Gorman Wedding Weekend

As much as I love/am obsessed with Charleston...I can never get enough of Washington DC.  I am reminded each time I visit of how much I love everything about that city. This past weekend, I flew to DC for a very special occasion...my best friend Lindsay's wedding.  I got to spend so much quality time with my favorite girls in the world...

Linds was a stunning bride, her dress blew me away, and even better...she was so calm, cool, and collected all day.  The only time I ever had the slightest hint that she may be nervous was when she'd look at me and quietly say, "can you get me a glass of champagne, please?"

The weekend was perfect, and friend withdrawal depression has kicked in already...

Side note: big thanks to Beth (and Jordan) for talking about Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred so much lately...I just purchased it on my lunch break, and am excited to get started today after work!

Pre-Memorial Day Happenings

Over the weekend, I celebrated some very monumental occasions with good friends.  Saturday morning was Lilly Kate's baptism.

Lilly Kate is the daughter of one of my closest friend in Charleston, Colleen. She melts my heart...

After lots of delicious food and QT with LK, it was time to get ready for the next big event...Lauren's 30th birthday!  Lauren is not only one of my great friends, but she also happens to be my brother's girlfriend.

We had a blast boozing it up with frozen screwdrivers at Taco Boy...

After a fun weekend, I started my first week of work on Monday.  I can already tell that I am going go to absolutely love my office.  My coworkers are great and the dentist is hysterical.  If anyone is looking to switch dentists, or just needs an office locally, let me know :)

I'm heading to DC in the morning to offically begin the Widle-Gorman wedding weekend!!  So happy to be a part of such a special occasion!!

Bedding and Books

As I mentioned in Monday's post, I'm going to be moving out of my parents house later this summer into a new apartment.  When I lived in houses/apartments post-college, I used all the same bedding and decor that I had in my college dorm room.  Since I'm much older (and wiser?) now, I decided it was time for a brand new bedroom.  I'm reusing some of the furniture that I bought when I moved back to Charleston, but the bedding/curtains/decorations will be different.  I recently bought this bedding from Lands End...

I've decided to go with navy, coral, and white as my bedroom colors.  Any suggestions from readers who are good at decorating of any other colors/great ideas (hint hint...Jessie...)? I will only use coral as an accent color (in pillows, curtains, etc).  My future roommate has most of the staple furniture that we need for our den and dining room, but I picked out this cute little wine holder to stash somewhere in the apartment.  It was a steal at only $40...I couldn't resist...

On a different note...I, along with every other female in America, have finally finished reading the first book in the Fifty Shades trilogy.  Although it took me a solid month to get through, I really enjoyed it.  I started the second book yesterday, and I'm plowing through it much faster than the first already.  My friend, Christina, started a book club and our first meeting is tonight.  I'm excited to meet a new group of girls and discuss a ridiculously inappropriate book with all of them...thank goodness for wine!

R.D.H.

After a 4 month hiatus from the blog, I'm back and am officially a Registered Dental Hygienist!!

The last semester of school was such a whirlwind, and if I wasn't in clinic I was busy studying and preparing for Boards.  I passed both sets (thank goodness), graduated with honors, attended our pinning ceremony with my amazing class, and best of all...secured an amazing job at a great dental practice in Mt. Pleasant!

With Amy and Breeanna, my DHG besties

 I won some great awards and scholarship money at our ceremony

What else I have been doing the past few months? 

Jenn's bday in HHI (we partied on a yacht during the Heritage)

 Brooke's bachelorette weekend in Wrightsville Beach

Lindsay's bachelorette weekend in Ocean Isle Beach

 DHG graduation party at Capers Island

And spending lots of time with Amy! She is leaving this week to move back to Colorado (where she's from).  I am going to be so lost without seeing her every day! There's no way I could have gotten through school without her.  Note to anyone ever going into hygiene school...find a study buddy that you can spend every weekend with...crucial...

So what now? I hope to resume regular blogging now that the stresses of school are over.  I start my new job next week, and am beginning to buy new furniture and bedroom things to get ready to move into an apartment with my future roommate, Julie, later this summer!

So do I still have readers or did everyone lose hope after 4 months of silence?

I Would Like To Introduce You...

To my new boyfriend...

The Dental Hygiene Board Review Book!! 

He's so fantastic, isn't he? I'm about to spend every waking hour with him for the next 2 months. I just got back late last night from a long weekend in Atlanta with my fellow classmates for our official Board review course.  I'm talking 7:45 am - 5:30 pm, 3 days in a row...it was mentally exhausting. Luckily for me though, I shared a room with my favorite people..and we absolutely made the best of it.

   

Crystal, Breeanna, Amy, and me during a break

Being lectured to about everything you've learned for the past year can be super overwhelming, but I feel ready to take on the written Boards now!  I'm about to head to school for the FIRST day of my LAST semester of Hygiene school, my mind is having such a hard time processing that.  I'll take the written Boards in early March, and then the clinical portion will be sometime in April...and then...I GRADUATE!!

So lots of prayers for me, this semester will be the most stressful one yet!

New Years Eve Surprise

My best friend Beth's birthday falls on one of the best days of the year, New Years Eve.  A couple of months ago, her husband decided to arrange a little surprise party in Washington DC with all of her best friends.  The day I found out about the plan that was in progress, I checked on plane tickets prices and they were lower than I've ever seen them.  This was my sign, so I excitedly booked the flight right away without giving it a second thought.

After 2 full months of planning, keeping secrets, and constantly analyzing whether or not Beth knew anything...the weekend finally arrived...and Beth was completely surprised...

Most of us arrived in town a day before Beth did, so it was great to catch up with everyone and spend time with my absolute favorite people.  After the big surprise, we all started with champagne and apps at Jordan's boyfriends house...

Followed by an amazing dinner at one of DC's many great restaurants, West End Bistro...and then onto a fun party at a rooftop bar called Marvin's where we danced, made shadow puppets and texted random people's moms (don't ask), and rang in the new year together.

After the rooftop party, we brought the real party back to Jordan's boyfriend's house. The lights when off, the strobe light (?) came on, and we blared rap music while have a massive dance party of our own.  Nothing beats starting the new year by burning calories dancing your face off with your besties.

We ended the perfect weekend with a fabulous brunch together where we recapped the night and laughed for 2 hours straight...

Huge thanks to Oliver for coming up with this idea, Beth for having a birthday to bring us all together, and Kristin for letting me steal all of your pictures!  I'm so excited about 2012, and have only one resolution that I plan to uphold all year...to just be happy!  Plain and simple!

Christmas with the Holloways

I'm seriously not believing that my beloved favorite holiday has already come and gone, but it was an amazing weekend to say the least...

After the early church service on Christmas Eve, my parents went to a party while my brother and I came home so he could begin preparing his masterpiece.  When Matthew is at my parent's house for an extended period of time, he has to have some sort of "activity" to keep him occupied.  For Christmas, he decided that his activity would be to make a turducken for the first time.  For those of you who don't know, a turducken is chicken wrapped in duck wrapped in turkey with stuffing between each layer...it is very time consuming, but the end product (which we consumed on Christmas Day) was so so delicious!!

Once my parents got home, we began the Christmas Eve feast, which consisted of an amazing surf and turf...

And I proceded to drink myself silly with multiple glasses of red wine and eggnog.  It's the holidays, right?  That's my excuse...for now...

Santa was really great to me this year (Kate Spade wallet, Patagonia, Hyla Dewitt jewelry, etc), but the part of Christmas I was most anticipating, was a new tradition that began this year...

(I took this new tradition very seriously, right down to my nail polish color)

We always spend Christmas with my dad's side of the family, and this year it was our turn to host.  Earlier in the week, I got a text from my cousin Anna, proclaiming that we needed to shake things up and start the 1st Annual Holloway Tacky Christmas.  Two full days of running around Charleston with my mom proved that tacky Christmas outfits are not easy to find this close to Christmas, but we managed to make it work anyways...

Aren't we an attractive bunch??

 Grandmama and her 2 boys...(and the Christmas Vacation moose eggnog mugs)

 Grandmama and all of her grandchildren...

 The Holloway (Davis/almost Tift) girls...although I'm about to be the last Holloway girl standing...

I can't even explain how much fun we all had together, and I'm so looking forward to future years when we have more time to plan and prepare our crazy outfits.  After copious amounts of wine, all the cousins decided we needed to end the night with a good game.  I found one called "Crazification" on my iPad...go download this game now.  It is basically a bunch of dares, and it is perfect for so many situations.  Any game that has my brother planking on the island in the kitchen is a good game in my book...

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas with loved ones!