True. Honorable. Just. Pure. Lovely. Commendable. Excellent. Worthy of Praise.

True. Honorable. Just. Pure. Lovely. Commendable. Excellent. Worthy of Praise.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Days 64-67 (Apr. 16-19): Varied Weekend Events & Dad's 57th Birthday

I really don't know how to categorize the following, besides the following four days being packed full of incredible memories! Eight words to describe the following four days are:

1) Leadership meeting
2) Art Institute
3) Breakers' brunch
4) Dad's birthday

So, here goes Round Five:

Day Sixty-Four (Friday, April 16)
Unless I reply right away to email and phone messages, I tend to forget to do so. That's why I forgot until 2 weeks later to RSVP to the leadership meeting at Rob and his wife's house. I decided pretty last minute to go to the meeting, and had no idea how many people were going, including my pastor and his wife. I met him at the Christmas party in December, so it'd been awhile since we first spoke. And he remembered me when we saw each other again! In a congregation the size of Coral Ridge, that's quite remarkable.

It was a great meeting and I'm excited about the initiative my church is taking to get involved in the community and in our church community's lives. It was so cool seeing the passion of folks like Tullian and his wife, Jon and his wife Nicole, and Rob and his wife. It was also so cool (and surprising) to see how many people were there to help get involved! I really enjoyed talking with a lot of people there, such as Jaclyn before dinner (where she showed me her new car and so on) and the Whitneys. I also enjoyed catching up with Erin and Lisa at the counter, shortly after taste-testing some various desserts.

Shortly before taking off, Jon talked to me, telling me why he had recommended me for this leadership meeting. I hadn't known you were supposed to be recommended for the dinner, but apparently so! He said he thought of me for planning events because I was always doing so with our group of friends. Awww! That was a perfect sendoff.

Day Sixty-Five (Saturday, April 17)
One of the options for my future is to go back to school. So, I inquired about it to the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, since I'm interested in photography. Since getting the mailing to attend an open house there, my mom and I had planned on going to it. I actually didn't want to go that morning, but ended up liking it. I took a tour of the photography department and learned a lot about it. I must say, it was very interesting, even though it went long.

Afterwards, my mom treated me to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, the Cheesecake Factory. It was so goooood! I literally had THE best Kobe burger to ever touch my lips. It. Was. Heavenly. And I really enjoyed talking with mom and hearing her tell me her take on going back to school. I really love my mom.

Later that day, I met my friends Alli and Val at Starbucks on Federal for a couple hours. It was so fun! I love those girls. We just chatted, took pictures, and had fun. (LOL I think Alli might like taking pictures even more than me! Nuts right? I love it!)





 




Day Sixty-Five (Sunday, April 18)
Weeks ago, Allison invited 3 people to go have brunch at her workplace, which happens to be THE BREAKERS! I don't know if you know what that is, but it's a pretty famous place. In fact, Jessica Biel and Taylor Swift were there in the past 1-2 weeks. Anyway, it's pretty expensive to dine there. $115 for brunch. And we got to go for free, thanks to Alli. As concierge, she gets points for getting reservations, so she chose to use some on us. WHAT a great friend!

So, we all went to first service at 9am instead of the 11:15am service, since we wanted to make our lunch reservations in time. I was really tired but it was a good sermon, and I even got to see and talk to Alan, who I haven't seen in so long!

While we waited for Val to sing in the beginning of second service with the choir, Jaclyn, Alli and I all waited at Jaclyn's house for about an hour. It's a good thing we had all that time to stew in hunger while we waited, because there was an EPIC spread of food waiting for us there.

It was also fun driving to West Palm Beach together in Alli's car. We got there a little early before our reservation and went outside to take round one of pictures together.








Haha, when they called us in for our brunch, the hostess seemed put off by our display of posing, etc. LOL totally worth it though.

It is just gorgeous there! I had no idea (being one of the people who hadn't heard of it before) that it was so nice there! Not only nice, but the atmosphere was awesome! There was even a harp player and GORGEOUS ceilings! Wow, very impressive and breathtaking even.

Eileen was a great waitress! She even offered to take this photo of us.


Blurry but hey, we still have proof there was a harp player. 




Dark, but I still wanted to capture the idea of the many-windowed dining room. 

Along with gratuity being included, they also served us 
a Mimosa, some Champaign, and/or a Bloody Mary drink.

There really isn't any wonder it's so famous, because not only is it so incredible inside, but it's located on the ocean and has 4 or 5 pools. After a hearty lunch and dessert, we got a tour of the place.

Sassy pose with the sassy host of this wonderful day. 


lol Not sure what caught Jaclyn's attention, but that's okay since she's so pretty. 
(Okay, even if she weren't so pretty, it would be okay because I love her so much.) 


As you can see by the trees in the background, it was really windy. 
Both Val and I had to pull a Marilyn Monroe with our dresses while walking (in The Seven Year Itch).

The following pictures are proof of how cute these lovely friends of mine are:




Without asking her to, a lady offered to take this picture for us! Awww people are so nice! 
This was RIGHT before it started to rain hard. 

Even the rain couldn't dampen our moods though. We had a relaxing drive home with all that food in our stomachs. Haha, I even napped for a bit. After Alli dropped Jaclyn and Val off, she and I took off to upload all our pictures at Starbucks. It was so cozy! We had hot cocoa and just traded pictures together for about an hour or so, while it poured outside. I LOVE that kind of thing!

Clearly, I was in the best mood when I got home around 8pm. I got there just in time for Mom and Dad to be lighting Dad's ice cream cake. I guess they wanted to celebrate early, especially since they'd already eaten dinner at Texas de Brazil. But I didn't know they'd be doing that the day before his actual birthday, so I'm glad I made it in time!



Aww, yes my parents are cute. Tell me though, does he LOOK 57??? No, for sure not, if I do say so myself. And I must say how grateful I am for parents who are still in love almost 31 years later after getting married. (Which means they've been TOGETHER for 33, almost 34 years.)

Furthermore, I'm so excited because Karl told me that he's going to come visit me this summer, around the Fourth of July!! Yayy!!!! It will be so good to see him! I love that guy!

Lastly, I had to thank Alli ONCE AGAIN for her blog shoutout. She makes me feel famous :)

Day Sixty-Seven (Monday, April 19)
It was my Dad's birthday! He turned a very young (and young-looking) 57 years old and had a GREAT day! He said it was one of his best even! After his workday ended, his co-workers called him back to the office (he hadn't yet gotten into his car yet) and surprised him with an ice cream cake! Awww. And a lot of people wrote on his facebook wall, sent him emails, and called him to tell him how much they loved and appreciated him. They Knoxes even sang to him.



Mom and I put together some presents for him, which he really liked! I wore my favorite outfit and we took lots of pictures (and videos) of him opening Mom's segment of the birthday gifts. (I couldn't wait past dinner and made him open mine before he finished eating, lol.)








I was jealous of how cute/amusing his pictures and poses were, so I joined in. Haha, I literally have the best Dad in the world!







Haha, we put a stop to the pictures when we went for a family walk. My parents do that about every night, but I actually joined them this time. It was fun too! We walked for about an hour along AIA and they even got in a few parent lectures ;) but were excused because of the special day that it was, haha.

On the way home, we stopped at Winn-Dixie. While I was looking for kettle corn popcorn (and never found it, or else lost interest) there was a random guy who asked me where I was from. He guessed I was from somewhere in Latin America. He was harmless though and didn't talk to me in a sleazy way. I politely moved on after a few minutes of conversation. Then, when going for some other item in the store, I happened to be browsing the aisle where his (much cuter) friend was in. His (rather loud) friend - the first guy - yelled at him from the other end of the aisle: "Guess where she's from!" LOL okay...The cute guy guessed Peruvian. It was pretty cute, or at least entertaining, I must admit. I never mind having people guess my heritage.

As if the day wasn't great enough, I got a really sweet email from Alli, thanking me for being in her life. She also suggested a TV show marathon next weekend (of either The Office or Friends).

While I was on the computer, I decided that it was about time I backed up my pictures. I also started the weeklong process of uploading pictures onto my dad's facebook, since my facebook deactivation from that world meant he lost all the pictures I tagged of him.

Anyway,
Laurs, out.

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