January Wrapped up with a Bang

My previous post was eaten by my computer, so I’m just going to combine weekends.

 

We “celebrated” MLK weekend with Ben’s parents visiting.  We celebrated by looking all over Clarksville, TN for 9 mm ammo for my conceal carry class that I was going to need.  Thanks Obama.  Oh and of course all we heard about was the inauguration, blah blah blah.  4 more years of pain and torture.  I’ve already had enough.

 

But, Ben’s parents came over Saturday morning.  I had Bunco Friday night and Ben didn’t get back from Phoenix until late on Friday so they came over Saturday morning.

 

Over all a pretty uneventful weekend.  Made our way to Springfield, TN to eat at the Depot which was very small but very good.  Church and the ammo hunt on Sunday, did shoot a magazine in the 9 mm with mom for practice before our conceal carry class on the 26^th.  I did fine, I have a laser, it’s pretty dummy proof!

 

Monday it was back to work for me, back to Sikeston for Ben’s parents and off to Indianapolis for the week for Ben.  He’s never home this time of year!

 

Several threats of ice the past 2 weeks, thankfully none of it amounted to much. 

 

I started coming down with a cold on Wednesday and have been fairly miserable since.  Today (Monday) I’m finally feeling better, but yesterday was pretty low key.

 

Ben got back from Indianapolis early because of them impending ice/snow they were calling for, so he got in Thursday night, so he got to be home Friday and he and Bean spent Friday morning together instead of her going to Tiffany’s since she really hasn’t seen him much the past 2 weeks.

 

I got all my stuff ready for the conceal carry class on Saturday morning, it was going to be a long day!

 

Ben, Mallory and I met Gerald up at the community room at 7 am to set up the projector and computer and to put the final touches on everything.  I was feeling awful but pushed through the best I could.  We had 2 of the 40 who were out sick, so the class was to be 38 women, still a great class!

 

I finally got to feeling better, my meds kicked in, Ben and Mallory headed off to McDonald’s for some breakfast before he had to drop her off at Aunt Sharon’s so he could go catch his flight to Kansas City where he was going to be for the next few days.

 

Our class went well, the movie was the worst part, just like everyone said but Gerald made the rest of the class fun.

 

We all headed out to his house where his range was so we could do the shooting portion and his wife had coffee, tea and sausage balls ready for us.

 

Everyone was most worried about the shooting part but we all did well, even the couple who had never even shot a gun before, he made sure to really work with them and get them comfortable.  He really is a great teacher!

 

So, in about 3-4 months, because of the back log, we should finally get our documents back to get our license! 

 

After class I headed over to Aunt Sharon’s to pick up Bean, visited with them for a while and then we just came home a crashed.

 

Sunday I had a million things I needed to do, none of which I felt like doing but mom called and offered to watch Mallory so I could go get part of what I needed done in Clarksville for Tiffany’s shower this next weekend and then they would head over around 5 and we’d meet for dinner.

 

So I got to hit up Target and Babies R Us alone, it’s amazing how much easier shopping is that way!

 

So finally I’m feeling better from my cold, hopefully tomorrow will be pretty much 100%, tonight I’m tackling the disaster of a house and trying to get the final stuff done for the baby shower.

 

Ben get’s back Tuesday night, so we will actually see him for 2 days before me, Mallory and Mom turn around and head to Ohio, lol.

 

That’s just how we roll.

 

 

2 Things I've Never Done Before

This weekend just happened to be full of new adventures!

First being that Saturday morning we went to my first every Baby Gender Reveal Party!

Tiffany, our babysitter/friend/pippie, is having another baby!  She's due at the end of May and just found out on Wednesday what they were having so insteady of telling close friends and family asap she decided to have a little brunch to let everyone know.

So we had some food and punch, had a little game of guess the gender and then finally via a pink center in cupcakes found out she's having another girl!  Shelton will be her name!

After that I met up with Kristy and we hit the sidewalks in Elkton for a 4 mile run.

Then it was home to shower for new thing #2 for the weekend, Mallory went Rollersakating!

Zaylei's birthday was the 6th and so they had her birthday party at the Roller Dome in Hopkinsville so Mallory got to try her hand at skating!  Her little skates were so cute!

Her and Ben make their way around the rink quite a few times.  They locked the wheels on her skates and then we had them unlock the fronts, so she did pretty good but we didn't try with both wheels unlocked yet.

She had a ball skating, bouncing in the bouncy house, playing in the ball pit, running around to all the games, eating cake, etc.  It was a good time!

Then we met up with Mom, Dad, Susan and Nick at the Horseshoe and had some dinner after the party.

Sunday was a miserable day.  Rain non stop.  Ben had to catch a plane to Phoenix at 7 pm but other than that we literally did nothing all day!

A Whirlwind Trip to Dalls and Packing Heat : )

With Christmas and New Year's behind us, everyone feeling a bit better, it was then time for me to board a plane and head to Dallas on the 3rd for our company's annual meeting and 10 year Anniversary celebration.

I had meetings Thursday afternoon and Friday and Ben was flying out Friday afternoon to join us for the company/spouse dinner Friday night and then we got the option to stay and extra day and do whatever we wanted on Saturday.

Mom and Dad kept Bean and Ben and I decided to make the most of our time in Dallas!  Neither of us had spent any time in the actual city (airport doesn't count!) so we had quite a few things on the list to accomplish in 1 day!

Saturday morning started out a little slow, a little too much bourbon for me the night before!  But once we were up we just decided to rent a car for the day, that was going to be way cheaper than taking a taxi everywhere we wanted to go and there was a rental car place in our hotel, so a Toyota Camry was our chariot for the next 24 hours!

First was a trip up north of town to tour Southfork Ranch, the ranch that parts of the old and new Dallas were filmed at.  It was fun to see the house, get the tour and take pictures of the very 1980's decor of big floral prints and more wallpaper than I think I've ever seen in one house! 

After our tour of Southfork, it was lunch time, Ben was determined to get some famous Texas beef bbq, preferably something from one of the Food Network shows, so we settled on Sonny Bryan's and found the closest one and let the gps on my phone direct us there.

I am not a huge BBQ fan, or more just not a fan of BBQ sauce but I knew it was a big deal to Ben, so off we went.  I got pulled chicken (new to me) and Ben got brisket and two types of smoked sausage.  Needless to say that was some of the yummiest chicken I've ever had and one of their sauces was even really good.  Ben said it was a spiritual moment for him, lol, needless to say it was good and we recommend Sonny Bryant's!

After that we wanted to hit up a western wear store.  I found one I thought I'd heard of before, Pink's, so we tried it.  Fine but didn't have enough jean options for what I was looking for so we decided to just head to Shepler's, we knew they had a ton.  So I found some 38" inseam Wrangler's on sale and Ben found 2 pair of the Wrangler Khaki's in his size that I couldn't find again on the Shepler's website or Wrangler website, so we were both happy.

It was now late afternoon but we still had time to get to Dealey Plaza to go to the Sixth Floor Musuem which is the floor from the building that JFK was shot from.  We drove downtown and easily found the plaza off Elm Street and made our way to the museum.  They have a nice audio tour and it walks you through his election, the presidency and then the events of that day, the days after and then the conspiracy theories.  Very interesting place.  We also got the outdoor tour via your cell phone where you could get further details on all the buildings and plaza from an outside perspective.  There's also "panhandlers" as I'll call them that like to corner you, give you their version of the story and then ask for $10.  It was interested what the guy that talked to us about his theory, but not really $10 intersting, oh well, I know to avoid them next time, lol!

Now we were creeping up on 5:30 pm, so back to the hotel to freshen up and head to Ft Worth down to the old stockyard area.  We wanted to try to go to Billy Bob's and find a good steakhouse.

Through some internet research we landed on H3 steakhouse there in the Stockyards and the only availble reservation was at 9:30 pm, so we got dressed and headed the 35 miles over there.  It was a really neat atmosphere.  There was a rodeo going on at the Cowboy Colliseum, horses were walking around, it smelled like a rodeo, a smell I love!

We wandered around, saw some of the sights, went in a few stores and got our very own Lone Star beer to walk around with.  Finally around 9 I thought lets just go on to H3 and see if we can get in and they took us right back.  Really yummy steak and nachos for an appitizer, def somewhere I'd go back to!

When we finished eating there we walked over to Billy Bobs, it was packed with a zillion people standing at the door.  They were sold out for the night and we couldn't get in, so we walked by Billy Bobs!  We tried.  By that point i was tired and we just made our way back to the hotel, by the time we were back we had been sight seeing pretty much non stop for 13+ hours, I was ready for bed!

A pretty non eventful flight back to Nashville and it was back to Mom and Dad's to get Bean!  I miss my munchkin!

We are also making more progress on the land.  Logging was done in like 3 days and then we got a guy to come in and dig up and bury stumps and pile/clear all the area where the house is going to sit, so now we have a probalby 30 foot tile pile of limbs that needs to be burned before we can even think about getting started!  Hopefully that will happen sometime in the next month or so.

I'm also putting together a conceal carry class for just women in the area.  It started out being for a few freinds and family and has grown into 40 women taking the class on Jan 26th, should be fun!  Don't mess with Todd County Women : )

A Christmas Parade and Opryland!

Elkton had it's first Christmas parade in apparently 30 years on December 7^th. I do not ever remember a Christmas parade, but if I went to one when I was 5 or younger, I just don't remember it.


I actually haven't been to many Christmas parades to compare, but for Elkton, I thought it was pretty good. I always tell the story of the Christmas parade that I went to in Tifton, GA (don't ask) and will always remember the Cadillac convertible in the parade that was being driven by a live horse. I'll always remember that and have yet to figure out how. And no I was not drunk and I was probably 22 at the time, so yes I remember it clearly, it was a live horse.


Moving on. We camped out on the town square with our camp chairs so we would have comfy (ish) seating. For reasons unknown to me, we were apparently the only people who thought to bring camp chairs to the parade. Everyone else was standing or sitting on a damp concrete ledge. I didn't think it was that novel of an idea to have camp chairs, but apparently we were the only ones thinking that way!


Mallory enjoyed it, she like the drums and she especially liked Santa at the end. Oh and I found it interesting that we got more candy from the Christmas parade by sitting in one spot than when we walked over a mile trick or treating. Perhaps we need a Halloween parade as well!!


Right before the parade got started, Ben's parents arrived for the weekend, so once the parade was finished we walked down to the Community House and got in line to have Bean's picture made with Santa and Mrs. Clause.


I've been asking Bean all week what she wanted for Christmas from Santa and her answer has always been the same: ELEPHANTS! Not sure where this infatuation with elephants has come from (perhaps a youtube video Aunt Brenda has posted on FB that we watched) but regardless she wants elephants. We waited in line, she happily went to be with Santa and Mrs. Clause and she told them she wanted Elephants. Fairly painless!


Here's those pictures, nothing great, but we got them for free none the less.

After that we headed home to a crock pot of chili that I had made earlier in the day.


Saturday we had the day planned in Nashville. We headed out after lunch (Ben and his dad went deer hunting that morning) and we were going to Oprymills, to eat at Cock of the Walk and then go see the lights at Opryland Hotel.


Obviously Ten thousand or more other people had the same idea, but we had no set time we had to be anywhere, so I didn't let the traffic bother me, we just slowly made our way from the offramp to Opry Mills Mall. We did a bit of shopping, Santa shopped for Elephants at the Rainforest Café, we got Bean her Christmas dress, lots of people, but not just maddening.


We worked our way out to the side of Opry Mills to go across the street to Cock of the Walk. I'm not even really sure how to describe this restaurant other than it's yummy. It's a take from like the Huck Finn days and being on the river (the Cumberland River is near by) and the waiters and waitresses are dressed kinda like that era and with the funny hats. It's a catfish restaurant and man they have yummy catfish and fixings. They have a few other things to eat other than catfish, but I don't know anyone who has ever ordered anything else, lol.


Next was the Opryland Hotel. It was packed. We waited in line for what seemed like an eternity, probably 30 minutes to park. They parked us in some far off lot and we had to walk a good half mile to the actual hotel. Of course it was raining by this point but I had 2 umbrellas and we had Bean's umbrella stroller, so we all made out fine. We wandered around the hotel and saw the lights, wasn't as many as I remember, but we had a good time and found the kid town area where M got to ride the train, with mommy! She loved it.


Overall she was really good. She had one little meltdown the whole day while we were at the hotel but other than that, she was a real trooper!


Here's a few pictures!!




Now in other exciting news, a bit of progress has been made on the lot where we are going to build.


We got bids, well a bid but that's a long story I'm not going to bore you with the details of some incompetent folks who tried to give me their bid after the deadline, to cut the selected timber off the lot and in the area where the house was going to go. So we met with him Monday afternoon, signed the contract, they got moved in and starting cutting on Tuesday and were done by Friday. Now that's my kind of people! So now you can really see where the house will be and although there's still a lot of woods and trees, it's much easier to get through the woods and we have a driveway, albeit mud : )

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sorry my blogs have been somewhat sporadic, I've successfully run out of picture space and I have to do a work around until I figure out how I want to handle the blog and it's pictures, soooo, I've been a little slower to post.


2013 has arrived, seems crazy, 2012 went by way too fast!


Christmas was much more exciting for Mallory this year, she knew exactly what she wanted, an Elephant. You ask her and that's exactly what she said. She ended up with several and really hasn't seem that attached to any of them, but when you ask her what she got for Christmas, she says with much excitement, Elephants, so who knows!


We left for Sikeston early to surprise Ben's mom and go to her school musical that she does every year and that we've never seen. She didn't think we were coming till Friday night, so that was a good surprise; somehow everyone managed to keep it a secret!


The musical was good although Mallory wanted to dance around, which wasn't a big deal, but the calling out for Mimi and not understanding why she couldn't be up front with her during the performance was a challenge for a 2.5 year old!


Mallory had been fighting a cough for well over a week and our pedi said it was allergies and to take allergy meds. Well, those weren't working so we made another trip to the urgent care in Sikeston where they basically told us the same thing but at least gave us some prescription meds to try. Getting Mallory to take the medicine has been a war all it's own. Let's just say her stubbornness and lack of reasoning with this child has made it very difficult!


We had the traditional Christmas gathering with family friends in Sikeston. Got to meet Nathan's girlfriend Jennifer, great girl! Mallory was always the center of attention as normal!


Mallory loved opening presents and would happy open any present that you would let her, so she opened the majority of presents for everyone!


We headed back to Elkton late Christmas morning so Mallory could see what Santa brought her at home and then to go over to my parents for Christmas. We had to postpone Memaw's because Aunt Sharon had the flu, that would wait until Saturday night.


More fun for Mallory opening presents at Mom and Dads and playing with all her stuff from Santa….now I had to figure out where to put all this stuff!


The day after Christmas we went back to our Pedi. Mallory really wasn't getting any better and her snot was now green, I know you really wanted to know that, lol! Sinus Infection was this times diagnosis and antibiotics was prescribed. We've finally, after much trial and error, determined that putting medicine in her favorite drink, orange or red Gatorade, is about the only way to get the child to take it. So that's what we do and she's finally feeling better!


Of course then I started to not feel so well around the 29^th, not sure but that had me feeling kinda puny through New Year's Day and now I'm finally feeling better as well.


Looking forward to an eventful 2013!!