Where oh where has Heidi gone?

As I begin to write this, a coworker comes in and says 'you look sleepy' (code for 'wow, you look like ass today'). I'm not sleepy, I'm in a daze from actually getting a full night of sleep, something that hasn't happened in a while. More than a few hours of sleep and my body goes into shock thinking I might have just up and died on myself.

Take me out to the ballgame... (and let me go in, please!)
Why the sudden full night of sleep? Because I presented my last final (of the semester) yesterday...woop woop! How do we celebrate? By driving up to Baltimore during rush hour to catch the Orioles v Rays game of course!


I printed the tickets ahead of time, we left 3 hours early to make sure we got there in time...I'm not going to not make it into the stadium this time!!! So the beau hands his ticket to the scanner and it make that "beep" that is more like the 'eeeeeh - wrong!' buzzer than the 'ding ding ding - you win!' beep. Oh geez. This is when I know something is awry that will no doubt lead to me never living this down. Indeed. I got tickets for the wrong night. Now, lets do quick a review of the Heidi-plans-sports-outing-with-Rich scoreboard....

1. Hockey Game...Caps v Bruins. I arrive at the Verizon Center to a laughing Rich. 'Um, Heidi. Well, they ARE playing the Bruins....but they're playing them IN BOSTON" One point to the gods with a sense of humor.

2. Soccer Game...I didn't bring a change of clothes, we did get in and have fun, but I got sick and got gross stadium floor beer all over my new white pants when I put my purse in my lap. I'll still chock this one up to a win in comparison. Tie game.

3. Baseball Game...Drive to Baltimore, wait in line for over an hour, finally decide to give up, lose car, get wet in thunderstorm. That's two for the gods with a sense of humor.

4. Baseball Game...Heidi gets tickets for the wrong night. Final score: gods with a sense of humor: 3 Heidi 0

Alright beau, it's time to turn on those puppy dog eyes that make all of the old bitties swoon - a skill that usually make me cringe unless it's used to my advantage like right now. Lizzie and I waited outside until he came back out with a big grin and 3 new tickets, and as the lady let us in the side door so that we could get right to our seats. ooooh, I'm never going to live this one down.

Cue the white flag; I give up. No more trying to be the cool girlfriend who gets tickets to sports games.
Floridays.
It's the weekend before finals week...and I decided it was the time to fly down to Florida. But wait, it gets better than that. Fly down to my alma mater with my ex who is going to see his new flame graduate...surely nothing can go wrong with this plan.

We arrived in sunny Orlando and made our way to Wasabi. Reminiscent of the old days with our crew doing Wasabi Thursdays, we gathered up some of the old players and a few additions and had ourselves a Wasabi Friday. Teppan chicken with beansprouts, please!

Then it was time to step foot back on campus - a place that encompassed my life for 6 years, a place I haven't been back to in over a year. Weird! What a difference a year can make.

New buildings have popped up everywhere. Obviously Beasley was feeling a little embarrassed with his achievements over his tenure as VP, so he overcompensated by throwing up a bunch of new buildings in his last year. A new arts center? But where do they do outside movie screenings now??

Despite all of the new, it was still fun to find remnants of my tenure around campus. It was like a little treasure hunt, walking around and chatting with old friends and colleagues, occasionally seeing a familiar logo, sign, or pillow.

Sara and I got to just sit by the fountain and chat - a simple pleasure that we rarely took time to do back before we moved to places where it snows and realized how nice Florida weather really is.

Oh the fountain...location of many-a drunken swims and place where I busted my leg that night freshman year when I decided to climb to the top.

We made an appearance at the graduation soiree for Drew and Andrew downstairs in the CUB.
Drew: 'you have to come see the office! We painted!'
Andrew: 'yea, it's like Heidi threw up on the walls in there'

Sure enough, 'my' green adorned the walls along with a painted version of my logo from a thousand years ago (obviously before I took perspectives with Maria!)

After some responsible face time, it was time to move on to the Abbey. In true Sara + Heidi fashion, we zipped over to the drive-through lanes at the abandoned bank across from the FYS and changed into our little dresses for going out. Woohoo!

A few bottles happened at the Abbey with a dinner break at some point over to Tony's Pizza. When we came back after dinner, we were seduced by the tunes of Ron Duncan - an old favorite with his Jimmy Buffett, CCR, Tom Petty, etc.

By some miracle, I made it to 9am graduation to hear Andrew give the graduation speech. ::sniff sniff:: my kiddies are all grown up!

I sneaked over to NightLites as they were doing their exodus and schmoozing, and sure enough the room was in tact!

Then back to the post-grad mingling. Congratulations Andrew!!

And ran into some old buddies like Peter (thank god the Blue Martini was closed, otherwise I might not have made it out of Deland alive)

Then I ran back to the FYS to visit one last time with Dr. Nance and to pick up the Mother's Day cake (more about that in a bit)

I couldn't resist picking up a little breakfast at Buttercup Bakery

and doing a drive-by on my old adorable apartment. It wasn't miami teal when I lived there...


My mom is in love with Cake Love, so I had a stroke of genius and decided to bring her a Cake Love cake for Mother's Day. That thing went from car to cooler to metro to airport security (crushed) to airplane to car to FYS to car to Hotel de DJThompson. It was there that I finally decided to open up the box and see what the damage was after 3 days of transport....

We flipped back into NightCap mode (when we encountered many similar disasters moments before our events were about to start) as Sara grabbed out 4 spatulas and we began cake triage. The 'Happy Mother's Day' writing was a lost cause, but we were able to repair the filling and the second layer to recreate a relatively normal looking cake!

A few of my favorite things.
Naturally we couldn't do a Deland reunion tour without a stop at our old pedicure place (ahh..remember those days when we could take a two-hour lunch to get a pedicure once a month?)

Then we headed down to my FAVORITE restaurant to meet the fam for my birthday dinner. Within 5 minutes I had a piece of parmesan crispbread and a midnight martini sitting in front of me...oh happy girl!
Here's the crew at Season's 52...the parental unit, the birthday girl, bff Sara, the brother, and the brother's girl Sarah with an h.

We proceeded to spend the night bar hopping at City Walk, of course landing at my favorite - Margaritaville.

Then spent the next morning sitting poolside.

One last meal at the awesome Turkish restaurant in Winter Park before it was time to start the journey back home to DC, facing the reality of my finals looming the next day.

More to come with my actual final projects and other assorted fun.

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY BRIAN!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEAN!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEAH!

HAPPY ALMOST BIRTHDAY LAURA!