Charlotte Poughkeepsied in her pants!

Jonathan & I had a date night last night.  I've been teasing him for a couple weeks that we need to go see Sex and the City.  I say teasing because Jonathan hates to do anything that might be considered even slightly girly.  I never really thought he'd go for it.  See I know it's a movie I should see with my friends but these days I rarely see my girls.  We're all so busy with work and half of them have significant others who live out of town and/or they travel for work.  So it's pretty rare that we're all in town at the same time with nothing going on.

So, Jonathan surprised me yesterday afternoon by IMing me at work and asking if I wanted to have a date night.  He suggested dinner and a movie.  The sweet fella bought tickets on fandango for SATC without me even having to ask.  So, we had dinner at La Madeleine... which I love!  I had the shrimp crepe...I strayed from my usual Caesar Salad & cup of Tomato Basil soup....it was deeeeelicious!

Then we were off to SATC.  I LOVED it!!!!  It was like watching 3 or 4 of SATC shows at once!  The clothes were amazing...although I did have a problem with one of Patricia Field's costume choices.  Towards the end when Carrie & Miranda are talking in the park...Miranda has on these knee high boots with fringe over jeans.  Miranda would NEVER wear that!  

Other than that little knit pick, I really enjoyed the movie.  It made me laugh, cry, & smile....a lot!  If you're like me and are a huge Sex and the City fan & haven't been able to see the movie yet...go see it!

"On the bat's back I do fly | After summer merrily." - Shakespeare

This past weekend, I had a great visit with the family.  We took a trip out to The Oasis which is always a guaranteed crowd pleaser.  The view is great and I hear it's even better at sunset.  The food is good, not great...but the experience more than makes up for that.

After the great lunch we headed back to my house for a little R&R before going to see the bats on the Congress Ave bridge.  As a resident of Austin for going on 8 years, it's amazing that I've never been to see one of Austin's most famous tourist attractions.  If you don't know, Austin is home to the world's largest urban bat colony.  1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats... just hanging out under the Congress bridge from March to October.  

I had not idea what to expect going to the bridge... but what I saw was truly amazing. The bats came out right at sundown... around 8:30pm.  I took lots of pictures, but none really do the event justice...check out the links below which have some good shots.  I had this vision of a huge mass of bats flying out at once and sort of swarming then dispersing.  It looked more like a constant trail of smoke flying out from under the bridge.  The bats spiraled through the air and stayed in this amazing sort of formation until they were no longer visible in the distance.  

I'm so glad my family came in town and got to participate in this very Austin activity with me.  

If you want to read more about the Austin bats you can at these sites:

Bat Conservation International

Austin 360

Lonestar Riverboat 

Exposaroonie | Friendship is...

This week's Exposaroonie challenge is "Friendship is..." I really had a hard time deciding how I wanted to approach this challenge. I had dinner with a couple friends this week, but like a dork, I forgot my camera every time. So, leave it to me to wait until the last possible moment to take my picture & upload it. Of course I wore the battery out on my camera & we don't have a card scanner. So, right now I've got my battery charging while I type this post. That way I can upload the pictures I took and actually enter the contest :)

20 min later....

So, here's my choices:



I'm going with the last one as my entry. Lola kissing Jonathan is just so stinkin cute. I love my little family! Even if it does only consist of us two humans, two dogs, & two cats.

I swear I can take pictures of other things than my dogs, but jeez, dogs are mans best friend, ya know! I mean, that's what Friendship is...

Yay Exposaroonie! If you want to vote for my submission, you can here.

"Then after the show it's the (after party) and after the party it's the (hotel lobby)"

Jonathan & I have been married for 6 months on Sunday.  Getting married was probably one of the most exciting and tiring things I have ever done.  It was a whole year of spending most of my time planning for the big day.  It's amazing I still have a job!  I spent so much time browsing theknot.com, updating my weddingchannel.com profile, adding more items to my many many registries, browsing iTunes for just the right music for the ceremony/reception, and emailing my moms & mother-in law about all the little things I needed their help with.  It was a lot of work, a lot of fun, and I'm oh so happy that I never have to do it again. 

Having gone through the experience of planning a wedding, attending other people's weddings has become so enjoyable.   Jonathan & I were one of the first of our friends to get married.  We went to one other wedding in 2007.  2008 is turning out to be the year of weddings.  We've already been to two and we've got three coming up.  Sure, it's not a record number of weddings, but for us, it's a lot.  

Last weekend we went to Henderson (a.k.a. Middle of Nowhere) Texas to attend the wedding of a guy that I've known my whole life.  He also happens to be the one responsible for introducing me to Jonathan our Freshman year of college.   Anyway, it was a really great wedding.  It was very different than my wedding, which was not exactly traditional... (we were married in a "barn" by a preacher who was wearing one Birkenstock sandal and two of our groomsmen passed out!...but this is a story for another day...I digress...)   This wedding was extremely traditional right down to walking down the aisle to "Bridal Chorus" & exiting to "Wedding March".  It was really sweet and I could appreciate all of the hard work and planning that went into putting together a wedding with over 500 guests.  Jonathan & I particularly enjoyed it because it was a mutual friend so we both knew a lot of people there and we could mingle and if we got separated it wasn't the end of the world.

Mom...stop reading here :)

So the wedding was great, but my favorite part was the afterparty.  The place to be was the Holiday Inn Express pool.  Yes, we sat outside the Holiday Inn Express pool in Henderson, TX with about three coolers full of beer & one of my good friends led a little sing along.  It's a tradition that we used to do almost every weekend in college.  So, it was nice to reenact those good ole days.   So about 2am this poor little front desk attendant comes out to the pool.  Clay, my friend who was playing the guitar & serenading started playing the Jason Boland classic, "Rich, Dumb, Young, Nymphomaniac" (yes the song really says that...you can view a live version of it here).  Luckily the guy had a good sense of humor.  So, he tells us that guests are complaining and that we can't stay out by the pool. 

The alternative...we can go hang out in the lobby.  So, we pack up our coolers and head to the lobby of the Holiday Inn Express in Henderson, TX.  We continued our little sing along until about 3:30am when Jiggity & I decided to call it a night.  

If the next three weddings we have to go to end up like the one last weekend, it's going to be a great year of weddings!

Rockin' Out

Yesterday I added a video of She & Him performing at SXSW to the sidebar.  I'm really digging them right now.  I only got to go to one day of shows at this year's SXSW because of a business trip.  So, I had to live vicariously through Joanthan...because he never misses a good concert.  

Jonathan & I try to go to concerts often.  It's an activity that both of us enjoy and usually we can agree on what bands to see.  Before Jonathan & started dating I rarely attended live music events.  Since then I've had some really great concert experiences.  Here are my top 5 concerts so far (b/c I fully expect to see many more in the future!) and in no particular order:

1. Guster - Jonathan & I went to see Guster at a smallish club in Houston in 2005.  I've seen them since then, but it was never as good as that first concert.  I was so amazed by drummer, Brian Rosenworcel, and his ability to play not only the bongos but regular drums with just his hands...no drumsticks!  Adam & Ryan's vocals were just amazing & I've been such a huge fan ever since.
   
2. Kanye West - I've seen Kanye twice.  Once in Feb. 2006 in Birmingham, England & then in April 2008 here in Austin.  Both concerts were absolutely amazing.  He is a master performer.  Sure he's arrogant as all get out, but he'll definitely make you feel like you got more than your money's worth every time.
   
   
   
3. Coldplay - At ACL 2005, Coldplay was the headliner.  This was in the era of the X&Y album.  This band put on an amazing concert.  I fell in love with Chris Martin during that show.  So jealous of Gwyneth!
   
   
   
   
4. Bloc Party - Another act we saw at ACL 2005.  These guys rocked my face off!  We managed to fight our way towards the front of the stage so we could see Kele up close.  It was an amazing concert all around.
   
   
   
5. Albert Hammond Jr. - If his name sounds strangely familiar and your now sure why, it's because AHJ is a part of another awesome band, The Strokes.  We saw him about a year ago at The Parish here in Austin.  It was a great show and the first time I ever attended a concert of someone I had never heard of and wanted to immediately go buy the CD.  

Living in the Live Music Capital of the World has it's perks.  What are your favorite concerts of all time?