Happy Weekend!

I am checking in from the Honda dealership, while I wait for hubby's civic hybrid to get it's routine service completed. Ugh, I hate just sitting here, so I decided to bring daughter's laptop and catch up on some blog reading! I had almost 500 posts to catch up on in my reader!

This week really flew by, kids have 7 more days of school and then summer break begins! Yea!

I am trying to plan all our summer travels. I had thought about taking the kids to the Bahamas with me for a couple weeks in July, but now I am having second thoughts.... there is so much else I could spend that money on! I haven't purchased the airline tickets, but if we are going, I need to do it soon.

Son, who is not known for putting forth much effort in his schoolwork, informed us yesterday that he made a 91 on his English/Language Arts EOC(end of course exam). We were VERY pleased, considering he has a very questionable teacher!

Both children have dances tonight. Son has the 8th grade dance at his school and daughter has an end of year dance at her school.

Just an aside, for those of you who pray, would you keep a friend in your prayers. She is one of my lake neighbors and she just found out she has breast cancer. She was supposed to have a lumpectomy this week, but they "found" something else suspicious and need to check that out! She may be looking at a mastectomy next week. She is just a few years older than me...

Have great weekends, ours will be rather low key!

~Steph

Memorial Day Weekend

We are heading to the lake for the long weekend. Lots of neighbors should be there and we'll be doing lots of boating, grilling and sunning!

Hope everyone has a safe and relaxing weekend!

~Steph

A New Favorite

Too fabulous for words!

Confirmation

We had a busy weekend as it was the weekend our son was to be confirmed in the catholic church.

Luckily, many of our family couldn't attend, since they live out of town, so we just had a small gathering.

I ran around like crazy on Friday and Saturday trying to get everything together!

Since confirmation was at 6:00, we had a little party at the house before hand. I think it turned out pretty nice.

I served:

Platter of three cheeses

Boiled shrimp with remoulade sauce

Proscuitto wrapped asparagus

Roasted eggplant spread

Fried chicken tenders

Hot spinach artichoke dip

Cheese straws

Honey roasted pecans

Marinated olives

Nut Bread

Cake

I made a Raspberry lemonade, and I mixed up a batch of my favorite Firefly Mint Tea vodka with some lemonade, for those of us that felt the need for something to take the edge off! ;)

Here is son with his 89 year old Great grandmother! She is amazing. We hardly ever get to see her because she is always traveling somewhere around the world!

This morning the last of our guests left and I spent the day cleaning and putting things away!

Yesterday the weather was rainy and humid, today it is rainy and around 55 degrees! I love this cool weather! What's it like in your neck of the woods?

~Steph

Mother's Day, eh, whatever...

Mother's day has never been a big deal for me. I have always thought you better be good to me all the time not just especially so on one particular day! So we just headed to the lake for a quiet weekend. Not many of our neighbors were around, so it was REALLY quiet! And that was fine by me.

We clipped flowers from our garden there:

We slept in late and napped:

And we had fun in the pool:

I couldn't think of a better way to spend mother's day weekend!
No pressure on any one!
This week our schools are doing their state standardized testing. I have volunteered to help monitor at daughter's school. Today wasn't too bad, two more days to go!
This Sunday our son makes his confirmation. It's going to be pretty low key. My sister's and their families can't make it since it is on Sunday night. They both live about three hours away so I understand. One sis is just coming in from Dallas on Friday and has to leave first thing Monday am for NYC. The other sis has young kids that have school Monday morning and it's just not doable!
Hubby's siblings aren't coming and that is no surprise. Enough said.
So, I have to get ready for the weekend and do all those little things around the house that need to be done when you are having out of town guests!
~Steph

A Great Weekend Away!

Hey there!

I'm still here, just been really busy! I think May is just as busy a month as December around here!

Last weekend hubby and I took a little get away to Charleston! It's kind of funny since we live only 30 minutes from downtown! But, a few years ago we started doing little weekends in town trying out different hotels and being sure to try different restaurants. That way we can recommend first hand places to eat and stay to friends and family.

This weekend we decided to try out the Vendue Inn.

The room we got was a little on the small side and a little tired looking, but the personel at the hotel were OUTSTANDING! On a scale of 1-10, I'd give them an 11.

We were a little late getting in on Friday night so we just ate at a "newish" restaurant down the block called the The Buccaneer. It was not crowded, it is down a little side alley and I don't think many people know about it yet. Hubby had the prime rib, which he said was the best he'd had in a long time and I had the Lobster lobster mac and cheese. Very good! I also had a Dark and Stormy which is one of my favorite drinks. After dinner we walked around and then decided to stop in Kaminsky's for dessert and coffee. Well, we were VERY disappointed in our dessert! We split a piece of some sort of spice cake and it was so dry I felt like I was going to choke trying to swallow it! And what was so strange was it was the first piece cut from the cake! We walked back to the hotel and there were warm cookies and milk for the taking!

Hubby taking a break on a bench by the waterfront.

After breakfast, which was included in our room rate, we decided to take a walk down to the Battery. I always have to walk by Rainbow Row! What I would give to live there!

I just loved this gate!

It was May Day the day before and I saw several of these little baskets hanging on the gates and doors on one block!

I want to live in this little pink house!

I love the color of the shutters and this door!

The window boxes are always my favorites!

We walked for about 2 hours, with me taking pictures the whole time! Then, if you have ever been walking around Charleston you know that the streets and sidewalks can be deadly! Of course I had to SLAM my foot into a "bump" in the sidewalk and with sandals on it wasn't pretty! I really bruised my big toe, it turned a lovely shade of purple as the day went on!

We ate lunch at Blossom, which is okay. It was the first place we came upon and I was dying of thirst so we went in and quickly got a table and some cold, iced tea!

The inn had a wine and cheese reception each afternoon, so after a 3 hour nap we wandered down for some beverages! I drank two glasses of wine and started feeling pretty good!

We took another walk and then stopped into the roof top bar for ANOTHER beverage!

Our dinner reservations were for 6:30 at McCradys. Great food and great atmosphere! I highly recommend the Charcuterie as an appetizer, simply scrumptious! I had the stuffed quail and hubby had the Triggerfish. Both were great.

For dessert we like to go to a different place. We headed to Grill 225 for their famous Banana Bread Pudding. Totally made up for the dried out yuck we had the night before! We split the order and I could have licked the plate clean it is so yummy!
After deciding we were too old to hang with the young crowd at the rooftop bar at the Market Pavilion Hotel, we headed back to our room.
Sunday morning after another great breakfast, it was back up the road to our kiddies and real life! I felt so refreshed and had such a great time with my hubby! He's the best!

I also recently received a blogging award that I need to tell y'all about and pass it along, but that will have to wait another day. I've got to get ready for daughter's school dance performance which is tonight and finish painting the dining room!

Later~

Steph