08/08/08

This date proved to be full of very exciting events. You probably are thinking I'm talking about the opening of the summer Olympics, which is very exciting and I am loving it! But the Olympics is not what sent me to Denton, TX for the weekend. 08/08/08 marked my mom's graduation for completing her Doctoral degree in Education from the University of North Texas and my nephew's first birthday!

Friday night was the graduation ceremony. It was held in the performing arts hall on the UNT campus, and it was a beautiful building. There was a balcony area at the front of the hall that held the largest pipe organ I have ever seen! It was beautiful!!! This graduation ceremony was only for Doctoral students. There were about 125 students that received degrees. The professors that spoke during the ceremony were good, but it lasted a long time!Finally...the moment we had all been waiting for. My mom was hooded and officially announced as Dr. Tammy Tucker! I am really proud of her and all of the years of hard work it took to get to that moment!After the ceremony, UNT provided a really nice reception for the graduates and families. This is our family photo (minus the baby, who was at the hotel with my step-mom). From left to right is me, my mom's husband, my mom, my brother and his fiance. We knew that it would be really late when the graduation festivities were over, so we had the baby's birthday party planned for Saturday.

Here's the birthday baby!!! Is he cute or what!?!? And of course I don't spoil him at all! We all went out to lunch and then back to the hotel for presents and cake. He was much more interested in climbing on the presents than opening them. And he was a typical 1 year old and was as happy about the wrapping paper and boxes as he was the actual gifts!Then, it was time for cake. He wasn't sure about it at first. It could have been because he had a room full of people pointing cameras at him and cheering him on to eat it! I'm pretty sure he thinks we are all crazy! Obviously, he quickly accepted our craziness and went to town on that piece of cake. He loved it! It didn't take long for the sugar to kick in and he put on quite a show in his little high chair!

08/08/08 was definitely a special day for me and my family. I am so thankful that I was able to be a part of such memorable events!

Dinner and a Movie

Last night, I had a dinner and a movie night with Hillary and some of our friends from church. One of the things I love about having dinner with Hillary is that she does her research ahead of time and knows exactly what to order when you get there! This comes in very handy when we split something! We met the other girls at Olive Garden for dinner and split a pizza. It was so good!!! It was also fun to catch up with everyone. Somehow though, we went through the entire evening without taking any pictures. I don't know how that happened! After dinner, we headed to the theatre to see Mamma Mia! It was cute! I have never seen the broadway show, so I can't make any judgements about whether the movie is as good as the show or not. I think they did a pretty good of turning into a movie though. If you are a Pierce Brosnan fan, he is handsome as always....until he sings!!! He doesn't sound too bad, but he makes the funniest facial expresions when he sings. Bless his heart, you can tell he was trying so hard! All in all, it was a fun night out!!!

My Weekend From A Year Ago

This weekend was a very uneventful one for me. I just stayed home and did some cleaning and watched some movies. I realized though that my weekend this time last year was quite different. I was in Ekaterinburg, Russia!!!! I cannot believe that it has been 1 whole year since I spent 10 days on a mission trip in Russia. On Wednesday July 11, 2007, five of us loaded up in Fayetteville and we arrived in Ekerinburg at about midnight their time on Friday the 13th. It was a long 2 days of travel. I have never spent that many hours on a plane before.

This was part of the airport in Ekat. It was midnight and it still wasn't completely dark yet! That was one of the first things I had to get used too. It was light when we went to bed and light when we woke up!

This was the hotel we stayed in. It was a really old building and didn't have central heat or air, so we left these windows open all the time. The funny thing about that was that our hotel was across the street from the train station! That was fun trying to sleep through until we got used to the sounds.

Our first day in Ekat was spent touring the city and meeting the Harts (the missionary family we were working with). It was nice having the tour the first day because Rusty Hart was able to explain to us so much about the culture and the history which definitely helped in the days that followed.Our team was me, Liz, Virginia, Pam, Mike, and Margaret. We are all member of our church choir, but didn't really know each other personally until this trip. It was so great forming bonds with each other that we would have never had if we didn't share this experience!

After our tour, we went to the Hart's home for dinner and briefing on the what we had in store for us. Since we were a "music" group, that was sort of our in to alot of places and the way we were able to share. We learned to sing some songs in Russian (the hardest thing I've ever done!!!) and we took hand chimes with us and rang them as well. Our first performance was at the church the Harts attend. That was probably the most powerful worship experience of my life. We had no idea what was being said during the pastor Sergi's sermon, but let me just say that the power of the Holy Spirit needs NO translating!!!! It was amazing!!!

One of the ladies in the church invited us and several people from their church to her house on Sunday night and she cooked us a huge Russian meal! The food there wasn't bad, but definitely different!!! After dinner, we let them ring the chimes. They loved it and it was so much fun to watch. Then they sang for us and several of them shared their testimonies. I get teary eyed even now when I think about what the Lord is capable to deliver us from!!! We finished the night be singing they hymn How Great Thou Art. We sang it in English while they sang in Russian. Talk about powerful!!!! I just remember thinking that some day we will all be singing together in Heaven in one united voice! Praise the Lord!!!!

Wow, all of that and it was just the first couple of days on the trip! I am so glad that I kept a journal while I was there and have been able to go back and read about what the Lord was teaching me during that trip. Thanks for joining me on my LONG walk down memory lane! Ha!!! Later on in the week, I will post some about some other sight-seeing things we were able to do and our trips to the orphanage.

Another girls weekend!

This week at work has been absolutely CRAZY busy!!!!! I have been getting home really late every night, which makes for bad blogging and I appologize! So, this past weekend I had the pleasure of having another girls weekend full of shopping and eating...it was just with a different group of girls than the weekend before! I went to Tulsa with Hillary, her mom, sister, and friend Diane. We started the weekend off right be eating at the little piece of heaven on earth that is The Cheesecake Factory!!!

The great thing was that our hotel was across the street, so we were able to have cheesecake every day!!! It does not get any better than that...well only if I could eat cheesecake every day and not gain weight!

The rest of the weekend was spent touring the aquarium and doing lots of shopping.

It was such a fun trip and a very successful one too!!! We got so much accomplished for Hillary's wedding and I had a great time being part of it!

My Umbrella-ella-ella

Hillary and Kelly did a fabulous job of posting the pictures and details of Hillary's shower! So, I am just going to show off the greatest hostess gift I've ever been given!!!

Hillary gave us these adorable umbrellas with our initials on them! I love it!!! So much cuter than the umbrella I usually carry with me! If you look closely at my initials, you will notice something somewhat familiar about them.

Ha!!! It looks like I have a Saturday Night Live umbrella!!! It's always funny to see my initials printed this way!

Birthday weekend in the Big "D"

I had a great weekend in Dallas celebrating my mom's 50th birthday. I left here Friday morning and arrived in Dallas around 3, and met up with Julie who was one of my roommates in college. We had some errands to run before my mom and the rest of the gang got there that night. The first thing on our to do list was to pick up the birthday desserts.

Sprinkles cupcakes are probably the best cupcakes I have ever eaten! Hillary, Kelly and I discovered them a couple of years ago at the originaly store in Beverly Hills. I am so happy they opened a branch in Dallas; it made for a great birthday surprise for my mom. After we picked up the cupcakes, Julie and I went back to the hotel and did a little decorating before my mom got there.

She was really surprised and excited! We all unpacked and realized that we were starving!!! One of my mom's favorite places to eat is Pappasitos and there was one close to our hotel, so off we went!

This is Brenda (my mom's best friend), my mom, me, Julie, and Laresa (both were my roommates in college). We had a great time at dinner. The food was really good and we had a lot of fun catching up! After dinner, we went back to the hotel for the cupcakes and to get some sleep for the busy day of shopping we had ahead of us.

Our first stop on Saturday was the Dallas Farmer's Market. It is huge and has the best fruits and veggies! They also have a beautiful selection of flowers and plants. It was great for some photo ops too!

Julie and I were the two single girls on the trip, so when we saw the frog statue we thought it might turn into a prince for one of us! Ha!

It was 98 degrees outside when we left the farmer's market and it was only 11 am!!!!! That is something I do not miss about Texas!!! We wanted to go to the outlet mall, but we were all dripping we were so hot. So instead we went back to the hotel and hung out at the pool! We went to the outlet mall later in the day and definitely shopped till we dropped!!! We ended the day with a fabulous dinner at PF Changs and left over cupcakes. We were all so tired that we slept in this morning and then had to hit the road. All in all, it was such a great weekend!!! My mom was really happy about everything and it was so much fun hanging out with old friends!

Red Velvet

On Tuesday, I got volunteered to make a red velvet cake for my boss' birthday today. I've made red velvet cupcakes before, but I used a cake mix. I decided that I wanted to try my hand at a "real" one, so I headed to the one place I knew wouldn't let me down....Paula Deen's website of course!!!! I was hoping I was up to the challenge and wouldn't let Paula down! This cake is three layers and fortunately I had just been watching an episode of Paula's Party and she was talking about her tips for pouring and baking even layers.

Here they are about to go in the oven. I took a moment and said a little prayer for them before I put them in! Next, came my favorite part of baking.......

...licking the spatual!!!!! So, the cakes were done and they came out great! I made the icing while the cakes cooled, and then I was ready for the layering and cake icing process.

Ta Da!!! The bad thing was that the party wasn't until after lunch today, so I had to wait to see if it was any good. Then, I ended up having to be in a meeting so I didn't even get to be at the party! I practically sprinted to the break room when the meeting was over to get me a piece of cake.

Yum, yum, yum!!! I think this is the richest cake I have ever eaten! But I expected nothing less coming from Paula!