A Little Trip to the Old Hood

A few weekends ago we made a quick trip to Indy to visit friends.  It was a great weekend letting little miss get to know her Indiana family and getting caught up with dear friends.  One night we spent the evening cooking and hanging out with our old next door neighbors Jack and Chels.  Chels is the amazing owner of Plundered Patina.   

In addition to being a vintage scavenger Chels happens to be the best cook I know.  She made this amazing homemade lasagna with fresh basil and roasted tomatoes from their backyard garden.

Little miss loved hanging out.  But she is pretty happy anywhere she can munch on some O's.

We had such a great time hanging out, telling stories, drinking wine and eating delicious food!  And we were so glad that A got to meet two very important people to us.

Over the Weekend

We hit the road this past weekend and got out of town to our family in Oklahoma.  We had a great time and despite the fact that they have actually been hotter than us during this summer heat wave a storm/front rolled through Saturday night and cooled things off by about 30 degrees.  We sat out on the back patio that night, looking out over the golf course and the rain just poured down, feeling the cool mist on our skin.  Lovely.  

Here's the rest of our weekend in pictures:

I finished reading The Help--great book

Lunch date at Camp's

Double date with the folks and little miss at the Iron Star in OKC

Preaching gig in Luther, OK.  Tim sang.  It was fun.

Back home in the car, playing with our rattle.

How was your weekend?

Nashvegas, Baby!

As I already mentioned we took a little weekend getaway/family vacation to Nashville last weekend.  We went to connect with our friends, since several of them were in Nashvegas for a conference.  We wanted to the little miss to meet some very important people, friends that feel like family that were with us through the whole pregnancy in Indy, friends we have know for decades, friends that will play a very important part of her life growing up, people that have been part of the village we have been building around her since she was only a dream.   And it was perfect.  

Thankful

This week was wild.  W-I-L-D. And its not quiet over yet.  I am thankful for...

...the chance to take the little miss on a quick weekend getaway vacation to meet some dear friends.

...that our thermostat now reads this:

instead of the 95 degrees it read when we walked in the door from vacation.

...that we have family near by that don't mind if we move ourselves and our baby in while the AC gets fixed.

Will be back this week with more on our little adventures, as soon as this momma can get caught up.  But for now, isn't that little bum the cutest?  We are taking to sleeping with it in the air these days.

Over the Weekend

This weekend was just what our little family needed--a chance to get out of town and see the people we love and relax!

Our weekend started off with an extra special package in the mail to our little miss from her cousin Norah.  We scored some seriously cute duds...now we just have to grow a bit to fit into them!  There was also a special outfit in there that we will be wearing and sharing here on on the blog soon.  Sorry about the lame iPhone photos, but rest assured when we wear our special outfit it will be in full HD.

On Saturday we met up with some friends of ours from Indianapolis who recently moved to Tulsa.  We met in OKC and took all our little kiddos to the Oklahoma City Zoo.  Adelaide got to see the seals and the hippos and by see I mean she slept in her stroller the whole time.  It was a beautiful day and T and I had a great time catching up and of course playing proud parents as we introduced Adelaide! 

To round it all off there was some golf, lots of home cooked meals and plenty of snuggling with the little miss to make our weekend great!  of course we were so busy having fun that I forgot to snap pictures.

We had a great weekend, how about you?

Christmas Recap, Part 1

I am a bit behind on doing recaps from over the holidays, but life has been super hectic with another little project I will be sharing here on the blog soon.  In the meantime here's a peek into our Christmas! 

We love spending the holidays together--we may be a small family but we are an awesome little family. So on Christmas Day T and I woke up to T's very first white Christmas!  He was so excited! 

We made a big brunch with Monkey Bread (a family tradition of mine), egg casserole and a huge bowl of fresh fruit!  While breakfast cooked we openned gifts and just enjoyed each other's company.  After breakfast and a little more relaxing we got cleaned up and headed over for a big lunch with friends and then off to church.  It was a wonderful day. 

Two days after Christmas we headed to my home town to see our family.  Everyone was really excited and my mom and step-dad planned a wonderful evening for us to celebrate the holiday together.  However, since my mom had already hosted two holiday celebrations and had one more to go we did catered Mexican food--yum! 

T and I in front of the tree at my family's house.

Me and my sister K--isn't she adorable?

My mom, me, sister K and soon-to-be sister-in-law A!

Yes, you read that right--soon-to-be sister-in-law! That's right!  My brother proposed to his girlfriend a few days before Christmas so not only will there be a baby and my sis's graduation this year but a wedding too!  2011 is going to be so exciting!

Here's a pic of T and my mom...and K! 

Over the Weekend

I can't believe November is already here! Part of the reason October has flow by so quickly is that we have had three weekends in a row of houseguest.  Two weekends ago (I am late in posting this--oops!) my brother B and his girlfriend A came up from Oklahoma to visit.  They got here on Wednesday night sort of late.  Thursday I had to work but they met T at work to grab lunch and I think just re-charged from the draining drive up here.  That evening we hung out and made dinner. 

Over dinner the idea came up that we should go to Chicago on Friday.  Friday is my day off from work and T has hardly taken much vacation time this year, so we could go with B and A who had never been to Chicago.  I actually had never really been either, only to a conference in the suburbs a few years back.  So we all agreed that it would be a fun day trip.

Early Friday we hopped in the car a drove the 3 hours up to Chi-town.  Spent the morning at the Crate and Barrel Outlet (I had wanted to go to look at thier baby furniture line--that was super underwhelming, but I did get the dishes I had been wanting for fraction of what I would have paid in store full price.  So not a total bust).  By lunch time we headed into the city to go to Wrigglyville to see the staduim and eat at Lucky's. 

 

After lunch we decided that we wanted to at least drive down Lakeshore Drive to see the city.  When we got down there, as soon as I saw Navy Pier I wanted to go there and everyone else was really flexible and cool and agreed that we should go check it out!  Yippee!

While we were exploring the Pier we decided that it woudl be fun to go in the ferris wheel.  Ok, now let me tell you I was as gun-ho as the rest of the gang about it.  I have never been on a ferris wheel and thought it would be a fun adventure, especially since this one looked really tall and sturdy.  However, I have never been on one because I am afraid of heights.  Oh well!  It was fun (even if I was a bit nervous).

On the way home from Chicago we stopped at a the dairy store of one of the largest dairy farms in Indiana a got some cheese (everyone else go milk shakes but I am going to be honest, me and ice cream don't mix since I got pregnant).  Then we made it home in time to watch the Ranger's game against the Yankees.

Cape Cod or The Way To My Heart Is Through Crustaceans

About a month ago I went on a retreat/conference to Cape Cod with a group of colleagues.  We are a part of a group that gathers from all across the country to meet for a week twice a year.  But some of these folks I have know for almost a decade. 

There were two highlights of this trip besides seeing my friends that are so fun to be around and so important to me.  The first was lobster.  Yum!  My dad's side of the family is from just a bit south of the cape and so as kids we would travel out there twice a year.  I remember it as a week filled with all the seafood we could eat.  And then we would bring back cooler full of live lobsters as our carry-ons, so we could have fresh seafood at home too.  So I love lobster.  I think its part nostalgia and part that I really love the carnal process of working for your food.  I think that's why I like to cook, why I like ribs and why I love crustaceans. 

And the second was standing on the roof of the historic Old South Church.  The third picture is a view of downtown Boston from on top of the roof.  Very cool!