A Minor Distraction….

I’m going to attempt to make this short so that it won’t look like i skipped my third class of this week to come home and blog…..

When in reality I came home to attempt working on one of my many papers, 2 presentations and to study for comps next week which are only a few minor stipulations standing between me and  my MSW………. no biggie right!?!?

With all of these days of skipping class I have had the opportunity to scarf down a bowl (or two but i’m getting to that) before running out to the library which has reminded me of something I have needed to share!

Milly knows when the cereal bowl is getting low and she gives me one of her many looks…….

You should see the face I get when she  runs after me into the kitchen (assuming i will put it down for her to finish off) only to see me refill my bowl with round 2… and sometimes 3 :)

I wonder where she get those many facial expressions from?

Anyway after everyone's belly is full mom runs out the door and Tj and Mill can be found here…. 

Oh how I would love to have Tj and Mills Life!

I must catch you up with last weekend before tomorrow comes and then it all just goes to dust…

Alex and I took this past Monday off from work (which is part of my slacking excuse) to go home and spend time with Adam…

We picked a great weekend to go down because Billy was in town and Mom and Dad came down after some mild convincing from me- mom never passes up an opportunity to see “all 3 of her children in the same town”…. I think it’s like Christmas to her!

So Saturday I snuck away with my parents to Bluffton for the day while Alex spent some alone time with Adam…

It was a perfect day for lunch at Skull Creeks Boat House.

Daddy, food and water to look at and he is set!

    What a beautiful day!That night only got better, we went out for dinner with the Family (-Tara) at El Som (of course) and then off to Millhouse!

Daddy did so good with the biggest test of all: El Som on a diet…

And then you have Lou with a mouth full of food!

I was so sad that half my Boro crew was out of town (Cara and Tina) but so HAPPY to see these two!!

Love, love , love!

Those two just couldn’t get any cuter…… and neither can my Lou!

As you can see the night was nothing less than typical with this crew……

Steph and I (after miraculously making it –15 deep- in a Tundra with an unidentified driver) made it to her car at Dingus but decided the night was not over……

We may have had a small midlife crises and felt the need to try our luck at Rude Rudy’s…

So we left the boys confused in the parking lot and dashed for the Rude Rudy’s door- Sad I know, good news is we felt confident after sneaking in the door with no cover but put to shame after about the fifth song was played in a row that we had never heard….

Tell the truth, do we look old? Too old? 

The boys kept themselves entertained as usual….

Thank Goodness for Kelly, he stuck with us even after Stephanie's and I’s famous Hill Street carnival ride (which turned into more of a scavenger hunt just finding it this time)  and ended up driving us all the way home!!

Just for pukes and humility: Heres the Francisco’s “Morning After” picture as mom coined it…

Except for Tara who is fresh from church, bless her!

Then we were off to spend the rest of the weekend with Adam and the many dogs, Alexs mom and Mike worked most of the weekend, which originally was a bummer but it was nice to keep him company while they were gone….

Here’s their newest addition: “Grama”

She has already been introduced to Tuck’s wild side, but as a proud mom I do have to say grama started it this time!

She is quite the territorial handful and Mills is scared to death of her! She was ready to go back to her Francisco Grama and Grampa where the only thing to be scared of is Hershe!!

Tara is coming for another drop by this weekend with Hope, I am getting so spoiled!!

So much for making this short, now lets see if I can knock anything out tonight before Tara’s visit to see us and still make it to bed before midnight!

Wish me luck!

A Sisterly kind of Weekend

Tara came up for a “surprise me” visit this weekend to car shop and well, eat lunch with the two coolest people she knows!

The car we looked at (that she ended up deciding against) was near the Marietta Square so where else to have lunch than at Old Ephraims, a place Ali and Dave took Shannon and I to once for barbeque last year during the good ole CobbCSB 2 hour lunch breaks!!

  Lou: ready- Tara:  doubting her ability to tackle that one….

I put the camera up after this one……

Yeah, yeah, you love me Lou!

Ok so I at least directed my picture taking abilities else where…..

After tearing it up at lunch Tara decided we needed dessert…. she is always a bad influence on me! She needed a Milkshake and that meant I “all of a sudden” needed a cookie dough AND Heath bar ice cream (and yes Tina, Tara gets scraw-burry too)  Tara and Lou “car watched” in the park to try and decide what her next car purchase should be….. I think they decided on an Audi.

Am I jealous? ….. YES!

FYI: I have just never seen Milly be sooooooooo Clingy with someone and I may know why, she has her great grama in her….

Tara say what you want but I think my Mildred would say the same thing as Mommom (Mildred) if she could talk: “I’m clingy because you don’t visit or call me enough!”

Anyway, then it was time for Tara’s way too short visit to end and Amara’s birthday party to begin!

Amara’s BFF Susan and her husband Shane prepared a “Family Style” feast for everyone at their house and then we went to Whole World Theatre for an improv comedy show!

(All pics stolen from Rachels camera- I’m bad, I know!)

*36*

Yes, that was home made Sangria in the bottom left corner- with a twist of cinnamon*

Almost her whole Birthday Crew minus Tony and Shane….

  I love Andy and Rachel in this one….. especially Andy!

Sometimes we just don’t know when to call it a night…..

Happy Birthday Amara!!

In other news we ventured out to a new restaurant near our house in the Virginia Highlands  area called Fontaine’s Oyster House… it reminded me of the restaurants on River Street which I always miss around St. Patty’s day!

It’s official though, no one knows how to celebrate Patty’s Day like Savannah- but they did have tater tots and that IS a big deal!

Lastly, I have to tell you Tuck’s embarrassing story…..

First of all Tuck made me agree that if I tell his embarrassing story I have to remind those reading to think back to when they themselves did the same thing because more than likely everyone has done it….

Secondly- We all know Tuck is easily distracted as it is and when you add bumble bee season to that mix its a recipe for disaster.

Ok time to spill it- Tuck ran full speed into our bedroom screen door trying to go outside and his head literally turned to the side and his body scrunched up against it!

Ha we both watched it happen (I slightly predicted it as it was happening and yelled “Tuck watch out for screen” but it was too late)! the poor baby was so embarrassed he left the room when we laughed….

So we both walked out and with out a word came back with our “solutions”… mine was the green “X” tape and Alex returned with tape and a sheet of paper.

Problem solved.

See Tuck it did happen in every family and apparently each household had a different way of dealing with it :)

Happy Spring Fever!

A Look At My LAST Spring Break (maybe)*

I feel like I did everything and nothing all at the same time! Wow, and what big hopes I had for myself… let’s not go there.

Ok I will go there- the goal of writing two papers ended after writing 3 sentences for one paper!! Ohhh I could just shoot myself in the foot!

Anyway, I had fun being a house wife for a week!

*I got to meet Alex everyday for a lunch date.

*I now know why most days I come home and Milly appears agitated- her brother spends the entire day whimpering, barking and chasing the squirrels from window to window.

*We got to go out and do “fun stuff” on week nights and pretend like it was a weekend because my legs weren’t exhausted from walking an estimated 24 flights of Grady stairs at the end of the day!

*I found a great new Endocrinologist for Alex to start seeing here in Atlanta and joined him on our first visit.

*I tried to sleep in every morning until AT LEAST double digits but the other 2 guest in my bed were not having it….

Monday Mills woke me up throwing up (found a whole piece of bone in her throw up- greedy self).

Tuesday Tucker barked at the squirrels until I got out the bed to open the curtains.

Wednesday I woke up to a huge PLOP- Tuck fell out the bed- literally.

He’s ok though, before i could jump out the bed to check on him he made his way to the “squirrel window”.

I think Thursday and Friday I eventually slept in!!

*Anyway on with the festivities*

Friday we played at all went to Ormsbys… one of our favorites! I think I have talked about it before.. It’s a German bar with ONLY imported beers (I found yet another beer I like btw…that’s 3 now!)They have the best “games” here to play Bochet ball is their most famous though… So Liz and I got so excited when it was our turn but ended up playing Bochet ball with a bunch of Nazi's!

All is well because we found a new toy after that: Photo booth!

I think Lee ruined every picture he was in…. or tried to be in!

Needless to say, you are NEVER to old for a photo booth!

On to Fat Tuesday AKA Mardi Gras!!

Sean hosted his second fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society Tuesday and when I say it was packed IT WAS PACKED!

Yayyy for SEAN!

Don’t you just love how Andy and Rachel are sitting?

I swear this wasn’t even posed…. haha  This was however, but hey they were passing out the cutest masks and beads at the door!  

Anyway the next day is when Alex and I met his new doctor… Well this kid ends up getting so “upset” because when they weighed him he weighed ten pounds less than what he thought he weighed.

Every normal person rights now probably wants to jump through the screen and hit him right?

The nurse and I sure did!

It’s the Minnicks genes I swear, so anyway I went straight home (after gaining the ten pounds back on yet another lunch date) and made “his punishment” for being upset.

-A chocolate cake-

haha evil I know!

Ok so fast forward to this weekend…..

How beautiful was it btw!!

We were lucky enough to be outside for all of it and worked on our front yard a bit (see those bags… we filled up 9 of them!)- before going to check out a lot in the cutest craftsman style subdivision Andy and Rachel are thinking of buying a house in…

Theirs a train station in the back of the subdivision… naturally Alex was infatuated!

Decisions, decisions… glad it’s not me having to decide!!

Finally we had a cookout ( yes again, the boy is obsessed with his grill)! The cookout consisted of about,  ohh  a million people and a million dogs!! Just the way i like it- ha my parents, Alex’s mom and family, Rachel’s family a few new friends and Jeff and Liz too!

They know who to go to…in Mill’s words: “Grama will cave”

Rocket and Greylan met each other for the first time and fell in love, I think because they are the two biggest dog’s each of them has ever seen!      Grey “the leaner”… and Matt and Andy trying to make me nervous sitting up there!   Well I will end by saying I came in my office today with a gift…

A notepad with the “star fish story” on it in honor of National Social Work Day today!

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out.  If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” “Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!” After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf.  Then, smiling at the man, he said… ”I made a difference for that one.”

by: Loren Eiseley

So my payback in honor of this special day and is to ask people to please help out the people of Japan and donate 10$ by texting

REDCROSS to 90999

…which will add 10$ to your phone bill and to also keep them in your thoughts and prayers!