Grandpa Gene

My grandpa Gene was quite the character.  He was such a funny guy, and you never knew what he was going to say or do, or how appropriate it was going to be, but you always enjoyed being around him because of it.  I remember when I was a kid and we were visiting Gene and my grandma Doris at their home in Saint Charles, Ill., we were eating a meal at the kitchen table and Gene fed one of his much loved black labs the food off of his plate from his own fork.  Of course my grandma was used to it, my mom was close to horrified, and me and my sisters laughed and talked about it for a long time to come.  He was a veteran, wore suspenders like no one else could, loved twizzlers and bingo and giving my grandma a hard time, enjoyed spending time at their camp site and fishing.  

I remember back in 2008 everyone from my Dad's side of the family went down to South Carolina for my Dad's surprise 50th birthday party.  Some people stayed at a hotel, but grandpa Gene and grandma Doris were staying at my parents' house, along with me, Rob and my sisters.  As funny and/or embarrassing as this may sound now, Gene and I had the same exact Verizon flip phone at the time.  One afternoon I could not find my phone anywhere.  I remember looking everywhere and asking everyone, including Gene, if they had seen it.  Finally I called my number from another phone and I see Gene pull out 'his' cell phone thinking he got a phone call.  I was like Gene!  That's my phone!  He still insisted it was his, and I had to go up into his bedroom and find his actual phone sitting on his night stand and bring it down to him.  I never really knew if he was pulling my leg or actually thought my cell phone was his.

Grandpa Gene passed away yesterday.  He had been ill for a few years now, so while it is always difficult to say goodbye and accept the loss of a loved one, I think everyone also feels a sense of peace knowing that he is now at peace and not suffering anymore.  More than anything I feel for my grandma.  The past few years have not been easy and she has been by his side every step of the way.  She visited him at the nursing home multiple times a day, every day.  They truly were a great pair.  

This weekend a lot of family members, including myself, will be traveling to St Charles, Ill. for the funeral service.  Even though we aren't getting together for a fun beach vacation, and funerals are never easy, it will still be nice having everyone together since it really doesn't happen very often anymore.  I'm even lucky enough to get to sit next to my sister Michelle on the plane from Charlotte to Chicago and back!

I promise it was a coincidence Gene is wearing the same Largemouth Lager fish sweatshirt in the picture from my Dad's 50th birthday party and the picture of him and Grandma Doris at dinner on the last night of our family trip to Mexico.  That was just his style, and he pulled it off well :)

Mom and Dad come to visit

The past two weekends we got to spend time with my parents, which was great since I hadn't seen them since the weekend after Thanksgiving.  They came the first weekend in Feb. to a) visit with us b) give us financial/budgeting advice at our request c) have a fun super bowl party with us and d) bring us stuff like a ladder, wheelbarrow and new TV for our office/living room that they got on black Friday at Walmart.  We had some nice meals out at our favorite Tapas place and a restaurant with great vegan options for my Mom, did some shopping at the Forum outdoor shopping mall near our house, saw the movie Argo Sunday morning (since it was sold out Sat. evening) and were pleasantly surprised by the leather recliner chairs in the theater, and cooked up a storm for the super bowl.

Putting my feet up at the most comfortable movie theater I've ever been to

Roxanne watching the Puppy Bowl

On Tuesday morning my mom flew to Texas to visit her brother Willie for the week, and my dad flew to Chicago to see his mom.  On Saturday they both flew back to Atlanta and stayed with us for the night before driving to Clemson to see Michelle on Sunday.  Saturday night we went to my dad's favorite- the Buckhead Diner- for dinner.  Rob and I had never been, though we have driven past it many times, and my dad hadn't been there in years but he remembered he loved the meatloaf the last time he was there.  He and Rob got the meatloaf again and both loved it.  I would definitely go back.

 Enjoying drinks at the bar before dinner

This weekend I have been nothing but sick with a sore throat and head cold, and Rob has been doing nothing but homework and studying.  Today I did take Roxanne to the dog park though, where she proudly barked at kids half of the time she was there, and I made a new recipe out of Rob's Runner's World magazine for dinner tonight.  We (well, mostly Rob) are trying to eat healthier lately and cutting out carbs.  I know Rob is serious about this because our neighborhood girl scouts delievered our cookies today while I was at the dog park and Rob didn't and isn't planning on eating any of them.  This recipe fit into our diet pretty well and was easy to make, except the prep work took forever!  Basically you saute onion, garlic and ginger.  Then add cut up broccoli, green beans, red cabbage and mushrooms.  Then add cooked ground turkey, followed by lime juice, soy sauce and hot chili sauce.  Then you add in a bunch of chopped cilantro and scallions, and top it off with chopped peanuts.  It did have a kick to it, which was a little rough on Rob but I enjoyed, and the recipe made a ton so we have lots of left overs which is nice. 

The finished product!

Girls weekend in Atl

A big thank you with hugs to Rae and Jo for flying down to visit over MLK weekend!  It was a great time and I just wish we could do it more often.  I could really get used to our January 'annual' girls weekend in Atlanta.  They came down two years ago over the same weekend, and then last year we had Rae's wedding so we all got to see each other then.  So this year it was back to Atlanta.  It was nice having a house for them to come to this time instead of an apartment, though they still ended up sharing a bedroom/bed :)  It was a weekend full of tea drinking, yummy margaritas and tapas, a cable car ride up to the top of Stone Mountain, a warm weather picnic at Piedmont Park, football & crazy Falcons fans & daiquiris at Wet Willie's, and shopping with Rae's TJX discount card.  Looking forward to our next get-together!

Weekend of decorating

I'm very excited to add another room in the house to the "completed" list.  I had been looking for pieces to hang on the walls in our first floor bathoom for weeks now and luckily Rob and I found some framed floral prints we both liked at Home Goods yesterday.  We also printed out and framed a fun favorite from our day in Rome- a face fountain at the Vatican.  I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially considering the "before" when we first moved in!  We also hung a few things in the upstairs guest bathroom (we are having some awesome Delta guests this weekend after all  :), and bought a couple things for the kitchen.  So overall it was a pretty productive weekend.  

A few house updates

Slowly but surely our house is coming together.  We haven't been working on any major projects lately, but we have been furniture shopping and trying to finish up a few rooms, and Rob has done a great job with the yard- blowing leaves and spreading pine straw most recently.  We have wanted a new couch for a long time and thanks to Christmas money we finally bought a couch and a love seat from Macy's last weekend!  They are super comfortable and a light tan color that will go well with our family room rug and wall color.  The only bad thing is that they could take up to 8 weeks to be delivered because the love seat wasn't in stock.  Once we get the new couches we will move the blue leather couch and chair into the front living room/office where Rob's desk and computer are.  We will also put a TV in that room (I have been going on about needing a second TV for a while now).  Now that we are getting new couches we decided to get serious about hanging things on the family room walls which are currently bare.  We picked out a bunch of frames we are going to fill with Europe trip photos and arrange on one wall, but those too are on back order until March.

The entryway is finally finished...well, besides the fact that Rob recently noticed it's going to need a new paint job soon (ugh).  We hung up the pictures that used to be in our bedroom at the apartment, bought a rug and table at World Market, got a few things at Home Goods, and Rob even got to use some of his old model cars to help decorate the space.

Last night after we got home from a nice tapas dinner out with Tom and Linnea, I don't know why but I decided to go on Craig's List and look for dining room furniture.  One of Rob's friends told us how they got most of their furniture on Craig's List and how cheap their dining room set was, so I had been meaning to go on and see what was out there for a while now.  There was so much furniture posted, but most of it was junk or over priced.  But pretty quickly I cam across a dining room table and chairs that looked like it was in pretty good shape, nice color wood, somewhat modern and it was only $125, so we decided to get it.  It's not in perfect condition, it's not something we would have picked at the store, and 2 of the chairs don't even match the set, but it will definitely hold us over until we can afford a new dining room set (which probably won't be for over a year or so) and now that it's all set up I'm really happy with it.  I hated that one of the first rooms you saw when you entered the house was empty, and it will be nice to be able to have more than 2 people over for dinner.  I have to thank Rob for going along with the whole thing today.  He started working on painting the trim in the kitchen yesterday and planned on finishing it today, but my Craig's List furniture detour took about 3 hours out of our day by the time we borrowed Linnea's car (thanks!!), transported everything, set it up, and returned the car. 

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas Eve, friends!  This is the first year in a long time that I didn't send out Christmas cards.  Blame it on not making the time for it and saving a little bit of money by not sending them, whatever the reason I do feel a little bad about it.  Full disclosure- I did send cards to our grandparents, because grandparents always deserve Christmas cards.  So I'll take the time now to wish all of you reading this a "Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy new year!" 

We've had a nice, busy December leading up to the holidays.  As first year home owners I insisted we put up Christmas lights outside.  While I considered talking Rob into getting up on a ladder and hanging lights on the actual house, I calmed my ambitions and decided lights on the bushes and railing would be fine.  There was a moment of "do we really need lights?" as we stood in Target and added up our boxes of lights and extension cords and realized we were spending about $100 on everything.  That might not seem like a lot, but when you have set $25 gift limits on each other for Christmas, you definitely rethink a light purchase that is 4x that.  We justified it by reminding ourselves that we can use the lights again and again, and decorating for the holidays is a fun perk of owning a home. 

We got our tree from Lowes again this year.  Very little hassle as they wrap up and tie the tree to your car for you.  As we were waiting in line with our tree we asked the guy in front of us if he had been helped yet, and he said, "Well yes, but unfortunately I actually have 3 more trees waiting to be wrapped up...and those are just the live ones...we have about 12 more fake trees back at the house."  What?!  We'd never heard of such a thing.  Where does that guy live? 

Last night we went to see the play A Christmas Carol with Morgan and her family & friends.  It was a good time and nice way to get in the Christmas spirit.  Earlier in the week we went with Tom, Linnea and her parents to see the Christmas lights at the Botanical Garden downtown. 

So we are spending Christmas in Atlanta this year.  Rob's step-brother Justin and his family and step-sister Sarah and her family are visiting from Florida and Michigan for the holidays.  They are all staying at Ann and John's place (about 5 minutes from our house), so me, Rob, Tom and Linnea will be spending today and tomorrow with them.  Tonight Rob and I will be spending the night at our house so we can open gifts together tomorrow morning before heading over to his mom's house.  Though it'll just be the two of us together (plus Roxanne) waking up on Christmas morning, it'll be nice to spend it in our new house making new memories.  We'll be thinking of our families in South Carolina and Michigan though, and wishing we could celebrate with them as well.  Merry Christmas and safe travels to everyone this holiday season! 

Chicago, a party, unexpected visitors, & Grandpa Smith

I got a text from my mom last week that it was time for me to write a new blog.  I wish I would write more individual topic posts instead of these monthly re-caps, but here we are almost a month after my last post...so a monthly update it is...

I had such a great time in Chicago!  What a nice city.  Really, if I was making a list of cities I think I'd love living in Chicago would be on it, along with San Francisco...and Boston.  Megan shares a lovely two bedroom apartment with her sister in Lincoln Park, very close to lots of restaurants and the train to go downtown.  We did some touristy things, like the Skydeck on the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower (tallest building in US) and a river boat cruise, we did a lot of walking around the city, made our own pizza with supplies from Trader Joe's and enjoyed some real Chicago deep dish pizza the following night, had some beers at an Irish bar, met my cousin Ashley and her friend for brunch at a place that served fruit sushi, shared an excellent cheese board and many glasses of red wine at a bar on the river that had a much needed fireplace and much more.  Hurricane Sandy delayed my trip home (surprise surprise, I have the worst luck with flights ever), but I suppose the 2 hours I spent on hold with US Air was worth the bonus day I got in Chicago. 

Last weekend was Tom and Linnea's engagement party.  It was hosted by a couple that lived next door to Linnea when she was growing up, and they actually live in a subdivision that is literally 2 minutes away from where we live now.  There were sombrero pictures, margaritas, a fajita bar, good people and conversation, all outside on a beautiful patio/covered deck.  It was a really nice night to celebrate the happy couple.  One of my favorites of the night...

We had two unexpected guests last weekend...Rob's dad Ron and Rob's mom's dog Bailey.  Bailey came to stay Thursday night when his mom and John had to drive up to Michigan unexpectedly to be with his Grandpa who was not doing well.  And Ron told us on Friday that he would be coming down to Atlanta Saturday morning through Sunday night for Tom's engagement party.  Ron was supposed to run in the NYC marathon this past Sunday, but he found out that the race was cancelled Friday afternoon, literally as he was about to go through security!  He checked his phone before going through the metal detector, saw it was cancelled and decided not to make the trip out to NYC.  Unfortunately, his bag did make the trip to NYC without him, because it was already checked and on the plane, but it did make it back to him in Michigan safe and sound.  So once the NYC trip was off he decided to make new travel plans to come to Atlanta.  It was a short, unexpected visit, but it was great seeing him again!

Bailey is still here with me and Roxanne, as Rob's mom and John are still up in Michigan.  It's with a heavy heart that I tell you Rob's Grandpa Smith passed away Sunday afternoon.  He was surrounded by his wife, 6 children, siblings and other relatives.  He was a truly great man, and he was such a fighter this past year as he dealt with health problem after problem after surgery after surgery.  I remember meeting him for the first time at Ann and John's wedding.  I feel very lucky that he was able to travel to Boston two years ago for our wedding and I am especially thankful that we made the trip up to Michigan last Christmas, as we were able to spend one more holiday with him.  I'll never forget one time when he was visiting Ann and John here in Georgia and he asked me if I had ever been up to Michigan for a visit.  When I told him yes, I've been to Detroit and Grosse Pointe (where Rob is from), he told me, "No no no, that doesn't count, you need to come up North where we live to really see what Michigan has to offer."  Hopefully someday I will make it up there.  Rob, Tom and Linnea drove up to Michigan last night so they could be there for the viewing today and funeral tomorrow.  I'm at home on dog duty and working, but I am thinking of everyone up in Michigan and wishing I could be there with you all tomorrow.

Tomorrow I turn 28.  I honestly had to think about that for a second.  Ever since I turned 26 it seems the numbers are all the same.  I have accidentally told people this past year that I was 26 and 28.  I don't know what my problem is.  Lets just say I'm in my upper 20's.  I already got some super nice cards and gifts from Rob, mom and dad, and friends, so I'm feeling very loved! 

Double doodle trouble...

(sitting pretty for a treat)