Road to 29: TWENTY-NINE THURSDAY

It was here. I made it. I only had one more year to enjoy the fact that I was young and in my twenties. Mind you, I would have liked to have started it at little later than I did, but my Mom had to be the first person to wish me a Happy Birthday….by calling at 6:10 AM. Noooo! I still had 10 more minutes before my alarm went off. Oh well, this being my favorite day of the year I guess I could enjoy it for longer then I had anticipated.

After finally getting ready, I made my way to work where rather than just walk around and have everyone say Happy Birthday, I had to get straight to work. I put in a very productive 4 hours with no time wasted on reading stupid stuff on the internet or chatting about nothing with one of my coworkers. But you better believe when the clock hit 12 noon, I was out!

After my strenuous ‘day’ at the office, I went downtown to have lunch with Angel. Being the fantastic friend that she is, she took me out to lunch to a cute little diner/café. We gossiped, ate, made plans for future happy hours and Girls Nights Out. The next year was already looking up.

After lunch, it was time for Me time. I went to the nail place next to my house, got a pedicure (which as Angel so lovingly pointed out on Tuesday was much needed) and manicure. It was glorious, until the woman tried to cut my pinky toe off. Oh well, at least the nail polish remover didn’t hurt….oh wait. So after my kind of relaxing pedicure, it was time to shop. So I jetted around my housing area and but not so necessary clothes and shoes. Woo Hoo!

Finally after a couple hours of that, I made my way home. Where I was greeted with presents! Ben bought me some square bowls that I have been saying were needed for the kitchen. After that, I got ready and we headed off to Eno’s Pizza in the Bishop Arts District. Since we were super early for the reservations, we went to the soda shop across the street and had a Cherry Soda.

Then it was off to Eno’s where we waited at the bar for everyone else. We finally went up to our table for more wine, awesome appetizers, salad and pizza. It was soo good. I was so happy that Jessica, Brent, Randy, Erych, Jon and Mary Beth all joined me for the festivities. The food was great, the wine was great and the people were even better.

Later on Brigette met up with us and we made our way to a bakery for some milk and cake! Perfect birthday! Although it was a very non rowdy celebration, it is exactly what I wanted. I finally made my way home where I had to pack for the weekend… that I planned on spending in Cancun!

Road to 29: WINO WEDNESDAY

I had one more day to relish in my 28 year old status. So I figured I would enjoy it like a grown up. After work on Wednesday, I headed off the best wine bar in Dallas, Veritas. When I arrived there happened to a party/happy hour in full swing. Lucky for me, I know the bartender and without even having to utter a word, he had my glass of Reisling for me within minutes. Thanks, Ben!

Since the standing space around the bar could only fit heroin-esque models, I scooted myself outside and made the obligatory phone calls while I waited for the rest of my friends. I spoke with my sister for a bit and got to her how she was jealous of my upcoming vacation to Cancun and caught up for a bit.

After a few minutes, my coworkers arrived. So we made our way back into the bar and posted up around the fireplace with the big chairs. We split wine and, of course, had to bitch about work. Then we bitched about everything and anything that came to mind. I also got some advice from Rachel and Finula about what I can expect when I actually turn 30. Some of it was promising and the rest of it just sucked. What do you mean I’m not going to look like Jennifer Aniston in 10 years? Hangovers get even worse than they are now?

So after our bitchfest and doom and gloom you are almost 30 talk, we headed across the street for some Mexican food and margaritas. At least the conversation became more hysterical and less PG-13. It just makes me happy that not EVERYONE could hear us. After dinner, we all parted ways and I went home to prepare for my last year of being in my 20s.

Road to 29: TOP GOLF TUESDAY

Tuesday was Top Golf fun for my birthday week. After work, we headed over the driving range and prepared for awesomeness. If you have never been nor ever heard of Top Golf, here is the run down. It is a driving range with a bar and kitchen. What makes it special is that all of the balls have sensors in them. There are also huge holes out on the range and when said sensor ball actually goes into a hole, you get points! So for crappy golfers like me, it becomes more of a game rather than practice for hitting balls. :)

All the other times I have been to Top Golf, my game has been horrible. I would get excited when the ball fell off the tee, fell from the second story and then miraculously would go into a hole so I could get points. This time around, the ball hitting gods were with me.

So after we grabbed our free golf clubs, we met up with Angel and Andy in their golfing slot. Since they were in the middle of a game, Angel let me get in some practice swings. Unbeknownst to me, I had acquired professional golfing arms! At least in my head I did. The ball actually flew towards the middle of the range…in the air….and we weren’t even on the second floor!

After their game, we waited for Clap, Mary Beth and Sam. In the meantime, Angel being the fantastic person that she is, bought me 2 dozen cupcakes (don’t judge, I love cake)! She grabbed those and we annihilated about a half dozen in 2 minutes.

Strawberry goodness!

From Top Golf

Chocolate…yum…

From Top Golf

Once everyone arrived, the games began. Since Top Golf is stupid and only let’s five players go at once, the competition was amongst Andy, Mary Beth, Clap, Ben and I. Yep, apparently I lost all skill. I came in last place. Sometimes it looked like I knew what I was doing and other times, it was just embarrassment. Although the best play of the night came from MB, after 4 missed swings she finally made contact with the ball where it flew straight up, hit the ceiling and fell 10 ft in front of us. It was so close that not even golf ball collecting car came near.
On to round two, Sam, Angel, Andy, Clap/Ben and I competed. I am also happy to announce that I came in second place this time with a whopping score of 64! My all time before that was 40, so I am improving! I am thinking maybe Bar Golf helped out too! Watch out LPGA!

Me seeing my future as a professional golfer…

From Top Golf

Ben making a shot…

From Top Golf

Pretty sure this one got MB points!

From Top Golf

Angel this isn’t backwards golfing! She just looks evil.

From Top Golf

We had a lot of fun and I am thinking we should incorporate some Top Golf fun in every month. Let me know if you ever want to join!

Road to 29: MOVIE MONDAY!

I thought I would give my liver a break so I planned a movie Monday for a birthday celebration. After work, I jetted off to the theater to buy tickets. There was no way I was going to let the city of Dallas buy all the tickets before I could. With tickets in hand, I met up with Whitey for some pre movie cocktails. Huh? What can I say? I was thirsty.

We went to Mi Cocina where I indulged in two margaritas and some not so awesome chips and salsa. That’s right, working hard on my Cancun body.  We stayed there for a bit until we walked over to the movie theater bar with Ben. Wait? Wasn’t I supposed to be letting my liver rest? Oh well, Ben and I bought a bottle of wine. By that time, it was time to get our seats.

So all day long I tried to avoid any talk about Inception. My coworker Courtney tried to talk to me about it and I had to banish her to her office and then reviews were popping up all over the interwebs. So beside one headline on CNN, I was able to go into the movie with an unbiased mind. Needless to say, I liked it… a lot. I actually don’t have any complaints whatsoever…which as we all know is quite strange. Leo was fantastic and I actually liked that kid from 3rd Rock too! So if you haven’t seen it yet, get to the theater and check it out! I recommend going in with a sharp mind though and not a hazy one from wine and margaritas. :D

Road to 29: SUNDAY FUNDAY!

What better way to rest your aching bones from a Dance Party then to laze around all Sunday in a craptastic pool? Well, that is exactly what we did… besides , of course, having to rest our aching bones.

So I bought one of those huge blow up pools for my backyard. After weeks of trying to get the thing operational, we finally were able to hang out in it. Whitey, Ben and I all jumped in before anyone got there. It was like hanging out in a huge bath tub. So thinking we were geniuses, Ben went off and bought 10 bags of ice to throw in the pool to cool it off. Genius! Yeah, that worked for all of 30 seconds and it only cooled you off if you were clinging to the bag of melting ice for dear life. Oh well, it was still pool fun.

Ben also fired up the grill and made the rest of the fajitas that we have had at the house. Once the food was ready, we all gathered inside around my mini kitchen island (because the table had too much room), ate some awesome food and enjoy another installment of “Hilarity of Clap’s Life.” We got to relive his playa days, his most recent mugging at a bar the night before (the bum stole his drink and ran off) and other captivating stories.

So after plenty of drinks, food and entertainment, everyone went their separate ways. We picked up the house a bit and called it a night by renting Alice In Wonderland…

Road to 29: DANCE PARTY USA!

My birthday celebration week began last Saturday. My first event was going to be a Dance Party USA. I figured what better way to get ready for Cancun, then busting out some awesome dance moves. Well, I guess in my old age and everyone else’s old age, Dance Party isn’t as exciting as it used to be.

So I opted for Roller Derby fun. There was a bout happening that night and figured a lot of people haven’t gone to one before and some people might consider girls body checking each other on a slick surface a dance party, right? So I go online Saturday to buy some tickets and lo and behold, everyone in Dallas must have heard I was thinking of going, so they bought all of the tickets before I had a chance. :(

So Plan C, hmmmm slick surfaces, awesome moves….let’s go bowling! Not as exciting as an actual dance party or girls skating around in circles, but it was a lot of fun. We started the night with some pre drinks at my house and then drove out to Main Event in Plano. Lucky for us, we got some lanes pretty quickly, not so lucky was our very slow waiter. We decided to bowl for two hours. Yay for me, I wasn’t the worst. That title actually was bestowed on Angel’s boyfriend Sam. It is good to know he isn’t good at one sport! With about 15 minutes left on the lanes, we all decided to end the night with trick bowling. I am pretty sure I tried the not so graceful split while hurling the ball down the lane (woo hoo dance move!) and I know I saw some soccer moves and backward throws. It was a lot of fun. I got to hang out with some great friends and even my Dad. :)

After bowling fun, everyone left but Ben, Whitey and I. So we decided to play the games. Whitey and I each ended winning a random stuffed animal in the grab machines, we all raced motorcycles and had basketball hoop shot fun (what! What! I won. Twice.) and pretty much wasted money on anything with a bright shiny light. Whitey and I also got a great workout playing the Japanese horse racing game. We even got some awesome picture fun.

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

After all of the playing around, we all combined our points and bought a crazy hamster to let Sylvester play with, flashing mouth guards and some random foam disc gun. Yay presents!

After that, we went home and gave Sylvester most of our winnings. Only to get ready for the next day…

Ryan Turns a Year Older, Bar Golf Edition

The weekend after July 4th we all decided to celebrate Ryan’s 27 birthday with a little round of Bar Golf. Before the festivities could be begin, a couple of girls and I had a burlesque party where we let our inner sex kittens come out and play. So we all met up at the Burlesque studio, pulled out our slutty heels, put on some long gloves and prepared to learn the art of seduction….on a chair. Not going to lie, it reminded me of my very younger days and watching some Madonna video on MTV (I told it you I was young, there were still videos!) and trying to duplicate her dance with a chair while my sister and brother rolled around on the floor laughing at me after they caught me. So of course when we were asked if we had ever done a chair dance, I denied it! We learned an awesomely sexy dance to some blues music complete with pulling off the gloves, slowing hip rolls and even leg kicks while on the chair. It was soooo much fun. I really want to go back and learn some more moves.

Afterwards I went home, c hanged into my golf attire and headed to the ‘golf course’. So if you have never played here is a rundown: Just like golf you want to have the lowest score. At every bar you have to have one drink, each drink is a certain amount of points. So a shot of vodka counts as 1 point, a mixed drink is 2, a light beer is 4 and so forth. You can also get points by accidently breaking a glass (1 point), losing your putter (5 points) or not wearing the proper attire (10 points). Needless to say you need to have a good score keeper.

So our first stop was Primo’s in Uptown where we thought we would be smart and actually eat some food before the challenge. We also thought it would be smart to warm up our bodies to the idea of drinking by having pre drinks…yeah. I think I would have been better at the end had I just stuck with food.

Anyway, we hopped to 9 different bars. I started off strong walking in a straight line to the bars, having a vodka shot at 3 of the bars, speaking in coherent sentences and all in all having a good time. I obviously took a lot of pictures and managed to look sober…ish. As the night progessed, I got louder, broke a glass, stumbled around, broke my putter, lost my hat, gained a new one, yelled about losing the original and somehow agreeing with Ben and some point that we needed to go home. Oh yes, I also managed to send out text messages, forget I sent one out and then send the exact same one an hour later. And to make matters worse, it was “where you be?” …so we all know my grasp of the English language wasn’t very good either.

I hope Ryan had a great birthday, I know that for the celebration I had a great time. Now as for the passing out in my bathroom, not so sure if that means it was a successful night. :0 Feel free to check out Facebook for documentation and make your own judgements…

Happy Birthday USA!

I broke from tradition this year and started a new one in regards to my July 4th plans. Instead of venturing out to the Simpson Lake house, I went down to Austin to spend time with my family. After work, Ben and I hopped in the car and made our way to my brother’s place and had dinner with the fam. It was quite uneventful, which is good, considering we were a little tired from the trip. We were supposed to stay at my sister’s for the weekend, but in a turn of events that even shocked me…we stayed at Jason’s. Why? Because we planned on working out with Jason and Theresa the next morning….at 6 AM. On Vacation. Huh?

Exactly. Needless to say, Ben and I woke up early, changed into work out clothes (not too sure how those bad boys jumped into my suitcase) and headed out into the neighborhood for some interval training. We walked 45 seconds and then ran 15 seconds for 2.5 miles. Surprisingly it was a really good work out. Directly after our jaunt around the neighborhood, we changed into our swimsuits and jumped in the pool. All before 8 in the morning. The rest of the day consisted of going to some garage sales, buying fireworks, eating, blowing up fireworks, buying some more to replenish our stock and begin the creative process for the Greatest Movie Ever Made. Oh, and then we blew up some more fireworks. :)

That night after gorging ourselves on lasagna, we went out to a random little bar and watched the UFC fight. Then back home, all before Midnight. Seriously, this was turning out to be the strangest vacation ever.

That next morning, we woke up early again….and guess what we did? You are right! We worked out again. This time we went on a 5 mile jog/run. What kind of vacation am I on? Then back in the pool and probably blowing up more fireworks. We did some last minute shopping for the party for that day and began drinking around 1. Jason and Theresa’s friends started coming over around 3 and by 6 the party was in full force. Also around this time, we started filming on GMEM.

It all started when I bought a firework that shoots out 10 parachutes at the same time. Joking around, I said when it went off I would dance around while all of my little soldiers flew around me….which then started Jason and Ben’s minds working. They decided it would be funny to film a 4th of July version of the 50 ft woman. We would have some of the tanks attack me and missiles go off.

So after eating tons of food and drinking copious amounts of liquid fun, my movie career began along with Morgan and Augie. It was a glorious fight of the US led by Augie against the 500 ft Woman (what? I’m a big girl!) and Mothra (Morgan with a towel wing.) Lucky for Augie, the US won and we were defeated. Needless to say, good times! Once my brother is done editing, I will post so you can make fun.
The rest of the night was spent in the pool, across the street at the neighbors’ huge blow up water slide and in the front yard watching about an hour of fireworks being blown up, both by the neighbors and our party. It was a great night. Needless to say, I will be coming back next year for more fun.

The weekend ended with brunch and Ben and I heading back to the Big D. And this time, we managed to make it home without a flat tire. So all in all, a very fun weekend.