Gal to Gal ... Sad News

I am always receiving emails from DesignHerGals ~ I love this company ... they have the cutest stuff around! I know many of you like it too because I see your little look-alike gal on your blogs. DesignHerGals is hosting a virtual walk for breast cancer and you pay $5, design a girl for the virtual walk, and the proceeds go to to patients with stage IV breast cancer. It is so neat because you can go online and see all the different gals who are walking. If you would like to give a monetary donation this October I think this is a noble charity to give to.

Well the email I received yesterday evening from the company was heart wrenching. Read here:

To our dear friends -

It is with great sadness that I must let you know that our Gal to Gal Foundation President, Dorit Shapiro, lost her brave battle to Stage IV breast cancer yesterday. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting Dorit - I can tell you that she was an incredible woman who believed passionately in the purpose behind the Gal to Gal Foundation.

As you may know, this year's virtual walk hopes to raise $250,000 by asking each and every one of us to take 5 minutes and $5 and go to www.galtogalwalk.org and create your virtual walker. It is our hope to grant hundreds of wishes for Stage IV breast cancer patients and their families this holiday season. With your help we can!

Dorit's wish was not for herself. It was that we make this goal and that no woman living with Stage IV should feel alone in this journey. Please join Dorit's virtual self and all of us today in her honor!

Attached is a tribute to Dorit where you can listen to her own words spoken 1 week ago (!) as we kicked off this event. Unfortunately after this speech she took a turn for the worst. She will be missed by her family and friends very much! Dorit just turned 38 years old with 2 daughters (ages 4 and 8). Please help us grant Dorit's wish.

Watch now!

With hope in my heart!

Jeanne Fitzmaurice

FounderGal to Gal Foundation

Can you imagine??!! 2 girls at home ages 4 and 8. My heart hurts.

xoxo~

Just an observation

Has anyone noticed that Samantha Harris, the host of Dancing with the Stars, has 72 different bones protruding out of her shoulder. It does not look normal. And it is not your average "oh you look skinny ... you can see your shoulder bone and the other little bone right above your shoulder." Ya'll know what I am talking about, right? She has lots of bones - too many.

This might be a biased observation because when I lived in Savannah I used to listed to Kidd Kraddick in the morning religiously (I don't pick it up where I live now) and Kellie Rasberry hated Samatha. I am not really sure why but I hate her too now - I shouldn't say hate, that is harsh, but I dislike her as well on Dancing. How I miss the Hizziewood Hizzle and my friends on the KK show!

Just call me RandomMan!!!! haha. Sorry, unless you listen to KK you probably have no idea what I am talking about!

xoxo~

Not too shabby

How was the weekend, girls? The Beau and I were both at home this weekend, which is rare, and it was so nice. I spent Saturday morning cleaning (if you could have seen my house you would have died) and we spent the afternoon watching football at my parents. Sunday afternoon we went and saw Fireproof. I know that many of you have seen it and many of you have blogged on it so I won't elaborate too much but I did love it! I cried my way through the movie and by the end I felt like I had been beat to death. My head hurt and my eyes were heavy ... but totally worth seeing. Check out this website for some great literature and resources on "fireproofing" your marriage.

www.fireproofmymarriage.com

I left this afternoon for the week, I will be gone until Friday. I have been travelling the majority of the weekdays for the past 8 weeks and today was the first time I really didn't want to leave. Of course, I never want to be away from the Beau but he works 65+ hours a week and has an hour commute each way so we don't get to spend a whole lot of time together Monday - Thursday. And those few hours in the evenings are precious to me. I just feel a twinge of guiltiness ... I swear I can't tell you the last time I have cooked dinner or have even been to the grocery store. There are about 5 different couples we need to have over, I have missed Book Club the past 2 months, we have missed several different activities with our Sunday School Class (including going to see Fireproof together since they went on a week night). I told the Beau last night that I hope all of our friends had not forgotten about us. It took a good amount of time for us to find a good social-network and Sunday School Class and as soon as we did I basically fell off the face of the earth. But there is light at the end of the tunnel - there is only about 3 more weeks of this and I will be at home all of November and December! Just in time for the holidays :)

On a better note, when I checked in to my hotel just a little while ago I was super impressed, it's not too shabby! If there is one thing I am snobby about it is HOTELS (okay, to be fair there are a few things I am snobby about but hotels are highest on the list). I have heard horror stories about the cleanliness of hotels and if I thought about it too much I would probably just sleep in my car!

In 2006 the Beau and I went to Orlando for his birthday for the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot and we had this whole package for 2 nights, 2 days at the park, etc., etc. Well to make a long story short I refused to stay in the hotel that had already been purchased, the Beau thought I was being a B until he went in to the bathroom, we checked out (no reimbursement) and went and found a Marriott. I am super-serious about cleanliness in hotels ... my house might not be spic-n-span all of the time but, by golly, I am not staying in a mediocre-clean hotel.

Anyways, back to my point, the hotel I am in now is totally cute! It is a Hampton Inn but it is downtown and is more of a boutique hotel. My room is red and black (one of my fave color-combos ... besides pink and green, of course) and I am really liking it here. The housekeeper even left a little note saying that she "had the pleasure of cleaning my room today" ... how nice is that. If I ever find pleasure in cleaning any room someone better call an ambulance!

xoxo~

Chivalry is alive and kickin'

At least it is Birmingham, Alabama ... this is where I have been for work the past several days.

Yesterday I was leaving my last event before heading back home and I was carrying a box to my car through a fairly busy parking lot. The box was small but it was slightly heavy. My car was maybe 300 feet away and 2 different guys (whom I was working with indirectly) came over and politely offered to carry the box to my car. And then, most impressively, a boy who could not have been over the age of 15 was with a group of about 6 of his friends and he went out of his way to come over and ask if I needed any help. AND he called me ma'am ... I about died because I am NOT a ma'am (quite yet)! I declined all offers but I thought all day about how nice all 3 of those people were - and I am obviously still thinking about it!

I can only hope and pray that if I have a boy one day he would be polite enough to ask someone if they needed any help ... especially as a teenager! You can instill good values (and good manners) in to your children but ultimately they are the ones to decide if they are going to use them or not. This boys mama would be so proud!

This incident just reinforced how important it is to be nice and polite and that manners really do matter ... especially to this southern girl!

xoxo~

Think Pink

I just love this campaign and since October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month I wanted to share. This month, and every month, I encourage you to Think Pink! I know that won't be hard for all of you preppy pink lovers out there!!!

Oh and speaking of pink, have any of you seen Victoria's Secret Pink Collegiate Collection? It is cute beyond words! Football pride and pink rolled in to one ... couldn't get much better!
And to save the best for last :)

xoxo~

Back to Life

We are back to reality! I don't even know where to start, the past 5 days have been so much fun and I am still floating on cloud 9! On Thursday we flew in to Liberia and took a 30 minute bus ride to our villa. I had no idea what to expect. The Beau and I went to Saint Lucia in May for our honeymoon and stayed at a Sandals resort so that is kind of what I had in my head. It was nothing like that! We were in a very remote area with the prettiest scenery I have ever seen in all my life. We arrived at a nine bedroom villa that overlooked the ocean. Each couple had their own room and there was a large porch where we all ate meals together everyday. The villa was completely staffed and we were pampered from the moment we arrived. Here are some shots of where we stayed ...

It is the rainy season in Costa Rica but that did not stop everyone from having a blast. Many of the guests went on a zip-line tour through the rain forest (the Beau and I did not as we just did a zip-line tour in St. Lucia) and had a great time ... I stayed at the villa and had a full body massage with the mother of the bride. Seriously, the best massage I have ever had - not to mention we were on the back porch with a nice breeze and calming noise from the waves. Other days, some of the guests went to another beach and went surfing and many of the boys went deep-sea fishing ... the Beau did both, I did neither. What did I do? I devoured 2 books, relaxed on the porch, hiked down to the ocean, rested in the sun (and managed to get strap lines), ate like a queen, sipped pina coladas, and I LOVED every minute I was there.

Of course since I was on the trip there had to be some sort of drama! On Saturday (the day before the wedding) most everyone went down to Tamarindo to surf but Layne (the other bridesmaid) and I stayed behind ... we aren't really the surfer-type. Anyways, we decided to sit in the hot tub for a little while as it was sprinkling. For some unknown reason I went under water to get all my hair wet. No big deal? Well when we got out my hair immediately started turning green. We are not talking about a little green tint, it was bright blue-ish green! This has never, ever happened to me. There must have been some serious chlorine in that water. I had no idea what to do so I did nothing. When I walked inside to get something to drink the Costa Rican men who worked at the villa were laughing so hard and were making jokes ... of course I didn't care because it was really funny. After the Rehearsal Dinner, Layne was able to get on the internet and find out what to do about green hair! She found something that said to wash it with tomato juice and the acidity would get the green out. All we could find was tomato sauce (like spaghetti sauce) and we spent appx. 1 hour that night washing my hair with tomato sauce. I was gagging because it smelled like vegetable soup and it had to sit in my hair for about 30 minutes. But it worked like magic, thank goodness! Only me, only me!

Sunday was the deep sea fishing trip and the Beau was beside himself he was so excited. They went out from 7 am - 1 pm and caught lots and lots of dolphin. They were able to bring many of the fish back to the villa and that afternoon the cooks made ceviche with the fish they caught. It was soo good and we also had mahi-mahi for dinner. Here is the Beau with his biggest catch of the day

The wedding was Sunday evening at 5 pm. It is weird because the sun rises at 5 am and sets by 6 pm - it was always completely dark by 6:30. It rained a little bit during the ceremony but it made everything more sweet to me! The bride was absolutely beautiful ... see for yourself

This was before the ceremony ... I want to get someone to frame this picture in a double mat and also put the one of her and I from my wedding in it to give her as a gift!

The 2 bridesmaids ... I really liked our dresses and the bouquets were gorgeous!

Here comes the bride - trying to stay dry with the photographer!

After the ceremony ... we were just a little bit wet!

After dinner, a steel drum band came to play and they were so much fun!

It was definitely a trip and a wedding to remember! The bride and groom are staying here until Friday ... dreamy!!!!

xoxo~

In the event of an emergency

you can find me here until Monday! We are off to a destination wedding in Costa Rica!

If we have skies like this during our trip I may not ever come back.

We are leaving here at 5 am tomorrow morning and ....

Number of bags packed: 0

Number of pounds lost: 0

Number of highlights received: 0 (I am most upset about this)

But whatever, it's not about me ... it's all about the bride and I am soo excited! Although I did manage to get a mani and pedi last night.

On Sunday, Taylor (the bride) and I will be reversing roles. We have been the best of friends since high school and I can't wait to see her marry the man that God made for her. His name is Tyler so they will be Taylor and Tyler ... I think that is cute!

I will post a picture just like this, but with her as the bride, when I get back. You are going to be gorgeous, Tay Tay! She reads my blog but says she doesn't know how to comment ... whatever, she graduated from Georgia Tech and is an engineer - she is the smartest person I know!

I didn't get the Beau a birthday present so I am sending him on a deep sea fishing excursion and I have never seen him more thrilled. Taylor's cousins go to Costa Rica often and they like to fish, the last time they went they caught this ...

If the Beau catches something like this he will die and go to heaven. I will SERIOUSLY never have a chance of making him that happy for the rest of my life :)

And Lynds, if I see this little guy I will try and bring him back for you!

I hope you all have a great rest-of-the-week and weekend!

xoxo~