Friends xmas in January

So, we headed down to Penseys (Pensacola to everyone who is not Burk) to celebrate the holidays, albeit a bit late, but celebrate nonetheless. We drove separately to accommodate the fact that we were delivering two dining room tables to both Adam & Lori and Angie & Allen. While Ashley & Sarah cruised merrily, merrily, merrily down the stream to the beach, Park got to listen to some newly purchased CD's (Dylan, Trey, Coltrane, Tribe) intermixed with some rattling wood. We all made it safely and proceeded into the usual late night of hellos and general catching up. Particpants were Adam, Lori, Carter (the friend, not the dad or nephew), Sarah, Neil, and Abby. The significance of the last names mentioned is the following: Sarah is from Chicago and the McClures are from New Orleans. There was playoff football on... it was exciting. And ultimately a very good sports weekend for Sarah (boooooooo hissssssssss).

Oh, and did we mention the incredibly adorable little ones????

Those wedding pix I promised last month...

We had such a great time at the wedding, and even though I'm a little behind in posting. I have lots of photos, but thought it best that I keep the ones here to a minimum. The rest will go on the Flickr site.

Joyce & Guy cuttin a rug!


Bride & Groom!

mom & Allen

Mimi, Mike & Jill

Allen & Mimi on the dance floor

Tripp to Baltimore (get it?)

After a year of worrying that the January in Baltimore wedding of my cousin Tripp's would bring a new level of freezing to my life, I am happy to report that it was sunny and 70!

The night we arrived (we were supposed to arrive at noon but after our flight was cancelled then the next delayed, it was night) we met up with my friend from work, Sara. She is currently working on her PhD at Johns Hopkins - so great to see her and do some catching up.


The groom and his bride Angel at the rehearsal dinner at La Tavola in Little Italy (we saw the governor of Maryland that night after the Nancy Pelosi street dedication festivities).

Of course later that night, we were waaaay too tempted to torture Greg once he started snoring like a chainsaw. Good times. That's his older sister, Shannon. Yep, growing up little bro cannot be easy. If Stubbie reads this, I recommend making fun of Greg for a long time. Notice the lotion.

Saturday was sunny and 70, so we spent the day at the harbor. On the far left is Jan, my aunt and if I recall correctly, second to the youngest of the 5 Austin kids.


Park is very sad to report that he did not get the VIP tour of Camden Yards (Tripp was busy doing that whole 'getting married' thing), but he has already begun planning our return.

Pics of the wedding to follow soon!

NYE

This has definitely been an interesting holiday season. I've never had so much time off work - some given and some taken. I took an extra couple of days around Christmas, then promptly got food poisoning and had to take another day. Then we received a 4 day weekend for NYE and President Ford memorial. Since December 21st, I have worked SIX days....hee.

So, for NYE, we had a wonderful dinner with good friends Eric & Hillary, Chris & Jackie and Pete & Katie. Really fun, nice dinner.

Afterwards, Pete and Katie came back with us to the casa de Fowlkes where we rang in the New Year. Sarah was massively delayed on her flight from Chicago, so we sang again at 1:00 when she arrived, which of course we labeled our Central Time Celebration. Later, Lee & Felicia came by to join our gawl dang country bear jamboroo.


Yup, that's my fearless leader drinking some tiny bottles of whiskey Thomas gave us one year - they were very tastey and added to the scramble perfectly. To say that New Year's Day was painful, would be a drastic understatement. Apparently, mere mortals were not intended to drink a whole bottle of champagne on their own. Considering that each of us had one, I can only say that I was not surprised when Pete reported the next day that we were all in the same boat. This definitely goes down as an all-time top New Year's Eve.