Nintendo in New York.

So I was home and then I was in Greensboro and then I was home again and then a day later I was off to New York City. Seriously how is this my life? Anyhoozits, why was I in NYC you ask? Well it's because Nintendo is just all sorts of awesome and fabulous and invited me out there to experience the launch of the Nintendo 3Ds. Ridiculous right? Basically the last couple of days were a whirlwind of awesome and a recap is definitely in order, so in my best attempts here goes:

Tuesday: Up early, picked up Jenn, said goodbye to Matt at the airport, made it on the plane (apparently Julianne Moore was on board with us), slept on the plane and before I knew it we were in NEW YORK!

We stayed at the Empire Hotel and ohmygod I loved my room, so swanky and chic and lurve. And then the lobby, the lobby people. It was like a jungle party of awesomeness.

rockin my zebra boots in the lobby, lurve it.

Eventually it was time to get ready for dinner and it was just so fun going next door to Jenn's room and doing a running hug with Doni and showing off our outfits before finally meeting up with Justine and the rest of the ambassadors. Then we strolled on over to Asiate for one hell of a dinner. I mean really, it was freaking fabulous. I had crab linguini and duck and a cheese plate, a CHEESE PLATE people! All around it was a fabulous welcome to New York City.

Doni, me and Jenn at dinner

heart these girls!

oh my. CHEESE.

Columbus Circle from the top!

There were lots of laughs and good times and wine and just fun getting to know the other ladies. The night ended with drinks at the bar and silly stories and eventually melting into the magical comforter in my bed, truly loveliness.

Wednesday: Slept in a bit before going on a coffee/hot chocolate trek with Doni and Jenn to start off our morning. New York is so damn chilly and brisk and busy and just lovely all around. Well except the birds, I cannot stand those damn pigeons, I screamed every time, haha.

Eventually everyone met up and went to a lovely place for a pizzaful lunch. No really, we got eight pizzas and some salads and ohmygod it was heavenly, HEAVENLY. After lunch we took a field trip to the Nintendo World Store, talk about Nintendo awesomeness. Not only that, but Justine surprised us all with two hundred dollars each to spend in the store, say what!?!?! It was so fun. I got a couple new Wii games and explored the store and ah, it was just great!

After our shopping spree we were all treated to getting our hair and makeup done at Blow salon. It was so swanky and fun and ohmygod there was a cheese plate and champagne and yeah. So I ended up getting the naturalish makeup look and the Foxy Brown (err Foxy Cleopatra) hairstyle (as Matt called it once I texted him a picture, haha).

me and Jenn freshly makeuped

and hair styled, ooh la la.

After we were all beautified it was time for the big event, the Nintendo 3DS launch party!! It was quite the event with lots of stations set up to try several of the new games on the new systems (and oh man are they awesome) and delicious food being passed around and plenty of bars and Samantha Ronson on the turntables and did I mention the games?

the partay.

swanky little chair and pillows, classy.

me and Doni rockin our best partywear.

our fabulous hostesses of the weekend,

Justine and Katie, woo!

Doni getting a game demo.

After playing all of the games, praising Samantha Ronson for her DJing skills and drinking plenty of wine we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel. Although the night didn't really end there and Doni, Jenn and I decided to change into some warmer clothes and venture out into the city. It was a very "whip my hair" kind of fantastic evening of strolling and laughing and eating New York pizza and taking silly pictures and trying not to get hit by cabs. Basically, one fabulous Wednesday night.

Jenn and Doni in good ole Times Square.

I had to get in on the silly action too.

Thursday: Woke up way too early, checked out, fell asleep on the car ride to the airport, got onto the plane and fell asleep for the whole five hours (whoops, no reading for me I suppose). When we got back to LAX I realized that we had yet another celebrity on our flight, Chase Crawford (who is both tall and cute). Now all I need is an awesome celebrity encounter (I know, I'm just so picky, haha). And then I was home again and the whirlwind was over, but oh so fabulous.

Anyhoo all I can say is thank you Brand About Town and Nintendo for one of the classiest and geekiest most awesome mid week adventures ever.

And how's your week been? Are you uber excited for the 3Ds? Because yeah you sort of should be, the games are amazing.

happy weekend!

*Brand About Town/Nintendo covered all of my expenses on this trip and as always didn't ask me to blog about this but I'd be all sorts of insane if I didn't!

So Long 2010.

So last year I did a ridiculous recap of my year and it was great and I was planning on doing that again but then people, but then: LIFE. I mean clearly you can tell I didn't do a whole lot of blog writing or reading for that matter this week and I blame life.

I got to work from home and got distracted with watching movies, going on lovely white hot chocolate/tea dates with lovely people, tasty lunch breaks with friends, getting my ass kicked on the Wii Fit/EA Active again, sleeping like a champ, meeting friends in bars on Tuesday (and Wednesday nights) and going to the Holiday Bowl (but let's not discuss the results):

Husker fan for a day.

woo wee!

So yeah it's been busy over here and I'm not really complaining, rather explaining.

Nonetheless I can't have a final post of 2010 without sharing my love of this past year.

I mean there was BISC 2010. And there really are no words (well there are because I posted about it but you get what I mean), I met bloggers I'd been reading forever and hung out with the crazy fabulous ones I already knew, amazingness.

heart.

And I mean clearly the biggest and best thing to happen to me this year was that I got married to the looooove of my life (not like you forgot or anything because I still can't stop talking about/get over it, haha):

double heart.

lurve it.

And we had a fantabulous time in Italy for two weeks and that was all sorts of magical and wonderful as well:

And yeah there were other super awesome ridiculous things that happened this year like I saw some celebs, went to some theme parks, had lots and lots of family time, read like a bookworm, attempted to cook some more and just loverliness and I couldn't have asked for a better year.

So you hear that 2011? You've got a lot to live up to buddy, I've got high expectations here.

I hope you all have a loverly and safe and fabulous New Year's Eve and wish you all the best for 2011!! I mean it's our year right?

happy 2011!

Oh goodness, the weekend and a giveaway! *closed*

Oh what a weekend and a fun one at that, so with no delay a recap is on its way (why I rhymed I have no idea? I blame exhaustion):

Friday: Matt and I were both so exhausted from a long week that we had a pretty low key night. Went shopping for our Christmas sweaters and grabbed a quick bite to eat before coming home to decorate our little abode. Pretty much loveliness.

Saturday: Slept in for a wee bit before running all sorts of morning errands and getting my hair cut, woo (seriously I hadn't had a hair cut since April, ridiculous). Then I spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for my Wrapped in Goodness Party!

And what is a Wrapped in Goodness party? Pretty much Lean Pockets provided me with all sorts of goodies to have some friends over and enjoy some of their new culinary creations (um, yum!). So I went to town and was so excited to use some of my new serving ware and Christmas stuff and set it all up for a fun little girl's night in.

oh how I love to host!

can you spot the Lean Pockets in my freezer?

haha, this is just ridiculous.

all five tasty flavors ready for us to try:

Chipotle Chicken, Chipotle Bacon Dijon,

Spinach Artichoke Chicken, Garlic Chicken White Pizza (my fave!)

and Grilled Chicken, Mushroom and Spinach.

some snuggies for the ladies.

One the girls got here we spent most of the night just hanging out, listening to Christmas music, watching Extreme Christmas Lights on mute and occasionally answering some hilarious questions provided by Lean Pockets. It was just the kind of night I needed since I've been in a weird friend funk lately and hanging with the girls just lovely.

Ev'Yan, Tara and my sister showing

off their snuggies.

mmmmm, tasty!

my sister already finished hers

and was enjoying some belini deliciousness.

All in all it was quite the fun night. We tried almost all of the Lean Pockets, enjoyed lots of belinis and cookies, and definitely had our mouths agape at the Christmas lights some people put on display (seriously, insanity!). And just yes, my kind of girls' night in indeed. Thank you ladies for a lovely evening.

not that you can tell, but that's Matt

back there showing off a snuggie of his own.

Also, check out other Wrapped in Goodness party pics and get some Lean news on their Facebook page, so check it out, and even like it you'd like (that sounds redundant but I figured I'd keep it).

Sunday: Oh Sunday, I slept in until 11, cleaned up the apartment a bit, caught up on some TV watching. Finally did some Xmas shopping with Matt for a bit before coming home and alternating between napping and movie watching the rest of the day. Basically my kind of way to end the weekend.

And now to the giveaway! Hurrah!

Congrats to Kateastrophe! Her Lean Pockets creation would be:
My lean pocket would SO not be lean. It would be filled with Brie and ham and bechemel sauce. So it would be more like a fat pocket? Hmmm sing THAT with the jingle! "Faaat Pockets!"

Big seller, I tell ya!

I would so buy it :)

Thanks to everyone that entered!

Lean Pockets has so graciously offered me the chance to offer one of my readers a YEAR SUPPLY of Lean Pockets! Seriously, a year's worth? That's a lot of Lean going on!

To enter tell me if you made your own culinary creation lean pocket, what would be in it?

For an extra entry, tweet about the giveaway and include my handle, @katelin, and the official @Lean_Pockets and leave in a separate comment.

and if you need a bit.ly of the giveaway: http://bit.ly/f1f8ZF

Giveaway ends next Wednesday, December 15th 4pm PST and I'll be picking a winner using randomizer, so everyone's got a chance!

Good luck and lean away!

happy monday!

*Lean Pockets provided me with the snuggies, coupons for free Lean Pockets to serve at my party as well as giveaway. They also gave me some schnazzy Visa gift cards to do some shopping and as a thank you. And all opinions of Lean Pockets are all my own because let's be honest I sort of love them anyways. Basically they rock my socks off.*

Sing along weekend.

Another Monday and back to the weekend recaps! I mean I'm not done recapping the wedding but I feel like a break was needed, but don't worry there's still the reception and the honeymoon and yeah, I hope you still love me when I'm done, haha.

Friday: After work, went to Matt's dad's house for dinner and hung out for a bit before making my way to a karaoke bar to meet up with some fabulous blogger friends. The oh so awesome Amy was in town and so karaoke became the to-do event for some of us on Friday night and oh was it an event. Apparently everyone at the bar decided that slow songs were the way to go at first and it was almost ridiculous (well very ridiculous) and our group couldn't help laughing. There was however two favorites, an old guy named Art who sang to his wife (precious!) and eventually sang a number to the ladies of our group as well which was adorable. And then there was this other guy who cracked everyone up with his rendition of "Mrs. Officer" (which umm NONE of us ladies - with the exception of Amy- knew). It was seriously hilarious and tears were streaming down from laughing so hard. Eventually some of the ladies (and guy, nicely done Matt) in our group did some singing of their own.

Amanda, Amy and Ali busting out some Journey

for the crowd!

Michelle doing her best Alanis.

Pretty much it was a lovely evening spent with some of the loveliest people I know.

Saturday: Woke up earlyish and went out to breakfast with Matt before heading to my little brother's water polo tournament. I can't believe my wittle brother is a freshmen and playing JV water polo, it's nuts. And he's actually pretty good! Luckily I got to see his team win two games (and both were nail biters, 7-6 wins) and my brother played the entire second game. It was pretty awesome.

my brother the goalie.

and he saved it, woo!

and my cousin is on the same team,

way to go Matthew.

After the games I ran some errands and relaxed a bit before heading to LA for a charity dinner honoring alumni from Matt's high school. It was a pretty fun event for a great cause, tasty food, fun auction items and we got to hang out with some of our friends so I'd say it was a win. On top of it, it was just classy and it was great to see such a great message of charity being spread.

Sunday: Sunday oh Sunday, my lovely day. Now that football is back, Matt's usually gone for most of the day leaving me to relax and catch up on the DVR aka heavenly. Twas nice to have some time to myself and play the Sims and run errands and just have fun. Eventually I did meet up with Matt at his brother's future in-laws house for some football and pizza and just fun times. The rest of the night was just the same loverly relaxingish stuff and twas loverly all around.

And how was your weekend? Any karaoke or Sims playing or ridiculousness?

happy monday!

Bloggerwood Confidential.

Last week Matt and I went to prom for the third time (I was his date to both his junior and senior prom and yet we didn't date until four years ago, precious right?). And I gotta say, third time around was definitely the swankiest and most technologically enhanced one of them all, haha.

In case you have no idea what I'm referencing here, it was LA's 2nd annual and oh so fabulous Blogger Prom. Last year I couldn't make it because I was already in Chicago for BlogHer so as soon as I heard the date of this year's prom I marked in on my calendar and started brainstorming costume ideas, haha. The theme this year was Hollywood confidential (um, PERFECT!) and it was so fun to get all Hollywooded out with Matt and some of my other favorite bloggers.

Prom was held at Yamashiro which is, if you've never been (I hadn't until then), all sorts of amazing. The whole space was just classy and fun and the VIEW oh the VIEW, amazing.

The night itself was full of delicious food (um there was a CHEESE station! enough said) and drinks (I was sort of obsessed with the Pinky specialties), great conversations with friends, meeting some new people, joking about the internet (and a whole lot of Twitter, although I had no service...thanks AT&T) and admiring all sorts of amazing outfits. And if you can believe it I actually forgot to take ANY pictures! Ah! Blasphemy! But alas there was a professional there, so thanks Heather Kincaid for sharing your pics (you can check out all the pics from prom here):

amazing view from the front, LOVE.


Matt and I rocking our best classic Hollywood.
I sort of adore his suit. oh and his shoes too:


thanks to Tara for this one, Matt went
allll out.


newlyweds! Michelle and Matt, just too cute.


Nico and Andrea so very Mad Menesque


annnd the whole group shot!
also BIG NOTE. prom was picked up in the
THE LA Times and they used OUR PICTURE.
seriously, a million schnazzy points to us!

cheeeeeeeeeeeeese.


oh such a pretty and tasty drink.


the streaming TweetDeck of the night,
we are so techy.

Thank you, thank you to the fabulous Blogger Prom committee for one hell of a night and a fabulous swag bag (I can't wait to test everything out) Can't wait until next year!


And check out Andrea, Nico, Michelle's Matt and Tara's recap of the night as well.




happy thursday!

Tutus, Unicorns and Cheeseburgers...aka BlogHer Part Deux.

Part I of the BlogHer bonanza here.

So Saturday, oh Saturday. Woke up nice and early went to a few sessions, met some new people, wandered the expo hall, had lots of cheese samples and cookie samples and saw the sun...

Basically it was another awesome day at the conference and I loved every minute of it.

Eventually I decided to take a break and go on a little stroll with Lilu, Lacey and Jess where we came across a wonderful happy hour. And from one happy hour to another we made our way to Johnny Utah's for the 20SB NYC Meetup. It was so fun to see some of my favorites and meet some new bloggers. Oh and did I mention that this whole time I was rocking a tutu and ballerina flats and Lilu was rocking out with a cape and a boa? Yeah you can say it: BADASS. (or ridiculous, either one applies here).

the whole fabulous crew. heartfaces all around.

me and miss Doniree looking quite devious.

After the meetup it was time for Sparklecorn and CheeseburgHer, hands down the most fun parties at BlogHer. I went to Sparklecorn last year and I've been to I believe four precious Cheeseburgher parties and just wow. Every time it gets a little more nuts and a little more fun and a lot more crazy. I mean why am I still rambling, just let the pictures do their job.

Sparklecorn!

I mean yes, this cake was awesome and the

Ace of Cakes people made it! I=in awe.

I mean of course I had to take a picture

with Dex.

Lilu and Lacey have some kick ass moves.

it's Rich!!! aka the man that writes the
best Top Model recaps ever.
And I made sure to tell him that nonstop.
foot-in-mouth moment like wo.

I mean wo.
Just ask Lacey.

I mean yeah, I miss her already.

Rocking the hat and tutu to the max.

Lacey, Jamie and Me rocking our burger hats.

love the photo booth pic.

so silly.

And then, AND THEN. You didn't think the night ended there did you? AND THEN Came the video. The video that is just too ridiculous for words. As in Jamie and Katelin video blog BlogHer for the THIRD year in a row (with special guest Lacey ) and it's just too much. So much in fact that if you want to see it you have to email me for the password, haha. I know, silly right? But um I have a reputation to keep (well sometimes). So email me or Lacey or Jamie and we'll pass it on (if we're not too embarrassed), hopefully, haha.

And then Sunday I went to a glorious brunch with some of my faves where there were two for one bellinis and a frittata and it was awesome and then an afternoon in Central Park and Rachel came and my day was made. Pretty much I loved my weekend in the city with some of my favorite girls doing some of my favorite things and I cannot wait to go back and hang out with them all again.

Also don't forget to check Lilu's recap of the night and Lacey's of the whole conference, woo.

So that, that was BlogHer and it was awesome and I'm finally mostly recovered. Now get excited because 2011 it's in San Diego? Who's coming with me?!

happy thursday!