I haven't written in a few weeks, and so now I am way behind in writing about events close to the time they happened. Even though I have other things I wanted to write about, I'm going to skip them over and write about the Third Annual Thanksgiving Feast my roommates and I hosted at the Grove (our house). It took place on Tuesday night the 17th, and we had an awesome turnout. I think about 30 people total. We've done this event the last 2 years; it's a fun tradition.The premise of "The Feast" is that we have all of our college friends over to basically do nothing other than eat insane amounts of food. Us roommates provide the majority of the food but many 
of the guests bring a dish to share too. We spent all week planning on what food we needed, who would make it, what time to cook it, etc. You may not realize, but tons of planning was involved in order to successfully pull off this event. Christina spent all weekend coming up with the list of food items, assigning it to people, and following up on it. Kristine, Danielley and I also spent a while cleaning up our house and making sure we had enough seating, etc. In my opinion, it looked awesome.The day of the event, Kristine and Anna (Julia's sister) basically devoted their whole day to planning out the "oven/stove schedule" and baking the turkey, casseroles, and many other dishes. I as usual did some of my OCD driven cleaning, and then when all of the food and desserts were prepared the guests 
arrived! I was excited because John made it down to Lexington even though it was a week night. It took some rearranging of his schedule for him to be able to come, but he did, just because I told him it would mean a lot to me if he could be there and witness it's amazingness for the first time. So, everyone hung out and talked for a while, and we were all very excited when the food was finally ready. As the title of the event suggests, it really was a "feast". There was enough food for 30 people to get two plates and stuff themselves full- not to mention dessert! I always really like when we do this because when we get everyone together before we eat we say a quick "Thanksgiving" prayer, and it makes me realize how grateful I am to have so many amazing people in my life. I feel like I am very lucky to have so many great friends who have been around through the years and who I still can always have a fun and hilarious time with.So, after the food was rapidly consumed and seconds were downed, it was time to play the 
Thanksgiving guessing game we've played the last 2 years. Everyone writes down on a piece of paper one thing they're thankful for, and then one person (traditionally Danielle) reads each one out loud, and everyone else is supposed to guess who wrote what. Some of the papers are genuine things, but 
the majority are sarcastic and/or sexual. It is usually a hilarious game, and this year it was no different. There were a few slips read that caused everyone in the room to die of laughter- if you were there you know what I'm talking about! We also did a traditional group photo after dinner, one serious and one funny.After the game a lot of the guests had to leave, but for those who remained and weren't busy cleaning and doing dishes 
(sorry to my roommates, but someone had to be out of the kitchen entertaining the guests!) we had a fun time playing the game "Apples to Apples". I was really happy with how the evening turned out. The food was fantastic, we had a good amount of leftovers, and a lot of friends showed up I hadn't seen in a while. It was definitely a success! It was a little bittersweet though because this is the last time all of us roommates will be in Lexington for Thanksgiving. Some of the girls might do it again next year, but I won't be here hosting it...
Even though it was a while ago, I am so proud of my Halloween costume I felt it necessary to pay it tribute in the form of writing about it! The idea for this group costume came from Danielle, who decided we should all be feminized versions of our favorite male super-heroes. Danielle would be Superman-woman, Christina would be Spiderman-woman, and I would be Batman-woman. You could purchase a skanky version of our costumes online for about $60, so we decided to follow in our traditions of Halloweens past and go the home-made route instead. This ended up to be a lot more time consuming than we would have ever guessed. Once we had a general idea for what our outfits should look like, I wrote up lists of items we'd need to make them ourselves. The catch was we had to be able to do it all without the usage of sewing (since none of us know how). Danielle and I spent 4 hours at the mall hunting for colorful fishnets and a red skirt, but nothing came up. Frustrating! The next day Tian and I hunted around Wal-Mart for about 2 hours before finally gathering everything we'd need. Surprisingly, the majority of our supplies ended up coming from our own closets.We were making these costumes for a Halloween party at our neighbors house here in Lexington, and so the day of the party involved several hours of preparation. For Tian's costume, we 
needed a spidey eye mask. Free-hand sketching it, guessing the measurements, cutting it from felt and then attempting to make a strap around Tian's head was more challenging than you'd think! I also had to make Bat ears for myself. After several failed attempts with felt I settled for using black cardboard which I taped to a black head-band. I had to be careful they didn't look like cat ears and that they were properly spaced. This was also more difficult than you'd ever think. So, in case you wanted to know, here is the run down on how we creatively made our costumes:
Bat-Woman : I bought a black dress, so that part was easy. I then free-hand drew the bat symbol (which I am pretty proud of!), cut it from yellow felt, and used double sided tape to stick to my dress. I tried to find yellow fishnets, but had to settle for black. I made arm bands by cutting up black felt and pinning it together (I later regretted this when the pins kept snagging my tights). I made the headband for the ears, I bought a yard of black fabric, cut up the bottom to be pointy, then rolled the edges and pinned it to my dress for my cape. I then added finishing touches of black pumps, black nail polish, yellow earrings (same one as Danielle and Tian's but in a different color) and cutting and pinning yellow ribbon for a belt. I am pretty pleased with how everything turned out. I definitely have a new found love for fake eyelashes too!Spider-Woman : You already know about the mask. That was the worst part. It had to look like Spiderman's eye shape but also
fit her head, and I didn't have anything to look off of. But we did it! Tian's costume was definitely the most challenging to make. For the top, she bought a child's costume, and we cut the bottom off. We then cut off the sleeves to make it into a cute spider shirt, and then used the extra fabric to be her arm bands. She had blue earrings, blue nail polish, and a blue ring- and luckily we found her some red fishnets. We could not find a blue skirt anywhere so she bought a yard of shiny blue fabric, and we then experimented with rolling, folding, and cutting it until Tian finally invented a way to do it. She did something with threading string and using safety pins I believe. It took a while. It was a little weird at the top but her belt covered it up and made it look great! I think her skirt turned out nicely.Super-Woman : Danielle's costume started out one way, and then the day of the party Kristine discovered a different way 
to make it. For her outfit she used a red dress in her closet that had a white top, and she covered the top with a blue sports bra. The bottom of the dress then just looked like a red skirt. She had gold ribbon in her room, so that became her belt. I then drew, cut, taped, and pinned yellow and red felt to make her Super-man logo. She also had the earrings and corresponding blue fishnets, along with blue fake eye-lashes and a french-manicure with the colors of blue and red. She did the same thing as me for her cape- pinning fabric. She then added a finishing touch of Julia's bright red heels. Our other preparations for the party involved copious amounts of 
eye-makeup, glitter, a first attempt at fake eyelash application, felt cutting galore, and using over 40 safety pins. Theresa drove down to join us in getting ready, and then John made a celebrity appearance at the end. He learned he was coming to the party at 7pm that night, and it was 80 miles away from his house! Theresa's costume was awesome, very authentic- and John's costume was authentically creepy! It's not in the picture, but he had a real gas mask he wore with the camo.The party ended up being a lot of fun. The girls who hosted it (The Arlington 
Ladies- Brittany, Chelsea, Liz) had lots of good food, decorations, and a strobe light that ended up being great for dancing. There was a good turnout, and it was definitely fun to dance and party it up with all of our friends. At one point it was like a mini high-school
reunion too. A lot of girls we graduated with were in town for the party. We got many compliments on our costumes from everyone too. It was, all in all, a very fun time. Lots of work, but worth it.HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
of the guests bring a dish to share too. We spent all week planning on what food we needed, who would make it, what time to cook it, etc. You may not realize, but tons of planning was involved in order to successfully pull off this event. Christina spent all weekend coming up with the list of food items, assigning it to people, and following up on it. Kristine, Danielley and I also spent a while cleaning up our house and making sure we had enough seating, etc. In my opinion, it looked awesome.
arrived! I was excited because John made it down to Lexington even though it was a week night. It took some rearranging of his schedule for him to be able to come, but he did, just because I told him it would mean a lot to me if he could be there and witness it's amazingness for the first time. So, everyone hung out and talked for a while, and we were all very excited when the food was finally ready. As the title of the event suggests, it really was a "feast". There was enough food for 30 people to get two plates and stuff themselves full- not to mention dessert! I always really like when we do this because when we get everyone together before we eat we say a quick "Thanksgiving" prayer, and it makes me realize how grateful I am to have so many amazing people in my life. I feel like I am very lucky to have so many great friends who have been around through the years and who I still can always have a fun and hilarious time with.
Thanksgiving guessing game we've played the last 2 years. Everyone writes down on a piece of paper one thing they're thankful for, and then one person (traditionally Danielle) reads each one out loud, and everyone else is supposed to guess who wrote what. Some of the papers are genuine things, but 
the majority are sarcastic and/or sexual. It is usually a hilarious game, and this year it was no different. There were a few slips read that caused everyone in the room to die of laughter- if you were there you know what I'm talking about! We also did a traditional group photo after dinner, one serious and one funny.
(sorry to my roommates, but someone had to be out of the kitchen entertaining the guests!) we had a fun time playing the game "Apples to Apples". I was really happy with how the evening turned out. The food was fantastic, we had a good amount of leftovers, and a lot of friends showed up I hadn't seen in a while. It was definitely a success! It was a little bittersweet though because this is the last time all of us roommates will be in Lexington for Thanksgiving. Some of the girls might do it again next year, but I won't be here hosting it...
