And We're Walking, And We're Walking...

This past Saturday Scott and I grabbed two great friends, left the kids with a sitter and had ourselves a real, bonifide, middle-of-the-afternoon, grown up play date!

These are our friends, George and Gwen. Also known as Gus and Gusset. Also known as Aunt Gwennie and Uncle Gus to our kids.
Here the four of us are on our play date.
George and Scott grew up in Crawfordsville, Indiana and have known each other since High School. Gwen, also from Indiana, met George on a blind date when she was still in college. The rest, as they say, is history.

Scott was best man in their wedding and George was best man in ours 6 months later.

We moved to NC in 1996, they moved here in 1997.

Our first babies were born 6 weeks apart.

Yeah, good friends with lots of good history makes for a fun and relaxing day.

Anyhoo, back to what we did on our afternoon of freedom.

We headed to downtown Raleigh for a Triangle Food Tour.

Basically, we visited 7 restaurants in 3 hours. We walked to most and took the free R Line bus to a few.
Ooh, doesn't he look mean? You never know who you will encounter waiting for a bus downtown!
So the premise behind these tours (they have them for Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary, too!) is to highlight new and/or out of the way restaurants in the area. At each stop, we received a small sample of one of their menu items, often with a tasting of wine or other beverage.

As you might imagine, we had a fabulous time. Who wouldn't?

It was about 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. We got to wander around downtown Raleigh, learn a little history of the area and eat a yummy variety of foods.

We had pulled pork, cole slaw and a hush puppy at Coopers BBQ.
Bow tie pasta with a mushroom cream sauce at La Volta Italiano.
Red Beans and Rice (with Andouille sausage) at The Big Easy.
Shrimp and Grits at The Mint.
Another fabulous pasta & veggies dish at Sunflowers Cafe. I forgot the name of the dish but here it is. I ate all the veggies but set the jalapeno slices aside.
Warm goat cheese salad (sooooo delicious!) and a crisp white wine at Solas.
Then we wrapped up the day with spicy chipotle-marinated shredded chicken and a roasted red pepper margarita at Jibarra.
Highly recommend the food tour to anyone. We plan to do the Durham one in the Spring.

Thank you, Kris for recommending something so fun. Oh, and thanks to Kris's daughter Courtney, who kept the four munchkins in line while we were out!

Me and My Shadow

We are pet sitting a neighbor's dog, Saber, for a couple of days this week. It is nice to have a dog in the house again.

Especially one that is fully house trained, is past the puppy stage but still in the young and playful stage. The kids wake up all excited to play with our visitor.

And having him has made one thing once again abundantly clear: I am the Alpha dog of this pack.

Scott could not get Saber to go with him to the bedroom last night, no matter the coaxing. But all I had to do was stand up and walk into the bedroom and Saber followed along and walked right into his crate.

Of course I am the one who feeds him, walks him, and takes him out several times a day. And since I work from home, he spends a lot of time laying on my office floor listening to me chat both to myself and on calls.

However, even when everyone else is home, Saber still follows me around like, well, like a puppy :)

And I mean he follows me everywhere.

When I am cooking dinner.Washing the dishes.He kept me company during my shower the other night.He patiently awaits my attention while I watch TV.
And waits for me to throw a ball while I am on a conference call.
Occasionally he stares pensively out my office window. I think that he is thinking, "I can see my own house right there, so why am I here?"Either that or he is fixated on the squirrels.Of course I love the attention and having a little buddy around to keep me company.

Yep, I think we will have to get another dog of our own this spring.

That way I can keep up my Alpha status.

Parks and Slushies

We enjoyed the beautiful fall day romping around the park under Carolina blue skies.

The kids were having so much fun that I had a hard time getting them motivated to head home. Which is why I resorted to the 'ol "anyone who wants a slushy has to get in the car now!"

They came running and now we all have cold lips and red tongues.

The Beginning of the End.

It has begun.This weekend we will finish putting up wainscot and chair rail in the bathroom and hopefully will finish the final painting as well.
So excited to see this project nearing the end.

Now, who wants to make me some sheer window treatments to swag over the two windows? Anyone? Hello?

Ok, fine. I will work on the window treatments but I will hold off on final pictures until that last piece is complete.

Once Again Around the Ring.

Eliza Grace spent a week of her track out at Trademark Stables horseback riding camp.

Rumor stuck his tongue out at me!

And, not surprisingly, once again she had a wonderful time .

Rumor was not really in a cantering mood on this particular day but she finally got him to get moving, at least for a few seconds.

Cowboy Day!

Will's preschool class has been learning about the wild West for the past couple of weeks.

This past Friday was Cowboy Day.
To say he was excited is a huge understatement.

He picked out (and tried on) his entire outfit a couple of days in advance, bounced out of bed that morning and was dressed in record time.

Personally, I think he is the most handsome cowboy ever!

Yeehaw!

Puddle Jumpers.

Waiting for Daddy to come home.
I wish Target made zebra print galoshes in my size.
Life's too short. Go jump in a puddle!