Denise's 30th Birthday! 5-29-09/5-30-09

So I've been getting harassed about not having posted pictures for over a month, so here's what I've been up to! :-) This was Denise's birthday. We ended up celebrating two days. We had a blast! We ate at Swingers for dinner on Friday night and then went to The Loft for a martini and then on to Six Strings to hear a country band and do some dancing.

Day 2 of Denise's birthday hoopla. Can you tell Keith was landscaping all day with his brother? He was a little tired....or drugged! :-)


Not sure what she was talking about, but it looks like she's really letting me have it! haha

Ok, we made up! :-)

Denise's basket of 30 things that represented her. She's showing off her shooters(those are mini alcohol bottles just for the record!) I like to call her Sir-mix-a-lot!

Steph is due in October. I'm not even pregnant and I look like I'm further along than she is! Philip says it's becuase her stomach was concave to begin with!

So my patio furniture is in the crapper, so we decided to WT it and sit outside with all plastic lawn chairs!

Hmm.....I could say multiple things about this picture starting with the height difference with these guys. Can you say Twins(Arnold Schwarteneger and Danny Devito)? Also, why is it that guys have such an opposition to standing "too close" together? :-)

Is there an AA type group for tanners? JK

Philip clearly thought he was out of the photo, but just in case he wasn't he smiled anyway!

Just getting in a little practice for the real thing. Who knew Jill's would be coming so soon? She just got engaged this past weekeend!

Our tennis crew. Were still working on being able to return the ball but we have fun!

Michael is dedicated. He went to 2 30th birthday parties that day. I think he just heard there was going to be cake!

Something about this makes me feel like we should be going to a circus not a birthday party.

Keith wanted to be able to stop traffic in his new shirt. He accomplished his goal!

The Yonkers

I teased Ash about how much she said she hated her outfit that night when I was the one that bought her that shirt, but she assured me she knew I had bought it and LOVES the shirt but she just wanted something more dressy to wear.

Shannon was so much fun. She's going to teach us how to salsa dance next week!

Denise was eating steak. That is a VERY rare ocurrence. I had to have proof. The cow farmers will be glad to know that Denmise may be back in the market again for beef someday soon!

Nothing like a fireworks display tableside. We kept a close eye on it though. With all the hairspray in that room, anyone could have gone up in flames at a moments notice! :-)

Can you tell Denise is a band instructor? She's the only one sitting up straight in her chair!

Thank you Denise for holding my shirt in the back, so I dont look like I'm wearing a potato sack for a shirt!

Pretty sure it looks like I have an intertube blown up and put around my chest underneath my shirt!

The beginning of one crazy night of dancing!

It's a silly posed picture D, not just lean over and tilt your head to the side and smile!

The party poopers. They were in bed by like 9pm!

More Yonkers

So the martini was sweet, but Jill's reaction was a little exaggerated! :-)

Luke - "Oh were we not supposed to smile?"

Keith - "No"

Luke - "Ok, ok, let's try it again!"

There we go!

It was a very intense game of trying to "stab" all the cherries at the bottom of the glass, and then show off your stem knotting skills!

32oz martini and she drank it all by herself!

I was having trouble getting my fingers in the "rock on" symbol. Looks a little more like I love you!

Denise was a natural cage dancer!

Denise and her tambourine debut!

Shannon didn't know I didn't dance, so it took the pressure off to be able to just go out and try it!

You're probably wondering why I have a reflector hanging from my ear the size of a coaster, but Disco is back baby! :-)

They weren't quite ready. They were still in planning mode to do...

THIS! So original!

Jill had never gone out with Keith. She was interested to see her brother outside of sibling mode. I think she was a bit surprised! We always tell her how funny he is.....she finally had proof! :-)

Keith dancing with the birthday girl!

Poor Luke! I'm two inches taller than him flatfooted. With three inch heels on, he didn't have a chance! :-)

We rode around in style all night in Shannon's minivan! There were even Cheez-its all over the floor just in case we got hungry for a snack!

Luke and I started making up dnaces because just line dancing was soooo following the crowd. Our dance was a little lord of the dance meets just flailing about!

Most of the time we didn't know what we were doing, but we just had fun doing it anyway!

Luke and I's second dance......the penguin dance!

Aww! Brother and sister slow dance!

The girls got pulled up on stage. Shannon and D were a toss up on the tambourine ability!

Obviously not ready. Even though D and I are smiling, not exactly our natural smiles!

Such a fun night with good friends!

Note to self.....if you're going dancing all night DON'T wear three inch heels! I'm pretty sure my feet still hurt!

We worked up a sweat! I went to the bathroom to towel off and had to laugh at being the only sober one in there. Everyone coming out of the stalls was having a hard time staying on their feet!

We had a brush with fame. This was the lead singer of Southern Cross. You laugh now, but when they are playing at Grand Ole Opry, you'll be jealous!

Memorial Day 5-25-09

Holly and Tim invited us out for burgers and hot dogs on the grill. She said it was low key and that she already had all the food at her place, but it was far from low key. It was just Ash and Luke, Holly and Tim and me and there was enough food to feed an army. Felt like one of my cookouts! haha Holly had burgers and in her case a veggie burger. Easy to distinguish on the grill, because they are usually green or orange. Yum! The nice part about veggie burgers is there isn't really a way to screw them up. You just cook them till they're warm! She also had potato salad, pesto pasta salad, chips and dip, fruit, veggies, carrot casserole, beans, chips and salsa, and dessert. Chase loved the row boat and fishing. Ty had fun to just running around. He was covered in mud from head to toe literally by the end of the evening.

Ty thought he see if it was a finger shredder as well as a paper shredder!

I believe the rule is, when you run downhill, stick out your tongue. Helps give you balance!

Chase could NOT wait to go in the boat. He kept asking Luke when he could paddle!

Chase thought the boat should go faster. Luke was paddling as fast as he could!

Tim gave Ty a "tree" that he thought was soooooo cool to drag around or wave over his head!

I told you he was covered in mud from head to toe! Not sure how he got it on his face, but he was all over the place!

If an 18 month old can fit in your mailbox, IT'S TOO BIG!

The mailbox also doubles for a horse!

He was so proud of his fish! He had Luke and Tim digging up the yard to look for more worms!

Ty watched Chase from a distance while he fished but yelled loud enough for him to hear him all the way down at the lake! :-)

Ringer Dinner 5-23-09

We did our monthly Ringger dinner again in May. David and Kate couldn't make it, so I should probably call it something else, but it's easier for me to remember if I refer to it as that. Otherwise I would have to call it the Ringger, Zeller, Huber, Studebaker, Betts, VanHoof, and Yonker dinner. That doesn't exactly roll easy off the tongue! We went to El Paso to Alex and Julie's and then all rode together to Tolouca where we ate at Capponi's. It's always funny to me how the most unlikely places have the best food! After dinner we headed back to Alex and Julie's and had some awesome cheesecake that Julie had made. It's always fun to hang out with this group!

Holly doesn't eat much of any meat which is a little tough at times when we eat out. After asking the waitress if they had 4 or 5 different entrees to which the answer was no, we suggested she consult the menu to maybe order something they actually do have! :-)

My ear looks like an elf in this picture for some reason. So I was trying really hard to be casual that night. I put on a black cotton sundress that I hadn't worn yet this year, threw on some flip flops and put my hair in a ponytail because I was too lazy to straighten or curl it. I walked into to Ash and Luke's and Ash met me on the steps and greeted me with "oooooh, are we going to prom?!" That's when I knew my attempt at a casual sundress didn't quite work. I took my earrings out to try to dress down the outfit but my bubbled hair was apparently adding to the dressiness! :-)

Jill's First Pub II Experience 5-21-09

So we discovered a couple weeks that Jill had never eat at the Pub. Denise and I were horrified at the thought that she had never tasted the delectable fried greasy food that the Pub has to offer, so we introduced her to Pub's infamous cheese balls! She pretty much thought they were amazing like we do! She even missed her boyfriend's softball game to help us finish off the nachoes. Now that's committment! :-)

We had quite the spread: onion rings, popcorn chicken, nachos, and cheese balls!

We look like we coordinate and didn't even try to. I like the fact that I look tan next to Jill. I look tan until........

I get next to Denise! I'm pretty sure that she would make our african american friends look pale! haha