Julia's reaction

This is what happens when you tell a best friend (with the gift of excitement) that you are going to have a baby...

Julia & Joshua's Wedding

My precious friend Julia got married on New Year's Day (1-1-11!) in this gorgeous castle in Colorado Springs. Colorado's biggest snow of the year (at the time) fell a few days before and blanketed the Palmer Estate and Glyn Eyrie Castle in this gorgeous white setting. It was picturesque to say the least. Robert and I were so privileged to travel to Colorado and join Julia and Joshua in worship at their marriage ceremony. Julia is in many ways the sister I never had. We shared a room together in college for two years, and she was my maid of honor. What a privilege to be with her on her big day.

We flew into Denver on Thursday and had lunch at Duffy's Cherry Cricket. Highly recommended, it's one of the best burger and brews joints in town. We then headed south to the Springs in our trusty Ford Focus rental to Julia's parents house for her and Joshua's around the clock shower. It was great to tell her our baby news in person. And we had so much fun meeting and hanging out with her and Joshua's family.

They had some great shower games, including the make a wedding dress out of a roll of toilet paper game. Yours truly's team won with our stylish rosette design below modeled beautifully by Joshua's brother!

Friday Robert drove to Cooper to ski for the day. The wind chill was negative 15 on the mountain, but with the fresh snow fall he had a great, but cold, day on the sloops. Baby A and I stayed back at the castle, where we kept warm and helped Julia with some last minute things. I also got to take some fun pics of the family during the rehearsal.

The rehearsal dinner was so fun! Julia and Joshua sported their matching red leather patent shoes purchased especially for the occassion! They were one sharp couple.

I also loved, loved, loved meeting Julia's former roommate in Denver, Laura Beth Trucks. LB is a Birmingham native, and it was so good to have a kindred southern spirit on the trip. We became fast friends.

Ok, so I bought my dress for the rehearsal dinner before Baby A decided to pooch, which he/she randomly did out of no where that week at 13 weeks. Not quite as flattering as it was in the dressing room of Macy's a month earlier, but alas there were no other options.

Saturday - wedding day - was also Bama's bowl game. We found this great place, Phantom Brewery Company in the Springs, to watch Bama roll over the Spartans. All of Julia's recommendations for restaurants were outstanding. Then we headed back to the castle so I could help the bride get ready. Isn't she gorgeous!

The wedding was wonderful, such a great time of worship and celebration, and all the great dancing and partying afterwards was such a treat, though I have to say the being preggers makes you get crazy winded on a dance floor! You definitely can see the baby pooch in the family pic below.

With the beautiful bride and groom! Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Pheonix!

Memphis

This past August we made a fun weekend trip to Memphis to visit our good friends, Alex and Sam. We don't get to see these sweet friends from college often enough, but I'm so glad they were willing to host us and show us around town during - of all things - Elvis week in Memphis. Only we would plan a trip to Memphis and have no idea it happened to be on the weekend the whole town celebrates Elvis' birthday in full style. Let's just say downtown was quite the scene on Saturday evening with all the Elvis impersonators and the many tourists decked out in Elvis apparel. Love for The King was live and well.


I do have to say that Alex and Sam know how to feed their friends. We had great food at Gus's Fried Chicken and later at Rendezvous. The latter is a Memphis legend for vinegar-based BBQ, and it was my first time to visit. The full rack of ribs did not disappoint. Neither did our hook up with a table since Alex knew the manager. No line. No waiting.

We also did some shopping on the town square in Colliersville, a suburb of Memphis. I scored a nice leather handbag and mirror for our guest room at an antique shop before we stopped by a coffee shop for some gelato. Had to take a pic of Alex with the Christmas Story leg lamp in the shop. It was hot, but luckily we had some pool time earlier that morning. We also learned to play Settlers of Catan.


After dinner at Rendezvous we headed to the top of the Peabody Hotel to catch the fireworks from the Memphis Redbirds game. The Redbirds had a dramatic, 9th inning, come from behind win that was really entertaining, even from the top of the hotel. And, we actually got to watch a live marriage proposal while we were up there, and of course saw the famous Peabody ducks.



Thanks, Alex and Sam, for a wonderful weekend! Can't wait to see you guys again soon!

Vacation

There's nothing quite like a vacation. I can't believe we've already been back from our annual beach trip with my family for nearly three weeks. We had such a relaxing time in Destin at what has become our favorite condo. The pool area is amazing, though we were fortunate to also have several beautiful days on the beach - with no oil in sight. The whole crew was there: mom and dad, Kyle, Alison, and Isabella, Dave and Shelby, and Ryan and his friend, Nick, who was part of the family by the end of the week.

I was proud of how many pics I managed to take during the week. I was also proud of how well I let myself relax. I finished Pat Conroy's South of Broad (which I'm reading for my book club; more details in another post but, yes, I said book club, and it's turned out to be one of my best ideas to date. Not lame at all, and I was actually pretty worried about it being a total bust. But I digress...) I also nearly finished Dan Brown's Deception Point. Nearly two books in one week is pretty much a record for me. So we all rested, napped, read, napped, ate, napped, ate again...It was the best.

This year, each "couple" had one night to prepare dinner. This was a great idea of my mom, and really made the whole week easier on everyone. We ate at our favorite dinner spot, The Wharf, one night, and also watched the fireworks over the bay. It may have been the first time in my life I haven't spent the 4th of July in Birmingham, but it turned out to be a great week to travel. We did a Thursday to Thursday schedule which gave us a nice, long weekend to recover before the first Monday back at work. Pure genius, and sure beats traveling on a Sunday.

I've uploaded a few pics from our trip in random order below. One you'll recognize as the new blog pic of Robert and me. I'm actually not wearing a speck of make-up in that photo, and I posted it as the bog pic for all the world to see. Who's says vacations aren't freeing?

With my sweet brothers before the fireworks show.

I think we all spent most of our time, day and night, on that balcony. We were on the 11th floor and had a beautiful view of the ocean.

Daddy and Isabella in her cute patriotic swimsuit.

The night we all dressed up for dinner. Managed to get several group shots. The rest are at the end of the post.

Goofing around at the outlets. We are all pretty big shoppers, especially the boys in my family; we can divide and conquer outlets for the best sales. I actually got a great pair of banana republic linen pants and a cute top. Then I scored some new Nike Shox tennis shoes which I love. Robert got some new tennis shoes and some cleats.


Playing in the water and sand with "Aunt Nana" and "Mister Mark"



Ladder ball was a big hit. Lots of fun on the beach. We also played some mean paddle ball matches.




Alison and Kyle



David's famous back flip.

Group photo. This one turned out really well. Poor Isabella had an ear infection and wasn't having the best night but shortly thereafter was back to her perky self after her antibiotics kicked in.





We realized on day two that Robert's cousins were going to be in Destin the same week we were. We met up with them on night and had the best time catching up. I can't believe how much they have all grown. They have a precious family.


And we actually paid to have these birds put on us. None of the boys volunteered. Speaking of the boys...


And somehow it turned into a tummy fest. David gets the award for most likely to be asked, "When's your baby due?"