happy camps-giving

There will be a bathroom there. I promise!

Famous last words, am I right? Oh I'm sorry, let me back up so you don't think I was scared to go in public in fear of bleeping my pants or something.

The very beginning of this story is that Freddie has been wanting to go camping. Actually the very, very beginning of this story is that I married a man who I thought was not into things such as camping in the middle of nowhere with no company but the bugs, however I was mistaken. Fast forward to just the very beginning and you'll find Freddie b-e-g-g-i-n-g me to go camping. All the time. For the past year.

It all started with a tent. After all, isn't that how most camping stories start? Freds researched and bought the best little tent that REI made, and then somehow within the next three to four months after that tent purchase we had a sleeping bag, lantern, flash light, and cast iron. All these hashtag camping necessities sat in our closet for months. And lemme tell ya, that's kind of where I preferred those items.

I tried my best to get out of camping. And listen, when I say I tried my best I really mean I pulled out all my tricks.

But you'd have more fun if you went with your male friends!

But I'll complain!

But we're busy for the next five weekends!

But I teach late on Fridays!

But you knew I wasn't an outdoorsy person when you married me! You want to divorce me?

But, but, but....

Pretty soon my brain ran out of but's and my butt was in the car on the way to a campsite. A campsite that was secluded enough so we could be away from light pollution, but also not so secluded that there wouldn't be a toilet and/or help for when the scary bad guys came to get us in our tents. <<<I've seen enough scary movies (read about three) to know that camping by yourselves in the middle of nowhere is stupid because the bad guys will find you and you will not survive (can you already tell how much fun Freddie must have been having at this point?)

fact: you can see about thirty-trillion-bazillion more stars out in the boondocks than you can in the city of Houston. 

Spoiler alert: The toilet was on the other end of the campsite so thank goodness I practice Pilates and can squat. That's enough about that.

Now listen here, it pains me to say this (like what I must assume is childbirth level pain), but I kind of had fun.

Freddie's somewhere at work reading this saying, "I told you so!" for the fifty-sixth time since we've been together. Fifty-sixth millionth time, that is.

We had a tiny, sandy, muddy spot right on the Colorado River. Lupe loved running off. Freddie loved going to get some more wood for the fire (seriously, I think he said that a total of twenty times and didn't even sit down more than five minutes that night) (men, insert eye roll) (take away eye roll because that firewood kept me warm). I loved eating s'mores. Coyotes loved howling. Cows loved moo-ing. And well, everyone had just a dandy time in camp land.

fun fact: I skipped a rock TWICE. First time I've ever successfully thrown and skipped a rock before so uh, where's my trophy?

Stay tuned for the next Weiss family vacation when we go camping again to a spa. Wink.

Have you ever squatted in the woods before? Excuse my manners, have you ever gone camping before?

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when i'm wrong

So here's the thing...

one of my many flaws quirks is that I very adamantly dislike things. When Sperry's were all the rage back in 2007, I made fun of them. Loudly. When everyone was romping around town wearing rompers back in 2010, I laughed. When Freddie asked me to go bike riding with him from the years 2011-present, I wrote blogs about how much I disliked biking. 

The second half of that quirk up there is that after I loudly pronounce my distaste of things, I eventually take a complete 180 degrees turn and suddenly like and enjoy all the things I formally disliked.  This means that in 2008 I bought Sperry's and proudly wore my shoes of the boat nature. In 2011 I wore a romper. As a matter of fact, I wore one again this past Saturday night. #longhairdocare 

This all also means that I, Emily, have been the one asking Freddie to go on bike rides recently. Talk about the worst! <<<me being the worst, that is. Also we aren't talking about bike rides like biking-around-the-park-by-our-house bike rides, we're talking about long-butt-biking-to-the-complete-other-side-of-the-giant-city-of-Houston bike rides. 

I can't really put my finger on what made me change my mind about bike rides, but let's just say it's in my nature to change my mind. Speaking of nature, maybe the fact that Mother Nature finally brought fall to Houston (read 78 degrees weather) helps a bit. Ain't nobody got time to bike in 100+ degrees weather, but somehow everybody has I have time to bike in non-dying-of-heat-exhaustion weather. 

Oh! Oh! Another fun thing I realized...you can bike TO places. Mind-blowing, I know. 

Places that serve wine. 

Places that serve $1 mimosas. 

Places that have pizza.

Places that have...my heart (Since apparently I am fueled by alcohol and food) (I promise I do more than eat) (Like Pilates) (I do that almost as much as I eat). 

Anyways, things we learned from this post. 1) Biking is kind of fun now. 2) Let's pretend I never hated it. 3) Freddie loves my flaws quirks a lot. 4) Let's all go biking together sometime. 

More scenes from Recent Rides with Rick...

Dear Freddie Ricky Bobby, I'm sorry I was so annoying about bike rides. Now where should we bike this weekend?

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on birthday paddles

Birthday and Christmas are two of my most very favorite things. 

I almost started this post with the simple sentence, I love gifts. But it's not that I only love receiving gifts because I also love, love, love giving gifts/planning secrets/watching surprised gift openers' faces. 

Full disclosure: I have been known to have my Christmas list started right after my July birthday, and my birthday list started right after Christmas, but let's focus on the part where I'm not a spoiled brat. Kthanks. 

When Freddie and I started dating, he not only introduced me to the beauty of avocados/sweet potatoes/mushrooms/Brussels sprouts/cauliflower/etc., but he introduced me to the idea of a doing something gift instead of a getting something gift. I remember early on in our relationship he asked me if I would rather get a doing something gift or a getting something gift, and I had no idea what he was talking about. But but but...if we do something then what is going to be wrapped for me to open?! <<<me not being spoiled. 

Along with my newfound love of avocados/sweet potatoes/mushrooms/Brussels sprouts/cauliflower/etc., I've grown to love the whole idea of doing something gifts. We've been glass blowing, took cooking classes, gone hiking, rented bikes, made sushi, and even traveled on small trips. Weird that Freddie could be right about something this one time... (insert smirk emoji) (we throw out all prejudices in this house because not only is Freddie the one who is always right, but he also does all the cooking so...take that, sexism!).

Freddie's birthday was Sunday, so around Monday (of three months ago...) I started planning. He is all about being outdoors, and I am not. He is all about getting dirty, and I am not. He is all about anything that involves beer, and I prefer the whine/wine combo I've got going on. 

In case you didn't know, Houston is also known as the Bayou City. It has somewhere around 2500 miles of waterways throughout the city, and Freddie has often joked about going kayaking in the bayou. I say joked because I don't think he thought I would actually ever do it because of my child strength arms, my inability to love being outdoors for extended periods of time, and the fact that the bayou is home of mutant alien catfish.

Well, I showed him! Take that, birthday boy. Kind of. Bayou kayak rentals close much too early in the day, so I did one even better and took us north of the city to Lake Conroe for some birthday kayaking fun. 

Houston is such a weird place because the city feels like it never ends. Coming from Georgia where trees are in abundance, it's been a strange feeling to drive sixty plus miles in any direction and only see developed land and no trees. Well apparently the secret is to drive seventy plus miles away because once we hit Conroe, Texas, there were trees!!! And no strips of stores!!! And no Pappasito's!! And a lake where we spent two hours in the feels-like-102 outdoors kayaking away. 

Thanks to Freddie for being born because he's a pretty cool addition to the human race. A pretty attractive one, as well. I'm also thankful he was born so we could celebrate him with fun activities like kayaking (and drinking copious amounts of...water). I'm also thankful he was born so he could show me the fun in the whole art of a doing something gift. 

Happy three days after your Birthday, Rick!

Are you a do something or a get something kind of person?

on having a husband and not having a boyfriend

It has come to my attention that there is some confusion going around. Some big time confusion.  Some Emily has a boyfriend and a husband? confusion. Some Why doesn't Emily have her own TLC show yet? confusion.

Meet Freddie. 

Formerly known as Freddiefriend, Freddiefiance, and Freddiehusband. 

In legal terms, known as Frederick.

Frederick. 

Rick.

Ricky.

Get it?

When my grandmother met Freddie the first thing she said was, Oh! Frederick! A family name! It's true. We've got some Fredericks running around the hills of Tennessee, and one of those Fredericks goes by Rick. When I realized the creativity behind such a nickname I knew Freddie needed that nickname, too.

Are posts done through gifs instead of words still a thing? Can we pretend they are a thing for the next ten to fifteen seconds?

Start the timer...

Enter me calling him Rick and/or Ricky all the time. And yes, it doesn't count unless you say it like it's said in this video (srsly, watch the video. You won't regret it). 

Enter his response to his new name.

Enter him finally responding to said rickname (heeeey-oh, see what I did there? Wink).

Enter everyone in my family calling him Rick.

Enter his own father, Fred Sr., calling him Rick. 

Enter my greatest success yet. 

End timer.

And that's the story of how my husband has five million names and I don't have a boyfriend on the side. The end. 

on going steady with freddie

Ladies and gents, today is a special day. Yes, it is ten days before the Ides of March and yes, it is the week before my spring break and why yes, it most certainly is 4 months and 10 days before my birthday. While these are all thrilling events, none of these things could even compare to today being a year since I went on a first date with a dude named Freddie (friend). Oh great, here she goes again. Didn't she just post about Freddiefriend on Valentine's Day? Uh, guess what? This is my blog and I can blog about whatever my little heart desires. (Which is pretty obvious from my cowlick, furry vest, and obsession with chocolate posts). 

Where do I even start? I mean, it's not like I am some relationship expert about to publish my first book and decided to blog about my lurve advice. I am the farthest thing from a relationship expert, but here are some words of the wise from me to you. Because yes, I am a very wise non-relationship expert. 

Life happens and a lot of the time people (me) tend to focus on the negative things or get mad about stupid things. Hey, sometimes it is over legit things though, okay? The overall point---remember how great relationships are? They are kind of all around us. Friends, acquaintances, classmates, professors, moms, dads, siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, employees, bosses, etc., etc. You know the list. Life is short and it really does fly by (when you're having fun!) so why not make the best of it? Why not tell those people that you love just how much you love them instead of spending most of the time being all grr to them? Unless they deserve the grr-ness, of course. But anyways, remember my FF and my year anniversary with my FF? Yeah, so about that...

A year with Freddie has gone by in what feels like a blink of an eye. Sometimes when I am feeling all giddy and Eeeee! Freddie! I am like Geeez, I am still feeling like I did way back in last March?! Awesome. In the end it was the little things that FF did that got me. Hooked me. Made me fall head over heels for this guy. Little things like the nonchalant grab of my knee on rides in that yellow Jeep. Or a kiss on the forehead. Or a good morning text with lots of exclamation points and emoticons. Or driving to Newnan and sleeping in my brother's old room just to spend a weekend with me (and the entire Moore family). Or standing in my kitchen making pizza for me and my family. The fantastic laugh and hot dancer legs were a big bonus. Seriously, this guy makes me smile bigger than the Cheshire Cat. I knew I was hooked during one of our first dates. We sat in Candler Park eating King of Pops and watching people try to play golf. It was a perfect day and I would have been perfectly happy to just sit there by the FF forever. (P.S.--the next weekend he came with me to set up music at my sister's high school dance and then went to see Black Swan with me. No protesting. He had me. And everyone around me.) I try really hard to steal all of his free time. Sometimes to the point of where I am sure he's like Uh, remember that time I had friends and no Emily? Maybe you should stop being so awesome if you don't want me to take all of your time. 

The point of this story blog?

Freds, you are my absolute favorite. Even above complaining. (what? I don't do that.) Even above peanut butter M&Ms and gummy candy. This year has been so much fun, especially the times when you tried to teach me math or we made pasta from scratch. F-U-N fun. Thanks for taking me on a date a year ago and then continuing to take me on dates and laugh at my stupid jokes n' stuff. I love you and every single day of the 366 days I've gotten to be with you! (Heck yes, leap year!) Well shucks y'all, insert some more gushy sappy stuff because it is all true when it comes to this man.


ready for some creepy cutesies couple-y pictures?

sappy love post: take one

A lot of people are against Valentine's Day. They go on and on about how it is a made up holiday and you should be lovey-dovey-schmoozy-woozy every day of the year, yadda yadda yadda. That's all well and good (have you noticed most of those people AREN'T EVEN that great to one another the other days of the year...) , but when there is themed chocolate involved then I am very much involved in said holiday. Therefore, it is impossible for me to hate Valentine's Day. Be lovey-dovey-schmoozy-woozy to me and let's eat some chocolate. 

And that is exactly how my Valentine's Day went. 

Remember that one time I talked about how great Freddiefriend is and how everyone needed one and you should go out and find one but not mine and then your life will be super duper fantastic? Remember that one time I wrote a fabulous run-on sentence? Okay, you caught me, maybe I've mentioned the FF thing more than once. Does that mean you've all found one by now? One referring to the species of Freddiefriends, of course.

I was wooed with the best kind of woos. Candlelight, chocolate, flowers, Michael Bubs music, 10 oz. slab of burger deliciousness, more chocolate, and cards. Aside from Russell and MC, who have fed (literally) my chocolate obsession every Valentine's Day, no one has ever been the lovey-dovey-schmoozy-woozy that makes other people gag on Valentine's Day to me. Gag, I did not. Tell my Freddiefriend that I loved him and his sweet sweet dancer legs, I most certainly did. 

Be still my heart and stomach, there's a Freddiefriend around.

On the third day after Christmas...

3 days after the big day with the big guy and I bet the last thing you want to do is read a post about Christmas. Too bad. Now that you've started reading you just can't stop. 

I had a spectacular Christmas this year. Especially for someone who couldn't think of anything they (I) wanted and then they (I) ended up with a MacBook Pro. Happy first post from my new Mac! Didn't you notice that this post just seemed more superior than all the other posts? Yeah, I thought so. It is all because of this baby. 

We broke several of our Christmas traditions this year. The biggest one being that we didn't celebrate Christmas at my grandparents house--we had it at our house. Can you believe it?! Spending a Christmas at home for the first time in my whole super long life? Crazy. It was worth every crumpled up piece of wrapping paper and every bow found under the couch. 

I found something that I love almost as much as peanut butter m&m's, Christmas lights, and not making decisions: the look on a person's face as he or she opens a really exciting gift. It is pure bliss, I tell you! Makes you smile all Chistmas-y and Santa-y! Especially because I got to sit by this guy and see his reaction over and over again...

I tell you what, if you have a FreddieFriend type of friend then I am sure you've got it just as bad as I do. As I went into my annual deep state of depression on December 26 I told Freddie that it was the saddest day of the year. Christmas was over, decorations were still up after everything even though they didn't need to be, and you have to wait a whole year for Christmas again. A whole year! Before I started weeping hysterically (okay, not really but go with it) Freddie told me that it was a great day because it is the first day that we get to play with all of our toys that we got for Christmas. I started to disagree and say that I could have used my wok yesterday on Christmas (p.s.--I got an awesome wok too) and Freddie pointed out that I had no ingredients and the stores were closed on Christmas so no, I could not have played with my wok on Christmas. I needed it to be December 26. What a guy! He deserved lots of x's and o's for Christmas. 

Know what we did next? Went to the store on that fine December 26 day and bought ingredients to make yummy stir-fry for supper. 

Pictures from the ho ho ho-iest of days! (Note all of the happy schmappy faces.)

Merry 362 days until Christmas! ;)

birthdays and other days too

It's that time of the week again. Where I write a blog post (post a blog? write a post on my blog? what is the right blog lingo?) (?!?!) and link it up all over the internet and y'all pretend to read it. Let's get this started!

It is actually the time of the week where I am going crazy trying to write a paper about the relation between democracy and education and I am so tired of word vomming all over my paper that I thought word vomming all over this blog would be slightly more ideal. Are we in agreement? Yes? Like my vommed sentence?

I could write on about school-y things like homework. Or tests. I hate tests and I had one today, by the way. Or I could write about how I miss my little babies on whom I sat. so. badly. Especially on days when I have tests. Or I could write about dance-y things like how my body is always so sore. Especially on days when I have tests AND rehearsals.  OR I could write about really exciting things like birthdays and other (slightly less) exciting things like finally getting a Scoutmob app for Blackberry. 

YES, YOU HEARD ME. SCOUTMOB + BLACKBERRY. !!!! !!!! !!!! but this is the less exciting thing so let's move on...

Freddie had a birthday. Excuse me, did you hear me? FREDDIEFRIEND + BIRTHDAY WEEKEND !!! !!!!! Mr. Frederick made my birthday extra special so I was on a mission to make his extra extra special. With cherries on top and all that stuff. Annoyingly so to the point where Freddie was probably like, dude calm down. Just let me be and celebrate my birthday. And I was like, NO. I am obviously taking over your birthday weekend. You will like it! But hey, we made it through the weekend which included all levels of fun things like:

• the Braves playing terribly but us having good seats hence good views of Star Wars people. 
• eating fried fish, hush puppies galore, and ice cream cake all in one day.
• eating a giant slice of birthday cake on another day.

Okay, let me just say, Freddie ate more cake. But I definitely benefited cake wise because of his birthday so, he should have a birthday celebration more often. Probably, definitely. 

The best part of birthday weekend? It is that the celebration gets to carry on all the way until October 1, baby. Party pants on for two more weeks! 

I, unfortunately, do not have paparazzi following me around taking pictures of everything I do. Nor am I good at trying to remember to be part of the paparazzi. So while I do not have any pictures at the moment showcasing Freddiefriend's birthday preciousness I do have this picture:

Not only does this picture showcase how awesome Star Wars night was at the Braves game, but you can just imagine Freddie's cuteness birthday-ness sitting beside me as I took this picture. 

You're picturing it aren't you? I thought I heard some dawwww-ing. Pretty cute birthday boy, right?

Happy Birthday to my Freddiefriend! I can't imagine a moore fun way to celebrate (everyday) than with you!

oh july, you are mighty fine

For those of you that only stalk my blog and don't know me, I prefer the entire month of July to be dedicated to my birthday. I'm okay sharing the 4th with America and all that, but let's not push it by continuing to have babies born in my month, mmkay? (Kidding, of course. I'm not that ridiculous...) So here we are, July 17. Birthday weekend is coming to a close (birthday month is still going strong though...) and it has been a full and fabulous weekend. I figured I couldn't hold off writing a post about it any longer or I would have some angry fans at my door.

Calm down, calm down because here we go...

Warner Bros. wanted to do something really special for my birthday this year so they decided to have the final Harry Potter movie open on July 15. (sidebar: that's muh bday, folks.) How nice of them, right?! I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend the wee hours of my birthday morning---sitting in a theater full of Hogwarts students, a Dumbledore, a Moaning Myrtle, an Umbridge, a golden snitch, a Trelawney (etc., etc.) watching the final movie and eating candy. Seeing as it was the last movie and all, we decided it was necessary to dress up. So much WINNING. I don't know why we have never dressed up for such an event before, but thank goodness we did it for this one. From now on I'm dressing up for all movies I go to see. Oh hai Winnie the Pooh and Cowboys and Aliens and Smurfs, this is gonna be REAL fun. 

The celebration continued with some good food on Friday night. And by good food, I mean delicious. And by good food, I also mean good desserts. Did I mention there was good company as well? Thank you Founders for making my belly as happy as my heart on my b-day. (Awwww.) (So truesies.)

I would like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Mr. Freddiefriend. Again. (by the way, how is y'alls's search for a Freddiefriend coming along?) My family is used to my crazy, I mean super charming, attitude about the month of July. They know to spppprrreeeeaaadd the party out all month and tone out, I mean listen intently, to all my birthday talk. FF was just thrown into the madness this year and went above and beyond, as per usual, to make the day extra special. (which wasn't hard for him to do since he exudes large amounts of extra specialness every few minutes.)  If you want to keep talking about how great he is, hit me up and we can chat away. 

After a surprise from Freddiefriend on Saturday (say hello to the new and ever so talented glass blowers and champion Antico calzone eaters, Mle and Freds) and the grand finale Sunday Walton family dinner celebration at the Dids house, birthday weekend ended on the highest note possible. Which is puhretty high, y'all. Like extra squeaky high. Like so high only the super alert dogs can hear it. And mice. And special machines. 

Many many many thanks to my family, and friends, and Freddie and everyone who made it the happiest of birthday (months.) I could not ask for a better group of people in my life to put up with the crazy birthday rants and actually still choose to be around me in July. (okay maybe they don't really have a choice so much, but...)

Just wait, we still have 14 days of PARTYING! ;)

Wanna see some pictures? Good!