Instant Adventures #11 + Hospital Fun!

I was trying to write a post about my Mom's knee surgery but I just couldn't get my words right so here's a photo post instead!

1. Rowers gonna row on the Chattachoochee
2. A cute face found outside of Pressed Panini Bar in the Marietta Square
3. Delicious Mint Chocolate Chip gelato from Sarah Jean's Ice Cream in the Marietta Square
4 - 6. Instax Minis of the traffic I sat through during the busiest Friday ever: Music Midtown, the BET Awards,  1 of 7 Garth Brooks concerts, and a Braves game all going on at the same time!
7. Channeling my inner Fly Girl with Lauren 
8. My Mom's knee after surgery
9. Fancy hospital breakfast
10. Second breakfast, of course!
11. My Mom and me right before she was able to go home :)

Hope you all had a great week!
Happy Friday!

Weekend Adventures

For my Gratitude Journaling, I'm trying something new. I got insanely inspired by Michelle's Get Messy posts so I decided to try and illustrate items that represent some the things I was grateful for that day - starting with Friday.  I didn't want to make them too text-heavy but I did fill out Saturday and Sunday with some text after I took the photos to explain, you know, things like why I illustrated a 1.75 liter bottle of Grand Marnier* and why there's a random Ron del Barrilito bottle** just kinda hanging out on Saturday's page...
I'm having fun with the illustrations but I don't think I'll be able to keep it up much longer.  Things are about to get pretty hectic around here!

How was your weekend?

*The Grand Marnier was a Thank You present from Lauren's parents.  As one of my Maid of Honor duties, I did the envelope calligraphy for the invitations.  It was so much fun! :)

**My aunt is in town from Puerto Rico and we sipped on some Barrilito Saturday night.  Yay bonding! :)

Happy Birthday Mom!

This weekend was quite full of adventures - the biggest one was the start of my Mom's 60th birthday celebration!  Technically, her birthday was yesterday but that doesn't mean the party has to wait, right?!
I accompanied my mom to the mall on Saturday and there, my sister and I made impromptu plans to take my mom to Gospel Brunch Service at Lips on Easter Sunday.  If you love a good drag show (and we all know I do!) Lips is the best place to go for dinner and a show!  I'm planning on taking Lauren there for her Bachelorette Party because she also loves a good drag show!
My mom had a blast!  They brought her (and everyone else who was celebrating a birthday) on stage and the whole restaurant was shocked to hear that my mom was turning 60 :)  Everyone was so nice and the performers were great!  I can't wait to see what it's like on a regular night!

  

Above are photos of the flower arrangement I had made for my mom because I thought they were absolutely gorgeous!  I went to the florist and didn't know what to say when the florist asked me what kind of flowers my mom liked.  I totally blanked!  All I could think of was roses (safe, right?) and hydrangeas (for some reason) and then I let her take creative liberties on the rest because I'm hopeless when it comes to flowers - EXCEPT for my favorite flowers: Gerbera Daisies - which I had no idea would make an appearance in her birthday bouquet.  Bonus!
They did a fabulous job at the flower shop and I can't wait until Mother's Day so I have an excuse to have 2 bouquets made!

How's your week so far?
Happy Wednesday!

Do You Even...?!

Born out of a silly joke with my cousins and enhanced upon by my sister, I dragged my old man to Target to take the above photo.  Oni and I talked about Photoshopping it but I wanted realism.  I wanted to actually be holding a for real GoPro for the GoPro BRO photo.

During this journey, while I didn't purchase the GoPro HERO 3 (like I actually want...), I did purchase the Instax Mini I mentioned here.

 

Not bad! I'm still playing around with the ridiculously bright flash (as you can see in the pirate photo above) but I found a scrap from some orange gels at work and some really nice transparent tape (no haze!) and took this photo outside.



I love it!  With more experimentation, I think I might make a #DailyInstant tag on my Instagram and do a weekly post on it here!  What do you think?

Happy Tuesday!

fresh.i.am x BOOST Mobile

Check it out - Complex Magazine did an interview with my sister and the fresh.i.am crew about their show at NYFW.  That's right - fresh.i.am had a show at New York Fashion Week!
While it was pretty fast and kinda last-minute, only the NYC family could represent.  I'm happy they were able to go on my behalf because that's kind of a BIG deal!


   



Check out some photos of the show from our step-sister, Vee, who had a cameo in the Complex Mag video!

Watch the video!

Thanksgiving!

 

   
My cousins, Eddie and Charles, and I having a sip of Puerto Rican rum / My new "bar": The Booze Cruise! / My flat tire / Salted Caramel Blondie at Argosy / My Seattle friend Davey!  Doesn't he look dashing in my glasses?!  *SWOON* / Davey and I having a moment at Church *__*

Wowzers meowzers!  What a holiday week last week!  I was definitely NOT ready to get back to work, that's for sure...
The guest list included my grandma and aunt from Puerto Rico and my other aunt and cousins from New York.  My uncle (also from New York) couldn't make it but we still had a blast.  He was missed!

I was lucky enough to host my cousins for a few nights (PARTY HARD PARTY HARD PARTY HARD) and it gave me the perfect excuse to turn my old man's fish tank into a bar!  I have dubbed it the Booze Cruise for a couple of reasons: 1) "Drunk Tank" and all other "tanked" jokes were a little too obvious (but I will admit - Drunk Tank is pretty damn good!) and 2) I needed a place for my pirate busts and I figured fish tank + water "theme" = PIRATES!  Now all I need are some actual novelty gems, some gold coins and maybe a treasure chest to make the setup complete!

Because I hadn't really partied with my cousins in FOREVER, I was trying to figure out where to take them.  I learned quickly that they both have totally different personalities but one might adapt a little better than the other.  Maybe it's a mandatory gene when you're the first born...I don't know but I felt it (since I, too, am a first born).  Luckily, Oni suggested we hit up Joystick on Friday - which took the pressure off lil ol' me since I don't really get out much anymore.  And since the selection of ladies was totally lacking (according to my single cousin), we went to Church, where the ladies were plentiful.

I had never been to Church but I always wanted to go since I drive by it pretty frequently when I'm downtown.  It was great!  The crowd was diverse and friendly for the most part.  I will admit - it was kinda weird watching my cousin talk to the ladies but it was cute at the same time.  I have to keep reminding myself that they're not the babies they once were!  LOL

On our way home, I had a flat tire but it didn't register as flat until I pulled into my driveway.  Thank goodness we were safe and sound!  That made for an eventful morning since I only slept barely a handful of hours, I had to get all 4 tires replaced!  Then, I had a lunch date with my friend from out of town (who I hadn't seen in years, btw) and it was great!  I took him to Argosy and we devoured everything down to my favorite treats: a Mondorita and the very decadently delicious Salted Caramel Blondie.  All the while, making plans for that evening - after our family dinner, of course!

My cousins and I ventured out to Church and shut it down once again.  The crowd was great and we even scored a table across the bar - which is good and bad.  It was good because we were right by the bar and we didn't have to keep going up and down the stairs like the night before.  It was bad because when it got crowded, people were spilling drinks on us because of the close proximity but no worries - good times were had by all!

How was your Thanksgiving?

Halloween Shenanigans

I'm a bad blogger!  Things have been so busy at work and at home and they're about to pick up because we're into our *fun* quarterly filming at work now and NaNoWriMo starts TODAY!!
I'm pretty much going to keep going the way I have been for the last few days: work like a crazy person at work and then script write like a crazy person when I get home.  Go, go, go!  My goal is to get my script FINISHED by the end of NaNoWriMo this year.  It's a lofty goal, I know, but I'm hoping that will be the swift kick in the ass that I need to finally get it on paper and out of my head!

We had a party at work and even though it was a little hectic, it was still great to see everyone in costume.  Here are a few highlights that I can safely share:




Best camera operator / friends forever - Brad (Gold Prospector), me (Fionna) and Jeremiah (Robin)
I was trying to figure out poses all day and this one seemed like the best one :)
My niece Amaya as the Skylander "Hex" (I dubbed this photo "only in New York...")
Heather as Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's (of course!)
Bobby as Paul Bunyan (with Babe the Blue Ox)
Hugh and Lisa as a couple of tourists
And the office party WINNERS: Kristin and Natalie as the Hump Day Camel

You will be missing out if you don't watch THIS VIDEO of Eric's (our audio engineer) costume!!!

**EDIT: Here's the YouTube video:



All in all, the office party was fun but any time we do stuff like this during filming, us crew members don't really get to enjoy it as much as everyone else because we're having to deal with other things.  Oh well...

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!

Celebrity Sister

As I was perusing the ol' blog-o-sphere during my lunch break yesterday, I noticed a familiar face kept popping into my blog feed: none other than my sister, Oni!

Check out her street style on You've Been Noted


(source)

10 The Hard Way and The One and Oni interviews with 13THFLR

          
(source) / (source)

I feel like a proud mama when I see my sister everywhere!  Go Oni, Go!

Smash*Booking with the kids!

Phew!!  What a crazy couple of days!!  Or I should say: What a crazy couple of weeks!
Sadly, my nieces left yesterday.  Yes, I was able to hold back the tears until I got home.  I blamed it on the most recent episode of True Blood  while we were catching up but seriously, I was missing them so much!
We had a BLAST while they were here and I picked up a couple of Smash*Books for them to make of their time here because I read a GREAT review on them here.  In my hunt for the original blog post that sold me on the books, I found two other great examples of Smash*Books here: the Wreck This Girl Blog and this Memory Works post.
Keeping the Smash*Books in mind, we tried to keep EVERYTHING we could think of to put in their books.  Originally, I had wanted them to start on them the day they arrived and add to the books nightly but we ended up not getting to them until it was closer to the day they left - which actually turned out a bit better since we could reminisce about the earlier things we had all done together.  There were some pockets of downtime since Georgia has been having crazy rain all Summer!  :(  Kind of a downer but it made Smash*Book time more fun.

Here's Amaya's book that she made herself - including a few memorable stories.





The cover with the super-awesome pen+glue / The very first page with a hilarious story about macaroni and cheese. The girls LOVE accents and this one was about them hearing a very Southern accent / The day we went to the movies / The day the grandmas took them to Sky Zone (I wish I had gone!!) / Cotton candy at the fresh.iam pop-up shop with my sister / Adventures at North Point Mall / Adventures at Mall of Georgia / A great story about Amaya's intro to Disney Vinylmations.  Tess at the Disney Store at Mall of Georgia is WONDERFUL and she is the one Amaya is talking about in her story / Photobooth fun and bungee jumping / Medieval Times!!  That was so much fun! / The girls at their fort / Pancakes at IHOP plus some cute images from our Captain Underpants-themed birthday party / It wouldn't be Amaya's book without some Skylanders stuff included (she LOVES them) / Oni got Amaya the coolest 3D puzzle of a swan / We took the kids to Bone Garden, the Cartoon Network store (which will be in another post) and we TRIED to get a ride on the newest addition to ATL: the Sky View ferris wheel but the weather rained us out / Pool time (there was A LOT of it) and our fun night at Ru San's for sushi!

So much fun!!  I highly recommend these books if you're looking to document special events - especially with kids.  I mean, the kits are a little pricey but since they come with tabs, mini journals, a pen / glue stick, tape and a bunch of other things, it's DEFINITELY worth the money because they'll have something they'll remember forever and it's all self-contained!  You don't need to buy anything extra - unless you really want to.  I'm thinking about starting my own to document my time with the girls this Summer so I can not only share with the fun but to experiment for the next time we get to make these!