Party like it's 2011

We decided to avoid all the going out drama--- the driving, the over priced drinks, etc and threw a small NYE party at our house. IT WAS SO FUN!! A few friends from Tulsa came up and got to meet some of our local peeps for copious amounts of food, cigars, booze and Rock Band playing:

 some pics of setting up--- we got a chocolate fountain as a wedding gift and used it for the first time ever-- so good!!

 Mike dancing before the guests even arrived. ;-)

 Amy & Mike were opening the champagne bottles and pointing them down the hall-- makes for a bizarre couple of pictures!

 This is the 3rd NYE that Amy & I have spent together-- so much fun! 

coming to a mailbox near you

I'm typically the kind of person that can make a decision. I'm not saying it's always the right decision, but I usually don't have a problem pulling the trigger... except when it came to our Christmas cards this year! My good friend Allison designed our cards again this year and I truly loved every design she made! So I had 3 of them printed and just did an "eeny meeny miney mo" and put them in the envelopes. :-)

So you should be getting one of these in the next few days!

Showcase of Homes

Last month my friend Amy and I attended the Shadow Valley Showcase of Homes. All the proceeds went to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Fund and I thought it would be a fun way to spend a Saturday.We toured the six different homes. Most were still for sale and one was a custom build that a family lived in. 

I'm going to start with the more "unique" choices the homeowners made. This is a bedroom and bathroom in the custom home:

The best way I can describe the custom home is it was kind of a gothic log cabin... very interesting.

And the master bathroom in the custom home:

Definitely not my favorite! The best part of the custom was the master closet. This pic shows about a tenth of the room. It was enormous and fabulous!

Since we live in the land of W@lmart, every year they sponsor one of the homes and every single item in it comes from their stores. I'm talking furniture, art, linens, dishes, everything! Surprisingly it was my favorite house on the tour! Here are some pics of the WM house:

The little girl's room was much cuter in person although the high water curtains annoyed me:

loved this part of the master bath:

S@m's Club sponsored the Christmas themed home-- every room was decked out for the holidays. I'll put that post together next--- lots of Christmas inspiration!

Our LOST party invitations!

I emailed out these invitations to our local friends earlier today, so I can finally share these on here with you guys. Mike and I are huge LOST fans and thought it would be a blast to have a party for the series finale on Sunday. I have lots of fun things planned-- DHARMA labels for all the food & beverages and lots of LOST themed decorations. But for now I'll just share the invitations:

This DHARMA letter was emailed out to everyone with the customized boarding pass and the Oceanic airline confirmation letter attached to the email.

Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications Classified Information

Dear MIKE SOLANO, The DHARMA Initiative would like to personally welcome you as a new member of our Viewing Station team. We are very pleased that you have decided to join us, and look forward to meeting you at the new recruit orientation meeting. Though your assignment will be short, our hope is that you will find it to be an enlightening and rewarding experience. Upon your arrival, you will be given a simple set of instructions for how you and your partner will fulfill the responsibilities associated with the station. Your primary function will be to observe the subjects of our studies. Every observation, regardless of how subtle, is to be processed and analyzed. Your station will be equipped with a large, high definition surveillance monitor. Do not attempt to use the television for anything. We understand you may still have some unanswered questions about The DHARMA Initiative, but please rest assured that any and all questions you may have will be answered upon your arrival to the island. A new recruit orientation has been scheduled for May 23rd at 6:00pm. All new recruits must report to the DHARMA Welcome Center, located at: 38 Tamworth Circle Bella Vista, AR. Your attendance is essential to achieving a greater understanding of the program. For your convenience, The DHARMA Initiative has provided complimentary travel arrangements. Please see your attached letter of confirmation and boarding pass from Oceanic Airlines, a proud DHARMA Initiative partner. Once again, the DHARMA Initiative would like to welcome you to our island, where we are building a prosperous future that can support, enrich, and cradle us all in a peaceful society. On behalf of the DeGroots, Alvar Hanso, and all of us at the DHARMA Initiative, thank you, and good luck. Namaste, Angela Solano The Dharma Initiative

You should be able to click to enlarge both of them. So yeah, I'm a dork but I thought it was pretty freaking cool!

storms, reality tv and a weekend trip

It's about to storm here-- the weatherman is predicting huge hail-- thank God for a garage for our cars and good homeowners insurance! Anytime we have any severe weather we know several hours in advance because Ellie starts pacing and freaking out. She absolutely hates storms. Jack Bauer could care less. (I mean come on, he's Jack Bauer! Did you think some thunder and rain would bother him? haha) Mike is off with some friends tonight playing some nerdy games so I have complete control over the tv-- that means some bad reality tv-- Real Housewives of NJ!! Such a guilty pleasure. :-) We're also getting ready for our weekend trip to Tulsa. I am so excited to see Conan O'Brien! The only problem with coming to Tulsa is trying to cram in all the things we want to do in just a day or two. We really miss our Tulsa friends and it's impossible to see everyone on every trip. I'm hoping we can do as much visiting as possible!
And since I hate posting without a picture-- here are a few from our garage sale last weekend:

We call this our 2nd Annual Solano-Farrar Garage Sale. :-) We held it at our friend's Matt & Amy's house and even though the sales were sloooow, we still had a blast. And wow, in the next picture my teeth look enormous... hmmm wtf

Alabama Style

Check that out. Wow. These girls were waiting at the hotel to greet us as we checked into the conference-- it's a joke, right? LMAO!

A friend told me I'm not allowed to make fun of Arkansas anymore since I've never seen these stylish outfits here. :-)

coolest law firm ever

I just got home from a long girl's weekend in Mobile, Alabama. I attended the national conference for JA. I'm a member of our local chapter and jumped at the chance of attending the conference when I was invited.I have tons of pics and stories that I'll post later this week-- but first wanted to share this.

One of the girls (5 of us went on the trip) has a friend that lives in Mobile. Her husband has a law firm downtown they recently purchased and renovated. It used to be a bar and they kept the actual bar in the lobby of the firm. It was such a cool building!! They keep a few beers on tap and we had a blast playing behind the bar and acting as bartenders. :-) Anyway, hope everyone had a great weekend. I'm trying to play catch up on laundry and housework-- being away for a few days really throws off my schedule!

back home!

I spent last week in Tulsa, working at my mom's office while my parents were on vacation. The working part was NO FUN, but seeing old friends was so much fun! I have some random pictures from the the trip and since I hate to post without some pictures, here ya go!

I'll start with a rare sight around here-- me working in an office!! haha! I worked full time until Mike and I got married. After college I started working in the family business-- the riveting field of insurance. (note the heavy sarcasm!). We moved to Arkansas just a month after our wedding and I haven't worked outside the home since. So, in a way it was kinda fun to get dressed up and go to an office. Buuuut... the fun wore off quickly. :-)

I was really excited to spend some time with friends and family and I got to hang out with my Grandma Sue and her sweet dog Dallas:

I also got to finally meet my friend's daughter:

some of my girlfriends pointed out that I'm touching the kiddo with one finger. haha That's a big step for me!!

I was able to reconnect with my old bff Sarah too. We were super tight back in my single days but drifted apart when I moved out of state. The move and lots of life changes kind of took it's toll on our friendship... but seeing her again and hanging out like the good old days was amazing!! I can't wait for her to come up to Arkansas and spend some time with me and I can't wait to head back to Tulsa to see her. <3

 I also had a great girl's night out with Brooke and Jackie-- but no pics unfortunately. I got to meet sweet baby Parker-- he's too stinking cute!!

I'll finish with a Jack Bauer picture (shocker, right??) He's so over the snow!! And it's still falling outside. *sigh*

It's Been Awhile

Sorry for the blogging absence! I hope you all were able to carry on without me. :-) I thought I'd post some pics from our game night last night with some friends. And when I say game night I mean watching the Golden Globes while half way paying attention to the actual game we were playing. It's about the only blogging worthy activity we've done in the past week or so. We also saw 3 movies this past weekend and I'll blog about those later this week!

But first let's start with pictures of their adorable pups! This is Wesley. And every time we see him I plot and plan on how to stuff him in my bag and take him home with me!!

and Midge-- her floppy ear is freaking adorable!

the boys. You have no idea how many pictures I had to take to get a decent shot. Everyone was doing the dead face zombie thing, or the creepy Joker smile. Annoying.

Here's an outtake:

and the girls!

and the up close glamour shot! haha