Smartification

It's smartification season. It's May, and the April showers have brought May flowers, babies and graduations. I had the pleasure of attending one cousin's graduation last week from Penn. Most of Schwartz-Sweet-Petri-Egger family (Schweetezieneggers?) headed to Philly to be there to watch Alex get an award and get her wizard of city planning diploma. In between, we did a lot of sitting, waiting, eating mini sandwiches, clapping, reading in seats, biting nails (I know, sad, I relapsed) and trying not to fall asleep. But for the 30 seconds that Alex was being honored, we were really excited and proud. Here we are looking so proud:

Being on the Penn campus around so many students made me nostalgic-like-whoa for the years of sauntering through the sun-drenched quad, biking through campus, and living within a half mile radius of all my friends. It made me smile, it made me want to cry, and most of all it made me wish Kaitlin would hurry up and get that time machine running already so we could go back and relive the glory days. Hurry up girl, Senior year is waiting!

In honor of Alex's Master of City Planning degree, I decided to test my Master of Sewing skills and make her a bag to show of her style as the queen of urban transportation. Here's the bag I sewed myself:

Bikes on the outside, subways on the inside. And yes, that is a customized "Handmade by Natalie Schwartz" tag (thanks Allison!).

I also made some matching pencil cases:

Here is Alex with her gifts: I think she liked them? Yay.

This week much of the same crowd is headed out to Colorado to watch Kroger graduate from college! Sadly I'm sitting this one out in NYC, hoping to make someone proud and get a job... It's a proud time for families everywhere, and I am also very proud of my San Francisco Stanfordites turned MBAs Dary, Kat and Chase who are graduating this week and next!

Baby G's Shower/Homecoming

So, yes, it's been a while. But 2 months, 6 cross-country trips, 3 weddings, hundreds of miles run and god knows how many cookies baked, later, I'm baaaaaack. So let's just get on with it and start with the present, cool? Alright, good. Hopefully I'll have time to post some of the highlights from the hiatus, but I can't be bothered at the moment.

So I just returned from my latest cross-country trip: Stanford 5 year reunion. My my my, how time flies. Truth is, I've gone to homecoming every year since I graduated (see last years' post), so it wasn't all that different to be back on the Farm. The big difference this year over the others, was that, in addition to my 20+ friends who are in the die-hard homecoming-every-year-til-I-die group, there were also hundreds of our classmates on campus, many of whom I had not laid eyes on since '05. This made for a couple of fun conversations, and a healthy dose of awkward stop-and-chats or walk-by waves. The class seems to have matured partially-- many blinging fingers, some new facial hair and love handles, and a couple of pregnant bellies...One of which was our dearest Dyani Jones Gaudillière!

Dyani, who was married away in a fairy tale wedding back in April, is officially 6 months pregnant with a boy...and for the record this was a planned honeymoon baby :). As soon as we heard the news, the team nicknamed him Baby G (for Gaudilliere) or Napoleon (he is french after all). In any case, before hitting the tailgates, we threw a little Baby Shower in the Pi Phi Lounge for the hottest mama. Though it was our first team shower, we blew it out of the water (if I do say so myself).

Everyone brought their favorite children's book to start a collection for Baby G, and some even brought it in English AND French, a lovely touch for what promises to be a bi-lingual baby. Ashlee crafted up some amazing banners ("Bonjour Bebe G") and baby bottles with custom labels which doubled as our champagne flutes.

Dyani wearing Ashlee's "This is what a MILF looks like" party hat...

We decorated onesies, ate mini cupcakes, and showered the mama in gifts including a carseat (you cant leave home without it) and of course, I made the ultimate Stanny baby cake.

This baby has some crazy aunties :)

Stanford Family Camp Roundup

Two weekends ago we held the first (of what is requested to be an annual or quarterly) Stanford Family Camp weekend at Post Pond. The idea's been in the works for a while and sadly some of our campers had to back out due to jobs (boring), but the 7 of us had a hell of a weekend/GB.

It was a beautiful day on Saturday and the boys (including Ballew the bday boy) hit the Dartmouth Golf Course early and we met them post for a lovely lunch in Hanover.
The afternoon was filled with activities: swimming, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, tennis, ping pong, trips to the ice cream shop, and many hours of Celebrity and Loaded Questions. We shopped uber-local and feasted on New Hampshire's finest summer veggies and steak.
And finished off our fabulous summer feast in front of the campfire making s'mores.
All campers were well behaved and quite happy-- we are planning fall foilage and ice fishing weekends at Post Pond to come! Many more photos here.

Martha Approved, Stanny Family Agrees!

Friday night, Family Dinner with the Stanny gang resumed after a long hiatus. Ever since the Stanny Fam heard Martha say "This one's my favorite!" to our Lamb Tacos, they've been dying to try them. So Friday night Erin and I invaded Berto's kitchen and roasted up 3 racks of lamb tacos, while sipping on Lara's fabulous mango margs, and eating at least 3 avocados worth of Ballew's guac and salsa.
It was couples night at Family Dinner-- we cooked for Kait and Shine, Berto and Lara, Adam and "The visitor" (Sarah), Taco and Calzo, Ballew and Becca:
The tacos were a unanimous winner...though since everyone was at least 2 margs in by the time they tasted the winning dish, standards may have been slightly lower than Martha's. Whatever, we'll take it.

JEANious Birthday!

Since we'll be in on National TV (PS: Set your TiVo for Friday's Martha Stewart Show) and flying to Scottsdale on Erin's actual birthday this Friday, we celebrated this weekend. The theme was Canadian Tuxedo-- though, in fact, this Jardy was in the USA....

The night began at my/Erin's place where we got the jardy started and getting decked out. I made my headband with jean scraps, and a "Jardy Girl" crown which Erin deemed too much (her hair looked pretty sweet) to wear. Whateva, her joots surely made up for it. Kait looked straight out of an 80's sitcom in my mom's vintage Wrangler jacket and I borrowed a jean dress and pulled out the full length "jench" coat from Jess's birthday in SF:At Bills Bar and Burger, we got to applaud all attendees costumes over pitchers of beer. From cutoffs to Weans (white jeans), to vests, to Linsday's jean jumper, we were pretty impressed by the costuming. As usual, Alberto's arrival was highly awaited, and he did not disappoint in jean capris and a jean blazer with shoulder pads:
Best story was Lara recounting Berto getting dressed-- "so he comes out of the room in the blazer and capris and is like 'should I wear the white shoes or the brown? I mean, I don't want to look ridiculous!'"

We then headed to 675 bar, where we were joined by many more jean-clad friends. Full pictures from the night are here. The night ended, as many of Erin's birthday nights do, at Japas.
Jardy on.

Weekend Recap

I have been overcome by guilt for my delayed and infrequent posting. So here goes the weekend. Fri night got to see Molly and Seton and had a chili night at Pat's. Molly and I did the drinking, Pat and Seton cooked up the hottest chili north of the Mason Dixon (or however that saying goes). It ended in a drunken game of "5s" at a lower east side dive with a dozen theta delts that I may or may not have known in my past life.

Saturday was the much anticipated "trip to the country" to visit Erica. Ever since Yas, Erica and I have been doing dinners in the city, we have talked about venturing off the island (gasp)..to Connecticut to see Erica's digs. So after at least 2 dozen planning emails, we settled on a date when the city girls could visit our future MILF friends (Eric and Meghan) in the burbs. Lizzy decided to surprise us last minute and drove from Boston so it was quite the gathering.
The day was a dream, and brought me straight back to high school days. Not only because Fairfield is the Wellseley of the Tri State area, but also because we spent most of the day crusing around town in an SUV, stopping at the candy store to catch a sugar high, and snacking/gossiping while seated on the floor in a well decorated living room (this time it was not our parents'). I also brought a rolling duffle full of craft supplies as the girls requested a creative activity....
I came back to the city after our glorious day in the suburbs and had a miserable 24 hours. I got sick, decided to run the sunday morning half marathon anyway, focusing 100% of the time not barfing, finished it but had to walk the last 2 miles, and spent the rest of Sunday in bed.

I did manage to drag myself over to Adam's for family dinner, though I unfortunately was not able to indulge in the fabulous roast chicken, salad and "these are quite possibly the best" potatoes. But it was still lovely to spend the night in sweats, cuddling with the family.

Stanny Love

On the plane on the way back from Homecoming 2k9. Every year I come back (and yes, I've been every year since graduation) it seems to be more unbelievable that I really did spend 4 years living in this paradise they call Stanford University.

Was it possible that I lived within a mile with all these fabulous friends, surrounded by palm trees in land whose forecast seems always to be 73 and sunny? And what were we doing here? Spending our days biking to a class or two, lounging on a lawn reading, running through the rolling foothills with views of our red roofed community below, stopping by the on campus mall, swimming at the pool, always with at least two friends in tow...Did I really live in this land of continual sunshine and no open container rules?

Going back to campus this weekend-- the tailgates, and hundreds of friends returning to adorn themselves in red and reminisce-- was heavenly. This year perhaps more so than ever, as we decided it was no longer appropriate to sleep on the floor of Pi Phi since even the little girls that were freshman when we graduated have too grown up and left the house. So we splurged and stayed at the new Rosewood Hotel, a little paradise itself, owned by the University and a few short miles from it.

Saturday was jam packed, starting with storming the sorority for brunch and followed by hitting up the bookstore to prove our loyalty by purchasing every new piece of Stanford gear available, including this years' hit-- the Stanny bowtie. (pics to come)

Decked out, we headed to tailgate and reunion party hop, with the last stop at the Treehouse, our on-campus staple for late night nacos, and ending in spells of laughter and eating candy in the hotel room, before passing out (before 10pm) three to a bed.
Take. Me. Back.