Nashvegas!

In March my father in law was awarded at an industry conference for his work in... well, doing stuff with trucks. That kind of sums it up... also, being a super decent guy! In the trucking industry. If you want to read the full article and see why I love my father in law so much, you can check it out here!

We stayed at the Opryland Hotel, which was... insane. I mean nutballs. I mean, what. the heck. We all got there Saturday and by Monday morning we were kind of figuring it out. I realize now why a friend of mine who used to work there would play hide and seek with his buddies! 

We were in the Delta section which as "old south" and pretty interesting. There's a little river that runs around it and for $9 they'll give you the boat ride-- it was alright, but I would have been just as happy with a little blurb on the map to tell me about the wildlife and the fish. 

Sunday morning, while everyone slept in (yay daylight savings!) I went to an adorable little cafe called Sky Blue Cafe in downtown Nashville to meet a classmate from Rhodes and his gal for breakfast. The food was amazing, the staff was great, and it was all in all the perfect Sunday brunch. After I got back, we went over to the Opry Mills mall for lunch with Jan, Josh, and Sarah and wandered around shopping for a bit. There was a LEGO store there with an entire wall of Star Wars stuff that Josh was drooling over. 

Sunday night was the dinner for Marc. It was an absolutely amazing meal, and seeing him be recognized for all his hard work was so wonderful. His mother and stepfather were there as well and it was great to see them!

I'll leave you with a taste of how huge this place is-- this staircase is just as large as you think it is, and it's minuscule in the setting of the building!

Etowah!

One of the great things about Jeremy's running addiction is that he's in to trail runs and all the big races are at the gorgeous parks we have all over Georgia! His first race in the Mountain goat series was at Etowah Park in North Georgia and though I didn't go up with him at the beginning of the race, I enjoyed wandering around for a few minutes at the end. The park is just so beautiful-- amazing what you forget in 20 years! 

He got a very impressive swag pile! The purse is mine, obv, and there's a small bag to hold changing clothes, but they gave him a VERY nice insulated lunch bag plus a whole bunch of goodies!

Etowah is known for its Native American Mounds and I immediately changed my mind about Amicalola Falls this summer-- Etowah is a little closer and I'm dying to see the mounds again! They were one of my favorite field trip destinations as a kid.

Right Lighting...

Our dear friend and former co-worker Louis came to town to visit and since we haven't seen him in YEARS we splurged and went to Capozzi's for dinner! At the end of it all, we got the waitress to attempt to take a picture of us-- below is the progression of our attempts to adjust the light on my phone camera and in the restaurant. Conclusion? I was right to dress Louis up as a Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bar for Halloween that year... And I need to figure out how to use photoshop to lighten pictures. 

Back in business!

I got hired on to do some behind the scenes coordinating for a bridal shower a few weeks ago-- the bridesmaids thought they could just plop some Publix trays down so I made it all pretty! 

These kids...

"Hey Cole, say 'In West Philadelphia Born and Raised...'"

"Um, why?"

Baby Hud!

I don't know if or when we'll ever have kids of our own, so I'm glad that we have friends with adorable babies that like us! This is Hud, Lauren and Todd's baby, and he's a sweetheart! He didn't even mind that I'd colored his panda red...

Having good dreams

I love my city...

Rhodes Alumni!

The Atlanta Rhodes Alumni went to the High Museum for the Frieda and Diego exhibit (which was PHENOMENAL) and a folk artist whose name I'm embarrassed to admit I've forgotten! (I wasn't particularly impressed by his work.) Anyway, we went back and made folk art of our own which was a lot of fun. I drew a little rose for AOII and made a cloth flower to put by the frame with all of the sororities. It was a unique piece in the end! We were also lucky enough to monopolize the time of David McCarthy, who is one of the professors at Rhodes. He was a pleasure to talk to and we discussed everything from art to literature to travel to our shared Irish background. What an amazing night!

Baby Taylor is Almost Here

Well, baby Gid got showered like woah a couple of weeks ago and I have to say this was one of the better baby showers I've been to in a while! I ADORED the Peter Rabbit decor, and the activity was to paint onesies for the baby-- loads of fun!

V-Day Pt. II

There were, of course, less presidential proceedings for Valentine's Day -- Sarah made me a panda valentine and I made a kick ass dinner! Blackened chicken breast over cilantro lime quinoa with an avocado creme. For dessert, pound cake with fresh fruit and whipped cream. YUM! After dinner we went over to see Iggy and Wade where we ate too many chocolate grand marnier pecans... those things were addictively good!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day was quite exciting around here! President Obama came to Decatur to talk about the importance of Pre-K education and visited our very own CHECLC and gave a speech at our brand new Rec Center! Decatur's no stranger to Presidents; Bill Clinton came through in '92 on a re-election tour and I saw him at my high school stadium!

Decatur is a fairly blue city, so the only protesters were poorly organized environmentalists (which is a shame, I do agree with them about the Keystone Pipeline) and everyone was in high spirits. The police/SWAT/state troopers/secret service/visiting LEOs were all very kind, attentive, and a pleasure to spend time with while Obama was in the rec center. I missed seeing him by half a second, but it was still amazing to be there!

Friends

I got to spend a lot of time in February with some dear friends-- Sharyn (whom I haven't seen since her divorce was initiated!), Monique, Nedghie (new friend!), Brittany and Britney are my AOII sisters and we had a blast warming up Britney's new apartment. Then, a going away party for my friend Emily who moved to KY to work on a farm! We're so so so lucky to have wonderful friends like this in our lives, and we are rich beyond measure with them!

The Birdi's crew back for one last hurrah!

Amelia Anne

We spent Easter Saturday with mom's cousin Kim and her daughter Amelia. I absolutely adore Amelia and love having a little girl around to play with! Amelia loooooved mom's dog Maggie so much she even got in the crate with her! Then, before they left, she got an early Easter present-- a Hello Kitty umbrella I bought in Japan!