Birthday Kigurumi!

My birthday isn't until next week, but last weekend Travis went camping with my best friend's husband and she took that opportunity to give me my present early! She got me a Totoro Kigurumi!!! We had a slumber party and wore these the whole time.

Look at him! It's so cute!

Kigurumi are from Japan, land of everything cute! They are basically costume pajamas and I love mine! They are so baggy and cozy and it makes you feel like you are wrapped in a comfy blanket. Crystal got herself a generic bear. Look at the butts! So funny!

Man, I can't get over how much I love mine. To bad we're going into summer so it'll be too hot to wear it soon. But I'm set for next winter! I may have turned the air conditioning up and the ceiling fan on high the other day so I could lay on the couch in mine. Haha.

Crystal picked me up from work and we started our ladies weekend with a trip to Sephora where we tried on too many kind of nail polish. I bought glitter eyeliner (you only live once right?)  Then we went to Two Boots to get pizza. They make my favorite vegan pizza ever! The "V is for Vegan" one. Highly recommend! And check out those nails.

Nail photo shoot. I'm still cracking up about his photo. I love hanging out with Crystal so much.

We went back to her house and watched Rupaul's drag race then went on a dessert run with our friend Thomas. Then we went to a Joan Crawford party at Lisa's house. It was so fun!

The next day we watched more drag race and then met the boys for a celebratory lunch at Chuy's. They hiked 18 miles! What a great weekend.

Universal Islands of Adventure! Hogsmeade!

When we were planning our trip to Florida we knew we would go to Universal to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! It so happens out tripped ending up being about three weeks after the opened the new Diagon Alley portion of the park! Perfect! My grandparents live about 30 minutes away from Universal so we got up early and got there about 15 minutes after opening. Thankfully we missed the terrible crowds. Grandma said cars had been backed up on the interstate recently, in line just to get to the parking garage!

We decided to do Hogsmeade Village first. Travis and I visited about two years ago (See our first visit here!) but Crystal and Marc hadn't been. We figured most people would head to the new section first so the line for The Forbidden Journey would be short.

 I didn't cry this time! A nice lady offered to take our photo and it actually turned out! As you can see, we were right. It was pretty empty!

 Please respect the spell limits.

Hogwarts! It is so amazing to see it in person. The line for the ride inside it was only about 20 minutes long. We ended up riding it four times during our two days in the park. One time the ride got stuck RIGHT when the first Dementor swoops down on you. It was SO SCARY and fun! Thankfully it was only stuck for about a minute, and we weren't upside down!

 I'm glad I was able to experience butter beer before we went vegan. It is SO GOOD. The frozen is better than the non and it is like the best cream soda-ish frostie kind of thing you can imagine!

I could have pumpkin juice though! It is yummy! And I didn't notice until after my second one that these bottles of it are 6.99! Crazy! I feel like the prices went up since the first time we visited the park.

They have styled everything so perfectly. It feels like you are really walking the streets of Hogsmeade. I wonder why they don't have characters walking around for you to meet. Like Hagrid! Or Voldemort!

They cleared out Zonko's Joke shop and expanded Honeyduke's. I guess because they opened Weasley's Wizard Wheezes over on the Diagon Alley side. I did NOT spend 10 dollars on a chocolate frog this time.

 I'm not a big roller coaster rider but after some convincing I decided to ride the dragon challenge. And promptly threw up. Dang it! So I sat out the rest of the big rides.

 Cute bathroom sign!

 Our Harry Potter pose! Wands out! Haha, you might notice some outfit changes in the next few posts. I decided to post by location instead of chronologically since we were in the same spots multiple times. It is kind of throwing me off!) We stopped at the Three Broomsticks for a snack. There is almost nothing vegan in the park, so Travis and I ate a lot of fries.

 Fizzy pumpkin juice! Even better than the regular!

 Early in the afternoon we decided to head over to Diagon Alley. They have constructed a train station so you can take the Hogwart's Express between the two parks! Of course that guarantees that most people will buy the park hopper passes. It's so expensive!

 It was pouring down rain when we got in line. The perfect time to ride a train.

You better believe there were lots of "Diaganelly" jokes that day! You know, the floo powder fiasco in the Chamber of Secrets? 

 You get directed into a compartment (thanks Nicki!) that seats 8 people. We were with a family of three. They window is a video screen and it plays stuff like flying hippogriffs and Hangrid waving, etc. And stuff goes on out in the hall too! It's cute. Sadly, the family in our cabin didn't care and were leaning forward looking at their dang phones blocking our view! When we rode the train back we made sure to get in a cabin first! Here we are, after standing in the rain!

Allright, I'll be back tomorrow to tell you all about Diagon Alley! It was AMAZING! Even better than Hogsmeade and if you've been to the park before I know that's hard to believe! I'm going to try to cut down my photos, but it is going to be hard!

We met Tuna!

I've already had some great celebrity meetings this year, what with rubbing shoulders with Rivers Cuomo and Chip Esten in April. This month we had the chance to meet Tuna! Not familiar? You can check out his website here. Tuna is one of my favorite internet dogs to follow and I was so happy to see he was making a stop on his tour in Nashville!

I thought I was going to have to rush after work but as luck would have it, I got off early so I had plenty of time to run home, scoop up Phyllis and Travis and head to the dog park in East Nashville where it was happening. Priscilla didn't get to come because she isn't as easy as Phyllis. She was happy just hanging out in line, getting her photo taken by all the dog crazy people in line! It looks like no one else was there in this picture, but believe me, Tuna had a line.

 Tuna! Can you see the love in my eyes?

As you can see, Phyllis and Tuna were very impressed with each other. Oh man, he was such a sweet little guy! I could have held him all day!

As we were leaving I had to pose Phyllis in this patch of clover under the light.

It happened to be Cinco de Mayo so we went over to our best friends' house for tacos and badminton! We didn't get to play long before the sun set, but it was fun!

 We had delicious Pina Coladas! Marc is trying to become a champion cocktail maker this year.

 Phyllis had fun watching us play. 

 These shots of Marc and Travis are killing me! 

We had a great taco dinner out on their patio. I love that it is so warm right now but the gross summer humidity hadn't set in yet. I'm trying to get in as much outdoor time as I can!

Weezer Weekend: I love a good theme!

My favorite band of all time, Weezer, was here in Nashville this past weekend for a two night gig at the Ryman. I've been looking forward to it for months! You can read a little bit about my love of the band here. They have been my biggest obsession ever and I have the blog name (and big dorky tattoo) to prove it! I'm gong to have to split the experience into two posts because it was the best weekend I've had in a long time! I'll be back soon to tell you about MEETING RIVERS CUOMO only my biggest nerd love. I still kind of can't believe it happened.

A bunch of friends were going, and we love a theme, so we had a little Pr(w)eezer party before the Saturday night show. Here is what we had:  

 Kimmie provided the "Somebody's Heine is crowding my icebox....pie"

 Our host Nettie made these perfect, delicious, Islands in the Sun. It is butternut squash soup with a gnocchi island, broccoli trees, quinoa beach, and a little umbrella. I'm still not over how cute it is!

 Kimmie's other half Jamie proved the El Scorcho spicy snack mix. 

 I made Pink Triangle cookies, which didn't turn out quite how I wanted, but you get the idea. 

 And Ryan brought "I'm a pig, I'm a dog, so scuse me if I drool" dogs! It was kind of a weird mix, but it was delicious and fun! I wish we had gotten a group photo before we headed out.

I wore this button that I made back in high school. See the nice packing tape job? I'm pretty sure I added the text in Microsoft paint. I wasn't sure I would wear it, because it's pretty lame, but a positive instagram response encouraged me.

 I stole this collage from Ryan, here we all are moments before the show started! There I am, looking towards the heavens!

 There really aren't any bad seats at the Ryman. We got the cheapest ones (since we were going both nights) and still had a great view. The shows were part of their "memories" thing where they play through their classic albums, plus a greatest hits set. I think I was one of the few people there who cared about them after Pinkerton came out so I was thrilled to hear the other songs!

The highlight was probably when they did an acoustic version of Suzanne. The Ryman is known for its acoustics (it was the home of the Grand Ole Opry for a long time) and the song sounded amazing. Here is a little video of it from youtube. I wish I had been so close!

After the greatest hits set they had a little slide show and the played the Blue Album all the way through. I cried a few times during the show, mostly from being overwhelmed with happiness. Karl posted this photo on the official site and I love it! We were in the balcony, a little to the left.

The second night saw our numbers a little diminished, and we moved the party to my house. I went simple and just had pork and beans with candy, cuz you know, the song "I eat my candy with the pork and beans." Backdrop provided by the stunning painting I made of Rivers in high school ( I told you I was obsessed!)

Such a delicious combo! We also had salt and vinegar kettle chips, just because.

The pugs love it when people come over because they get even MORE attention. Little Phyllis is pretty hard to resist.

Our seats for night two were a little more to the side, but I loved it because we could see Rivers' kids dancing around backstage!

See that? That is his little toddler son, running around pretending to shred on a ukelele. It was killing me! Rivers' 7 year old daughter Mia came out and played keys for a song both nights. How cool is that?

This time after the little intermission/slide show they came out and played Pinkerton all the way through. That album is critical to me being who I am today. It felt a little like a religious experience being there. I'm not even kidding.  It's just so GOOD, and sincere, and weird and meant to much to me at  a hard time in my life. I cried again, this time during the beginning of Across the Sea, and at the end during Butterfly (OF COURSE).

So it was a perfect weekend. I'm so happy they brought the memories tour here and I was in a position to be able to go both nights and scream along with so many other happy people. My voice was hoarse on Monday. But it was worth it!