Saturday, August 30, 2008

Punk Rocker

It was Dakota's day at the beauty shop yesterday and when I picked her up all trimmed and smelling sweet I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the hot pink feather somehow affixed to the top of her head! Groomers always put those ridiculous bows on dog's heads but I had never seen feathers! It looked like a hot pink mohawk! It makes us chuckle every time we see her so we've left it on for now. Thought you might enjoy a laugh at our poor dog's expense as well. :)

Friday, August 29, 2008

Calling All Golfers

So, I figure I'll go ahead post this as it does indirectly effect our little one. As most of you know I have had 2 melanomas and 2 surgeries in the last 3 years. Thankfully the cancer was found early and no further treatment has been necessary but with the 2nd melanoma diagnosis this past December, we have learned that I will be on the offensive side of this cancer for the rest of my life. The good news is, if caught early it is very, very treatable. The bad news is, this is a poorly funded cancer in terms of research and it is THE FASTEST GROWING CANCER especially among young women today. But there's something you can do to help......

There are very few foundations that raise money for melanoma research but one of them happens to be right here in the DFW area. The foundation is only about 3 years old and was started by a family who lost their 27 year old son to melanoma. They are having their first annual golf tournament on October 15th in Flower Mound at Bridlewood Golf Course. So, if you're a golfer, will you consider playing a round for a good cause?

All details and information can be found by clicking here.

If you don't golf, but would like to donate your time and/or resources the foundation can always use your help. All money raised goes directly to the melanoma clinic at MD Anderson in Houston. If you'd like to know more about Brad's Melanoma Foundation follow this link or click on "Melanoma Foundation" on the list of our favorite blog sites on the right.

Thanks for considering supporting this cause that has become very personal to us!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Welcome to the 3rd Trimester

Jason took me out last night to celebrate the beginning of our LAST trimester. This pregnancy is going by really fast. It's a little scary. We can't believe Grant will be here in less than 3 months. It doesn't feel like enough time to get ready, but then I guess you're never really ready for something like this.

I have not been very good about taking pictures of my round belly as it's grown but we did take one last night at 28 weeks. I think we've run out of vertical room at this point so Grant's got nowhere to grow but out from here on! :)

Thanks, hon, for a very fun date night!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

And his name is......

Now that the California trip has been sufficiently documented let me move on to more things baby as this is why we originally started this blog in the first place. We have finally settled on a name for this little guy and after "trying it out" for a few weeks I think we are ready to commit. We found it very daunting to choose a name for someone else in hopes that he'll like it for the rest of his life so here goes.....

Sometime in mid-November we will welcome our son into the world. Our son, Grant Robert Safran.



There it is. It's official now that it's posted on a blog. :) Now for those of you who wonder, Robert is Jason's middle name and he really wanted to pass that down and Grant....well we just liked the name. We wanted a one syllable, decidedly masculine, easy to spell name since he'll be spelling Safran for everyone for the rest of his life!

We feel him moving all the time now and have decided he must have a good bit of Safran in him as he is quite an active little guy! It's hard to believe he'll be here in less than 3 months. Should we be terrified or just really, really excited? Depending on the day/hour we feel both! :) Thanks for your continued love and prayers.

Love,
Jason, Lindsay, Grant, and Dakota

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

The Final Installment

Hats off to all of you who are still reading this crazy blog. I promise this is the last entry about our time in California!

So we have finally made it to the BIG DAY! 8/9/08.....Here comes the bride....

The girls glammed it up at a lovely suite with hair/make-up people doing their best to make 10 women beautiful. It literally took all morning. Let's just say I needed a little more help than most being that this belly is sure getting big and everyone else seemed like teeny-tiny 25 years olds. Oh wait, they were! :)









By the time they were done with us we all looked wedding ready and headed down to the limo waiting to take us to the wedding site. The wedding was outside in a national Park called Crystal Cove up on a hill that overlooked the ocean. Now I just have to say the site itself is nothing to write home about....dirt, tumblweed, a few wooden benches. Now I'm telling you this so you can appreciate the AMAZING transformation Jessie and Gail pulled off. I have never in my life seen a more spectacular overhaul of a wedding site. It was BEAUTIFUL! And let's face it, you just can't go wrong with the Pacific Ocean as your backdrop.







After looking at the pictures you have to think to yourself, "How?" I mean it's a park. There's no electricity; nowhere to go inside. And yet the chicken on my dinner plate was hot and there were twinkle lights and chandeliers in the tent. It was unbelievable! I realize generators were obviously brought in for the electricity but I'm just so impressed with the huge amount of effort this event took to pull off and how well it worked out. You guys should really go into business, Jessie and Gail!

Now I have to tell this little story because it made us laugh really hard. So, I'm not really sure why, but the wedding did not start on time. In fact, it was so late people were actually asking if there was a problem referring to the fact that several people thought either the bride or the groom had cold feet and perhaps there wasn't going to be a wedding. Now, this is only funny because we're talking about 2 people who can't keep their hands (or their lips) off each other no matter where they are. We had really good laugh over that one! Here are a few shots of us waiting to get the show on the road:









I didn't get many good shots of the reception after the wedding as the lighting wasn't great for taking photos once the sun went down, but I did get a few shots of the mariachi band that played during the dinner hour. They were FANTASTIC!!!




There was lots of dancing and fun had by all. And the happy couple has been in the Southern Caribbean on St. Lucia for the last week and a half dodging hurricanes thankfully. They get home to Ft. Worth on Thursday and then the real world hits! :) It was quite a weekend and a beautiful wedding. Gail, you can plan any event I ever have.....Martha Stewart can't hold a candle to you, girl! So glad we were there to see it!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Cali Trip Continued....

Okay, so this brings us to Thursday, August 7th, 48 hours til wedding time!

We checked out of our BEAUTIFUL hotel and headed up to Newport/Santa Ana where all the wedding stuff was happening. Jessie treated all of her bridesmaids to a luncheon on Thursday which was so much fun! We took a small boat out on the harbor and headed to The Cannery for lunch where our expert driver, Jessie, did an awesome job docking our little sailing vessel. After lunch we puttered around the harbor some more and enjoyed my favorite dessert, cake with butter cream frosting!




I hung out with all the super cute bridesmaids who made this old, pregnant lady feel so very welcome all afternoon and then Jessie, her friend and former UT roommate, Jessica, and I headed over to Jessie's Aunt Linda and Uncle Jan's house to pick up the boys who had been hanging out at their lovely pool all day.



And then, as with all wedding weekends, Jason and I had to head over to the hotel where all the groom's family and friends were staying to help put out a few fires. It's impossible to have these events without at least something going wrong and on Thursday what went wrong was the AC at the Embassy Suites. Let's just say it wasn't working right, I'm at the end of my 2nd trimester and it's too hot in California in August for no AC so I was going room to room with the manager trying to find the coolest rooms they had. They brought in fans and we survived and 2 days later the AC seemed to be working okay. First "snaffoo" under control. :)

Friday morning Jessie's mom, Gail, picked up me and mom for a little pampering at the spa. Gail treated us to our own private room for manicures and pedicures. We're talking the works here! It was SO RELAXING!!!! And we loved spending the morning with just us girls! Thanks Gail and Jessie for including us in such a nice morning! My toes still look pretty! :)






Now, I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail, but let's just say I was so thankful for a relaxing morning because the rest of the afternoon leading up to the rehearsal dinner was one of the most stressful times in my life to date. After grabbing a quick bite at In-N-Out Burger we got ready for the rehearsal and Jason, Mom, and I headed to the Balboa Bay Club (where my parents had reserved a room for the rehearsal dinner and worked with the event coordinator for MONTHS to pull off this big, beautiful dinner) to set up a few things before we headed to the rehearsal. Now, this Balboa Bay Club is a swanky place. Private room right on the water.....no cheap clam bake if you get my drift. However, this is where we encountered the next "snaffoo." Apparently the event coordinator...... well let me just say......perhaps she should find a new job preferably out of the country and definitely NOT in the event planning industry. Long story short, the 3 of us missed the entire rehearsal because we were trying to throw together a huge dinner party that we thought had been all planned because the event coordinator "wasn't on the premises" and couldn't be reached and no one had a clue as to what had been planned in terms of seating charts, table assignments, and room design. CRAZY!!!!

Now the event itself turned out beautifully. We pulled it all together in the shortest 2 hours of my life and managed not to have a nervous breakdown in the process. The food was delicious, the wait staff very attentive, and all the guests seemed to really enjoy the atmosphere and fantastic scenery. We do not recommend you ever have an event at this fine establishment however, and I'm not sure my mother has quite gotten over the fact that she missed her only son's rehearsal, but we did make it to the wedding the next day, so I guess that's really the important thing.






Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of the room or the view due to the madness of pulling it all off before all the guests arrived, but the florist did an amazing job with the floral arrangements on the tables. Truly stunning! And the audio visual guys were the best and helped me and Jason figure out all of the technical equipment to play the famous slideshow created on our new MacBook. Hats off to Jason as the DVD turned out amazingly professional looking and probably should be considered for some kind of Oscar, but I don't think we'll be doing another one of those for quite some time. We were so glad to be able to do that for Craig and Jessie, but DON'T call us for your next event! :)

Come visit again tomorrow and I'll try to recap the wedding day! :) Thanks for reading!

Saturday, August 16, 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!


We've been doing lots of celebrating lately and today was no exception. We took my mom and dad to see Jersey Boys at the Dallas Music Hall this afternoon followed by dinner at Houston's and coffee at one of the cutest, new coffee joints in uptown, The Crooked Tree, which just happens to be owned by a friend of ours. We had a GREAT day/evening and hope you feel well celebrated, Dad!

As a side note, you MUST see Jersey Boys if you have any interest in musicals or the Four Seasons. We all thought it was a terrific show!

HAPPY 3-0!!!

To give you a little break from reading about our California trip last week, let me take a moment and wish some special friends a BIG HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY!! We celebrated with a big group (about 17 of us) at the Gaylord Texan hotel in Grapevine last night. The guys have all been friends since the fraternity days at TCU and it had been a couple of months since we'd seen everyone. We started with drinks in the bar (I drank Shirley Temples all night.....are you proud Jessie??!) and then headed to dinner at one of the restaurants at the hotel. There were fireworks inside the atrium at 9:30 while we ate dinner and then the BIG event of the night......

We took the trolley/shuttle over to the Glass Cactus (a club on the Gaylord property right on Lake Grapevine) and took in the sights and sounds of Le Freak. They were such a fun band!! We're talking wigs, costumes, lots of 70''s disco music.....Mama and Baby Saf were having a good time dancing. I think this little boy's got some rhythm! :)

We had a GREAT time and LOVED seeing all you guys! Happy Birthday, Forrest and Brew!!! We're ready for TCU football season to start and some tailgating to begin so we can catch up more regularly!!



Friday, August 15, 2008

August 5th-6th

On Tuesday morning we woke up and drove to Del Mar for breakfast. We LOVED it so much when we drove up that way to meet Katie for dinner on Sunday night we decided it needed a little more exploring. We grabbed some coffee and headed to the beach at Del Mar to watch the surfers. It was a perfect morning!

From there we headed further north on the PCH (Pacific Coast HIghway) taking in the views and ending up just south of Laguna at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott. The hotel was BEAUTIFUL and our room/balcony overlooked the pool, the Dana Point Harbor, and the beach/ocean. We had 2 relaxing days at the pool and beach with no real sight-seeing whatsoever! We were perfect beach bums! Of course this goes without saying I'm sure, but yes, I was covered in SPF 85, with brimmed hat, and Jason made sure to rent an umbrella and chair for me so that no harmful UV rays touched my skin. Such a sweet hubby! You CAN have malanoma and still be a beach bum!! I'm out to prove it!!! :)






Each night we drove up toward Newport Beach for dinner. Tuesday night we went to Craig's favorite restaurant, The Beachcomber, which is literally on the beach. It was FANTASTIC seafood (Californians definitely know how to prepare fish!) and then we had the waves crashing and sunset in the background. It was a really beautiful night and if you ever find yourself in the Newport area, you must stop and eat dinner here! And if you have room for dessert, there's always the Shake Shack at the top of the steps! We didn't finish dinner in time to get one of their famous milk shakes, but it sure was a cute shack!

On Wednesday night I took Jason a little further north to Balboa for dinner at the Harborside Restaurant where we had been a few weeks earlier for Jessie's 25th birthday celebration. The food there is so yummy and we had a table that overlooked the water and all the beautiful, EXPENSIVE, boats. After dinner we walked around the pier where it was like a carnival! There were games, food, rides and apparently the thing to get is a chocolate covered frozen banana on a stick which of course we had to try. Sadly, I left the camera in the beach bag so we have no pictures. But trust me, Balboa is a GREAT place to visit!

So, tune in later for the recap of the second half of our trip which consisted of wedding, wedding, and more wedding! So many lovely events! Stay tuned......

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

August 4th

Are you hanging in there with us because we've got 7 more days of our trip to cover! :)

So Monday we woke up and headed to the world famous San Diego Zoo. We went straight for the panda bears first and fell in love with them! There was the mama bear and her 2 baby girls (one was 3 years old and the one sleeping in the tree is 1 year old.) So adorable.




We LOVED the polar bear exhibit too. It was fun to get up so close to them! They have the biggest paws I've ever seen!





And then of course there's all of the koalas in their trees. Such a neat exhibit! We did check out the elephants, camels, bears, tigers, and giraffes but the pandas, koalas, and polar bears are the best animal exhibits at the San Diego Zoo hands down. We highly recommend a visit there just for those 3 exhibits. They were very, very well done.





After our morning at the zoo we picked up fresh sandwiches at a local deli and drove out to Point Loma which is the peninsula that runs out from the main part of San Diego and protects the harbor. We had fabulous views of the ocean and the harbor as we ate our lunch.



We spent a leisurely afternoon out on the point and then headed north to Encinitas to meet our friends Luke, Lindsey, and baby Sutton for dinner. We LOVED Encinitas, but the highlight of course was seeing our sweet friends! Love you guys!




And I think that's enough for one day. Needless to say, we fell into bed that night tired, but filled with fun memories! More still to come......