Weird.

As I mentioned before, Lacy and I were total buds in high school. A few months after we graduated, we got an apartment together. It cost us 45o$ for a two story/two bedroom/two bathroom/a month and seemed impossibly expensive, which makes me crylaugh now. Lacy and I got into a whole bunch of adventurous trouble together when we were 17-20, so it still makes me laugh a little to see these pictures of us with our own kid(s). I think, are we really old enough for this? Wasn’t it just a short while ago that we were (insert mischief)ing? How do we have kid(s)? And how are they old enough to fight over Power Rangers?

I think I’ll feel this way until I’m 30. Then it wont seem so weird. At 27, I often still feel too young for a lot of this…marriage, career, children, c-section scar, packing my own lunch for work, hosting dinner parties. My younger brother has a girlfriend and I want to tell him he is too little, then I remember that he is 22 and I got married when I was 22 (a week before I turned 23).

I’m turning 28 in two months. Piper will be 5 in 2012.

These are all weird thoughts. But still, these pictures of us all parenty are the weirdest of all.

In Charlotte for a weddin’.

Over the weekend, Jake and I went to Charlotte for the wedding of one of my oldest friends, Maggie. We met in middle school and have stayed close ever since. Maggie’s wedding was like a childhood reunion, and I am pretty sure I never stopped smiling the whole time. It’s rare that you find friends at such a young age that will stay with you your whole life, but these girls are just that special.

Here are a few photos from Friday, which included a brunch with all of the women closest to the bride, manis/pedis and the rehearsal dinner!

This is Deanna, who actually is my oldest friend. We were born a few months apart with connecting backyards in Oak Ridge. And that was the start of a lifelong friendship. Deanna’s mom used to tell people at their church picnics, company BBQs and holiday parties that we were sisters because it was the easiest way to explain why we were always together and why we were both so equally wild.

This was at the rehearsal dinner. It being a southern wedding, was filled with toasts that included sports references (Groom’s side) and locker room slow claps. We were served fried green tomatoes, mac ‘n cheese and mini pulled pork sandwiches.

Almost every bridesmaid and groomsman gave a short speech at the rehearsal dinner. It was more like stories, which made it fun and hilarious. Deanna prepared a visual booklet that I held up for her while she recited a poem that went along with it. It had stories of the couple and how they met, and how everyone knew Maggie really liked Ben when she gave out her real phone number instead of her little sister’s like she usually did to guys in bars.

PS make sure you get a look at Ben’s glass! That is what they call a southern champagne flute. (it’s a mason jar attached to a fancy base)

There was a meet and greet afterwards for all the guests who had arrived that day. It was the coolest experience seeing so many of my old friends and neighbors. Jake had a lot more fun than you’d think hearing stories about my childhood from me and my friends. They are insanely good stories if you ask me.

This is what I wore!

More to come tomorrow. It was a busy weekend. I did the entire bridal party’s hair. And Maggie had the genius idea of a different look for the ceremony and the reception. Can’t wait to show you!

Becca’s belly dancing birthday.

One of my best girlfriends, Becca, had a birthday last week. She is Bear’s mother, which seems like important information. So, we decided to have a lovely girl’s dinner and get a little bit crazy. I have been wanting to go to Casa La Femme for a while now ever since my boss recommended it for Sarah’s Bachelorette party. It is delicious food, beautifully decorated and they have an incredible belly dancer(s). They also have hookah. I’ve never tried hookah and didn’t really know even what it was, haha. I googled it and found out it can be a number of things! We didn’t do it because it had tobacco in it, but that would have been hilarious, right?

Anyway, I haven’t been to a dinner with a belly dancer since my going away party in Atlanta, and I forgot how much fun it is. This girl was so good and we all had to pick our jaws up off the floor on a few occasions. What is so fun about dining with belly dancing going on, is that it is strongly encouraged for you to get up and dance along with her, so you can burn a few cals while you’re at it. Genius!

Here are a few photos from the night.

I love how clear it is that Andrea has never put money in someone’s waistband before. Which is not a bad thing at all.

On several occasions, I found myself staring at her like I stared at Disney princesses as a child. You know the ‘I want to be you’ stare? The same way I looked at Ariel’s fins, then at my own worthless human legs. I looked at this belly dancing girl, then down to my non belly dancing self, and I started working out ways to make the career shift from hairdresser on fire, to belly dancer on fire.

Then after dinner she handed me a business card that said she teaches lessons. SOLD!

PS Becca is a talented graphic designer and does our Christmas cards every year. Check out her website!

talented friends

This is something that I’m pretty excited about. My amiga Kendra is crazy good at styling. I mean.. crazy good. Anyway, Reagan and I have had conversations on several occasions about how great it would be if she kept a regular blog and about how it would easily blow up– in like a day and a half. Well, yesterday I got an email from one of my web designer friends, Collin (also insanely talented) who was working on Kendra’s site. Since I help Kendra with her hosting, he needed me to adjust a few settings, etc., so that he could make some changes on Kendra’s site.

This morning, just for fun, I checked it out. I was elated when I saw that one of the new pages was a blog. If she decides to maintain it, I dare say that it will probably end up being ripped off more than the Sartorialist. Get over and check it out.

Slater, gator

One dope thing about shooting events like FW and action sports, is all of the people that you meet. I linked up with a really cool gent by the name of Tim Schenck the first day of shooting the NY Quikpro. After I had to leave off of the event to cover Fashion Week, Tim stuck around at Long Beach and grabbed this fantastic set of king Slater. Tim is actually the one who snapped this shot of me and Slater the first weekend of the pro.

Check out more of Tim’s photos from the Quikpro on his blog.

getting my vid on

I’ll be shooting video all day today with Reagan in her salon. It should be pretty fun. It is the first time that we are officially working together for a third party. I’m hoping that we come away with something pretty awesome. Speaking of videos, here is a quick one that I made the other day at Reagan’s first trapeze class. Her and our good friend Jen signed up together. Jen’s boyfriend Joe also makes a cameo appearance in the background of the second interview portion.

Hello Goodbye.

Hello:
Carrie and I have been blog, email and then facebook friends for nearly two years. When we found out she was coming to NYC to see friends, we knew we had to finally meet in person. I’ve met blog friends before in real life. But never like this. Usually it’s someone coming into my salon for a haircut, which is a very comfortable situation for me.

So Carrie and her friend Caitlin met us at Lil’ Frankies in the East Village (which is one of my favorite restaurants in the city) for dinner and a meet. It was funny, I caught myself getting a little nervous! But once they arrived it was like we had known each other in real non-internet life for a very long time. The best part of the night was hanging out with other tall girls who are my age. And the other best part was that no one was lying on the internet for all these years about important things like; gender, age, mental health or a secret sharp ax collection. Pheew!

Goodbye:
After eating a delicious meal and getting some sills (sillies) out, we walked a few blocks over to a friend’s going away party.

Important Note~You guys. Ryan Gosling has moved to NYC and lives in the East Village. One night I was walking to Amanda Blair’s apartment with her and we missed him by lik 45 seconds. Her roommate walked the same path as us, but about a minute behind, and stormed in the house saying she had just seen him. So, if you are ever in the EastVille with me and it seems like I’m not paying attention to you, it’s only because I’m looking for RyGos.

So, Hannah is moving to the UK. Today actually. I only met Hannah at the beginning of this year but I know she is a special special girl. I’ll miss her and I hope she comes back one day.

We laughed and hung out all night and did our best to dance even though the DJ was not getting it with the music. He kept trying to impress us by his underground music knowledge when all we wanted was some dirty hip hop to jive to. Jake stood there like a fancy looking champ watching me and my girlfriends jump around like some kind of kangaroos on crack.

It was such a fun night and it really had me feeling happy to have such fun friends even though I’m a grown-up. Looking around at the bar, everyone was sippin’ their drinks so smugly and cool, meanwhile we were the only ones running around, singing, dancing and high fivin’ a million angels!

We’re running away to the circus..

When Jen and I first started telling people we were going to run away to the circus, we thought it would be best to tell with a song. So the whole way to Chelsea Piers we sang ‘we’re running away to the circus, we’re gonna have lots of fun.’. The song was very long and told stories of all the adventures we were about to embark on.

Maybe you’re wondering “So, what did you think about Trapeze school, Reagan?”

And I’m answering “I’ll never forgive myself for waiting so long to do it. It was one of the funnest things I have ever done in my life.”

Add Trapeze School to your list of things you have to do when visiting NYC. You will not regret it.

Unless you are afraid of heights like most of our classmates were. Then you will not enjoy yourself at all. Lucky for Jen and I, we are not afraid of heights at all.

We learned how to:
What “Hep” means
Dismount with a back flip
Catch with a partner

We loved the instructors. They were really fun and we are going to try and be friends with them.

And here is a video. DBJ.

Running away to the circus. from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.

All photos and video shot by Jake. Jake also added that nice medieval times festival music to the video just for you.

Gotham Girls Roller Derby

Last Saturday night I went with some friends to a roller derby game. The league is adorably called “Gotham Girls” and the teams playing that night were “The Brooklyn Bombshells” and the “Queens of Pain”.

I’ve always wanted to go to a roller derby game, and if I had enough time on my hands, I’d love to actually be a roller derby girl. I tell you, that is how you release some stress. The penalty box was usually full of like 5 girls.

Interesting facts of the night:
~As soon as we sat down, we started thinking of what our derby names would be. I still don’t have a winner, but President Ragin’ stood out to me.
~Most of the people in the crowd were women.
~Most of the people in the crowd were lesbians
~The cheerleaders all looked like they didn’t want to be there. Like they were rebellious teenagers. I think it was part of the gig.
~There was a lady with a mustache there (an intentional mustache)

The halftime performance was this amazing hoola hooper. She had so much energy and was cracking us all up.

It was a nail biter. The Brooklyn Bombshells beat the Queens of Pain in overtime. It’s actually pretty hard to follow along in roller derby, because the rules are very complicated.

Fun night, woohoo.

All photos by Kristy Glass

Back from paradise.

I wound up going to Palm Springs alone. In the beginning I was bummed, but it ended up being a totally relaxing weekend and I was able to devote lots of my weekend to catching up with Terrah while Jake stayed home taking lots of pictures of cool events and hanging out with Pippy. He ended up meeting some of the most famous extreme sports athletes ever, Kelly Slater (surfer) and Tony Hawk (skateboarder) who both happen to be a few of his idols. I giggled with girlfriends, ate good food, got spa treatments and vintage shopped. I can’t decide who wins for best weekend!

A special part of this weekend away was all the alone time I had. I read my book out on the patio that my room had, chatted with strangers at the lemonade stand and sat in the hammock for a large part of Sunday afternoon. I’ve been confused and I’ve needed some soul searching in my life. The Parker hotel was the place to do it. I have to go back.

I have tons of pictures and I plan on posting lots of them real quick-like.