The Sanborns

I’ve been taking pictures, but I’ve been such a slacker about sharing them… hmm let’s play catch up, shall we? Click through to learn more, there are far too many pictures for me to describe them all, again. Some may be out of order because I keep uploading several in one day.

For Valentine’s, Gray and I went to a murder mystery dinner theatre event on campus last night. It was $10 for the two of us and the food and entertainment was great. BEST VALENTINE’S EVER.

Anyway… I’m not going to say much about it, but here are some pictures I took.

Oh Edmond…

Rosie, Trixie, and Dixie… probably not in that order.

You can’t see very well, but Gray was chosen to be Rosie’s personal assistant.

Edmond and Trixie.

One of the men at our table was chosen to be the detective so he had a big role.

Close up of the detective.

Finale!

We had a lot of fun, and I half-solved the mystery. I can’t wait to do more dinner theatre shows!

Finally, two videos of Gray’s role in the show.

So, my friends and I do a lot of murder mysteries, a lot.

It all started in the Fall of 2007 when Trina and I were at Wally World. We stumbled upon a box for a game called Murder on the Grill. I had heard of murder mysteries before and I always wanted to do one, so we set out to try one for ourselves.

Murder on the Grill: character Bobby Sox.

We liked that one a lot, but completely forgot about murder mysteries until the following summer when mine and Chad’s birthdays came around. Trina and Gray decided to surprise me with a murder mystery and it was so much fun! This time it was ‘Murder on Misty Island’ and I chose to be a housewife.

Another year went by before we did another murder mystery, this time it was the following summer and our friend Justin asked to do another one when he came to visit. So we did ‘The Chicago Caper.’

I played Silky M.Adam, a well, madame. This was a different series than we had done before and I liked it because the killer didn’t know who they were until it was revealed at the end… making it much harder to figure out.

After that mystery I really wanted to do another one and this time, a Halloween mystery.

This time I was Lizzie Bordeaux, engaged to the deceased and I had a pet spider, who Chile lovingly stepped in for.
This was the first time I actually solved who the killer was out of the games so far.

Tonight I will be playing Bameril Lacrosse, a Portguese chef with his own TV show! I’m quirky and well, you’ll find out. Tonight’s theme is a masquerade ball so I will be donning a suit and I’m glad because it’s really cold outside!

I will post some pictures from tonight sometime this week. Oh and did I mention I’m planning another one of these for April for a Trina/Jami birthday party?

Also: Trina took all the above pictures..

I’m not doing resolutions this year because I’m still doing the 101 things in 1001 days. Instead, my goal is to participate in project 365. I will post pictures here occasionally but most of them will be in my flickr account.

New Years day I hung out with Trina. We grabbed lunch at Demos, a favorite in these parts. Then we went to Target and Wal-greens where I purchased a new purse, some sinus rinse refills, and some more facial lotion.

After that we went back to Trina’s to try out her New Moon game.

The object is to collect all the scenes and Bella and Edward cards. You do this by answering trivia questions and a lot of luck. We were surprised at how fun it turned out to be and it wasn’t super hard. I wasn’t a huge fan of the book when I first read it but I still knew most of the questions, except for the Voltari because apparently I didn’t pay close attention to them.

We had snow on the ground Saturday morning!

Saturday afternoon we drove over to the new, big Embassy Suites hotel in town. We decided to do a staycation and check out the new hotel, rather than driving to Nashville.

We were both really impressed with the hotel. I should have taken more pictures, but it has a huge atrium in the lobby. They gave us complimentary cocktails from 5:30-7:30 p.m. and then we got a complimentary hot and cooked breakfast this morning. We also discovered some free water bottles in our fridge because we are Hilton Honors members. Gray signed us up when we got married and stay the wedding night in a HIlton Hotel.

Anyways… it was pretty fun and something different for us to do. Now we have to go back to the mundane. Tomorrow I’m getting blood work done so we can figure out if I have immunity for all those vaccines I did last year. Last year, haha!

We have less than two weeks before work begins again. After tomorrow I should know when my physical is for nursing and then I have nursing orientation and I will be all ready for the spring semester. Woohoo!

SO, we got some amazing gifts for Christmas.

I’ll just do my list because it’ll be hard to do Gray’s… K?

From The Sanborns:
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Make it Fast, Cook it Slow by Stephanie O’dea
The Sims 3 World Adventures Expansion Pack!
Twilight on DVD!
Plus some earrings, a fluffy brown blanket, an ornament, and some stuff I’m probably forgetting but it’s just as good. Caleb gave me some fluffy socks and then Taylor gave us all toy guns, slime, and mind puzzles.

We got some coasters and cocoa from Gray’s aunt and uncle and money from his grandparents, brothers, and parents.

We used money that my parents gave us and from the rest of them to purchase my favorite present of all:

Basically, my dream present is on its way to me! It should be arriving tomorrow.

We also purchased Guitar Hero: World Tour and that is what we will be doing on New Years Eve.

I’ll try to write up the rest of the holidays while it is still fresh, but for now I’m watching 500 Days of Summer and hopefully taking down the Christmas tree.

So, first things first…

My glasses arrived Friday. They are progressive lenses made specifically for my eyes to adjust to different focal points. Basically, I will be able to read up close, medium, and distantly by looking through the lenses in different ways.

Also:

Our tree is up and decorated! No presents are under it yet because I’m an exhausted human being right now. We went shopping yesterday and bought ALL of the gifts (minus our gifts to each other). It made for a cranky Gray and Becca but we survived.

I am so happy the tree is up because now officially beings my favorite time of the year!.

Four years and some months ago, when I was a resident assistant in Beasley Hall, I had my first resident move in the night before everyone else did. I knew instantly she was going to be someone I’d talk to quite a bit.

Anna’s (awn-uh) wedding story is beautiful to hear. I met Caleb (briefly) back when I was her RA and all I can remember is that she gushed over him. Fast forward several years and they finally started dating… a year after dating he proposed, and now about four months later they are married!

The wedding was packed yesterday, probably 400 people in a tiny church. We couldn’t stay for the reception, but the wedding itself was different in several ways. First off, the groom sang several of the procession songs, including the one his bride came down the aisle to. Also? Instead of a unity candle or anything like that, they wrote letters to each other letting go of anything that would hinder their marriage and nailed it to a wooden cross they had built.

Of course, they wrote their own vows and they were beautiful. You can tell the two of them truly love the Lord first and foremost and then each other.

I’m so glad Anna finally got her man.

As promised, the murder mystery photos! They are totally all backwards, so this shall be interesting…

Trina reading about her character, Madame Aretha Garlique.

Trina brought over her pumpkins… Jack, a cat, and my little mermaid.

Skull goblets.

Dead flowers.

Glumda the Wicked Witch of Depressed (played by Samantha) and Asthmadeus, the Prince of Dimness (played by Forrest)

My bling and my pet spider Boris.

Trina and me. Trina turned out to be my enemy and my lover and they were totally not related.

Gray dressed as mummy “Alldrinktotat” and he also played Hannibal because Chad’s car broke down.

Kevin as Balihi, a Frankenstein monster who composed Broadway musicals.

I was Lizzie Bordeaux, engaged to the deceased. Check out that bling yo. I was supposed to be a gothic chick from France so I tried to pull off the Ms. Lovett look from Sweeny Todd.

Trina was very proud of her costume.

Kevin’s wife Ashley was Angela Deth, a dentist who liked putting people 6 feet under.

Forrest cheesing.

Sam.

Our bubbly cauldron.

Gray was excited about the dry ice he got.

Graveyard brownies.

Witch’s fingers.

I also made spaghetti with meatballs (eyes) but I’m too lazy to track down the picture. Overall, this party was the best murder mystery we’ve done yet. The plot was crazy but it was one we all understand. It was solvable (and was solved) with some twists. I like this series better than the other one we’ve tried, but as Trina has said before, it’s hard to find these games with CDs as they are older.

I won’t tell you the ending in case you’d like to play it yourself but I will say this is not for light hearts. This party had a lot of scandal (think sexual), more so than any other game we’ve done. They do warn you about this, and we all handled it well, but it’s definitely not for a church group.

Today marks the first day of November and I will be posting every day for a month. I hope.

Yesterday was Halloween and we hosted a murder mystery party called “An Affair to Dismember” from the How to Host a Murder Mystery Series.

I’m pretty sure it was the best murder mystery we’ve done yet. Gray and I spent the day doing some light grocery shopping, getting the final bits for his costume, and then cooking (for 5 solid hours) the rounds of dinner. Needless to say, I am an exhausted human being today.

I must also mention that I got the chicken pox vaccine on Friday and have had a mild reaction to it involving swollen soreness. As this is mild (1 in like 3 people get it), there is nothing to worry about, but I’m staying home today to relax and recover before the school/work week begins.

When we set the date for the murder mystery, I completely forgot that my cousin was getting married in the family’s chapel back home. My great-grandfather was a Methodist preacher at Curtis Chapel in McEwen, TN and my cousin Carol got married there yesterday. I’m sad that I missed it, especially because it’s been so long since I’ve been in the church. It’s an old school church complete with no plumbing or electricity! They actually had to rent a port-a-potty for the event. My mom sent me a few photos from the event so I could enjoy it even though I was unable to attend.

Tomorrow’s post will include pictures from the murder mystery party.

What a week! I guess the biggest news this week was that I turned in my nursing school application and Gray got picked to join “Google Voice.” Basically, that means that we now have a home phone line, sort of. He has it setup right now so that if you dial that number, it rings to both of our cell phones. It’s pretty sweet so far but we haven’t tried it out too much.

I started getting back tests this week. While I wasn’t very happy with my Micro test (passed it, but did about average) I was thrilled to learn that I did great on my Professionalism in Nursing exam, got an A! I also had another Accounting exam on Friday which I’m pretty sure I got an A on as well, but who knows.

I’ve done a good job so far of keeping ahead of my schedule. I’ve been able to do well in classes so far because I’m on top of my game. Also, I bought an app. for my ipod touch that is a cool study program.

As you can see, the more you “study” a card, the percentage you got it correct will go up and down. It was very helpful for when I was studying for Nursing because it would remember the cards I needed to work on.

We have no big plans this weekend. I plan on spending the day studying, working on my Nursing paper, and probably doing some grocery shopping. Gray was interested in going to watch a football game this afternoon, we’ll see if it actually happens. Tomorrow shall be pretty busy with church, the Titans game, and the start of bible study.

Oh that’s right! I was asked to lead a sophomore/junior girls bible study and we’ll be meeting Sunday nights at 6pm.

I’ve realized that I actually am starting to enjoy the week more than the weekend. Probably because weekends go by too fast!