Thanksgiving

I've really gotten behind on here. 2 weekends and Thanksgiving to catch up on. Ok, well when I left off it was a Friday afternoon and K had left to go hunting. J had basketball practice and then we had to get a new battery for my car.

Love the sweet guys at Autozone! :) After we got that taken care of, we stopped by Heather's to see her. Her mom had died and I wanted to visit with her for a bit. Saturday morning, J went to his dad's and I headed to Pickwick with the pups to meet K.

Mom and Roy were up there too. When K was through hunting, he came to the lakehouse and we watched some football and then headed over to Jon's Pier for dinner. He got up early Sunday and went hunting again and I took a nice long walk and enjoyed the fall colors.

I headed back to Memphis that afternoon and K came home to. We went to Swanky's for dinner and football. Monday morning wasn't too bad since it was going to be a short week. After work, I had dinner with J at Mom and Roy's and hung out with them for a bit. Tuesday was bowling night. I made some pastalaya for K and I and J got to stay late at bowling since there was no school on Wednesday. Jackson came home with him from the bowling alley and we went to the zoo Wednesday to ice skate with Angie D. and her boys and Mel and Drew.

The Christmas decorations were up and they looked great.

After a little more than an hour skating, we enjoyed some time with the animals.

After the zoo, we took Jackson home and headed back to our house to do some cooking for Thanksgiving.

I made an ooey gooey butter cake for the first time and it was fantastic. We got up Thursday morning and went to church with Mom, Roy and Sissy before heading to Mom's for Thanksgiving lunch. We had a good load of people (Mom, Roy, J, K, me, Sissy, John, Tay, Marcia, Jordan, Dillon, Kris, Brian, Carter and Cayson) and a ton of food. The day was going great and we were having so much fun but as we were finishing eating, Bennie called John to tell him that Tom had died. What a horrible thing for their family to lose him on such a special holiday :( That pretty much put a damper on everything. Everyone packed up and headed out. I stayed and helped mom clean up and then watched the Cowboys game with her, Roy and J. K headed out to the hunting camp. J and I made it home later on, despite the heavy thunderstorms and hunkered down for the night with a movie and more ooey gooey butter cake. We got up Friday and did some things around the house, headed to the barrel for some breakfast and then headed to the lake. We met K at the Pickwick Catfish Farm for dinner and then went to bed pretty early. The guys got up and went hunting Saturday morning, I got things straightened up and headed back to Memphis. Aimee invited me over to her parents to watch the LSU game.

We had a ton of fun even though we lost. Her family was great and there were a lot of people there. After the game, we headed over to Heather's who was having people over since Keith Hooper was in town. I made it home way late but got to sleep in Sunday :) I got up and did some Christmas shopping while I waited on the guys to get home from hunting. We napped and then grabbed some dinner at Carraba's before going to bed early to catch up on our beauty sleep and get ready for a full week of work and school.

Mike Bartlett

This week was a rough one for my little angel. Mike Bartlett was found dead in his bed by Jan Sunday morning. Jacob and the rest of the world loved that man dearly. We went to Mom's Monday night for dinner with her, Roy and Aunt Opal. Opal has been on some medication and seems to be a lot better. Tuesday night, we hung at the house with K. I made dinner and we watched some basketball. J had to miss bowling for a disrespect incident in class Monday. Wednesday night was Mike's visitation and yesterday was his funeral. The weather was cold and dreary....like it always is for a funeral, it seems like. After the funeral, J and I grabbed a late lunch at Fattie Mattie's and then headed home for a long nap. J's basketball pictures were last night and then we came home and watched the Alabama football game. We were both a little down in the dumps so it was nice to be low key. Today, I took a long walk around downtown to blow off some steam and ready to go home now.

LSU Homecoming

Damn! We had such a great weekend :)))) We left straight for Baton Rouge after picking J up from school Friday. We made great time and got to the hotel after making a stop for fan gear (J actually wanted a jersey) by 9ish. We had a great hotel suite right next to campus. It had a little kitchen, living room and bedroom and was perfect for the weekend. We were able to make the room meeting headquarters and were able to forget things at our leisure because it was so easy to get back to the room from where we were tailgating. The hotel is brand new and I don't think many people know about it yet. We probably need to go ahead and reserve rooms now for next year. Here is the link for the Staybridge Suites: Baton Rouge Hotel Suite
Anyways, after we got settled in our little apartment, Ryan stopped by. We had a few drinks and some dinner that I brought from Memphis. Saturday morning, we got up and were ready to roll! I grabbed a quick workout and K and J went to breakfast while we waited on Dale and Betty to get to Baton Rouge. They made it around lunchtime and we headed to the tailgating spot. Ryan made it shortly after that. We took J for a tour around part of the campus. We went to the new baseball stadium.

And then we went to the football stadium and to Mike's cage to try to catch a glimpse of him but he must have been snoozing because we didn't catch him.

We stopped by the fan shop and J got some more LSU gear and then headed back to the tailgating spot to throw the football and eat and eat and drink and eat some more.

We had boudin, cracklins, wild hog smoked sausage and jambalaya pasta (pastalaya!) We headed to the stadium a little over an hour before game time to let J watch the players practice.

The game was a blowout (51 LSU - 0 UL Monroe)!

We had a lot of fun and J was able to get a spot right next to the tunnel at the end of the game. He sought it out to high five the players after the game and wound up getting one of the players wristband that he wore during the game.

That kid was so excited by that, it was awesome to see how excited he was. After the game we went back to the hotel and caught up with the rest of the days football happenings and had a few drinks. Sunday morning, we got up and hit the Bass Pro in Baton Rouge. It is so much better than the one here. The guys spent about and hour and a half looking around and probably could have stayed for hours more. I ran to the restaurant they had and ordered us some to go food for lunch and once it was ready, I had an excuse to make them leave. I ordered some alligator meat with my lunch and J got to try it for the first time....he was quite the fan and ate more of it than I did. We got home around 6:00 and chilled the rest of the night. Leslie, Laurel and Josh stayed at the house while we were gone, they were in town for a wedding and Les left me some great "Thank you" goodies...Stockpiled me with toilet paper, shampoo, shower gel and an awesome new insulated cup.

Today has been a cold and dreary day so I grabbed some Pho and spring rolls for lunch and am waiting on quitting time now!

Soups and exercise and work holidays and LSU preparation

Mom didn't feel like cooking Monday night so her and Roy took J and I to Longhorn's steakhouse for dinner. It was the first time I had been and was really good. I took my lunch break Tuesday and picked up things for dinner and went on a 3 miler.

I worked out that morning but the weather was so perfect, especially for a November afternoon that I couldn't pass up the chance to get out and enjoy it. J went bowling Tuesday night and I made a huge pot of Cajun corn and crab chowder with a salad.

I was suppose to take Mel out for drinks for her birthday after work Wednesday but Drew was sick with stomach problems and they had to take him to the ER. I was glad not to be going out after a pretty frustrating day at work. K grilled out some of our favorite smoked sausage and we made Po Boys, had a few beers and caught up on some of our TV that we missed last week. Thursday was Veterans Day and I stayed home from work to get some things done before we head out of town for the weekend. I slept in late and then went for a ride.

It felt great...it had been forever since I had been on my bike. I ran some errands and picked J up from school. I spent the rest of the night cooking for this weekend's tailgating festivities. I made a pot of Taco soup, some Cajun meatloaves for sammies, cupcakes and guacamole but by the looks of it, it looks like K and the pups were the ones hard at work!

 I'm so ready for Baton Rouge!! Just a few more hours :)

Last day in Ft. Lauderdale and home to a perfect and relaxing weekend

Friday morning, we had 3 more hours of training and then were through at 11:30am. Our flight wasn't until 4:30 so Oscar and I headed over to Bimini so I could have one last dose of fresh seafood before leaving.

The day was beautiful, very, very windy but beautiful, so we sat outside. I had the blackened grouper with brocolini and mac and cheese. It was delicious, just like everything else I had there. We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare so I picked up a new book to get into.

I got into it pretty good waiting to get back to Memphis and it's a pretty good read so far. I made it back to Memphis around 6:00pm and K and I decided to go up to Houston's for dinner and some drinks. We were both in some sort of wild mood and decided to drink Woodford. We almost forgot to eat but we finally got around to it. I had the Hawaiian ribeye and he had the prime rib.....it wasn't fresh seafood but it was awesome. We slept in late Saturday morning and then spent the whole day watching college football. It was an exciting football day! LSU was able to pull out a win over Alabama with some crazy plays. Later that night, K and I met Marcy and JJ for dinner at Flemings. I got up Sunday morning and did 10 miles.

I really didn't want to do it but after waking up yesterday and weighing myself and seeing that I have lost 10 pounds and the fact that I didn't do a training run/walk last weekend, I had a lot of motivation. I took the greenline to Shelby Farms and it was a beautiful morning.

I relaxed the rest of the day, watched some football, read some of my book and prepared a brisket for K to smoke. I picked up my little man that evening and was so happy to see his cute little face, it had been 5 days since I'd seen him and it was time for me to have some J time. K finished smoking the brisket, I made some potato salad, baked beans and cheddar muffins and we had a wonderful dinner....

...except for what we were watching on TV. The Cowboys game was on (v. Green Bay) and we got to see their SEVENTH loss of the season. So pathetic. They are the worst team of the franchise's history I do believe. I woke up this morning and did an easy ellip session since my legs were totally worn out from yesterday's 10 miles. I got to work to a ton of catch up to do, which is still not close to being done but I had to take a break. Oh yeah AND Wade Phillips got fired today! Granted, I am not crazy enough to think this will solve the Cowboys' problems but it is a start.

15th Street Fisheries, Rodney King trial lawyer, and back to Bimini's Boatyard

Last night I found 15th Street Fisheries restaurant and gave it a whirl. It had a great deck right by the water where the kids were feeding the tarpon and the boats were pulling in for a bite or some gas. I sat on the water and enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine and some dinner. I ordered a cup of clam chowdah and the blackened mahi sandwich. The chowdah was amazing and the mahi was nothing better than I could make at home but the atmosphere was great. After dinner, I decided to take a walk and explore some of the dock area where the boats were coming in and realized this was one of the restaurants I came to the last time I was here with Joe Rinehart and Stephen Lies for the FBI conference. I didn't recognize it at first because I came in from the street side, where as Joe, Stephen and I came in from the water taxi side.

Today's conference was really good! Mike Stone was the speaker. He is a defense attorney that works only for law enforcement officers and represented one of the officers (Powell) in the Rodney King incident. He was a really great speaker and taught me so much I didn't know about my rights as a police officer. Here's a pic during the Rodney King days...he's the one in the stunner shades!

After class, I made it to Bimini Boatyard in time for happy hour and had a few glasses of wine and a seafood medley that was to die for! It was a fresh grouper fillet with a burre blanc sauce, 2 mini crab cakes, a skewer of blackened shrimp and some lobster risotto. OMG! So damn good! Not sure if tonight or Tuesday night's meal was best. I've had a great time down here and have been very chipper and in a such a good mood with all the warm weather but damn I miss my man and my boy. Believe it or not, I'm ready to take my ass back to the cold weather as long as I get to be with the ones I love!

J's 1st Buck

I forgot to post about J's first buck. Last weekend was the Tennessee Youth Hunt weekend and K took J to the hunting camp. I think there was a total of 9 kids up there that weekend. J had a huge time and he killed his first buck Saturday morning. Here are the pics:

Halloween and Ft. Lauderdale

Sunday was Halloween. J and K came home early from hunting. K repacked and hit the road to go to the World Series with Trent. J and I headed downtown for breakfast.

We were going to try the Trolley Stop Market but it was closed so we went with the Arcade. J had never been so it was a good choice.

He loved the diner atmosphere and really loved the blueberry pancakes.

And I had the Eggs Sardou and grits. Very yummy! After all this food and hardly any sleep over the weekend, J was ready for a nap. We went home and rested up for the night. K couldn't find his ninja costume so he dressed up as an Olympic baseball player and we headed over to Heather and Jason's for some trick or treating.

J and Shane all dressed up and ready to go.

J and his stash.
Monday, I had some TBI SOR training and got out around 2:00. J and I ran some errands and got home in time to find K coming home too. We hung out, watched some football and I cooked us some tacos. Tuesday, I woke up to cold, rainy, shitty weather but I got to catch a flight to Ft. Lauderdale as soon as I got J dropped off at school. We made a little pit stop at Starbuck's before school to warm up.

I landed in Florida around lunch and found a beautiful sunny day and temperatures in the 80's and no where to be for the day so I went to the beach and forgot that winter even existed!

After a long day at the beach, I got ready and went to dinner at Bimini Boatyard and it was one of the best dinners I've ever had. Grilled grouper with a mango red curry sauce over a bed of potatoes, plantains and pineapple with a roasted corn salsa and a few glasses of wine at the outdoor bar on the water.

It was heavenly :) My conference started today. Trying to decide on what to do with my night....