Knoxville, Wedding, and Mark Wahlberg

Hello all.

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written… I got some complaints when I was back in Knoxville this past weekend, so here I am.

Honestly, I don’t even know where to start. So much has happened since February 4^th (the last time I wrote), but I’ll try to cover it.

          I finished my first year of grad school. I’m crazy excited about being halfway through. This past semester involved a lot of questioning and prayer about what I’m doing and what my plans are, but I’m still so thankful to be here and to have the rare opportunity to study something I love with an ocean view.  

       Tommy and I saw Mark Wahlberg driving a minivan. I’m not even sure what to say other than the fact that we couldn’t stop talking about it for the entire day. To give you an idea of how excited we were, we actually saw him while we were driving to spend a day at Universal Studios. The only thing we couldn’t get over being excited about the entire day was seeing Marky Mark in a minivan. And there was a Jurassic Park AND a Jaws ride.

      Last weekend I went home to see one of my best friends, Alesa, get married and it was fabulous. Nothing like going home after a long time of not seeing the people you grew up with. Alesa was beautiful, and I was clueless about wedding etiquette, as per usual. Case in point: I spent the night at Alesa’s house the night before the wedding, and they had cupcakes with fake plastic engagement rings on them. I swiped some icing off of one of them before the ceremony (#wedding etiquette. I’m basically Judith Martin) and put the ring on as a joke. Well, joke’s on me because I completely forgot to take it off.  So for all of you who were confused by the fake-looking engagement ring on my finger, there’s the explanation. Tommy thought it was hilarious. I did not.

Tommy, me, Molly, Josh

Wedding Party 

      Tommy and I had the worst experience flying to and from Knoxville. This involved a surprise night spent in Atlanta during which we stayed in the sketchiest hotel I’ve ever seen. Tommy's room apparently had air conditioning, which was something they seemed to forget to install in my room.  (And this isn’t coming from someone who grew up staying at Fairmonts. If you’ve met my dad, you know how cheap he is. If Embassy Suits didn’t have those free cookies when you walk in, who knows what kind of hotels my dad would have taken us to growing up. Richard: the only thing he loves more than saving money is good food).

     Addison has just gotten cuter. I’m realizing quickly that I’m probably not going to be a good influence because whenever one of her (extremely rare – she’s crazy well-behaved) tantrums happens, I think it’s hilarious and just watch it happen. She’s also hit the stage where she says no to everything except food and fun, which is a stage I’m currently still in, so it’s nice to have some common ground.

Calhouns. Good news: she's too chunky to slip through the railing

#poolday

     Sarah Wright and Katy Flinn came to visit me in March and it was THE BEST. Tommy taught Katy how to surf and she picked it up like a pro. I sat out in the water and for a while, then lost motivation. Sarah Wright didn’t even make it out past knee deep water because every 2-foot-high wave flattened her. Truly one of the most hilarious experiences of my adult life. But it was amazing to have people from Samford back in my life again. Currently working on convincing both of them (and every other friend of mine) to move out here permanently. #futile

Sunset in Santa Monica

     Tommy and I went dunebuggying during my spring break and I discovered his daredevil tendencies are much stronger than my own. The positive (or negative – not sure which one) is that we got to ride in the dune buggy Khloe Kardashian (Kourtney? I get them confused) did the week before.

     My uncle Greg took us out tubing on the lake during which my two cousins, Hannah and Sarah, tried to throw Tommy off of the tube. Considering they combined weigh less than him, this didn’t work. I’m pretty sure he ended up throwing (yes literally throwing) Hannah off of the tube at one point.

We're pros

      Baby boy Harb is doing well, as is Amanda. I can’t wait to meet him and buy him clothes. (This implies that I haven’t bought him clothes already, which I have).



Differences between Malibu and the South

1. Yesterday was the first time anyone has recognized Chi Omega on my sorority t-shirts that I still wear because I’ve totally moved on… Truly after 9 months of living here, you would think that I would run in to someone that has Greek Life knowledge, but alas the South wins this one.
2. Girls don’t wear big t-shirts with athletic shorts here. Like, at all. Leggings and tight tops are more of the casual wear, so I’m working on bringing the trend to the West Coast, much to the disdain of those who interact with me. 
3. Teslas are the Camry of Malibu. They’re everywhere.
4. Women wear denim underwear. I’m being sarcastic…. But their shorts are basically thongs.
5. Tommy and I spent the day at the beach yesterday and it turns out that in California, women’s hats are considered to be men’s hats as well. True story.

#androgynous

     So much love to all of you! Hopefully this summer will bring some good stories. And hopefully those stories involve me getting a job.

        Malibu Harbie

Californian in the South

Everyone’s been getting sassy about me not blogging recently, so I apologize.

To all three of you, I’m sorry.

Anyway, I guess I should do a little catch up:

          Tommy came to the South over Christmas break and it was fabulous. This boy is way more redneck than I could ever dream of being, so he fit in just fine. He flew into Nashville, so we decided to make a night of it and walk around for a little while. While we were wandering, we had the wonderful (read: disgusting) opportunity to watch a spicy chicken-eating contest. Tommy loved it. We got to eat dinner with Jane Alice (one of my best friends from school - Hootie hoo) and Kelsey (my senior year roommate/soulmate).

He loved Nashville

            That night, we drove back to Knoxville and crashed at my cousin’s lake house. We woke up bright and early the next morning to go hunting (yes, hunting) in Allardt, Tennessee. AKA a city that my dad (who has lived in Tennessee for 40+ years) had never heard of. Tommy was alarmingly good at killing birds. I was alarmingly good at losing my cell phone in a 500-acre field. Enough said.

"I've killed things"

            Pigeon Forge/Dollywood happened. It was so cold that some of the rides weren’t open for the first half, so we just walked around and people watched, which is basically a sport there. 

We go-karted. He drove. I died a little. This is me trying to smile...

Can't go to Dollywood without taking the obligatory nest picture...

            Then came the road trip to Texas. I REPEAT: precious Tommy had to road trip with my family from Knoxville, TN to San Antonio, TX. Bless. On the way, we stopped in New Orleans for a night and got beignets at Café Du Monde, authentic Cajun food, and walked Bourbon Street. Talk about culture shock. We also toured a plantation. Then, as we left New Orleans the next morning, we saw an airboat tour off the interstate and decided to try it out. The tour guide had one of the strongest Cajun accents I’ve ever heard.

Airboat 

            We made it to Texas and went to Seaworld (I know I know, I watched Blackfish afterward… please don’t kill me). I’m pretty sure the highlight for Tommy was the Texas barbeque we constantly ate and touring the Toyota plant where his Tundra was made (redneck). 

Californians think "friendly" and "driving" are antonyms. 

            On our flight back from Texas, we sat next to Camilla Alves (Matthew McConaughey's wife) on the plane. I fangirled hard and snuck a picture. Tommy had a brief "oh cool" moment and went back to watching The Alamo on my laptop.

99% sure she was talking to Matt. I WAS SO CALM.

            So, back to Malibu. Dad called me a couple weeks ago on a Thursday and told me he had a surprise meeting in Los Angeles on that Saturday. Best surprise ever. He flew in Friday night and I got to spend Saturday hanging out with him. That Friday, Tommy and I were at an Eric Church concert (redneck), which was super fun.

            Second semester has been great. I’m taking Quantitative Methods and Communication Ethics, and both have been really great so far. I find pretty much everything we’re studying really interesting, so that’s a good sign.

            Tommy and I just took a little day trip up to Carpentaria, which is a precious little beach town. We just hung out on the beach then ate the sketchiest sushi you’ve ever seen,  but we didn’t get sick/die so that’s good. Moral of the story: if you have a choice between a pizza place and a sushi place, choose the pizza place.

Beach

I got a fish.

Reginald Fishgerald

That’s about it for what’s been happening. The whole fam is coming to visit in about a week, so I’m sure there’ll be some stories from that. Prepare yourself.

So much love to all of you!!

Conan, Ellen, and Kelly

This one is going to be looong people. Gird your loins.

Okay so most of you know Kelly came into town this past weekend and, as usual, we had a blast. But first a few random fun things to share:

I went to a Blake Shelton/Band Perry concert a couple weeks ago and man, did it make me miss the South. It's fun to watch all these Californians trying to look country - they mainly just looked hipster. We got to go to the Band Perry meet-and-greet since my dad knows them, and it was so good just to chat with some people from East Tennessee. We talked about the UT football game I didn't watch for a little while and how sad it was that we lost.

We're BFFs now.

I met/chatted with Aaron Eckhart (two-face in Batman Begins) while eating froyo with (you guessed it) Mary Nell and Martha. Best day ever. I acted so casual while we were talking then completely freaked out when he left.

I was missing fall down south, so Tommy took me to a pumpkin patch with a corn maze. We made it through the corn maze in 7 minutes flat. I guess that's what happens when you navigate one with someone who's good at directions because usually it takes me hours and I end up panicking about never escaping so much I just cheat and go through the cornstalks. We also explored Santa Barbara (where he went to college) and saw Oprah and Jack Johnson's house. So much fun y'all.

There was a pig.

#basic

Ok, so on to Kelly's visit.

No, I didn't get my nose pierced. Yes, she made me get my hair cut.

As most of you probably know from my Facebook, we got to be in the studio audience for both Ellen and Conan. I thought I might give a brief description of how this works, since I had no idea before last weekend.

     For Ellen, we drove down to the Warner Brothers lot and parked in a parking garage. In the parking garage, there is a large area with benches and a ticket booth with Ellen employees walking around helping everyone check in. After you give them your name and ID, you basically sit and wait for 45 minutes to an hour in the garage (which is fine because the weather was nice). When they're ready to take you into Ellen's studio, they guide you in groups across the street to her building and you go through metal detectors and they check your purse. Then you sit in a long hallway lined with pictures of Ellen and famous guests she's had on the show. After that, we were led to a lounge area where you could also purchase Ellen souvenirs - naturally I got a shirt and Kelly got socks...Yes. Socks.
     Once we were in the actual studio audience, we were entertained by some guy who is supposed to get the crowd pumped up for the show. There was a lot of dancing involved - aka Kelly at her prime, and me at my worst. It was such a blast though, guys. Such a blast.

We're a big deal. (No we're not)

They had Ellen water - currently on display on my bookshelves.

     Our Conan experience was pretty different. Our friend Amy (who got us all our tickets and is just all around fabulous) got us green room access. For those of you who don't know what that means, the green room is where the guests and hosts hang out before the show. We saw Andy Richter in boxers and an undershirt getting coffee. Casual. Anyway, the green room was amazing. They had Brookstone massage chairs that Tommy and I basically lived in the whole time we were in there. Unlike Ellen, we were taken to our seats through backstage, so we walked where Conan walks out every day. On to the good part:
     As we're walking up to our seats (which have been roped off for us), we realize the entire studio audience has already been seated. As we're walking up the stairs, I'm feeling like a big shot when suddenly I miss the step in front of me and trip. YES I TRIPPED IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE STUDIO AUDIENCE. There was an audible gasp. Guys. It was almost too funny to be traumatic. Almost.

Pre-trip. So happy and naive. 

We also took the Warner Brother's studio tour which was really fun. We got to see the sets of shows like Pretty Little Liars, Hart of Dixie, Friends, Two and a Half Men, and Big Bang Theory (which was filming while we were there). It's also some anniversary of Batman so they had a huge exhibit on that. Those of you who know me well know I love behind the scenes stuff, so I was thrilled. And I got to sit in Central Perk - like the REAL Central Perk set.

Laser eyes

Realized after the fact that I'm overreacting.

Insert Chandler joke here

Differences between Malibu and the South

• People wear sunglasses inside here and like people don't look at them weird or find it abnormal. The first 2 weeks, every time I saw someone with sunglasses I would follow them to see if they were a celebrity and they never are. Learned that lesson the hard way...
• It's legal here for motorcycles to weave in and out of traffic. It's the most nerve-wracking thing to be driving and have a motorcycle whiz by just inches from your car while you're going 70. 
• Pretty much everyone already has the iPhone 6, including children... Technically I don't know that it's not the same in the South but I'm pretty sure it's not.
• Botox

So much love to every one of you reading this!!

If only Kelly could move in full time. I don't think SoCal could handle us year-round.

XOXO

Malibu Harbie

One Month Down

Hello everyone.

I've officially been here for a month, and I'm absolutely loving it.

I've signed up for an acting class with my friend (and fellow Communications masters student) Bonnie, who is an actual actor. Since this is bound to be one of the most hilarious/embarrassing events of my life, I'll keep you updated. But seriously, how can I be in LA and not take an acting class??
Answer: I can't.

Truly one of the biggest blessings in the past month has been FaceTime. Most of you won't be surprised that I FaceTime with Addison (my niece) at least every other day. Huge shoutout to Amanda (my sister-in-law) for dealing with my incessant requests to FaceTime a 1-year-old, which is even harder than it sounds. Here's a small video of how this usually goes.

I've FaceTimed pretty much everyone I know, including:

• Katie Holthouser, who is about to move to Spain to teach English. Follow her adventures on her blog - she's one of the best and funniest writers I know, so it's bound to be a great read. She hasn't posted anything yet, but she moves in less than a week so stay tuned. 
• Sarah Wright, who's getting her doctorate in Psychology at Southern Miss. She's legit and should have a blog. I'll work on that.
• Claire Mayo, one of my best friends from Knoxville, who is getting her masters in French History (it's more complicated than that, but it's over my head) at NYU. So, yes, we're literally as far away as we could possibly be from each other in the continental United States. *crying*
• Brooke Griffith, another great friend from Knoxville who is an incredibly talented artist and jewelry designer (check out her jewelry here). She spent this past summer interning at URBN, the company that owns Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and Free People. Yes, she's that legit. And you also have her to thank (or hate) for this blog post, because she told me I needed to update it. 
• My parents... enough said. Kelly is so bad at holding the phone still, it makes me nauseated when I'm FaceTiming her. Richard was so distracted by golf today while we were FaceTiming, he asked me when my birthday was. It's fine. 
• Talking to (brother) Richard usually involves me talking his ear off and him making obnoxious faces at me before he figures out I'm screenshotting him. See below. 

#attractive 

I thought I would give a little overview of the girls in my cohort (which basically means first year Communications students). There are only 5 of us, so we bonded extremely fast, and have an absolute blast together.

Bonnie: As mentioned above, Bonnie is an actor who's originally from North Carolina, but moved to LA a few years ago. She and I have an absurd amount of similarities, from our extensive stomach problems to our favorite ice cream flavors. Her boyfriend is Australian, so naturally we make him talk as much as possible. Bonnie is one of those people you just click with and you feel like you've been friends forever. (Now that I think of it, that's how it is with all these girls...) But anyway, you can tell how sweet she is by the fact that she even considered taking a beginners acting class with me.
Mary Nell: As you might have guessed from the double name, Mary Nell is from the South (North Carolina to be exact). Where to even start... Mary Nell has a deep southern accent and outgoing personality that form the perfect storm. And by "perfect storm" I mean that Mary Nell can get anything from anyone for free in 30 seconds flat. I'm not making this up. To list a few things she's gotten in the past 2 weeks: an entire box of pizza, an extra cup of ice cream, and a bottle opener (while we were in class at Pepperdine, a dry campus). And that's just a few. She spent a month this past summer living in the woods with a bunch of kids, teaching them nature stuff. Aka my worst nightmare. Major props for that.
Martha: Oh, Martha. Martha is the only girl in our cohort originally from California. She's super outgoing and loves to laugh. She's Mexican-American, which ties into her research and interests in graduate school in an extremely cool way. I love that she's using her experiences to shape her research. She has one of the most interesting life stories I've ever heard, and she thinks I'm absolutely crazy (get in line, Martha). Martha's always down to hang out with whoever wants to and is one of those people you find yourself chatting with for hours.
Nicole: Nicole is the introvert/traveler of the group. I'm 97% positive that any location in the world you can think of, Nicole has been there. I'm not exaggerating. Nicole is probably the least talkative  of the group (which technically isn't saying a lot - we're talkers), but she always has really interesting things to say, and is highly intelligent. Nicole is also one of those people who seems to know something about everything, so almost literally anything you bring up, she can have an intelligent conversation about. She's also really funny.


Differences I've noticed between Malibu and the South:
1. Surfer-speak. Guys, it's an actual thing here... Here's the main vocabulary I've noticed, including, but not limited to:

• "That's sick" 
• "Yewww" (which apparently means "epic" according to my new surfer friend)
• "Rad"
• "Cowabunga dude" (Ok I'm lying about this one but it's only a matter of time)

2. How people dress. Most of you who know me from college will be genuinely surprised that I've probably only worn a t-shirt and athletic shorts out in public a couple of times. People here are always dressed well, so I dress well. It's also probably because on the off chance I run into Jake Gyllenhaal, I want to be prepared. Step 2: actually wearing makeup. 

3. People are much more forward here, especially guys. 

4. People here aren't "fake" like they are in the South (personality-wise, not physically. That's a whole other ball game). They're very much themselves all the time, and very accepting of who everybody else is. It's refreshing.

6. Pepperdine does not = Samford. I thought maybe since they are both private Christian universities with the reputation of attracting rich kids, they would be pretty similar. Um no. The students here are far wealthier on average than the students at Samford. Also, much more fashionable... no big t shirts and leggings anywhere, although I have seen one sorority jersey (you know those long sleeved huge shirts with writing on the top of the back). 

7. Guys are much more fashionable here... I met a guy the other day who had made the pants he was wearing that day and - trust me - they were cool. 

I've truly had so much fun in this past month. California is everything I thought it would be and more, and it's so fun to see God's hand in every decision and rejection I encountered in the past few years. 

XOXO

Malibu Harbie

P.S. Shoutout to Christian Calegari, one of my Samford professor's sons who just started a blog. He's 7, he's hilarious, and he can sing a mean Jason Aldean song. Trust me go check it out, it'll brighten your day.