Lillian's Bachelorette Party

Ok this is an unusually long post, so I apologize, but there was so much we did and so many good pictures to share! I got back from New Orleans yesterday from an awesome time with the ladies :) This was the first time I had met some of Lillian's friends and I loved them all! One of them actually lives down the street from me and Justin. How funny! I got into New Orleans before the rest of the girls because I flew in. They had a blast riding the train from Tuscaloosa to New Orleans. There was apparently a group of 70+ year old women all wearing bright green shirts that said "What happens in New Orleans stays in New Orleans". How hilarious!

When the girls finally got to the hotel we got ready and headed to Bourbon Street. We ate at a little place on Bourbon that I unfortunately forgot the name of, but we were able to sit upstairs outside on the terrace. It was so perfect! We spent the remainder of the night going in and out of different places on Bourbon Street. Here's a couple of pics:

Soon To Be Mrs. Turman



This was my favorite stop of the night. Lillian got pulled on stage and she requested Stacy, her maid of honor, to come up with her.



Stacy was excited!

The next morning we woke up and went to the French Quarter. We stopped in a ton of awesome boutiques that had so much cute stuff! We also ate lunch at a place right next to St. Louis Cathedral which I also don't know the name of. Sorry, I apparently wasn't sporting my A-game when it came to being observant. Here's some pics of Saturday:



From left to right, Whitney Sparrow (the one that lives next to me and Justin), Stacy McCoy (Lil's Maid of Honor from DC) and the Bride-To-Be eating lunch.



From left to right, me, Candice Robbins, Lillian's friend from Tuscaloosa, and Emily Galloway, who actually lives incredibly close to us as well. All these girls were fabulous and I had so much fun with them.



This is all of us in front of St. Louis Cathedral. We had a horse and carriage driver take our picture. He doesn't know how to say "1, 2, 3" because not many of us were ready.



Some of the girls at this really cool sweets store that reminded us of New York. Again, don't remember the name. Maybe I don't remember any of these names because they're all French-like names.



After leaving the sweets store we came to a sports bar called "The Bulldog" (YAY I remember the name!) and it was so much fun. When we got there it was covered with LSU fans watching the game but as soon as it was over they turned on the Bama game for us to watch. This picture was taken outside of the bar. It's a draft beer fountain. I thought it was pretty cool.



This is the girls in the back of the cab while we were driving to the Bulldog. We had some INCREDIBLY interesting conversations with our cab drivers. Our favorite in particular, and I guarantee I speak for all of us when I say this, was this driver from Haiti that has been in New Orleans for a mere 4 years. His name is Fred. Whitney sat in the front and had the most HILARIOUS conversation with him. She kept taking pics of him and then asked if he wanted her to "mobile upload him to facebook". He had no clue what she was talking about. We dubbed them "Team Fritney" and they even have a secret handshake. Whitney is hilarious!



Brad Pitt and that homewrecker's home in New Orleans.



I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Emily about New Orleans history. She knew a lot about it. This house in particular is owned by Nicholas Cage and is the most haunted house in the world. The stories she told us about it made my skin crawl and I would NEVER walk down this street at night. Cage has apparently been trying to sell it forever because he can't stay there anymore and has even knocked millions off the price to try to get someone to buy it. Very spooky stuff.



Now onto the lingerie shower!! I planned to have Lillian play the game we played at my bachelorette party where I asked Craig 15 questions and he answered and then Lil had to answer the same answer that Craig did or she had to put a marshmallow in her mouth. When I went to buy marshmallows they were out (seriously who runs out of marshmallow's??) so I had to improvise. Given that a certain "spooky" holiday is coming up, I got ghost peeps instead :)



Lillian got several wrong. It may have something to do with the fact that I told Craig to make them hard to guess ;)



After having Lil's lingerie shower, we all went to eat dinner at a place that reminded us of Red Bar at the beach. Again, don't remember the name, sorry! This is Stacy, me, and Lillian in a cab on the way to eat dinner.



We thought this guy was a bachelor and he was being made to wear the veil, but it was actually a girl's veil that was a bachelorette. We took the picture anyway because we thought it was funny.



The bride-to-be and her maid of honor.

We had so much fun in New Orleans and I loved meeting at the girls. Lillian's wedding is on January 2, 2010 and you can find her website here. You can also visit her blog, A Bride In Boots. Hope you had fun Lil!

Upcoming Trips

I am so excited to have three trips coming up in the next month! The first one doesn't involve Justin though, it's a girls trip. Myself, along with 6 other wonderful ladies are taking this girl...

to this place.....

for her BACHELORETTE PARTY!!!!
I am so excited for Lillian's weekend in New Orleans this weekend. The girls are taking the train from Tuscaloosa all the way to New Orleans on Friday. I unfortunately don't get to do that because I can't leave work that early. I am flying into New Orleans Friday afternoon. Interestingly enough, I leave about 4 hours after them and I still get there first! New Orleans obviously holds a big place in my heart since that is where Justin asked me to marry him. He proposed in front of St. Louis Cathedral and that was the first time I had ever been to New Orleans. Can't wait to see what the weekend will have in store for us!!

Next weekend holds yet another amazing trip for Justin, myself and our friends Bonnie and Andrew. We are all going to Maryland to attend our friend Dana's wedding. We fly into Maryland on Thursday night. The wedding is on Saturday the reception is very close to DC. All of us decided to stay in DC on Friday and Saturday night to do some of the tourist things!

On Friday we're planning on seeing this guy...

And also this building...


Saturday we're taking a tour of this....

And even better, this...

Since I started reading Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol, I have been getting more and more excited about our trip to DC. The book is based in DC and is about all the facts about the buildings along with secret societies like the Masons. We also plan on seeing the White House (which is two blocks from our hotel), the World War II Memorial, the Pentagon and the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence. On top of all the amazing sites we'll be seeing, we're also knocking out 5 highpoints! We'll be going to the highest point in the states of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Washington DC.

The last, and probably best, trip of all three is our 4 day cruise to Cozumel, Mexico. I only consider this the best of the three because of two reasons: 1) I've never been on a cruise so this is my first time and 2) it is also the first time for me to go out of the country.

On October 22, we'll be taking this boat...

To this place...

We're going on this cruise with 3 other couples: Trevor and Tiffany Lobdell, Bonnie and Andrew Hill (soon to be Hill that is), and Sam and Shelly Morris (no relation). I love all of these people and we consider them some of our very best friends and I can't wait to take this cruise with them. Pictures of all three to come soon!

#32 Check!

Number 32 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to read a fiction book. I have actually read several of these. I was going to use the Twilight book series to complete this goal, but I wanted it to be something else other than Twilight. About four years ago, I started reading the book Angles & Demons by Dan Brown. You may be familiar with him because he wrote two books that have become two huge motion pictures, The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, both of which revolve around the same character, Robert Langdon. I was very reluctant to read the Da Vinci Code because when it came out there was a HUGE christian outburst about it. I eventually put my feelings aside about the issue and reminded myself that Dan Brown's work is PURELY fiction and started reading Angels & Demons.

Time was scarce for me back in college since I was going to school full time, working almost every night at a restaurant and was on Alabama's Crimson Cabaret dance team. Needless to say, I never finished the book. When I saw the movie was coming out I decided that I wanted to read the book before seeing it in theaters. I found time to start the book all over again and I definitely got hooked. It was incredibly hard to put down. I had to take some time off from reading it as we got closer to the wedding because again my time was scarce, which also meant that I didn't get to see the movie when it was in theaters, however, I have finally finished reading it!

I also found out yesterday, by way of both of my book reading sisters, that Dan Brown has come out with ANOTHER fabulous book called Lost Symbol. Here's what it's about:

"As the story opens, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned unexpectedly to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol Building. Within minutes of his arrival, however, the night takes a bizarre turn. A disturbing object -- artfully encoded with five symbols -- is discovered in the Capitol Building. Langdon recognizes the object as an ancient invitation . . . one meant to usher its recipient into a long-lost world of esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon's beloved mentor, Peter Solomon -- a prominent Mason and philanthropist -- is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept this mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him. Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and never-before-seen locations -- all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth."

I do so LOVE a good thriller :) I can't wait to go buy it and start reading it (much to Justin's dismay. He's not a fan of my reading hobby AT ALL.)



The fact that this book is revolved around historic Mason ideas and facts really interests me. I got hooked onto that part of US history while watching the National Treasure movies. Feel free to read with me!

Our Wedding - #4 CHECK!

We got our wedding photos back this week!! I'm so excited because I love so many of them! Our photographer, Amelia Strauss, truly is one of the best photographers in the south. I can't believe I forgot to mark it off the list, but getting married was #4 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days. We got married on July 25, 2009. Here's some of my favorite pics of the day. It seriously is so hard to chose only a few because they are ALL so good, so prepare for LOTS of pictures below!























































To see more of the pics, you can click the links below to see my facebook albums. Amelia gave me over 400 pictures so I definitely didn't post all of them. These albums are about half:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2368659&l=847c883c61&id=27408463

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2368699&l=933d6ae80f&id=27408463