Recent Happenings

I've got a lot for you today!

1.  Last Thursday I went to see my friend Kristen and meet her cute little boy Cullen.  I hadn't seem Kristen in several years, but we've known each other since we were little girls on summer swim team.

Cullen is 8 months old but about the same size as CQ.  They were so cute together!

 We were having such a great time visiting that I kind of lost track of time...

2.  But we made it to the airport and picked up Paul who had flown in for a long weekend.  Charlie had a lot of fun with his Grandpa. 

3.  Paul and Charlie hung out on Friday while I took Pat to get his second infusion.  The process of going to the hospital takes about 5 hours with blood work and meeting with his doctor.

But the actual infusion is about 3 hours.  This is a typical setup:  Pat in one chair and me in the other.

4.  That night I joined my sister, Mark, and Cousin Rachel for an 80s night to benefit the W.O. Smith school.  (they offer music lessons for 50 cents) 

There was a great band that played numbers like "Jessie's Girl" and a bunch more. 

5.  Saturday afternoon our friends Eugene and Kate came over.  Kate had made Russian food for us!  Yum!  Great to see them - and they got a puppy, so hopefully we'll go meet her soon.

6.  Splash time in the bath! 

Don't you touch the duckie. 

7.  Paul helped us tackle a couple house projects, like installing a new shower head and fixing our front porch light.  This has been out for a couple months now and after I had tried new bulbs with no luck, we needed a new fixture.   My parents stopped by yesterday afternoon with some baked brie and we went for a walk (and Dad's arrival meant I no longer had to help with the light, score)

Charlie really wanted to help the boys out there.  Too cute! 

We had a great weekend and Pat seems to be doing alright.  I know his treatment is supposed to be cumulative, but it really seemed like he felt better this weekend than he did after his first treatment.

Saturday Shopping

Lanier and I met up yesterday morning at the mall. Mostly just to hang out and catch up, but also for a little Christmas shopping. I know some people would call this last minute shopping, but I consider Christmas Eve to be last minute. :) Shopping here in Tennessee is sooo much easier than shopping in New Jersey. Once time last year I went to the Garden State Plaza and seriously spent 45 minutes just trying to find a parking spot. Not that I was trying to find a really close parking spot, just any parking spot at all. It was so frustrating and then the mall was packed. Here it's so much easier and we found a great bench for Charlie to have his mid shop bottle. He had clearly kicked back and was having a good day. (my only complaint of shopping here is the high tax.  But I guess no income tax makes up for it...)

An hour or two after I got home, our friends Tom and Shelley came over with a complete meal.  All we had to do was throw on a few slabs of ribs on the Big Green Egg.  They were smoking while we watched the Indiana basketball game, where we beat Notre Dame.

Charlie was wearing his IU jersey again since it brought us luck last weekend. 

What's Charlie smiling at?  It's Shelley making him giggle at the other end of the table. :)

Since we'd had some drinks we decided to spend $1 on the BreathalEyes ap on my iPhone.  I believe a couple guys I went to high school with came up with this.  As their video states, it is for entertainment purposes only, but it takes different photos of your eyes to estimate your Blood Alcohol Level.

The results were questionable and there is definitely human error involved, but either way we had fun with it.

Today I got an exciting email with this at the top:

We saw Michael Bublé sing on Saturday Night Live last night and he's also appeared on some recent morning shows singing some Christmas songs.  Thank you Pat for my new Michael Bublé Christmas album on iTunes!  I can't wait to listen to it tonight! Pat also let me sleep in this morning while he took Charlie grocery shopping.  We had a great neighborhood walk and it's been a great day so far.  xoxo

Carrie!

I used to work with this sweet gal at my old, old job in NYC.  She now lives in North Carolina with her husband Andrew and they happened to be in town for a wedding this weekend.  Yesterday morning they dropped in to see us and to meet Charlie.  What fun to see my old friend!

Carrie is amazing with kids and she even brought Charlie a cool board book - New York ABCs.

 Thanks for taking the time to come see us, Carrie! 

Kate's Birthday

Going back to our first weekend in Nashville...
My great friend Kate turned 30 and she flew back home to TN from San Francisco to celebrate.  Along with her most generous parents, she rented a private room at an awesome little restaurant, 1808 Grille at the Hutton Hotel.  Her boyfriend Paul flew in town too and it was my first time to meet him.  Hanging out with old friends was a perfect way to spend my first weekend back in Nashville!  Here are all the pictures:
The five couples...

 John and Claire, Keith and Nathalie, Paul and Kate, Suzanne and Pat, Lanier and Bryan.

 The birthday girl and her younger man.  ;-)

 Very posh!  Hanging around during a little cocktail hour.

 Kate and her little brother Benjamin.

 Her parents made a nice champagne toast.

 Kate and Paul (also the names of my In-Laws!)

 Keith and Nathalie

 Kate's collection of 5 different drinks...

 Lanier and Bryan

 Some good table talk.

 Delicious food!

Red Velvet Birthday Cake 

Some of the table wine was this awesome unoaked Chardonnay.  I took one of the ceramic bottles home with me. :o)

 Girl shots!

 Suz, Claire, Kate, Lanier, Nathalie

 The "I'm Super Excited" Looks

 in Hotel lobby...

Then the 30 year old Kate got turned away from a nearby bar cause her license was expired. Ha!  What a fun night.  Love these ladies!