Very Thankful

I've got a whole lot to be thankful for this year and at the top of the list, was five days off of work!!! I took a vacation day last Wednesday, so we could get a jump on the holiday and it's been so nice to be off so long! Work has been especially stressful these past few weeks and a nice long break was just what I needed.

James and I take turns every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas and this year we headed to Mountain View to spend Thanksgiving with my family. It was Case's first Thanksgiving with my family and I think he throughly enjoyed it. And since we won't be headed back there for Christmas, we had our "tree" with my parents and brother's family on Friday night. It feeels great to have half of my shopping for this year already out of the way!

We tried desperately to get a photo of all the cousins together, but as you can see, it proved to be a bit difficult...

We kept trying...

Evan and Will were much more cooperative about posing for the camera!

Evan posing with his new cap!

James got a new subscription to Backpacker Magazine and some camping supplies for his next trek.

Case was completely worn out from all the action and fell asleep on his uncle Tyler.

Case got to sit on Grandpa Whit's motorcycle. Maybe next time he can actually go for a ride on it.

On our way back to Memphis on Saturday, we made a pit stop in Bald Knob to see our friend Sneed. It was great to see him again. He moved from Memphis to Dallas earlier this fall and we sure do miss him. Case got to ride on his four wheeler and LOVED IT!! I wish I could have gotten a pic of the look on his face.

15 Months Does Not Equal Easy to Photograph

Case is so active these days, that it makes him nearly impossible to photograph....but I still keep trying! Below are some of the pics from our last session. We were attempting to get a good family shot to go on this year's Christmas cards. It was a chaotic day, but we got a few good ones...












He is a cutie patootie...even when he's being difficult to pin down for a photo! :)

The Past Few Weeks

I apologize for a bit of a blogging lull. These past few weeks have been BUSY!! But I'm trying to do better. This past week Case went for his 15 month check up and shots. He weighed in at nearly 26 lbs. and he measured 32" long. He got five shots and it was really traumatizing for me, but he's recovered nicely and will hopefully avoid all variations of the flu after getting both vaccines. What else has been going on...

Last weekend, I headed to Little Rock for one of my bestie's baby shower.

Hostess Pic (Jamie, Sara, Me, Emily Wilson, Trisha, Amie, Emily Smith and baby Sadie)

Emily with one of her gifts for baby Miles. It's a giraffe floor blanket, "Mo.". Too cute!

Mandi with Sadie...such a natural!! Mandi, you need one of those for sure...

Emily and I became good friends in college when we started training for a 10K together. We would talk the entire time we ran, which helped the time pass by a lot faster than running solo! She's the best running partner I've ever had and I wish she lived in Memphis to motivate me to start running again!

This morning, the weather was so beautiful, we decided to take advantage of it and take Case to the zoo. We got there as it was opening, so we had the place to ourselves for awhile and it was great!
One of the panda's eating her breakfast.

This is the new exhibit, Teton Trek. It was really impressive.

Here are the three baby grizzlies. They are so cute!! They came to the Memphis zoo after their mommy died. :( We are Looking forward to going back and seeing them as giant adult grizzlies!

And here is a video of Case that I took earlier in the week of him dancing. He's got some new moves! I don't know who he learns them from! :)

The Big Apple

I recently had a gals only get-away to NYC. It was a blast! Not a lot of R & R...we were exhausted when we got back home, but still a fantastic vacation! The best part about going on vacation with a close girlfriend is that you can shop as much and as long as you want, which we did plenty of. We also snuck in some time for a little sight-seeing. My lifelong friend, Sarah, lives in Manhattan, and was able to hang out with us most of the weekend and it was really great to see her and catch up a little! Here are some pics documenting our adventure in the City!

It was fun to see Christmas decor going up all over the city...I can't believe it's already almost the Holidays!!

We arrived on Halloween, so everywhere we went we saw folks in costume. Here at the NBC studio building, we had our pic snapped with Mario and Luigi!

Anthropologie....ahhhh.....enough said. All the window displays were so amazing. How does a person land that day job???

They already had the ice rink set up in Rockefeller Plaza. I've never ice skated before and wanted to, but totally chickened out. I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of all those people!

St. Patrick's Cathedral...beautiful!

We went to see Wicked on Halloween night and it was amazing. It was my second time to see it and it was even better the second time than the first. It was the first time Randi and Sarah had seen it and I'm pretty sure they thought it was freakin' fantastic! (Can you guess what Sarah's Halloween costume is??? I'll reveal the answer down the page.)

Okay, so Sarah is a "Killer Bee." I thought it was clever, but impossible to guess, but for some reason, hardly anyone could guess what she was.

My pic in front of the Sphere in Battery Park. Here's a little history about it...The bronze Sphere by sculptor Fritz Koenig, which stood in the fountain of the World Trade Center plaza, was pulled from underneath the collapsed towers after 9/11. The Sphere is now in Battery Park as a temporary memorial and it stands as a symbol of hope and indestructibility for our nation. For those of you who don't know, my brother, Tyler, was at the WTC on September 11, and being back there reminded me of that tragic day and how thankful I am that he survived...

We took a ferry over to the Statue of Liberty. This was the view looking back at Manhattan.

Lady Liberty

Ellis Island

We did an audio tour and learned all about the imigration into the US. It was really, really fascinating!

We went up to the top of the Empire State Building one night. I got a sort of decent shot of the Chrysler Building. Sorry it's so fuzzy...

Standing in the standby line for two hours to get in to see Regis and Kelly.

It was worth it. Front row seats! Sorry the pics are a little fuzzy..we couldn't use a flash during the show. We got to see Ted Danson, Julia Louise Dreyfus and Scarlet Johanson. It was awesome!

Randi auditioned and got selected to be the trivia go-go dancer. The girl has got some moves...yes she does!!! It was so awesome! Go Randi, go Randi...go, go, go Randi!

Oh, yeah...gettin' down with Kelly...

Our last day the weather was so great. Perfect for lunch and a stroll in Central Park!

One last glimpse of Time Square on our last night.