Coming live from beautiful, down-town San Diego! Tuesday, April 29, 2008

We’re on the west coast for Ian’s work. He’s doing a week-long SQL training class. Olivia and I came along for the ride. Plane ride, specifically. Just so everyone is aware, Olive handles flying much better than I do. An absolute minimum of crying and fussiness. Me, not so much. I don’t think I’m ever going to be truly comfortable traveling without being behind a steering wheel. Not to mention the whole, feet-not-anywhere-near-good-solid-ground aspect. Sigh.

I’ll bring everyone up to date on the happenings since my last tiny, uninformative post (I’m feeling better, thanks). The weekend of the 19th had our little family back in Chattanooga for Amy’s birthday party. We stayed with her and Garrett at their place and had a rocking party that Saturday. Truly rocking, as Amy’s gifts included an XBox 360 and the Rock Band game.

I sang.

That’s enough about that. It was a great party complete with a castle cake from Sandy for Ames. Twas delicious. Beyond the party, we hung out with family and friends. There was a trip to Cracker Barrel with my parents and Richell (Matt was very sick and ended up getting a shot of antibiotics in the bum… sorry Matt). We met with the Metzger family for lunch. My mother and Richell were introduced to Cortney and Jake. Jeremy joined us later into lunch as he had to work that morning. They are just a sweet, sweet bunch of people.

The Monday after coming back from Chatty had us at our pediatrician’s office for Olivia’s 4 month appointment. She is growing like a wildfire. She’s 16 lbs and 1 oz and about 25 1/2 inches long. There were the 4 month shots. Since I was not there for her first visit, this was the first time I saw her get stuck. I think I did well. No crying from my side. A little crying from her, but not as horrible as I had feared. We are feeding her rice cereal and oatmeal now. She’s really coming along with eating from a spoon. She’s almost able to sit up on her own, though she needs assistance getting upright.

Our friends, Shannon and Chris Dawson, came into Nashville for a brief visit due to Chris’s work. While he attended long (and apparently boring) meetings, I took Shannon and their little boy, Jonathon, out to see the city. We walked Centennial Park and the Mall at Green Hills. It was lovely. This was the first time Shannon and I were able to see each other’s babies. We were both very impressed. Our babies are cute. She had a camera and once I find the link to the pictures, I’ll post it so you can see the chubby, baby goodness laid out in the park.

In other happenings, Mark and Laurie have bought a new home. It’s in the same neighborhood, only about 2 streets away from their current house. They moved in this past weekend. I hope it went well. This has been a whirlwind experience for them and I know she’s been feeling overwhelmed with how fast it happened. While we are gone and even though they are very busy, they still agreed to check in on Mooch for us. Hi Mooch. Sorry Mooch.

I’ll give some more updates about the trip to Cali later. Right now, I must feed Olivia. Some things don’t change, even if the surroundings do.

San Diego – quick summary Monday, April 28, 2008

I likely won’t be able to get through everything in this post, but I will say we’re having a good time here in San Diego, dispite the record-breaking heatwave that has come along with us!

We’ve eaten sushi, seen Little Italy, eaten mexican, and visited the zoo. Most of our time over the weekend was spent with our friend Tiffany, who I literally, from birth, grew up with. She and her boyfriend Scott have been extremely gracious hosts.

We’ve found the city to be nice and, so far, very navigable. Its one-way streets are pretty understandable, but we also haven’t had to drive very far without a guide, so that opinion might change.

I’m starting class today, so Susan and Olivia are on their own during the afternoons.

Speaking of Olivia, she is doing reasonable well with the time change – it seems she is pretty in tune with the sunlight cycles. She wakes up a little more often in the middle of the night, but overall she’s still sleeping well. She enjoyed the fish at the zoo and gawked at a baby Orang for a minute or so. There are plenty of photos uploaded already, with more to come as the week goes by. We’ve even got some video to share, but that may wait until we’re at home.

If my tummy isn’t happy… Tuesday, April 22, 2008

…I’m not happy.  And right now, my tummy is really not happy.  Otherwise, we’re fine.  Will write a post tomorrow when all is right with the world (or at least my stomach) again.

Everybody’s working for the weekend. Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The last two weekends have been pretty awesome, honestly.  Except for the whole basement-disguised-as-a-lake fiasco, that is.  The weekend after the first (yes, first) flood, Sandy came up and we all went to tour the Jack Daniel’s Distillery with the Milhoua family.  The funny part – the distillery is in a dry county.  All these young hooligans showing up from out of state colleges got nary a drop of liqour.  The closest you’d get was a whiff of the vapors from the refining tanks or the storage barn.  Dissappointment was etched all over their frat-boy faces.  Good times.

We wandered through downtown Lynchburg afterwards.  The old town square was still in operation, though the shops heavily favored distillery-themed merchandise.  While there, we munched on homemade fried pies from some of the locals.  You haven’t lived til you’ve experienced a fried pie.  Hot and delicious.  They are just one of the many reasons Alias Mother is back in her prematernity jeans and I am not.  That along with my predilection for sweet tea and the tradition of frying anything that sits still for longer than a minute (fried Oreos anyone?).

This past weekend was spent at the Wilson’s in Loudon.  We hadn’t seen them since the first trimester of my pregnancy, so their only experience with Olivia was as a nascent lump in my belly.  She is now a charming baby.  Sydney and Ella loved being around her.  Especially Ella, she just couldn’t get enough of her chubby goodness.  As a surprise, April invited Jason and Ian’s long-time friend, Randy, up from Georgia to visit Saturday and Sunday.  He’s taken to running and looks absolutely fabulous.

*Since this is such a happy, little post I will only mention briefly and in passing that it rained Friday and I spent a harried, two-and-a-half hours scouring water out of our basement before leaving for the weekend.  Stupid basement.

High fallutin’ indoor swimming pool. Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Not.  It rained a lot here last week.  A lot.  A whole lot.  Normally, rain is welcome especially since the drought from last year is still fresh in everyone’s mind.  So the rain was great the first day.  Pouring down like a busted faucet?  Great.  It was still good the next day.  Constant downpour?  Bring it on.  The third day, I went down into our basement to see if we had some empty boxes for our friends Mark and Laurie (moving is so fun).  There was an inch or so of water in half our basement.  Steal my thunder and strangle my joy.  Ian and I sucked it up with a shop vac (Thanks Matt and Chell!).  Still, not a catastrophe.

Cut to the very next morning.  Still raining.  I run downstairs to check it out.  Mm hm.  Boxes are floating around in about 5 inches of water.  Suddenly, I’m very ready for a hot, dry summer.  And a sump pump.

Another blog on the roll… Friday, April 4, 2008

Not that she took the time tell us about it, but our friend April created a WordPress blog for her family.  Since I know a number of our regular readers know them, we’ve added a link to their site in the blogroll on the right.