Happy Mother's Day!

Sending out a big Happy Mother's Day to my mom, Roxanne.

I've always been appreciative of my mother, but over the last nine months I've really grown to have an understanding of the sacrifices she's made to be a mom. By the time she was my age she had already brought three of us into the world. She's a strong lady and I'm thankful for all that she's taught me.

Another Happy Mother's Day shoutout to Zac's mom, Tammie. I got very lucky because when I married Zac I didn't just get a fantastic husband, I also got an amazing family along with him. Zac's parents are wonderful people.

No horrible Mother In Law story here. Tammie and I get along great. She's my margarita buddy and we share a sometimes inappropriate sense of humor. The last year has thrown her some difficult things to deal with but she's held strong through it all. I hope she is able to take some time for herself today.

Lastly, I want to say Happy Mother's Day to two of my favorite girlies:

To Amy who is celebrating her second Mother's Day with her little man Tyler 

And to Sarah who is celebrating her third Mother's Day with little Grayson, and her last as a mama of one. By this time next year, Sarah wil have two little boys to snuggle up to. We can't wait to meet the newest addition to the Roberts family!

For all of you mamas out there....Happy Mother's Day!

It's A Boy!

Last month I mentioned in this post that Zac's cousin Scott and his wife, Amy, are expecting. Right before Thanksgiving, they were able to find out the sex of their little one. It's a boy! Scott and Amy are super excited to meet their new little son, Tyler David Bennett in just four and a half more months. I'm sure our handsome nephew, Grayson, will be happy to have another little guy around to play with.

 Congratulations again you two!

In other baby news, my friend and coworker, Sandy, just went on maternity leave. She is also expecting a little boy. Blake should be arriving in just a few weeks. Since I won't be seeing her at work for a while, Sandy (who reads this blog often) has asked that I be sure to update frequently so that she can keep up with what's going on. So a little shoutout to Sandy: Hi girl! Love and miss you. Can't wait to meet little Blake.

Amy's Dress; Grey....Or Pink?

I found out the good news about Scott and Amy's baby during the search for bridesmaid dresses. Though Amy won't be pregnant at the wedding we thought that it would be a good idea to get her a maternity style dress so that she would be comfortable post baby. Since she won't know what size she'll be come wedding time we figured that a looser fitting dress would be a better idea. We settled on this dress found on figure8maternity.com:

Amy's dress arrived pretty quickly and last week when she came over for another movie night, she brought the dress with her. Though the dress was a nice fabric there was a little problem with it....it was pink! The grey color on the website was a little deceiving, because in person the dress was indeed a dusty rose color. Not exactly the shade of grey we were hoping for. Unfortunately, the dress wasn't going to work out, and we were going to have to find another one.

Since I had already exhausted all options during my previous internet search for grey dresses, I went straight to the David's Bridal website and looked around for an inexpensive dress option that came in 'pewter' and would be comfortable for Amy. This short charmeuse dress with ruched waist and pocket seemed to fit the bill. Amy acutally had us wear this dress in her wedding last fall. I love the dress and Sarah, who was four months pregnant at the time, said that it was very comfortable.

I think the dress is much cuter than the original maternity dress I found for Amy so I'm actually happy about the change. I do however feel bad that she has to return the dress and go through the hassle of ordering a different one. At least she'll be happy with this new dress. :)

And Baby Makes Three!

Zac's cousin Scott and his wife Amy got married last year at Wolf Lakes on September 26th....

.....and now they're expecting a little baby come April!

Zac found out before I did. We had plans to get breakfast with Scott and Amy one Sunday and I was called into work. Scott and Amy shared their good news with Zac. He was going to keep it a secret so that the parents to be could tell me in person. That evening and the next day, Zac was acting a little suspicious so I finally guessed what was up. After Zac confirmed the good news we got to work on creating a little gift for the new parents. We got a pack of plain white onsies, needles and thread, felt buttons, iron on transfers, etc....and got our craft on.

Zac was so cute as he penciled out the design for a onesie that read "Cute As A Button".

This funny little iron on was one of my favorites.

In the end we made four little onsies for the future Baby Bennett.

We met up with the parents to be the next night for a belated anniversary dinner. It was great to catch up since the four of us hadn't all been together since Zac's birthday party just three weeks before. We presented them with an "anniversary" gift with a note that said "We know the first year is traditionally paper but we thought that you'd like this better." Inside were our little onesie creations.

With the gift opened it was finally time to talk baby! Amy filled me in on all the details, from when she took the test to her due date (April 23rd). Her doctor visits had been going great and she looked forward to her upcoming ultrasound. She also told me all about the beginning of her morning sickness (which seemed to only come at night).  

Later that week Amy and I got together for a movie night. As a surprise to Amy I decided to make the evening a "Mommy Movie Marathon and Mocktail Night". We usually have a theme for movie night anyways and I thought this one was pretty fitting. (Juno, Baby Mama, and Knocked Up were on our list of movies.) I looked up mocktail recipes online before heading to the store and grabbing a bunch of juice. (I settled on a concoction of pink lemonade concentrate, white cranberry peach juice, and ginger ale....it was delicious!)

To go along with the theme of the night, I put together a little gift for Amy. I figured that soon enough Amy would be showered with gifts for the baby so the bag was all about Amy. Inside the bag were saltines and Tums to settle her stomach, vanilla scented bath soap, stretch mark cream, an issue of FitPregnancy, and a belly band for her growing bump.

Congratulations Scott and Amy!

We're excited for your growing family. Can't wait to meet little Baby Bennett in April.

Kathy Griffin Live!

On Friday, Kathy Griffin arrived in Fresno for her performance at the William Saroyan Theatre and Amy and I were SO excited! We're both big fans of the "2 time Emmy winner comedienne" and since getting our tickets back in March we have been anxiously awaiting July 15th to see her perform live!

The show was set to start at 7:00pm. After hanging out at my house for a little while and catching up on Kathy drama and other stand-up, Amy and I arrived at the theater a little after 6:00pm just in time for the doors to open. We enjoyed a cocktail in the lobby before finding our seats, which turned out to be eleven amazing rows back from the stage. The theater was pretty small so it felt as though we were closer than our eleven rows.

The lights went down and the show began with a hilarious intro video; a clip show of some of Kathy's most funny/memorable moments. *I found a clip of the intro video on Youtube however it was a video that a fan had taken of the video while sitting in the audience. It wasn't the greatest quality to I opted not to post it here.*

A few short seconds later the announcer presented "Kaaaattthhhhyyy Grrriiifffiiiinnnn" and she bounded out from backstage, dancing around, waving to the crowd, and striking a bunch of poses. I captured this one before she began talking:

After announcing that (on a dare) she was rocking a pair of pajama jeans, she began what was one of the most funny sets I have ever seen. We were happy to hear that since she is set to do four tv specials for Bravo this year, she was trying out all new material on us.

As seen on her show, My Life on the D-List, Kathy does a little research about the cities she stops in and adds a bit of local humor to each set. For Fresno she cracked jokes about visiting the Target on Shaw Avenue (or as she called it 'Shaw Street') and eating at the Berrock Shop ("Barack?! Like Barack Obama?!").

Her show was amazing! I laughed so hard that my cheeks still hurt hours later. I can't wait to see the next few Bravo specials. In case you missed her last special, Gurrl Down, here is a clip from the show (part 1 of 3):

*May not be appropriate for all audiences.*

A Sisterly Tradition

I consider myself to be a pretty lucky girl. As much as I have fallen in love with Zac, I have also fallen in love with his family. His sister Sarah and I have become quite the pair. The relationship that Sarah and I have built has become something more than friendship; we're sisters. Sarah happily accepted when I asked her to be my maid of honor back in January. I can't imagine life without her.

Sarah and I singing a duet and rocking out to KC and Jojo!

Sadly, this is the first summer in a few years that Sarah and I are not getting together for a girls weekend. Back in 2008 Sarah and I began the tradition of having bi annual sister's weekends. We would get together at the beginning of the year (usually in January) and again in summer. Sarah had moved to Vegas so I went to visit her at the beginning of the year and our summer trip usually involved a trip to the beach.

Our trip to San Diego in the summer of 2008 was the beginning of the fun. Sarah and I had a blast visiting Seaport Village, enjoying some shows at Seaworld, spending the day on the beach, and as you can see in the picture below...getting sunburned. Well we didn't enjoy the sunburn part too much but the vacation was a lot of fun.

 

My oldest brother Albert lives in San Diego with his girlfriend Deanna. They invited us out one night to celebrate their friend Eva's birthday at a nightclub called Club Sin.

Though I won't reveal the whole story about what happened that evening I will say that we had an amazing time, laughed more than I think I had laughed in my life (up until then), Sarah and Albert bonded, and I was able to get to know Deanna (who will no doubt be my future sister in law) a little better.....oh yeah, and there might have made a post club trip to get the most amazing tacos/burritos ever! :)

In January of 2009, after Sarah had moved to Las Vegas, I decided to take a trip out to visit her for a few days. It was our first experience together in Vegas so Sarah did some digging and found out some great places to go and some fun things to do while I was in town. Here we are with our lovely server, Alexis, at Lucky Chang's drag show and dinner.

Sarah and I were seated at a table right in front of the stage for the big drag show which was definitely a bonus but also came with an interesting twist. Our server Alexis asked us if we were celebrating anything that evening and before I got the chance to say that we were just having a sister's weekend, Sarah reached across the table and lovingly took my hand. "It's our one year anniversary", she told Alexis! Without missing a beat I smiled at Sarah, then back at Alexis who excitedly told us, "Congratulations!" Alexis left the table and I busted up laughing!

When the show began, the main drag queen came out in her glory and made a few announcements. Just when we thought she was done with her intro a spotlight hit out table and she proudly announced, "And last but not least, I hear we have an anniversary in the house! Stand up young ladies!" I think I might have turned an unbelievable shade of red.

Sarah and I stood up in front of the room full of paying viewers as the drag queen congratulated us on our anniversary. She said that she had never seen two such cute lesbians, that usually there is at least one butch girl when it comes to lesbian couples and she wanted to know who the dominating one was. I took credit for that role before the crowd applauded for us and Sarah and I sat back down at our seat to enjoy the show. It's moments like this that make me love Sarah even more!

We had a fantastic time together in those few days. In addition to the drag show we also went to see Thunder from Down Under. Also, upon my arrival, Sarah surprised me with tickets to see one of my idols....The Divine Miss Bette Midler! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to see Bette Midler perform!

In the summer of 2009 Sarah and I returned to San Diego to celebrate 4th of July weekend on the beach. This time we brought along Amy (Sarah and Zac's cousin's wife). The three of us have gotten pretty close since Amy and Scott have gotten together so it was nice to take a trip together, just the three of us. We decided that the best place to spend 4th of July was on the beach. Here we are in our hotel room getting our drinks all prepared before heading out to grab a spot on the sand.

We loaded up our beach chairs, ice chest, towels, and purses and my brother Albert picked us up and dropped us off at Mission Beach. We spent the day laying out, having cocktails, catching up on our celebrity gossip via trashy tabloid magazines, and taking dips in the ocean.

At the end of the night when the firework show had ended, we packed up our stuff and headed off the beach to catch a cab back to our hotel. Unfortunately, everyone who was on the beach who didn't have a car with them, had the same idea. Every cab that came by had people in it and we lost the empty cabs to other people who ran faster than we could to catch them. After about twenty minutes of lacking success in catching a cab the girls and I decided to start walking towards our hotel. We figured that the further we walked away from the beach the easier it would be to find an empty cab to take us back to our hotel. Unfortunately, we still had all of our beach items with us so the walk wasn't the easiest of walks. As we passed Sea World we headed over the freeway overpass and continued our walk right on the shoulder of the freeway. We weren't the only people who had this plan; there were many other people walking along the freeway with us.

The girls and I never did find a cab but we did find a nice young gentleman who carried our ice chest for a little while and helped us on our way back to our hotel. Along our walk we found an abandoned shopping cart which we put our ice chest in and took with us on the remainder of our trip. The young man (who was in the military and was stationed in San Diego) made sure that our 3 mile trip from the beach to the hotel was a safe one. Here he is with Sarah and our shopping cart:

Last summer Amy and I spent 4th of July weekend at Sarah's house in Las Vegas. Upon picking us up from the airport, Sarah announced to us that she was pregnant! It was such an exciting trip. We couldn't believe that Sarah and Donnie were going to be parents!

The trip to Vegas last summer was one fantastic trip. We hung out by Sarah's pool all day listening to music and enjoying some delicious frozen cocktails. (Don't worry, Sarah had virgin drinks the whole time.) The first night we went out we decided to keep it a casual night. We got dressed and headed out to a country bar/club that was off the strip called Stoney's.

It was a Friday night which meant free beers and throughout the night there were also $1 tequila shots. Needless to say Amy and I were glad to have Sarah as a sober driver at the end of the night. Since Stoney's is a country bar you can bet that there was a lot of line dancing going on in between hip hop songs. Amy wasn't sure that she wanted to go out on the dance floor during the country songs because she wasn't familiar with line dancing. Here I am showing her the nice dance moves that I knew. (These moves didn't help either of us when we went on the dance floor and realized that eveyone was doing an entirely different dance.)

That weekend we went to a Chippendale's show, spent a little time at a club called Crown, and got our tan on by the pool. Amy and I flew back home on the evening of the 4th and landed before sunset just in time for fireworks. Before Sarah took us to the airport we enjoyed a last little afternoon by the pool....

...and watching DeathProof in the living room. (If you've seen the movie I'm sure you understand why we're making these silly faces!)

This year Sarah came into town for her baby shower in January...

....and again at the end of May for the engagement dinner and graduation.



Although we don't have a trip together planned this year, we will be heading back to San Diego next spring for my bachelorette party. Maybe next summer I will be able to fly out and see her in Vegas again. Since Zac and I will be going on our honeymoon in late May or early June, I guess it will all depend on the amount of time I am able to get off in the summer.

I miss my sister Sarah and can't wait to spend some quality time together again. Hopefully we can work something out soon. :)