared love for Woot, Woot-offs, Woot-lights and Brown-bag Woots and Adam introduced us to slickdeals.net and restuarant.com, which quite frankly, has changed our lives. Thank you, Adam.

Saturday I worked at both jobs and Sunday I somehow made a bride WEEP. Not cry.... WEEP. Very long story. She bought the dress in the end, though, so look out! Apparently I can bring a bride from weeping to purchasing.... such persuasive powers I have.... hahah not really.

Last night (Monday) my Nana and Lewie spent the night with us as a stop-in before a beach trip. We ate the biggest dinner at a place on the causeway called Oysterella's. I think that is the cutest seafood house name ever. All I will say about my meal is that the cheese grits were made with GOUDA. I will tell you no more b/c you will be extremely jealous (or at least Amanda "Gouda" Cantrell will be, maybe no one else).

Sorry no pics, I am resolved to figure out the phone camera as it will put me on the brink of blogging glory.

Endorsement

Wal-Mart didn't have my equate version of shampoo so I had to pay the extra dollar for namebrand. I used it this morning and I have to say....

WORTH IT.

To the makers of Garnier Fructice (spelling?) Strong and Sleek Shampoo:
You have made a worthy product that I will now remain loyal to from this day forth, even if it means spending the extra dollar.

For the first time in my life, my hair has zero frizz. I did not know this was humanly possible, especially living in the Gulf Coast region.

Thank you.

Meanwhile, something that has been bothering me:
In Kid Rock's song "Cowboy" where he goes "I can smell a pig from a mile away".... is he referring to the police? I always thought he was talking about barbeque for some reason, but Caleb was singing that song in the shower this morning (a glorious break from hit Broadway tunes) and it got me thinking that maybe "pig" meant police. What do ya'll think?

When life hands you burnt chocolate fondue... make fudge!

So for Valentine's Day, Caleb thought a fun activity would be to make chocolate covered strawberries. This is a great idea, because:
1. It involves food, yum.
2. We have a TON of leftover chocolate bark from Christmas.

Hurdles were thrown at us immediately. The strawberries you see above were only obtained after three different grocery store visits. Every store was completely out of strawberries.

Then, the chocolate fondue went terribly wrong. It started burning on the bottom and was clumping up, not melting smoothly:
Tricia: "AAAGGHHHH! The chocolate is freaking out!"
Caleb: "Pour some milk in it to make it smoother."

The result of adding milk to burning chocolate fondue:
What you cannot see is the strawberry Caleb lost in the fudgy mess during an attempt to dip them in chocolate anyway.

So our activity went awry, but we had a fun weekend anyway. I worked at both jobs on Saturday, and when I came home Caleb had a huge vase of pink gerber daisies waiting for me, AND had changed out our holiday plates. I still had the Christmas plate on display and he put the Valentine's Day plate up. Sorry to my friend who made the New Year's plate. It didn't make an appearance this year.

Caleb cooked an awesome dinner: Balsamic glazed sirloin and pasta. It was delicious, for real.

And then I had President's Day off from work. I literally watched TV all day and was really grumpy about having to get up off the couch for a bathroom break or to refill my water glass. A Snuggie would have actually come in handy.

I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend! We did save the burnt chocolate fondue fudge if anyone wants some...

Birthday Surprise Party

Last night was the surprise party for Elizabeth and Britni who both celebrated birthdays this past week. Caleb and I got there way too late (thanks job) so we missed jumping out when Liz arrived, but made it in time to holler for Britni. Apparently Liz knew about the surprise party because she read about it on Caleb's laptop screen during class. Oops. Here is some of the group hiding behind the couch before the surprise.
I must say, that I got really nervous in the few seconds between hearing Britni about to come through the door and actually jumping up and yelling "SURPRISE!" I didn't think I was "down" enough or hidden enough, so my gut instinct was to put my face down on the carpet. I feel like that is a really weird reaction and wonder if it is normal.

At any rate, here is a pic I stole from Allison Graves facebook. I love action shots.

And here is us with Liz. Happy Birthday sweet girls!

COM Prom

We had Prom this Saturday evening and it was quite fun. I got another wear out of M.B.'s bridesmaid dress (it is a stunner) which is nice, except that it has about a two-foot train on it, so after it got stepped on by three different people, I had to hitch it up and tie some of it off with a rubberband. Oddly enough, I got more compliments on it when it was hitched up and tied off, which is so strange because I looked really bizarre.

(Mom and Aunt Lisa- that is actually sweet tea in his cup.)

Caleb and I DID end up choreographing an 8-count too. We only busted it out one time though because Caleb did it way too fast, so he looked super gay and I looked like a crazy pageant mom shrieking, "don't do it double-time!!!!"

Hey recognize anyone in this picture other than Caleb? Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is Stuart Salters on the far left. He has become a regular hang-out buddy in Mobile. While Christmas shopping at the Eastern Shore shopping center, I pointed out a guy and told Caleb it looked just like Stuart Salters from Mississippi State. And it was him, so we've been doing fun activities together ever since and he escorted Kacie to prom.

Oh and another story about Prom! There was this guy with a huge camera taking pictures, so naturally, I assumed they had hired a "Zaps" guy, just like we did in college for KD parties. Well AFTER we posed for a quick Zap Pic, we discovered it was not a Zaps guy, but a second year med student with a VERY spiffy camera. Ooooops.

As for any other news, there's really not any. I'm coming up with more Bridal Guidelines daily but no complaints because business is good. OH! I was going to share some of the creativity of the college students in the Sunday School class Caleb and I help with... I've been teaching this month about churchplanting and this Sunday we divided up into groups to develop church ideas to reach specific demographics of unchurched people in North America and I thought their ideas were awesome (and often hilarious):

Group One: "Hammerin' for Heaven" a church for construction workers that meets every Wednesday on construction sites during lunch break.

Group Two: "Center Stage" would meet for 10 minutes every day in the middle of Times Square to reach the gazillions of tourists.

Group Three: "Dude....God" reaches out to the surfer crowd and will meet on the beach at night around a bonfire.

Group Four: I can't remember the name of the church, but it would meet in a gym and reach people working out.

They were also clever about how they would get the word out about the new gatherings- for instance Center Stage would pass out pop tarts with information on the packaging, and Dude....God would give out surf board wax with information. Oh to be 18 years old and super creative again.

Tricia Nod (get it? "Oscar" Nod???)

We saw Slum Dog Millionaire last night. LOVE IT. Go see it. I didn't boo hoo like I did during 7 Pounds, but it definitely deserves all the hype it is getting.

I would say that you would have to have a cold dead heart not to like it, but then that would mean I was saying Caleb has a cold dead heart because he made fun of it for the entire drive home. Shame on him. It is a beautiful movie. In fact, I have already spent about an hour here at work researching ministries for children in India. (In case my boss is reading this, the previous sentence is a lie- I have in fact, been very productive all day long.)

I am just so upset that I didn't know how things were really like in the world. I complain about virtually, well, everything... while little girls with no family are being sold into the sex slave industry (which according to my recent readings, is more profitable than arms and drug dealing). Slum Dog Millionaire is not about human trafficking by the way, that's just where my stream-of-conscience just took me.

Bridal Rule Book

Some of you may know that on the weekends I moonlight as a Bridal Consultant. Through this experience, I have come up with some tips for Brides to abide by while picking out the gown of their dreams. Some of these suggestions could be conceived as rather obvious, but I'll include them anyway.

Tip #1: If your Mom is mean, please don't bring her along. She will ruin it for everyone. If your Mom finds joy in pointing out your "trouble zones" or where you are a little pudgy, then please for all of our sakes, do not let her come with you to pick out your wedding dress.

Tip #2: If the dress you are trying on has a corset-style back that must be laced up, then puh-lease step ALL the way into the dressing room. I do not have super-stretchy elbows like Inspector Gadget. My elbows WILL bump into the wall. Please save my elbows and step all the way in to the dressing room.

Tip #3: If your wedding is in 2011, you do not need to pick out your wedding gown yet. Chances are one of the following three things will happen: (1) you will change your mind and want a different dress, (2) you will gain some weight over the next two years, (3) you and your fiance will get in a fight and call off the wedding. Please hold off on picking out your dress. There is time.

Tip #4: Please smell nice. Or even just smell okay.