so long, 28-ville

Well, I must say: My last weekend of 28-dom was pretty fantastic.

We went to Augusta for the weekend to attend my sister's best friend's wedding. Did you follow? Basically I've known this kid (er- 25 year old woman) since she was in diapers with my sister and our families have been close forever...which merited me spending my last-weekend-of-28 celebrating in my hometown.

It also gave Matt and I ample opportunities to practice taking pictures. And let's just be honest: we have a LOT to learn...because for the life of us we could NOT figure out how to make the pictures from the reception (aka in a fairly dark room) look right. They were either orange and blurry (from no flash or using the 'night' setting) or totally washed out (flash!). So...bummer. But that's beside the point. The main thing is that the weekend was great, the wedding was beautiful, the bride was ridiculously gorgeous and had the hottest shoes I've ever seen, and my date and I didn't look half-bad ourselves.

That was before the wedding and proves that natural light is the winner when it comes to taking pictures. Also-- sorry if my RED LIPS are hurting your eyes, but I needed them to match my nails and my shoes and also they made me happy so you can just deal with it. :)

The second best part of the wedding (besides Lindsey getting hitched) was that my WHOLE FAMILY was there. This basically never happens and, in fact, has not happened since our LAST wedding (which was Jake's) in June. So this is no small thing. Luckily, they were all happy to pose for or with me for pictures. 

Here's Emily (Jake's wife) and I (example of no flash/blurry) (please notice my shoes and congratulate me for wearing them for 4 hours before I changed into flats!): 

 Oh sorry, do I look like I'm about 7 months pregnant in that picture?? Maybe I was. PREGNANT WITH CRABCAKES. Because the crabcakes were flowing like wine (and so was the wine, incidentally)...and I did not hesitate to partake. And if you've ever seen me and crabcakes...well, it's a sight to behold. Kind of like me and corndogs. Or me and anything chocolatey and pepperminty. Or me and a lot of things, because apparently I'm a fan of food. Anyway. Crab cakes! So good!


Then I spent about 2.5 hours taking pictures of my sister, because she is a very expressive person and when she tells stories it looks like this:

The food was good, the bar was open, the band was excellent...

And then I took my shirt off??!??!! Oh wait, no, I didn't. It's just that when Emily took this picture, she proved that she has not learned the fine art of Not Making People Look Naked. It's okay. We had a good laugh about it. Please know I still had my dress on.

Are my dad and sister cute or WHAT?

And finally, the moment we all (or my mom, at least) had been waiting for: the Family Picture.

Do you like Mark's fancy duds? That's because he just completed Army Ranger school and is a FREAKIN ARMY RANGER now. Um, yeah. So don't mess with me. Or him, either. Basically I taught him everything he knows...

So last night was late and fantastic. Today was spent lounging around and celebrating both Christmas and my birthday. And eating...as if you had any questions about that. Look at us. Do we look like we're starving? No.

Anyway, I got lots of good loot (CAMERA STUFF) and took lots of bad pictures (NEED TO LEARN TO USE CAMERA STUFF) and just generally had a merry old time celebrating my Last Day of 28. 

Coming tomorrow: old age, a few more presents, and a fun dinner with friends!

Christmas Card Stats 2011:
# of cards received: 7
B&W to color photo ratio: 2:5
# of cards with hand-written messages: 2
# of cards with pictures of kids on them: 6
# of cards with pictures of pets on them: 0 (very disappointing, folks)