Maggie Moments: July Rewind

July was a full-packed month for me. It seemed I was always on the go! An interesting party I went to early on in the month was my Aunt Donna's divorce party...lol. Believe me, I know it's not a laughing matter but we sure did have fun turning lemons into lemonade :-) My Aunt Donna and Uncle Jack had been together for over 20 years before deciding to call it quits. It was shocking news to swallow. After months of separation and heartache, my aunt decided she needed to get out of their home and leave all the memories behind. So she packed up her essentials and took her dog Bailey, and together they moved to a new apartment in the city. My mom (Donna's sister) was a big help in getting her situated. When my mom saw her sister could use some new stuff she decided to throw her a little shower and invite only her closest family and friends.

Aunt Donna got a ton of great stuff to help her get on her feet. I'll give my mother the award for the most creative gift lol. She wrapped up about 30 different cleaning products and wrote a poem to her sister using each product name in the passage. Example: "One day in the future you'll meet a big, brawny man who will fill your life with joy" - then gave her a package of Brawny paper towels and Joy dish soap. We all laughed at some of the stuff she came up with, it really was a cute idea! She ended it with this outdoor throw rug - incase Jack should ever come knocking at her new door...lol!

After gifts my mom presented her with a cake reading "I Will Survive" on the top...fitting as she is also a recent cancer survivor.

We love you Aunt Donna! Continue to stay strong in this difficult situation!

One bit of exciting news I have this month...I got the first loan I ever took out paid off! Woo-Hoo! Gosh, I took out this loan in 2006. I've slowly but surely been chipping away at it and now it's all gone! I took it out so I could compete in the Miss Pennsylvania Pageant...STUPID! With it I bought a $1,000 Sherry Hill gown...A $500 bathing suit and a $750 suit with matching $150 shoes...Bad, bad investment being that I wore everything a total of 2 times during pageant weekend and didn't win the darn thing! You live and learn. I will never do something that stupid again. When I told my mom I had the debt paid off she invited me to the house to try on all these items that are now "officially" mine - HA! I wouldn't even be able to get them zippered any more! Like I said, you live and learn.

A fun thing I got to do this month was go see "The Producers" while it was in town. If you're from Pittsburgh you may have seen all the billboards around town announcing it's arrival in town and boasting a featured role by Joey Fatone of N'SYNC. If you have the chance and extra cash, go see it! It was hysterical! I mean really, I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time!!! I went with Patrick, my sister Katie and brother-in-law Ted. We got the fabulous orchestra pit seats from my Godmother, Lois. It was such a nice night on the town...very memorable :-)

On July 10th, Patrick made me super-proud when he became a licensed pilot! Patrick spent a good portion of the off-season working on this accomplishment. To do so he had to fly for 40 hours. Most of the hours were with an instructor but a portion of them had to be solo flights. He got a good chunk done in Texas where the weather is more cooperative, but ultimately finished his course in Pittsburgh. Both of his parents were in the Air Force and his grandfather was a pilot so aviation has always been a part of his life. Being a licensed pilot has been a dream of his for quite some time and I'm so happy to see him achieve it. I just pray the good Lord is always with him when he takes to the air.

It seems everyone is either getting married or having babies these days so naturally I have a lot of showers to attend. This month I had 4 total...2 bridal and 2 baby. I already blogged about my best friend Kate's bridal shower in "Weekend of Weddings" the other bridal shower I had was on the same day and in New York. This was for Patrick's cousin Kaity. I didn't make the trek up there for her shower but delivered her gift when we spent time in New York June. She had a fun "Go Green" theme. Kaity asked that each person be creative with their wrapping and keep it as "green" as possible. Patrick came up with this idea...

Both of the baby showers I was invited to were for little baby boys :-)

The first was for my friend Sara. Sara has already had her little man, Josiah Ziggy, on July 27th :-) Her shower was at Jimmy Wan's (formerly Taipei) in Cranberry. It was a beautiful day and the shower took place in the outdoor seating area. While feasting on fabulous Chinese cuisine we played lots of fun baby games. I came so close to winning the measure the tummy game...

Sara had a cutest shower favors...check out these adorable cookies from Mimi's Bake Shoppe in Cranberry. There were a few different designs on the onesies...too cute! Plus, they tasted as good as they looked!

And the cake matched the cookies! It too tasted as good as it looked! It had an almond batter topped with a buttercream frosting...delicious!

Sara got all sort's of great stuff. I got her the baby bath tub with all the fixings for a baby bath like shampoo and baby wash. I loved this picture of her modeling one of the outfits she got :-)

Congratulations and best of luck in parenthood Sara and Ziggy!

The second shower was for my sister Katie. In the past 5 years Katie has had three daughters so naturally she has collected a lot of pink along the way. Baby number 4 threw a wrench in the hand-me-downs mix so Katie's friends found it fitting to throw her a shower so she could collect some blue stuff.

The shower was at her friend Ellen's house. It was just a small get together with her closest friends but gosh did she get some great stuff! Below are some pictures of Baby Teddy's new wardrobe:-)

I got little Tedward (my nickname for him lol) this "Little Pilot" outfit from Janie & Jack...He better keep it clean because his future boy cousin(s) will want to be wearing this!!

lol - so not the hair bows and fancy pants she's used to!!

"Bachelor" pacifier lol

Loved this little outfit!

Her cake was great as well...It was an almond cake with a blue fondant icing...YUMMO!

Last bit of July info...I got a temporary roommate for the end of the month and most of next month. My friend Mary will be staying with me while her husband Tuff is away at football camp with Patrick. Our guys reported to camp in Latrobe, PA on the 30th. I have to say I'm quite excited to have her here! I think it will help the month away from my man pass by quicker...at least I'm hoping it will! I especially think it will be good for me to have the company so I'm not so bored. Patrick left to train with his agent in Michigan for 10 days this month and I thought I was going to go bananas from boredom...you can only do so much cleaning, reading and scrapbooking consecutively! Good news, I got a lot of each of those tasks done! LOL! But in all honesty, I know this is a very demanding time for Patrick as his job in on the line - so I have to be on my best behavior and be supportive of anything that's thrown my way...this is the toughest time to be the girlfriend or spouse of a football player for sure!

I have a few things planned for Mary's visit aside from a few day trips to visit the guys. It should be fun times! We capped off July with our first visit to Latrobe...check out this series of photos Mary captured (my camera is too slow lol) This was a drill where the Linebackers and Tight Ends squared off and Patrick won...Yeah! Check it out!