Foto Friday

In honor of Fool, who will be running the NYC 26.2 in celebration of her 26th birthday (man, we runners are a weird bunch), I stole her idea of Foto Friday, in part to:

1. Celebrate Fool
2. Celebrate Halloween
3. Celebrate my sister, who is in one of the Carolinas running a half-marthon down there!


That Ellen sure does crack me up! *insert FB "thumbs up"sign*


Devin standing upright at the Bi-Run-Yak, looking sporty.


And Devin laying on the ground a few weeks ago. Man, it never gets old, you know?

Oh, and holy crap I forgot to mention this!!

I am running the Hot Chocolate 15k on Sunday. Not so much for the race, but for the:

1. Windbreaker and fleece hat

2. The candy-landy-ding-dong at the end.

Word on the Wonka street is that its like the pot-o'-chocolate at the end.

So without further ado, I need to hunt down the largest loot bag (read: Hefty garbage bag) I can find.

Have a wonderful Halloween weekend, score a crapload of candy, and post lotsa pictures on Facebook for me to stalk on Monday as I recover from my race and sugar coma.

Is a Twix Too Much Too Ask For?

Trade-Offs
When you become an adult, you can drink legally.

But when you are an adult, it’s no longer socially acceptable to dress up in costume, wander through the neighborhood after dark, and beg neighbors for candy.

Or at least that’s what the cops told me last Halloween.

Lesson learned.

*****************************************************************************

Unfair
Halloween is a big fat tease for adults.

And I’m not referring to the Halloween parties that are like a get-out-of-jail-free-card for dressing like a porn star and letting the muffin-tops of the world five-five each other in their sexy nurse/firefighter/bumble bee/referee outfits.

Or the fact that it’s like the one time of the year that adults exert their right to take advantage of the otherwise-innocent costumes of little kids by putting a big old smutty twist on them (Or at least publicly – I can’t account for what your all do behind the closed doors of your bedrooms on any given Wednesday night.)

awwww....

FAIL

sweet!

Is it me, or does she look like Holly Madison, from "The Girls Next Door?

cutie!!

now wait just.one.stinking.minute. what kind of bumble bee has a machine gun?!?!

(Side note - you never really see a sexy Hobo. Can a hobo even be sexy? I don’t quite know. Discuss.)

No, the unfairness I’m referring to the fact that my increasing age is taking a toll on my metabolism, thus making it more and more difficult for me to smother myself in the sugary deliciousness that lines the aisles of my local Target without simultaneously committing myself to several hours on the treadmill or extra ass-kicking my personal trainer.

That, and that fact that my apartment is surrounded by other houses just giving the Good Stuff out for FREE.

FREE CANDY.

And I think we can all agree that the only thing better than candy is FREE candy.

I guess I will just have to be okay with curling up on the couch with my bowl of salt-free and taste—free low fat microwave popcorn and a scary movie, while praying I don’t die in my race the following morning.

Or maybe I will pull the bumblebee outfit from the closet and force Cheese to wear it, while I yell, "Dance Bumble Bee, DANCE!"

Hey, a girl still needs to have fun even without free candy.

Everything I Have To Say....

...is usually reserved for Facebook these days.

Hence, the dust bunnies on El Bloggo.

But since many of my recent communications with my family follow along the lines of, "Dude, are you dead, or did you just forget you have a blog?" I decided maybe it's time to check into my little space in the blogosphere.

So what follows is a mash up of some recent (okay, maybe kinda old) pictures that I have frankly been too spankin' lazy to post.

Welcome to Hawaii.
End of our first day. I seem to be contemplating either:

a. How small we humans are when compared to the massive world and ocean.

b. How lucky I am to be married to my man.

c. How on earth I plan to organize all those grill pans, fry pans, tupperware, dishes, flatware, and vases we received in out tiny apartment.

d. How to get my bowels to open up after a 9-hour flight.

Malasados. Known to us mortals as a big donut-like puff covered in sugar and served hotly fried. As my husband says, "They're stick-your-dick-in-it-good." I apparently preferred to just give myself a facial with them instead.
Guess the stress of leisure reading was simply too much for my mind to handle. Thus, I must rest. And tan.
Hands off ladies. He's a married man.
Mr. Merman.
"How come I can't see any fish? What? Oh, my face has to go IN the water."
Me in my Donna Reed/Mad Men 60s-style dress at dinner.

Oh, and my husband was there, too.
I had to burn off my two plates of luau pork somehow, and what better way of doing it than dancing on stage in front of hundreds of people we don't know, and having the moment captured by forcing the strange, old British man who has the misfortune of being seated next to me during a buffet take our picture.
As any bride will tell you, I didn't eat and barely had a drink for the entire duration of the wedding. So when it came cake time, you know I knocked over the flower girl and lept over tables to get to my slice - white cake with THICK layers of fudge and Bailey's Irish Cream, then smothered in buttercream.

I know, right?!?!

I'll pause while you go take an insulin shot.

(Pause)

So imagine my horror when I stood to talk to Cheese's sister and friend for a split second (for a conversation the revolved soley around the shape and quantity of my boobies/cleavage), and my cake was stripped out from underneath my nose. Needless to say, this Cake Whore complained about all the way until we got home from the honeymoon the following Monday.

But leave it to my honey to welcome me home from work on Tuesday with a mini-wedding cake, and a card that read, "Every bride should have her cake and eat it too."

From Cake Binge to Fitness - About two weeks later, I went on the Pumpkin Ride with my sister Devin and friend Mark. Look closely and you can see the remenents of the Second Wedding Cake stuck right there to my hips. Yeah, right...over...there.... Sure was nice of Devin to help me hide the plump with her bike.

Sweet girl.
So I repaid her by laughing and taking pictures when she fell off her bike.

Heck, I'm laughing even now as I look at this.

But she recovered well, yes?
Sweet reward.
No post is complete without some shout-out to my littlest nephew, Aiden.

It's okay to admit you just want to eat up his face.
Even when he gets caught red-handed making poopies.
And if her hair wasn't enough to give myself whiplash with my eye-rolling, we now have Ms. Suri in her heels.

Yeah, because that's what make sense in this world.

A 3-year-old in heels.

Nuthin' weird about that at aaaaaaall......

Hair

I have long hair.

Sometimes I like to wear it curly.

Sometimes I like to wear it with a crown.

Sometimes I like to wear it with a lai.

Sometimes I like to wear it to a luau buffet.

But today I woke to find it in a dread up to my scalp.

This, I did not like.

After spending ten minutes in the shower coating it in Vasoline and conditioner, my dread would not budge.

Enter scissors.

Now the dread is dead.

But Suri's hair?

WTF?

Has Katie just completely given up?

P.S. Is it weird that I had a tag already for "Katie Holmes?"

Where in the World Am I? Part I

SO between being sick for about a week now (still sick), and being swamped with both real work and private practice since coming home from the honeymoon, I have sort of fallen off the map for the last week. My energy is just zapped lately, so anything remotely related to posting just seems to enormous right now.

Despite this, I thought I would take a second to post some photos of some recent events (and eventually work my way back to the honeymoon and that stuff). And since I still don't feel great, it has to be done in parts - hence, Part I.

First up is Cheese's birthday. For as long as we have been together, he has wanted to go to Medieval Times - a dream born from the movie "Cable Guy."

And who am I to keep him from his dreams?

I have to admit - it was pretty fun. You really do get to eat with your hands, the foods not bad, and everyone that works is SUPER into their jobs that you can't NOT have fun. I was also worried that we would be the only adults there without children, but again - I was surprised. I mean, there were couples that even looked like they were on DATES.

Oh, and there's even a picture floating around on Cheese's FB page that has the four of us in COSTUMES.

Hellz yeah.

I did it.

It's been DUN.

So Happy Birthday to Cheese! You can cross that off your Bucket List!

"I Never Saw Two People Enjoy Their Wedding As Much As You Two"

So says my mother.

And I tend to believe her, mostly because from the second I turned the corner out of the hallway to walk down the aisle, I was in wedding bliss.

I carefully reminded myself all the tips of the days that were imparted to me by all of you:

"Take it all in."

"Go slow."

"Remember EVERYTHING."

"It goes so fast so enjoy."

And I did. All of it.

I remember just about every last detail - and the tiny group was just right to make sure I got a chance to talk to everyone, and still spend most of the night (and quite literally every song) on the dance floor.

In fact, my dress is ruined at the bottom from all the dancing.

So here are a few of the moments:


The cake, complete with the silver ribbon to match my dress. However, I have no idea who put those rose pedals around it.

Not my call.

But quick story - Cheese and I actually were thoughtful about putting together this cake - I mean, we all know how important cake is in my life, so I wasn't just going to show up with some Betty Crocker nonsense (well, to be honest, given our budget, I might have, but the fancy cake actually came with our food/drink package, so we took full advantage!) So we chose moist white cake with three layers of thick fudge and Baileys Irish Cream filling, topped with buttercream frosting -yeah, 'cause that's how I roll - if your not in a sugar coma, it doesn't count. But I never got to eat it. Remember that story - I'll finish it in the next post.....

The table - I post this for a few reasons - this first is that my sister (again) did all the centerpieces, and I loved them. So simple, so perfect. The little bags with the "d" on them are actually homeade chocolate chip cookies made by my mom, while those red labels are embossed by my sister Devin. She did ALL of them. The lower case "d" represents my new last name, and was also the same lower case font we did our invites in. I liked the casualness of it. My mom then decorated the rest of the table with the grey runners and the floor-length linens.

Cheese's nephew - but the reason I put this in is this: Look at what he's holding. It's a chinese take-out box filled with Swedish Fish, Mike n Ikes, Tootsie Rolls, Peanut MnMs, Red Vines and Reeces Pieces. If he turned it, you would see a similar red round label also embossed with lower case letters that read "thank you." Heck yeah - No wedding of mine was going to be without a self-serve candy bar!! And thanks again to Devin for the labels she put on literally 100 boxes.

Ellie giving a speech. I believe it went something like this: "Now, I know many of you don't know Megan all that well, but in addition to being kind and beautiful and smart, you should also know that when she gets raging drunk, she pees in closets and on floors."

*Insert crowd roaring here*



And then up was Devin. My favorite quote from her speech? "Cheese, I intially wanted to use my speech to call you an asshole for stealing my best friend, but I see how happy you made her, more happy than we have seen her in so very long."



Is that a tear I see? Did Devin actually *gasp!* cry?!? Dang, makes my stone cold heart all warm and fuzzy.

Mom, in the two seconds of her speech she wasn't sobbing.

The best man and speech.

Just chatting.

I *heart* this picture.

And now, for the first dance...

"Today is the day I make you mine" - Today, by Josh Radin

"You looked right through me, there was...no one else

I sat besides you and...became myself."

Cheese and Momma Cheese

And lest we forget my dance with my mom - "You'll Never Find Another Love" by Lou Rawls,which she used to dance around to while holding me right after I was born. Momma Q spun me around for four minutes while my dress hung on for dear life. Yeah, these are the G-rated pictures.

Me and Nolan

Flower Girl Kennedy and her dad- sweetness!

Momma Q

"I got a feelin'....that tonight's gonna be a good night...."

"Here we go, here we, now we on top!"

Daddy Cheese

"Apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur, the whole club was lookin' at her

She hit the floor!

Next thing you know -

Shorty got low, low, low, low..."

"I like the way you move - da da duh."

Devin and Patrick!

"Let the music play

He won't get away..."
"Just hit the groove and he'll come back to you....Let it play!"

Nicole, fellow blogger and probably the best dancer of the night - showed my ass up, for sure!

Nolan and Jenny

"Footloose! Cut loose! Kick up the Sunday shoes!" And then Colin dropped to the floor and did the catapiller. Hell yeah, he did.

Footloose wore him out.

Oh, looks like someone's crashing from the sugar binge of the cake, pastry table, cookies, and finally four trips to the candy bar!

"Rock me momma like a wagon wheel, rock me momma any way you feel"

"Oh oh! We're livin' on a prayer!

Take my hand and we'll make it I swear!"

"Pour some sugar on me!"

Check Jenny out!

Me and Nicole at the Dollar Dance - oh yeah. Have I mentioned this?

Apparently, anyone NOT from Chicago likes to participate in this thing called the Dollar Dance, where the maid of honor and best man collect money from people who want to dance with the bride and groom - it can be any amount of money. The point is to make extra money for the honeymoon - and I guess its all the rage in Kansas. I dreaded this, but we actaully made out with mad loot.

Who knew I am sort of a hot commodity when it comes to dancing?

Now I can't say for sure how much Nicole paid for a little "Megan Action," but I am p.r.e.t.t.y sure I made it worth her while *wink*

Lady: "You come here often?"

Kade: "No, my mom wants me home and in bed by 8."

Lady:"Well, can I buy you a drink?"

Kade: "Sure, I'll take a milk, straight up. You know what? Make it a double - I brought my cookies over from the dinner table."

Lady: "Your mom every talk to you about cougars?"

Kade: "Like the ones in the zoo? Oh yeah. She said to stay away because they'll bite me really good."

Lady:"Your mom, huh?"

KAde: "Yeah - she looks sort of like you. Do you know her?"

Love.

Is the night already over?!?!?! They had to literally drag our asses to the car to go to the hotel. I could have stayed many more hours. But bigger and sunnier and sandier things awaited!

Hope you have enjoyed it so far - I know we have.

So if you're not sick of this yet, tune in tomorrow for some pictures (I'll find that one of Devin!) and a recap of the rehersal and honeymoon.