Five O' Clock Sunday evening means I am officially turning OFF my pager and there is no further chance of me being called into work today! This calls for a glass of wine to celebrate! (Ok, so I already had half a glass while I was cooking dinner......and technically I was able to turn my pager off at 4:30). Anyways.........I was the "back-up" PT this weekend at Children's. Bad thing for me, there was no one on the schedule so I automatically had to work. I logged 9 hours yesterday and 2 1/2 today :( Bad thing (#2) for me is that I get paid the same whether I'm there for 1 hour or 16 hours. Bad thing (#3) for me is that I have to work tomorrow too! 12 days of work in a row. Yick. Luckily we'll be heading home in a few weeks for a nice vacay and noooooooooo work for a while!

Aside from work this weekend was pretty good. Friday night we made dinner for our friends who just had a baby and took it over there and hung out for a little bit. Little Delainey Anne was very cute and slept the whole time we were there. Tom hogged her the whole time and I didn't even get to hold her! J/k.........kinda..........

Saturday night we watched the Alabama/Clemson game......although I was so exhausted I fell asleep before it was even over. Sunday after work we ran some errands and for dinner I made tomato and basil soup. Yum. This coming week is busy but it should be a fun one. Look at that, I made it through a whole blog and didn't even bring up the fact that Michigan lost to Utah yesterday!! ;)


We Are........

Happy Football Season!!!

Yay!!! College Football Season is officially here!! Tom and I have been watching a couple games tonight and I've been getting soo excited for Penn State this year!! (Even though I'll be working on Saturday-boooo! AND we don't get Big Ten Network anyways....double Booooo!)

We thought about driving a mile and a half down the road to see Samford take on West Georgia....well, not really. We saw the score flash on the bottom of the screen during the South Carolina/NC State game and thought "hey, that's right down the road! We should go."

If you learn one thing this football season it's this...........

Orange Beach & Mobile Beer Festival

We just got back from the most fabulous mini vacay with some friends. Wednesday night after work 5 of us loaded us and our beach gear into 2 cars and drove down to Orange Beach. Thursday and Friday were spent hanging out on the beach, playing horseshoes, swimming in the beautiful water, and of course, having a select beach beverage or two (or five).

We ended up buying a bunch of seafood and our friend Brian cooked dinner for us while we were there. Thursday night we had a fish fry and some pecan encrusted tilapia and Friday night we had a Shrimp Boil. VERY yum :) Friday night 4 of our other friends got there. We got ready and then went to the tackiest bar around........the FLORABAMA! Right on the Florida/Alabama border. That made for some interesting fun :)

Saturday was the first day that Tropical Storm Fay tried to rain on our parade. But she didn't! Well, not at the beach at least. It was pretty overcast and they were flying the Red Flag but that didn't stop us from playing some horseshoes and hanging out in the ocean. Saturday afternoon we packed up and headed north to Foley, AL to have lunch at Lambert's. The food was soooo good and the experience was...well, an experience! They are famous for their "throwed rolls," which they actually throw at you. (I caught mine...left handed! But I had good practice from snagging one of our beach umbrellas....TWICE on Friday when it tried to blow away). They also have "pass arounds" which includes waiters coming around with GIANT bowls full of southern veggies that they dish out to you on a paper towel if you don't have a dish yet. We had some yummy fried okra.

Saturday night we went to the Mobile Beer Festival. It was different than previous beer festivals I've been to, where everything was outside in like one big area. This was almost set up like a bar tour, with about 25 bars involved in downtown Mobile, each one serving 3 different fine brews. It was pretty fun and there were some interesting stops along the way.


Here are a few pics to tie you over until I get around to posting all of them on webshots.

The view from the condo balcony

Brian and Tom putting up the umbrellas

Awwwwwww, need I say more :D

Hurricanes!!

Shrimp Boil!

The Flora-Bama!

Tropical Storm Fay trying to rear her ugly head

But that didn't keep us from going to the beach!

Beer Festival!!!

Cracker Barrel on the way home!

Casper, the cute, spazzy dog

This past weekend we dogsat for our friend Stacy while she was out of town. Her dog's name is Casper. He's real little and likes to jump like 10 times in a row when you come into the room :) Tom and I also ALMOST drove out to Georgia to meet Sasha, a border collie mix rescue puppy (and by "puppy" I mean 2 year old female), but we didn't quite make it. As you probably know, we have been wanting a dog for FOREVER but it just hasn't been the right time in our lives to get one. We are seriously considering adopting a dog once we get back from our trip home in September. After that trip we don't have any other major trips planned and it will finally be a good time to get a dog. We'll see. Here's a couple pics of Casper.

He liked to keep watch from here.....although I'm not sure what he was watching

Taking a nap on the couch

Playing with Mini-Casper

And here is our reward for dog sitting :D

Girlie Night

Lately we've re-instated Girlie Night which involves crafting, drinking, eating, and gabbing. This week we had it at my place. We had lots of yummy food, some yummy leftover wine, and I knit about 6 rows of the scarf I've been working on for a year and a half (I've been a little ADD with knitting lately). At least Anne was able to make all of her wedding weekend bags!

Stacy preparing some snacks

Anne, Anne, Stacy, Kendall & Kelly

Family Reunion

Today marks the start of our annual Family Reunion in the Poconos. I’m SO BUMMED that Tom and I couldn’t make it home this year! Our reunion starts Monday afternoon when people start trickling in to the Wilkes-Barre Settlement Camp nestled on the lake in the Poconos. The next 2 and a half days are full of food, beer, and all around good times. In the spirit of my reunion, I would like to share a story or two of reunions past.

Many, many years ago (okay, maybe like 6 or 7) my cousin Sarah and I started the tradition of loading up a small cooler (or bucket, or whatever we could find) with some cold ones, putting it in a row boat, and rowing out to the middle of the lake for the afternoon. So, we had such a good time the first time we did this that we decided to make it an annual thing.

The second year we loaded up the cooler, rowed out to the middle of the lake, and started to relax. A few minutes later we noticed we were floating further down the lake toward this little island. "Weird" we thought. So we rowed back out to the middle of the lake, popped open some more cold ones and kicked back to relax. A few minutes later, the same thing. And so it went. All afternoon we kept intermittently rowing ourselves back to the middle of the lake.

If my memory serves me correctly, I don't think it was until the 3rd year when we were out on the boat, with our beers, and realized that the previous year we kept drifting because we FORGOT TO PUT THE ANCHOR DOWN! We had a good laugh over it, put the anchor down, and enjoyed a lovely afternoon on the lake.

The following year, we gathered our beers, rowed ourselves out in the lake, put down the anchor, had a good laugh about how we forgot to put it down 2 years ago, and enjoyed the afternoon. This particular year the boys must have gotten bored without us, so Matt, Jamie, and Tom rowed out onto the lake to join us after a couple hours. By this point, Sarah and I had consumed quite a few beers, but there was still 1 or 2 left in our cooler. We REALLY didn't feel like rowing ourselves back to the shore, so we told Matt (my brother) that we would give him a beer if he rowed us back (he must have still been under 21 at this point, although that didn't stop him from running up to the keg to snag a beer when no one was looking - that's a whole other story. And Yes, we have a keg at our family reunion - that's another story ;) So anyways, of course Matt agrees because he'll do anything for beer. So Matt hops into our boat and starts rowing us back. Sarah and I are just hanging out but realize he is working pretty hard to row the boat. We get almost back to shore and Jamie and Tom had already made it back to shore. At this point we're all watching Matt struggle to row and start picking on him because we are BARELY MOVING. We get literally 10 feet from the shore, when Sarah and I simultaneously realize that WE FORGOT TO PULL THE ANCHOR UP. Hahhahahaha. I laughed so hard I think I almost peed.

Here are a couple pics from years past:

Recovering....

So LAST Saturday morning I woke up with a super sore throat, and I thought it was going to go away, but it kept getting worse. Same thing Sunday and Monday. Tuesday I started with the congestion and runny nose. So Wednesday I decided to go to the Doctor. One Z-pack later and I'm almost 100% better :) Luckily (or maybe unluckily) I didn't have anything contagious, so I was at work all week, and it was a crazy busy week.

This morning I went to a brunch at my friend Stacy's house in honor of our friend Anne who is getting married to our friend Brian this October (I just thought it would be fun to link up the word "October" ;) Here are a couple pics. (© Stacy)

It's a cupcake purse!

Our Weekend

This past weekend was pretty good. Friday night we helped some friends move. It was SO hot, even after the sun went down....but they lured us with free pizza and beer so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to help them :)

Saturday I worked at my second job. I got out a little early so that was a nice surprise.

Saturday night we went to a friend's welcome home party. He spent the last 2.5 years in the Peace Corp in Bolivia. I had only met him once before, at a Halloween party when I came down to visit Tom during his first year, but we hang out with his brother a lot. It was a pool party at his parents house in Mountain Brook, one of America's "nicest" communities per Wikipedia.

Sunday was a day full of errands and typical prep for the week (laundry, cooking, etc).

All in all it was a pretty good weekend :) And it's a good thing I'm finished with this blog because the kitchen timer is dinging (which means my chocolate chip quick bread is ready.......yummmmmmmm)