Friends Forever

A couple weekends ago we had some good friends in town- Justin and Lauren Davis and their son, Parker!  It was so fun to get to see them and see Parker for the first time!  He is now 4 months and just such a cutie! Lauren is such a wonderful mother and it is so neat to watch her parent.  Saturday the girls (Lindsay, Rachel, Lauren and me) plus Parker went to Sushi House at Town Center for a delicious lunch and shopped around a little bit.  We found some fun things at Francesca's (a cute boutique with jewelry and accessories) and very much enjoyed the warmer weather!  We met up with the guys at The Cheesecake Factory (a traditional KC favorite!) and enjoyed a wonderful dinner with everyone.  I always say this: but it was yet another great weekend!

Oh my gosh precious.

Boys will be boys :)

KCUMB Follies

Last weekend was a busy weekend for the both of us.  Friday night we had what I like to call "Med-School Prom".  It's an annual event put on by KCUMB with dinner, entertainment and dancing.  This year it was at The Midland by AMC in downtown Kansas City.  Neither of us had been to Follies or The Midland so we were both really excited.  Jay and I got all dressed up and headed toward downtown about 6 o'clock.  We arrived and met up with some friends inside and mingled for the first hour or so.  The staff then let us pick out a table and we all got in line for some dinner.   There were different stations around the room and we tried out most of them:  pasta bar, sliders, fruits and veggies, and other hors d'eourves.  Yummy.  The entertainment started around 8 with videos made by the students and followed by The Kadence-- a percussionist band that made it on to "America's got Talent!"  It was very cool.  The DJ came on around 10 and we danced til about 11.  It was such a fun night-- I'm really glad we went!

a kind of not very good picture of The Midland

Jay and me

a cute group of all the wives and fiancees!

a crazy picture of the dance floor!

I tried to post a video of "The Kadence" but it didn't work!  So sorry!

Do blondes really have more fun?

So, as we all know, women get tired of things they have for a long time.  Well, this time it was my brown hair.  I'm growing it out again and it was time for a change!  I can't cut it, so I decided to dye it-- BLONDE!  Well, not too blonde because I was really too chicken to do that.  I called up my hairstylist and she got me in the books a few days later!  I was really so excited for a change, a new look!  My appointment was last Thursday and I got to leave work a few hours early.  It took about an hour and a half and I had a completely new look for the spring:

Before

After with my stylist, Ashley.  She's so great.

So it's been just over a week and to be quite honest, I'm not in love with the blonde look.  I don't particularly think it's me but I'm glad I did it just to try!  I already have an appointment to change it back... :(  Oh well,  I guess blondes don't truly have more fun!

Covenant's Women's Retreat

The last weekend in February was the annual Covenant Chapel Women's Retreat.  This was my first year to attend but I was asked to be a group discussion leader.  The retreat was at Stonecroft Ministries just a few minutes from Kansas City!  We headed out for the retreat around 5pm and got there just in time to check in and gather for dinner.  Friday night was a concert and testimony presented by Ginger Millermon.  It was beautiful!   She had such an incredible story and we were all crying but very encouraged!!  Saturday was a full day of fantastic teachings about giving God the glory in our trials, worshipping, group discussion, a wonderful lunch and more!  It was a wonderful weekend to share with the women of Covenant Chapel and learn more about glorifying God.

There's Ginger tearing up the podium.

Friday night jewelry-making and game time!  We played Apples to Apples and I won!!  WINNER!

The core of my group-- we had several leave during the day so that's why there's only four of us!

It's Cold.... Let's Stay in and READ!

Tuesday night I hosted our fifth book club.  We read THE SHACK by William P. Young and had a wonderful time!  I served ice cream floats and my friend Maggie brought a few extra dessert items to share.  The book brought forth a lot of controversy and really good discussion topics.  We got to talk about what we liked and didn't like about the book.  I have so very much enjoyed getting together with all these wonderful women every month and discussing a new book.  Looking forward to next month already-- The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks!  :)

  

I LOVE a Reason to Celebrate

As we all know, last Sunday was Valentine's Day and I made some big plans for Jay and me. After church on Sunday we had lunch at Panera across from Town Center 20 movie theatre.  We had tickets for the 1:15 showing of, how appropriate, Valentine's Day.  It was a really cute movie!  We both enjoyed it.  After the movie we came back to the house to pack up our things for the night.  We had made a reservation at the Embassy Suites on the Plaza.  I had also made a surprise reservation at McCormick and Shmick's Seafood Restaurant for dinner.  After some trouble checking into our hotel, we finally made it to the restaurant and had a lovely dinner of seared tuna, stuffed shrimp, filet, california rolls and even a delicious piece of apple pie!  Oh my goodness it was so good.  We headed back to the hotel on a freezing Valentine's Day evening and spent the rest of the evening snuggled tight in our beautiful hotel room!  We got to sleep in on Monday morning because I had the day off, too!  We had a couple's massage scheduled for 10a.m. so we ate breakfast at the hotel and headed over to Plaza West Massage and Day Spa.  We were about 30 minutes early when Jay got a text message from one of his classmates asking him why he wasn't at the lecture??!!  He ended up having to go the the school for awhile so we had to cancel our massage!  It was a bummer, but overall we had a wonderful and romantic  Valentine's Day!  Yay for love.

Team Thorpe Times Two!

Last weekend Jay's brother and his wife came into town for a visit.  It was great because they had Rob and Billie watch their girls all weekend so it was just us four!  They got into town Friday afternoon around 3:30 and after I got off work we headed over to KYOTO-- the best sushi in town!  We had a wonderful dinner and came back the apartment to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics.  We also played a very slow and miserable game of Mexican Train. Saturday Jay helped me cook a delicious breakfast of waffles, eggs, hash and lil smokies!  YUMMY!  After breakfast Matt and Akina wanted us to take them to Nebraska Furniture Mart.  We had an overwhelmingly fun time there but, of course, we didn't find anything we couldn't live without.  After NFM, we went to the Plaza and had a half-price burger at Tomfooleries.  We shopped around for several hours but I was the only one who found something (a CUTE black blazer from Gap)!  We stopped for coffee before it started snowing and decided to head out for dinner!  We came back towards the homestead and ate dinner at Jose Pepper's.  We were barely even hungry!!  Mmmmm... leftovers.  After dinner, we didn't want to go home so we went to Sullivan's Steakhouse-- not for steaks, of course!  We enjoyed some after-dinner drinks and headed home to hit the sack.  Matt and Akina left Sunday morning and Jay and I went to church.  We had such a fun time all together!  Again, I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures.  That was terrible of me to do.  I will blog about Valentine's Day tomorrow!!  I'm getting caught up-- YAY!