finally finished friday: 2010 edition.

ladies and gentlemen, today is the last day of 2010. lots {and lots} has happened this year. big changes. good changes. a few bad changes, but everything happens for a reason.

and now, i present to you, this year in review.

in january, i was working at sor, back home in virginia. i miss working there so much {i also just miss working}. here's chelsea, me and erica at our holiday party.

in february, austin turned 24. we were supposed to go see motion city soundtrack in north carolina for his birthday, but it snowed. a lot. so we couldn't make it. but i went skiing in my front yard.

in march, my sister turned twenty one. i went down to north carolina to spend her birthday weekend with her.

in april, my julie boo turned five years old. we {meaning me, juliet and sophie} had a little party for her.

in may, austin graduated from utc and began working at life care center.

and my sister threw a wedding shower for me. katie and lindsy surprised me!

lots happened in june.

i moved out of elliston to chattanooga.

my little brother seth graduated from high school {this picture is from last fall at his senior night football game}. now he's attending appalachain state and playing snare in the marching band there.

our friends threw a couple's shower for austin and me with all our friends. and in the same night we met charlie daniels {for real}. here's danielle, me, austin and katie at riverbend watching the charlie daniels band.

i had my bachelorette party with all my girls {don't worry about that birthday sign}.

oh yeah, we got MARRIED on june 26. it was perfection.

and we went to jamaica, austin planned the whole trip without me knowing any details of where we were going.

in july, we celebrated the 4th with rj and lindsy.

in august, rar j graduated from utc and moved to memphis to start grad school.

in september, we celebrated dinger's second birthday. he got presents and a cake {of some seafood mixture}.

in october, we celebrated my twenty-fourth birthday and we went to utc's homecoming game. here's sarah, katie and me at tailgating before the game.

we had our zombie dinner party and halloween.

in november, we went to the cabin in georgia to spend the weekend. juliet loves the outdoors.

we saw motion city soundtrack at variety playhouse in atlanta.

and in december, i did the mainx24fashion show dressed as sally.

joee and copper moved in with us.

and we had lots of christmas, festivus and family fun!

and that's our year in review. i hope you all have had a wonderful year and we wish all the best to you and your's for 2011.

happy new year!

an amazing weekend.

this weekend was a roller coaster of emotions.

friday night, austin and i just did our usual. we rented a movie {the oxford murders, pretty good} and ate a frozen pizza. saturday moring, austin's mom picked up julie boo to watch her for the weekend as austin and i headed to the atl. that's atlanta, georgia, in case you didn't know.

first stop, dave & buster's in marietta. basically it's a chuck e. cheese for adults. you buy tokens, play all sorts of games, win tickets and then cash in those tickets for {mostly crappy} prizes.

we played a football game. i beat austin. i also beat him at skeeball and basketball. he was mad.

austin did the flight simulator. note the concentration in his face.

then we found this janky little game hid way back in a corner. austin won the jackpot on it. twice.

we ended up with 1,314 tickets. yeah, we really racked up. check out our loot.

yep. a d&b glass. a giant pixie stick. a giant pen. a stuffed junior mints box. and an airplane shaped eraser. be jealous.

after we left dave & buster's, we headed to downtown atlanta to check into our hotel. after navigating some really obnoxious one-way streets, we finally found it: the hyatt regency. pretty nice, if i must say so myself. {we got it on priceline, we're not that fancy on purpose}. the lobby is under construction, but it was really nice regardless.

austin snapped these pictures from our window/tiny balcony.

saturday night, austin and i met up with j.j., my cousin who lives in atlanta. we went out to dinner at mellow mushroom with her and one of her friends, then we met up with a few more people to go out for the night.

here's j.j., her friend ava {maybe eva?} and myself.

sunday, austin and i took a detour for me to try on bridesmaids dresses for a friend's wedding i'm in next year. then we grabbed lunch at a mexican restaurant and then it was time to head back to downtown atl for the concert we were going to, which was the actual reason for the weekend trip.

so here's the emotional roller coaster part. motion city soundtrack is pretty much our favorite band. we've seen them a few times and have all of their cds. we missed their show in february due to weather, but anxiously awaited their show in atlanta. we didn't buy tickets in advance, their shows are never sold out and the processing charges online are ridiculous.

mistake. sometime saturday night, i noticed the band's facebook page say the show was sold out.

disaster.

as an act of desperation, i found the band manager's e-mail address and sent an e-mail explaining how we were huge fans, drove all the way to atlanta, missed their show in february due to weather and how badly we wanted to make it to this one. we figured there was no chance in them responding.

we were wrong! he wrote me back and put us on the guest list! we couldn't believe it!

austin and me at variety playhouse before the show started.

the opening bands included a great big pile of leaves, saves the day, and say anything. {no picture of agbpol}

 

i have to say, all the opening bands were great. say anything really put on a great show. then mcs came out and rocked our faces off.

after the show, austin and i waited around to meet the band and get their signatures on the set list we snagged. the only band member missing was the synth player. don't know where he ran off to.

so that was our mcs adventure for this weekend. we left atlanta around 11:45 sunday night and got back to our house around 1 in the morning.

this morning we met austin's mom at her work to pick up juliet.  the second we got home, she snuggled up in her blankets on the couch. she's adorable. 

oh, and then i gave her the junior mints box. we picked it out at dave & buster's just for her. and she loves it.

this has been a pretty long post, but it was an eventful weekend. lessons learned: atlanta is fun, but only for visiting. dave & buster's is fun, but expensive. and most important: buy. tickets. in. advance.