Mamma Mia!

Yep. You heard me right. Tonight I went to see "Mamma Mia" at Starlight theater with some friends!

Now I will be the first to tell you that growing up I was not a fan of musicals and singing and all that jazz.  My sister was the drama/choir/musicals gal, I was the sporty one. She would go around singing musicals EVERY DAY! I remember the days of screaming... KATIIIIEEEEE shut up! If you ask me now, I will say that every time she sang in shows I cried.  Don't tell her that ;) But around the house.... that was my time to relax, not listen to Grease musicals!

I saw "Mamma Mia" a few years ago and thought it was okay, but when someone at work offered up free tickets front and center, I couldn't resist.  I've grown tired of the crap TV on lately, so resorted to watching "Glee" on Netflix before I go to bed.  Again, not a musicals person and not sure what's going on with me.

The show was great, weather wasn't nearly as hot as I had imagined it would be.  So all and all a good night!

You are probably thinking what I was thinking..."Definitely don't remember men in scuba gear in the movie!" 

Hello Plaza.

I had a great evening with the BF tonight.

Right after work we got a massage on the Plaza to relieve some stress and kick back and relax. We were both in desperate need of one.  The masseuses oddly told both of us that we were already "relaxed" and we both looked at them like are you crazy.  I guess what they meant was that our legs weren't tense (duh), but our backs were a wreck (duh), I could have told them that! Guess all that work at a computer all day does a body bad :)

After dinner we ran home to rinse off and get ready for dinner. Our initial plan was to walk next store to P.F Chang's, but then quickly realized we were both disgusting.  When I looked at Walt and asked if I'd be able to just rinse off instead of washing my hair he looked at me like... nice try, you need to wash everything. Dang it!

After getting all cleaned up we headed over the P.F Chang's for some lettuce wraps (I had a free coupon you may have seen a while back), Chang's Spicy Chicken, and Mongolian Beef. SO GOOD.

When we were done, I realized I had forgotten to take my picture for today.  Walt suggested we walk across the street to the fountains that were filled with people taking pictures.  My mom also pointed out that Kansas City was the city of fountains. Apparently I need to do my research.  I haven't done ANY pictures of fountains in KC! So here I am.  Finally getting in my fountain picture.  But what I really love are the clouds.

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Choo Choo

Yesterday afternoon I was feeling a little restless at work so opted to go out for my lunch break. I attempted to  get my license plates (which the dealership so conveniently LOST when I got my new car only putting one instead of two of my old license plates on my new car- Missouri requires you have one on the front and the back). After being told I didn't have some of the paper work I headed back to work and since it had really only been 20 minutes since I left I wanted to do a little site seeing near the office.  There is this road that veers off near my work and I have always wondered what was back there.  Well it was time. I wondered back there and came to find it was nothing TOO interesting. A few businesses here and there and then there were a few railroad tracks.  After driving past the second railroad tracks I thought I could possibly get some cool pictures of them. 

This is what I came out with:

 What do you think??

Where was Lulu?

I will get this out of the way right now.  I am SO sorry for the lack of posts this weekend. I've been a little all over the place.  Errands. Dinner Party. Lake. Pool. BBQ.

The good news is I got some great pics!

I'll save the long boring stories for you and get right to the good stuff.

Here's my Friday night dinner party at our friends' BJ & Katie's house with our friends Bobby and Anne.  BJ and Katie are getting married NEXT weekend and were still nice enough to throw us a dinner party! Can you believe it?  I can't wait to show you all the pics from THAT wedding!

Last one was priceless and gives you an idea of how much fun we all had.  Katie trying to read her catch phrase with one eye... AWESOME.

Now onto the pictures that Katie actually took. She wanted to try out my SLR and boy did she go wild :)  These are only SOME of the pictures as there was about a 100 total that were taken this night! 

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Twenty 20

No... not 2020.  Twenty 20.  It is a local restaurant in Kansas City located right next to our other downtown office. After we were huddled in the basement for over an hour DURING lunch... we were all starving and decided to run next door to Twenty 20 to grab a bite to eat.

To my surprise, I had ordered a vegetarian panini sandwich.  There were a few items on the sandwich I hadn't heard of and figured that must be some kind of italian meat considering the sandwich was called "Little Italy." It had artichoke hearts, carmelized onions (I think...), tomatoes (got them taken off), banana peppers, and red peppers. It was MM - GOOD!

You probably think I'm a fatty with all this talk about food the past two days (and I sorta am - I ALWAYS eat out and really need to break this habit). But why not share the love with you?

Blanc

I normally am not one to rave on and on about how much I just love hamburgers and how they are the best hang over food ever...

When I was a kid I decided I did not like them, and would always ask for "no nuts" when I ordered at McDonald's (i.e. no onions) and would only like cheese on them.  Eventually I just stopped eating them for years.

My freshman year in college, I eased into eating them since I was running out of food options in our dorm cafeteria and still kept them on the bottom of my list of foods to eat when given an option.

To this day, I basically only eat Turkey burgers smothered in goat cheese at the local restaurant Blue Moose.  So when my best friend Kara suggested we go to Blanc Burger for her going away dinner I was less than thrilled.  Until she highly recommended this amazing burger called the "Inside Out Burger" which consisted of a hamburger filled with bleu cheese, topped with bacon and an onion ring and an onion bun.  I was a little apprehensive once I ordered it when the waiter was giving me the warnings about eat it.  Do not squeeze the burger, you must cut into the burger before eating it, be careful that the cheese doesn't spill all over you... But he promised it would be a great choice.

Both Kara and the waiter were RIGHT! The burger was SO good.  Like I said, I am not normally one to rave about hamburgers, but this was one hamburger I will pass onto others to give a try.

Not to mention, the atmosphere of Blanc is so clean and crisp with a little old school feel which makes me love it even more now!

Go ahead and give it a try.  Sure is gooooood!

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Cheers

Last night I was so excited to show you all the fun pictures we took at dinner last night before going to Cirque du Soleil with my co-workers/friends... I get home, go to my blog and try to start a new post to find out that blogger was temporarily down. Sad.

Because I've had a little more time to think about the post I wanted to do last night, I decided that instead of showing you only the initial cat picture I took of our awesome drinks we got a Kobe, I also want to give you a sneak peak of us enjoying them before the show.

My drink at Kobe

Me with my Cat

Kristin with her Cat

Carrie (front with her buddha) & Danielle with her monkey (hidden) 

It was all and all a great night! I wish I could show you pictures from the show but they didn't allow any cameras or pictures to be taken with our phones! Kinda crazy if I do say so myself. Thanks Jeff from Centro for taking us there!

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Spring is FINALLY Here

I'm so excited for today.

For two reasons:

1. Spring is finally here
2. My friend Kristin is getting married today

The weather couldn't be more perfect today.  Its going to be 87 and sunny for Kristin's wedding! 

Even walking outside my front door made me even more giddy.  Look what I found:

Remember this last photo from a while ago?

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Park It

... and have a nice weekend. One of the best things about the weekends are that you can just relax.  Just sit back and relax. Enjoy it while it's here.  It's only here for two days....

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Mr. Sun... Sun... Mr. Golden Sun....

.... Please shine down on me!

Another day of no sun, but things are looking up for Friday and Saturday Kansas City!
 
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March Sadness

Yes KU lost, that was sad.  But even more sad is when I woke up this morning, at the end of March, and saw snow stuck on the blooming trees outside my house!

Yes, SNOW. Why does it continue to keep snowing in Kansas City.  I remember being so excited to have the first snow fall of the year, but now I'm over it.  Time for the sunshine and the warmth.

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Bird's Eye View

Yesterday was one of my FAVORITE classes so far in my 8-week course.  We went over to Liberty Memorial and took pictures for two hours! Yes is was a little long for me as I was exhausted from work and think my weekend finally caught up with me, but all and all it was a blast.

I got over 100 pictures if you can believe it.  We worked on getting our panoramic pictures that we will get printed at the end of the course and HDR shots which I'm really excited to try in Photoshop this week.

One of my favorites (pre-photoshop) was this one:

I think I'm getting the hang of things... well sorta.  I about threw my camera over the ledge at one point. The wind was blowing SO hard last night which made it really difficult to get a clear picture when I so badly wanted one.

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Lent is Getting to Me

Here is a little peek into my religious views.

I am Catholic.  I was confirmed when I was in high school because that is what I was told I was supposed to do.  It made for a fun social hour with my friends, therefore, I learned a lot less than I really should have.

Nonetheless, I continue one of the MANY Catholic traditions that are out there by giving up something for Lent every year. No, that doesn't make me the world's best Catholic, however, I feel like it somewhat ties my to my beliefs and my past so I continue to do it.

This year I gave up desserts.  I initially started by saying sweets.  I tell you what, when someone told me that donuts were a "sweet" I was quick to turn sweets into just desserts (i.e. candy, cake, cupcakes, etc).  NOT donuts :) I don't eat them frequently, but man, when they are sitting right in front of me I can't resist taking one (well... two... maybe three by the end of the day).

So I figured I'd give up desserts since we have so much candy and desserts where I work it could make Heidi Klum a blimp.

Now that I have given up something that I thought I didn't eat all that frequently, it is EVERYWHERE I look.

Walking down to the plaza with Walt tonight we passed by my FAVORITE cupcake shop, cupcake A La Mode in all of Kansas City and all of the world.  I am a cupcake snob and have never tasted such amazing cupcakes so this was juts torture and a reminder that I have over a month left of no desserts.

All and all, if you haven't tried them, TRY THEM! They are AMAZING! Feel free to brag to my which ones you try and how much you love them!

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This is Definitely Refrigerator Material

Remember when you were little and you couldn't wait to get home to show your parents what you learned in school that day?

That's what I felt like when I got out of class last night.  I couldn't wait to call up my mom and tell her to read my post for today. I really did learn a lot in class last night! We went across the street to the Nelson-Atkins Museum and took pictures as the sun was setting so we got some beautiful lighting reflecting off the water. This is just one of my 150 pictures I took. I'll save the others for later ;)

Snow... Again!!!!

Are you kidding me?

It is snowing AGAIN in Kansas City.  We had this beautiful weather last week, heck, even yesterday it was pretty dang nice outside and now... SNOW. Just when you think things are looking up.

The one up side of it snowing again is that there can never be too many pictures of snow.  So many variations, so many different things that can get snow covered and beautiful.

What about just the snow?  Without looking down on the ground, up the neighborhood hill you are going to attempt to make it up in your car, or even your car that is covered in snow that you are dreading scraping off in the morning, snow in itself looks so pretty when falling from the sky.

Winter Wonderland

So if you've kept up with the news this week, you already know that Kansas City, along with multiple other cities were hit but a huge blizzard Tuesday.  We got up to 15 inches of snow if you can believe it!?

One of my favorite types of pictures to take right now are snow-related as I showed off yesterday and the last snow storm we had. I love the glistening white and how the sun reflects off of it.  I love how you can make your own picture (like Angela and Matt did yesterday) by forming the snow however you want it, or throw snowballs at the camera and its explodes at the perfect time to catch a picture.

Yesterday Lisa and I did some experimenting since we were stuck at home and were getting some major cabin fever.  I had seen a picture a while back when I was looking at snow pictures other people had taken and I loved the idea of blowing the snow at the camera with bright pink lipstick to make the picture pop.

Poor Lisa was once again the subject of my photo shoot considering she is a lot better at blowing snow than Mia (my cat) is, and those were my only two options for this photo attempt. So thank you Lisa for being patient and freezing your little fingers by holding snow balls for me!

Its a Blizzard... or is it?

This is the SECOND huge snow Kansas City has had in two weeks that has exceeded 7 inches. I have never personally seen it snow so much here, nor have I seen it snow this much when I lived in Oklahoma..... people are calling this a blizzard, however, when I visited Walt for the first time in Denver four years ago, it snowed 3 feet... so I have a hard time believing this is called a blizzard.  Thoughts?

I couldn't help but run outside and snap a quick photo before I got covered in the huge snowflakes falling from thy sky.  Just to give you an idea of what we are dealing with right now, and have been since  2pm today:

Street lamp with huge snowflakes (white spots) landing on the camera.  Wish my camera could see the actual snowflake!! 

Surprise Yourself.

When you finally take a minute to stand still and enjoy yourself, it's kind of crazy how much faster everything around you seems to be moving.

I went to a happy hour on The Plaza and I knew I had to get my picture in for the day and by simply stopping for a moment and snapping a quick picture turned out much cooler than I had expected with all the moving cars.

I found sometimes you will surprise yourself when you are least expecting it.  That's probably one of my favorite things about photography and will keep me motivated through this entire blogging experience.

Right outside of Kona Grill on The Plaza located in Kansas City, MO

Brrrr.... It's Cold Outside

This weekend I spent A LOT of time indoors, primarily for two key reasons:

1. Its FREEZING here, and just walking our front walkway is an accident waiting to happen because we are too lazy to salt the walkway and/or shovel the walkway (again... its too cold to do anything that productive)
2. I've been going non-stop with my social activities and am completely and utterly exhausted... Burst Dinner at Benton' Steakhouse I mentioned Thursday night, Walt's corporate party in St. Louis, and last night we celebrated little Lisa's 25th birthday! 

All and all it wasn't a productive weekend but it was a heck of a lot of fun! 

In order to keep chugging through with my daily posts I stepped outside momentarily to see if our house had any icicles, sadly it did not since we do not have any gutters I just learned.... HOWEVER, my neighbors DID have some and I was excited to snap a photo of them (and mid-drip I might add).

What a Night, What a Night!

Tonight our friends at Burst Media (Brendan and Kevin) took a group of us to an amazing dinner at Benton's Steakhouse.  The restaurant is located on top of the Westin Hotel in Kansas City in case you are looking for great food and a nice hotel.

Get the drinks flowing with great red wine and there is only fun to be had with my co-workers.

Sure we may or may not have said things that are no to be repeated beyond our dinner friends, but it sure does make for a good laugh when you look back at it.

Thank you to my mom for introducing me to red wine two Thanksgivings ago... My life will never be the same. Love you mom (and not just for the red wine introduction).

This picture is to say the least about how much fun we had tonight... stay tuned for tomorrow's post!

P.S. If you are a red wine lover like me, you should try the King Estate and Erath Wine....