Meals & Food

I can’t highly enough recommend a very long lunch at a fancy cafe with girlfriends to soothe the soul. Especially on a workday.

On Tuesday, I met with new mommies Ele and Molly and babies Finn and Cooper at the cafe at Nordstrom to have their tasty chicken caesar.

It was awesome getting to catch up with the girls - I haven’t seen Molly since Ele’s baby shower and it’s been about 5 weeks since I’d seen Ele and Finn. We chatted babies and transitions and pregnancy, even a little L&D. I definitely felt better seeing what it’s like on the other side, and knowing that I can do it, too!

Yesterday was Dave’s birthday, so we went to a nice dinner at Mo’s Diner downtown. Pretty tasty, especially the dessert!

Happy Birthday Honey!

A nice quiet Christmas morning for Dave and I. Our last quiet Christmas, I’m predicting.

Dave got a book of genius Sudoku puzzles, a Bruce Springsteen CD, an indoor/outdoor weather station, and some cute boxers. I got two Pink Martini CDs, a book of Sci-Fi-inspired baby names, and a fabulous new digital camera!!! I love love love it and I’m so excited to stop using my crappy old HP.

Mom and Gene came over for Christmas dinner in the afternoon. Mom bought us this insanely large standing rib roast - almost 11 1/2 pounds! For those of you in the know, it appeared to include all seven ribs. It took 4 1/4 hours to cook.

It was delish!! We had it with roasted vegetables and some tasty asparagus.

Ha, but was Mom disappointed when I served her after-dinner coffee in one of our new Browns mugs!

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Mom got me two pairs of crocs, one black and one brown. Not really something I thought I’d want, but my feet are growing and I’m thinking slip-ons are the way to go since I can’t see my feet and I’m starting to not be able to reach them.

Dave got a 6-month membership to the Brew-of-the-Month club. I also got a cute Geek Inside shirt and the baby got a Geekling onesie.

Mom got a massage gift certificate and Gene got a book by Lou Dobbs. Mom got Gene this fabulous back massager/heat pad that he can put in his recliner. All in all, we made out like bandits!!

A half-dozen blue crabs yielded one ramekin of sweet, sweet crab meat. Yum!

The Christmas decorations at Waffle House make me happy. So does the food.

For the holiday, we’ve got Dave’s parents here and Granma as well. Yay for Mom and Gene, who drove up to Virginia Beach on Wednesday and brought Granma back!

Dad and I

Mom and I polish silver on Thursday morning

Granma and Mom indulge in some waffles for breakfast

It has been such a beautiful day out! The weather was perfect! We spent a few hours on the front porch enjoying the day.

The cats got to enjoy the lovely weather, as well, with a mega-dose of outdoor time on the front lawn, eating grass and chasing leaves in the wind.

Several hours later, we sat down to a lovely Thanksgiving day meal. We had turkey, stuffing, potatoes, green beans, cranberries and chopped salad.

After dinner, and then dessert, everyone collapsed in front of the TV.

What a great day!! Happy Turkey Day to everyone!!

After lovely massages on Friday afternoon and a lovely dinner at Irregardless Cafe Friday, we got up on Saturday morning for a traditional breakfast at Waffle.

Look at the lovely spread Tyra and I had last night for her sleepover!

What a fun Friday night I had! Cristin came over after work and we decided it was good enough weather to attempt to recreate the back cover of Ziggy Stardust. It took us over an hour to get ready and we were so dolled up by the time we left the house! We headed up to Brier Creek for the photo shoot as we needed one of those red British telephone boxes. Imagine our dismay when we discovered that the damn doors don’t open! What? Why?!?!? I was so annoyed I was laughing.

Regardless, we looked hot. So we went to Champa for sushi dinner. Yum.

After dinner, we met up with Kerri and went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. More on that to come!

The star of the show, of course, is little Evan. We spent the weekend entertaining him and he is just cute as a button. He is a water baby and loved time with the pool and the hose. While we were there, he ate his first piece of meat (deli turkey), had his first piece of toast, and said his first word (cow). He is definitely a handful but clearly a delight to his proud mama and papa. Speaking of which, here are our happy hosts at our lunch at the Salt Lick, an Austin-area institution.

A lovely dinner Monica prepared for us!

Giving Fin the love he deserves

Grayson getting the same love

We had a great, very relaxing time and loved seeing Scott, Monica, Evan and the whole farm!