More birthday celebration for Kennon, Flights and Fights and Vacay has started

Vacay has started! I am typing from our Spring River cabin this morning and this is the view from here:

We came up Monday afternoon and met the Mays'. We spent late Monday afternoon and evening fishing.

Yesterday we started the day off kayaking and then did some fishing and played in the river.

After a full day of fun, we finally sat down to dinner which was some of the fresh caught trout the guys had gotten earlier....I was not successful with trying to provide any fish!

J thought it was as delish as I did! We definitely need more of that on the dinner table tonight!!!!
In other news, last week we got to celebrate K's birthday again :) Mom and Roy took us to dinner at Restaurant Iris. It was their first time there and they loved it. Last week we also did some shopping for the wedding, hit up the Commissary for dinner one night and spent the week getting ready for vacay.
Last weekend, we hung at the house Friday night and cooked pizzas and watched Friday night fights. Saturday was spent at the gym and pool before going to dinner at Flight, my favorite downtown restaurant and then going to the Memphis V3 fights. It was the first time K or I had been to MMA fights and we had a blast. We will be going back again I am sure.

 K and I at dinner at Flight.

 K borrowing the MMA heavyweight's belt for a second.

Our seats at the fight and the big winner of the night in the ring, Brian "The Law" Hall.

Redbirds, The Resort and Smokin, Back to School Shopping

Last week was a doozie. It seemed like it lasted for a month so when Friday finally got here, I was so so so ready to say to hell with it. J spent the day with the Tremmels and they were at the Zoo when I got off work which was mucho convenient for me :) I picked him up, we rushed home, changed clothes, waited on Leegan to arrive, grabbed K and headed to Autozone Park for the Redbirds double header with a bunch of other families from J and Leegan's baseball team. It turned out to be a really nice night with a great wind blowing to kinda keep us cool and a full on moon!

I was so happy to wake up Saturday morning and know I had absolutely nothing I had to do. J and I started the day off with a trip to Gibson's for some thrown donuts.

After catching a sugar high, I finally got all the clutter that had accumulated around the house cleaned up and knocked the grocery shopping out of the way before heading to do what I do best.

Relax, catch up on some reading and soak up some rays. Once it cooled down some, K got busy with the STC.

Even Taco wanted in on the action.

We had some cornish hens and deer tenderloin to throw in the STC.

And as usual, the bologna went on in the beginning to give us a snack while waiting on everything else.

Sunday was another lazy day. J and I hit the mall and a few other stores hard to get him ready for school. He has a whole new wardrobe and shoes to match and I was able to pick up my wedding dress too! We got home and lounged at the resort for a couple of hours before heading to church and then dropping J off with his dad. K and I finished the night off with a couple of cocktails and dinner at Houston's.

Weekend at The 'Wick

K and I spent the weekend at the lakehouse with Mom and Roy. We went up Friday after work and got there in time for dinner. Mom wanted to go to the I'd Rather Not Catfish place so we packed up in one car once they got there and headed over. We all ate a butt load of fried food including catfish, fries, hushpuppies, pickles and okra. I felt like total shit about an hour after we ate but it tasted so good. I hate that! We got back to the lakehouse and stayed up talking to mom and Roy for a while and then called it a night. I got up first thing Saturday morning to go work off some of that fried goodness. I hit a little over 3 miles and saw some beautiful sights!

I know the calorie count is off some. I know my pace was slower than normal but I was on some huge hills. I worked my ass off and can still feel it today in my legs and behind.

I took the golf trail for most of my walk since it was so hot and a lot of the trail is in the shade and I had a lot of beautiful scenery to look at.

There is something so calming to me whenever I am near water. I love it so much!!! After my walk, we headed to the boat. Roy was about to chew his arm off because he was so hungry so our first stop was at Grand Harbor Marina to grab a bite. After we were fueled, we rode around the lake for a couple of hours and Roy pulled me on the tube. Mom got real hot and they decided to get off the water so it was K and I for the rest of the afternoon. We headed up the Tom Bigby since K had never been up that way.

And then we went and checked out some of the hot spots: Pickwick Falls, Panther Cove and Sugar Creek. We never were able to find Sugar Creek but we ran out of time too. We took turns driving all day too.

We had a wonderful day and had the suntan lines to prove it. We got back to the lakehouse, got cleaned up and had a few cold beers before heading out to grab some dinner and listen to some live music at Cactus Jack's....they had one of the best burgers we have ever eaten. We got up Sunday morning, got everything cleaned up and headed back to Memphis after being lazy for a little while. Even the pups were worn out.

I wasn't really wanting to come home but J was FINALLY coming home. I missed that little sucker so much while he was at his dad's that I made him come to work with me today!

He's my favorite co-worker ever :)

4th of July Under the Arch

Last week, K and I decided we wanted to hit the road for the 4th but weren't sure what we wanted to do so we decided to hand over our decision to the will of Priceline. We figured since it was so close to the weekend, there would be hotels with rooms still available that would be willing to do a little price cut in order to fill the room. We got lucky with the Hyatt Regency at the Arch in St. Louis....50% off, yeah that's what I'm talking about! Seriously, I have no idea when is the last time I paid full rate for a hotel room. We immediately got online to see what STL had going for the 4th. Just so happens that Fair St. Louis happens every year on the grounds of the Arch and the Hyatt was right across the street. Fair STL is a 3 day event with live music, air shows, kids' events and fireworks everyday. Bingo! We headed out Saturday morning and made really good time up I-55 until we got to the exit to our hotel. It was closed, along with numerous other streets in the downtown area, for the fair so we wound up in Illinois. The bad part was we were working with a GPS that refused to give us any directions that did not involve the interstate and the closed exits so it took us a while to navigate downtown. I finally had the Hyatt in sight and thought we were there until this:

Blocked again! We finally made it to the hotel about 40 minutes later and by that time we swore we would not get back into the car until it was time to leave. The lobby was a madhouse & the check in lines were looooooong but the bellhop let us in on a little secret that he could check us in so we were done with the lobby in a flash, thank goodness because I could feel my patience waning. We unloaded all of our stuff in our cut rate room while deciding what our first step would be. Even though we paid a lot less than the going rate on our room and it had a weird set up, we were still very pleased with it. It was shaped like an L....when you walked in, the bathroom and a weird little spare room/giant closet were on either side and it opened up to where the bed was and then the room ran down the side of the bathroom to form a little sitting room.

We had just an ok view but it did allow us to see a bit of the Arch and the river and it was a good spot to watch the really bad thunderstorms that rolled in late Saturday afternoon.

As we were putting our stuff away, one of the airshows started so we rushed out to the park to see everything. It was a good show, I just wish there would have been some Blue Angels. That is what I really want to see during an air show but we still saw some cool planes and tricks!

After the air show, there was a concert, a really bad concert (Steve Miller Band) but I was talked into staying because K likes them, I have no idea why but he does, and then watched the fireworks show after the concert. It made up for all the suckiness of the concert. I would have taken some video of it but my phone was dead by that point. Activities were through for the night after the fireworks and we were starving so we headed back to the hotel. This is where the greatness of our hotel was realized!

That building in the background is our hotel.....the absolute closest building to the park grounds. Score!!! We were back in our hotel and getting a table at the Brewhouse while people were still trying to get to their cars.
We got up Sunday and headed back to the park for the early airshow. After a little over an hour into it, thunder and lightning started to we grabbed our stuff and headed to the Landing to find some lunch. We stopped in at Hannegan's Pub and were able to eat and get out before the rain came. We made it back to the hotel and watched the thunderstorms which were pretty bad. 9 people were struck by lightning during the storms in STL. When it looked like the storms wouldn't be stopping for a while, we grabbed a nap and then headed down to the Red Kitchen and Bar for some cocktails. We had planned on going back to the fair for the Maroon 5 concert and more fireworks but everything was cancelled due to the storms. We grabbed a taxi and headed back to the Landing and walked around for a bit before stopping in at Jake's Steaks for a bite. It was the perfect choice!

We were able to find a spot at the bar and started our people watching. After a couple of drinks, we ordered the stuffed jalapenos as an appetizer and the second I took a bite, I knew this restaurant must be visited again!

Roasted jalapenos stuffed with smoked brisket and cheddar cheese and then baked. Oh. My Gosh!!!! I could have easily eaten 100 of these! The sauce that came with them was some sort of spicy, garlicky ranchy tasting dip that was excellent too. While we were waiting on our appy, two guys at the bar were served some gargantuan piece of meat that looked rather interesting. It was called the Beast and it was a 48 oz. pork steak that was smoked and then grilled, served over cornbread with 2 sides. The second K and I heard it was smoked, we were sold. Ever since he got his smoked a few months ago, we want everything smoked, so Bingo! Plus it helped that the 2 guys that were already eating it said it was good. BTW, the Beast is one of those food challenge things and if you eat all of the meat, cornbread and 2 sides in an hour, it is free and you get your picture on the wall. Both guys accomplished the task and were #2 and #3 to go on the wall. K and I decided to give it a try, the pork steak, not the challenge! When our plate came out one of the guys that had just completed the challenge was apparently feeling a little threatened and wanted to make sure we knew we were NOT getting our picture on the wall since we were sharing.

We ordered our pork steak with the jalapeno mashed potatoes and the pepperjack and bacon mac & cheese. This was a ton of food, you can't even see the 4 pieces of cornbread because they are hidden under the steak. The steak was ah-maze-ing! It was so tender, you didn't need a knife to eat it and the smoke flavor was perfect but I think I liked the potatoes and mac & cheese the best. Thinking back on the meal, I am craving the sides way more than I am the steak. This was the best mac and cheese I have ever had besides the Lobster Mac and Cheese at Zamperi's in Destin. Anyways, it was very, very good food and we made ourselves pretty much sick from eating so much and we still had enough for another person to eat when we were through.

This plate of food was massive and I cannot believe we witnessed two people finish it all alone. Look at the size of the bone!!!

One of the guys that took the challenge finished in 20 minutes and said he felt fine and then had more beer to drink after he got through eating. He was a true Beast!
After we finished our attempt at the Beast, we couldn't do anything but head back to the hotel and go to bed. We got up yesterday, came home and chilled. Dinner at Olive Garden last night since we didn't get to go to the Hill and get some real Italian while in STL and back to work today. Back to reality stinks!!!

Fun Workout, Best Wings and heading to St. Louis

After work yesterday, K and I knocked out a fun circuit workout that included the trampoline.

It felt good to work some steam off and for it to finally to be Friday. Last week seemed like it lasted forever! We spent the rest of the night doing laundry getting ready for our weekend trip to St. Louis.

We also watched some lame Bruce Willis movie from the 90's (Striking Distance) and ordered Pizza and some of the best wings ever from Exline's. We got up this morning, worked out, packed and hit the road. I've been doing some work on our wedding and playing on facebook since we've been in the car. Thank goodness for my little netbook and my wifi five spot!

Recovery Food and Laughs

So yesterday wasn't the best I ever felt.....after taking K out to dinner and assuming that Acre Restaurant needed me to finish off their pinot grigio supply the night before. Ugh!!! I'm going to have to go back to enforcing my no drinks during the week rule! Needless to say, I needed some recovery.

This english muffin with a fried egg, some pepperjack cheese and cocksauce mustard helped but didn't cure. After work, I carved out about 2 hours of nap time and would have slept more but K woke me up wanting to go see a movie. We grabbed a quick dinner at Old Venice, I had the Trouclaire pasta and it was pretty good but the highlight of the meal to me was their bread......yep I ate all of it except one piece that K was able to sneak away from me.

After I was sickly stuffed, we headed to the Paradiso to laugh our asses off. We finally got around to seeing Hangover 2. I've only been looking forward to it since they announced it around last Thanksgiving.

It was great and funny but not as great and funny as the first one. K and I decided that was probably because we knew what to expect. There were still some very loud laugh out loud moments for me and I got to look at Bradley Cooper for about 2 hours. That's a win/win to me :)