Happy (Belated) Birthday to Me!!!

You may have noticed in my post last week, that I didn't say anything about my birthday. June 10th it was. As usual, I tried to stretch the celebrating out as much as possible. I thought one of the perks of being married was a month long bday celebration.. no? 1st weekend: Friends... 2nd weekend: Just the two of us... 3rd weekend: my parents... and 4th weekend: in-laws. This sounded like such a great idea in my head. And then, the World Cup rolls around and has it's opening weekend on none other than, my birthday weekend! We somehow did manage to celebrate much longer than the actual day though, so I was happy. Here are some pics of the best month of the year: June! :)

Weekend 1: Spiro
We went to my hometown to hang out with my family for part I of my birthday. We started Saturday morning off with a little run. Just kidding... a 5k... in the most extreme heat/humidity I've ever thought about running in. Rooney ran with me/almost pulled my arm off. We were super excited to be part of Spiro's first annual "Stride for Pride." I've gotten a lot of questions about the name they chose for their annual race, and no... it has nothing to do with gay pride. Moving on.


This is me at the finish line wanting to die. I seriously wanted to just go hop in the pool after block one.

Here we are after the run at my parents garage sale. :)

The rest of the day was so much fun! We had a big cookout & were able to relax. Before we left on Sunday, my mom insisted on a "family" photo shoot. This is one of our favorites:

Weekend 2: Edmond

I woke up on my actual birthday to Chris asking if I wanted coffee/breakfast. Nothing out of the norm, except he never came back and brought it to me? In an attempt to sleep right up to the very last minute, I have to stay focused to get ready at lightening speed before running out the door. As I walked out of the bedroom area, I see Chris standing with coffee & breakfast in hand (so proud) under this:

Made my day!!! He spent so much time gathering the materials, and crafting me a birthday banner! I LOVED IT! I loved it so much that I left it up until this past weekend. :) He is seriously the sweetest. That night, Tate & Kristen (our newly engaged friends! Yippee!) came over to go out to dinner. Somehow the little stinkers all got together, gave Kristen one of my cake dishes & she made my very favorite birthday cake in the whole wide world! Wish I had a picture of it. SO SWEET! Gosh... what a wonderful day. Here are some pictures of our Saii Sushi photo shoot:

Maybe I got a little picnik-happy here?:

Weekend 3: Edmond (In-laws)
Another perk of being married is that I get to share my actual bday with my nephew, Ben! Here we all are (minus the Beldens) at Hideaway:

This is my bday card from Scott & Ash. Ben drew me a "yeti."

Weekend 4: Girls Night
It's so dang hard to get a big group of girls together, so we just did a little impromptu dinner at Bellini's. These girls are a blast. Here is a picture:

I think I got everyone in? I had lunch with Kirsten & baby Gavin at Nikkellette's, but we didn't get a picture.

Thanks to everyone for helping me stretch my birthday out way too long for someone in their 20's. :) I love you all dearly!

Have a great week!

Love,

Gena

Catch up time...

This summer has absolutely flown by. I'll just post pictures with little blurbs about what we've been up to since there is pretty much no way I could hit all of the high points since May. Yikes. Our house is FINALLY where we want it! The painters just finished up painting the exterior of the house this week, the pool is up and going (please come use it if you live nearby!), and the grill practically stays hot! This week, we had a few neighbors and friends over for a little cookout. Here are a few pictures:

Welcome back, Matt Austin! Meet & greet for Matt, Lindsay & baby Charlotte coming soon!

We've also been to several weddings this summer. Somehow I only managed to get a picture at one of them? Here we are at the Skirvin downtown. What a beautiful wedding & fun night!

Last week, we met up with our friends Alex & Laurin for date night at Boulevard. They are always so much fun and we had a blast catching up with them. Congrats, Laurin on the new j-o-b! You'll be the best coach ever (maybe I should say for a girl? or besides Chris?).

As always, we LOVE when my parents come to visit. Last time they were up, we took them to Mama Rojas at Lake Hefner. Here we are taking pics with this amazing sunset:

How cute are they?!

A while back (?) we did a little dog sitting for the Steves dogs, Lily & London. Here is little Rooney sleeping like a baby after a long weekend of playing with his friends:

We tried to do a little night swimming, but all three dogs thought they should swim with us. Several scratches later, Chris had to make them all sit and stay on the side of the pool so they weren't on top of us in the pool. So funny, these dogs. :)

USA!USA!USA! This was my first time to ever experience World Cup madness. These pictures are from one of the many little get-togethers we had to cheer on the home team. p.s. Those horns nearly drove me crazy. I go to bed before Chris, and he just reads/plays on the computer/etc until he falls asleep... usually to ESPN. What time did those soccer games start you ask? They started at 6:00 am. AM! So the sound of reporters lulled me to sleep and bright and early every morning I was awaken to the vuvuzelas (aka: the little horns that sounded like a swarm of buzzing bees in the stadium). Chris is finally over the fact that it's all over for another four years.

Here is a picture of our house before the painters came... I'll have to post another soon.

Last, but not least... here are a few of my niece and nephews:

And that's a wrap.. I'll try to post more soon. Lot's going on to talk about. :)

Hope you're having a great week! It's almost Friday!!!! WOO HOO!!!

Gena