What Your American Girl Doll Says About the Rest of Your Life...

I had to copy this post from Robin's blog Silly String Things....HILARIOUS. I had Samantha, the one wearing the beautiful maroon hat--yes just add this to my list of toys. I wanted to make sure all my girlfriends see this!!

Visit The Hairpin to figure out what your doll says about you... 

http://thehairpin.com/2011/05/how-your-american-girl-doll-shaped-the-rest-of-your-life/  

(If you click the title below it will give you the link)

What Your American Girl Doll Says About the Rest of Your Life

By Chiara Atik | May 10, 2011

Samantha Parkington:Did you know, when you picked her out, that Samantha was the cool one? Or were you confidant simply drawn to her glossy brown hair, sophisticated accessories (she had a fur muff!) and rich demographic? Either way, every girl wanted a Samantha. If you owned her, you quickly learned the value of cachet.

By virtue of acquiring a status symbol early on (a Samantha doll was the designer jeans of third grade), you never quite had to worry about things the way other girls did. You therefore grew up to be, capable, and nonplussed. You've always been well liked. You aren’t the funniest in your group, but you’ve never really noticed or cared. If you thought about it, you could probably recognize other women who had Samanthas. But that’s not that impressive: everybody can.

La Bamba...

(this post is not about the Mexican restaurant in Greensboro)

I recently watched the movie La Bamba, which tells the story of Ritchie Valens. Lou Diamond Phillips played Ritchie and did a great job. Ritchie Valens died at the age of 17 in a plane crash along with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper. Ritchie Valens had a lot of hit songs in a short period which included Donna (written for his girlfriend), La Bamba, Come on, Let's Go, and We Belong Together. It was a pretty good movie, I only recommend it if you enjoy history and oldies music. Something interesting I did learn from the movie though...

Waylon Jennings and Buddy Holly.

Waylon Jennings was in Buddy Holly's band as a guitarist and the two were good friends. Waylon was supposed to be on the plane that crashed but gave his seat up to the Big Bopper because he was sick with the flu. Basically the whole reason they took the plane was because the heater on their bus had broken. A lot of them were getting sick, etc. and it was dead winter in the mid-west. Anyway, Waylon gave up his seat on the plane....So when Buddy found out he jokingly said "So you're not going with us on the plane, huh? Well I hope your ol' bus freezes up." Waylon responded to this by saying "I hope your plane crashes." Unfortunately both ended up happening that night. Apparently Waylon struggled for a long time over what he said, and blamed himself for the accident.

The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly.

Later on Don McLean wrote the song American Pie inspired by what is now known as "The Day the Music Died".....

Rod Stewart is going to VEGAS....

Da Ya Think I'm Sexy? The answer is YES. This is HUGE news. Rod Stewart starts in Vegas August 24th...I know we were looking for an "excuse" to get back and now we have one.....

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/may/11/nv-rod-stewart-vegas/



Obviously one of the best music videos ever.





As many of you know the Snider family was on somewhat of a concert tour back in 2008. One of the wonderful concerts we attended was Rod Stewart in Atlanta....of course John got front row seats which were awesome. Let me just say that while I loved Rod Stewart before this concert, I didn't really understand the depth of my love until seeing him in person. I LOVE HIM. And there's something so sexy about him that can only really be experienced in person.....So I urge all of you to book your flights to Vegas and go see Rod Stewart at Ceasar's Palace...I can go ahead and tell you that I'm available...just say when! Don't worry John emailed this to us early last week and I'm sure that a Snider family trip will take place--as usual you are all invited so just let me know if you are in!!

Fashion from the Cannes Film Festival...

The Cannes Film Festival started May 11 and goes until May 22. It is always a star-studded affair...here are some of my favorite looks so far:

(Photos from People.com)

Zoe Saldana in Giorgio Armani 

Probably one of my favorites!

Gwen Stefani (wearing a Stella McCartney jumpsuit) and Gavin Rossdale-- I think they are such an awesome couple!

Sarah Jessica Parker in Elie Saab

Penelope Cruz in Stella McCartney

Joshua Jackson (hey pacey!!!) and Diane Kruger (in Calvin Klein Collection)- Love this couple! And I think she looks smokin' hot in this dress!!!! work it gurl.

Rachel McAdams (in Monique Lhuillier) and Michael Sheen-- has anyone confirmed if they are engaged or not?!

Uma Thurman in Versace-- I mean I have to say she is looking great in this dress...

Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams (in Maxime Simoens Couture dress)

Graham and Tammy's NYC adventure....

This past weekend Graham went to go visit one of my favorite people....Tammy. Please check out some awesome pictures from Graham and Tammy's weekend....maybe Graham will be the first eligible bachelor I profile??

The West 4th Street Courts...also known as The Cage.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_4th_Street_Courts

The text I received from Graham last Saturday at 1:24 AM:

"I played basketball at the cage today. Mark it off the bucket list. I'm such a hard a** it's a joke."

 LOVE IT...just living life to the fullest...

They also played some spikeball in Central Park, which was also apparently amazzzzing.

Does anyone else spot Tammy?!?!? Look at that muscle shirt and those biceps!!! OHHH LALALALA

Toyota Venza...

Last Saturday night/ Sunday AM a tree fell on Kelley's car.... (and totaled it)

Well I'm sure some of you are wondering how this affects me....

Since I'm an employee at STI, one of the many privileges is that I get to drive company cars. So being the nice sister I am I volunteered to let her drive my car thinking I would get to drive the Tahoe, which I love. But no, my sweet, sweet dad put the new STI vehicle on reserve...the Toyota Venza...

To quote Bob Carter, Toyota division group vice president and general manager,"This winning combination will be ideal for active ‘boomers' and young couples with small families." The winning combination is that it feels like a 5-passenger sedan while driving like an SUV. The good news is that this car has towing capability...so if you find yourself in need of a tow in the next few days, give me a call!

This brought me back to senior year of college when I begged Kelley to drive my jeep so I could drive Terrence the Taurus.

Terrence is no longer with us, but he had a good life. I drove him around NCSU for a couple of weeks, some of the best weeks of my life. My roommates and I painted him with car paint saying things like "Senior Gurlz 08" and "EK love." I know deep down there were a few people who were jealous of my "graduation present."


UPDATE:  Here's what Graham had to say:

 Graham:  please pick me up tomorrow
lets get slushies and buy lotto tickets and cruise
make a sound track
/cd - dont know why i said sound track

So if you want to join us, we have 3 extra seats.... along with "an important SUV attribute, cargo space." So bring your bags, your dogs, whatever, just come.


UPDATE 2:  Graham also thinks we should tailgate at Freedom Park... Please feel free to share any songs that should be on our Venza soundtrack.... If you drove a Venza what would you listen to?? In Terrence it was straight jamzzz....

UPDATE 3:   As Charlotte says "veni vidi venza" I couldn't have said it better!

The T-Mobile Royal Wedding

Somehow I had missed this until Ashley Shaw told me about it today...Love it!

Breakfast in Bed: Race for the Cure

My cousin Morgan (my mom's twin sister Anne's middle daughter) has a really cute blog called Breakfast in Bed and today she did a post on my mom! She is participating in the Race for the Cure in celebration of my mom and is trying to raise money. Her goal for her team is to raise $125 but I would love to see her exceed her goal! So if you have any extra money, even a dollar, please click on the link in her post to donate!! XOXO

Breakfast in Bed: Race for the Cure: "She’s beautiful, smart, motivated, talented, loving, and always smells really really good. When you walk in the room, her face lights up an..."

The Royal Wedding Cake Cutting Party...

It all started on Thursday night when we had a going away party for Ashley. I usually do not head to the bar during the week but since it was a going away party and the night before the royal wedding, I simply HAD TO. I was a victim. I was over-served. I set my alarm for 3:59 AM. When I actually woke up to my alarm at 3:59, I knew that it was a sign- I was supposed to dedicate my day to the wedding. Since I'm not one to mess with fate I did what every one else would have done.... I made a wedding cake in William and Kate's honor and watched the wedding 3 times. Well if I was going to make a wedding cake, I obviously had to have a party...so the "Royal Wedding Cake Cutting Party" was born. Here came the next problem...it was 3PM and I wanted to have the party at 5:30 PM, but I hadn't talked to anyone about it. So Ashley and I discussed the best way to get out an invitation in such short notice, and it was decided since it would need to be electronic it would also need to be Paperless Post. Obviously evite wasn't fancy enough, after all it was a Black Tie Optional party. The invitation is below: (Couldn't have asked for a better invitation if I had planned it in advance!)

The funniest part of the whole party was the guest list. Unfortunately I clicked private as opposed to public so no one could see the list of guests....here are a few of the guests:

Andy Brantley

Graham Hunt

Trip Short

Alex McKenzie

Clarke Mansfield

Clay Maxwell

Tyler Murtaugh

Thomas Lagrega

Shaw Cornelson

Two of these people actually live in Charlotte and could possibly make it, but seriously I'm sure Clarke and Tyler were like WTF. Boys consider yourselves lucky.

A quick peek at the real royal wedding cake:

Someone obviously does this for a living so please keep that in mind.

I must say the cake tasted MUCH better than it looked...but it was my first time ever making a 7 layer cake so you have to start somewhere. Feel free to contact me about making your wedding cakes in the future! I'm sure I can find some great wedding toppers! Anyway it was a chocolate layer cake with vanilla buttercream icing- I will be posting the cake and icing recipe later-- seriously one of my favorite cakes!

So I went to Michaels looking for cake toppers (I had forgotten I even needed cake toppers until Kelley told me to go to Michaels to get one...). Anyway there were no "traditional" wedding cake toppers, and I was stuck with children's birthday cake toppers. Well here we have Dora playing Kate (both have brown hair) and a soccer "football" player playing William (both play "football"). I also found some nice crown candles....Overall it looked great...especially the shaved chocolate covering the cake.

Ashley and I cutting the cake in our attire...

WHO WORE WHAT:

Laurens 

Rebecca Jane

Kate

Anne

Mimi

Ashley

Dorothy

Anna

Pretty sure we are trying to make W's and K's for William and Kate...

                                                              Admiring my mock engagement ring...

The cake toppers:

By the end the cake was leaning....but it was yummy!

Marley also celebrated the royal wedding!!!

William and Kate found a new home on Cassie's window sill....

The Royal Wedding...

I know I'm now WAY behind on posting about the royal wedding, but I literally dedicated last Friday to everything royal wedding related. I must say that I thought Kate Middleton looked BEAUTIFUL, seriously perfect. As well as her sister Pippa... Needless to say I was in bed by 9:30 on Friday night but getting up at 3:59 am to be exact was well worth it!

I never knew royal weddings were so emotional until I found myself crying... They just looked so happy and so in love.

Kind of a random side note: But if you are into all things royal you should read this funny memoir I read this summer Someday My Prince Will Come: True Adventures of a Wannabe Princess  by Jerramy Fine. I read this last summer, and laughed out loud the whole time! I definitely recommend for some light ready!