Short and Sweet!

This blog was probably going to be much more detailed and much less boring if my past weekend hadn’t been so exciting….

What had happened was…I started this blog last week and then with a spur of the moment trip from mom and dad it got put on the back burner and then much more exciting things happened that I have on the brain to blog about so here you have it; Random happenings!

I did want it to be noted however,  that my baby boy now has about 5 friends (yes, total)!!

Woo hooo!! Yes you are looking at Tucker Jones in the same room as Rachel and Andy’s (not so baby anymore) Luther!!

That’s right, we finally decided to have the kiddos meet and Tucker did extremely well! As you know, TJ isn’t the best with pups who are hyper and don’t know the “Don’t touch my hip rule” so I was really worried about him snapping at Luther but he did great! We met at the bakery at the end of our street and walked them together before letting them get close enough to touch and then… walla!

Thank you for being brave enough to test my Tucker boy out Luther, ha who am I kidding, ignorance is bliss right?

Random note #2:

Here’s Lou playing with some of his new birthday tools!! This was about a week in a half ago and you would be amazed to see how much my pansy’s in the flower boxes have grown since cutting down some branches!!

   Not so Random note #3:

Happy Birthday Lauryn!!!! That’s right this little missy is in town for 4 weeks at a training and we got to join her and some new future co-workers of hers at dinner their first night here :)

It was so much fun to catch up with little miss and I can’t wait to do it again this week!

Happy Monday everyone and Happy Birthday Lauryn!!!

Perfect Weekend for a Birthday!

Who doesn’t love their Birthday Morning!?!?!?!

Lou does that’s for sure, and how can you not be a happy birthday boy when you wake up to this right!?!?!?

I remember how exciting it was to wake up in our house and open presents up at 7 am before school, best of all you even got excited on your siblings birthdays because you got presents too! That’s what was fair right mom… or maybe we were really all just spoiled?

Not sure but either way I love that tradition!

And yes, I had yet another bi-polar decorated birthday celebration because I already have my valentine stuff out (in the background above) please ignore!

We took the pups out after the excitement of opening presents AKA books and tools, (as requested) and then hurried outside during  a break in the huge storm that was going on to talk the pups into going potty before the rain started back up again!  Most people would be quite bummed that it stormed all day on their birthday but Lou was thrilled!! One of the books he requested for his birthday was actually a weather/storm book!

Go figure!

That apple certainly doesn’t fall far from the tree, Tucker is quite the storm watcher too!

Milly on the other hand is nothing like her daddy and brother when it comes to loving storms, she hates them!!

   So I blared the music up to Michael Jackson, Journey and other 80’s favorites to distract Milly and we danced the morning away!

Don’t be embarrassed Milly I won’t tell everyone how you chased me around the house, played peak a boo and humped my leg all morning!!

Oops! Sorry baby girl! Anyway, we worked up quite an appetite and as I had promised Lou we enjoyed our new favorite barbeque joint, for his Birthday Lunch, Jim and Nicks!

Yes mine was the bigger of the plates… and yes i ate chicken at a BBQ place, don’t judge me.

MMM MMM MMM!

That night we went out to our favorite hole in the wall Mexican place AKA El Som wanna be… The guys there LOVE Alex, I assume because he talks in spanish to them and always asks about life in their home town which always puts a smile on their face…. but ehhhhh who knows, maybe it’s just because everyone love Alex!

Regardless they participated in our fun and brought him balloons, candy and 2 party hats!

Also at El Amigo, they don’t just sing happy Birthday to you, they cut off the restaurant music and blare the happy birthday song throughout the restaurant, followed by tequila shots of course!

They even took a shot with him!

Then it was back to our place for cake, more presents, more drinks and the impossible task of calling a taxi to be on our way to the next…

Making wishes for another healthy and happy year!

Then it was time to head to Tongue and Groove that I’m pretty positive is less than a mile from our house… however, you would never have guessed that judging by how complicated it was to get there!

After calling 4 taxi companies, reserving a taxi to pick us up, cancelling it due to a last minute decision to have Bob drive 8 of us in my car, then realizing I left my keys in Alexs car which was left at the restaurant, calling Sean (who was already at the bar) to come back and get the rest of us and then calling him back to cancel his return trip (as he is pulling in our driveway) bc we managed to pile 7 or 8 deep in Andys car…

Never the less; we made it to TONGUE and GROOVE!!

We were so excited that Lia was able to join us late night after she got off work too!

I’m pretty sure this is my most favorite picture! Alex is throwing up birds, Amara gang signs, Bob is still figuring out which sign to throw up and Andy is trying to cover up Rachel’s innocent peace sign… go figure!

Happy Birthday my Lou,  your far too easy to please on your birthday but with this crew how can you not be pleased!!   I love you and am so glad you had a good time but I think this was the last decent picture of the night…  meaning time to go home!

Yup, I was right, time to go home!

What a night, a good night and a good way to remember turning 27!!

Lou got up the next day to re-check out his birthday scene…  No one ate anything (except the chocolate covered Oreos), we’re awful I know, we didn’t even cut the cake!   

Four days later I finally finished cleaning up all the festiveness and trust me, my clients were more than pleased (especially the pregnant ones) that Lou didn’t eat his birthday cake! My co-workers on the other hand officially hate me, a few of them just started a “no sugar diet”….

Sorry, what else am I supposed to do with leftovers in a house of 2 people!

Happy Birthday Lou, I hope you had just as much fun as I had watching you celebrate your special days! Cheers to many more birthday celebrations that are filled with family, friends and a whole lot of love just like this one!

Good Old Family Road Trip

We used to take a trip to my mom-mom and pop-pops about every year and it seemed to get longer and longer each year! We would sit and drive ourselves crazy riding in the car for 12 hours eating junk food the whole ride up! Looking back I’m sure we drove mom and dad crazy more so than ourselves…

Never the less this year, on the day after Christmas we made the trip as a family….only one way though- we flew home, Thank God!

Tara was our wonderful pilot the WHOLE way there!

In car one that is…. yup, we car pooled 2 cars up to North Carolina and then gained another car after meeting Angela and car pooled 3 cars up to New Jersey WITH walkie talkies!!

It was pretty much amazing let me just tell ya, I had (thankfully- and your welcome) decided that morning that we need to make the trip a bit more Griswaldie (after being disappointed we weren’t renting a big fun caravan for all of us to ride together). This is where the idea of NEEDING walkie talkies came in :)

Handles

Mom: Trixie (her original from he 70’s- yes we informed her that is now a stripper name)

Dad: Cisco Kid (his original from the 70;s)

Billy and Angela: Lead Foot

Tara, Alex and Jen: Baby Blue (Lou and I were only “Baby Blue passengers “though”)

(Only) Other exciting news from our road trip was stopping at the oh so famous Lung Wah!

You just have to know the story for this to be important to you….  Anyway, every year we would drive past this billboard that say Lung Wah 5$ and always pretended to stop. This was the first year we actually stopped after 25 years and no worries, we all had our 5$ bills  ready!

Sadly, the menu changed to 6$ and the food was awful! At least now we know right!

Around 2 am we finally made it and we spent the next day lounging in the house trying to  recover from the trip with our little ring bearer, mommom, Autie G and Uncle John!

I think we consistently ate the entire day from sun up to sun down, and play cards and cooked and then ate again!

Jason was quite the card player and Alex’s double!We made our way to Philly to visit Billy and Angela’s neck of the woods before heading to New York City!

Their area was gorgeous and so historic! 

Parking however was another story…. but Baby Blue pulled through for us yet again!

Ahhh… I can smell the street food now, we arrive in New York City to play tourist for 3 days thanks to Mary and Lillie’s wonderful generosity!!!!

The first night we were starving and had a good Mexican place in mind- it was closed, walked to second Mexican place- it had been shut down, third Mexican place- looked sketchy, fourth Mexican place- ehh we weren’t impressed but settled there anyway to eat and drink!

We decided to move on for dessert, drinks and pancakes at a cute Ukrainian diner after dinner to get the full satisfaction feeling!

Cheers*

Day two was full of shopping and more tourism!

*Shopping on Broadway*

Tara found a Georgia Southern Eagle!

*Wall Street*

….but no occupants to be found!

We found some crazy Chinese store that sold everything imaginable, including dried fish and shrimp!

*China Town*

China town never sleeps!

I hate to report that we ate at a place with their famous “catch” hanging in the window. Tara had bragged about Noodle Town since before getting to the city and we couldn’t turn her down…. Obviously we sat Billy and Angela with their back to the “display”.

As promised, the salt baked shrimp was AMAZING!

B and Angela found a vegan dessert place on night 2 and got crazy ass sounding flavors of milk shakes :)

*Time Square*

     We got an early start on our last day in the city and went straight to Time Square where they were already setting up for the next nights New Years Eve celebration!

Where the ball drops!

In the middle of time square, hungry at lunch time…. maybe we should have eaten before coming to the middle of all the action!

The big Toys R Us with the carousel inside was between us and food so we decided to check that out first!

Billy and Angela finally caved for the street vendors roasted Chestnuts!

This cathedral was beautiful… and so is the picture I took of Tara above right??? My favorite! 

*Central Park*

*Rockefeller*

* Time Warner Building*

    Several years ago when Alex and I were visiting New York Billy snapped a picture of us crossing the street and I loved it so I had to have him re-create it…

Good bye New York!

Our ride home was by train and we absolutely fell in love with this particular mode of transportation!!!

WOW, if only planes were this comfortable and roomy!

We made it back to Jersey just in time to bring in the new year with family and friends at Auntie G’s and Uncle Johns!

Above and to your left you will see two best buds and biggest bull shitters of your life, they’re crazy!

 

Yes, my Aunt Gloria is an amazing suzie homemaker… she  cooked 4 different types of lasagna to suffice for the vegans, vegetarians, meat eaters and "no red saucers”!

Aunt Gloria and Mommom both have the same dessert/liquor cart and I have always been absolutely infatuated with them! 

We sat around and listened to the best stories about all daddy’s relatives “olden days”…. apparently I had a pretty crazy Aunt Gin who didn’t believe in rules or laws and thought it was completely normal to see a chicken on the side of the road and snap it’s neck for dinner…. actually, word is, it would be a sin to not….

Now I know where crazy mom mom gets it from :)

We got our bellies full and it was time to settle in for the countdown… I loved the three bald heads front and center.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist!

Aunt Gloria has had the same party hats and music makers from the 50’s, they were so cute and antique looking and it was a MUST that everyone wears one!

  

Happy New Year mommom, we love you!

On New Years day it was time to return home to the babies and thankfully, as fun as our 15 hour road trip was, we were flying home!

I was so excited about getting some pleasure reading done both on the way there and the way home!

I finished A Stolen Life by Jaycee Duggard on the ride up (So good but so hard to get through, especially the details of her actual kidnapping on day 1, but stay with it). On the way home I got to brush up on some counseling techniques in “35 Techniques Every Counselor Should Know” from a book my co-worker lent me :)

We had the best homecoming of all New Years Day, getting to the babies who were safe, happy and healthy!

Milly actually jumped up on me over and over and cried the whole time we attempted to carry on a conversation with Alex’s mom thanking her for taking care of our babies. Milly is quite persistent and let it be known she was ready to go!

So thanks again Mrs. Karen for watching our babies, sorry Tucker kept you up all night- he thinks he is quite the guard dog :)

Also, thanks SOOO MUCH again Mary and Lillie, we absolutely adored yall’s place in the city and it was so nice of you to have us stay there!

***Happy 2012***