Time with my parents (and the demise of my weight loss goal)

April 9, 2009

My parents came up on Thursday after work, they were in the area.  We enjoyed happy hour at Sunflower.  After some flatbread pizza and beer and cosmos we headed to The Med.  We had a little bit of trouble finding it (too busy looking at Brasserie Ten Ten and the people on Pearl that we asked directions from were a bit confused).  The food was delicious, we shared tapas and then dessert.

April 10-12, 2009

Then I went down to Aurora for Easter weekend.  

Friday night we stayed in and relaxed while watching a wolf tv show.  

Saturday my mom and I took the dogs for a windy and cold walk.  Later that evening my godparents came over and we enjoyed some delicious food and wine.  

Then Sunday we went to church, where we ushered.  I don't know if I did the best job ushering, but during that time I ran into one of my favorite families that had been on the Chaparral Swim Team.  It was amazing to see them as adults (or almost).  After church we went to Brio and had even more delicious food.  I packed/organized my closet a bit and then headed home earlier than planned to avoid the icy roads.

Jobs

I am interviewing for 2 jobs (Assistant Center Director at Knowledge Learning Corporation and an Underwriting Trainee for CNA) in the coming week.  So good thoughts and prayers would be very much appreciated!

I would love to have a job before the hopeful move to Seattle on May 21st (I have reserved a van, but nervous to commit before I have a job).

My Blog

I was reading through some of my previous posts.  I realized my writing is less than exceptional, it is full of typos and my pictures don't always match up with the text, but hopefully you all can overlook this!  I am usually writing after long days and quickly trying to get my thoughts down.  Just wanted to apologize :)

Quizno commercial

I have never been impressed with Quizno's commercials, but the most recent one is over the top.  I couldn't find the commercial I just saw on tv, but even their website is full of sexual innuendos.

What I am reading

I had a list of what I have been reading to the right.  I think it is getting too hard to keep up with because I read a variety of magazines (Real Simple, Women's Health, Runner's World and Shape on a regular basis.  Sometimes I read other women's, dog, travel, health or cooking magazines), especially when I am traveling.  So, I am only going to write down the books that I have read.  If I read something especially exciting or interesting in a magazine I will let you all know :)

Trip to Savannah

I had a whirlwind trip to go see Big B this past weekend.  It started bright and early on Friday with a flight through Washington DC (Dulles) to Jacksonville, FL.  From there I rented a car (a Chevy Malibu which I would not purchase) and drove to Brunswick, GA.  I was so glad to see Big B!  We ate at a Sushi place (Fancy Q in Redfern Village) in St. Simons Island, went and watched Watchmen (I would not recommend it) and then headed to our not-so-nice Microtel hotel.

Saturday we drove up to Savannah.  I gave Big B the "tour" of the city, although he may disagree on my definition of tour.  We finally found a place to eat and grabbed lunch at Cafe Ambrosia.  My panini was good, but the coffee really hit the spot.  After that we drove down to Tybee Island.  

We strolled on the beach (it was very windy)   

and then enjoyed a St. Patty's Parade...even Big B
 got beads despite his best intentions.

After the parade passed us we headed to our hotel the Hilton Garden Inn (much better).  

After a shower, rest and applying our festive tattoos (unfortunately I did not capture our lovely art work) we headed to dinner at the Boar's Head.  The food 

was delicious although our waiter was a 

bit slow and the appetizer was a total of one crabcake.

After dinner we took part in the Creepy Crawl Pub Tour.  It was a good time, but we had a group of party hardy college students who interfered a bit with our enjoyment.

  

First bar was The Six Pence Pub.  This pub is supposed to replicate an English Pub.  It seemed like a nice place and they serve food too.  I had a Blue Moon because the original beer I wanted had run out.

The second bar was McDonough's.  I did not go into this bar because I didn't need a drink and it was so crowded.

The third bar was 17Hundred90.  By far my favorite bar, it had 2 large fire places, nice seating areas and beautiful decor included old exposed support beams.  Plus it was not very crowded and had a nice local (not super crowded, touristy, drunk college student celebrating St. Patty's Day) feel.  The only drawback of this bar was that they did not serve beer on tap, so I had a bottle of Yuengling.

The third bar was WG's, again I did not go inside because I didn't need a beer and it was crowded.  However, I guess it is a local favorite and they have great live music.

We ended at Moon River Brewery (I heard the beer was good, but we were unsuccessful in getting served).  

At Moon River we went upstairs to be one with the ghosts.  Supposedly they have tried to renovate numerous times, but they cannot get the crews to stay long enough to finish the project due to the hauntings.  I took some photos to capture the "ghosts" but that only led to more screaming by our drunk and jumpy tourmates.

On Sunday we grabbed lunch at The Pirate House and then toured 

Fort Jackson. 

Big B standing by one of the doorways in Fort Jackson.  Hotel/living accomodations don't look so bad after checking out the fort.  Although we still had some stuff in common, such as one soldier's wife sent him cake and pie.  The pie was dry and stale and the cake was moldy.  I have tried to send Big B cookies and brought some with me on the trip.  I am sure the carrot cookies and mint chocolate chip batch were dry because they took almost 3 times longer to get there then expected.  And the other merengue cookies did not do well on my flights.

Later we drove and then walked around a bit.  While driving we saw this green fountain in one of the many squares around Savannah, so we had to walk back to snap a picture of it.  After walking we enjoyed Leopold's, yumm!  

On the way back to the car we encounted a horrible dog fight.  My conclusion of the situation was that a small dog was off leash and growled/snapped at three big dogs walking by.  Those dogs, or dog, reacted and bit the little dog.  We heard the screaming (if you have worked at a humane society you probably have heard this sound....it was/is horrible and usually means the dog is VERY hurt).  Then we heard the two owners screaming at each other and then the walker took off.  I wish I could have helped more...or hadn't heard the whole situation...it brought back a lot of bad memories from LHS and Brewster's last month.

After walking around we drove back to Brunswick, ate at Shane's Rib Shack, visited Lover's Oak (although we were not able to get a photo with both of us by it since no one else was around. Big B had to go back to the academy, so I drove back to Jacksonville.  I stayed the night at another Hilton Garden Inn and then headed home through Chicago.

Baggu Grosgrain Guest GIVEAWAY!!!!

Pretty cool bags and a neat blog all in one spot.

Baggu Grosgrain Guest GIVEAWAY!!!!