more from athens

a few more snapshots from my trip to athens...

ethan and bridget at trappeze

mayo (the groom), telling me how
thrilled he is to marry emily :)

mason and katharine, giggling as they're want to do

bree, telling one of her fabulous tales

asher and me at walker's

au revoir [athens]

i was down in athens, ga last weekend for a friend's wedding.
it was kind of a bittersweet visit to be honest.
this was probably the last time i'll see several friends of mine since
many are heading off in different directions (peru, spain, etc).

the wedding was absolutely beautiful, though.
i'm pretty sure mason, suzie, cali, rodday and i danced our fancy
shoes off. here are a few snapshots from my trip:

note: i found an occasion to wear "the dress"!

me (in said dress) and mason to the right
{photo courtesy of eddie}

my darlings: bridget, katharine, me and kelley
{photo courtesy of katharine}

the brothers payne (l to r: ethan, me and asher)
{photo courtesy of katharine}

more to come!

where do i begin?

i would love more than anything to travel the world (and country). unfortunately, it's a tad more expensive than my wallet can handle at this point in my life.
here are some of the places i dream about visiting:

san francisco
portland
seattle
chicago
austin
new orleans
los angeles

spain: san sebastian, barcelona, madrid, valencia, sevilla
sweden: malmo, stockholm, dalarna
italy: rome, venice, cinque terra, florence, cortona, milan
uk: london, oxford, cambridge, surrey, edinburgh
ireland: cork, dublin
portugal: lisbon, porto
france: paris, marseille, lyon, nice
germany: berlin, munich, hamburg

i think that's all for now...

{photo courtesy of paper tissue}

(bold = checked off my list!)

away (to the movies) we go

i saw the new sam mendes (revolutionary road, american beauty) movie, away we go, yesterday with my roommates. the sudden rainfall made our original plans (the big apple bbq) a bit difficult, so we decided to make it a movie day instead.

john krasinski was even more lovable in this role than he is as jim halpert in "the office" (if you can imagine such a thing), but it was maya rudolph who really blew me away. i haven't seen her act in anything outside of saturday night live, so i was pleasantly surprised by her performance.

burt (john) and verona (maya), a young, thirty-something couple, discover they're pregnant and eventually find themselves searching for the perfect place to call "home" (only after they learn burt's parents, their closest family, are moving to belgium a month before the baby is born).

as the story plays out, burt and verona travel to different parts of the country, visiting family and friends along the way. in their quest for "home," they learn a lot about what they do and do not want for their soon-to-be family of three. it's a really sweet (sometimes sad) story, but, rest assured, there's plenty of humor to keep you hooked. jeff daniels (the squid & the whale), allison janney (juno) and maggie gyllenhaal (stranger than fiction) make guest appearances... all of which will have you rolling out of your seat with laughter. give it a go! you won't be disappointed... at least i hope not.

scattered to the wind

there's nothing i love more than when old friends pop back into your life unexpectedly. here are a few of my friends who have done just that...

this is emma, one of my oldest and best friends from childhood. she and her sweet hubby, matt, live in charleston, where emma's a soon-to-be second-year med student. she's one of the most intelligent, caring people i know, and i would be lying if i said i didn't try to be more like her in many aspects of my life.

here we have jake and anna claire, two of the most hilarious, kind-hearted souls you could ever meet. while we only met in college (the latter half, at that), i consider them to be some of my nearest and dearest friends. jake has this amazing power to lift people up when they're down, and a.c. is sure to make anyone appreciate life's precious, sometimes forgotten joys (i.e. riding bikes in the summer and picking blackberries for cobbler).


then there's bridget and nathan, another delightful duo i became fast friends with in college. nathan's keen attention to detail is one of the things i love most about him--take our new england road trip that, thanks to his pilot-ing, will remain one of my fondest memories to date. and bridget, the light of my life. i feel like i've know her for ages. i couldn't live without her enthusiasm and endless love.

i count myself so very lucky to have these people in my life. in a dream world, we would all live on a compound and grow old together. i think there's still plenty of time left to work on that :)