Boats, Blues, and Booze

In a few hours, I will be heading to Pensacola Beach for this:

The most amazing weekend my hometown has to offer....

It's a perfect weekend and a perfect excuse to take your boat out, be in the water, and drink during the day. I LOVE it!

I'm ready to be there now!

4th of July Festivities

View from the house with all the boats

I stayed in Orlando for the 4th of July this year and had such a good time. It had rained the whole first part of the week, so I was so worried we were going to have bad weather; but it turned out perfect on Friday and Saturday with just a few little drizzles now and then.

My brother, Bryan, and his girlfriend, Erin, came to town from Tampa and our friends, Ryan and Kimmie, came in from Jacksonville. They had some friends that live on the Conway Chain of Lakes here in Orlando, so we brought Matt's boat over on Thursday to keep there for the weekend.

Everyone got into town on Thursday night, so we started off the weekend with dinner at Seito Sushi in Baldwin Park. We had dinner then all crammed in the back of the 4Runner and headed downtown to Vixen.

In the back of the 4Runner

Friday and Saturday we spent all day on the boats and anchored up on the Sandbar at Little Conway Lake. It was a perfect, relaxing 2 days and of course we had to break out the floating flip cup table which was once-again, a huge hit!!!

All of the girls kissing the Gator

Dinner at Seito Sushi

On the sandbar for the 4th

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

A Night at the Hard Rock

I spent yesterday evening at the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa which now has Black Jack tables. This has made me very excited because I LOVE blackjack. I can spend hours and hours at the blackjack table. If you ask most of my friends, they would say I'm ridiculously lucky when it comes to gambling. I usually do pretty well. I was so excited to go to Tampa and play and I was feeling REALLY lucky. I had a really good vibe on my way there. Here is what I expected to come home looking like:

So happy with lots of dolla dolla bils, ya'll

But instead, I came home looking like this: EMPTY HANDED.

How pathetic is that?

There was four of us together at the table and we couldn't get anything going. The luck was not in our favor. AND they make you buy your own drinks. They don't even serve free while you're at the table. How pathetic??

The house took all our money and didn't bat on eye, but we did get to enjoy a nice dinner at the steak restaurant and got two free steaks out of them. They overcooked both of them, but don't worry...They made their money back on those steaks plus a lot more. It must of been bad karma eating those free steaks.


Sorry Dubes, I have nothing to show for the $20 on BJ I put down for you. Maybe next time friend.

Annie Grease

My friend Cassie has coined the phrase "Annie Grease" for my overly active hair follicles. I have always had a problem with oily hair. Part of it must be genetics and part of it must be the fact that I have naturally dark hair and I continue to fake it as a blond. The dark roots surely can't help with making my hair look fresh and clean.

So, to alleviate this problem (without having to wash my hair everyday); I have tried several different solutions. None of them have been any good. I've tried expensive-name-brand shampoos and products, but with no avail. It wasn't until my cousin, Alex, introduced me to this amazing (and cheap) dry shampoo that she got from a friend of hers in LONDON. I figure there was no chance I would ever get my hands on a bottle UNTIL I type the name in google and it shows up at Amazon.com. Of course Amazon has this London based dry shampoo that I fell instantly in love with. I was so excited! So, now, I will share with each of you this amazing discovery.

Meet Batiste-Dry Shampoo:



I know I am not the only one out there who could you a quick little spray of dry shampoo to make their hair last one more day. It even makes your hair easier to style. I love it. I have been a very happy costumer. I no longer have to spend another minute with "Annie Grease." Thank you, Cassie.

T.P.

We all have preferences and certain ways that we like things done, am I wrong? Well, I have just recently learned about entirely new type of preference.

I have been dating my boyfriend, Matt (who doesn't particularly like his life posted on the internet, but I couldn't resist this one) for about a year and a half and early on in the relationship; I learned a few things he did that drove me crazy (in a nice way). These things are simple. There are 2. He leaves his pocket change anywhere and everywhere all around my house and he leaves wired hangers from the dry cleaners (I hate wired hangers) all over the place.

I let him know my frustration with these two things from the beginning, and it hasn't been much of a problem since. He has really made a conscience effort to put his pocket change in a special change bowl and throw the wired hangers away or bring them home with him.

Well just a few days ago, Matt comes to me and says; "Baby, I know something you do that drives me crazy."

"When you put the toilet paper roll on, you always put the tp coming down from the bottom (shown above). The tp is supposed to come off the top like a 'waterfall'."


I couldn't help myself from dying laughing. It seemed like the most ridiculous statement I had ever heard. It was hilarious. I had never in my life been told there was a 'correct' way to put the tp roll on the tp holder. In fact, I never even think when I put the roll on. I would say there is a 50/50 chance that I'd put it on both ways. But, learn something new everyday. I vow to always put the tp roll on with the tp coming from the top like a waterfall.

Now, tell me. Do you know which direction your tp is hanging in your bathroom right now? Did you ever know that there was a TP manual out there? What simple quirks about your significant other irritate you?

Don't be scared to comment. I love to read them :)

Get Off The Couch And Start MOVING

Have you ever heard of a Podcast? Have you ever used a podcast? I hadn't until my friend Katelyn introduced me to the BEST podcast ever. This podcast was done by a 43 year old man in California that decided he was going to get off his butt and start training for a 5k. What he did was take the "Couch to 5K" training program from CoolRunning.com and put the program to some sweet techno music and instructs you throughout the entire run. Each workout is approximately 30 minutes. Do NOT try and tell me you don't have 30 minutes 3x a week to start this program. Here's what you need to do to start:

Take your pretty colored iPod

Hook it up to your computer and go to iTunes and search for Robert Ullrey and his Podcast for Running will appear. It's FREE. Download it. Then transfer it to your pretty colored little iPod that you take running with you.

This program is a 9 week program. It does a great job of easing you back into running. Now, I know all of you are not beginner runners. The program may still be helpful for you too. You can use the podcast for so many different functions. Try this if you are an experienced runner: Take week 2's podcast and instead of walking when it tells you to walk--jog. Now, when it tells you to start jogging on the podcast, that is when you will pick up your tempo to push yourself with interval training.

You can use this on a bike or for swimming if you are lucky enough to have an underwater mp3 player. I find it to be one of the most versatile training programs. I love it. The techno music is addicting and so much fun to run to.

Here's a success story: Kate and her boyfriend Ben took the initiative to start this program and completed the full 9 weeks. They scheduled to run a local 5k for the end of the 9 weeks to help motivate! They completed the 5k run about 2 weeks ago and are still going strong. So proud of you guys! You have certainly motivated me. I have jumped on the bandwagon and working my way through week 3 of the program. Can't wait to feel like a runner again :)

So, now it's your turn. Now that you know this program exists, you have NO excuses. Just give it a try. I promise you will enjoy it!

A Good Friend is Cheaper than Therapy

This past weekend, I made a trip back to my hometown of Gulf Breeze, FL. If you don't know where Gulf Breeze is, it is connected to Pensacola by a 3 mile bridge in the panhandle of Florida. It is most commonly known as LA-lower Alabama or the Redneck Riveria. We are not necessarily proud of these references, but I can easily overlook it when I go back home and am reminded that I grew up with the best beaches in FL right in my back yard.

GB is a small town with one elementary, one middle and one highschool. This photo to my left is a picture from my 5th grade graduation. In this photo is 3 of my best friends growing up that I have continued to stay in touch with and are still my best friends today. This past weekend we organized a reunion to all get back together in GB for the weekend and mix it with a little family time as well as a Father's Day celebration.

I have to comment on the picture above and point out a few things. First, I never knew that my sweet friend Kiel was such a little fashionista at age 10. Who knew that onesie's would be back in style 15 years later? Now, the white tights with open toed shoes are still up for style debate even for 1996. Apparently, socks with sandals were a pretty cool thing to wear too; but thank God that hasn't come back around. I love looking at this photo because I know we all got dressed that morning thinking we looked dashing and quite proud of the outfits we picked out for our big day-5th grade Graduation. What a milestone...

Kiel, Kalyn, Elizabeth and I have all been friends since early elementary school. We went our separate ways for college and all live in different cities now, but it hasn't stopped us from staying close. The beauty of great friends is no matter how much time passes and how few phone calls, emails or facebook messages you share; when you are reunited, it is as if we have not missed a single beat in each others lives. That is what best friends are all about. I love them each so much and look forward to many more years of friendship and quality time spent together back in the Breeze.

Spending Saturday on the beach stopping at Paradise, Islander and the Break :)

Beaching it with the girls
Dressing up for our Saturday night outing and Elaine's Bday Celebration
Cook out with our Mama's for Elaine's Birthday


Fitting some quality time in with our Dad's for Father's Day!


Me and Pops

Although it was a short weekend, I would say it was a huge success! Can't wait for the next one!

A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. ~Lois Wyse

House Guests

It has been a busy couple of weeks--lots of house guests and a little traveling. Two weeks ago I had a really special house guest, actually 2 really special house guests. My mom came to town for a few days which is always a lot of fun and I also had my little sister in town. She is not just any little sister. This is my little sister through Big Brothers Big Sisters that I joined when I lived in Atlanta. She is 10 years old and absolutely precious. When I had to move from Atlanta back in February of this year, Jekera (my little sis) and I decided we would keep our relationship going by communicating on the phone and hopefully get to see each other every once in awhile. When she got off for summer break, I decided to surprise her with a trip to Orlando.

She has never been on an airplane and she has never been to Florida. I was so excited to get to take her to Disney and SeaWorld for her first time. I wasn't sure if she was going to like the roller coasters or not, but she had a BLAST. She was scared to death from start to finish of each ride, but she would get off and want to ride it again and again. Thank goodness my mom loves roller coasters, because one time was enough for me!

After a long day at SeaWorld, we went to Matt's to grill out and she was dying to get into the pool. She spent hours in the pool all by herself as we just watched her jump around and learn to back stroke.

Isn't she adorable?

We spent the next day at Magic Kingdom in Disney World. I found Magic Kingdom to be a bit childish, but we still managed to have fun. I hadn't been in years. They had a couple of pretty good rides. At Disney now, they do this thing called "fast pass". When we got there, we didn't really know how it worked, so we went around trying to get a fast pass for every ride which meant you returned to the ride at a given time and then basically go straight to the front of the ride. Apparently, you can only have one fast pass at a time. Well, we end up getting stuck with a fast pass to some Winnie the Pooh ride which meant we could not get another fast pass to any other ride until we rode Winnie the Pooh which was about 3 hours away. So, my mother had this brilliant idea to go ahead and sneak our way into the fast pass line of Splash Mountain and the other big ride and then lie through our teeth when they asked us for our tickets. We were really setting a great example for this sweet 10 year old.
But, hey, it worked :)









She's a nut!


So, I will leave with this...Big Brothers Big Sisters is an excellent organization. Jekera is the first little sister I have had. It has been such a terrific and rewarding experience. There are so many young kids out there that could use the direction, advice, attention and mentoring from a young adult. I would recommend it to anyone and suggest that you look into it in your area. They only ask for your time twice a month, but of course you can give as much of your time as you can. I was introduced to the program by my friend Kiel who has been an amazing role model to these girls. She started in college when we were in Gainesville and her little sister is now 15 and they still keep in touch. It is really neat to watch them grow up. Kiel is still in the program and has a new little sister in Birmingham where she is going to Law School.

Poker: A lot of luck, A lot of skill ?

On day 2 of the $10,000 Mixed Event 12, they played from 194 players down to 20. The top 24 players get paid out. Brandon, my brother, was eliminated at 28. This is so unfair. Look how he is eliminated:


It sure was fun to keep up with though. They play until the early hours of the morning and of course I am on eastern time which is 3 hours later than in Vegas. He stayed within the top 15 or so in chip count for most of the night and I thought he had a pretty great chance of hanging in there through the end of the day which would have put him "in the money" as they say. He was SO close. I hate how much luck goes into poker. If it was all about skill, I think Brandon would be in the money every time! He is one of the smartest players in the game. We just have to figure out a way to take that luck component out of the game. What do you think? How much luck and how much skill goes into these games in the WSOP?

Tune in for the next event. I will keep you updated.

Here's an old video from the WSOP where Brandon quotes Kenny Tran, "Can't beat luck at the poker table."

WSOP 2009

(He's pretty intense)

My brother, Brandon, is out in Vegas right now playing in the World Series of Poker. I never really understood how this all worked, but I guess there are many events that make up the entire WSOP series. They have a ton of games that all lead up to the "Main Event."

Brandon will be playing in the Main Event, but has also entered in several of the smaller tournaments they have before the big event. He is currently in the WSOP Championship Mixed Event 12. They have finished Day 1 which started with 194 players and will be starting Day 2 later this afternoon.

He is in 5th place right now with 126 players left. He will be starting the day off on a tough table. The two top players with the most chips including Daniel Negreanu will be competing against him at table 161.

Cheer him on! You can find live feeds at Poker News.com. It should be an exciting day!