Happy Birthday to ME!

Yes, yes...I'm officially O-L-D! Thirty was never supposed to come, but it has and I guess I'll deal with it! I did however have a wonderful birthday, which I celebrated with my friends Clarissa & Jason, Jenn, Sheri & her husband Chuck. Unfortunately, others weren't able to make it due to family obligations, illness or office Christmas parties, but that's to be expected when your birthday is in December. Damn Christmas wins every time! lol

Anyway, Corey & Clarissa cooked up a surprise dinner at Kobe Japanese Steakhosue downtown in Nashville where we had a wonderful hibatchi dinner. I was surprised to see my friends waiting for me when we got there. I'm so glad they were able to come!!

After dinner, Clarissa, Jason, Corey and I headed over to Opry Mills to find a parking place in order to go to the Opryland Hotel and see the Christmas decorations. Corey & I hunted for a parking place for literally 30 minutes! It was INSANE how busy the mall and Opryland were! We finally managed to find a spot and we met Clarissa & Jason inside the hotel. The decorations were beautiful and we snapped some great photos!

All in all, I had a wonderful birthday and I'm glad I could spend it with such good friends. I took a video of our hibatchi experience as well as some fun photos of our night! Enjoy!


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New Toy!

Yeah, I know...I'm a bad blogger. My mother has already chastized me!

Anyway, my birthday is coming up soon, and this week while I was home for Thanksgiving, my parents and grandpa decided to surprise me with birthday gifts! That's always a plus! My parents gave me some cute orange bracelets, a snowman t-shirt and my new favorite orange toy: a FLIP! This one is mine! And, I also recieved a snazzy little carrying case with it!

I'll post more about Turkey Day later, but I wanted to share my first video experience with you! This is a video of my mom and my grandpa right after Thanksgiving dinner. My grandpa is TOO stinkin' cute!

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Corey's Birthday

Corey's birthday was July 24. As most of you know, we went to Pigeon Forge for part of his gift. His celebration lasted a whole week!

The Saturday before the big day, his parents and brother, sister-in-law, and neice came to town to eat dinner at The Five Senses. We had a wonderful and tasty dinner and drank a LOT of wine!! After dinner, Corey went to Best Buy to get his Zune. He has wanted one for a while, so that's been his new toy. I also got him a new pair of earphones since he broke his old ones. Good job...

When we came back from DollyWood on Corey's actual birthday, we stopped by my parents house and all went to dinner at Gondola. Corey loves their pizza! He and my dad always get the House Special and a pitcher of beer. They are drunk buddies! Hehe!

On the Saturday after his birthday, we went to dinner at Fuji Japanese Steakhouse.
We had a good time with our friends Ken & Becca, Phil & Dusty, and Shad and Marsha. After dinner, we came back for cake and ice cream!

I'm glad the festivities are over - they have worn me out! Now let's get to planning MY birthday!! Hahah!

Here are some pics from the "friend" dinner:

Birthday!

Hello!

Last Thursday (December 6) was my birthday! Thanks to all who wished me Happy Birthday and celebrated with me. If you are one of the few who didn't...then it SUCKS to be you! hahahahaha

Anyway, on Thursday I had a wonderful day which included getting Orange flowers delivered to my school from my parents and a scrumptious dinner at 5 Senses courtesy of Corey's parents. They drove down from Franklin to take us (ME!) out to dinner. I'm telling you, you MUST go! Very delicious! I had filet mignon and creme brulee. Quite tasty. After we ate I went and bought myself one of those fancy schmancy CHI hair straighteners and my hair loves me for it! Corey also gave me Paramore's first CD "All We Know is Falling" since I LOVE their current one, "RIOT." That is a whole 'nother blog, though. My obsession with Paramore is TOO intense for this one!

On Friday night, my closest friends Clare & Tim, Clarissa & Jason, Dusty & Phillip, and Corey and I all went to Fuji Japanese Steakhouse for hibatchi hijinx! The night was capped off by everyone coming over for cake and ice cream and a resounding game of Apples to Apples! We also had a few drinks...

On Saturday, my parents came up and took us (ME!) out to eat at Puleo's Grill and it was just as tasty as ever. When we got home, they gave me a cute little Christmas shirt with a reindeer on it (with a red nose) and some smell good shower gel and lotion (I think they might be trying to tell me something.) My parents and my grandpa also made VERY generous donations to the "Buy Stephanie an Orange Honda Element Fund." So, look out for me in March, bitches...

My parents spent the night and we had breakfast at IHOP the next morning. We also went shopping at TJ Maxx where my mom and I both scored a pair of J-41 (made by Jeep) shoes that are too cute for words for super cheap! Then, my friend Rachel called and said she had come up from Chattanooga to take me to lunch and she was at my house! So, we rushed home to see her and my parents headed home. Rachel and I went shopping on the Avenue and by shopping I mean we just went to drool on things.

We ended up working up an apetite around 4ish and so we ate at Mimi's Cafe. Again, you MUST go. The menu was huge and various! I would recommend it highly! Plus, they have chocolate mints by the door when you leave, so even if you don't go there to eat, stop in and steal yourself a handful of those bad-boys!

Oh, my friend Jennifer also got me the most beautiful teal wrap bracelet just because she loves me ever so much. Clarissa tried to find the Smyrna Starbucks in LaVergne so that she could bring me coffee, but she ended up going to McDonald's instead. That's ok, it was sure tasty! All-in-all I had a VERY good day. I will now leave you with pictures of my cake and flowers...

Birthday Celebration #2

Well, yesterday was Corey's birthday and we had a fantastic time! It all started as we got up around 7:00 to get ready to go to the zoo. We got up there around 9:30 and began our day. We really enjoyed seeing the animals, but especially the giraffes and elephants! I got to see Hadari, the elephant that painted the picture in my livingroom! She had a notch in her ear and the shortest tail, so that's how we were able to distinguish her from the other 2 elephants. She is the one on the far left in the picture below. I ran into my friend Alison at the aquarium part of the zoo. She was there with her family and her friend. You can read all about her trip to the zoo HERE

After we left the zoo, we went over to the Hickory Hollow mall (ONLY because it was still daylight!) and had lunch in the food court. Corey had a gyro from Pyramids and I had a turkey sandwich from Subway. After lunch we cruised the mall and ended up at a store called "Steve & Barry's." This is where Sarah Jessica Parker has her new BITTEN clothing line. I had never been there before, but let me tell you - it is WAAAAAAY cheaper than Old Navy ever dreamed of being! Corey and I got 2 graphic tees there. His says "Dungeons & Dragons" on it because he is a geek and mine is pink with a turtle on it and says "It's all about me, get used to it" which is SO appropriate!

I was also on a mission to find some nice red heels to go with my two new black and white outfits that I purchased last week. I looked all over the mall but couldn't find any. After we had been at home and rested for about an hour, we went back out and I stopped at Payless and bought what my friend Sandy referred to as "red hooker heels." They are actually pretty comfortable. You should click on the link to see them; they're cute!

After finding my heels, we went to Hastings because Corey was on a mission to find the 20th anniversary edition of "The Monster Squad." If you are a loser and didn't see this movie back in the 80s, I HIGHLY recommend that you watch it! It's awesome! Ryan Lambert is in it and as we all know, he was on Kids Incorporated with Fergie. He's second from the left and Fergie is the cute little blonde girl on the bottom. Boy, did she get fugly! Anyway, we got the movie and saved the day. Then we went to Publix, which I lovingly refer to as "Pubix" for birthday cake and ice cream.

We came home and got ready to meet our friends at Fuji and yes, I wore my red hooker heels. We had an awesome dinner, but our chef didn't like the fact that I ordered my filet mignon medium well, so he gave me shit about it all night. I told him that was ok, but at the end of the meal, I was the one leaving the tip. He seemed to shut up after that comment. Other than that, our dinner was quite pleasant. There were 8 of us: Corey and Myself, Clare and Tim, Aaron and Jenny, Sandy, and Shad. All but Shad came over for cake and ice cream after it was over. We cracked open the bottle of icewine that Corey's parents brought us back from Canada and sipped on it out of my cute little cordial glasses. The girls and I went and enjoyed a conversation about America and politics on the front porch while it came a monsoon storm and the boys were sissies and sat in the kitchen - probably talking about recipes and how to knit themselves new man-panties.

We hit the hay around 11:30 and I conked right out! It was a long-ass day, but we had a great time! Oh, I got Corey a DVD/VCR combo for his birthday. He was excited!! We spent WAY too much money, but it was worth it. Birthdays are fun! Now, mine is December 6th and y'all better believe we'll be celebrating!!! Just wait...

Corey's Birthday Celebration #1

This afternoon, we went to Franklin. Tuesday is Corey's birthday, so we went to celebrate with his parents today. Our reservations at Saffire were for 5:00, which by the way if you haven't been, you should TOTALLY go - it's in the Factory. Anyway, we got down there around 2:00, so we had some time to kill. After hanging out with his parents we decided to head over to Academy sports to look for a Disc Golf set.

See, Clare and Tim came over the other day (when we had our mani/pedis) and while the girls were out Tim took Corey to play disc golf over at Barfiled Park. Apparently this is now his newest obsession!! So, off we went to the sporting goods store to buy TWO sets. One for him and one for guess who...ME. Have I ever played this before? No. It will be very interesting to see how that goes. I HATE to sweat, so if that happens we'll have to persue other options. Maybe I can take a portable fan with me...do they have those? Back to my story - Academy SUCKS! That place is huge and the isles are literally 4 feet wide and I have an intense feeling of claustrophobia every time I go in there. We finally found the disc golf stuff with the CAMPING equipment. Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to do that!? Who said, "It makes COMPLETE sense to put disc golf over with the portable toilets and waterproof toilet paper!" We didn't like the deal they had there and I hated the store, so we left and went to Dick's.

Dick's was MUCH more open and less crowded and we were able to find what we wanted quickly, so we were in and out. Those little discs are expensive. For a pack of three - a driver, iron, and putter - it cost $24! DAYUM! We purchased two sets so that MOI could play.

We went back to his parents house and piled in the van to go down the street to Saffire. I'm telling you - YOU HAVE TO GO! It is expensive, but very tasty!! They have these cheese grits, made with mascarpone cheese and cream that are to DIE for!! So, Judy, Corey and I had the fish and grits. It was wonderful, but I couldn't eat it all; I was stuffed! I wonder if any of the chefs there work at Viking, too? I need to take another class there and maybe they can teach me how to cook the fish that way. I made the grits at home once, but they weren't nearly as good as Saffire's.

After dinner, we went back to his parent's house to have ice cream cake. Mmmmmm....I was sooooo bad today! However, I have eaten about 100 less calories each day in anticipation of today. We will also be going to Fuji Japanese Steakhouse on Tuesday, so I'll have to make up for that later in the week. I weigh in tomorrow and hopefully HER scale will show as much progress as MY scale does...

We got home around 8 and tried to watch Big Brother, but our stupid-ass TiVo wouldn't play it, so after Corey spent 30 minutes on the phone with a rep. from DirecTV's customer service, we finally got to watch it after I found it on the computer on a spoiler site. Ahhh, sweet drama. I freakin' LOVE Big Brother! It is the apitomy of summer to me. Love it!! Ok, it's time to shut up now.

Oh, the Kava's place wasn't all that but they did have some damn good iced tea!