happy elephant

Way back here, I mentioned my love for elephants. I think it started when I was just a little kid, during my bowl cut days. True child of the late 80s, early 90s right here. Anyway, I'd be at my grandparents' house playing with these gorgeous solid wood elephant figures. About six in total, they ranged from a foot tall all the way down to a little baby about four inches high (my favorite). 

Then there was that one time I rode an elephant while in elementary school. I don't remember the occasion, but I do remember this elephant's ears were wet and would slap against my legs as he walked, but it was OK. I was on an elephant! 

So, that was a really long way of saying that when I saw this video shared on Facebook, I absolutely had to click. And watch. And watch five more times. I mean, is there anything cuter? I don't think so, especially at the 1:20 mark.



In honor of this happy little guy or gal, I rounded up some of my favorite elephant items as of late. Definitely thinking the loafers are making it to my closet soon.

ettie elephant scarf // terracotta new york

maisy loafers with gold elephant design // asos

elephant pillow // kimoley for one kings lane

good luck elephant necklace // dogeared

small fry valentine

Happy almost heart day.
These kiddos are sure to get you in the spirit, even if you are in the anti camp for this holiday. You can count me on the pro side, for the video and for Valentine's Day.

PS: If I'm going to have a ginger child someday, I want her to be just like the hilarious fur-coat-loving, leopard-wearing girlfriend in the video. I die. 

do you like to color?

Did you ever go to Disney World as a kid and tour the offices where grown-ups get to color all day? (Did anyone else think of Charlotte Yorke just now?) Pretty sure they were filling in stills for Pocahontas when I was there, which just made me feel really old. I remember touring those offices and thinking this is totally what I'm going to do when I grow up. Best. Job. Ever!!!! 

I always loved art coloring when I was young, and when I got old enough my parents would drive me to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art (which is now conveniently walking distance from my place) so I could sit around and draw/paint for hours. Since then, I've made a point to visit some amazing art museums like MoMA and Hess Collection (which was a little out-there for my taste), but haven't done much in the way of art myself.

So when my friends found a Groupon to the Hook Gallery for a BYOB painting class, I was obviously all in. Have you been to one of these "cocktail and canvas" events that have popped up around the country? If you haven't yet, I highly recommend. They are a blast. If you're nervous because you have zero art ability, you will be surprised at how artistic you are when you get a little wine and a lot of moral support. Like our instructor said, "you'll go through a period of depression when you think the painting will never turn out right, but it will all come together in the last 10 minutes." And it did!

There are few things more daunting than a blank canvas. Except being sober staring at a blank canvas.

Supplies.

Face painting. This is when the ADD and wine started kicking in...

the making of a masterpiece. :)

The girls with our works of art. Everyone's was so good, and unique to their style!

My hilarious friend Kristen (who's birthday is today: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!) became buds with our instructor and correctly guessed his original artwork from all the pieces on the gallery wall. The instructor was so impressed that he gave the piece (on the left) to her! 

The final product: Kansas City skyline.

pearl

I had a real post planned for today, but I have to get something off my chest....

I just saw this video for the first time Wednesday night. 

Where was I each of the 100 times everyone watched this video during college? I have no clue, but if I were to guess, here's where I'd start.

Tailgating.

Dancing on tables.

Playing Edward 40 hands.

Making it rain. 

Throwing theme parties.

Going on trips with my pledge class.

Napping.

Studying. No pictures of that. But Mom and Dad, I swear I did it.

its cut or be cut

Project Runway starts tonight! This is my reality show weakness. That's right, no Bachelorette / Real Housewives of any city / [insert show with women fighting each other or being slooty here] DVRing going on in my place.

After studying the casting sessions on mylifetime.com last night, my roommate and I curled up with our laptops, made our lists, and signed in to gchat to participate in the second annual Project Runway fantasy draft. In case your friends haven't done this in the past (and I highly recommend doing so), this is similar to an NFL football fantasy draft, except way less complicated and you're judging people on their ability to make it work instead of touchdowns and sacks.

It looks a little something like this:

yes, under gunnar it says "little house on the prairie meets jackie o". it was a long day.

I can't wait to see what weird challenges, garments and personalities come out of this year!

Will you be tuning in? If so, please root for Sonjia, Raul, and Andrea for me!

i crimp my hair back and forth

It's Friday! And I'm feeling very energized and giddy for the weekend.... maybe a teeny bit silly even. Therefore I thought I'd enlighten you with a pretty silly post about one of my favorite decades that has made quite the comeback this year.

It's basically the 80s all over again fashion-wise with the presence of leggings, neon, crop tops (blah!) and Ray Bans. For the most part, I love it. But I have one tiny problem - apparently 2012 decided that crimped hair didn't need to make a second appearance. What?!

So here's my plea to the fashion people out there, via pictures. Please let it be acceptable to break out my hot pink crimper more than for the occasional theme party.

Looks good, right? Obviously everyone has more fun when their hair is crimped. Case closed. 

cirque de sol Mon: round 3

**You've just entered a judge free zone**

This weekend is the Crawl for Cancer, or as Blue Eyes calls it, Cirque de Sol Mon.... because as you can tell from last year's pictures, it's a bit of a circus. Our theme last year is a personal favorite: 80s fitness. Please note my ridiculous two-toned leggings and crimped hair. This year our team dwindled from a healthy 11 people to 5, however we are determined to be small but MIGHTY in our neon outfits.

Happy weekend everyone, TGIF!

weekend recap

I can't believe it happened, but baby bro graduated college this weekend! He made it through two 20 hour semesters his Senior year while bartending and remaining involved with his fraternity. This was clearly cause for celebration in the Ahrens household, so my parents and I left for Manhattan early Saturday morning to watch his commencement. I'm so proud of him, and excited that he's moving back to Kansas City to start his career.

the relieved grad

The early morning road trip meant I needed to lay low Friday night, which I didn't mind doing at all since it was Big Trash Day in Prairie Village. If you don't have one of these (I just learned about them two years ago), it's a day when the city makes a deal with the trash companies to pick up any large items they normally wouldn't accept. Mattresses, furniture, carpet rolls, you name it. The night before the garbage trucks come by, scavengers drive through the streets to see if there are any pieces that can be salvaged. One man's trash is another man's treasure, right? We sat 10 feet from the street in Blue Eyes' drive way with a cooler between us and, naturally, created a BTD drinking game. One drink for Missouri license plates, two for a truck with Big Trash in it, three drinks for a towed trailer with Big Trash in it, and an additional drink if the vehicle stopped in front of a neighbor's house to search through their loot. I was hoping to see Trish Moore, the genius behind Good Ju Ju rummaging through the neighbor's stuff, but no such luck.

After the excitement of graduation day, Sunday was spent outside, sipping red wine with my wonderful mom while my dad grilled rib eye steaks. All in all, a wonderful May weekend!

make it work

Chirp... chirp.... [crickets, not birds].... Yes I've been quiet lately. I've been in beautiful Boston for a business trip, and the client had very strong firewall limitations where I wasn't allowed to access Blogger, but was able to get to Pinterest. Looks like they need to update their blocked sites as Pinterest is the biggest time suck of most 20-30 something women's lives since online shopping was invented by geniuses.

As previously mentioned, I saw Tim Gunn IRL a few weekends ago and haven't been able to share the experience until now! He was just as pleasant and upbeat (and precious) in person as he is on Project Runway. And apparently he's on some show called The Revolution on ABC, but I had never heard of that before. Which was sort of his point of bringing it up, I guess no one watches it. Wow I'm rambling today, I've missed the old bloggie. 

I went to see the Silver Fox with my friend Casey. We sent many a text that morning trying to figure out what to wear, downed two mimosas at my apartment and then walked the (dangerously) short distance to the kate spade store on the Plaza to see the main attraction! PS Sorry for the sometimes-fuzzy shots, we were standing towards the back....

mimosas to ward off the pre-celeb sighting jitters

Tim and his cute co-host, wearing Kate Spade striped celina dress

left: kerrigan striped dress right: tropical orchid elliana dress

Prints and bright colors walking down the runway first.

Tim said white is hot for spring yet again this season. I love all three of these outfits!

Lucky Brand sabrina denim jacket

The ubiquitous denim jacket. 

abstract arielle tee, cropped micah jacket, stargazer pants

Perfect work outfit, don't you think?

linen viola dress

Loving all the purple!

topliner trench

The trench is to die. This was Tim's way of showing how easily it is to dress it up or down.

At the end of the show, Tim hosted a Q&A session where I learned he absolutely thought Mondo should have beat Gretchen in that season of Project Runway. Totally with you, Tim!

better late than pregnant

Get your heads out of the gutter.... I'm talking about trivia here. BLTP was the name of our team last night at Westport Flea Market and I must confess, we were the WORST team in the bar. Maybe it's because all 5 members of the team grew up within 10 miles of each other (that would be almost zero diversification), maybe it's because this was our first trivia experience together, or maybe it's because we don't have photographic memories and perfect instant recall. Whatever the reason, last night we came in behind a team called "Napkin". Really? Pure disappointment on my face. I guess we should have expected it after we had to Google Funny Trivia Team Names because we were struggling so much in the creative department early on. I mean, I did throw out Team Floozy, however Blue Eyes and the other male on the team were having none of that.

But seriously, do you know what state this license plate is for? No cheating allowed!

the beginning of the end for team BLTP....

So my $5 went to some team called "And Dick Clark presents..." (too soon? I thought so). Other than being big time losers, I had a ton of fun, which is all that really matters, right? Even so, I am planning on redemption next week. Maybe we can recruit some all stars to join us.... any takers in the KC area? Only kidding.... kind of.

TGIF times a million!!

trip highlights: napa wino weekend

Happy hump day! As promised, here is the recap of my wonderful weekend getaway to Napa with my girlfriends!! If you are not at all interested in reviews of places to eat, wineries to visit or the other lovely amenities Napa has to offer, skip down to the pics..... But fair warning, you should be interested. Napa is amazing!

First item up for discussion: The Vineyards

We trekked to nine wineries over our three-day stay. My favorites were the ones tucked away in the mountains where the GPS lady would say our destination was only 6 miles away, but it took 25 minutes to get there due to the windy roads hugging the cliffs. Of course there wasn't a single vineyard that was less than enjoyable, but my two favorites were Barnett Vineyards and Outpost Wines. These had the best views, excellent ambiance and my favorite Pinot Noir and Grenache, respectively.

The other *wonderful* wineries we visited were Cade, Alpha Omega, Cliff Lede, Hess, Robert Mondavi, Grgich Hills and Darioush. I could seriously write an entire post about each of these experiences they were so great.... well except Cliff Lede, where I was more than a bit hazy after 3 wineries and a visit to Pancha's (make sure you have cash and have decent knowledge of Dire Straits for this little gem!). So I guess I need to go back to give Cliff Lede a real chance next time.

Here's the view from Barrnett Vineyards:

Can you believe this gorgeousness???

Second item: f00d!

Like I said in my previous post, we had all of our tasting fees waived, and did I mention we had all of our accommodations taken care of, too? Seriously, my friend is a big shit in the wine industry. So we decided to spend all our funds saved up for the trip on food!

My no-contest favorite meal was at Redd, where I enjoyed scallops, fried bone marrow (that was a first) and the most amazing steamed pork buns I could have ever imagined. For real. We all enjoyed the pork buns more than our expensive entrees.

Other restaurants on the must-visit list were Mustards Grill and Bistro Jeanty. Both fabulous for foodies and non-foodies alike. I unfortunately fall in the non-foodie category since I'm on the picky side, but I'm trying to get better!!

OK, third item: Pictures!! Enjoy :)

at Outpost

K-S-U!

We all met thanks to Chi Omega, whose mascot is the owl. Hootie hoo!

Barrel room at Mondavi

via my Instagram (monicarosekc)

Darioush

We had so much fun!!!