memorial day 2012

forgive me, as this post will be long. however, it's also filled with the best things in life--friends, family, love, celebrations, and lots and lots of pictures! first and foremost, though, i want to give a big thank you to the former and current members of our military to help defend our freedoms! especially my little brother, christian, who is currently serving in afghanistan as a medic for the marines. christian- i love and miss you!!

one of my favorite past times is going to my friend, amy's, lake house on lake cypress springs. so many of my best memories with my friends involve going out for a day on the lake at amy's house! we even talked about all of our "good ol' days" in jr. high with amy's mom, nancy, when we would take the boat out and think we were just the coolest thing. little did we know, our moms/friends of nancy would keep a distant eye on us at all times. it was really funny coming to this realization this weekend because looking back, i don't think any of us had ever felt as free/grown up/cool as we did when we would take the boat out at amy's house. 

i headed to mt. vernon on saturday morning to begin celebrating memorial day. michael had to work a double on saturday, so he couldn't come with me. bummer. at any rate, i decided to go visit my papa and his wife, mary lou, first thing because i hadn't seen them in such a long time. we got to be lazy and talk about weddings and work and friends and plays and concerts--all great things! we also had the best lunch! papa and mary lou started their own little garden and i got to make the freshest garden salad with veggies straight from their yard! i must say, i felt like quite the little hippie...and loved it. 

rachel's freshest. salad. ever.

-fresh garden lettuce
-fresh garden cucumbers (these were sweet, crisp and delicious!)-cauliflower (from the store)
-sweet bell pepper (from the store)
-strawberries (from the store)
-fat free raspberry vinaigrette
-seven grain toast

you guys. this salad was absolutely amazing. you should make it and be amazed (and super healthy!). papa, mary lou, and i got to have a great visit and i got to relax in front of this. don't think it gets too much better! :)

we got to watch the birds and ducks near their dock, too!

once we finished with lunch, i headed just down the road to amy's house. take a look at the shots below to see what we were up to on saturday!

first off, i was greeted by this little nugget.
meet mallory, amy's niece. my heavens
she's adorable!!

loved getting to catch up with my girls! from left to right,
that's kim, leigh anne, me and amy. you can hardly tell
(because leigh anne has the best body ever) but sweet
little layton is under that grey cover up. :)

leigh anne (+ layton) and kim on the boat relaxing

the 40 lbs. of crawfish we got after. we didn't put
much of a dent in it, but man did we try!

wild bill, tom, amy and jake getting down on some mudbugs!

kim, me and amy with our dinner. let me just tell you,
were it not for the several cocktails i'd had that day,
there's no way i would've been able to peel those crawfish.
i have issues with food that looks the same
dead as it did when it was alive. ick!

winona and tracy even made an brief appearance.

jill's summer brew of genius

-3 modelos
-tequila to taste (we used blanco and it was delish!)
-diet sprite
-fresh lime juice
(mix it all together and enjoy the wealth. thank me later.)

evening booze cruise with jill, jake, amy, tom and wild bill. 

beautiful sunset and the perfect ending to
another successful holiday at amy's!

sunday morning, we woke up and nancy fixed us some delicious pancakes and bacon. i headed back to plano around lunchtime so i could be home by the time mikey got off of work. we decided to take it easy sunday night and just watch some movies. there's a blockbuster close to our house that is going out of business, so we thought we could go by there and get some cheap rentals. much to our delight/surprise, they were no longer renting dvds, but had almost all their movies on sale for $0.49-$2.00!! to put it lightly, madness ensued.

we have problems. lol. and this isn't
even all of the movies we bought.

we enjoyed the second season of lost on sunday night and got up monday morning and hit up the outlets in allen. mike wanted to try and find a new swim suit and i ended up finding some super cute coral, linen pants and some fabulous printed shorts. (i wore the pants today and they are amazingly comfortable!)

headed to lunch with some friends at pluckers.

we ate with a group of our close friends and then headed to our house for a relaxing day by the pool. 

i write all of this when i really just mean to say: it was a great weekend!